‘Well actually we do,’ I said. ‘We could leave this island when the boats arrive and leave the prisoners. That sounds like a great plan.’ But my words were as hollow as my resolve.
‘Then what?’ he asked. ‘Those prisoners up there are clever, gifted professionals who just happen to have the wrong genes. Vanora needs them. To leave them here would mean certain death for them and no future for us.’ He began pulling a small transmitter from under the bedding and moved to the mouth of the cave. ‘It’s almost moonrise. I can signal the boats and set the beacon to instruct Scud to deal with the guards. He’ll know what to do.’
‘Scud? Are you mad? You can’t trust Scud. He’s Privileged now,’ I reminded him. ‘He’ll betray us.’
‘He only looks Privileged.’
‘You didn’t see him. I did. He’s changed. You said yourself personality change will happen.’
‘We have no choice; he is part of Vanora’s plan.’
‘Vanora doesn’t know about his change.’
Kenneth wheeled on me and I saw a flash of his madness turn murderous. ‘Choices, Sorlie.’
The silent Ridgeway rose to his feet and stood beside Kenneth ready to either restrain or pacify him, I couldn’t be sure. ‘We will be mindful of Scud’s change. It is unlikely the guards will be convinced of his full change so early. They’ll be reluctant to embrace him into the fold so soon. We have to take that risk.’
And then another part slipped into place. ‘Ask your guard,’ Scud had said.
‘Scud knows you, doesn’t he?’
‘It’s possible he recognised me from before.’
It was all too neat. My creeping doubts would not shift.
‘What if the boats aren’t there?’
‘SORLIE!’ Kenneth screamed; Ridgeway placed a hand on his arm.
‘Twenty-one years she has been planning this,’ my uncle spat at me, ‘before you even entered the equation. The boats will be there.’
Talk about a leap of faith.
The back of his coat ruffled as he shook the anger off. He re-drew the sand plan at his feet. ‘We head for the cove as soon as it’s dark. Let’s hope the weather remains typical and hides the damn moon. We’ll wait at the entrance to the prison pipe. As soon as we receive a signal we go,’ he glowered at me. ‘We go.’ He disappeared into the sound of the wash to make his fateful transmissions. When he returned he was much calmer, so I ventured with the question I dared not ask earlier.
‘What about the mines? You said the beaches were mined.’ I pointed to the tunnel entrance marked on the plan. ‘That’s sure to be mined.’
I watched his lip curl and his nostrils flare.
‘Do you know I knew you would ask that, my doubting kin?’ he smiled. ‘As I said earlier, I have spent my years clearing mines from here. You should listen more, then your doubts might disappear.’ I could feel a smile play round my lips; it had been a while since he had put anyone back in their box so I let the old fool bask for a bit. He blew his own smoking candle out, adding, ‘OK, I might not have got them all but I’m sure I’ve picked off most of them around that cove. I’ve spent aeons wandering around there.’
Like a beaver preparing to build its dam he began dragging ropes and harnesses and bags into the middle of the cave, chanting, ‘The boats will come, the boats will come. Infectious doubts be out.’ He packed little devices into his hide bag and took a swig of Mash. The bottle was handed round ‘for courage’.
He checked Ridgeway’s pulse and under his eyelids.
‘You’ll live, at least through the ordeal of helping us get into the prison.’ He thumped Ridgeway’s back. ‘Of course you might get killed on the way out.’ His chuckle was sickening. ‘Just don’t stand on a mine or drown if the boats don’t turn up.’ He winked at me, but there was a dullness to his eye that conflicted with his mirth.
He tidied the heater and coiled the wires as if he were going on vacation rather than a rescue mission.
He stuck a tympan in his ear and cocked his head to one side.
‘Right, time to go, the tide has turned.’ He held two pairs of infrared glasses, put one on himself and snapped the other in two, then handed one lens to me, the other to Ridgeway. Cyclops style.
‘I’m not putting that on.’
‘Then you’ll be blind.’
Ridgeway motioned me to put the lens to my eye then pulled a thin transparent band over it to hold it in place.
‘I agree it’s not ideal but it will do the job,’ Kenneth said as he flapped his arms wide and corralled us from the heart to the mouth of the cave.
The tidal air blasted my cheeks hollow and I stepped back expecting Kenneth to be behind me. From the dim light of his torch I saw him smooth the skins of his bed; he ran a caressing hand along the wall paintings. With a fingertip he traced the outlines of the boat shapes. He had lived in this cave for twenty-one years; he was saying goodbye because he knew that one way or the other, he wasn’t coming back. My face heated at my intrusion into this unusual scene. I turned and followed the bowed head of Ridgeway into the wind and the moonlit night.
• • •
Ridgeway stopped short of the cave entrance. When I caught up with him he held his hand out to halt me.
‘What is it?’
‘Something’s not right, can’t you hear it?’
A rhythmic clanking like links in a chain could just be heard above the roar of the tide.
‘The boat – it’s come back.’ But of course Ridgeway didn’t know about the boat. ‘It must have come round to pick us up. Come on!’ I struggled to get past but Ridgeway held me back with his bulk.
‘What’s going on?’ Kenneth, finished with his fond farewells, had joined us.
‘There’s a boat in the cove, like the last time. Come on!’ I said.
‘What last time?’ Kenneth asked.
‘The first time I came here, there was a boat. Wasn’t it for you?’
‘No,’ Kenneth said. ‘Something’s not right. We meet the boats at the pick-up point, not here.’ He clung to the cave wall as he edged himself through the entrance and onto the beach to peer towards the sea. ‘I can see it with my night vision; it is one of Vanora’s fleet right enough.’ Still Ridgeway held me back, only just allowing us to edge forward with stealth.
The second we emerged from the cave entrance a hunter’s light blinded us.
‘What the…’ I held my hand up to my good eye. The light was intense but dulled behind the infrared.
‘Stay where you are, old man,’ a voice I recognised hollered from below the light.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Kenneth demanded.
‘The boy.’
‘The boy stays with us; it is part of Vanora’s plan.’
‘Vanora has changed her plan. She wants the boy taken from the danger zone and brought directly to her.’
They talked about me as if I wasn’t there.
‘Maybe the boy doesn’t want to go.’ I could almost hear the doubt in Kenneth’s voice. ‘How do we know you’re from Vanora?’
At this a figure emerged into the beam-light, like an old game show host hamming it up for his stage entrance. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so creepy, and the gun in his hand was no joke. The hunter light bounced off the blond hair, which almost sparked in a halo of light.
Kenneth stepped forward with such purpose that I guessed he hadn’t seen the gun.
‘And who exactly are you to be ordering me about?’
‘It’s Merj.’ As I spoke I juked round Ridgeway to stand in front of Kenneth. ‘He was with Vanora and Ishbel up at the prison.’
‘Well, young Merj,’ Kenneth kept up his superior tone. He placed his hands on my shoulders and tried to edge me to his side. ‘Tell me why do you feel you need a gun? If you have orders from Vanora, show them to me or send them to m
y tympan.’
Merj waved the gun at Kenneth and Ridgeway. ‘If you two don’t step back I’ll kill you both.’
‘And what about the prisoners back there?’ Kenneth continued on his own agenda. ‘We need Sorlie to help us release the prisoners.’
The smooth laugh Merj gave was all the answer we needed. What happened to Mr Charisma? And where was Ishbel?
‘It’s OK Kenneth, I’ll go.’ Kenneth opened his mouth to speak but I held his words. ‘No, you don’t need me. I didn’t believe in the stupid plan anyway. It seems Vanora has come to her senses.’
Kenneth pinched the sleeve of my jacket but I shook him off and walked into the beam.
‘Don’t do it, Sorlie.’ He moved to stop me, but Ridgeway stayed him.
‘Let him go, it’s what he wanted all along. He doesn’t give a damn about the prisoners.’
‘That’s rich coming from a guard,’ I said.
Merj threw me a rope. ‘Tie them up, Sorlie. We don’t want that pair of lovelies wandering around while we execute our new plan, do we?’
The look on Kenneth’s face as I tied them together would make a rat weep.
Merj was taller than I remembered from that brief meeting in Davie’s study. As I got up close to him I choked back my own fear and hoped Kenneth and Ridgeway wouldn’t do anything stupid. At least he hadn’t asked me to kill them. As I walked back into the beam, I took my cyclops eye off and stowed it in my pocket; the split light was disorienting.
‘Where’s Ishbel?’ I had to ask. I was treated to that smooth laugh again.
‘You’ll be handed over to your whore once the ransom is paid.’
I aimed for his eye. He yelled like a loon when my small blade dug deep into his left cheek. He dropped the gun as he pulled the knife out with one hand and grabbed my throat with the other. Then both hands were throttling me. My mind booted the Cadenson and suddenly I was back in the Games Space. With both his hands on my thrapple I hooked my arms through his, undercut him and kneed him in the guts. It winded him for a millisecond then, like a raging bear, he fell on me again, pinning me to the sand – Jake’s old move. I executed the ‘heave off and roll over’. Before he had a chance to get to his knees I crouched and levered my arms under him and hurled him towards the rocks where Ridgeway had fallen. If this had been a bout in the Games Space the machine would have called a halt and started counting. I took a knee and knuckled down to catch a breath, watching Merj roll over and place a hand on the sand to pull up. That’s when I saw the pretty pink trinket twinkling on the beach beside him.
A hot white flash threw me off balance; I was showered with sand and something wet. Merj was huddled in a heap on the shoreline; in front of me on the sand lay his hand and half his arm. The memory of my mother whammed through my brain before reality struck. By the time I scrambled towards the old lovelies they were already free of their loose bindings.
‘I thought you said this beach was cleared of mines?’ My words came in hoops and gasps. My body was shaking, so I took great breaths to try to get a grip on my nerves.
Kenneth was scratching sand from his hair. ‘It is. That wasn’t one of the beach mines. That would have blown you both to bits.’
‘Then what was it?’
‘A butterfly mine would be my guess. Designed to maim. They’re pretty little things to attract children to pick them up. I wonder where it came from.’
‘Is he dead?’ I looked back to the body on the shoreline, which was now being rummled back and forward in the tide.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Kenneth said.
‘What do we do about him? Finish him off?’ Listen to me, psycho-killer.
‘Leave him, it was an accident. He’s as good as dead and he’s just a rogue piece. There might even be a bounty on your head, Sorlie.’
This was incredible. ‘Then he’s working alone.’
‘Let’s hope so. But if he is still in Vanora’s pay we don’t want to set her off.’ He looked back at the body. ‘No, just a rogue piece with ideas of piracy.’
• • •
I expected Kenneth to take us up our original descent chute, but he moved us in the opposite direction.
‘The explosion wasn’t loud but it might have given away our location. We’d better stay low.’ The light from the hunter’s beam lit our way initially. We could have disabled it, but decided it was more useful left as a decoy. We had just started on the negotiation of a series of narrow terraces, zig-zagging up another cliff face, when Kenneth stopped. He turned and placed a finger to his lips.
‘Listen,’ he mouthed.
‘Oh no, not the seekers again.’ We were committed to the cliff, so they were sure to find us out here. Kenneth batted my words with a silent shush.
‘No, listen,’ he hissed.
At first all I could hear was the sea, then a sharp scraping noise rattled the air like a gate hinge needing oil. The corncrake. There was no mistaking it. My cheeks split into a smile and Kenneth nodded. If only Scud could hear it. I quickly switched my communicator to record, a futile act maybe, but it felt right. It was surprising the wee bird ventured out after the commotion on the beach; maybe it wasn’t so shy after all. The moment was too brief. Kenneth led the scrabble up the cliff, grabbing vegetation for purchase. After one slime-rimed step up, he stopped again on a ledge about three feet wide to catch his breath. I turned to face the cliff and clung on to some precarious heather; a funnel of wind was hurtling up the couloir, chafing the backs of my legs.
‘Hurry up,’ I said to myself behind gritted teeth, but he was pointing at something.
‘Look!’
With the hunter’s beam out of range and the cloud sweep from the south, darkness had crept up on us. I pulled my lens over my eye and followed Kenneth’s direction. There was a flat piece of turf and cultivation ahead. I shuffled along the ledge until it widened to safety.
‘It’s my garden.’ He cupped the branch of a small shrub. ‘The raspberries were good last year but will be better this year,’ he said with a dramatic sigh. ‘Oh well, the birds will have a feast.’
‘Can we please get off this cliff?’
‘Sorlie’s not great with heights,’ Ridgeway kindly added. Cheers!
We had no sooner dropped to the shingle beach of the ruins when we were climbing again, traversing the wall of the cliff face. Above, on the clifftop, searchlights ranged the landscape like lighthouse beams. Out in the blackness of the sea the buoy’s light was keeping a constant flash sequence of Kenneth’s setting. He maintained a line below the level of the clifftop and teetered us along a small two-feet-wide ledge. The rock was slick with sea wash and guano, and at one point the ledge disappeared into a mere notion of a path. Kenneth reached over the void, hooked his hand on a jutting rock and spanned the gap, one foot across then the other. The precipice yawned between us but Kenneth danced across as if he were on a soccer field. He took a rope from his bag and chucked it back to Ridgeway. Ridgeway tied it round my waist without instruction from Kenneth, then he pushed me against the wall so he could pass me. With his hand on my elbow, he eased me along the ledge.
‘Don’t look down,’ was his helpful advice. ‘Feel the rock, feel how solid it is. The holds are bigger than a Jeep. Use your hands. There is a big jug-hold there just above the gap. Take your lens off, if it will help.’ Was he mad? I’d be blind.
My hand searched above me and two fingers found a notch to hook into.
‘Good,’ Ridgeway said. ‘Now shuffle your feet to the edge and step one foot over.’
My bowels grumbled and my mouth filled with fear dust. The legs that had served me for sixteen years decided to pack in. I was stuck. Then my right leg took to shaking of its own accord like jelly on speed. I couldn’t go forward, I couldn’t go back.
‘It’s OK, we have you. If you slip we’ll catch you.’ Kenneth shouted as he held his hand out. C
atch me with what? A rope tied around me with a bowline knot; there was no guarantee it would hold. I felt the rope tighten as if he was pulling.
‘Don’t!’ I screamed. Kenneth had made the step over look so easy.
‘I can’t.’
‘So what are you going to do, spend the rest of your life here?’ Ridgeway whispered in my ear as he nudged me further towards the gap.
‘Fucking move!’ he bawled in my ear, and I was suddenly grasped by Kenneth and pushed into the rock face on the other side of the gap. My undergarments felt a little damp, but that might have been sweat.
Ridgeway stood beside me. ‘Lord, we are going to have to do something about that phobia.’
A peek behind Ridgeway showed me the gap wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined.
‘Let’s hope he’s not afraid of water.’ Ridgeway grumbled.
‘Maybe it’s an act,’ Kenneth said. ‘Our little warrior seems to be good at acting.’
‘I am here, you know.’ But they both ignored me.
Chapter Twenty-four
Contrary to the thought map, we did not arrive at the rock steps from the prison, but on a ledge just below them where we picked up the lower path. When I pointed out the error of the plan to Kenneth he threw me one of his disappointed looks, but remained silent. The way down to the hidden cove was not obvious but Kenneth knew the way. The lovelies had left the rope tied to my waist.
‘How much more?’ I asked.
‘Nearly there. You’re doing fine,’ was the breezy response. ‘You’re almost used to it now. That last part was pretty exposed and you hardly blinked at it.’
I had to admit, Kenneth’s cheeriness reassured me.
We arrived at the bottom of the cliff onto a boulder the size of a truck. Kenneth creaked to his hands and knees and crawled to the edge. He peered over, then sat back and scratched his head. ‘Uh huh.’
‘What?’
‘The inlet pipe is below the water line.’
‘Oh great! The plan didn’t tell us that either.’
Ways of the Doomed Page 22