by David Gilman
The vault was 133 steps below Dartmoor High’s granite walls. Each boy had a safe-deposit box, and in each box, which could be opened only by a key that Mr. Jackson held, was that boy’s life. A passport, a legal guardian’s letter, a parent’s last words. If anything fatal happened to any of the boys’ parents, Mr. Jackson would take him down into the gloomy cavern, open the box and hand the boy a prerecorded message on an MP3 player. It was a final act of love from a father and a mother to their child—the last words the boy would hear from his parents.
The vault gave everyone the creeps—it was as if the dead were waiting.
Max had almost finished rolling T-shirts, cotton shorts and cargo pants. He pulled the compass cord over his head and let it sit below his sweatshirt.
“I know. But I have to get it.”
“Just like that? You get caught and they’ll kick you out.”
“If we get caught, they’ll kick us out,” Max said, giving Sayid a comforting smile that the other boy did not find reassuring.
Stanton had changed his mind. Why would Jackson have phoned the nursing home to inquire about Tom Gordon? Stanton’s people had already checked the place out, and there had been no sign of Max. That was understandable given his father’s condition. So why phone? To reassure a boy about his father? He had underestimated the possibility that Jackson might be canny enough to be suspicious of them.
Jackson had lied; Stanton was beginning to be sure of it. He was protecting one of his pupils. Max Gordon was somewhere in that school, and if somehow Maguire had managed to get any kind of message to him, what would he do? Try to find answers.
Under cover of darkness, Stanton edged the Range Rover beneath the overhang of a hollowed-out rock face. The night shadows swallowed the 4×4 easily, and the shelter allowed a brief respite from the cutting wind. The rain had not come, but a scarring north wind had frozen the last snowfall. From their vantage point, he and a less-than-happy Drew gazed across the hills, beyond the moon-white river, toward the fortresslike Dartmoor High.
Wind crept and growled. Oak beams, hundreds of years old, creaked and twisted, moaning their discomfort like trapped ghosts. In the darkness of the school, only a couple of dim lights glowed at the end of each corridor.
Max’s headlamp cut a wedge into the blackness. Sayid followed him down the stairs, a constant whispering of apprehension, teasing Max’s ear like a draft from below the heavy-paneled doors.
Max stopped. “Sayid,” he said quietly, “shut up.”
“Sorry. But it’s two in the morning and I’ve never liked the dark. And all this creaking and groaning gives me the creeps.”
A door banged closed somewhere. Max turned off the light, grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him into the blackness of the stairwell.
Footsteps. Leather shoes creaking. A cough. A door opening and closing. Somewhere to the left. Max whispered close to Sayid’s ear. “Probably Mr. Chaplin. He’s the only one who wears leather-soled shoes. And he fancies a hot chocolate before he goes to bed.”
“Which is where we should be,” said Sayid, grimacing.
Max led him down the corridor, eased open a set of swing doors, careful not to let the hinges squeak, and finally squatted down in front of Mr. Jackson’s door with his prized multitool pocketknife.
Metal scraped metal inside the old mortise lock. He eased the handle, the lever clicked and he scurried into Mr. Jackson’s office with a huffing and puffing Sayid behind him. He was scared and it made his breathing ragged.
Max gestured. Stay at the door. Listen. Watch. Max knelt in front of the safe. Like the granite of Dartmoor High, it looked solid. It was about the size of an undercounter fridge, had one opening lever and a combination dial. The best plan when robbing a safe is to steal the whole thing and then blow it up later, but Max couldn’t see that happening with only Sayid’s bike for transport and a few bangers from last year’s firework display. A half-empty Pot Noodle cup stood on a shelf next to the safe. Max could just see Mr. Jackson mooching around his bookshelves, putting the container down and forgetting about it.
Memory carries smells and tastes, and as Max pressed his hands against the cold steel, his mind flooded with both.
Hong Kong. Rich spicy food, the soft misty air of steaming noodles. A cacophony of sounds. A trip when he was eleven to meet his parents, who were investigating the massive contamination the Chinese government was inflicting on the rivers and coasts of China. Tom Gordon had been banned from the mainland, and what was supposed to be a few days’ holiday turned into a daily round of arguments between his parents and government officials. He didn’t know the exact details of what was going on, but his mother woke him in the early hours one morning and told him to get dressed. She was packing their holdalls. Where was his dad? he had wanted to know. In the manager’s office sorting things out, she had told him, putting a finger to her lips. The moment her back was turned, Max ran down to the darkened reception area.
A night doorman, feet propped up, snored behind the desk, and a soft glow of light crept beneath the manager’s door.
Max turned the handle and came face to face with his dad, who was kneeling in front of a safe. For a moment he thought his dad was going to strike him—he had moved so quickly. Faster than a striking cobra. It was the trigger of recognition that stopped him from finishing the attack. He quickly closed the door behind Max and eased him to the safe.
“Our passports and laptops are in here. The manager’s been told that the police are coming first thing to interview us. Which could prove awkward,” his dad said, and smiled.
Max was in awe of his father. Everything he did seemed to have such a definite purpose. He just nodded while his dad kept up a whispered running commentary as his fingers delicately tweaked the safe’s dial.
“You have to find the contact points on the lock. You listen for the click. That tells you which way the lock’s drive cams—its levers and arms—are balanced inside.” He had pulled Max’s face to the safe, turned a notch and let him hear the soft click. Max nodded enthusiastically. This was great stuff. Safecracking with his dad!
“Old hotels, old safes. Not that difficult. Look …” There were a hundred numbers on the dial, and his fingers turned the pointer to rest on the number sixty. “That’s called parking the wheels, aligning the clicks you heard, and then you have narrowed down what the combination is.”
His dad caressed the wheel with his fingertips. “Now, when I move the dial, these drive cams click out of place again, left or right. Find which way”—he listened again, head pressed against the safe door—“and you should … get in.”
Max heard a final accepting click. His dad opened the safe and hauled out their papers and their laptops, shoving them into a backpack.
“How did you learn to do that?” Max remembered asking his father when they had finally found the safety of the plane home.
“My dad taught me,” Tom Gordon said, and smiled.
“Max! How did you do that?” Sayid asked as Max opened Jackson’s safe.
“It’s a long story,” he whispered, subduing the prickling emotion he felt at his father’s memory. He found the name-tagged keys he was looking for. “Come on, let’s go.”
“What about the safe?”
“We leave it open. I’ve got to get this key back.”
“We’re coming back?” Sayid felt the wall of his stomach twitch. His family owed so much to Max and his dad. His own father had been assassinated in the Middle East, and it was Tom Gordon who had rescued Sayid and his mother. It was Tom Gordon who’d secured a home in England for them because of the brave work his own dad had done—and because Tom Gordon was a sworn friend, almost like a brother, to his father. His mother taught Arabic at Dartmoor High, and Sayid had never felt safer. Max was his very best friend. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to help him. But he did not want to be caught and kicked out. It was not just his own life that might be ruined—it was his mother’s too.
Max saw the doubt flicker a
cross Sayid’s eyes.
“It’s a piece of cake. You’ll see. Come on.”
But Sayid shook his head.
“Sayid!” Max insisted.
“I can’t. Anything happens and I’ve messed up Mum’s life.”
There was an uncharacteristic look of anger on Max’s face. He needed Sayid to keep watch for him. Now he was chickening out. He checked himself. Sayid was right. He had to look after his mother. He was all she had. Max nodded, patted his shoulder.
“Off you go, mate. I can do the rest and—”
Shrill, heart-stopping ringing tore through the stillness, cutting off Max’s words. An alarm? Had he triggered something? The thousandth-of-a-second thought was immediately dismissed. It was Jackson’s phone.
Sayid flinched. Max nearly dropped the keys as he scrambled to pull Sayid between the safe and office door. A light flickered on in the corridor. Mr. Jackson’s private quarters were down the hall.
Scuffling feet got closer, the door opened and a bleary-looking Mr. Jackson, wearing pajamas with a hastily thrown-on dressing gown, walked straight to the desk, flicked on his desk light and picked up the phone.
Max had squeezed them both into the corner. The open door shielded them, creating a small enclave of darkness next to the safe. He could feel Sayid’s heart thumping as they huddled like two monkeys in a rainstorm.
“Jackson,” the headmaster said into the receiver, unaware that he had walked straight into his office without having to unlock the door.
Max peered round the edge of the safe. Mr. Jackson’s back was to him, but Max could see that the safe door was open enough to be noticed when Jackson turned back to leave the office.
He stretched out, his fingertips catching the heavy door. If the old hinges squeaked, Jackson would surely hear it.
“Bob, what’s wrong?” Jackson said the moment he heard Ridgeway’s voice. The MI5 man worked very unusual hours despite his seniority, but phone calls from anyone at this time of the morning always meant bad news.
Max strained; the safe door edged onto his thumb, the weight of it telling Max that was as far as he could close it. He and Sayid scrunched themselves as small as possible. They could hear only one side of the conversation, but if it was serious, then it might have Jackson’s adrenaline pumping—and that would make him more alert.
“Have the police been to see you yet?” Ridgeway asked.
“The police? No. There’s only a local constable, and there’s enough rural crime to keep him busy. He’ll get here in due course.”
“And Max Gordon—is he at school?”
“Max? Yes. He’s here.”
Sayid flinched. Max felt his muscles tighten. The phone call was about him! At this time of the morning? Was it something to do with his dad? Was he ill? He suppressed the urge to cry out to Jackson and ask what was going on. Sayid’s clawlike grip on his shoulder told him his friend was just as tense.
Jackson was listening to whoever it was on the other end of the phone.
“We’ve got a field office a couple of hours away in Bristol,” Ridgeway said. “I’ve just dragged one of the agents out of bed and told them to get down to you and have a chat first thing.”
“Oh? That sounds ominous.”
“Precautionary. Don’t be too alarmed, Fergus. I would have left this till a more decent time, but I thought you should know I had some feedback on that name you gave me. Velvollisuus.”
“Yes?” Jackson replied cautiously.
“It’s part of a motto.”
“Ah,” Mr. Jackson said, not really knowing what else would be an appropriate response. Mottos and MI5. Perhaps not too strange a mixture.
“Kunnia—Velvollisuus—Tahto. It means ‘Honor—Duty—Will.’ It’s the motto belonging to the Finnish Rapid Deployment Regiment. Special troops.”
“I see,” Jackson said, though he didn’t really. “And what on earth would they be doing here? Training, do you think? Along with our chaps?”
“No, Fergus, it’s nothing like that at all. We have a list of known assets, people who are in place to carry out covert dirty work for whoever pays the highest. You said the name on the man’s warrant card was Mark Stanton.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Real name, Markus Sutinon. Goes by the code name of Riga. Trained with their special forces and went private. Did some rather nasty work for the Russians last time we heard. He speaks perfect English. We don’t know who’s paying him, but if he’s posing as one of us, it must be something big. We haven’t pinpointed his current partner yet. He tends to go through them. They have a habit of dying—violently.”
“I see,” Mr. Jackson said again, the edge of fear now creeping into his voice. “Can you trace him?”
“Doubtful. He’ll have a dozen passports in as many different names. The question is, Fergus, what’s the connection between Danny Maguire, Max Gordon and a hired killer? Charlie, that’s my officer, will be there tomorrow to speak to you and the Gordon boy.”
“Right. I’ll make sure Max is here.”
Mr. Jackson replaced the receiver, bowed his head in troubled thought for a moment, switched off the light and without a glance left or right, turned on his heel and closed the door behind him.
After a moment the hall light went out.
Max and Sayid sighed like two deflating balloons.
* * *
Stanton nudged Drew. The sleeping man was instantly awake but made no sound.
“I was right. He’s there. He’s just busted into the safe in Jackson’s room. I heard two kids talking. Then there was a phone call and they stayed quiet. Jackson answered. Something about the local cops being expected. Sounded low-key to me.”
“So you think there was something in the old man’s safe after all? Maybe Maguire’s letter got here earlier than we thought and he stashed it?”
“Don’t be stupid. We’ve already heard Jackson asking someone if there was anything delivered for Gordon. No, Max was going after something else in the safe,” Stanton said.
“Maybe there’s money in there,” Drew suggested. “Something may have warned the kid and he needs cash.”
“Perhaps,” said Stanton, unconvinced but not knowing what it was Max was after.
Drew put a pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes. Nothing moved. An owl cut across his vision, and a pony shifted its weight as it slept beneath a thorn tree.
“OK,” Drew said. “We’ll wait. If he’s spooked, he’ll run.”
The air was dry from the school’s geothermal heating unit as Max ran quickly down into the pit of darkness. The vault lay buried like an Egyptian tomb. Deeper and deeper the steps went.
He reached the bottom. His headlamp scanned the boxes. Opening his own flooded him with memories of the last time he had been down here. His father had gone missing in Africa, and someone had tried to kill Max. Taking his passport then had been the start of a frightening adventure that left his dad’s mind wrecked and Max a changed boy. He took what he wanted from the box and began the muscle-burning exercise of running back up the stairs.
He had tried to eliminate the self-defeating anger he had felt over the past few weeks by hard physical activity. The sickness of suspicion and doubt had threatened to depress him as it ate away at his love for his father. Nothing could really shake that love—nothing except the thought that his mother had died because his dad had abandoned her in the jungle.
Now, as he pounded up the steep incline toward the faint glow of the corridor far above, he felt as though he had a focus for his pent-up emotions and energy. Danny Maguire was dead but had somehow managed to post the khipu to him. It was a message that needed an expert to decode it.
Max had just taken the first 133 steps toward finding out the truth about his mother’s death.
He closed his laptop’s lid, shoved it into its case and handed it to a waiting Sayid. He had done as much as he could to prepare for his journey.
“Keep this out of the way for me. Once they kn
ow I’ve gone, they’ll search this to see what they can find. Don’t lose any sleep over it, Sayid, but keep them guessing for a few hours, yeah? Then give it to them.”
“OK.”
“You remember everything I’ve asked you to do?”
“My name’s not Baskins.”
“Sorry, mate. Right. Time to get out of here.”
“You’re going now?” Sayid shivered and yawned. It was still dark, and the early hour meant Sayid’s bed beckoned. Unlike Max, he did not have the capacity to ignore the need for sleep or the crushing tiredness fear can bring.
“I have to get across the moor, Sayid,” Max said, pulling on his gloves. “It’ll be light in a few hours. If I hang around, I bet Mr. Jackson will have one of the masters keeping an eye on me, and they’ll find plenty of things to keep me busy until whoever’s planning to come and see me turns up.”
He zipped his fleece, then tightened the Velcro tab on his waterproof leggings. He’d be running part of the way, and the ground would be muddy despite the frost. He pulled his wool cap down over his head, but only to the top of his ears—he needed to hear clearly.
“Thanks for the extra cash,” Max said.
Sayid had raided his sock drawer and pulled out every note he’d stashed there from doing odd jobs on people’s computers. Max had his own small savings pot and the credit card his dad had set up for emergencies. But Max had wanted to avoid using that until the last minute.
“I’ll come downstairs with you,” Sayid said.
“No. Kill the lights and I’ll get going.”
Sayid knew Max was right. His friend could move more easily without having him to worry about. The two boys embraced.
“Take care, Max.”
“I will. Don’t worry, I’ll be in touch. I just have to sort this out.”
Sayid switched off the room’s light as Max settled his backpack onto his shoulders, left the room and walked quickly and silently toward the back door that would lead him to the yard.
Within minutes he had skirted the dark edge of the building, finding clear ground that would leave no footprints. He lifted Sayid’s mountain bike onto his shoulder, edged around the outbuildings and found an animal track etched through the gorse and heather. He ran, balancing the bike as best he could. Clouds were pushing in, hurried along by the north wind, its chill biting through his cargo pants. Tears from the cold filled his eyes.
