by David Gilman
Max had a blurred vision of the man who straddled him. It was like a slow-motion movie. The man said nothing, grabbed Max’s hair and raised a fist. One thing Max knew without any doubt was that, unlike in the movies, when someone hits you in the face, a real punch can shatter bones and kill. This was real.
He squirmed and bucked, twisting his body. Split-second convulsions powered from somewhere deep inside his brain. Max reared up, baring his teeth like an animal, spitting in the man’s face.
The man was too heavy to push off, but it made him falter. Then, in the moment that he regained his balance, a tree trunk moved, blotted out the faltering light and fell across him. Max’s assailant was crushed and made only the briefest sound as the air wheezed from his lungs. The tree trunk stood up. It had only one arm, but it yanked Max to his feet.
The ex-commando dragged Max and held him effortlessly against an old oak. “Quiet,” he whispered, his eyes scanning the uneven shadows. Satisfied there was no one else out there, he let Max go.
“Thanks, Marty. I dunno who that bloke is, but he’s the third nutter who’s had a go at me.”
Marty was still cautious, but the danger seemed to have passed. No doubt security cameras would have picked up something. He could probably convince the nursing home staff that the man who lay prone was the intruder—Max would be long gone by then.
“What are you into? Tell me.”
Max knew he could trust his dad’s caregiver, and there was no time for long-winded explanations.
“The truth about my mum. Someone sent me a message. I’m gonna find out what it’s all about. Some phony MI-Five guys came to the school. A friend of mine was killed. Everyone thinks it was suicide. I don’t think it was.”
“Bloody hell, Max. You don’t half get yourself into trouble.”
“It finds me. Marty, I have a lead. I’ve got to try and sort this out. Please. If I go to the police, they’ll laugh at the evidence I have. Meanwhile, someone out there is trying to stop me.”
“All right. Look, you’re wrong about your dad. There has to be an explanation.”
Max said nothing, the anger still sitting like acid in his gut.
Marty nodded. “OK. Get out of here. My guess is the cops’ll get nothing out of this bloke. You call me when you need help. You get the info about your mum, and I’ll bet you’ll find out what really happened to your dad. Go on.”
Marty gave Max a push into the darkness. He ran for the wall, hit it at a run, reached up, grabbed the top and belly-rolled down the other side. Then he was back on the street. A bus turned the corner. He ran to the stop, flagged it down and jumped aboard.
It didn’t matter where it was going; it got him away quickly and anonymously from the area—away from any other prying eyes. Once he reached the city, it would be time to contact Sayid to see if he’d done what Max had asked.
Riga’s second man, whose job it had been to cover a different section of the nursing home’s wall, sprinted to the corner just as Max’s bus turned away. He swore aloud in frustration. However, had anyone been passing, they would not have understood the Serbian.
This was not good. This was going to upset Riga. He pressed a button on his mobile phone.
“Max Gordon has escaped, and Yevko has not come back. There are two police cars driving onto the grounds. What shall I do?”
“Pray I am in a good mood when you return,” Riga said.
Max found a hole-in-the-wall café. Barely large enough for a couple of tables, it offered milk shakes and sandwiches the size of a brick.
He checked his phone—a single text message: two letters.
MW
That was Sayid’s signal. Max had told him not to phone but to leave a message on the networking site DTYP—Don’t Tell Your Parents—and drop the information that Max needed into that. If anyone was going to start digging through Max’s computer, which he was sure the authorities would already be examining, then they wouldn’t find much. Except, of course, the information he had downloaded on Lionel Blacker, PhD, senior lecturer in South American studies at the University of Oxford: the man who had visited Dartmoor High and given the lecture on khipus.
It was only a matter of time before a trail to the Oxford lecturer would be picked up. How long did Max have? The man he wanted to speak to was a block away. It was dark now, and he needed somewhere to sleep, but he couldn’t afford anywhere in the city. If everything went according to plan over the next few hours, he would get to the airport and sleep on a bench.
“Is there an Internet café anywhere around here?” he asked the woman from behind the counter who was fastidiously cleaning his table.
“Two streets left, scruffy place, on the corner.”
Skunk Alley was the name of the Internet café. There were ten computers sitting on grubby Formica tops, and it cost a couple of pounds to access his webmail. The girl at the till had a glaze across her eyes that told Max she might have been inhaling more than the city’s car fumes.
MW. Magician’s Web. That was what held the information. He clicked on the exploding star logo, settled the headphones on his ears and saw Sayid’s face appear.
His friend was agitated. The connection wasn’t great—Sayid’s features flickered and the audio faltered—but it gave Max everything he needed to know.
“Tickets are booked just like you asked. There are two file attachments I’ve put with this vid. An MI-Five agent came and questioned us. She was horrible. Her name’s Charlie Morgan. She’s young, short black hair, purple and red tufts, stud in her nose, Goth jewelry. Looks like she could go undercover in a zombie film. Scary. She threatened me and Mum.”
Max said a silent apology to his friend. Sayid and his mother had suffered enough at the hands of extremists. He hated the thought that a British agent would stoop to that kind of questioning, but that was the real world, not some kind of fantasy computer game. That was what grown-ups did—came on so heavy you couldn’t fight them.
“So I gave them your laptop. Everything else just as you planned. The man you wanted to see is expecting you tonight. I phoned him. He’s cool. Seems a nice bloke. I did those letters you wanted—they were on your laptop when they took it.” Sayid gazed at the webcam. Max could almost feel his concern as his friend pushed his face closer, as if whispering. “Max, Mr. Jackson is really upset. He thinks he’s let you down by not keeping you here. I haven’t said anything—I can’t, can I? Because if I do, Morgan will blackmail me, yeah? I told him I knew nothing about you cracking the safe. I’ll play dumb. Don’t worry.” Sayid fell silent for a moment. “Max, I don’t know if any of this is gonna work. They could be waiting for you.” He nodded, gave a brave smile and a thumbs-up. Then he reached out and switched off the webcam.
Now all Max had to do was get to the man who was expecting him and who, he hoped, could decipher the khipu.
Max felt a surge of hope and excitement. He was sure he would learn more about Danny Maguire and how the dead boy could have known about his mum.
Charlie Morgan broke every speed limit to get to Oxford. A few well-placed phone calls had cleared her path down the motorways. Frustrated traffic cops watched her blitz by but grudgingly acknowledged they didn’t have a car fast enough to catch her. Traffic cameras would pick up her plate, and the courts could decide whether anyone was above the law or not. It had to be something important, though, for such a high-level clearance.
She parked the bike and made her way toward the pillars, flashing her warrant card at the security guard on the main door.
The boy was obviously after answers. Professor Blacker had visited Dartmoor High and given them a lecture on khipus. She would wait in the library. Blacker didn’t have to know anything more than that they were looking for a runaway boy. And when Max Gordon turned up, she would be there. She wasn’t going to risk losing him—it appeared he was a tough little rat.
Max angled his way through the narrow lanes. He had checked the city street map earlier, but the crisscrossing alleyways still ca
ught him out. He needed a quick fix on his direction. He looked up to the rooftops. Television satellite dishes in the UK point south. He was on track. Moments later he found the small Museum Street, and at the end of it was the imposing building he was searching for. The huge pillars proclaimed the building’s status—a seat of civilization and knowledge.
There were still people about, even though it was getting late. He took his time, found a darkened area behind one of the huge pillars and looked around. Security guards lingered at the main entrance, a few tourists huddled in small groups and academic-looking types flitted across the main yard toward the east end of the building. That was where the offices were. Was the man he’d come to see in there?
He unfolded the city tourist map. There were more than thirteen acres of buildings, and the place he wanted was not shown. He did not have time to search for it. They would be closing the doors to the public in less than half an hour. Max approached a security guard.
“I’m looking for the Anthropology Library,” he said.
The man, used to questions all day, simply nodded, pointing through the huge main doors. “Across the central hall, through room twenty-four, down the north stairs. It’s there. And it’s about to close,” he warned.
Max was already moving. A massive Roman lion built of stone, standing meters high, guarded the entrance. Maybe it once stood at the gates of the Colosseum, watching bloody fights to the death. He moved into the building’s central hall. It was vast, the size of Wembley Stadium. Max hoped there were no modern-day gladiators waiting to attack him.
The skeleton framework forty meters above his head supported the glass ceiling, but the opaque glass now stopped any semblance of city lights coming through. A honeycomb roof, trapping everyone below. Max felt like a worker bee desperately trying to complete his task. Huge wooden doors stood open before him. Other side rooms were being closed by the security staff, heavy chains and padlocks rattling through handles, securing interleading glass doors. Max lengthened his stride. He dared not miss this meeting. He ran through the gallery, past the exhibition cases. The room was labeled LIVING AND DYING. He hoped that wasn’t a bad omen.
Max found the north stairs. The last few tourist stragglers were making their way out of the building’s rear entrance. Another security guard stood ready to lock up. Max had left it too late. The glass doors to the library were on his left and they were locked. Max rattled them. A keypad was the only way in. There were still lights on inside, but no sign of anyone.
“Hey!” the security guard called. “It’s closed.”
“I have to see someone. I have an appointment. He’s expecting me.”
“Not at this time of night, son. C’mon. Think you’d better be off.”
Desperation triggered a surge of energy. Max rattled the glass doors, pushed his face against the slim join between them and shouted into the book-filled room. “Please! It’s Max Gordon! I must speak to you!”
“All right! That’s enough.” The security guard moved quickly toward him. A shadow appeared behind Max. An older man, wispy hair unkempt, wearing a rather dilapidated jacket over a faded cardigan, unlocked the door.
“Evening, Freddie,” he said to the guard. “My fault. Entirely my fault. I was expecting this young man.” He waved the guard away in gentle dismissal. As he ushered Max into the library, Max noticed there were crumbs clinging to his front; some lay captured by the spectacles hanging from a cord round his neck.
“I was just having an Eccles cake and a cup of tea while perusing an extremely boring unpublished manuscript on the elongated shape of Mayan heads. The writer thought such deformed heads indicated they were originally extraterrestrials. Any fool knows they bound their children’s heads to misshape them.” He brushed a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “I was expecting you, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, sir. My name is Max Gordon, and I wanted to talk about Danny Maguire.”
The old man straightened up. Any guise of dreamy forgetfulness suddenly cleared from his eyes.
“And you have brought the khipu with you?” he asked eagerly.
Charlie Morgan watched Professor Blacker stack manuscripts and files into the crook of his arm. He switched off the library lights and made his way to the door where she waited.
“I think you may have wasted your time, Officer,” Blacker told her as he clicked the door closed. “I doubt this boy you’re looking for is coming here. Certainly not tonight.”
“And he has made no contact with you?” Morgan said.
“None. Bit of a wild-goose chase by the sound of it. Well, I’d better be off. Papers to mark before tomorrow. Good night.”
Morgan gnawed her lip. Max Gordon would have been here by now.
“He’s fooled us,” she muttered to herself. “He’s laid a false trail. Where is he?” She called after Blacker, “Professor, is there another academic who might know about khipus?”
* * *
London groaned and coughed with the millions of people who lived, worked and visited. Dozens of languages whispered in the back alleys, called to friends, shouted in argument or promised undying love to another.
But where Max sat in the Anthropology Library of the British Museum, all was quiet. The museum had closed; the lights had flickered down, leaving shadows of giant statues watching blindly over the great halls.
Sayid had done his homework, just as Max had asked. He’d hacked into the school’s mainframe computer and found the man who had sponsored Danny Maguire’s request to spend a couple of years in South America: Dr. Raymond Miller, curator of South American ethnography at the British Museum.
When the efficient and threatening Ms. Morgan had swept quickly through Max’s files at Dartmoor High, she had seen no mention of the curator’s name. It had been tucked away in a cyber-vault by a fourteen-year-old boy who felt a warm glow at getting his own back.
“Khipus are devilishly difficult to decipher,” Dr. Miller said as he fingered the knotted cords. “Some of them are the size of grass skirts. Huge things. The main cords can often be five or six meters long. Specialists have spent years and years getting to grips with the messages they hold. But this one …” His fine-boned fingers teased the cords apart. “This is quite simple. It is, I should say, not genuine, but made, I am sure, by our young friend Danny Maguire.”
“Then he was trying to tell me something,” Max said.
“It is crude and amateurish, but that is not a criticism. It is a fact. One could expect little else, but it was a clever thing to do. Young Maguire must have known there were people wanting this information—why, we cannot say—so he did his best. Bless him. I liked that boy.”
Max could barely restrain his impatience. The academic was taking so long to tell him anything, but he did not want to rush the elderly man, desperately hoping his knowledge would be the key.
Dr. Miller rambled on about how a khipu’s main cord was always thicker than the pendants tied on to it. How the different knots meant different things, how the colors dyed into the knots were significant. Come on! Tell me! Max shouted in his head, but sat on his hands in case his irritation began to show.
Fancy loops and dangles, entwined knots and subsidiary cords all made up a fascinating and confusing intricacy from an ancient people who were thought to be illiterate. Not so, Dr. Miller assured him. Finally he gave a sigh and a grunt of understanding at what lay between his fingers. He pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. He looked at Max and saw the boy’s controlled agitation.
“Forgive me. I’ve been going on, haven’t I? I’m sure you don’t want an anthropological explanation of khipus’ origins. This is important to you; I can see that. Look here, these knots are stained red. Traditionally that means ‘soldiers’ or ‘armed men.’ The arithmetic is simple. Each knot means ten; joined knots like these three mean thirty. Thirty armed men—here.” He fingered another knot. “A temple. These other knots denote men and women. These mean clusters of children. Or so it would seem. One can nev
er be certain. Khipus guard their knowledge like sacred secrets.”
Max tried to picture the message in his head. Armed men near a temple where there were women and children. Though it seemed the children were separate. What did this have to do with his mum?
“Danny was trying to tell me something about my mother. But she was nowhere near Peru, where Danny was studying. She was in Central America.”
“Is this about your mother?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s dead.”
Dr. Miller grunted. “Oh, I see.”
Max pulled out the photos taken of his mother in the rain forest. “These are the only clues I have.”
The professor settled his glasses and quickly thumbed through the pictures, then handed them back to Max. “Right, come on. I’ll show you something.”
He ushered Max back into the corridor, up the stairs that led out onto Montague Street and through the room Max had crossed to get to the library. It was dark now, except for the exhibits’ distorted shadows looming grotesquely up the walls.
The interleading doors to each of the galleries left Max’s head spinning. He was losing all sense of direction. Even though he followed Dr. Miller’s rapid footsteps, it felt as though he was being led into a labyrinth. A moment of regret tugged at him. He wished he’d picked up a museum map from the visitors’ desk. Don’t go blindly into a place of danger. Wherever possible, know your ground—Dad’s words as he once pointed out a difficult route on a map. That’s what maps are for. Max’s thoughts swirled. His dad hadn’t needed a map when he ran away and left his wife to die!
