The Seven Sequels bundle

by Orca Various

  The light came around the corner and swung toward us. “Now!” I shouted. I aimed for just above the light, where I guessed the man’s head must be. We both threw as hard as we could. I heard one stone clatter off the tunnel wall, but that wasn’t what stopped me from throwing a second stone. It was the voice coming out of the darkness behind the light. “Ow! Hey! Cut it out, you kids!” a familiar voice shouted. “I’m here to help you.”

  “Chad?” Laia and I said at the same instant.

  “Of course it’s Chad,” the voice said. “Who did you think would come crawling all this way in to find you?” The flashlight swung up and illuminated the smiling face. There was a thin trickle of blood running down his forehead. If there had been enough room to run forward and hug Chad, I would have. Right then, I would have put everything I had into one of his investment schemes. “Have you finished throwing things?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s good to see you. You’re bleeding. Sorry I hit you.”

  “It’s nothing. You’ve got a good arm, kid. With room for a decent windup, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. Are you kids okay?”

  “We are,” Laia said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m the cavalry come to rescue you,” Chad said, a laugh in his voice. “But let’s get back outside. My claustrophobia doesn’t like narrow tunnels under mountains.”

  I switched on our flashlight, and we worked our way back. The hole had been considerably enlarged, so much so that we didn’t need our flashlights for the last few meters. “Where’s the bomb?” Laia asked.

  “All things will be explained in time,” Chad said cheerily.

  A ragged round of applause greeted us as we emerged onto the hillside. I blinked in the bright daylight and looked around. The first things I noticed were Gorky’s thugs, sitting in a miserable group, guarded by a Spanish policeman. Nearby, also guarded by a policeman, Lucio sat on a rock, having a wound in his shoulder treated by a paramedic. Beside him was a body on a stretcher, covered in a white sheet. Uniformed police and men in civilian clothes were spread around, and several ATVs were parked behind them. A helicopter thumped in circles overhead.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Before Chad could answer, a figure pushed through the crowd and ran to embrace Laia. “Are you okay?” Felip asked.

  “I’m fine,” Laia said.

  Felip looked over at me. “Me too,” I said. A paramedic came over and began examining our cuts and bruises. She swabbed the cuts clean and put ointment and bandages on the worst ones. I was so stunned that I was happy simply to sit and be attended to while my brain tried to work its way around what had happened.

  “Who’s under the sheet?” Laia asked. It was something I had been wondering too.

  “It’s the old guy with one arm,” Felip said.

  “Did they shoot him?”

  “No,” Felip answered, “although he did fire a couple of rounds at the police when they arrived. The police fired back, and that’s how the big guy got shot.” He nodded toward the sullen Lucio. “The old guy just folded. He was dead before anyone got to him. I think it was his heart.”

  So that explained the shooting I had heard from inside the tunnel. It was the police arriving. I laughed.

  “What?” Laia asked.

  “We were hiding from the police when we went farther along the tunnel.”

  Laia smiled. “I was hiding from Chad,” she said.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “And where is he?” Laia added.

  As if on cue, Chad appeared from one of the ATVs. He had wiped the blood off his forehead and was carrying the bomb in front of him. Both Laia and I jumped to our feet. “What are you doing?” I shouted.

  Chad smiled—and dropped the bomb. As it hit the ground, he swung his right foot and volleyed it straight at me. Instinctively, I put my hands out and caught it—and found myself holding a battered leather soccer ball.

  “This isn’t the bomb,” I said. “What happened to the bomb?”

  “There was no bomb,” Chad said with a smile. “Just an old soccer ball that someone lost once.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said. I looked around for confirmation. Laia was frowning at Chad. Felip gently shook his head.

  I looked back at Chad. “There is no bomb,” he repeated, his smile gone and his voice hard. “You kids have had an exciting and scary day, running into the middle of this drug deal. You were lucky you could get into the tunnel before the shooting started. I have a couple of details to tidy up, and the press will be here soon. Felip will take you back to the hotel for a shower and a rest. We’ll meet for dinner later—say, nine o’clock,” he added, looking at Felip. “I’ll explain what’s going on then. Okay?” The way he said “okay” didn’t allow for anything other than acceptance.

  I looked at Laia. “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Excellent.” Chad stepped forward and shook my hand. It was an awkward gesture, but I felt a crumpled piece of paper in his palm. He winked at me. I took the paper and slipped it into my pocket as Chad led us over to Felip’s car. Several of the police patted us on the shoulder as we passed. I ignored them, my mind struggling desperately to understand. It couldn’t all have been some horrible misunderstanding—could it? And what was in the note from Chad?

  TWENTY

  On the way back to the hotel, Laia and I bombarded Felip with questions, but we didn’t learn much. Felip had been on his way back from Almería when Chad had called him and told him to meet us all here in the hills. Felip had arrived on the hillside after it was all over and the hole had been widened enough to allow Chad in. He didn’t know much more than we did, but he was so happy that we were okay that he didn’t seem interested in questioning anything. Even after I’d given him the outline of the story that Gorky told us and Laia had wondered out loud why Chad seemed to be so tight with the Spanish police, all he said was, “I’m sure Chad will clear up all the details over dinner.”

  It was late afternoon when we made it back to the hotel, although it felt as if it had been weeks since Laia and I left that morning. I was so confused and tired that I hardly noticed the naked people crisscrossing the lobby as I headed for the elevator. Felip saw us to the elevator and suggested we have a nap and a shower before meeting for dinner.

  As soon as the elevator doors closed, I took the crumpled paper out of my pocket. “What’s that?” Laia asked.

  “Chad gave it to me,” I replied, smoothing it out. The note said, You and Laia meet me in the bar at eight o’clock. Don’t tell Felip.

  “I guess he wants to tell us something he doesn’t want Felip to hear,” Laia said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’m fine with that. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  Laia and I went to our rooms. I sat on my bed, determined to think things through and try to make sense of it all. I failed. I set my alarm and immediately fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up it was dark, and every square inch of my body ached. It was seven forty-five. I dragged myself into the shower.

  The hot water stung my cuts, but I didn’t care. My nap had refreshed me, but I still felt like my world had been turned upside down. Ever since DJ had sent the pages from Grandfather’s notebook, trying to understand what they meant had been our focus. We had been threatened and kidnapped, but we had done well. We had broken the code, worked out what the locations were and what their significance was, fitted all the bits (including the story Gorky had told us) into a coherent narrative that explained most, if not all, of what we had been given. There had been nothing about a drug deal. Now this mystery man, Chad, who kept showing up in the most unexpected places, was saying that everything we thought we understood was meaningless. I refused to believe that we’d been wrong every step of the way—but it had been a soccer ball Chad kicked to me, that I was sure of.

  Another idea crossed my mind. Had Grandfather organized this as a joke? If he had, it was incredibly elaborate and expe
nsive. Was it some kind of test? A joke or a test. Neither seemed likely, given the lengths Grandfather would have had to go to. And how could he possibly have known that his grandsons would be the ones to find the stuff in the cabin? I was so confused that any wild idea was up for grabs.

  As I gently dabbed my painful cuts dry and wandered back out to my bedroom, I had an idea. Picking up the TV remote, I flipped through the channels until I found the news. The first thing I saw was a shot of the hillside, taken from a helicopter; there were figures and vehicles all around. You could see hooded men, one with his arm in a sling, being bundled into police cars; a stretcher with a body on it was being loaded into an ambulance. I had to concentrate to try to understand what the commentator was saying. There was nothing about a bomb. I grasped enough to understand that there had been a drug bust in the hills. The police chief said something about a tipoff, and then a politician talked about how Spain must clamp down on the growing problem of drugs being smuggled in through the local ports. Then the news moved on to the upcoming Real Madrid versus Barcelona soccer game. What was going on? The bomb—or the soccer ball—was being hushed up, written out of the story. I turned the TV off, and as I dressed, I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop questioning Chad until I got the whole story out of him.

  As it turned out, I hardly had to ask a single question.

  Just before eight I knocked on Laia’s door, and we headed down to the bar together. On the way, I only had time to tell her what I had heard and seen on the TV and confirm that she was as confused by it as I was. Chad was waiting for us in a booth. He stood up as we approached. I opened my mouth to say something, but he got the first word in. “Before you say anything,” he said, “I want to apologize. I have lied to you both and used you shamelessly. I cannot expect forgiveness, but I ask that you listen to what I have to say. I hope you will at least then understand.”

  I looked at Laia; we both nodded.

  “Excellent,” Chad said as we sat. “First, what would you like to drink?”

  “Kas,” Laia and I said.

  “Okay,” Chad said. “While I get them, you should probably read this. It was taped underneath the soccer ball.” He handed me an envelope. There was nothing written on it. Laia and I moved closer together, and I carefully lifted the flap and pulled out two sheets of paper. Both pages were covered with tight, neat writing that sent a shiver through me even before I read the first word. This was a letter from Grandfather.

  I have no idea who will read this, if anyone, but if you are standing in the Spanish sunshine, wondering why you have just found a soccer ball inside a Roman mine, you deserve some kind of an explanation.

  It is unlikely that you have stumbled across this; therefore, you have followed a trail of clues to reach this point. I intend to leave clues to this and to other aspects of my complex and secret life in a secure place. If that is how you have found this, then I will be long dead, and I offer you my posthumous congratulations. If your code name is that of a Russian writer, then I say—too late.

  There was a time in 1938 when I was convinced I could never return to Spain, but now, in 1975, with Franco on his deathbed, I find I am back for the third time. I passed briefly through during the Second World War, I was here in 1966, and now I am back. Of course, I have never been back as myself. During the war I had no identity; I was a shadow passing through the landscape by night. The other two visits have been as Pedro Martinez.

  For those of us who survived Spain in the 1930s, it was hard to give up the fight. Some, like Kim Philby—whom I met in 1938 outside Barcelona when he was, supposedly, a reporter and I was about to be repatriated—had already chosen sides and simply continued the secret work they were doing. Others, like my fellow survivor Bob and myself, were less certain. The world after Hitler and Mussolini were defeated was a complex place. I missed the certainty of what we had fought for in Spain, and however hard I searched, I could find no cause that promised a better world. I was approached by the Soviets, but by then I knew a little of what Stalin had done to those who disagreed with him, so I turned them down.

  Several months after that, Bob came to visit me. He told me that the Soviets had approached him as well and that he had accepted their offer. He asked if I would work beside him. Again I said no.

  The very next day, I was visited by an American, a rather brash young man, who suggested that I keep in loose contact with Bob, but that I work for him. We talked a long time, and he was very persuasive, presenting the work I would do not as picking one side or the other, but rather as finding and using information to maintain a balance in the world. He said it was futile to try and make the world a better place, and that the best we could hope for was to stop it from getting any worse. I thought long and hard before I accepted his suggestion, and I drew the line at becoming a full double agent, but I guess I liked the idea of being in touch with both sides. Of course, it never worked out as simply as I had expected, and every job I did had its own issues and drew me deeper and deeper into this strange secret life I find myself in now.

  In any case, shortly after Christmas of 1965, I was contacted by my young friend and told that I had to go back to Spain. He had word of a plot to sabotage a plane carrying nuclear weapons. Despite my identity as Pedro Martinez, I was very nervous, but I went. I met our information source in Spain and for the first time learned of Gorky and his network. I didn’t agree with the American nuclear policy, but what Gorky was trying to do was madness. I came and based myself in Palomares in hopes that Gorky would show himself. I could think of nothing else to do.

  Every day, I came into the hills to watch the B-52s refueling, and the rest of my time I spent traveling around, listening, trying to find the slightest hint of who Gorky was or where he might be. I talked with everyone I met, including the shepherds in the hills. I learned many fascinating stories, one of which led me to the ancient mine where you discovered the ball.

  Unfortunately, my attempts to prevent the sabotage failed. The planes did blow up and the bombs fell—thank God they didn’t explode. Some of the bombs did, however, break apart, and the plutonium core from one landed close by. Knowing Gorky was somewhere nearby and would do anything to obtain this weapon, I hid it in the mine.

  I didn’t know who I could trust. Remember, these were very paranoid times. We all thought we were on the brink of destroying the world. Children used to practice hiding under their desks for when the bombs dropped. There were books and films about an accident or a mistake triggering nuclear war. I didn’t want the bomb I had found to fall into the wrong hands.

  After I hid the bomb, I left Palomares quickly. The area was crawling with police and American soldiers, and the chances of my real identity being discovered were too great. However, I did take a risk. I went to Barcelona and visited Maria. I told her what I had done. That was probably a mistake, but seeing her again after all those years was wonderful. We talked all night. She said that I should leave the bomb hidden so that it could never be used by anyone. She said that it would be a tiny piece of good I could do to make the world a better place. I agreed. I think that night, seeing Maria again, I would have agreed to turn myself in to Franco’s police if she had asked me.

  I left Maria as the sun was rising, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I had to get out of Spain, and I had a wife and family back in Canada. Why is it that life leaves so many loose ends? But I am wallowing in nostalgia and becoming maudlin. This will be of little interest to you, whoever you may be, so I must complete my tale.

  After I crossed the Spanish border, reported to the young American and told him the whole story, omitting only that I had hidden the bomb, I returned to Canada and had as much of a normal life as I could manage in those strange days.

  As the years passed, Gorky’s name cropped up from time to time. I realized that when he was not on the run from the Americans, he was hunting me. There could be only one reason: the bomb. Somehow he had discovered its existence and thought I knew its location. No
w it was too dangerous to leave it in the cave. I resurrected Pedro Martinez and came back to Spain. I will replace the bomb with the soccer ball and this note, place the bomb close to Morón Air Base and phone in an anonymous tip. The Americans will no doubt dispose of the bomb quietly. There are no more nuclear-armed B-52s in the sky—we have more efficient ways of killing each other now.

  I don’t know how much of this, if any, will make sense to you, but I need to set the story down. I will write other things down in other places in case the day ever comes when I have to justify any of the things I have done.

  I will return home now and devote my time to my family. They, after all, are what is truly important. I will not visit Maria again.

  David McLean

  TWENTY-ONE

  Laia and I sat and stared at the letter long after we had finished reading. I had choked up. Grandfather was telling me another piece of his life. I knew he had no idea when he wrote it that I would be the one to read it, but that didn’t matter. It was still him talking to me.

  “It’s not fair,” I said. “Why is it only after he dies that I get to know Grandfather and the extraordinary things he did?”

  Laia reached over and squeezed my hand. “He was an amazing man,” she said. “I wonder what the others are finding out about him.”

  I sniffed loudly and looked up from the letter. Chad had returned with our drinks and was sitting across from me, a faint smile on his lips. He looked different, older, more relaxed, like an actor who has finished a role and taken off a mask. “Who are you?” I asked.

  Chad’s smile broadened, emphasizing the wrinkles around his eyes. “I’m the brash young man your grandfather mentions in the letter.” Even his voice was different—deeper, more mature.