January (20 page)

As the car took off, I was rocked by a
deafening
explosion, followed by the roar of flames. In seconds, the front of the building
was engulfed in fire. The casino had been
firebombed!
What if there were people inside? I couldn’t just run away and leave them. I ran towards the fire, thinking I might be able to help put it out. But I soon stopped. The flames roared impossibly high into the night sky, sending up angry sparks.

I stumbled backwards a few steps, driven away by the heat. Another explosion and the entire building was blazing.

Transfixed, I stood watching. Then I heard the sirens again.

Time for me to disappear.

I made a fatal error.

I stopped being vigilant.

I was so fixed on the fire that I failed to notice the car that had pulled up behind me, until it was too late.

‘Hey! What are you doing?’ I yelled as the black Subaru skidded right up to me. The back door swung open and I was dragged inside. ‘
Let me go
!
’

‘Shut up and stop struggling and you won’t get hurt!’

This was becoming a habit and I didn’t like it.
I struggled as hard as I could but my kicking legs were pinned down and my arms were wrenched behind me.

‘We can do this the hard way or the easy way,’ said my captor, a solid guy wearing a red singlet with a black Chinese symbol on it. ‘Keep still and I’ll let go of your arms.’

‘OK, OK!’ I said. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘You look real different from your picture in the papers,’ said Red Singlet. ‘But we know who you are.’

‘Hey!’ I yelled again. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ He’d grabbed my backpack and was pulling my gear out, looking through it.

Was he after the drawings too?

That’s when I saw the driver of the car. He was the same heavily built guy who’d followed Boges. He hadn’t been a cop after all.

‘Who are you?’ I repeated. ‘And what do you want?’

‘The boss wants a little chat with you, sonny.’

Who were these people? Did they work for the woman who’d interrogated me earlier? Was she the woman who’d rung me? If that woman got me again, I was in big trouble. I felt a chill spread from the base of my spine.

I tried to see where the car was going but I was held down on the back seat. Finally, we stopped and I managed to sit up a bit. It looked like we’d reached some sort of industrial area with a car yard. The driver was waiting for the big gates to open. Once they were wide enough, the car drove through and parked.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

I was pulled out of the car and hauled up some steps into a room—what looked like an office with a large desk and a couple of chairs.

I could feel fear spreading through my body. Last time I’d been dragged off the street, I’d ended up listening to people suggesting I should be thrown off a cliff. I was terrified about what might happen this time.

I looked around the office and through the door came a very rotund guy in a dark suit, wearing a red spotted cravat pinned with a huge diamond. His thin hair was brushed back from a blotchy, sweaty forehead and his lower features were crowded together as if they were all trying to push out of his pouchy face.

‘Who are you?’ I yelled, attempting to sound
brave. ‘And why have you dragged me here?’

Behind him a girl walked into the office and even though I was shaking with fear and dread, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She had wild dark hair with strips of ribbon and glittering threads tangled in it like webs, and the strangest eye make-up I have ever seen—green and gold stripes, like the rising sun fanned out from her eyelids. Her green and gold skirt swirled around her when she moved, and her cool, grey eyes held mine. There was something mesmerising about her …

I was shoved roughly into a chair and two wide strips of strong packing tape were strapped down on my wrists, tying me down. There was no point in struggling, but my heart was
thumping
in terror.

‘I’ve already told you everything I know,’ I said, ‘when you had me last time. When that woman was questioning me.’

‘Woman? What woman? What did she look like?’ asked the man with the pouchy face.

‘Red hair. Purple sunglasses,’ I answered automatically. But what was I saying? I’d never even
seen
her!

To my shock, the man with the pouchy face turned to Red Singlet. ‘
She
must have got to him
already! I told you we had to act fast! She was at the conference. They might be further ahead than we are!’

They knew her?!
It was very clear now that two criminal groups were after the information about the Ormond Singularity.

Pouchy Face swung round at me again. ‘So, Callum Ormond, what did you tell her?’

‘Who are you?’ I said.

‘What did you tell her?’ he repeated slowly and angrily. ‘And how do you know her?’

‘I don’t know her! I thought you did!’

Pouchy Face turned a deep purple-red.
Without
warning, he spat on the floor, then ground his heel into the wet spot. ‘Know her! That’s what I think of her! You want to know who I am? Who wants to tell him?’ he bellowed, challenging the others.

‘No!’ I yelled. ‘I don’t wanna know! Just let me go! I won’t tell anyone what’s happened!’

‘He won’t tell anyone,’ sneered Red Singlet to Pouchy Face. Then he turned to me. ‘You’re not thinking of going to the cops, are you?’

‘The man’s name is Vulkan Sligo,’ said another voice from behind me, ‘and he is
the man
.’

Vulkan Sligo? His name was familiar. I’d seen it in the press and on the news from time to
time. Vulkan Sligo, nicknamed ‘the Slug’, was a criminal whose name was sometimes mentioned in connection with a really famous crime boss, Murray ‘Toecutter’ Durham. My dad had done a documentary on him a couple of years back. You never forget a name like Sligo’s.

I swung my head round to see who was speaking and saw another heavily-built bodyguard in a suit jacket and black skivvy coming up behind me.

The warnings in my father’s letters filled my mind. I knew now that I was in massive danger. Not only was I on the run from the authorities, but I’d got myself into a position between
two
separate criminal groups—I was the meat in the sandwich.

Two! And both groups were onto my dad’s secret, and both were trying to extract the same information from me. First the woman and her gang, and now Vulkan Sligo’s mob.

‘We know your father wrote to you from Ireland. So don’t bother denying it. What did he tell you about the angel?’

The angel, I thought. Everybody wants to know about the angel. Including me! But I was determined not to give these people anything. I gave him a defiant look, even though my voice
was shaky when I spoke.

‘He didn’t tell me anything about any angel.’ That at least was partly true.

‘We heard from the hospice that your father did some drawings that were sent to you.’

How did they know that? Then I thought of the woman who’d rung me—Jennifer Smith. I ignored him.

‘OK, let’s try something else. Do you know anything about a jewel? What about the Ormond Riddle?’

‘Nothing! The only reason I’ve even heard about these things is because people I don’t know—first that woman—and now you—keep
grabbing
me and asking me about them! Just let me go!’

I was angry now. My arms were getting cut-up from the packing tape. ‘If I knew anything about some freaking angel, jewel or riddle I’d be happy to tell you. But I don’t know anything. Just let me go!’ Somehow, I’d kept my voice strong and steady.

It was no use. The questions went on and on, always the same, and my answers went on and on, always the same.

Red Singlet slapped me hard across the face. ‘You’d better tell us what we want to know.’

Or else what? I thought.

‘Go and take the cover off the tank!’ said Sligo, gesturing outside with his head. At that moment Red Singlet kicked me and my chair towards the window. He grabbed my head roughly and shoved it around so that I was
looking
down into the car yard. Then he left the office area and went outside. An automatic light came on below. Red Singlet walked into view, bent over and removed what looked like a manhole cover. The hole, like a pitch black circle in the ground, revealed an opening to an
underground
area.

‘That’s our sump oil storage tank,’ explained Sligo, with a very unpleasant smile on his face. ‘See that tanker over there? It’s due to be pumped out, any minute now.’

Just beyond the lit area, but parked close enough for me to see it, was a huge long-haul tanker. I didn’t want to know why Sligo was telling me all this.

Meanwhile, Red Singlet had returned. He spun me around again on the chair so that Sligo could push his face right into mine. ‘Listen, kid,’ Sligo snarled, ‘you tell me everything right
this minute.’

I was truly terrified now.

‘You tell me what I want to know or I am going to throw you down into that empty storage tank and screw the manhole cover down real tight. Then we’ll pump in the tanker’s load, and fill it right up to the top. No-one will ever find you down there. But don’t worry, you’ll die quickly.’

‘But you’ve got to believe me!’ I said, my voice shaking, my whole body trembling. ‘If I knew anything, I’d tell you! I swear!’

‘That’s enough,’ said Sligo. ‘I’m done with this boy. Take him down.’ Red Singlet wrenched off the tape that was strapping my arms to the chair.

‘No! Please! I don’t want to die! I don’t know anything. I’d tell you if I did!’

I could feel the sweat dripping off me. I looked around for the girl with the strange eyes—surely she couldn’t stand by and let this happen to me. But she was nowhere to be seen.

Red Singlet tore the final strip of tape off and hauled me out of the chair, with a bruising grip. Sligo started to walk out the door, throwing my backpack in the bin.

‘
Please
!’ I begged, ‘I swear I know
nothing 
about the angel—all I know is that there are drawings!’

Sligo paused by the door, then turned.

‘Get rid of him.’