by Rohan Gavin
Then he heard a faint noise in the corridor.
‘Doc …?’ It was his father’s voice.
‘Dad?!’ Darkus shouted back, but it was too late.
Doyle kicked once more, shattering a body-sized opening in the windowpane. Like a babe in arms, Darkus gaped up at Doyle’s neck, which was cross-hatched with scars and pulsing with blood from his exertions. It wouldn’t have been surprising to find a Frankenstein-like screw protruding from it. Then Darkus realised: the neck. It was on the vital centre line. It was still vulnerable, even though the attacker was in total control. Darkus weakly formed the fingers of his right hand into a jab. Doyle started rocking back and forth, as if he was cradling him. Darkus felt one swing, then a second, knowing the third meant he was going through the window. Doyle entered the final swing, just as –
Darkus thrust his fingers upwards into the soft hollow of Doyle’s neck between the Adam’s apple and the sternum: known as the ‘jugular notch’. Darkus briefly felt his opponent’s pulse through the skin, then Doyle choked, gasping for breath and instantly dropped Darkus to the floor.
Darkus winced and painfully rolled to one side as Doyle sank to his knees, clutching his throat.
‘You’re not dying,’ the young detective explained. ‘Your windpipe is compressed and you’re losing consciousness.’
Doyle fell to the carpet, realising that Darkus was correct. This was Doyle’s last thought before descending into total unconsciousness.
Darkus dragged himself to his feet, feeling a stabbing pain in his ribs with each breath. He left his former classmate on the floor and staggered to the door.
Outside, Knightley Senior heard a persistent hammering from one of the rooms. He went door-to-door until he located it, then shouted: ‘Stand back!’
Knightley kicked hard, breaking down the door and finding his son wounded on the other side.
Knightley hugged him hard, until Darkus yelped with pain and his father let go.
‘I’ve either bruised my intercostal muscles or fractured a rib,’ Darkus noted. ‘Or both. It’ll require an X-ray to confirm the diagnosis.’
Knightley looked his son in the eyes and kissed him on the forehead. ‘But you’re alive!’ He spotted Darkus’s opponent out cold on the carpet, then guided his son out of the suite.
Darkus looked up and down the corridor. ‘Where’s Tilly?’
Knightley shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
Just then, a welcoming bing sounded from a nearby lift. They both turned to observe it as the doors slid open. But no one stepped out. The Knightleys both waited, hearing the pounding of their own hearts. The doors remained open, bidding them to enter.
The duo looked at each other, unsure what to do.
Then they jumped as a macho American voice came over a PA system in the corridor: ‘Alan, Darkus … You have entered the Winner’s Circle. Step into the elevator to claim your prize.’
‘It’s a trap,’ warned Darkus. ‘We always knew it was.’
The message repeated eerily: ‘Alan, Darkus … You have entered the Winner’s Circle. Step into the elevator to claim your prize.’
‘But is it better to run from your enemy … or to face them head on?’ asked his father.
‘For once, I believe you’re correct,’ confessed Darkus. ‘We must face them head on.’
‘Me? Correct? Can I have that admitted into evidence?’
Darkus didn’t answer, feeling the full weight of fate upon them. He stayed shoulder-to-shoulder with his father as they approached the waiting pod and stepped over the threshold. The doors quickly slid shut behind them and the lift ascended.
CHAPTER 25
WHERE THE CARDS FALL
Darkus watched the numbers flicker, with each ascending floor bringing a sinking sense of dread. They passed the penthouse level and continued travelling upwards.
‘How high does this go?’ asked Darkus.
‘All the way to the top, I guess,’ his father responded.
The lift slowed, coming to a halt. The doors slid open to reveal a silent chamber, shrouded in darkness. The Knightleys stepped out, remaining close to each other, finding strength in numbers, even if that number was only two. Darkus tried to focus in the gloom, observing the four sides of the pyramid, meeting in an apex over what appeared to be a boardroom of some kind. The inclining windows were so high up that the only view was of thunderclouds.
Two henchmen dressed in black emerged from the shadows, holding fluorescent handheld security scanners. They swept them over the Knightleys’ bodies, top to toe, until the devices displayed a green light, prompting the men to lower them and nod to the unseen occupants of the room.
A flash of lightning illuminated some thirty figures sitting round a long conference table in the centre of the room.
‘Hello, Alan … Darkus,’ a familiar sneer rang out, as one of the figures stood up.
‘Good evening, Presto,’ replied Knightley, recognising his outline.
Darkus watched the theatrically dressed villain lean on the conference table, his Spanish gaucho hat tipped at a jaunty angle, with a feather in the band. A set of sconce lights dimmed up around the room, to reveal the rest of the conference members, including the former British cabinet minister, the female media baron, the prominent American crime figure, and several others that Darkus recognised from web pages and newspapers, but couldn’t immediately identify. Whoever they were on any other day, Darkus knew that he was now in the presence of the shadowy organisation that had haunted his family, and the world, since before he was born.
‘Glad you could make it to our little get-together,’ remarked Presto with a high giggle.
‘So this is the Combination …’ said Darkus, more to his father than to the rogues’ gallery assembled before them.
His father nodded gravely.
‘As usual, your assumption is correct, Doc,’ Presto answered. ‘And guess what? You’re the guests of honour.’ He suppressed another giggle. ‘This is our annual conference,’ he announced. ‘Minus our former number one, Underwood, of course, thanks to your little operation on Harley Street. He’s of no use to us now.’
‘So this was a game all along,’ Darkus addressed the conference. ‘To get us here … now.’
Presto nodded. Knightley Senior remained tactfully silent.
‘It was Morton’s idea,’ Presto explained, referring to his boss. ‘If you ever caught him – which you did – the game would commence. And you followed the trail like obedient little mice.’ Presto made scampering motions with his leather-gloved fingers. ‘Three blind mice,’ he added, pleased with his description. ‘Creeping straight into the mousetrap.’
Darkus recalled the chain of events: ‘First Bogna goes missing,’ he noted. ‘Abducted by Sturgess, the paid actor. Then we arrive, and nearly perish in the rental car …’
‘All a test. Arranged by us,’ Presto said proudly.
‘Then we followed the clues through the desert to Survival Town, Area 51, Vegas … past Clive, and Doyle, to here,’ Darkus carried on. ‘But what if we didn’t make it? We could have failed at every turn?’
‘But you didn’t,’ Presto replied. ‘Vegas is the city of games, and you played yours so exceptionally well.’
‘But why …?’ asked Darkus. ‘What’s this all about?’
Presto gestured like a mime, holding a finger to his lips, suggesting he couldn’t tell. Not yet.
Darkus desperately searched his mind and his surroundings for answers. He spotted his former adversary, Chloe Jaeger, who smiled and winked cheerfully from her seat.
‘And I suppose you’re “Pam Clorr” of Clorr Entertainment,’ observed Darkus, trying to build his case.
Chloe, followed by Presto, both shook their heads.
‘Wait a second …’ Darkus felt his previous hypothesis explode, his train of thought derail. He had to reassemble the pieces of the case into a new explanation for the facts. He spotted an empty seat at the head of the conference table. With U
nderwood out of action, there had to be a new head of the Combination: a new number one. ‘Pam Clorr. Pamela Clorr,’ he murmured, turning the name over in his mind, watching the letters separate and fall apart, before rotating like a small constellation, reordering themselves around the orbit of a new idea.
His thought process suddenly stopped in its tracks, freezing his entire body on the spot. It was an anagram – something so obvious and simple, and yet so impossible to believe. The whole investigation had been a trap from the very beginning.
‘Where’s Tilly?’ he demanded of the room. ‘Where is she?’ he shouted more urgently.
No one answered.
Darkus turned to his dad, grabbing him by the arm. ‘Dad? Pamela Clorr is an anagram … of Carol Palmer.’
‘I realise that.’ Knightley nodded towards a doorway at the back of the room, where two figures were standing: one taller, one smaller in stature.
‘Tilly?’ Darkus called out.
‘I’m OK, Doc,’ her voice came back, quavering and broken. ‘I’ve found Mum. Look …’
The figures emerged, resolving into Tilly and an attractive woman in her late forties with locks of curly auburn hair, tied back neatly, in keeping with her tailored business suit. There was something familiar about her features: the striking eyes, the dimples on either side of her mouth. Without the need for deduction, Darkus knew instinctively that this was Carol: Tilly’s mum.
Darkus spun to his father accusingly. ‘You knew?’
‘I knew that Carol had joined the Combination in the months before her death. She was helping me locate Underwood after his disappearance. Then I found out she was collaborating with him. I could only deduce that she had fallen under the spell of The Code herself.’ Knightley stared across the room at his former assistant and once trusted friend, Carol Palmer – the sight of her and the memory of everything becoming almost too much to bear.
‘I did what my conscience instructed me to do, Alan,’ she answered calmly.
‘To fake your own death and abandon your only daughter? I can believe a lot of things, but that one’s hard to swallow. It must have been covered up at the highest levels – doctors, coroners, law enforcement. And most of all, in your own heart, or what’s left of it.’
Darkus watched, lost for words. He looked to Tilly, desperately trying to read her expression, as if it was the ultimate case to crack, but it was too complex – and perhaps Tilly couldn’t make sense of it either. Her eyes were wet, her mascara running, but the tears were as much fear as joy. Her face had the troubled innocence of a child who’d opened their long-awaited Christmas gift only to find it was something different entirely – something terrifying: a Pandora’s box, the contents of which she could not unsee.
Carol ignored Knightley and addressed his son directly: ‘I imagine you have a burning question, Doc … You want to know why you’re here, yes?’
Darkus looked to Tilly again, receiving no feedback.
‘The answer is simple,’ Carol went on, her face implacable. ‘You’ve completed the game, and now it’s time to receive your reward. We’d like to make you an offer … Join us.’
Darkus looked at Tilly, expecting a signal, something to indicate that they were still on the same side. Weren’t they?
‘You must be joking,’ Knightley Senior blurted. ‘You might have us in a corner this time, but we’re not stupid. Or immoral.’
‘No offence, Alan, but your black and white ideas of right and wrong are outdated. It’s all shades of grey now. And whether you join us, or not, is irrelevant. I convinced Underwood to let you live, albeit in a coma state for all those years. It was Darkus who resurrected your career and became the single biggest threat to our organisation. That’s why, with all due respect, it is Darkus we want on our side.’ She appealed to the junior detective. ‘With or without your father.’
‘We come as a package,’ replied Darkus, indicating his dad and Tilly. ‘Three of a kind.’
‘Tilly has already made her decision, haven’t you, darling?’ Carol put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘She’s already got so much of me in her. It’s hard to believe she didn’t connect the dots sooner.’
Tilly felt her mother’s touch but didn’t move, like an injured animal, too traumatised to react, even to apparent affection.
Undaunted, Carol pressed on. ‘Darkus, we’re offering you a position in the Combination. It’s a one-time offer and it comes with complimentary membership to some of the most exclusive clubs and organisations in the world, along with access to cutting-edge technology and paranormal phenomena, the likes of which most people couldn’t even imagine.’
Presto and the assembled villains around the table nodded knowingly.
‘But for what motive?’ countered Darkus. ‘To line your pockets, protect the interests of a chosen few, and fuel your own greed for power?’
‘Bravo, son,’ declared Knightley. ‘Honour may be an old, outdated word, but I’m old and outdated, and I like it.’
‘Think carefully, Doc,’ murmured Carol.
‘And what if I refuse?’ Darkus put it to them.
Carol looked disappointed. ‘You and your father won’t leave this room alive,’ she replied evenly.
Tilly shifted awkwardly, feeling her mother’s caress on her shoulder – and seeing a compact pistol in her mother’s other hand, trained across the room on her colleagues and friends, the Knightleys.
‘Don’t worry, sweetie,’ Carol soothed her daughter. ‘They’ll make the right decision.’
Tilly stared at Darkus, her eyes unflinching.
Darkus turned to his father for guidance.
‘Well, while the kids are making up their minds, I’ve got a proposal of my own,’ said Knightley and swivelled his bumbag round to the front of his waist.
Darkus looked at him, confused. The Combination members shifted nervously in their seats as Carol retrained the pistol, targeting Knightley specifically.
‘It’s OK, they’re clean,’ she reassured the assembly.
‘It’s just a little something,’ Knightley went on, ‘that’s old and outdated, like me, but it’s constructed out of human bone, and lined with lead, so it wasn’t detected by your scanners.’ He unzipped the bumbag and took out a small, finely carved box, with an array of cryptic-looking designs spanning each side of it. ‘It turns out Underwood was quite a collector.’
Darkus recognised it as a puzzle box – instantly deducing that this was the same vessel used for Underwood’s hard drive, which Tilly and his father had discovered in the vault on Chancery Lane.
‘In fact,’ Knightley continued, ‘this puzzle box possesses many secrets. Some believe it even offers a portal into other dimensions. Other realities … Well, that’s something you probably know more about than I do.’
‘I’ve got an easier way to transport you to another dimension, Alan. Don’t make me pull this trigger,’ Carol called out.
Knightley carried on, in his own world. ‘I simply used it to smuggle something into this room. Knowing all along that we were walking into a trap, I needed an ace up my sleeve. Something I picked up in the hangar at Area 51.’
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out in the chamber and the shoulder of Knightley’s coat opened up in a red hole, expelling a puff of tweed cloth. Tilly flinched, seeing a whisper of smoke rise from her mother’s pistol.
‘Dad!’ Darkus yelled, grabbing his father as the elder detective fell to his knees.
Knightley grimaced but ignored the wound and arranged the fingers of his left hand in a wide spread around the box, covering the faces of the serpents and winged men that were etched into the design, then used the fingers of his right hand to rotate the petals of the flower engraving.
‘The next shot will be the last,’ Carol warned him.
Knightley set the box on the floor as the device unfolded itself. The lid flipped back and the four sides lowered with the aid of tiny cogs and wheels, opening up to reveal: a small cube of clay-like substance, covered in wire
s with a detonator positioned on top.
It was a bomb.
Darkus instinctively recoiled. Members of the Combination got to their feet in consternation and alarm. Presto choked back a nervous laugh and cleared his throat. Carol’s eyes widened.
‘Is that it, Alan?’ she asked, trying to remain calm.
‘It’s enough to kill everyone in this room,’ he replied, resting his finger on the detonator, arming the device. ‘Now let’s finish the game.’
‘You expect me to believe you’d sacrifice all the innocents in this building?’ Carol challenged him. ‘Even if it means you succeed in destroying the Combination?’
‘Dougal is downstairs with instructions to trip the fire alarm and order a full evacuation if he doesn’t hear from me in …’ Knightley glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Well, right now, as a matter of fact.’
On cue, a fire alarm started bleating steadily throughout the pyramid. Seconds later, the echo of large movements of people reverberated up through the building. The Combination members began hurling threats and accusations, directed at each other as much as anyone else.
Presto and Chloe ran to each other, then checked the emergency exits, only to find them locked. Their eyes turned to their new number one, Carol Palmer, who had clearly ensured that no one would be leaving the room without her permission.
‘OK,’ Carol conceded, raising her voice above the commotion. ‘What do you want, Alan?’
‘Darkus and Tilly, in that lift now.’
‘You really expect me to give you my daughter back?’
Tilly shook her head, her face a veil of torn loyalties.
‘Come home, Tilly,’ Darkus called out. ‘Remember what I told you in the desert,’ he pleaded. ‘We’re your family now. All of us.’ He nodded.
