Hunted

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘He’s made a plan,’ said Paddy. ‘Hasn’t he contacted you about it yet?’

  ‘No. I was getting concerned.’

  ‘He’s had a lot on his plate lately. We’re pretty sure that SI-6 has been infiltrated—that there’s a mole in our organisation. BB’s been very preoccupied with trying to track them down as quickly as possible.’

  I was shocked to hear this. ‘How could this happen in such a secure place?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how often this happens in secret services all over the world. You get someone from the other side coming in, like a legitimate recruitment and before you know it, top secrets are being leaked.’

  He paused. ‘But none of this really concerns you, Cal. I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all except to explain why BB hasn’t gotten back to you. But there is a plan and it’s this… D’Merrick will come to the island by boat at ten thirty pm, in four days’ time. We’re still playing this mission under the official radar so we need to get the timing right to get everything lined up on the quiet. She’ll be carrying medical supplies and an extra inflatable so that your people can be safely evacuated. We’ve seen the reports from Shadow Island about volcanic activity. We want all of you off that island. The state authorities will have warned the Paradise People Resort too, by now. So tell me, what have you discovered about what’s going on there? Any more information I should pass on?’

  ‘I hope to have more soon. I still haven’t got to the bottom of it,’ I said. ‘Ryan is working his way through the levels and is almost at the top. I’m hoping that he’ll have more in the next couple of days. Tell BB not to send D’Merrick any sooner than that so we can get everyone together to leave. Plus it’s our last chance to figure out Damien’s master plan. If we can hold on a few more days, perhaps we can uncover more before he realises we’re onto him and vanishes.’

  I didn’t mention the ambush photograph that blew my cover. Not until I knew more about who had taken it. There was nothing Paddy could do about it, anyway.

  ‘OK, I’ll let him know. In the meantime, our encryption experts are working hard on that Mordred file,’ Paddy said. ‘They haven’t told us much so far except to say that it appears to be a series of very complex instructions—algorithms—that are going to need an awful lot of unpacking. Cal, I have to go now. Good luck.’

  Katz Cave

  9:52 pm

  I hurried back to the cave and when I went in I found the others still puzzling over the diagrams we’d drawn earlier in the floor.

  I was trying to help find some connection between the five plans when I felt my mobile vibrate. I looked at the screen and as soon as I started reading the message, I knew it was trouble.

  I read it through one more time and the second time it sounded even crazier. What on earth was this? The others had noticed the look on my face and they gathered around.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Ariel.

  ‘Cal! What’s wrong?’ Both Zak and Sophie spoke together.

  ‘This,’ I said and I started reading it out.

  When I’d read the whole thing out to them, I looked up. I saw on their faces the same expression that was on mine—total confusion and bewilderment.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘The only thing I can think of is that it’s from someone who knows that we cracked the Ormond Riddle.’

  ‘Who could that be?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘It could be almost anyone in the world.’ I knew that our adventures over the year of chasing down the Ormond Singularity had gone viral. Millions of people had heard about the Ormond Riddle. Once again, I read the message out aloud. Once again it did my head in.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ asked Zak. ‘It sounds like some kind of nonsense rhyme.’

  ‘Whoever sent it reckons it’s a riddle,’ I said. ‘And a riddle is something that can be worked out.’ I could tell I was trying to give myself a pep talk.

  ‘Any clue as to who sent it?’ Zak asked.

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘It just appeared on my mobile, and it’s a blocked number, of course.’ Someone was sending me messages, but unlike the threatening ones sent by Sligo and his gang when they used to harass me, these messages didn’t seem so menacing. It was almost as if someone was playing with me—tormenting me for sure, but not with lethal intentions.

  ‘One bit seems easy enough,’ said Sophie, interrupting my thoughts. ‘“Tick tock, tock tick 2300 does the trick!” is a reference to eleven o’clock at night, surely. Twenty-three hundred hours, right?’

  ‘What about 2705?’ I asked. ‘Is that a postcode? What could it mean?’

  ‘The year 2705 is too far away to be right,’ said Zak.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘It mightn’t be the year 2705. But it could be a date, the month and a day. It could be the 27th of May, for instance.’

  ‘So,’ said Ariel, spreading her hands in a helpless gesture, ‘at eleven o’clock on the night of the 27th of May, something is going to happen somewhere. Where does that leave us?’

  ‘Pretty much in the dark,’ I said. ‘But seeing as the message has been sent to me on Shadow Island, maybe we can assume that whatever is going to happen, is going to happen here?’

  ‘That date is in three days’ time, so we’ve got till then to work it out,’ Zak said.

  No-one spoke. ‘I’m going to forward this text to Winter. She’s smart with this sort of thing. She might see something we haven’t.’

  I forwarded the incomprehensible riddle on to Winter. She called back almost immediately and I filled her in about how the riddle had just suddenly arrived out of the blue.

  ‘Very strange,’ she said. ‘It’s like someone is hiding behind this, sending you information, but making you work really hard to find out what they mean.’

  ‘And I have the sense that someone is playing with me.’ I told her about being photographed with Ryan near the backpacks under the tree. ‘Nothing has happened about it since,’ I said. ‘Ryan called me earlier. He’s training hard. He’s really proving to Hamish that he’s serious about reaching the highest Zenith level. If that photograph had been shown to Damien, there’s no way Ryan would be moving up through the ranks.’

  ‘So at least we know your secret’s safe for now,’ Winter said.

  ‘How are you going with the Mordred key?’ I asked.

  ‘Boges says he’s made some kind of breakthrough but he’s not talking about it until he’s discussed it with Miss Brilliance, the IT whizz at SI-6,’ Winter replied. ‘And I spoke to Repro yesterday too, he sends his, and I quote, “heartiest regards to Cal, wherever he might be, ahem”—there’s no fooling him!’

  ‘Good old Repro,’ I said.

  ‘He was very excited when I mentioned there might be a Scottish connection to your current exploits. His mother was a Finlay, he says, so now he’s reading up on Scottish castles. He does love his tunnels and dungeons,’ she laughed.

  ‘Shame he’s not here, I could use a tunnel expert around now,’ I said.

  The moment the call to Winter had ended, Ryan phoned me. Even before I heard the words, I could tell from his tone that he was scared. ‘Cal! We’re getting our implants tomorrow. The others are really excited and I pretended to be, too. No way do I want that stuff put into my arm. But I can’t get out of it, either. What am I going to do?’

  I felt my brain do a double somersault, before finally righting itself. Remember, I told myself, just one thing at a time. ‘OK,’ I said, desperately trying to think of a solution to Ryan’s predicament. ‘I’ll come up with something. But you have to get out of it,’ I said, ringing off. I stared into space for a moment, desperate for inspiration.

  ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened to Ryan?’ asked Sophie, her blue eyes narrowed with concern.

  ‘He’s due to get the implant tomorrow,’ I said.

  Sophie looked stricken. ‘No! He mustn’t! We don’t know what’s in that Biosurge capsule. I don’t trust anything Damien says.’

  ‘But then he’ll end up locke
d up, like you were,’ I said. ‘I knew this was coming. Why did I let Ryan carry on with this stupid plan? I should have known better!’

  ‘Cal,’ said Ariel. ‘Cal! Don’t blame yourself. I’ve got an idea. Ryan was injured before jumping off that roof—maybe he could get injured again. That way, they’ll have to postpone him being part of the final Zenith team.’

  I nodded, my brain working at the speed of light. An injury—perfect. I called back. ‘Ryan! Use the Gympie Gympie trees! They put people out of action for months.’

  ‘Tell me you’re joking! No way am I having the implant but I’m not going to spend months writhing around in agony either. Get real! There has to be another way.’

  ‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking. What if you faked it somehow? Find out what Gympie Gympie stings look like.’

  ‘I don’t have to research that. I know exactly what they’re like! When I was in the sick bay with my injured ankle, I didn’t have much to look at except the posters warning us about the jellyfish and the Gympie Gympie trees. Mrs Clayton, the matron, told me more than I needed to know about them. I need to create a raised, red rash and squeal. A lot.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘I’ll find a way. I have to, Cal!’

  DAY 57

  34 days to go…

  Paradise People Resort

  10:45 am

  Once again, I was heading down the mountainside towards the resort. It was mid-morning and as I approached, I could hear the sounds of Paradise People playing on the various courts inside the fence of the compound.

  Through the leaves I could see a game of basketball in session and further away, I could hear the thunk of racquets from the tennis courts.

  Along the beach, there were relay teams doing wind sprints with batons, their teammates jumping up and down in anticipation, ready to grab the batons and run.

  Out on the water, on a lazy surf, board riders idled, waiting for a wave, while further out, some surfboard paddlers and windsurfers tested their skill against the gentle currents and the warm breeze. The scene looked just like the images from the Paradise People’s website.

  For a few moments I stood and watched, because truly it looked like paradise. It was hard to believe that anything terrible could be happening here. From the kitchen buildings, delicious smells made my mouth water as the kitchen staff prepared the midday meal. I suddenly missed my mum’s cooking.

  As I stood there shaking off thoughts of home, some of the words of the incomprehensible riddle started running around my head in the same way that a phrase of music turns into an earworm that you can’t get rid of.

  ‘Sometimes it’s a place where the ships come in’, kept looping through my mind. ‘What you’re looking for’ was ‘Part one’ of that crazy poem. What was I looking for? A number of things. A safe way off the island, a way to rescue the stranger locked up on Delta 11 and the prisoners underground, and information about the Mordred file.

  There were heaps of things I was looking for. But I couldn’t shake that sentence from my mind and found I was even creeping along to the rhythm of ‘sometimes it’s a place where the ships come in’.

  A place where the ships come in is a wharf, I thought, as I headed towards the end of the compound and saw the long jetty stretching out into the ocean where the ferry docked when it brought in supplies and new visitors to the Paradise People Resort.

  A wharf, a jetty, a berth… the answer felt frustratingly just out of reach. I just had to figure it out.

  I made my way along the fence until I could see the administration building where Damien had his office upstairs. I decided that hiding in plain sight was the best way to go, and so moving confidently, I started striding towards the small gates at the rear of the compound. No-one challenged me as I walked in. I was hoping that anyone who saw me would presume I was Ryan. I had to get into Damien’s office. I needed to look carefully over that board of keys once more, and hope that the key that opened the bunker on Delta 11 was still there and that I could work out which one would open the iron door that held the prisoners.

  I jumped at the sound of someone yelling out. ‘Hey, Ryan! Weren’t you supposed to be at the meeting in the boatshed on the quay ten minutes ago? You better get a move on or Dean will be after you!’

  I waved at the fair-haired boy in the striped T-shirt and shorts. The boatshed on the quay!

  ‘On my way!’ I yelled back. As I said these words out loud, I was singing them in my heart, because I was on my way! On my way to solving the first part of the riddle that had appeared so mysteriously on my mobile. ‘Sometimes it’s a place where the ships come in’—a quay is a place where ships and boats come in. A quay. A quay, or a key. One, two, three, four, someone knew what I was looking for.

  I stood rooted to the spot, as the rest of the clues came into my mind—‘or it’s in a cipher’. A key is what unlocks a cipher. I started moving, doubling back the way I’d come as the rest of the first part of the riddle unlocked itself in my mind.

  What I was looking for could be found in music, according to the riddle; music has keys and the last line, something that keeps an archway together, is a keystone! Whoever had sent me this riddle, certainly knew what I was looking for! Keys! The key to the bunker cell on Delta 11 and the key to unlock and free the prisoners trapped underground! Someone must have taken them from Damien’s office.

  As I scrambled away, I pulled out my mobile and checked it again.

  Approaching the cemetery, I focused on the last part:

  I couldn’t make any sense of the first line but the second line about ‘the resting place’ seemed oddly appropriate as I looked around the cemetery with its overgrown headstones and weeds growing up between cracked tombs. I was standing in a resting place—the cemetery!

  Desperately, I started looking around while muttering ‘a long reach after dark that will help you chase your mark’. What could that possibly mean? ‘In between the resting place, part one stares you in the face!’ I’d already worked out that the answer to part one was the word ‘key’. But how could the key be staring me in the face? The number 2300 was possibly an appointed time on the 24-hour clock. But time for what? And what could ‘a long reach’ mean? Stretching out? To what? Or who?

  Not even knowing what I was hoping to find, I went up and down, making my way between the graves, but nothing stared me in the face, certainly not any keys. Only vines and lush, tropical weeds which wove their way around and over the crooked headstones. ‘Sacred to the memory of William Kidney,’ I read aloud from one of them, noting the odd surname. Fredrick Major, Ernest Shipley, old-fashioned names from a distant past, Ferdinand Longreach… I stopped with a jolt. Longreach! ‘A Long reach’ the riddle said. Frantic, I searched all over and around the grave and found nothing but soil and weeds. I had to go back to the others and get their help.

  Shadow Island Jungle

  11:14 am

  I was on my way back up the mountain, my brain working overtime trying to make sense of the last part of the riddle, when my mobile vibrated in my pocket. ‘Ryan? What’s happening?’ I asked when I heard my brother’s voice.

  ‘I’m in sick bay,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Clayton lent me her phone to call my family.’ Ryan lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Can’t talk for long. When I first arrived, a kid showed me this itchy grass that leaves big red hives on your skin. I rubbed that on my arms and it’s driving me crazy but it looks good. And it’s got me out of having the implant.’ Then his voice rose to a more normal level. ‘Mrs Clayton has asked Damien to take me back to the mainland as soon as possible. I’ve had some good pain relief, so don’t worry, Mum.’

  Ryan was obviously pretending he was calling home rather than his undercover brother who was hiding in the jungle above the resort!

  ‘Don’t let Damien get hold of you,’ I said. ‘I’ll pick you up as soon as we’ve got everyone together. Good work, Ryan. I knew I could rely on you.’

  Katz Cave

  12:03 pm

&
nbsp; Back with the others, I told them about my breakthrough with the first part of the riddle. ‘Someone is helping us in a really strange way,’ I said, explaining to them how I’d worked out how the four different clues all delivered the same word—‘key’. And that the phrase ‘the resting place’ indicated the cemetery as the place where the key might be found. But where in the cemetery?

  We went over and over the last section but we were going around in circles.

  ‘I should tell you,’ I said, pointing to the words ‘Long reach’, ‘that there’s a headstone in the cemetery for someone called Ferdinand Longreach.’

  Sophie got it immediately, jabbing at the words.

  ‘Look! Long reach! That’s why it’s got a capital letter,’ she cried. ‘To show that it’s a name. And the word ‘Chase’ also has one. That must be another name. Cal, did you see another tombstone with that name on it?’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘But I didn’t check out all of them. I thought I had the answer with Longreach and I spent a lot of time searching all around that grave.’

  ‘Who is this person who’s helping us?’ Ariel asked.

  ‘I wish they’d just tell us what we need to know,’ said Zak. ‘Why drive us nuts like this?’

  ‘There’s no point going back until eleven o’clock the day after tomorrow, that’s the date and time we’ve been given,’ said Sophie. ‘I think we should all go. Make a search party.’

  ‘What if it’s a trap?’ asked Zak.

  ‘I’ve thought of that,’ I said. ‘Whoever this person is, they seem to know what we’re doing and what we’re up to. They could have come and gotten us any time. But whoever it was didn’t try to catch us. I’m prepared to take my chances. We need those keys!’

  DAY 59

  32 days to go…

  Shadow Island Cemetery

  10:56 pm

  We had waited impatiently for the allotted time to come. The days had dragged whilst we fiddled with our supplies, looked at the diagrams and bandied about ideas on how best to rescue everyone and get off the island safely. But we kept drawing a blank when it came to figuring out what Damien was plotting.