To be on the safe side, they waited a while longer before approaching the warehouse, but saw no one. As Ben had predicted, it was empty. The concrete floor had been swept clean. There was a framed poster of a charging elephant on one wall and a desk and chair near the doorway. A grubby black telephone, clipboard, and pen had been provided. A notice requested that visitors “Dial 9 for Site Office.”
“We could ring and say we have a delivery,” said Martine.
Ben was staring at the elephant poster. “Too risky for too little reward. I’m not confident I could make myself sound like a fifty-year-old Namibian truck driver on the phone. Martine, don’t you think it’s a bit odd that they’ve decided to decorate this dusty old warehouse?”
Martine sat down on the chair and began flicking through the pages on the clipboard. The previous day there had been deliveries of bread, milk, fertilizer, and twenty vials of medicine. Marine recognized the name of it, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was for. “Perhaps they were trying to be welcoming.”
“Or conceal something.” Ben pushed the poster aside. Behind it was a green lever. “Hey Martine, look at this. It has fresh oil on it, as if it’s regularly in use. I wonder what it does.”
He tugged at it.
“No!” cried Martine, but it was too late. Before Ben could react, a trapdoor had dropped open beneath his feet. Ben dropped with it. Martine had a fleeting glimpse of his startled face as he twisted away down a chute, then the mechanism purred and the trapdoor snapped shut again.
Twice before in her life Martine had felt a terror so extreme that it was as if she’d been turned into a block of ice. Once was on the night of the fire, and the second time was when she fell into a shark-infested ocean. Now she felt it again.
This could not be happening. She could not have just watched her best friend vanish. She could not be left alone with no food, water, money, passport, or transport in the middle of the Namib desert.
This could not be happening—but, her fevered brain told her, it was.
She was faced with two choices. Either she walked back to the Welcome Center, waited for it to open, and attempted to call the police, who might arrest her for entering the country illegally and refuse to listen to her pleas for assistance.
Or she could pull the lever and follow Ben into a void from which they might never emerge.
She knew which was the smarter choice. She also knew that it would take her a minimum of forty-five minutes to run back to the Welcome Center when she was already weak from hunger and thirst. By then, her best friend, whom she now realized she loved as much as she did Jemmy, her grandmother, Grace, Tendai, and Khan, might have been consumed by whatever it was that waited at the bottom of the chute.
What did wait there? Martine had visions of an underground stream packed with piranhas or a bottomless shaft that went to the molten center of the earth. But even those would be preferable to ending up in the hands of Reuben James and Callum.
So there was the wise decision, or the decision she could make because Ben was her best friend and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. For Martine, there was no contest. She gathered up some pale stones and made another white giraffe, which she laid on the ground behind the warehouse. By some miracle, Gift might stumble across it.
The sky was streaked with pinks and grays and oranges as Martine returned to the stifling shed and pulled the lever. The mechanism gave a small sigh, as if resigning itself to dispatching yet another victim. Her stomach lurched in fear.
The trapdoor snapped open and she was swallowed.
24
Martine had never understood the appeal of roller coasters. It was beyond her why anyone would want their stomach left behind while their body plummeted like a human cannonball and their heart threatened to burst from their chest. Unfortunately, that’s the exact sensation she was experiencing now.
Teeth gritted, she hurtled down a silver chute, flailing helplessly around the corners. Time passed in dentist minutes, the way it did when she was having a filling and the dentist was leaning on her jaw with his drill and talking about his beach holiday with his family while the nurse sprayed water up her nose. She’d have preferred time to go in giraffe minutes. When she was out in the game reserve with Jemmy, whole nights went in the blink of an eye.
Martine popped from the tube like a cork from a bottle and hit the ground hard. It was a relief to find it was cushioned. A soft landing area had been installed to prevent fragile deliveries from being damaged. And if there was one thing Martine was feeling, it was fragile.
She dusted herself off and stood up. She was in a neon-lit room, empty apart from a hotel housekeeping trolley, a sink, and a row of white coats on pegs. There was a door but no windows. An iron-rung ladder rose to meet a hatch in the ceiling overhead. She was trying to decide which exit Ben might have taken when she heard footsteps approaching the door. At the same time, a hand clamped over her mouth.
“Martine, whatever you do, don’t scream,” Ben whispered in her ear. “I’ll wedge something under the door to keep it closed. Go up the ladder.”
Martine recovered from her fright and rushed to do as he said. A key scraped in the lock. Ben had wedged a broom handle under it, but it was already splintering as he shinned up the ladder and clambered out into the morning sunshine.
Two gardeners were trimming the maze not fifty feet away from them. Fortunately, they were talking and didn’t hear anything above the buzz of the hedge trimmers. Martine and Ben had a split second to take in the vivid beauty of the oasis—the brilliant beds of flowers; the cool blue fountain and the soaring, creeper-hung forest rising up a slope toward the white dome; the hotel nestled among its branches like a human version of a community weaverbird nest—and then they were diving into the maze.
Once again, they seemed to have got away with it. They ran along the dewy green passages, backtracking whenever they came to a dead end. They wanted to get as far away from the gardeners as they could before pausing to come up with a plan. The hedges, thick as castle walls, muffled nearly all noise apart from the birdsong, which was as continuous and cheerful as ever.
“You know what’s really peculiar,” whispered Ben, “I haven’t seen a single bird since we got here. Yet they’re chirping and whistling so loudly it’s as if we’ve walked into an aviary.”
“Maybe they’re hidden in the jungle,” said Martine, but goose bumps rose on her arms. There was something creepy about Moon Valley. It was too impossibly perfect.
She wondered where the okapi was. Thinking about him reminded her of Jemmy, and her chest began to ache again. How many days, or weeks, would it be till she saw him again? Would she ever see him again?
Ben squeezed through a narrow gap between the hedges and stopped so abruptly Martine ran into him. In the square center of the maze was a table spread with a starched white cloth and laid with shining silverware and white china plates. On it was a breakfast feast of fruit, apricot juice, water, a selection of cheeses and jams, and a basket of bakery goods. The basket was upended and its contents, fat, buttery croissants, chocolate chip and banana nut muffins, and health breads, were strewn across the tablecloth.
The okapi, which had its front hooves on the table, was gleefully nibbling a muffin and didn’t notice them at first. When it did, it bounded away guiltily, leaving a trail of crumbs in its path.
There was only one chair and a single place laid.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Ben.
Martine grinned. “Well, my first thought was, this has to be Reuben James’s breakfast. My second is, now it’s ours!”
“Martine, you’re a mind reader.” Ben reached for a roll and spread it thickly with butter and strawberry jam. He poured himself some apricot juice and drank it looking over his shoulder, aware that Reuben James could already be on his way.
Martine drank two glasses of water and devoured a chocolate chip muffin and a croissant dripping with butter and honey. She said, “You
do know that our lives will not be worth living if we get caught?”
“Mmmhmm,” Ben mumbled through a mouthful of roll. His eyes were laughing.
Over the relentless singing of the birds came the unmistakable tinkle of cups, saucers, and teaspoons on a tray. Martine and Ben bolted through the gap in the maze just as a waiter stepped into the square and let out a curse. He set down his tray with a crash. “You wicked okapi!” he cried. “Wait until I get my hands on you. Tonight you will be okapi curry. I will serve you up with rice and mango chutney!”
“Okapi curry?” mouthed Martine, horrified.
“If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be in the same pot,” Ben mouthed back. “Follow me.”
Earlier he’d spotted a red thread running along the bottom of some sections of the hedge, which appeared to show the way out. They were stealing along a cool green passage, feeling like mice about to be devoured by cats, when Ben tripped over a wire. Instantly the birdsong ceased. An unnatural silence descended on the valley.
“Oh. My. God,” whispered Martine. “It’s a recording. There are no birds in Moon Valley. I guess it is haunted after all.”
The sudden shutting off of the birdsong CD told the waiter that all was not well in the volcano and that something bigger than the okapi might be to blame for the ruined breakfast. He yelled for the gardeners. They came pounding into the maze, shouting and wielding sticks.
Martine and Ben clung to each other in panic. There was no escape route. Men were coming at them from both directions. They were trapped. The game was up.
From across the desert came the wail of an ambulance siren. It was approaching at speed. All sounds of pursuit ceased. The siren grew louder and louder until it was right inside Moon Valley, where it petered out with a squawk.
Ben peered through a hole in the hedge. “Martine, you have to see this.”
Martine crouched beside him. The ambulance men were carrying a stretcher up the forest paths to the white dome. A door opened and two men in white coats lifted out a bloodied figure, plainly unconscious. The paramedics laid him on the stretcher, checked his pulse, and then whisked him back down the hill.
The gardeners, the waiter, and the men in white coats gathered around the ambulance, watching with anxious faces as the paramedics attempted to stabilize the injured man.
“Ben, this is our chance,” said Martine.
Crouching low, they sprinted from the maze to the hatch. In the storage room below, Ben put on a white coat and used the sink to wash the volcanic dust off his face and hands. Martine was about to do the same, but he stopped her.
“I might be able to pass as a worker, but I don’t think a girl will. But,” he added hastily as Martine opened her mouth to protest, “I have a solution.”
He slid back the curtain on the trolley, removed a pile of towels, and shoved them out of sight beneath the sink. It was a tight squeeze, but Martine managed to wedge herself in.
The hatch opened and a man in a white coat slid down the ladder like a fireman down a pole. He was bald and wearing milk-bottle glasses. His hands were large and hairy. Ben closed the trolley curtain calmly.
“Who are you?” the man demanded. “Why are you wearing a white coat? Those are only for pod workers.”
“I’m the new cleaner, sir,” said Ben. “I apologize if I’m in the wrong clothes. I was still waiting for my instructions when I received an urgent call to mop up . . . to remove some blood.” He whispered the last word.
The man grimaced. “Good thing it’s less than twenty-four hours till they’re gone. Any longer and we’d have a dead body on our hands. If you want my opinion, the old man is losing control. He’s the real deal, but he’s not a magician.”
Ben filled the bucket with soap and water and whipped it into foam with a mop. “Losing control?”
“Of the elephants,” the man said impatiently. “What else? They’ve been cooped up so long they’re on the verge of rampaging.”
25
“The elephants?” Martine said, pulling aside her trolley curtain and trying to wriggle into a more comfortable position. Her left foot had gone to sleep. After the pod worker had helpfully typed in the keypad security code and held the door open for Ben, he’d rushed on ahead, leaving them to negotiate a long tunnel with solar lighting. “That means there’s more than two and there could be a whole herd. I guess we’ve found your Bermuda Triangle, only it’s a white dome in an extinct volcano with fake birdsong.”
“Shh,” said Ben, closing her curtain firmly. “I’m not sure this is a good idea. It would make more sense for us to try to get out of Moon Valley and get help. We don’t want to end up like the man on the stretcher.”
“Of course it’s not a good idea,” retorted Martine. “It’s a terrible idea. But we’ve come this far. We can’t turn back now. The elephants need us.”
The explosion they’d heard in the desert sounded again; only down here it was an express train roar, booming down the corridor. It didn’t last long, and when it was over they heard a discordant hammering. Then that too ceased.
For all her brave words, Martine was cold with fear. She and Ben had traveled thousands of miles and risked everything to try to uncover the truth about Angel’s story and investigate Reuben James’s business dealings. Faced with learning the answers, she realized they might be more than she could bear.
She focused on Jemmy. “I will get back to him, I will get back to him, I will get back to him,” she told herself over and over, like a mantra.
The trolley halted. She heard Ben take a deep breath. “We’re here,” he said. “Ready?”
Martine wriggled her toes in an effort to restore sensation to her foot. “Ready.”
Once, many years ago, Martine’s mum and dad had taken her to a gallery in London. The spirit-lifting paintings of Turner, Van Gogh, and other old masters had made such an impression on her that she’d briefly entertained the idea of becoming an artist, but one picture had depressed her—a vision of hell by Hieronymus Bosch. The artist’s name had stuck in her head because she couldn’t understand what sort of parents would name their child Hieronymus.
Peering through a slit in the compartment curtain, she was reminded of it. It’s not that it actually looked like hell. Far from it. Two-thirds of the vast dome had been transformed into the most remarkable indoor environment any desert elephant could have wished for. Whole dunes had been transported intact, and in between there were acacia trees, a small baobab hung with cream of tartar pods (an elephant treat), and a muddy pond for them to swim in. There was even an elephant play area, with colored balls, sticks, and bells. The roof of the dome had been painted sky blue and had wisps of cloud on it and a few painted birds.
It wasn’t the fake desert that caused Martine such anguish; it was the elephants. There were nineteen of them. All were shackled and all were exhibiting signs of distress. Some were swaying listlessly, eyes half-closed, as if they were lost in a world of their own. One was aggressively destroying an acacia tree, another was feeling every inch of the walls of the dome with her trunk in the vain hope of finding a way out. The rest were just shuffling back and forth in their shackles, variously bored, depressed, or agitated.
As Martine gazed out on the diabolical scene, a pair of white doors opened in the far wall. She caught a glimpse of a laboratory behind, with rows of test tubes and blinking machines. There was a horrible rattling and a steel cage was wheeled out by two white-coated workers. Inside was an elephant. One of the workers pulled a lever and the elephant burst out, was caught short by her shackles, and fell to her knees.
A gaunt man with fine features and caramel-colored skin rushed from the shadows and ran to her side. He was the only person not in a white coat, and his loose trousers and shirt were thin and worn. He stroked the elephant’s wrinkled gray-brown face and tried to soothe her. When a lab worker tried to approach, he sent him away. Gently, he urged the elephant to her feet.
“Gift’s father,” Martine breathed.
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“We’ve got to get out of here and get help,” whispered Ben. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but we’re in way over our heads.”
“Animal experimentation, that’s what’s going on,” Martine said furiously. It took all her self-restraint not to leap out of the trolley. “If we don’t find a way to stop it, that’s what Reuben James will be doing to Jemmy—experimenting on him. And Gift’s father, the so-called elephant whisperer, is involved.”
“You don’t know that.”
“What else would he be doing in this hideous place? It’s not him that’s being kept prisoner and tortured in the lab, is it?”
“Just because he isn’t in handcuffs, doesn’t mean he’s not a prisoner,” Ben pointed out.
“Oi, you? What are you looking at?” A short, stocky pod worker was striding across the dome. “Where’s your ID? What are you doing here?”
“Leave him alone, Nipper,” called the bald man. “It’s his first day on the job. Hey, kid, what’s your name?”
“Ben.”
“All righty, Ben, get your mop and head on over to the lab.”
“Yes, sir!” called Ben. Under his breath he said: “This is about to get very complicated.” He pushed the trolley forward.
Martine risked another glance through the curtain. Gift’s father was leading the traumatized elephant to the muddy pool. Her stride was uncertain and her eyes were locked on Gift’s dad, as if he were a lighthouse in a storm.
Martine realized with a shock that the second part of Grace’s prophecy had just come to pass. The circle—the Moon Valley volcano, that is—had led to the elephants. Now all that remained was the last part. “The elephants will lead you to the truth,” Grace had promised. “Your truth.” Now that she might be on the brink of discovering that truth, Martine wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. What if she didn’t like it? What if the truth was more painful than the not knowing?
The Elephant's Tale Page 12
