The Hostage

by Sophie McKenzie

  02.36 . . . 02.35 . . . 02.34 . . .

  Oh God. I shook myself. Focus. There were the wires.

  ‘Just tell me what the order is,’ I said to Ed. ‘Then you all have to go.’

  Ed cleared his throat. ‘Er . . . red, orange, yellow, green, blue . . .’

  ‘I’m sure it’s blue before green,’ Nico insisted.

  ‘No.’ Ed shook his head. ‘Green, blue, indigo, violet.’

  I stared at the wires. The first four were obvious. But what was the difference between blue and indigo and violet?

  ‘Blue before green,’ Nico repeated.

  ‘Richard of York gave battle in vain,’ Ed said stubbornly, standing up. ‘Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.’

  I touched the three wires I wasn’t sure about. My fingers trembled. ‘Which is which?’

  Dylan knelt beside me. She pointed at the brightest blue wire. ‘Blue,’ she said firmly. She pointed at the darkest wire – it was almost black . . . an inky blue. ‘Indigo,’ she said.

  I nodded, gratefully, then pointed to the bluey-purple wire myself. ‘Violet.’

  ‘You got it.’ Dylan stood up. ‘Go.’

  I held the pliers over the red wire. The timer passed two minutes.

  01.59 seconds . . . 01.58 . . . 01.57 . . .

  My hands were shaking too much to hold the pliers steady.

  ‘Here.’ Nico took them from me. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘But you three should go.’ My words came out almost as sobs.

  ‘All four of you should go.’ Tears were streaming down Lex’s face.

  ‘I’m not leaving you,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m not leaving Ketty.’ Nico held the pliers over the red wire.

  ‘Neither am I,’ said Ed.

  Lex looked at Dylan.

  ‘Guess we’re all staying, then,’ she said, her voice tight with tension.

  I held Lex’s hand. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be okay.’ I looked down at the timer.

  01.39 . . . 01.38 . . . 01.37 . . .

  ‘Do it, Nico,’ I said.

  He took a deep breath, whispered something to himself that sounded like a prayer – and cut into the red wire.

  24: The password

  The seconds ticked away.

  01.35 . . . 01.34 . . . 01.33 . . .

  Silence. The tension was unbearable. Everyone held their breath as Nico snipped the red wire in half. He paused.

  ‘I think that worked,’ he said shakily.

  ‘Keep going,’ I urged.

  01.30 . . . 01.29 . . . 01.28 . . . Nico cut the orange wire. Then the yellow.

  He glanced round at Ed.

  ‘Green,’ he said firmly.

  01.22 . . . 01.21 . . . 01.20 . . .

  Nico cut the green wire. ‘Oh, man.’

  Lex’s whole body was trembling, the sweat pouring off his forehead.

  Nico opened the pliers. His hands were shaking horribly.

  ‘Now blue,’ ordered Dylan.

  01.15 . . . 01.14 . . . 01.13 . . .

  Nico tried to hold the pliers steady but his hands were trembling too much. ‘Shit,’ he muttered.

  ‘My turn,’ I said, firmly. I took the pliers and held them over the blue wire. I took a deep breath. Come on. Snip.

  ‘Now the indigo.’ Dylan pointed.

  Cut.

  01.03 . . . 01.02 . . . 01.01

  I held the pliers over the final, violet wire. ‘This is it.’

  I cut down hard.

  There was a moment’s silence, then Ed let out a strangled moan.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he gasped.

  ‘What?’ Dylan shrieked.

  ‘It’s still counting down.’

  ‘WHAT!’ Lex shouted.

  I checked. Ed was right. The seconds were flashing away. Less than a minute to go.

  52 . . . 51 . . .

  ‘How?’ Nico clutched his head. ‘Shit. SHIT!’

  ‘Look.’ I pointed to the keypad under the timer. The four asterisks in the screen were flashing.

  ‘There must be a code,’ Dylan said. ‘Four numbers.’

  ‘Or four letters.’ Ed frowned. ‘A word . . . a password . . .’

  42 . . . 41 . . .

  Panic swirled in my head.

  ‘Get out!’ Lex yelled.

  Nico swore. ‘How can we work out a freakin’ password in thirty seconds?’

  ‘It’s got to be something that matters to Foster,’ Ed cried.

  33 . . . 32 . . .

  ‘How the hell can we know that?’ Dylan shrieked.

  ‘A birth date . . .’ Ed said desperately. ‘An anniversary . . . a name . . .’

  A name. I looked across at Nico. He was staring, eyes wide, at the timer.

  24 . . . 23 . . .

  My heart pounded. I was going to lose him and my own life – and Lex.

  I looked up at my brother. His eyes were fixed on me – full of fear and longing and love.

  ‘Go, Ketty,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  My heart thudded faster than the seconds still ticking away.

  19 . . . 18 . . .

  Dylan reached out to the keypad. ‘We have to try something,’ she said. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Nico breathed.

  ‘Please go.’ Lex was still staring at me. ‘Please, it’s all about you, Ketty.’

  14 . . . 13 . . .

  All about you. Foster’s words echoed in my head: All about Rick.

  Dylan’s hand hovered over the keypad. She pointed her forefinger, ready to press a random key.

  11 . . . 10 . . .

  ‘Stop!’ I said.

  Dylan froze. The whole room shrank to the tiny keypad.

  ‘It’s Foster’s brother,’ I said. ‘That’s why he’s doing this.’

  ‘It’s Rick,’ I said. ‘The password is Rick.’

  7…6…

  Fingers shaking I tapped in the letters.

  R…

  5

  I…

  4

  C…

  3

  K…

  2

  I held my breath.

  The timer stopped, the number ‘2’ flashing away.

  For a second we all stood in complete shock and silence then the room erupted in yells and cheers, just as the bomb disposal team raced in.

  An hour later and the four of us were gathered in Mr Fox’s office. Nico and I were sitting on the desk. Nico’s arm was draped round my shoulder. Dylan was sprawled over Mr Fox’s armchair while Ed stood with his back to us, staring out of the window.

  We were waiting for Mr Fox and Geri Paterson and had been told on pain of various torments not to move. I wanted to see Lex. After the bomb disposal people had removed his chains, he’d been taken away to have the defused bomb unstrapped from his chest. I wondered how he was and how soon I’d be able to see him.

  ‘What’s out the window, Ed?’ Nico asked, lazily teleporting the ornaments on Mr Fox’s desk in the air in a circle.

  ‘Not much,’ Ed admitted. ‘Kids leaving the school . . . an ambulance . . .’

  ‘An ambulance?’ I was off the desk and at the window in a few seconds. It was dark outside, the only light was coming from the office we were sitting in. In the distance people from our class were hurrying towards the front gate. I watched Billy and Lola dawdling at the back, their arms round each other. Mr Rogerson went over, clearly telling them to speed up. They disappeared through the school gates.

  No sign of an ambulance there. I peered into the shadows nearer the window.

  There. Hidden from the students by a brick wall, a van with a red cross on the side was parked close to the fire door that led down to the basement music room. As I watched, two men I didn’t recognise came through the fire door. They were pushing a hospital trolley topped with a stretcher and covered with a sheet. There was clearly a body underneath the sheet. It moved slightly as the trolley rattled and bumped its way towards the van.

  My throat tightened. Was
that Lex?

  ‘Why is there an ambulance?’ I said. ‘D’you think there was a problem with the bomb?’

  The trolley reached the van. The two men opened the van doors and slid the covered stretcher into the back. The vision I’d had earlier – of the school in flames – leaped into my head.

  For the past hour I’d firmly believed that I’d changed the future and stopped that explosion from ever happening. Now, suddenly, doubt crept into my mind.

  How could I know what I’d seen?

  How could I know what I’d changed?

  Maybe the bomb was still going to go off.

  ‘I don’t see how there could have been a problem.’ Nico joined us at the window. ‘We’d have heard an explosion.’

  ‘Yeah, and we didn’t,’ Dylan drawled from her armchair. ‘No loud bangs . . . no body parts in the playground . . .’

  I stared at the van as the two men closed the back doors. My heart raced.

  ‘I have to find out if Lex is okay,’ I said, running for the door.

  I reached it just as Geri and Fergus arrived. I collided with Geri.

  Wham.

  ‘Sit.’ She gripped my arm. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady.’

  ‘But I want to see my brother—’

  ‘Lex is being dealt with.’

  My heart seemed to stop beating. ‘Dealt with?’

  Nico was suddenly by my side, his arm round my shoulder again. ‘What does that mean?’ he said.

  ‘Sit.’ Geri pushed me towards one of the three spare chairs in front of the desk. I sat, with Nico and Ed on either side. Dylan perched on the arm of her much larger chair.

  Mr Fox stood beside Geri. Even in my traumatised state, worrying about Lex, I had time to clock that he looked livid with rage.

  God, they were both absolutely furious with me.

  ‘Ketty’s brother Lex has been taken to a safe location,’ Geri said, her voice clipped. ‘Only the squad who discovered him and the people in this room know that he is alive. We intend to keep it that way.’

  I stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your brother has been given false travelling papers and is being sent abroad to join your parents. Our hope is that if Foster believes he is dead, he will not bother to track him. Lex is of no interest to Foster other than as a pawn to manipulate us . . .’ Geri turned her stony gaze on me. ‘And, of course, you, Ketty.’

  Everyone looked at me.

  ‘You’re sending Lex out of the country?’ I said, faintly.

  ‘But how are you going to convince Foster that he’s dead?’ Ed leaned forwards in his chair, his eyes not quite meeting Geri’s. ‘The bomb didn’t go off.’

  A short pause. Then Geri pursed her lips together. ‘You’re right that it didn’t go off, Ed,’ she said. ‘But it will very soon.’

  ‘But we defused it.’ Dylan was on her feet. ‘It—’

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me.’ Geri raised her slim, manicured hand. ‘The original bomb has been successfully neutralised but—’

  ‘Thanks to Ed knowing about the coloured wires and Ketty working out Foster’s password in about ten seconds flat,’ Nico interrupted. ‘Neither of which you’ve bothered to thank them for so far.’

  ‘But we want Foster to believe he was successful,’ Geri went on, ignoring Nico. ‘We want Foster to think that while you may have managed to delay the Rainbow bomb, it has now gone off. The bomb, remember, is Foster’s revenge against the British government for refusing to release Rick. We’re hoping that once he feels he’s made his point he’ll slip under the radar for a while, giving us a chance to track him down before he makes his next move. His company’s assets are frozen and the full extent of his debts has been revealed, so there’s a big paper trail for us to follow as—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Nico interrupted. ‘Never mind Foster. Go back to what you were saying about the bomb. How are you going to get Foster to believe it went off this evening?’

  Geri pursed her lips. ‘By exploding it ourselves.’

  I gasped. Next to me, Ed’s mouth fell open.

  ‘What?’ Dylan put her hands on her hips. ‘You’re going to explode the Rainbow bomb yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’ Geri sighed. ‘It won’t convince Foster otherwise. The evacuation of the school is almost complete now. No one will be hurt.’

  ‘But the school.’ I stared at Mr Fox. His jaw was clenched, his eyes dark.

  ‘Fox Academy will be destroyed,’ he said. ‘At least, a large part of it will be. We will have to close down until the autumn term to allow for rebuilding work.’

  I glanced at Nico and Ed beside me. They looked equally shocked. Ed rubbed his forehead.

  ‘But where’s everyone going to go?’ he said

  ‘Where are we going to go?’ Nico added.

  Oh my God. This was all my fault. If I’d gone to Geri in the first place – as soon as I’d had the very first vision – all this could have been avoided.

  Geri would have kept Lex safe. His meeting with Foster would never have happened. And Mr Fox wouldn’t be losing his school.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t blame you, Ketty.’ Mr Fox glared at Geri. ‘I blame the Medusa Project. I blame a covert operation that uses and manipulates children to—’

  ‘Fergus will be given the resources to set up a temporary school in another location,’ Geri snapped. She glared at Mr Fox – a cold, poisonous stare.

  ‘So we’ll be going there?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Geri looked at each one of us in turn. ‘It’s not safe for you to be near Mr Fox right now. Foster knows you attend Fox Academy which means that, wherever the school is based, you may be targets.’

  ‘So we have to wait until you catch Foster before we can go back to school?’ Ed asked.

  ‘It’s not just Foster,’ I said. ‘He told me he had a contact in the security services – someone who gave him details about the Medusa Project. About us.’

  Geri nodded. ‘I suspected as much once I realised Foster had fooled us this afternoon,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the first leak in the department, though it’s the first one concerning Medusa. We’ll investigate, but if there’s really a mole, that’s all the more reason to get you away from here.’

  ‘So where are you sending us?’ Dylan demanded.

  ‘Abroad,’ Geri said vaguely. ‘To a training camp.’

  I glanced at Nico. He was staring at Mr Fox. With a jolt I realised that taking Nico away from school wasn’t like taking the rest of us. Mr Fox was his stepdad – his only family. How was that going to make him feel?

  ‘What sort of training camp?’ I asked.

  ‘One that will teach you responsibility and discipline,’ Geri said briskly.

  ‘You mean a boot camp?’ Dylan’s jaw dropped.

  ‘If you like.’ Geri crossed her arms. ‘I thought that keeping you based in an ordinary school, training you in basic attack and defence skills and sending you on simple missions to test your emerging powers would minimise the need for anything more sophisticated until you were older. But, as Ketty has proved, this was a mistake.’

  Everyone looked at me again. I could feel my face reddening.

  ‘I don’t need a bloody boot camp.’ Nico spoke for the first time, addressing his words to Mr Fox. ‘I already have responsibility and discipline.’

  Mr Fox shook his head. He stared down at the floor. ‘This is not my decision,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’m not being given a choice here.’

  ‘It’s only for two months,’ Geri said, her voice tight.

  I glanced at Ed. He was biting his lip.

  ‘What about our psychic skills?’ he said. ‘What about all the training we were doing with Mr Fox?’

  ‘Basic discipline comes first,’ Geri said.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Nico said, angrily.

  Geri shook her head. ‘You’ll find out.’

  ‘So when do we go?’ I said.

  ‘Tonight,�
� Geri explained. ‘You have ten minutes to pack a small bag, then two agents will take you to a private airport.’

  The atmosphere tightened immediately.

  ‘Tonight?’ Dylan snarled. ‘No freakin’ way.’

  ‘Tonight.’ Geri said, in a voice that made it clear there was to be no argument. ‘So I suggest you hurry with the packing. You’ll only need a few spare clothes. A toothbrush . . . trainers. Everything else will be provided.’

  ‘What about Lex?’ I said, glancing outside again. There was no sign of either the trolley or the ambulance I’d seen earlier. ‘Can’t I even say goodbye to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Geri said coolly. ‘Lex has already left.’

  I looked down at my lap, a storm of emotions whirling in my head. I shoved my hands in my pockets. Lex’s troll doll was still there. I fingered the smooth plastic . . . the rough hair . . .

  There was a rap at the door.

  ‘Enter,’ Geri called.

  Maria and James, the male agent who we’d last seen unconscious in the reception doorway, walked in. Maria was in her usual skinny jeans and boots, though she seemed to be wearing more make-up than usual. James looked much smarter than he had before too, in a leather jacket and heavily gelled hair. They looked round the room quickly. Maria shot me a quick smile, before her eyes settled on Geri.

  ‘We’re ready,’ she said.

  ‘James and Maria will be your escorts for the journey,’ Geri announced. ‘Go with them now, please. And good luck.’

  There was nothing else we could do. Mr Fox, Nico and Ed followed James to the boys’ dorm, while Maria accompanied Dylan and me up to our own room. We packed in silence. Well, near silence. Dylan looked mutinous. She muttered under her breath as she threw clothes into her bag.

  I was hardly aware of what I was taking from my drawers. It wasn’t going away I minded so much, it was just all happening so fast . . . I absently found a bag and shoved in some sweats and tees and two pairs of trainers. I wished I’d had a chance to speak to Lex before he left. Still, I’d be able to write to him once he got home to Mum and Dad . . . and at least the training we were going to acquire at this boot camp place would be useful.

  Dylan was still stomping about the dormitory.

  ‘Maybe training camp won’t be so bad,’ I suggested as I joined her at the large table that ran under the window. Dylan looked up from the piles of books, papers and general crap she was sifting through.