by Jim Eldridge
Jake and Lauren took their packed lunches and rucksacks and binoculars and set off to the area where the Russians were still hard at work at their dig. They found a sheltered spot some distance from the ‘Neolithic site’, and set about pretending to do some serious wildlife-watching, making notes of the different birds and animals they observed in a notebook, just in case they were challenged by anyone. But mostly they took turns to keep their binoculars trained on the dig site, watching the Russians at work.
‘We’re not the only ones watching,’ commented Jake after an hour of constant observation. ‘I’ve just seen flashes of light reflected on some rocks on the other side. Looks like binoculars to me.’
‘The Gordons?’ suggested Lauren. ‘Ian Muir?’
‘No idea,’ admitted Jake. Suddenly some activity inside the wire fence caught his eye. ‘Hello. Looks like someone’s found something!’
Immediately, Lauren left her study of the distant sea and joined him, lying down next to him and training her binoculars on the site.
The tall figure of Professor Lemski, the shorter squat figure of Dmitri close behind him, was running over to where two of them were coming out of a trench. One of the archaeologists, a man, was holding something up and gesticulating with it. Lemski reached the man and pushed him backwards, down into the trench, and then jumped down into the hole. They saw the archaeologist try to get back to his feet, but Lemski pushed him down again, out of sight, very roughly.
‘Did you see that?’ said Jake.
‘So much for Mr Friendly,’ said Lauren. ‘He’s trying to make sure that no one catches sight of whatever it is that’s just been found.’
‘I saw it,’ said Jake.
‘So did I,’ said Lauren.
Both of them had recognised the object in the man’s hand as something small and rectangular, wrapped in some kind of dark leather. The Russians had found the book!
Lemski turned and called out something to Dmitri, who ran off to where the team’s equipment was stacked. Dmitri returned to the professor, carrying what looked like a refrigerated cold bag. He handed it to the professor, who ducked down, lifted the lid, put something in, and then stood up and handed it back to Dmitri.
‘That’s definitely the book,’ said Lauren.
‘So what are we going to do about it?’ asked Jake. ‘Are we still going to forget about it? Leave it to the Russians?’
Lauren shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘We can’t let the Russians keep it. They’ll use it as a weapon.’
‘Well, if we’re going to try and snatch it off them, we’re going to be up against some strong competition,’ Jake pointed out. ‘We know of at least two: MI5 and the CIA. I bet you there are others out there as well watching this. It isn’t going to be easy.’
Lauren fell silent, thinking it over.
‘We’re going to need the help of the MacClains,’ she said.
‘They’re not going to want to get involved,’ said Jake. ‘Not after what’s just happened. They’re still torn up over Dougie.’
‘But the two kids are Watchers,’ Lauren reminded him. ‘And they’ll want revenge for what happened to their uncle. Getting the book back from the Russians will be a good way towards that revenge.’
‘And you still plan to let the kids keep the book if we get it back?’
Lauren nodded.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Jake shook his head.
‘I still think that’s a bad move,’ he said.
Rona was the first one they saw when they got back to the guest house. She was working in the small vegetable garden, weeding. Lauren and Jake headed straight for her.
‘The Russians have found the book,’ said Jake.
Rona looked at them, shocked. Then she pulled out her mobile phone and made a call.
‘They’ve found it,’ she said urgently. She listened for a second, then said, ‘Meet us at the cave.’
She put away her mobile, then said to Jake and Lauren, ‘We need to talk where we can’t be heard.’
She wiped the soil from her hands, and headed for the path that led along the cliffs. Jake and Lauren followed, descending yet another path that twisted and turned down the rocky face of the cliff to the shore. They walked along the beach until they saw the two upturned boats that Dougie and Robbie had been painting.
‘There’s a whole series of caves along here,’ said Rona. ‘Some can be seen, but Robbie and I like this one. It’s got trees and bushes in front of it, so no one ever goes in except people who know it, which usually means just us.’ She gestured towards a clump of bushes and small trees apparently growing out of the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. They followed the girl towards the undergrowth. When they got there, Rona pushed her way through a thick bush, and disappeared. Jake and Lauren pushed their way through after her, and found themselves in a very narrow fissure in the rocks, but one that seemed to go a long way in.
Robbie was sitting inside the cave, waiting for them. He stood up as they came in.
‘Is it true?’ he asked.
Jake and Lauren nodded.
‘We saw them,’ said Jake. ‘They put it in a cool bag.’
Robbie slumped back down on to the rocks, his head hanging down.
‘We failed,’ he said miserably. ‘Our job was to stop the book from being found, and we failed!’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Lauren firmly. ‘There was nothing you and your uncle could do against them.’
‘That book has been hidden there for over thirteen hundred years, kept safe by generations of Watchers, and we were the ones who lost it!’
‘No,’ said Lauren. ‘The Russians had something that no one else who was looking for it had. They had The Index telling them where it was buried.’
Rona shook her head.
‘They only had a fragment of The Index,’ she said. ‘I saw it.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘Enough to spot what it was.’
She took out her mobile phone, then scrolled through various messages and pictures, until she came to a particular one and held it out towards Jake and Lauren.
‘I was in the cottage soon after the Russians first arrived,’ she said. ‘I saw this photocopy of a part of a page on the table.’
Jake and Lauren studied the image. It was in an unfamiliar script.
‘What language is this?’ asked Lauren.
‘Gaelic,’ said Robbie. ‘Goidelic Gaelic. The old style. We do it at school here.’
‘That’s what set alarm bells ringing,’ said Rona.
‘Can you translate it?’ asked Jake.
Rona nodded.
‘It says, “137. Dioscorides. De Materia Medica Continuum. Human Fire. Dalnaha.” ’
‘Dalnaha is the name of this area of land, on the south side of Loch Spelve,’ added Robbie.
‘And the book the Russians have found is this one by Dioscorides, about spontaneous human combustion,’ said Lauren.
‘None of us knew what the book was about, just that it had to stay hidden,’ said Robbie.
‘How come you were in the cottage?’ Jake asked Rona.
‘A woman called Mrs Strange owns it,’ replied Rona. ‘She lives in Edinburgh and rents it out as a holiday let. Mum used to work for her, cleaning it and getting it ready for visitors. I used to help.’ Her face darkened. ‘Until the Russians arrived. They decided they would look after their own cleaning.’
‘You look like there was more to it than that,’ said Lauren gently. ‘What happened?’
‘It was the second week they were here,’ said Rona. ‘Mum and I had gone along to do the cleaning as usual, thinking Mrs Strange still wanted us to do the work for her. Mum has a key that Mrs Strange left with her. We were working away, when the Russians came back and found us, and one of them went ballistic, started shouting at us in Russian, and grabbed me by the arm and started shoving me towards the door. Mum stepped in and told him off for grabbing me, and I thought there was going to be a fight between them. But then th
at professor guy stepped in. The tall one.’
‘Professor Lemski,’ murmured Jake.
‘That’s him,’ nodded Rona. ‘He calmed things down, and ordered the other one out of the room. He apologised to Mum and me for his behaviour, and said our services wouldn’t be needed as they would be looking after themselves. He was very nice about it, but there was something not quite right about him. Something . . .’
‘Sinister?’ suggested Lauren.
Rona nodded. ‘He seems the friendly one, but don’t get the wrong idea. He’s the really tough one. The one in charge.’
Robbie sighed heavily.
‘They’ll be taking the book back to Russia,’ he groaned.
‘Not immediately,’ said Jake. ‘Like you say, I get the impression that this Professor Lemski is the one in charge, and he’s not going to let it out of his hands. He’ll hold on to it until he’s ready to go. Which might give us a couple of days.’
‘To do what?’ asked Rona.
‘Get the book back from them,’ said Lauren.
‘And then what?’ asked Robbie sourly.
‘You hide it again, somewhere else on Mull.’
Rona and Robbie stared at Lauren, disbelieving.
‘You’re not serious!’ said Robbie.
‘Yes, she is,’ said Jake.
Robbie shook his head.
‘You’re mad,’ he snorted derisively. ‘If we hide it again, the Russians will know it was us who did it. They’ll just grab us and make us tell them where it is.’
‘How will they know it was you?’ asked Lauren.
‘Because if they know about the book, then they know about the Order of Malichea, which means they also know about the Watchers,’ said Robbie. ‘Which is why they killed Uncle Dougie. Which means they will have guessed that Rona and I are also Watchers. And if the book disappears, and they don’t know where it’s gone or who’s taken it, they’re bound to suspect us first. And they’ll torture us until we tell them where we’ve hidden it.’
He spoke slowly, but bitterly, as if he was explaining something very simple to a pair of idiots.
Which we are, thought Jake. What Robbie said made perfect sense. Unless . . .
‘Unless we fool them into thinking that someone else has got it,’ he said.
Robbie and Rona looked at him enquiringly.
‘How?’ asked Robbie challengingly.
‘MI5!’
‘MI5?’ Rona echoed.
Jake nodded.
‘MI5 want to keep the Malichea books secret as well. On the few occasions that one of the books has surfaced, MI5 have done their best to get hold of it and hide it away in a vault so that no one can get their hands on it.’
Robbie shook his head.
‘None of the books in the Highlands and islands have been found,’ he told them.
‘You don’t know that for sure,’ Lauren pointed out. ‘You only guard your own book. Who’s to say that a book somewhere else, maybe hidden on Barra, or Skye, or anywhere else hasn’t been found in the past. That’s certainly been the case with the books that were hidden from the library of Malichea at Glastonbury.’
Robbie and Rona fell silent, then Rona admitted awkwardly, ‘I suppose it’s possible.’
‘The point is, we’re sure that MI5 already know about what’s going on here. They’ll be desperate to get their hands on the book and get it away from the Russians.’
‘So why don’t they just do that?’ asked Robbie. ‘They’ve got the power.’
‘International politics,’ explained Lauren. ‘If MI5 snatched the book, it could cause a big political row with the Russians. And right now the country depends on the Russians for gas supplies. The last thing the government wants is the Russians cutting off our gas, or trebling the price we pay for it.’
‘But if we take it from the Russians and let them believe that MI5 have got it, you’ll be off the hook,’ said Jake.
‘But how do we persuade the Russians that MI5 have got the book?’ asked Rona.
‘We get hold of the book and tell MI5 we’ll give it to them if they agree to our demands,’ said Jake. ‘But instead of giving it to them, we make up a fake book. We arrange a high-profile handover, where we make sure the Russians see the book being handed over to MI5. In the meantime, we give you two the real book, and you hide it again. Somewhere here on Mull, where only you two know.
‘Once that’s done, the Russians will assume that MI5 have got the book, so it’s not worth looking for it any longer, and they’ll go home.’
‘It won’t work,’ said Rona. ‘Even if you get it off the Russians, MI5 will know it’s a fake. They’ll throw you both in jail.’
‘Yes, well, that’s the difficult part,’ admitted Jake. ‘That, and getting the real book off the Russians.’
They fell silent, a heavy gloomy silence. Jake was the first to speak. ‘OK, has anyone got any other ideas?’
It was Rona who answered him: ‘If we can get the book back, we let MI5 have it. Properly. Not pretending.’
Robbie stared at her, shocked.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘We know it’s true what they say: that MI5 want to keep the books secret as well. Well, this way the book will still be hidden.’
‘No!’ burst out Robbie angrily. ‘The books were supposed to stay hidden where no one can touch them. If any government has them, even stashed away somewhere, one day they might decide to use the information in them. That’s why the Watchers were set up. And we are Watchers!’
‘The book’s already been found!’ Rona reminded him firmly. ‘We’re watching over nothing! The only question now is who we want it to stay with: the Russians, who killed Uncle Dougie and will use it to make dreadful weapons; or British intelligence, who’ll keep it hidden away.’
‘No!’ repeated Robbie furiously. He stood up and glared at them. ‘I won’t listen to any more of this! I’m going to get that book back! I’ll destroy it rather than let anyone get their hands on it!’
‘As Rona said, the Russians already have their hands on it,’ said Jake.
‘Not for long!’ snapped Robbie. ‘Come on, Rona!’
Rona shook her head.
‘Not just yet,’ she said. ‘I want to talk about this some more.’
‘There’s nothing more to say!’ said Robbie angrily. ‘We’re finished! We’re on our own!’
‘Not if we want justice for Uncle Dougie,’ said Rona.
Robbie hesitated, and Jake could tell he was on the point of another angry outburst. But then he checked himself.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But if you decide to work with them, that’s nothing to do with me.’
With that, he turned and stormed off.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rona apologised. ‘Robbie’s really upset by what happened to Uncle Dougie. They were really close. And he takes his responsibility as a Watcher very seriously.’
‘We understand,’ said Lauren sympathetically. ‘And we’d also understand if you take the same view as him. About recovering the book yourselves and destroying it.’
Rona shook her head.
‘It won’t work for all the reasons we said. If we take it, the Russians will know it was us and they’ll make us tell them what we’ve done with it. And what’s the point of destroying it? The science in the book was meant to be used some day. Destroying it would be a terrible thing to do.’
‘OK,’ said Lauren. ‘So we’re agreed, the first thing to do is get the book from the Russians. Which means finding out where they’ll be keeping it.’
‘We think they’ll take it to the cottage,’ said Jake. ‘They won’t leave it at the site. The problem is, the cottage is heavily guarded. And it’ll be even more so once the book’s there.’
Rona fell silent, thinking. Then she said, ‘There’s a secret way in.’
Jake and Lauren looked at her, intrigued.
‘Where?’ asked Jake.
‘There’s a tunnel that goes up from one of the caves on the sho
re, and comes out at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen. It was used by smugglers, getting stuff in and out of boats without being seen.
‘Robbie and I watched when Mrs Strange had the cottage done up by Glenmorie the builders, so we know they left that secret entrance intact.’
‘Maybe the Russians have discovered it?’ suggested Lauren.
Rona shook her head.
‘Unlikely,’ she told them. ‘You can only really find it from the tunnel side.’
‘So, that’s our way into the cottage,’ said Jake.
‘Unless Robbie goes in that way before us,’ mused Lauren.
‘Leave him to me,’ said Rona. ‘I’ll talk to him, get him to hold off.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’ asked Jake.
‘I think you’d better show us this cave, Rona,’ said Lauren. ‘The sooner we get in and grab the book, the better.’
Chapter 13
The cave with the entrance to the secret tunnel was a further two miles along the shore. At first sight, it just looked like any ordinary cave: a narrow crevice in the cliff face with rocks around the entrance. Inside, though, there was a tunnel that twisted and turned, and finally came to what seemed to be a dead end, a blank wall of rock encrusted with barnacles. As they got nearer, Jake realised that the lower section of this apparent ‘blank rock wall’ was actually made of wood: ships’ timbers fixed together. The rocks in the floor of the tunnel were wet and slippery, as had been the cave entrance.
‘You can only get to it at low tide,’ explained Rona. She indicated the barnacle-encrusted timber. ‘I’m going to need help,’ she said.
Jake and Lauren joined her, and the three of them working together pushed the timber to one side, and revealed a small opening. It was obvious that the piece of timber hadn’t been moved in a very long time.
Rona pulled a small torch from her pocket, switched it on, and crawled through the opening, which was a long low tunnel. Jake and Lauren followed her. At the end, they came out into a much bigger cave, one high enough for them to be able to stand up in.
‘There,’ said Rona, pointing the torch to one side of the cave.
Jake and Lauren looked, and saw that a series of steps had been cut into the rock, disappearing upwards into another tunnel.