The Burning (43 page)

M
orag and Duncan should have been out of the cave and back on the beach ten minutes earlier. They were supposed to have stuck close to Ali, but they had somehow managed to wander off in a different direction and had become separated from him. Now, as they tried to find their way back to the entrance, they could hear Ali calling out to them from somewhere deep in the maze of tunnels and caverns. They could hear the anxiety in his voice.

“Ali!” Morag shouted. “We’re here…”

But her voice bounced back off the high, damp walls and she knew that he would have difficulty tracking them by sound alone.

“An echo,” Duncan muttered. “A sound wave that has been reflected and returned with sufficient magnitude and delay to be perceived as a wave distinct from that which was initially transmitted.”

“Maybe we should stay where we are,” Morag said.

“Also, the name of a character in ‘Daredevil’.”

“He can’t be far away,” Morag said. “He’s bound to find us eventually.” She turned to look at Duncan, but he had already wandered away again. She took a few steps in each direction and called out to him. When an answer finally came, she could hear something strange in her brother’s voice.

“Morag … I’m in here…”

She turned left into a tunnel she had not seen before, then left again, squeezing through a narrow gap between a pair of upright slabs, into a small cavern. The walls sloped inwards and the ceiling was so low that no adult would have been able to stand upright. Every inch of wall had been covered in drawings, so that standing in the confined space, Morag felt as though she was part of it; as if she’d stepped into the middle of a painted scene.

Duncan was standing in front of a wall, his arm outstretched, pointing.

Morag looked at the pictures: a bank sloping down to dark water, a vehicle of some sort disappearing beneath the surface. She turned and followed the images round the wall, her little heart thumping in her chest.

Two small figures kicking towards the light.

Two larger ones carried away inside the vehicle; inside the car.

Four pairs of eyes: wide, terrified. And others, watching from high up on the rain-swept bank.

“It’s us, isn’t it?” Duncan said. “It’s just like in my dreams.”

Morag nodded.

“I don’t understand. Did the person who drew this dream it too?”

Before Morag could answer, she heard Ali’s voice, and this time it was coming from somewhere close by.

“Ali … over here!”

“I hear you!” Ali shouted. “I’m coming…”

The children were each stretching out a hand towards the other, and both reached at the same moment. Morag buried her face in Duncan’s bony shoulder while he did likewise. They were both sobbing, keeping their faces averted from the pictures surrounding them – happy enough to cling together while they waited for Ali to find them.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the helicopter pilot shouted. “It’s like the sea’s …
boiling
, or something.”

The amazement in his voice was evident as it boomed from the speakers above Van der Zee’s desk. In the pauses, the cabin was filled with the clatter of the rotor blades, but beneath was a very different roar: the sound of water rushing…

“It’s the fish. They’re just under the surface: thousands of them …
hundreds
of thousands of them. Silver fish … not sure what kind. The entire shoal is moving in the same direction. It’s like they’re forming themselves into some sort of shape… God, it’s just incredible.”

Van der Zee stopped listening. He did not need telling
what kind of shape the pilot was trying to describe.

Something three-bladed…

“Is there anybody receiving me?”

Van der Zee said nothing. He was finding it hard to concentrate with two guns pointed at him. “So what happens now?” he asked, looking at the two guards. They stood, unblinking, one on either side of him, their weapons trained on the man who only a few moments earlier had been giving them orders. Their minds were now completely subject to Adam’s control.

“I haven’t really decided,” Adam said.

“Well, I don’t think you have very long.”

“Really?” Adam said. “Looks to me like
you’re
the one who’s running out of time.”

Van der Zee tried to look casual. “Come on, it’s not like you’re going to shoot me.”

“I don’t have to shoot,” Adam said. He looked at the guards. “I just have to tell
them
to.”

“Are you both all right?” Ali asked.

Morag and Duncan separated and stared across at Ali, who had just about managed to squeeze into the tiny cavern. His head was wedged against the ceiling and, if he were to stretch out his arms, he could have touched the walls on either side.

“What’s the matter?”

Morag tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Ali held up a hand to let her know that it was OK. He was already looking at the pictures. He had his answer. “These are your … parents?”

Duncan nodded.

The parents he and his sister knew only from vague memories and vivid dreams. The parents who had been snatched away by the same people who now threatened their own lives.

Now it was Ali’s turn to be speechless. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and beckoned to the children. “You need to come now,” he said. “The others will be waiting.”

He ducked down low, backed out carefully between the two slabs of rock and turned out into the tunnel. It was darker suddenly, and, feeling his way along the wall, his hand brushed against a small, smooth rock set back in a hollow. Ali knew at once that he’d made a terrible mistake, but it was too late.

A booby trap…

He heard the ancient mechanism whirr into life and the grind of rock against rock as the huge boulder was released and began to drop. He tried to press himself back against the wall of the tunnel, but there was nowhere to go, and even though he managed to twist his body away from the impact, the boulder fell squarely across his legs, crushing the bone.

His scream echoed through the maze of tunnels and caves.

Morag and Duncan were no more than a few seconds behind and dropped to the floor next to him. They heaved at the boulder but there was no shifting it. They tried pulling Ali by the shoulders, but that did nothing except increase the volume of the screaming.

“I’m sorry,” Morag said.

Ali took a gulp of air and managed to spit out three words on long, laboured breaths. “You … must … go!”

Morag shook her head firmly.

“We want to stay with you,” Duncan said.

Ali grabbed the boy’s arm and squeezed. “You must go…”

Morag got to her feet. “We’ll try and get help,” she said.

“No…”

Duncan shook off Ali’s hand and stood next to his sister. “We won’t be long,” he said. “I promise.”

Ali groaned and reached out a despairing hand, but it was too late. He was just able to turn his head and watch the two children running back in the direction from which they had all come: back into the labyrinth of tunnels.

He let his head drop back into the dirt; the pain in his heart every bit as terrible as the pain in his legs.

L
aura and Kate emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. They had become lost in the maze of passages and, by the time they had been able to see the afternoon light shining at the end of the tunnel, they had fully expected to see everyone else gathered on the beach, waiting for them. Laura looked wide-eyed at the team of beaten and bloodied Hope agents crawling from the beach and helping their walking wounded back into dinghies.

Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard ran back up the beach to meet the two women, apparently eager to get into the caves themselves.

“I see you ran into a bit of trouble,” Laura said.

Jean-Luc smiled. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“Where are the others?” Laura asked. “Morag and Duncan should have been out ages ago.”

“No,” Jean-Bernard said. “You are the first.”

Laura and Kate exchanged a worried look.

“Rachel’s still in there,” Kate said. The panic clear in her
voice as she turned back towards the cave. “I’m going back in to look for her.”

“I’ll come with you,” Laura said. “And we’ll look for the little twins too.”

“Wait!” Jean-Bernard shouted, grabbing Laura’s arm. “They are fine.”

“Rachel is coming back,” Jean-Luc added. “She has found what she was looking for.”

“How do you know?” Kate’s voice was high and strained.

The French twins tapped their heads simultaneously.

“You wait here,” Jean-Bernard said. “And we will go and bring them out.”

Fighting the strong instinct to go and find the three children for whom they were jointly responsible, Laura and Kate watched the energetic French boys pile into the entrance of the caves, whooping like Apaches.

Rachel and Gabriel ran back, trying to retrace their route to the entrance. Gabriel moved fast, dragging Rachel behind him. Distant noises echoed through the passages; random shouts and cries hung in the air. Rachel was not sure whether the noises were all around her or inside her head. Although she had the Triskellions safely round her neck, she felt a growing sense that something was going wrong.

One of the noises – a high, whooping sound, like the scream of monkeys – was getting closer and closer. Turning
a corner, they ran, headlong, into Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard, who automatically tensed, ready to fight.

“Easy,” Rachel said.

The French boys smiled and dropped their guard.

“Any problems on the beach?” Gabriel asked.

“No sweat,” Jean-Luc said. “You gave us a job to do” – he shrugged – “we did it.”

“Good,” Gabriel said. “Now turn round and go back. We have to get out.”

“But what about the kids?” Jean-Luc asked. “Morag and Duncan.”

A worried look passed across Gabriel’s face. “They’re not outside?”

“No. Only Laura and your mother.” Jean-Bernard nodded to Rachel.

“But I told Ali to get them out quickly.”

“We have to find them.” Rachel began to pull Gabriel back, but his eyes told her he was not about to be pulled anywhere. That he would be making the decisions.

“Gabriel,” she pleaded.

“
We’ll
find them,” Jean-Luc said.

“So where are Inez and Carmen?” Jean-Bernard asked. The look on Rachel’s face told him everything.

“No!” he shouted. “No! No…!” He pulled back his fist to hit Gabriel, but his brother stopped him; spoke quietly and firmly.

“We will find them, Jean-Bernard. We will bring them
back.” He grabbed his brother’s trembling arm and they ran off together, down into the twisting void of the darkening tunnels.

Clay Van der Zee’s eyes flicked nervously from side to side. Both gun barrels hovered millimetres from his temples and it was making him sweat.

“Still waiting, Van der Zee,” the metallic voice crackled again over the speaker. “Update, please.”

Adam nodded. Van der Zee licked his dry lips, preparing to answer: trying to sound in control.

“As you know, the artefact has been found,” Van der Zee said. He looked to Adam for approval and got it.

“And the … targets?” the voice crackled again.

Van der Zee’s eyes questioned Adam.

“Tell him everything’s OK,” Adam whispered.

“Everything’s under control,” Van der Zee lied. “I’m awaiting a final report from the landing party.”

“I’m getting conflicting reports here, Van der Zee. Are the targets still in the caves? I have to make a decision … now.”

Adam shook his head. Van der Zee did not know what to say.

“Can you hear me, Van der Zee?
Are the targets still inside?
”

Adam switched off the communications button. Alarm bells were ringing in his head. He looked across at the distant shore. Heard the helicopter circling above. “Targets? What did he mean by targets?”

Van der Zee shrugged.

“Who is he?” Adam shouted close to the doctor’s face.

“Even I don’t know his real name. He’s Head of Operations for the Flight Trust – the organization that owns Hope – in New York. I only know him as Max.”

“So who does he answer to?” Adam’s voice was getting louder. “Give me a name.”

“They don’t use full names, Adam.” Van der Zee looked serious, and scared. “It would be too dangerous.”

“OK, here’s the deal,” Adam said calmly. “You’re going to order that helicopter down, then we’re going to take this boat into shore and pick up my family.”

“We can take the boat wherever you like, Adam,” Van der Zee said. “But, I’m afraid, I’m not the one who controls the helicopter.”

Gabriel’s mind darted from chamber to chamber, down passages and corridors as they made their escape from the caves. Duncan and Morag were nowhere to be found. Finally, they could see the light from outside as the sun lowered in the afternoon sky and shone directly into the mouth of the cave.

They ran out on to the beach, hoping to see Ali, Morag and Duncan reunited with Kate and Laura.

Rachel scanned the beach. She saw her mother, crouching with Laura behind rocks ten or fifteen metres away. She called to her, and Kate jumped up, waved and started
running towards the cave. Gabriel looked frantically from side to side.