“I can’t,” he said.
“You’ve got to.” Rachel’s voice was muffled by the pillow. “Come on!” She grabbed at the corner of the sheet and stuffed it into her mouth. She bit down hard to stifle her cries, then nodded for Adam to continue the torture.
Adam’s hand trembled and tears blurred his vision as the thin blade cut once again into the bloody mess smeared across Rachel’s back. Rachel bucked and snorted with the pain as more blood pulsed to the surface.
“Stop!” Morag squealed, jumping up from the bed, tears streaking her face. “I want to do something…”
Adam wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, leaving a bloody stripe on his cheek. He looked at the little Scottish girl. He was willing to listen to anyone, to do anything that might get him out of this nightmare.
“I might be able to help,” Morag said. “Sometimes when Duncan’s poorly or has a sore knee, I talk to him and it makes it better.”
Rachel raised her tear-stained face from the pillow and looked at the little girl’s round face. She tried to summon a smile. “Talk to me,” she said.
Morag knelt at the head of the bed and took Rachel’s wet face between her chubby hands. Rachel was transfixed by the huge, ice-blue eyes and the halo of curls that glowed in the bedside light.
“I’m going to tell you a story.” Morag’s voice was soft and sweet-sounding. “We are going to a beautiful place far away where the sun is always shining and the sky is always blue and the sea is as green as the grass. We are flying there now, up through the air into the clear, blue sky…”
Rachel felt calmer suddenly as the sing-song voice lulled her, and her mind became full of the deep-blue sky.
“We are flying higher and higher until the earth is way down below, like a ping-pong ball … and we’re getting closer to the beautiful place where the sand is hot and the sea is as warm as a bath … and now we’re there, lying on that sand, feeling the sun warm our bodies, and as each wave laps over us, it washes it away the pain, and we go deeper … and deeper.”
Rachel sighed and felt the warmth creep through her bones, closing her eyes as the warm sea washed it all away.
As she went deeper … and deeper…
Adam removed the blade from the wound.
He held back the thin layer of flesh and fat with the teaspoon and inserted the tweezers. As Morag’s sing-song voice continued and Rachel’s body relaxed, he was himself lulled into an altered state; he felt a strength that guided his hand and focused his mind as the metal dug deep into his sister’s back.
“Got it!” he said. He pulled out a small, metal cylinder, the size of a headache capsule, and dropped it with a “clink” into the glass that Duncan held out for him. “It’s so small…”
Duncan looked away suddenly and smiled. “Michael!” he said.
Adam turned to see that Gabriel was standing silently in the doorway. Morag looked up too, taking her eyes from Rachel’s face and dragging her thoughts from her story.
From somewhere a million miles away, where she had been floating on a calm sea, Rachel came racing back to reality. The vision of the beach and the warm ocean was torn away from her subconscious, vanishing as she came hurtling back towards earth: down, down towards the planet, the continents coming closer, now countries, towns, streets…
Rachel hit the bed with a crash.
She opened her eyes and cried out in agony, instantly able to feel the open gash in her back, the air moving against her exposed, raw flesh. As she tried to raise her head from the pillow a jagged stab of pain tore through her like a hot knife. She turned her head to one side and was violently sick.
Then she passed out.
“Where were you?” Rachel asked.
Gabriel said nothing, continuing to stare off into space, deep in thought, as he had been for most of the time since he’d returned, since he’d been told about the tracking devices that had been implanted back at the Hope Project.
Morag finished applying the makeshift bandage to Adam’s back and nodded as she gazed down at her handiwork. “There,” she said. “All nice and neat. Rachel made a nice job of it. Like a proper surgeon.”
Adam shrugged, wincing a little as the wad of tissue tightened against his skin. “Yeah, well, it was more difficult for me. I had to go first.”
Rachel had cut out the tracking device from her brother’s back as soon as she had been able to stand. Morag once again provided the necessary pain relief with the soothing power of her voice. Now, the two microtransmitters lay on the bedside table; tiny capsules spattered with red, next to the blood-stained razor blade.
Rachel had recovered quickly from her operation and the pain had eased almost as soon as Gabriel had returned. As soon as he’d handed the Triskellion back to her. She’d shoved the amulet deep into her backpack, surprised and concerned at the enormous wave of relief she had felt flooding through her. She had felt jittery without it – vulnerable – and now the realization that she was so connected to this ancient piece of metal, so dependent upon it, was starting to scare her.
She’d seen what it had done to others.
“Gabriel?” Rachel waited until she had eye contact. “I asked where you were.”
“I had something to do,” he said. “I’m sorry if I forgot to ask permission.”
“Yeah, well, we really could have done with you here, you know?”
“It was important.”
“Why did you take the Triskellion?”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed to bright filaments of green. “It doesn’t belong to you. You do know that?”
“I just asked.”
“I needed to … get a signal.”
“Like a cellphone?” Adam asked.
Gabriel smiled, the anger seemingly gone as quickly as it had arrived.
“Maybe you should have a mobile phone,” Morag said. “Then we could get hold of you when you’re not around.”
The smile broadened. “Never really seen the need for one.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Adam said. “We should all get them, in case we’re ever split up.”
Adam and Rachel’s own phones had been taken away from them when they’d first arrived at the Hope Project. When Adam had asked, Laura had explained that they could interfere with the delicate equipment in the labs. He’d believed her, of course. They had both believed all sorts of things back then.
He glanced across at Rachel and she read his thoughts. “One of the smaller lies,” she said.
“No phones,” Gabriel said. He pointed to where the twin transmitters were lying. “If they can do that, don’t you think they’d be able to track us through our phone calls?”
Morag and Duncan nodded thoughtfully.
“I guess so,” Adam said.
“Besides,” Gabriel said, “we have our own way of keeping in touch.”
“I tried,” Rachel said. “I … reached out, tried to make contact, but you weren’t there.” Gabriel looked awkward, as though he were searching for the words to explain things in a way that Rachel would understand. “Because you were using the Triskellion, right?” she continued.
“I was … somewhere else.”
“I guess the line was busy,” Adam said.
Gabriel nodded. “Kind of.”
Rachel flopped down on to the bed, exasperated. She knew it was as much of an explanation as she was likely to get. She pointed at the bedside table. “What are we going to do with those?”
“I presume they’re still transmitting,” Adam said.
“Oh yes.” Gabriel walked across and looked down at the tracking devices, grinning like a naughty schoolboy who’s just come up with a great idea for a prank. “I’m sure they are.” He looked up as a foghorn sounded somewhere out in the Channel, then turned round, suddenly serious. “Right, we need to get moving.”
“What?” Rachel sat up. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“We haven’t had any sleep,” Morag said.
Gabriel picked up
the two tiny capsules, held them out towards Rachel. “They know we’re here. We have to go now!”
Morag and Duncan immediately began to pack, throwing their belongings into their suitcases. Grudgingly, Adam did the same, but Rachel did not move. She sat where she was, staring at the transmitters between Gabriel’s fingers.
“Maybe they’re not really after us,” she said. Gabriel said nothing, waiting. “Maybe they just want to see where we’re going.”
Gabriel stared at Rachel for a moment. Her suggestion had clearly hit home. “I think you might be right,” he said.
“I mean … don’t you think we escaped a bit too easily?” she asked. “What if they let us walk out of there?”
For half a minute Gabriel said nothing, but Rachel could see his mind was racing, as if he was reconsidering their options. And whatever conclusion he was reaching was not one he had entirely bargained for.
Adam looked up from his packing. “Where are we going anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said. “Either way we need to go.”
Rachel began to pack away her things, but kept one eye on Gabriel, as frightened by his uncertainty as anything else. Whatever her doubts had been, he had always seemed so … sure of everything. Now he looked disturbed. There was a sadness too that she was reluctant to acknowledge, but which gnawed at her as she thought about where he had disappeared to. Whatever it was that had been so important.
She looked across at Adam and sensed that he felt the same: they had both, finally, realized that Gabriel was not theirs.
Mr Cheung’s kitchen was crowded, but remarkably quiet. There had been a different atmosphere throughout the Hope Project complex since the children had escaped. There was still plenty to do, of course, but it was as though everyone was waiting for something to happen. For the next stage of the operation to begin.
Laura Sullivan carried her plate across to a corner table and sat down opposite Kate Newman. For five minutes they sat in virtual silence, while all around them lab technicians, security staff and archaeological assistants ate their breakfasts and murmured to one another. Conversations were now a little easier, since there was no longer a need for dark glasses or inhibitors.
Mr Cheung bustled across to the table and stood at Kate’s shoulder. He pointed down to the plate of untouched scrambled eggs in front of her. “Something you don’t like?”
Kate Newman said nothing, waiting for Mr Cheung to go away.
“You should eat something,” Laura said. “You’ll feel better.”
“Will I?”
“The drugs were for your own good, Kate. To help with the depression, to keep you calm.”
Kate looked straight past Laura; her eyes everywhere. Anything but calm.
Laura pushed cereal around her bowl. “Why don’t you want to talk to me?” She waited, but got no reaction. “I understand how you feel, you know.”
Kate looked up. “Really? Have you lost any children?”
“They’re not lost.”
“So where are they?”
Laura took a second or two. She had been given no instructions to keep it secret. “They’re in France.”
“France? What the hell are they doing in…?” Kate gave up before she’d finished the question; her head dropped as though the hopelessness of her situation was more than she could bear.
Given the shocking things that Kate had learned about her own children from Laura since she’d been in England, the idea of them now being in France did not come as so much of a surprise. It just meant that they were further away from her. Again.
“We don’t know,” Laura said. “Really, we don’t. We’re guessing they’re headed for another site. You know, something like the one we found in Triskellion. Not that we know why…” She let out a heavy sigh. “Like I said, we’re guessing.”
Another long minute passed. Laura winced at the sound of cutlery being scraped across a plate on the adjacent table. When Kate finally spoke, her voice was no more than a whisper, but there was steel in it.
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
“I know why you are interested in them, but you swore that they wouldn’t come to any harm.”
“I meant it. I still mean it. They may even be safer there.” Laura took a deep breath.
“So you really have no idea why they went to France? Where they might be headed?” Kate raised her head, enough menace in her smile to make Laura draw back a little from the table. “You’re sitting there telling me you know how I feel, like you’re on our side. Making out like you care about Rachel and Adam—”
“I do care.”
“And all the time you’re just after information.”
“I’m trying to help, Kate.”
Kate stared hard across the table, unblinking. Her eyes never left those of the woman opposite her, even as her hand was reaching for the knife and tightening round it. “There’s not much I can do, stuck in here, I know that. But I can be honest with you. Would you like that?”
Laura nodded, said that she would.
“Good. Because if anything happens to my children, anything at all, I promise I will kill you. You understand that?”
Laura mumbled a “yes,” but her eyes never left the knife. Kate smiled again and let the blade drop on to the table as she pushed back her chair and stood up. She saw the relief in Laura’s eyes and used that second of relaxation to grab the coffee cup and hurl the liquid into the archaeologist’s face.
Laura screamed.
Mr Cheung came dashing across to help, but Laura raised a hand to let him know it was OK. That she was OK. She sat and watched Kate Newman walk out of the room, feeling the tears come.
Pathetically grateful that they were hotter than the coffee had been.
They had just about warmed up by the time the train rumbled through the Paris suburbs into the Gare du Nord.
They had spent the early hours of the dawn on a cold, flat beach in Calais, huddled together in front of a small row of beach huts which had protected them from the worst of the wind. Gabriel and Adam had lit a fire and Rachel had wrapped the little twins in the blankets that they had taken from the hotel. They had all fuelled themselves on a slab of dark chocolate and the last of a bottle of milk. As the two sets of twins had become increasingly cold, Gabriel had strolled up and down the dark beach, apparently impervious to the chill, staring out to sea, as if looking for something.
Looking for someone.
As soon as it had become light, they had walked the half kilometre to the train station. They had been glad of the exercise. Happy that it had restored feeling to their feet and hands, and happier still to see the orange lights of the station platform glowing ahead of them, promising escape.
“What time’s the train?” Adam had asked, not really expecting anyone to have had an answer.
“First one’s 05.48,” Duncan had said. “Arriving in Paris at 09.23.”
Rachel and Adam had laughed, despite the cold and lack of sleep, and Adam had ruffed Duncan’s hair. “The boy’s a genius,” he’d said.
“He’s got a good memory,” Morag had agreed.
“But the 06.29 is better.” Duncan had continued, getting into his stride. “It takes forty-four minutes less, stops at fewer stations and arrives three minutes earlier at 09.20.” Then he had become silent again.
“Perfect timing,” Gabriel had said.
They had trudged on towards the station, happy enough, though Rachel was still unsure as to just what the timing was perfect for.
Now, after a three-hour train journey, they walked out between the columns of the Gare du Nord into a chilly Paris morning. This was France as Rachel had imagined it: less like grey, industrial Calais and more like the pictures she had seen at school. She smiled as a man walked past, holding a long stick of bread under his arm. Small motorbikes and mopeds raced down the street, missing oncoming taxis and cars by millimetres. Horns honked and the mopeds buzzed away from them like angry bees. Past the q
ueue of taxis and across the street, a cafe was already busily serving customers at small, round tables. Rachel, Adam, Morag and Duncan wove through the traffic, following Gabriel, who seemed oblivious to the congestion that surrounded him.
They sat at a table while a waiter, smart in a black waistcoat and white apron, took their order for breakfast: coffee, hot chocolate, croissants.
Rachel cradled the bowl-sized cup of milky coffee in her hands, enjoying its warmth as much as its comforting smell.
Opposite, the rows of statues that decorated the classical front of the station gazed impassively over the city. Some metres beneath them, under the station awning, several street entertainers were beginning to set up for the day. One was painted from head to toe in gold: hair, hands, face, clothes, shoes, hat, umbrella. He moved slowly and deliberately, setting up a wooden plinth, also painted gold. He put his hat on the pavement, ready for contributions, then mounted the plinth.
He struck a pose, held it statue-like and began to stare out across the street.
A dozen Métro stops away, the Englishman shuffled painfully into the Cafe Meteor for his usual breakfast. He placed his stick on the bench beside him and took out a laptop computer from his shoulder bag. He sat down and booted it up.
“Un café, m’sieur … et un calvados.” The waiter laid down black coffee and the small glass of strong, apple brandy that the man always ordered. The Englishman grunted his approval, then, with a shaky hand, pushed back the front of his hood, before draining the brandy in a single gulp.
The email browser appeared on his screen and, once the laptop had found the cafe’s Wi-Fi connection, he watched as mail began to stack up in his in box. He deleted the usual spam with a few lazy clicks, then began to read the messages that really interested him.
The messages from those who were pledging their help.
The croissants and coffee had not long been finished before Gabriel began to seem agitated. He walked back through the traffic to the station, pacing back and forth underneath the awning and looking up and down the street.
The Burning Page 12
