The Devil's Breath

by David Gilman

  Max and !Koga pushed themselves onwards; Max was convinced that, if his father’s cave message had shown them the way, there would be other clues waiting somewhere ahead. They ran across the open savannah flecked with thorn trees, moving deeper into more shaded areas. Soft-topped grasses undulated, their feathered tips touched with dust and sunlight. It was getting too hot to move at this pace, and Max slowed to a walk, but !Koga urged him on: he would crouch and, with extended thumb, point out animal tracks to Max, explaining that predators had also sought shade but were far enough away not to pose any immediate danger. Finally !Koga knelt and placed his hand in a darkened blemish in the sand: the remains of an old fire. “They are near.”

  “Who?” Max asked.

  “Those who helped your father. My family.”

  When Mike Kapuo took Kallie home, his wife, Elizabeth, hugged her, let her soak in a hot bath, and then fed her the usual scrumptious meal that she always managed to feed to her family. Two sons, a daughter and now grandchildren, not counting waifs and strays like Kallie, all sat around the big kitchen table next to the solid-fuel stove that Elizabeth Kapuo refused to be parted from, even though they sweltered in the summer months. It was as comfortable a family home as anyone could wish for, and Kallie was envious. The pain of her own parents’ divorce had never left her. Her father was like a modern-day buccaneer. He was a free spirit who would die for his family, but getting him to stay at home was impossible. Kallie had grown up quickly, and being stuck out on the farm gave her a stubborn strength, but while she was wrapped in the warmth and friendliness of the Kapuo family, she allowed herself to relax. Finally, unable to swallow another morsel of food, she gratefully fell into bed.

  She woke up the next day with dawn still an hour away. Suburban sounds had roused her from fractured dreams. The house still slept and, as she made her way towards the kitchen to make coffee, she walked past a room whose door was slightly ajar. A shaft of light cut into the passageway. There was a gentle scratching sound which she could not identify. She carefully opened the door wider. Mike Kapuo obviously used the room as an office. The desk lamp was still on and papers and files were evident—Mike had probably been working late. A cat was licking itself on the desk, its claws gripping the sheets of paper beneath it. That was the scratching noise Kallie had heard. The cat had obviously spent a comfortable, undisturbed night under the warmth of the lamp. But then Kallie’s movement at the door made it leap from the desk in fright, scattering papers across the floor.

  Kallie muttered under her breath. Why hadn’t she just minded her own business? She scooped up the papers and tapped them together into a tidy pile, but as she went to put them back on the desk she saw a name typed on a sheet of paper and the air suddenly became even colder. Tom Gordon: Missing, Presumed Dead. It was a police report, dated a couple of weeks earlier. She scanned the single sheet. It was a cursory read, full of police jargon; a pseudoformality that police forces all over the world adopted, as if the clunky language made it all the more serious. She didn’t care, she kept reading. It had obviously been a search conducted with limited resources, which would have made it virtually impossible to find anyone presumed injured in the thirstland.

  She thumbed through the rest of the papers. At least a dozen sheets had something to do with Max’s father. It took her only a few moments to realize that the papers the cat had spilled belonged in a folder that had been left open on the desk. She went to the door, quickly checked that no one was moving in the house, eased the door closed again and got down on her knees. She spread the sheets out on the floor, angling the lamp down.

  The folder contained a description of the missing man, reports from search teams, the one-page summary she had just read and a photocopy of the area searched. There was nothing that seemed to offer any new evidence or information about Tom Gordon. She put the papers back together and put the file back on the desk. As she did so, her fingers touched another file, closed this time, but with the edges of photographs showing. She opened the folder. The black-and-white pictures were of a man’s body being pulled out of the harbor. Photo after photo taken by a police photographer. The victim finally ended up on his back, the feet of the policemen, just in frame, turned away from him. They had done their job now. It all had the cold, calculating feel of distant emotions, of routine. Of matter-of-fact death.

  A square of official information had been glued to the top left of the picture. Date and time when the photos were taken, the name of the police photographer and finally the name of the deceased.

  Leopold. Anton Leopold.

  And someone had scribbled a reminder to themselves on a Post-it note, stuck to the inside of the folder. The pictures of the dead man were bad enough, but the message made her feel physically sick: Tell Peterson.

  Thousands of kilometers away, the mists of Dartmoor settled, refusing to move until the next weather front shifted them with a hefty gust of wind. Life was going on as normal for Sayid despite his frustration at not being able to get into Mr. Peterson’s room to bug his phone. Having practiced on his own room’s door lock, he had learned how to tease the tumblers and open it, but Peterson’s door had a more efficient lock and he failed in his attempt to pick it. If only everything were electronic, he would have had it hacked and opened in minutes. What was the good of progress if these archaic door-locking devices were still around? He kept the small transmitter tucked in his pocket in case he saw Peterson leave his door open. He would need less than thirty seconds to slip the bug into the telephone’s casing.

  After Kallie’s telephone call, Sayid sent an email through to Farentino, using the name Magician, just as Max had instructed him, ensuring his own identity could not be traced or revealed. He told Max’s protector what he knew—which was precious little. There was the information about Eros in Namibia; that someone called Leopold was supposed to meet Max; that someone powerful was going to cause chaos out there and that Max … well, Max was totally alone and could not be contacted. Sayid also told Farentino that a local girl had helped Max move northeast. And that was all he knew. Sayid decided not to mention Mr. Peterson until he found out more for himself—he desperately needed to get that bug into his telephone.

  Sayid walked determinedly along the corridor to check once more if Peterson had left his room, giving him another crack at the lock. Thoughts of Max weighed heavily on his mind when suddenly Peterson’s voice echoed along the granite walls. “Sayid! One moment.” Sayid stopped in his tracks, caught completely off guard by Peterson’s stealth. One minute he wasn’t there, the next … “Where are you off to, Sayid?”

  “I was … er … I was … I went to see Mr. Simpson about the details for next week’s cross-country run,” he lied quickly, clutching the transmitter in his pocket.

  “Mr. Simpson is supervising homework. You know that.”

  “Yes, sir. I lost track of time. Anyway—he wasn’t there. Obviously … because he’s … as you say …” It was all getting very lame, but Peterson seemed not to notice.

  “I want to talk to you. I think my room might be best.” And he walked the few paces past Sayid and opened the door that Sayid had tried so assiduously to break into.

  Given Mr. Peterson’s appearance of being clumsily attired, there was a surprising formality to his room. The books were neatly stacked and, from Sayid’s first glance, seemed to be in order of category: geography, history, biography, caving, mountaineering, English literature. The desk was composed of two doors, balanced at each end by a couple of two-drawer filing cabinets as a base, so there was a great amount of space for the tidily stacked papers and the big map that lay, spread out, across it. Boots (wiped clean of mud), trainers and cross-country sandals sat on a shoe rack. It was a small room, kept under strict control. No television, but a digital radio and CD combination, and a set of wireless headphones hooked on a purpose-made stand. Classical music CDs nudged language discs, which in turn nestled next to a wide variety of contemporary music.

  “What?” Peterson asked,
as Sayid looked around his room.

  “It’s a heck of a tidy place, sir.”

  “I suppose it is. I don’t see it that way. To me it’s … ordered. When you’re climbing, you need to know where every bit of kit is, sometimes in a hurry. It’s less stressful knowing where things are, as I learned when I was in the army.”

  “I didn’t know you were in the army, sir. I thought you climbed mountains before you became a teacher.”

  Sayid’s brain was racing. If Peterson had been in the army, was he still connected somehow? He had read that some ex-soldiers worked in security or as mercenaries. What if someone had paid Peterson to arrange the attempt on Max’s life? Sayid had to work hard to keep his imagination under control. He was in the room, and that was all that mattered. Now he had to keep things rolling until he could find a way of getting the small transmitter into Peterson’s phone. He edged around the room. A cordless phone sat on one corner of the desk. The slide-off battery compartment on the handset might not offer enough room for the bugging device, but the base unit would serve just as well. Better, in fact, because the phone signal would go through there from the handset.

  While he tried to think how to pull it off, he studied some watercolors on the wall, which weren’t badly executed. One of them held Sayid’s attention. It was of a mighty snow-covered peak—higher than those surrounding it. The setting sun bruised the sky, absorbed by the snow. Peterson noticed his interest. “Mount McKinley,” the teacher told him.

  “Alaska,” Sayid answered.

  Peterson smiled and nodded. His geography teaching hadn’t fallen completely on deaf ears then. He poured water into a kettle. There were two mugs, two spoons, sugar and milk.

  “Did you climb it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How high is it?” Sayid said, buying time.

  “Twenty thousand three hundred and twenty feet—the north peak is a few hundred less. I still think in feet when it comes to mountains.” Peterson was making coffee for them both without asking if Sayid wanted any.

  “Why not take pictures, sir? Why paint them?”

  “Ah, well. Anyone can take a photo. Painting requires a certain eye, a certain attitude. I suppose it’s almost a kind of meditation. You sit there, get absorbed by the subject … it’s a skill I don’t have.”

  “Then you didn’t paint these?”

  Peterson handed Sayid the mug of coffee, studied the map on his desk for a moment, and turned it slightly so that Sayid could see it more clearly. It was a map of Namibia.

  “No, I didn’t. Max’s father did.”

  Max’s father! Max had never mentioned to Sayid that Peterson knew his dad, and Sayid was certain that, if it was true, then Max certainly didn’t know about it. And if that was the case, why wouldn’t Max’s dad have told him? Peterson had to be lying, trying to draw Sayid into giving information. It was sinister. Peterson was studying him closely and Sayid suddenly felt that his geography teacher was a lot more than he seemed.

  “Max never went to Canada.”

  “He didn’t?” Sayid hoped his look of surprise was convincing.

  “Has he contacted you?”

  “No, I thought he was just getting over everything.

  Y’know, the attack and his dad …” He shrugged, there was nothing more to add.

  Peterson tapped the map. “I know he’s in Namibia.”

  Sayid gazed at the outline. It looked huge and empty—Blimey, Max, where are you? Sayid had to string this out as long as he could. “Namibia,” he muttered as if he weren’t sure where it was.

  Peterson smiled. “Namibia. You know where I mean.”

  “Oh yes, sir. I just can’t believe he’s there. I mean, why Namibia?”

  Peterson watched him for a moment. Sayid felt as though he was being scanned by a magnetic resonance-imaging machine. Peterson’s eyes seemed to go right through him. Sayid felt his stomach quiver. Peterson was starting to scare him, yet he had said nothing threatening or ominous.

  “I want to find Max,” Peterson finally said. “I want to help him. I believe he’s in grave danger and I know people who can get to him, who might just save his life. He’s out there in the wilderness and he’s not equipped to survive. Whatever you can tell me will help him. Do you understand?”

  Sayid nodded. These “people” were probably the ones hunting Max right now. Sayid remembered the last text message Max had sent him. Don’t trust Peterson. “I wish I could tell you something, sir. Max is my mate, but … well, I just don’t know anything.”

  Before Mr. Peterson could ask any further questions a sudden commotion exploded in the corridor. Two boys ran past at full tilt, yelling, followed by a terrific bang as they knocked over a bench and a picture above it. Baskins and Hoggart, the two boys who were always scrapping.

  Peterson strode to the door and shouted: “You boys! Stop that! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Baskins and Hoggart had given Sayid the chance he needed. He grabbed the phone’s cradle and turned it over. The base had four small screws holding it together; although he had come prepared with a watchmaker’s screwdriver, there was no time to undo them and slip in the tiny transmitter which now stubbornly refused to be held by his fingers as he searched for it in his pocket. The shouting outside stopped, there was a muted apology from the two boys, and Peterson told them to get back to their dorm. He was only a couple of dozen paces away now and heading back in. Sayid saw there was a small gap in the base beneath a plastic hook which the thin transformer cable could be wound around for storage. He finally teased the elusive bug from his pocket and dropped it into the hole. He would just have to hope that it would work.

  No sooner had he turned the phone right side up and pretended to turn his attention back to the map of Namibia than his cell phone rang, making his already-stretched nerves jump. He flipped it open as Peterson came back into the room. Sayid couldn’t take his eyes off the words on the blue screen.

  “Something important?” Peterson asked. It sounded innocent, but Sayid knew it was a shorthand way of asking if the call had anything to do with what they had been discussing.

  “Oh, er … just my mother … she’s trying to find me. I was supposed to have extra lessons.”

  Peterson seemed to accept the inevitable. “All right, Sayid, get going. But if you hear from Max, I’d like to know. We’ll talk again later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sayid got out as fast as he could and ran for his room. Peterson had already picked up the handset and was about to make a call. Now that the bug was in place, Sayid needed to get his computer up and running to organize the trace.

  And there was another reason for hurry. The text message was from Kallie. Only six words, but they meant that Max was in a much more dangerous game than Sayid had realized. He had to erase the message in case Peterson appeared like a ghost and snatched the phone from him. He looked at the text again: Leopold dead. Peterson knows. Max missing.

  Three points on the compass—Max, Sayid and Kallie.

  And none of them could know that Max was only hours away from death.

  The night brought ghosts.

  Silver shadows flickered through the bony limbs of trees, making the dry grass flicker like will-o’-the-wisps. The moonlight played with the breeze, teasing Max’s imagination as he sat diligently on guard duty. The boys were vulnerable to night predators, so while one slept the other kept watch. Max yawned, opening his eyes as wide as he could, and stretched away the fatigue that clawed at him. The moving shadows were enough to frighten him into wake-fulness for a while, but even fear must ultimately yield to exhaustion. However, his drooping eyelids flew open again when a jackal’s high-pitched, wavering call came from somewhere nearby. The slight breeze brought the twittering cries of a distant pack of wild hunting dogs. Perhaps they had made a kill somewhere.

  Max’s senses had been sharpened by enduring the wilderness. He now noticed small things, like a change in the breeze, where shadows offered some con
cealment and where there might be a sipping hole for water. Animal smells would carry on the faintest movement of air and he had learned to distinguish the different trails of antelope, hyena, mongoose and wild dogs. At every opportunity !Koga had shown him the tracks and scratch marks the animals made, though Max knew that, no matter how hard he scoured the ground, he was never going to be an expert like !Koga, who could recognize different species of birds from imprints in the sand. The Bushmen hunters could identify everything, from an ant’s track upwards. And it was no textbook learning. !Koga knew things because he had seen them, touched them, tasted and smelled them, just as Max had learned to climb mountains and kayak the white water. As he had come to understand the lethal danger and dizzying fear of a rockfall and the smashing, intolerant water that held him under when it flipped his kayak, so had !Koga spent every day of his young life in touch with this wilderness.

  Now, like !Koga, Max faced each waking hour in survival mode. No one else in the world existed except for the two of them. Thoughts of his father were like heat-haze mirages, an illusion. They would become reality only when Max saw and held his father. “Live for today” took on a completely new meaning when life was so precariously balanced every hour.

  “!Koga!”

  Max heard the stampede start out of nowhere. Panic. Beasts in turmoil. Then he smelled the dusky odor of the animals and was momentarily uncertain where they were coming from because the deceptive light obscured their direction. !Koga knew instantly. The small herd of buffalo, maybe twenty or thirty of them, was confused, first charging in one direction and seconds later churning the dirt in another.