by John Wilson
“If you shoot me, you’ll never get the bomb,” I said, hoping I sounded confident enough to make the old man hesitate. My hands were free. I swung the backpack off my shoulders, held it in front of me and dived for the hole. The backpack was through and my shoulders were scraping painfully against the rocks when I heard Gorky shout something. I felt hands grabbing at my legs. I wriggled frantically, kicking my feet. My right foot connected with something solid, and I heard a satisfying cry of pain. The grip loosened, and I was through.
“This way,” Laia urged from the blackness in front of me. “Against the wall on your right.” I struggled to my knees, shoved the backpack in front of me and, ignoring my cuts and bruises, worked my way toward Laia’s voice. There were some quite large rocks on the ground, and I kicked up a choking cloud of dust as I clambered over them. I tried not to think about what might be in the dust.
The light from the outside faded quickly, and I was in total darkness by the time I felt Laia’s hand on mine. We fell into each other’s arms, almost weeping with relief. “It’ll take them a while to dig a hole big enough to get through,” Laia said. “If we move a bit farther in, they’ll never find us.”
“This was a brilliant idea,” I said. “Was the bomb actually heavy?”
“I don’t know,” Laia replied. “It’s a nuclear bomb! I stayed as far away as possible, hard up against the opposite wall from where we spotted it earlier. I never even saw it.”
I began to laugh, as much from the release of tension as anything. I was almost hysterical, but Gorky’s voice sobered me up quickly. “Come out. Bring the bomb with you and no harm will befall you.”
Laia and I huddled silently against the wall. “I will give you one final warning,” Gorky shouted. I could see a shadow partly blocking the patch of daylight. It seemed far away.
The crack of a pistol shot was deafening in the confined space of the tunnel. “Come out now,” Gorky ordered. His voice was followed by two more shots. I thought I heard a bullet whine past, and I tried to push us both into the wall at our backs.
“Move deeper in,” I said in an urgent whisper. As quietly as possible, we worked our way farther into the darkness, until we turned a corner and couldn’t see the hole anymore. There were no more shots. We sat with our backs against the rough stone of the wall. “I think we’re safe here,” Laia said. “Let’s get the flashlight and see where we are.”
I fumbled with the zipper of the backpack. “A drink of water would be nice too,” I said as I felt around for the rubber tube of the flashlight. The beam looked incredibly bright after the pitch darkness. I shone the light into the bag and brought out our water and two granola bars. We ate and drank thankfully.
“I don’t suppose your cell phone has a signal in here,” Laia said through a mouthful of granola bar.
“I doubt it,” I said, but I pulled the phone from my jeans pocket. There was no signal, but the phone was on and there was a text from DJ. What’s up? You called but no one there. DJ.
“I must have pocket-dialed him when I was rolling around in the van. I wish I’d known—DJ could have come and rescued us.”
Laia laughed. “Felip might have been a more useful call.”
“I would even have settled for Chad,” I said. “He would have distracted Gorky by trying to sell him something.”
We both laughed, enjoying the brief release of tension, and then Laia became serious again. “Do you think they were really going to kill us?”
“I think they were,” I said, equally serious. “The bomb means a lot to Gorky. He wants to do something terrible with it because he has this crazy idea that it will change the world. I can see why Grandfather insisted on keeping the bomb hidden from him. Gorky won’t want to leave any witnesses.”
“Do you think he’s really mad?’ Laia asked.
“Yes,” I replied without a moment’s hesitation.
“He’s totally insane. The bomb’s become a complete obsession with him. I don’t know if he could even set the thing off. Felip told us it was very difficult to trigger a nuclear explosion.” But then I thought of something else Felip had told us. “He doesn’t need to set it off. Didn’t Felip say that plutonium dust is what is really deadly? Something about only a thousandth of a gram being enough to kill you? If Gorky can get the plutonium out of the bomb, he could grind it up and pass it through the heating system of a building, or put it in a water supply, or even just throw handfuls into the air in the middle of a crowded city. He could kill thousands of people without any kind of explosion.”
NINETEEN
We sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the horrors of what Gorky could do. “I don’t see how we can stop him,” Laia said at last.
“Neither do I. All we can do is wait here and hope he leaves. Then we can go and tell the police about it. With any luck, they’ll catch him before he does any damage.”
“Where exactly is here?” Laia asked. I shone the torch around.
We were in a low-roofed, narrow tunnel. If I stretched my arms out, I could almost touch both walls at once, and there wasn’t enough height to stand upright. The roof and walls were fairly smooth, but here and there, chunks of rock had fallen to the floor. Behind us, the tunnel sloped gradually up and curved away to the hole we had entered. Ahead, the tunnel was more level and headed off into the hill.
Laia answered her own question. “It’s a mine.”
“How old do you think it is?”
“Who knows? Maybe a few hundred years, or even Roman or Carthaginian.”
“Do you think there’s another way out?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Laia said. “In any case, it’s probably not a good idea to go wandering around.”
I was about to agree when I heard a noise. “What was that?”
“I think Gorky’s trying to enlarge the hole,” Laia said.
“I’ll have a look,” I said, switching the flashlight off. Slowly, I crawled back to where the tunnel curved. I peered up the slope. Someone was working on the rocks around the edge of the hole. The noise we had heard was from rocks falling into the tunnel. I could see the shadow of a figure moving back and forth in front of the hole, which already looked bigger.
I was about to turn around when I heard the faint sound of shouting outside, followed by more pistol shots. I crawled back to Laia as fast as I could. “Something’s going on outside,” I said. “There’s a lot of shouting and gunshots.”
“No one seemed too keen on coming in here,” Laia said thoughtfully. “Maybe Gorky’s trying to encourage them.”
“Maybe. In any case, I think we should move farther in. If it stays a single tunnel, we can’t get lost.”
Moving through the tunnel was easier with the flashlight, but we didn’t get far. One more corner, and we came to a serious cave-in. A large section of the roof had collapsed, completely blocking the tunnel. We had passed no side tunnels, so all we could do was sit and wait.
“They don’t have a flashlight,” I said, not sure whether I was trying to reassure Laia or myself. “They won’t come this far in.”
“Of course not,” Laia agreed, but she didn’t sound convinced. “It wouldn’t make sense.”
It didn’t make sense, but then, we had agreed that Gorky was crazy. Not much of anything he did made sense. We turned the flashlight off to save the battery and sat in the darkness. It was impossible to tell how long we had sat before I heard another noise. At first I thought it was rats, but it soon became obvious that it was something larger. “Someone’s coming,” I hissed.
“I can hear them,” Laia replied. We could see a dull glow coming from around the corner, gradually getting brighter. “He’s got a flashlight,” Laia said. Now we were in an even worse spot than being tied up in the ruined room. We were deep in a blocked tunnel with nowhere to go and no way to defend ourselves, being stalked by an insane guy with a gun.
“Do you think it’s Gorky?” I asked.
“He couldn’t make it all the way down here.
It’s probably Lucio or one of the others.”
Great, I thought. There goes our chance of wrestling the gun away from him.
“Pick up some stones,” I said. “As soon as he comes around the corner, start throwing. Aim for his head.”
I felt around on the ground and picked up three pieces of rock, each about the size of an egg. Laia moved over to give us each room to throw. I got as ready as I could. The light was quite bright now. Where had Gorky found a powerful flashlight?
The light came around the corner and swung toward us. “Now!” I shouted. I aimed for just above the light, where I guessed the man’s head must be. We both threw as hard as we could. I heard one stone clatter off the tunnel wall, but that wasn’t what stopped me from throwing a second stone. It was the voice coming out of the darkness behind the light. “Ow! Hey! Cut it out, you kids!” a familiar voice shouted. “I’m here to help you.”
“Chad?” Laia and I said at the same instant.
“Of course it’s Chad,” the voice said. “Who did you think would come crawling all this way in to find you?” The flashlight swung up and illuminated the smiling face. There was a thin trickle of blood running down his forehead. If there had been enough room to run forward and hug Chad, I would have. Right then, I would have put everything I had into one of his investment schemes. “Have you finished throwing things?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s good to see you. You’re bleeding. Sorry I hit you.”
“It’s nothing. You’ve got a good arm, kid. With room for a decent windup, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. Are you kids okay?”
“We are,” Laia said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the cavalry come to rescue you,” Chad said, a laugh in his voice. “But let’s get back outside. My claustrophobia doesn’t like narrow tunnels under mountains.”
I switched on our flashlight, and we worked our way back. The hole had been considerably enlarged, so much so that we didn’t need our flashlights for the last few meters. “Where’s the bomb?” Laia asked.
“All things will be explained in time,” Chad said cheerily.
A ragged round of applause greeted us as we emerged onto the hillside. I blinked in the bright daylight and looked around. The first things I noticed were Gorky’s thugs, sitting in a miserable group, guarded by a Spanish policeman. Nearby, also guarded by a policeman, Lucio sat on a rock, having a wound in his shoulder treated by a paramedic. Beside him was a body on a stretcher, covered in a white sheet. Uniformed police and men in civilian clothes were spread around, and several ATVs were parked behind them. A helicopter thumped in circles overhead.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Before Chad could answer, a figure pushed through the crowd and ran to embrace Laia. “Are you okay?” Felip asked.
“I’m fine,” Laia said.
Felip looked over at me. “Me too,” I said. A paramedic came over and began examining our cuts and bruises. She swabbed the cuts clean and put ointment and bandages on the worst ones. I was so stunned that I was happy simply to sit and be attended to while my brain tried to work its way around what had happened.
“Who’s under the sheet?” Laia asked. It was something I had been wondering too.
“It’s the old guy with one arm,” Felip said.
“Did they shoot him?”
“No,” Felip answered, “although he did fire a couple of rounds at the police when they arrived. The police fired back, and that’s how the big guy got shot.” He nodded toward the sullen Lucio. “The old guy just folded. He was dead before anyone got to him. I think it was his heart.”
So that explained the shooting I had heard from inside the tunnel. It was the police arriving. I laughed.
“What?” Laia asked.
“We were hiding from the police when we went farther along the tunnel.”
Laia smiled. “I was hiding from Chad,” she said.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“And where is he?” Laia added.
As if on cue, Chad appeared from one of the ATVs. He had wiped the blood off his forehead and was carrying the bomb in front of him. Both Laia and I jumped to our feet. “What are you doing?” I shouted.
Chad smiled—and dropped the bomb. As it hit the ground, he swung his right foot and volleyed it straight at me. Instinctively, I put my hands out and caught it—and found myself holding a battered leather soccer ball.
“This isn’t the bomb,” I said. “What happened to the bomb?”
“There was no bomb,” Chad said with a smile. “Just an old soccer ball that someone lost once.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. I looked around for confirmation. Laia was frowning at Chad. Felip gently shook his head.
I looked back at Chad. “There is no bomb,” he repeated, his smile gone and his voice hard. “You kids have had an exciting and scary day, running into the middle of this drug deal. You were lucky you could get into the tunnel before the shooting started. I have a couple of details to tidy up, and the press will be here soon. Felip will take you back to the hotel for a shower and a rest. We’ll meet for dinner later—say, nine o’clock,” he added, looking at Felip. “I’ll explain what’s going on then. Okay?” The way he said “okay” didn’t allow for anything other than acceptance.
I looked at Laia. “Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Excellent.” Chad stepped forward and shook my hand. It was an awkward gesture, but I felt a crumpled piece of paper in his palm. He winked at me. I took the paper and slipped it into my pocket as Chad led us over to Felip’s car. Several of the police patted us on the shoulder as we passed. I ignored them, my mind struggling desperately to understand. It couldn’t all have been some horrible misunderstanding—could it? And what was in the note from Chad?
TWENTY
On the way back to the hotel, Laia and I bombarded Felip with questions, but we didn’t learn much. Felip had been on his way back from Almería when Chad had called him and told him to meet us all here in the hills. Felip had arrived on the hillside after it was all over and the hole had been widened enough to allow Chad in. He didn’t know much more than we did, but he was so happy that we were okay that he didn’t seem interested in questioning anything. Even after I’d given him the outline of the story that Gorky told us and Laia had wondered out loud why Chad seemed to be so tight with the Spanish police, all he said was, “I’m sure Chad will clear up all the details over dinner.”
It was late afternoon when we made it back to the hotel, although it felt as if it had been weeks since Laia and I left that morning. I was so confused and tired that I hardly noticed the naked people crisscrossing the lobby as I headed for the elevator. Felip saw us to the elevator and suggested we have a nap and a shower before meeting for dinner.
As soon as the elevator doors closed, I took the crumpled paper out of my pocket. “What’s that?” Laia asked.
“Chad gave it to me,” I replied, smoothing it out. The note said, You and Laia meet me in the bar at eight o’clock. Don’t tell Felip.
“I guess he wants to tell us something he doesn’t want Felip to hear,” Laia said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’m fine with that. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Laia and I went to our rooms. I sat on my bed, determined to think things through and try to make sense of it all. I failed. I set my alarm and immediately fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up it was dark, and every square inch of my body ached. It was seven forty-five. I dragged myself into the shower.
The hot water stung my cuts, but I didn’t care. My nap had refreshed me, but I still felt like my world had been turned upside down. Ever since DJ had sent the pages from Grandfather’s notebook, trying to understand what they meant had been our focus. We had been threatened and kidnapped, but we had done well. We had broken the code, worked out what the locations were and what their significance was, fitted all the bits (including the story Gorky had told us) into a cohe
rent narrative that explained most, if not all, of what we had been given. There had been nothing about a drug deal. Now this mystery man, Chad, who kept showing up in the most unexpected places, was saying that everything we thought we understood was meaningless. I refused to believe that we’d been wrong every step of the way—but it had been a soccer ball Chad kicked to me, that I was sure of.
Another idea crossed my mind. Had Grandfather organized this as a joke? If he had, it was incredibly elaborate and expensive. Was it some kind of test? A joke or a test. Neither seemed likely, given the lengths Grandfather would have had to go to. And how could he possibly have known that his grandsons would be the ones to find the stuff in the cabin? I was so confused that any wild idea was up for grabs.
As I gently dabbed my painful cuts dry and wandered back out to my bedroom, I had an idea. Picking up the TV remote, I flipped through the channels until I found the news. The first thing I saw was a shot of the hillside, taken from a helicopter; there were figures and vehicles all around. You could see hooded men, one with his arm in a sling, being bundled into police cars; a stretcher with a body on it was being loaded into an ambulance. I had to concentrate to try to understand what the commentator was saying. There was nothing about a bomb. I grasped enough to understand that there had been a drug bust in the hills. The police chief said something about a tipoff, and then a politician talked about how Spain must clamp down on the growing problem of drugs being smuggled in through the local ports. Then the news moved on to the upcoming Real Madrid versus Barcelona soccer game. What was going on? The bomb—or the soccer ball—was being hushed up, written out of the story. I turned the TV off, and as I dressed, I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop questioning Chad until I got the whole story out of him.
As it turned out, I hardly had to ask a single question.
Just before eight I knocked on Laia’s door, and we headed down to the bar together. On the way, I only had time to tell her what I had heard and seen on the TV and confirm that she was as confused by it as I was. Chad was waiting for us in a booth. He stood up as we approached. I opened my mouth to say something, but he got the first word in. “Before you say anything,” he said, “I want to apologize. I have lied to you both and used you shamelessly. I cannot expect forgiveness, but I ask that you listen to what I have to say. I hope you will at least then understand.”
