That bullet would have killed Jamie if it hadn’t been for me.
Nobody had thanked him. They had just sent him on his way, bundling him through the door and into a cell with Pedro. And that was where he was now. Just the two of them. Stuck here.
Scott closed his eyes and tried to lose himself in darkness and anger and silence.
Pedro didn’t understand the American boy.
He knew what Scott had been through. Before he had arrived in Peru, he had been held captive by people working for the Old Ones and they had used drugs, sleep deprivation, electric shocks and physical beatings to bend his mind and break him. Pedro had a special power. He was a healer. But that meant understanding and even feeling the pain of anyone who came to him, and with Scott it was almost unbearable. Pedro had known many bad things in his life. He had met people who were like brutes. In Lima there had been criminals and there had been policemen and often it had been hard to decide which of the two was worse. But he still found it incredible that anyone had set out to hurt Scott the way that they had done.
Matt had left the two of them together in the hope that Pedro could heal him – and Pedro had tried. Without saying anything, he had stayed close to Scott because that was the way it worked. It was like being a magnet and somehow drawing out the pain.
But Pedro had soon realized that this time it wasn’t going to work. It was almost as if Scott didn’t want to get better. The two of them had seen each other every day in Vilcabamba, the secret city of the Incas, but there had never been any friendship between them. Scott almost seemed to blame Pedro for what had happened to him and it was while they were in Vilcabamba that he had started calling Pedro a name – Stick Insect – and although Pedro hadn’t understood exactly what he meant, he knew that it was something stupid and hurtful. Insecto. Insect. It was the same word in Spanish and English. The insult didn’t bother him. But it worried him that Scott should be so hostile. Weren’t they meant to be the Five? Didn’t that mean looking out for each other?
The two of them had only been together for about a week, but by the end of that time Pedro knew for certain that there was nothing he could do. Something inside Scott had been broken and nothing in the world was going to put it back together again. Secretly, he wondered if Matt had made the right decision separating the two brothers. Pedro had seen how close they were. Maybe Jamie would have been able to help. He, like nobody else, knew what was going on inside his brother’s head.
And then Scott had suddenly announced that he was going to leave the safety of Peru and travel to Hong Kong. Pedro hadn’t argued. In fact he was glad. It seemed to him that it was a good sign that Scott wanted to help Jamie. Perhaps he was getting better after all.
The two of them had gone to Cuzco, the old Inca city, and then crossed the world to Hong Kong, only to arrive in the middle of an incredible storm with chaos and destruction all around them. Pedro had just had time to see Matt again. Jamie was there – and Richard, the English journalist. He had also glimpsed Scarlett, the girl that they had all wanted to rescue.
The five of them had been together in the temple and for a brief moment Pedro had thought it was all over, that they would have the strength to do whatever it was they were meant to do and that after that they could all go home. But then someone had fired a shot. The girl had been hit. The temple had fallen apart and they had all been forced to escape through the door that had brought Scott and Pedro there just moments before.
But it hadn’t taken them back to Cuzco.
Scott had been the first through and Pedro was sure that Matt and Jamie were immediately behind. Then there had been a moment of darkness, barely more than the blink of an eye, and he had realized that although Scott was still in front, there was now nobody else with them. They were alone in a corridor with a rectangle of light, a courtyard, ahead of them. From Cuzco to Hong Kong and now to wherever this was … it seemed that they were going to have no escape from each other.
Scott looked back and saw what had happened. “Pedro?” There was anger in his voice. “Where are the others?”
“They haven’t come.”
“Jamie was there. I saw him. I stopped him being shot. He must have come with us. He was right there!”
“There’s no one.”
“Where are we?” Scott might as well have been asking himself the question. Pedro had no idea.
“We should go back,” Pedro said.
“No.” Scott looked ahead. “Let’s see where we are.”
And that was the mistake they made. Pedro thought about it now as he had thought of it often. They could have turned round and walked two or three steps back through the door. How different things would be if they had returned to Hong Kong – or to anywhere else in the world! Instead, they had crept forward into a grey-lit courtyard, with weeds sprouting in what might once have been a garden and a cracked stone fountain, broken and still. He just had time to see that they were in the cloister of an old church but one that had been long abandoned by the priests.
Scott had been about to say something – maybe to call out a warning – but then a group of men had rushed out of nowhere, dressed in black uniforms and carrying batons and canisters of CS gas, which Pedro recognized instantly from his years on the streets of Lima. They had no chance. He saw one of the men swing his baton and knock Scott to the ground and leapt forward to help him. Somebody grabbed him and he lashed out with his feet and his arms, even trying to bite whoever was holding him. Then he heard a soft hiss and felt something damp on his skin. A second later his whole face exploded in agony, tears streaming down his cheeks. There was a fire in his eyes and down the back of his throat. When he tried to breathe in, he sucked the fire down to his lungs. Blind and helpless, he felt his arms being forced behind his back and guessed that exactly the same was being done to Scott.
Pedro knew very little more until the pain had ebbed away and he found himself on his own in a cell somewhere inside the building. He called out for Scott but got no reply. His hands had been freed and he wiped them against his eyes, working patiently until his sight had been fully restored. He had already guessed that these men had been waiting for them. The attack had been well planned and executed without any hesitation. But how could that be possible when even he and Scott hadn’t known they were going to arrive?
Three days had passed. And then, while he was sleeping, they had come for him, tied him up, put a bag over his head and brought him here.
Pedro had been glad to see Scott at first but that feeling had long since faded. He was worried. He had no connection with the other boy. There wasn’t even a hint of friendship. They barely spoke to each other any more. Maybe Scott was afraid – but Pedro knew that there was something else going on. It was worse than that. Scott had allowed them to get into his head. Maybe it was a result of everything he had been through. But he was changing. Gradually, day by day, he was becoming one of them.
Pedro slept. It was his one escape. And when he was asleep, he found himself in the dreamworld where he had first met Matt. It was the same as it had always been – a desert empty of colour and life, where the clouds never moved and the landscape never changed. Despite the fact that everything was so dead, Pedro felt comfortable here. He was certain that in some way this strange world was on his side. He hoped he would find the others there, but no matter how far he travelled, he arrived nowhere and he was always on his own.
And then, one night, he saw something.
It was so extraordinary that at first he thought he was imagining it; a dream within a dream. It was a tree, growing quite by itself in the middle of a piece of barren land. There wasn’t anything else for a mile around, not so much as a weed – in fact it was the first sign of life that Pedro had ever seen in this world. The tree had no colour. Like everything else, it was different shades of black and grey, like the images on the old television set that had once stood in the village square where he had been born. It was a palm tree with a thick, round trunk soaring towards the sk
y and, far above, a ball of jagged leaves that seemed to have been captured just as they exploded outwards. Pedro walked towards it in the knowledge that it hadn’t been there moments before, that he hadn’t seen it on the horizon. It had just appeared, in front of him, and it was impossibly large.
The tree worried him. He knew that the dreamworld sent warnings – the cowboy and the giant swan. The images never made sense until the last moment and by then it was too late. Was that what he was seeing now? Was the tree telling him something that he needed to know?
The door of the cell crashed open.
Two guards marched in. Instinctively, Pedro drew his legs up, preparing to defend himself. But the men hadn’t come for him. They closed in on Scott and dragged him to his feet.
And Scott couldn’t prevent himself. His eyes widened. His voice cracked.
“No!” he shouted. “Not me…!”
The men laughed. They were huge, muscular, dressed in black uniforms. Pedro scrambled to his feet and lunged forward but he had no chance against them. One of them kicked out and he was sent sprawling, crashing into the far wall of the cell.
It was all over in a few seconds. Scott felt his arm being seized. His sleeve was wrenched up and there was a stab of pain as a needle was inserted into his flesh. Then they dragged him out. The door slammed shut. The lock was turned. And once again Pedro was on his own.
EIGHTEEN
Scott didn’t even try to fight back. The men were holding him too tightly and after so many weeks without exercise, with barely any food, he knew how weak he had become. He wondered vaguely if he was going to be killed. They were taking him upstairs. Would there be a courtyard with a stake and an execution squad, like in an old film? That was what this reminded him of, and the truth was that he didn’t really care. He was fed up with this whole business. Let it be over one way or another.
They stopped in front of a doorway. He heard a key being turned. And then they were inside a brightly lit room that already smelled and felt familiar and awakened in him memories that he had struggled to leave behind.
The guards released him.
Scott stood there, swaying on his feet. As he took in his surroundings, he felt a shudder of terror so overwhelming that his head swam and tears began to trickle down his cheeks. He felt the strength drain out of his legs so that they barely supported him. He thought he was going to faint. He heard someone whimpering and realized it was him.
This was worse than execution. This was worse than anything he could have imagined. He knew this room.
The bed with the dangling straps for his wrists, his ankles and his chest. The plastic tubes snaking down. The white metal boxes that pumped chemicals in carefully measured doses. The dentist’s light. The electric cables with the plastic suction caps that could be attached to any part of his body … his stomach, his neck, over his heart. Just seeing them brought back the pain that had once torn through him, separating him from any coherent thought. He was in America, in the prison called Silent Creek! He must be. This was the room where they had first brought him.
This was where he had been tortured.
“Hello, Scott.”
He knew the voice and looked up with dread. And there she was, smiling at him, even though he knew she was dead. He had actually seen her shot, right in front of him, with a bullet in the head. Susan Mortlake. She had been the one in charge, choosing the items on the menu that had been so carefully designed to destroy him. She had listened to his screams, analysing them as if they were a particularly complicated piece of classical music. And then she had made her recommendations. A little higher, Mr Banes. Let’s try the knife. Or another injection. Always smiling, always reasonable. And Scott realized that there was nothing he could give her that would satisfy her. She wasn’t hurting him because she needed information. What she wanted was him.
He had seen her die but here she was, walking towards him, dressed in a silvery-grey jacket and dress that clung to her too tightly, almost restricting her movements. He saw her close-cropped hair, her glasses, her thin, slightly upturned nose, the pitiless slash that was her mouth. There was something else. A circular hole gaped in the very centre of her forehead. As she reached him, Scott toppled forward, retching, his hands sprawled out in front of him. He didn’t care what he looked like. He wasn’t going to pretend to be brave. The simple truth was that he couldn’t take any more.
He felt a hand rest on his shoulders.
“Scott?” the voice asked, but now it was a different voice. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
He looked up.
It must have been the drug they’d pumped into him because in an instant the room had changed. It wasn’t a surgery any more. And it wasn’t Susan Mortlake. It was a man in a suit, although in a strange way he looked a little like her. He also wore glasses, round ones, and there was something about the shape of his face, the very thin mouth that reminded him of her. The man had short, almost military-style fair hair, made up of tight curls. His skin was smooth and there was no hint of any beard or moustache. He looked both puzzled and concerned, as if he didn’t understand why Scott should have collapsed in front of him.
And the machines had gone. So had the bed. Scott was in a much larger room than he had first thought – it was actually more of a chamber – with a vaulted ceiling and a chandelier with at least a hundred candles. Was there even electricity? The room could have been modern or it could have belonged to the Middle Ages. It was hard to be sure of anything. There was an oversized fireplace on one side, with a neat pile of logs blazing cheerfully. The floor was paved with flagstones but there was a thick antique rug spread out in front of the fire. Two sets of glass doors led out onto a balcony with a stone balustrade. Although it was the middle of the day, it was very dark. The sky seemed to be full of soot.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
Scott was on the floor, on his knees. He looked around him, afraid that if he so much as blinked the room would change again.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” the man said. “In fact, I’ve brought you some lunch.”
He gestured. Scott hadn’t noticed it before but there was also a table in the room – or maybe it was part of the same trickery and it had just appeared. It had been laid for two with plates of cheese, fruit, cold meat, cakes and a jug of some dark red liquid, like wine. There were paintings on the wall – portraits of people who might have died centuries ago – and an old tapestry showing men with bows and arrows, chasing a deer. None of this had been there before. It was as if everything was assembling itself around him. Like a dream.
“Are you hungry?” the man asked. Scott had no appetite. Not right now. But he was also aware that he hadn’t eaten properly for weeks. His stomach had never been more empty. The man reached down and helped him to his feet. “Here, let me give you a hand. You certainly seem to have been going through the wars!”
Scott was sitting at the table, although he couldn’t remember walking there. The chair was shaped like a throne with arms that curved around him. The food was very simple but the smell of it was absolutely delicious. He looked down. Incredibly, he seemed to be wearing different clothes: black trousers and a black shirt. It was the same sort of outfit he’d been forced to wear when he was working in the theatre, only the fabric was more expensive; the softest cotton.
“Please – help yourself.”
The man poured some of the red liquid and Scott drank greedily. It wasn’t wine but it had the same intoxicating effect. It was cold and tasted sweet – some sort of berries.
“Where am I?” Scott asked.
“You’re in Naples. In Italy. You were brought here by helicopter from the Abbey of San Galgano. That was where you came through the door. I’m sorry you’ve had such an uncomfortable time but it took a while for the news to reach America. I came as quickly as I could.”
“What about Pedro?”
“What about him?” The man seemed genuinely surprised that Scott had asked. “Do you wan
t me to invite him up?” he asked.
Of course Scott wanted Pedro here. He couldn’t possibly leave him on his own in a freezing cell, eating the scraps that were thrown his way. He was about to say so but perhaps he hesitated for just a moment too long because the man cut in again.
“We don’t really want the Stick Insect, do we?”
“No.” The word fell heavily from Scott’s lips. He felt guilty but something in the man’s voice had persuaded him. There was plenty of food on the table. He would save something and give it to Pedro later.
“I thought not.” The man smiled again. “Pedro is different from you, Scott. And I’m afraid to say that we don’t have very much use for him. We won’t kill him. I’m told there’s not much point in killing you boys … it just complicates things. But we’ll probably keep him locked up until he’s a very old man. Maybe you can visit him from time to time if it amuses you, but my guess is that you’ll probably forget him. Anyway, do tuck in. You must be starving!”
The food was in front of him. Scott hesitated, still wondering if this was a trick and it would all disappear the moment he reached forward. He picked up a peach. It felt soft and warm in his hand. He glanced at the man, who nodded, and he bit into it, the juice running down his chin. It was delicious. He had never tasted anything like it. And once he had started, he found himself eating ravenously, not even using a knife and fork, tearing into it with his hands. The bread was fresh, the cheese soft, the ham and salami thinly sliced and salty. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Scott was aware of the spectacle he was presenting. He was behaving like an animal. But he didn’t care. It was the first time he had eaten properly in a month.
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