by Paula Wynne
He’d activated his watch’s light again by scrabbling around for pieces of coconut. Just as the glow faded, it struck something silver near his feet. It glinted in the dark, sending out a final spark of light before the blackness was complete again.
Using both feet as a lever, he slowly managed to rotate himself. Stretching his tied wrists down as far as he could, he fumbled for where the glint had been.
His fingers gripped cold iron.
Concentrating on forming a mental picture in his mind, he ran his fingers along the shaft. It formed a cross.
Ah, the car’s wheel brace. Just moving himself in the close heat of the car’s boot was making sweat pour off Luke’s brow and trickle down into his eyes. He blinked a few times and wondered why he even had his eyes open when he couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark.
He lay back for a moment to catch his breath and muster his flagging energy. He took a few deep breaths, knowing each one could be his last if Cami came back.
Then, in an awkward twist, he rolled over. With his eyes closed, he gripped the crossbar and swung his arms up as far as they would go. The iron bar thumped against the boot’s lid.
Luke screamed, ‘Help!’
He slumped backward. The movement had sapped his strength. Although young and fit, the cramped position and lack of fresh air left him listless and breathing in shallow gasps.
He had to keep trying.
Again and again he went through the rigmarole of getting a grip on the brace, then the sudden, painful twist, then wait. Then repeat. Each resounding crash echoed around the inky stuffiness, and tinnitus rang in his ears.
When his body felt it couldn’t go through the process again, Luke lay in silence. Eyes closed. Ears pricked. Listening for the slightest sound from outside.
Nothing. Not even an owl hooting for a mouse. Luke opened his eyes again and stared ahead.
He’d never known such total darkness.
It squeezed down on him, pressing against the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage. Its weight became heavier and heavier, squashing Luke even as he fought against it, panting in panic.
He couldn’t freak out now. Forcing himself to hang in there, he chanted in a soft murmur, ‘Get a grip, Luke. Just hold on.’
Even the heavy whisper seemed to zap his last shreds of strength. The hot, stale air was like a cloth over his face. Clawing at his throat. Crushing down on his windpipe as he desperately sucked it in through the gag covering his mouth. Together with the darkness, the stale air choked his mouth and nose, smothering him.
Little blue stars swam all over his vision, and almost with relief, Luke slipped into the oppressive blackness.
55
Matt limped through the creaking gate and along the path to the thicket of trees. His leg ached from standing on it all day without a break.
He and Luke had spent their childhood, at least in his barmy army days before the accident, playing in the copse of trees running parallel to the airfield’s runway. They would paint their faces with mud and slime and lie in their den made of broken branches covered with ferns and rotting leaves. From there, they had a great vantage point for watching planes take off and land. One day they’d be snipers watching for German spy planes. The next they’d be a special task force sent to guard an airfield from a terrorist attack.
A twig snapped behind him.
Matt spun around.
From his position on the edge of the trees, he could see the mud-caked, dry path winding among the trees. Halfway in, another dirt track spurred off to the right. To their long unused den. Even in the shadowy night, he had a sudden longing to revisit that place and sit amongst the memories.
Those were the days. The days before he’d busted his ankle. The feeling of running like the wind, pulling away from the other kids and laughing with the sheer joy of speed, was just a dim recollection now. That kid had gone. Replaced by a cripple, a target for all the viciousness and bile that schoolkids had in them. Matt hunched his shoulders. No! He wasn’t going back to that place.
A cool breeze tickled his sweaty cheeks. The earthy tang of the woodland floor rose up to greet him. High above, the wind sashayed through the tops of the tallest oaks, whispering of a change in the high summer weather.
Matt glanced up and listened.
Maybe the breeze wasn’t warning about a shift in the weather. Could it be trying to tell him something about Luke?
The path to their den beckoned, but Matt hesitated. That day when Luke had challenged him, the same type of wafting breeze had clung to him. Warned him not to be stupid and rise to Luke’s dare.
That mysterious feeling that his life was about to change had made him know fear and doubt, up until that point relative strangers to his mind. And for a moment, a brief few seconds, he had almost turned and just laughed at Luke and Ben, told them if they wanted to find someone who was enough of a moron to go on that rope bridge they should try looking in the mirror.
His kid’s ego, his arrogance, had won. And then lost, lost so very much.
Once again, Matt shivered from an uncomfortable and eerie stillness in the woods. The breeze wrapped warm tentacles around him, but still he shivered.
Something wasn’t right. An incredible feeling of déjà vu washed over him.
Just like that day so long ago, Matt shivered with a strange, frightening sixth sense.
Lying in the hospital bed that first night, he’d sworn he would never have anything more to do with Luke, never even speak to his brother again. Luke hadn’t let it be like that, though. He’d always included him in everything, he’d always gone in, fists swinging, to disperse the bullies, even though he was frequently outnumbered and had picked up a good few black eyes for his troubles. He’d kept on searching, looking for a way to get his brother back.
Now, Matt had to be brave enough to keep looking for Luke. Even if there was a murderer on the loose somewhere near the airfield. And even if it meant seeing his brother in the arms of the only girl Matt had ever truly wanted.
56
The rotting hulk of some old, dead machine loomed over Cami like a monster peering down on an invading enemy. She led Glynn past it and around the back of the deserted hangar and stopped, glancing left and then right. ‘Here.’
Glynn dropped his backpack and pulled out a torch. As the son of one of her father’s mercenary friends, he was bent on moving up the treasure hunting ladder fast and was happy enough to go along with murders and kidnappings. And, of course, his thieving skills certainly helped.
Cami glanced around again. The butterflies in her stomach weren’t fluttering in fear, but in excitement. After the dead body chaos, she had done a quick casing of the hangar. Without Matt dripping around her angling for another kiss, she’d been able to analyse things properly, and she was in no doubt that the heavy set of metal shelves had been placed deliberately to cover the door in the floor. The Balmaines didn’t have just some old inspection pit down there, they had a hidden bunker. And you only hid things that contained secrets, treasure, or sometimes both.
She had dreamed of this moment for so long. Any minute now, Glynn would open the hangar with his lock picking set, and they’d move the shelf to get to the handle sticking out of the floor that Matt had showed her.
The Nazi wasn’t hiding in there. That much was obvious, but Papi’s research about Steffan Sommer had told her that he had fled Germany with secrets that were worth more than any suitcase full of gold bars. He would have needed to find a place to hide those priceless treasures. A vault, or why not a bunker?
When Matt had shown her round the hangar she had bent down on hands and knees to check the door handle sticking out of the floor. Sure enough, he had been right. It must lead to an underground bunker. Ensuring her butt, raised high in the air, was aimed directly at Matt’s face, she’d stayed like that for a long moment. First to give him a good, long view, enough to fire up his hormones. Second, for her eyes to take in everything around the iron door handle.
It b
eing under the shelf posed no problem, they could easily move that. The handle sticking out of the floor like a rounded iron rod could be awkward though. If it was some sort of bomb shelter, then the door would be extremely heavy, yet there didn’t seem to be anything to lever it up with. Maybe when they pulled back the shelf, it would reveal the door seal, and she would see that she had been worrying about nothing.
If not, she had Luke as insurance.
An owl hooted nearby. Cami rested a hand on Glynn’s shoulder as she glanced into the pitch black night. She hated the country. Give her London any day. Anywhere away from the creepy, crawling country night.
‘What’s taking so long?’ She hissed into his ear.
‘The bloody thing won’t budge.’
‘I thought you said you were the pick-lock king?’
‘I am!’
‘Then get it open. Fast.’
She waited a few more seconds, flinching at each curse from Glynn, yet with her own barrage of curses streaming through her mind. Curses that were no use to them now, so she kept them meshed in her brain, between her anticipation and nerves.
Was he all just bullshit? Her father had trusted his father with his life, but the more she got to know Glynn the more she sensed there was little behind the arrogance and the flashy façade.
Suddenly he leapt to his feet.
Euphoria fizzed through her. At last she was about to find out if Steffan Sommer had hidden his secrets in this God-forsaken airfield hangar!
The thunder on Glynn’s face burst her bubble. ‘What?’
‘It won’t open.’
‘I don’t believe you! I thought―’
‘Stop!’ Glynn leaned right up close to her face and hissed, ‘Stop rubbing it in. Almost every God-damned lock I have ever picked has opened. Except one or two.’
‘And this one.’ Cami stepped back, ostentatiously wiping his spittle off her cheek. ‘I don’t care what you do, just get this fucking door open!’
57
Matt’s torchlight suddenly glinted off a steel bumper. He shone it higher and flashed it around the dark, foreboding car embedded in amongst the bushes.
Despite his aching ankle, Matt jogged up to the car and shone the torch in a circle around the car. And then into the bushes on either side. Nobody was anywhere to be seen.
Matt knew the airfield’s gate was padlocked closed, and there were no other cars in sight. Bomber had locked up when he’d left to tell Mum about Allan.
It was hard to make out the exact colour of the car, in the torchlight.
Matt hadn’t talked to many of the airfield pilots and helpers before they’d gone home, but no one seemed to have seen Luke since Matt had spotted him with Cami. The questions tumbled through a maze in his mind. Disturbing thoughts rolled out. The same ones that had nagged at him since he’d seen them walking off together. He pushed them away. If Luke and Cami were making out, he’d stop worrying: Luke would be home soon.
Something about the way the car was jammed deep into the bushes, hidden, in fact, disturbed him. Surely the owner of such a flashy car would want to show it off by parking it on the gravel. Also, the hard twigs would surely scratch the paintwork.
Something didn’t feel right.
He beamed the torchlight into the front seat. A bag lay in the passenger foot well. It looked very like Cami’s, but that would be ridiculous, because kids their age didn’t drive Mercs. Then he remembered where he’d seen this car before: that dog-kicking poser who’d ogled Cami in the shop.
‘Luke?’
Matt didn’t know why he suddenly felt the urge to say his brother’s name. Nor why he was whispering as he crept around the car, so he called out louder, ‘Luke, where are you?’
Silence.
There was something odd about that. Normally this wood was crawling with wildlife. Small creatures scuttled and owls hooted, but tonight, nothing. As if the creatures had scattered in fear of something.
Just then a loud crash came from the direction of the hangar.
Matt swung around. Standing dead still, he listened. Silence hung in the air.
The hangar was a looming shape in the dark, but as he peered at it he saw the soft flutter of torchlight flickering around one corner of the building.
Had Bomber returned without Matt hearing him? He held his breath, waiting for the hangar’s brilliant fluorescents to light it up. Instead, the small beam of light continued to move around, like a butterfly unable to choose which flower to settle upon.
The breeze from the woods curled around his ankles, repeating its eerie warning.
‘Oh my God!’ He muttered, ‘Someone is breaking into the hangar.’
Matt raced as fast as he could down towards the airfield.
Near the hangar, Matt stopped his ungainly galloping and hobbled for a few steps. His ankle was throbbing, sending electric jolts of pain up his entire body. The bones felt as if they were about to splinter again, like all those years ago.
Limping awkwardly towards the light, he scowled. What if the burglar was Luke, showing off the hangar to Cami? He’d better not barge in on that. They’d both see him as a jealous freak.
He crept down the side of the hangar, closest to the tall copse of trees lining the entrance to the field. Avoiding the path where Bomber’s office looked out at the runway and parked aeroplanes, Matt ducked through the gap in the wire fence and crept up to his childhood hiding place.
Edging his way behind the two massive plastic water containers, Matt flicked his torch along the hangar’s side wall.
The spy hole was hard to spot in daylight, let alone in pitch dark. Unless there was a light on inside.
Not even needing his torch to locate the familiar spot, he leaned closer and squinted through.
What he saw shocked him to the very core of his being.
58
In the jumping shadows of a camping light, two figures grunted and groaned as they tried in vain to shift the huge shelf. The poser was one of them, which didn’t come as any great surprise. Seeing his companion, did though.
Cami.
Tins of paint and several battered toolboxes had been shifted off and lay on the floor near their feet.
Matt held his breath. What were they doing? And where was Luke if he wasn’t with Cami?
He couldn’t get his head around her presence here. Had the Poser blackmailed her somehow? But as he watched, it was clear that she was the one giving the orders.
Was this really happening? Could sweet, innocent Cami be a thief?
There is a feeling of icy dread that comes in the instant you realise you have made a catastrophic mistake, and that chill struck Matt now as he remembered how she had insisted he show her inside the hangar. How she’d kept asking about a hidden bunker. When he’d told her about the strange door handle, she had suddenly become very interested. And why had he even told her? It made him feel stupid to admit it even to himself and in the privacy of his own mind, but it had been mostly the way her, oh God! Had she really been playing him all this time?!
Cami and the Poser moved the shelf inch by inch. It stood several feet away from its normal place. And now the door handle buried in the floor was clearly visible.
Only now Matt could see it wasn’t a door handle as he’d first thought. It was a large, round, rusty iron ring. Similar to the ones they used on a harbour wall to tie up boats.
Cami dropped to her haunches and stroked the rusted ring. ‘This must be it, Glynn.’ Her voice was as husky as it had been earlier, when she’d begged him to show her the hangar.
So the Poser’s name was Glynn. She used it as if she knew him well. A spike of Matt’s previous jealousy now seemed like bile in his throat.
Cami demanded, ‘I have to get in there. I’m certain this is where the Nazi has his secrets hidden to find the Nazi Blueprint.’
Matt reeled. The Nazi! What on earth did she mean by that? Was that something to do with the person Allan was searching for?
His brain throbbed wit
h unanswered questions. He was quite glad it did: it stopped him thinking too hard about what a fool Cami had made of him.
Inside the hangar, Glynn was tugging on the iron ring. He was a sturdy guy with a muscular upper body, but the ring wouldn’t move.
‘Look!’ Cami pointed up the wall.
High up on the brick pillar, another iron ring was embedded into the back wall of the hangar. Not as large as the one in the floor. This one had a cable attached to it which strung up to the ceiling.
Matt remembered seeing it when he was clearing the hangar and thinking it looked like a yoke to string up an animal carcass.
For a moment, Cami and Glynn stared up. Then Cami darted to a large empty barrel and rolled it towards the wall. ‘Get up,’ she commanded. Matt was impressed that she’d managed to move that fast with her bad leg…until that realisation hit him like another slap across the face.
Glynn stared at her, dumbfounded. ‘And do what?’
‘Can’t you see the loop over there?’ She pointed to where the cable doubled up. ‘Unhook that chain. And drop it down. We’ll attach it to that iron ring.’ She poked the iron ring in the floor with her toe. ‘I think that’s how they open this hatch.’
Glynn climbed up and fumbled for a few minutes with the heavy chain. When he finally released it, the cable swung in a wide arc.
Glynn ducked and knelt on the barrel lid, watching the cable swing from side to side, filling the hangar with echoes as it slapped against the shelf, and again as it crashed back into some large oil tins.
‘Grab it!’ Cami yelled from below him.
Glynn jumped up and tried to reach the cable. He almost got hold of it, but it swung wide again, like a grandfather clock pendulum.
Stretching up, he jumped again, and this time hung onto it. The cable’s momentum pulled him off balance and Glynn cried out and let go. The sudden force sent the pendulum crashing in another direction.
