Dark River (19 page)

Gabriel had learned one thing about eighteenth-century Englishmen— they were smaller than the current inhabitants of London. When he reached the top floor, he ducked his head down to pass through the doorway and enter the garret. It was a tiny, bare room with a low ceiling and plaster walls. The floorboards creaked when he crossed the room and peered out through the bull’s-eye window.

Gabriel’s bed was a mattress placed on four plywood pallets taken from a loading dock. His few clothes were dumped into a cardboard box. The only decoration in the room was a framed photo of a young woman from New Zealand named “Our Trudy.” Wearing a tool belt and holding a sledgehammer, she faced the camera with a cocky smile. A generation ago, Trudy and a small army of squatters had taken over the abandoned houses around Bonnington Square. That time had passed and now the Lambeth Council licensed most of the buildings. But Trudy still smiled in the photograph and the Vine House remained— illegal, collapsing, and free.

WHEN JUGGER AND his crew caught up with Gabriel after the race across Smithfield Market, they had immediately offered him food, friendship— and a new name.

“How did you do that?” Jugger asked as they walked south toward the river.

“I took a chance coming down the drainpipe.”

“You ever done it before?” Jugger asked. “A move like that takes confidence.”

Gabriel mentioned the HALO parachute jumps he had taken back in California. The high-altitude, low-opening jumps forced you to leap out of a plane and free-fall for over a minute without opening your chute.

Jugger nodded as if this experience explained everything. “Listen up,” he told the others. “We got a new member of our crew. Halo, welcome to the Free Runners.”

Gabriel woke up the next morning in Vine House and immediately returned to Tyburn Convent. This was the only way he knew to find his father; he needed to climb down the metal stairs to the crypt and figure out what sign his father had left among the bones and tarnished crosses.

For three hours, he sat on a bench across the street from the convent and watched who opened the door for the convent’s few visitors. That morning the visitors were greeted either by Sister Ann, the elderly nun who had refused to answer his questions, or Sister Bridget, the younger nun who had looked frightened when he mentioned his father. Gabriel returned to the convent two more times, but the same two women were minding the door. His only option was to wait until Sister Bridget was replaced by someone who didn’t recognize him.

When Gabriel wasn’t watching the convent, he spent his afternoons aimlessly searching for his father in the suburbs of outer London. There were thousands of surveillance cameras in the city, but he minimized his risk by avoiding public transportation and the busy streets north of the river.

Becoming a Traveler gradually transformed the way he perceived the world. Gabriel could glance at someone and sense the subtle changes in their emotions. It felt like his brain was being rewired and he couldn’t quite control the process. One afternoon, when he was walking across Clapham Common, his vision widened out to a 180-degree panorama. He could see the entire world in front of him at the same moment: the beauty of a yellow dandelion, the smooth curve of a black iron railing. And there were faces, too— so many faces. People came out of shops and shuffled down the street with eyes that showed weariness and pain and occasional flashes of joy. This new vision of the world was overwhelming, but after an hour or so, the panorama gradually faded away.

As the days passed, he found himself drawn into the preparations for a gigantic party at the Vine House. Gabriel had always been wary of social gatherings, but it was a different life being “Halo”— the American Free Runner without a past or a future. It was easier to ignore his own power and go off with Jugger to buy some more beer.

THE DAY OF the party was cold, but sunny. The first guests started showing up at one in the afternoon and more kept arriving. The small rooms of Vine House were filled with people sharing food and alcohol. Children darted through the hallway. A baby slept in a sling around a father’s neck. Out in the garden, experienced runners were showing one another a variety of graceful ways to vault over a garbage bin.

As Gabriel circulated through the house, he was surprised to find out how many people knew about the race at Smithfield Market. The Free Runners at the party were a loosely organized group of friends who tried to live off the Grid. This was one social movement that the chattering faces on television would never notice— because it refused to be seen. These days, rebellion in the industrial countries was not inspired by obsolete political philosophies. True rebellion was determined by your relationship to the Vast Machine.

Sebastian went to school occasionally, and Ice still lived with her parents, but most of the Free Runners had jobs in the underground economy. Some people worked at all-night dance clubs and others served beer at pubs during football matches. They repaired motorcycles, moved furniture, and sold souvenirs to tourists. Jugger had a friend who picked up dead dogs for the Lambeth Council.

The Free Runners bought their clothes at street fairs and their food at farmer’s markets. They walked through the city or used odd-looking bicycles with cobbled-together parts. Everyone had a mobile phone, but they used prepaid phone numbers that were difficult to trace. They spent hours on the Internet, but never joined a service provider. Roland made improvised antennas out of empty coffee cans that allowed access to different WiFi networks. This was called “fishing,” and the Free Runners circulated lists of coffee shops, office buildings, and hotel lobbies where the bandwidth was easily accessible.

By nine o’clock at night, everyone who planned to get drunk had achieved their goal. Malloy, the part-time bartender who had been in the race, was making a speech about the government’s plan to fingerprint children under the age of sixteen who were applying for a passport. The fingerprints and other biometric information were going to be stored in a secret database.

“The Home Office says fingerprinting some eleven-year-old girl is going to defeat terrorism,” Malloy announced. “Can’t people see that it’s all about control?”

“You better control your drinking,” Jugger said.

“We’re already prisoners!” Malloy shouted. “And now they’re gonna throw away the key. So where’s the Traveler? That’s what I want to know. People keep tellin’ me ‘Hope for the Traveler,’ but I haven’t seen sign of him.”

Gabriel felt as if everyone at the party had suddenly learned his true identity. He glanced around the crowded front room, expecting Roland or Sebastian to point him out. That’s the Traveler. Right over there. Worthless bastard. You’re looking at him.

Most of the Free Runners had no idea what Malloy was talking about, but a few people seemed eager to hush up the drunken man. Two members of Malloy’s crew began coaxing him out the back door. No one paid much attention and the party returned to normal. More beer. Pass the crisps. Gabriel stopped Jugger in the ground-floor hallway. “What was he talking about?”

“It’s kind of a secret, mate.”

“Come on, Jugger. You can trust me.”

Jugger hesitated for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He led Gabriel into the empty kitchen and began stuffing trash into a shopping bag. “Remember when we first met at the pub and I told you about the Vast Machine? Some Free Runners say that a group called the Tabula is behind all this monitoring and control. They’re trying to turn Britain into a prison without walls.”

“But Malloy was talking about somebody called a Traveler.”

Jugger tossed the trash bag into a corner and opened a can of lager. “Well, that’s when the story gets a little crazy. There are rumors that people called Travelers might save us from becoming prisoners. That’s why people write ‘Hope for a Traveler’ on walls around London. I’ve done it myself a few times.”

Gabriel tried to keep his voice relaxed and casual. “And how is the Traveler going to change things, Jugger?”

“Hell if I know. Sometimes I think all this talk about Travelers is just a fairy tale. What’s real is that I walk around London and I see they’ve put up more surveillance cameras and I start to get desperate. In a thousand little ways freedom is melting away, and nobody gives a damn.”

THE PARTY HAD ENDED around one o’clock in the morning and Gabriel had helped mop the floors and pick up the trash. Now it was Monday, and he was waiting for Roland to return from Tyburn Convent. About an hour after his new haircut, Gabriel heard boots clomping up the staircase. There was a light tap on the door, and Roland entered the garret. The Free Runner from Yorkshire always looked solemn and a little bit sad. Sebastian once said that Roland was a shepherd who had lost all his sheep.

“Did what you wanted, Halo. Went to that convent.” Roland shook his head slowly. “Never went to a convent before. Me family was Presbyterian.”

“So what happened, Roland?”

“Those two nuns you told me about— Sister Ann and Sister Bridget— are both gone. There’s a new one there. Sister Teresa. She said she was the ‘public nun’ this week. Kind of a daft thing to say…”

“A public nun means they’re allowed to talk to strangers.”

“Right. Well, she did speak to me. Nice girl. I had half a mind to ask her if she wanted to go to a pub and have a pint. Guess nuns don’t do that.”

“Probably not.”

Standing near the doorway, Roland watched Gabriel pull on his leather jacket. “You okay, Halo? Want me to go back to Tyburn with you?”

“This is something I need to do alone. Don’t worry. I’ll be back. What’s for dinner?”

“Leeks,” Roland said slowly. “Sausage. Mash. Leeks.”

ALL THE BICYCLES at Vine House had nicknames and were stored in the garden shed. Gabriel borrowed a bicycle called the Blue Monster and headed north to the river. The Blue Monster had motorcycle handlebars, the rearview mirror from a delivery truck, and a rusty frame splattered with bright blue paint. Its back wheel made a constant squeaking sound as he pedaled over Westminster Bridge and made his way through the traffic to Tyburn Convent. A young nun with brown eyes and dark skin opened the door.

“I’m here to see the shrine,” Gabriel told her.

“That’s not possible,” the nun said. “We’re just about to close.”

“Unfortunately, I’m flying home tomorrow morning to America. Do you think I could have a quick look around? I’ve wanted to come here for years.”

“Oh, I see. In that case…” The nun opened the door and allowed him to enter the cage that served as the convent’s anteroom. “I’m sorry, but you can only spend a few minutes in the shrine.”

She took the key ring out of her pocket and unlocked the gate. Gabriel asked a few questions and discovered that the nun had been born in Spain and had joined the order when she was fourteen. Once again, he climbed down the metal staircase to the crypt. The nun switched on the lights and he stared at the bones, the bloody clothes, and the other relics of the English martyrs. Gabriel knew that it was dangerous to come back here again. He had only one chance to find the clue that would lead him to his father.

Sister Teresa gave a little speech about the Spanish ambassador and Tyburn gallows. Nodding his head as if he were listening to every word, Gabriel wandered around the different display cases. Bone fragments. A blood-covered wisp of lace. More bones. He began to realize that he knew very little about either the Catholic Church or English history. It felt like he had just arrived at a classroom for a major exam without reading any of the textbooks.

“When the Restoration occurred, some of the common graves at Tyburn were opened and…”

Over the years, the wooden display cases in the crypt had been darkened by age and the hands of the faithful. If there were clues left here concerning his father, then they would have to be concealed within something that was recent. As he circled the room, he noticed a photograph in a clean pinewood frame that was hanging on the wall. Attached to the lower edge was a brass plaque that reflected the light.

Gabriel stepped closer and studied the black-and-white image. It was a photograph of a small, rocky island created when two jagged mountain peaks had emerged from the sea. About a third of the way down from the summit of the highest peak was a cluster of gray stone buildings— each built in the shape of an inverted cone. From a distance, they looked like massive beehives. The brass plaque had some words written in Gothic letters. SKELLIG COLUMBA. IRELAND.

“What’s in this photograph?”

Startled, Sister Teresa stopped giving her prepared speech. “That’s Skellig Columba, an island on the west coast of Ireland. It has a convent run by the Poor Clares.”

“Is that your order?”

“No. We’re Benedictines.”

“But I thought everything in this crypt was either about your order or the English martyrs.”

Sister Teresa’s eyes moved downward and her lips tightened. “God doesn’t care about countries. Just souls.”

“I’m not questioning that idea, Sister. But it does seem strange to find a photograph of an Irish convent in this shrine.”

“I suppose you’re right. It doesn’t quite fit in.”

“Did someone from outside the convent leave it here?” Gabriel asked.

The nun reached into her pocket and pulled out the heavy metal ring. “I am sorry, sir. But it’s time for you to go.”

Gabriel tried to hide his excitement as he followed Sister Teresa back upstairs. A moment later he was standing on the sidewalk. The sun had fallen below the trees in Hyde Park and it was getting cold. He unlocked the Blue Monster and rode the bicycle up Bayswater Road toward the roundabout.

Glancing in the rearview mirror welded to the handlebars, he saw a motorcycle rider wearing a black leather jacket about a hundred yards behind him. The rider could have roared up the street and disappeared into the city, but he held back, staying close to the curb. The rider’s tinted helmet concealed his face. His appearance reminded Gabriel of the Tabula mercenaries who had chased after him in Los Angeles three months ago.

Gabriel made a quick turn onto Edgware Road and checked the mirror. The rider stayed behind him. The road was clogged with rush-hour traffic. Buses and cabs were only a few inches from one another as they traveled east. He turned onto Blomfield Road, bumped onto a sidewalk, and began to zigzag through the crowd that was leaving office buildings and hurrying to the underground. An older woman stopped and scolded him. “On the street— please!” But he ignored the angry looks and headed around the corner to Warwick Avenue.