by Bear Grylls
And there was the man himself.
In all the pictures Beck had seen of Edwin Blake, he was wearing a grey business suit. Here he wore a knitted jumper and jeans. The outfit looked casual, but Beck noticed the expensive Italian leather loafers on his feet. The old man was tall and thin, with a fringe of white hair around a bald head.
The guards withdrew at a signal Beck didn’t see, and then there was just him, and James . . . and the man who had dominated his life, who had killed his parents, who stood for everything Beck despised.
Edwin Blake came slowly towards them with a broad smile on his skull-like face.
Chapter 38
Blake had his hands in his pockets, his head tilted quizzically.
‘James? This is a surprise in so many ways. And . . . you have indeed brought someone who looks a lot like Beck Granger.’
He walked slowly around the two of them, reminding Beck uncomfortably of a shark circling its prey. James turned to keep track of him. Beck simply stood and stared straight ahead. He couldn’t help but flinch when he felt Blake’s fingers run through his hair. He failed to stifle a gasp as the man suddenly tore a clump of it out.
‘Dark roots. Beck Granger a bottle-blond – who would have thought?’
Blake came round to the front. Long, probing fingers grabbed Beck’s chin and pushed his head back so that the old man could look him in the eye. Beck did all he could to return the stare without blinking. Blake’s face twisted into a sneer. He let go of Beck and stepped away.
‘Either Beck Granger has a twin that I’ve never heard of – or this is indeed him. How interesting. How many questions does this raise?’ He started to circle them again. ‘I suppose the first is . . . James, why exactly aren’t you at school? I pay good money to have you educated at that college.’
‘Um . . .’ It was a very logical question, but clearly not one James had expected. ‘Ian took me out.’
‘Ah yes, Ian . . . And that is the second question. Ian very definitely told me that Beck Granger was dead . . .’ He frowned. ‘No, I tell a lie. He told me that he’d heard Beck die. Heard the screams, found a torn and bloodied T-shirt which I saw myself . . .’
‘Ian thought Beck might have faked it,’ James said. He was sounding more confident now. ‘He tracked him down and found him in Johannesburg. Then he got me out of school so that I could befriend him and bring him here.’
Beck’s mind whirled with the betrayal, the deceit. Had James really done that?
‘And where is Ian now?’
James swallowed. ‘Beck sabotaged his rope. He fell.’
His grandfather hesitated, and took in the obvious pain on James’s face. ‘Commiserations. You probably haven’t been keeping up with the news, but the authorities have indeed found the body of an adult Caucasian male at the bottom of a mountain. And it does seem that his rope was cut. Why didn’t you just kill Beck in return? You must have had the opportunity.’
James’s mouth worked silently for a moment. ‘I . . . thought you might like to see—’
‘You thought,’ his grandfather sneered. ‘You thought nothing. You’re still weak, boy. Didn’t have the guts to do it yourself?’
James flushed. ‘If I still had the gun, I’d do it here and now to prove it to you!’
‘Here?’ Blake asked mildly. He looked down at the very expensive carpet. ‘No, I don’t think so. Out on the terrace, perhaps. Easier to clean up afterwards.’ He stepped back and observed Beck thoughtfully. ‘Beck, you are limping. Hurt your leg?’
In a flash, he lashed out with one foot and caught Beck squarely on his wound. Beck was taken by surprise, and shouted out in pain as he crumpled to the floor.
‘Kick him, James,’ Blake ordered.
James hesitated only a moment before drawing back his foot, and Beck knew he was going to do it. He curled up as tightly as he could to protect his injury, but James’s foot caught him full on the shin of his injured leg. Beck moaned through clenched teeth as he clutched it.
‘You have five seconds to be standing before I do it again,’ Blake said coldly.
Beck had no doubt he meant it, and staggered to his feet. His eyes were streaming and he wiped them with his fist.
‘That’s better. I couldn’t help noticing a certain disrespect in your demeanour, Beck. I advise you to lose it. It’s really not in your best interests.’ Suddenly the cold had vanished and Blake sounded almost warm and friendly – an elderly uncle trying to entertain his two nephews. ‘Come over here, boys. I’ve got something that might interest you both . . .’
He led the way over to a display case set into the wall next to the terrace window. Outside, Beck noticed, the paving disappeared into the gloom of the evening.
In front of them, the series of glass shelves housed a random collection of objects that didn’t really match the décor of the rest of the room. Some of these bits and pieces couldn’t have been worth anything. A battered passport. Coins. A circuit board.
But on the top shelf there was a framed photograph, and Beck immediately realized what this was all about. The photo showed Abby Blake. It had been taken on one of her better days. A smiling, happy, laughing face that showed nothing of the person she had really been. This was like a shrine to Abby.
‘Your mother had a career that took her all over the world,’ Blake was saying to James, who was staring at the display, transfixed. ‘She always brought back a little memento from each mission. Sometimes I amuse myself remembering what she did on each occasion. She was a daughter to be proud of. You could learn from her.’
Beck continued to scan the shelves. Each piece had been selected by Abby – therefore it had been important to her mission in some way. He felt a morbid fascination in trying to work out why.
A small glass bottle. Had she poisoned someone? A silk scarf. What did that mean?
And then his eyes lighted on a single object sitting on the middle shelf. A slightly battered-looking portable hard drive.
Edwin Blake touched a button and the glass door to the terrace slid silently aside. Cold air blew into the room, and lights came on automatically to illuminate the paving and the balustrade. Beyond them, the dark night was now impenetrable.
Edwin reached casually into an alcove, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand, pointing straight at Beck. ‘Step outside, Beck,’ he ordered.
Chapter 39
Beck stepped slowly out onto the terrace, followed by James and his grandfather.
So this was it. Edwin Blake had already said that the terrace would be the place to shoot someone. Would he do it himself? Or would he give the gun to James so that he could make good his boast?
He found himself hoping that it would be Blake. It felt odd, but he really didn’t want it to be James. James could still change his mind. He could still find a way in life that was right. It was never too late to come good.
‘Stand over there, Beck.’ With a jerk of the barrel, Blake pointed at a red tile set into the floor by the balustrade. ‘Look out into the night.’
Beck stood his ground and spoke for the first time since his capture. ‘If you’re going to shoot me, you can look me in the eye and do it.’
‘Shoot you?’ Blake frowned, then suddenly laughed. ‘Shoot you? What a waste! No, I’m not – yet – going to do that. You may beg me to, one day . . . But not right now.’ He tucked the gun into his waistband and held up both hands. ‘There! See? Not going to shoot you. Just stand on that tile.’
Beck paused, but shrugged in a way that made it clear this was his choice. He went and stood on the tile.
Blake came over next to him. ‘And look out – there, see? Past that ridge . . .’
Beck’s eyes were growing accustomed to the dark. He could see the ridge; it loomed up, obscuring the stars.
‘I was standing on precisely that spot when I saw your parents’ plane explode. A ball of fire, lighting up the horizon . . . it was really quite beautiful. You should thank me.’
Beck turned and stared. ‘T
hank you?’
‘I made you, boy! Did you ever stop and think of that? Would you have lived the life you have if you still had Mummy and Daddy to go home to every day? You’re like me in so many ways.’
‘I am so totally unlike you!’ Beck snapped back.
‘Bah.’ Blake waved a hand. ‘Come on. You seek out danger. And why? Because you have a death wish. Don’t deny it! No one gets into as much trouble as you by accident. All that stuff you do for Green Force is just an excuse. A means to an end. Every day you’re pushing the world to the limit, you’re saying, Here I am, come and get me, do your worst! And one day – yes, one day you know your luck will run out and the world will win. But what a life you’ll have lived!’
‘You are’ – Beck couldn’t find enough words in him to express what he felt – ‘insane.’
‘I’ll prove it. Think back over the last fourteen years. All the things you’ve accomplished. Any regrets? I really don’t think so. If you had a time machine, right now, tell me one thing, just one thing you’d go back and do differently.’
Beck looked him in the eye. ‘I’d go back and I’d save Abby’s life.’
And he meant it. It was what he’d been trying to do right up until the last seconds before the explosion that killed her. It hadn’t been his fault he’d been dragged away into the helicopter.
He had obviously spoiled Blake’s little speech. He was supposed to admit that he had no regrets, proving that Blake had done him a favour by killing his parents.
James bit back a gasp.
Blake shot a scornful look in Beck’s direction. ‘Oh, please. You expect me to believe you’d be weak when you could be strong?’
His eyes narrowed and abruptly the gun was back in his hand. He drew back the hammer, aimed up into the night and fired. The crack of the bullet echoed around the mountains. The flash left a slowly-fading scar at the back of Beck’s eyes.
And then Blake was offering it to him, handle first. ‘Here. Take it. Go on!’
Beck took it, slowly.
‘I’ve just proved it’s loaded and the safety is off. You like to think you’re so much better than me – that you stand for everything I’m against. Here’s your chance to do something about it. You must realize, whether I take you down to the cellars and shoot you there, or just lock you up, your days of opposing me are over. You will never be free again, while I . . . I will just go on doing what I’ve done for the last seventy years, and when I’m gone, James will take over and carry on the work. You can change that now by shooting me. Go on! Stand by your convictions. End it. You can even shoot the boy too. In my desk, in the other room, are all the codes you will ever need to access Lumos’s central mainframes – all our files, all our information. You’ll have our resources and our wealth at your fingertips. You could take over! Just one twitch on that trigger. Go on!’
There was a certain logic to it. Of course, Beck knew he would never leave the monastery alive. But Blake was right. Without him at the helm, Lumos would be finished.
But what he would never understand was that Beck didn’t want to rule the world and destroy people’s lives. He just wanted to live in harmony with it. Lumos only understood control. It could never understand how you can be strong by being weak.
And so Beck put the safety catch back on and chucked the pistol over the balustrade into the night. After a couple of seconds there was the chink of metal hitting rock.
A puff of breath and a gasp showed that James had stopped breathing during the last thirty seconds. His grandfather stepped back and surveyed the pair of them. Then he pressed a button on a device strapped to his wrist. A moment later, two guards appeared.
‘My grandson needs a shower and a change of clothes. Sort it out. And this one’ – he waved scornfully at Beck – ‘to the cellar.’
Chapter 40
A shove in the small of his back sent Beck flying into the room. He just had time to make out the back wall and the outlines of wooden crates before the door slammed shut behind him and he was left in the dark. He heard the lock go.
He puffed his cheeks out. Still alive. That was a plus.
He had tried to keep track of the route as they brought him down here. Narrow passageways, steep stone steps. At the bottom was a vaulted stone room, lined with heavy wooden doors and dimly lit by a single bulb. He had just had time to make out barrels and boxes and other bits of junk. Then they had pushed him through one of the doors.
Beck stood in the darkness and slowly let the room come to life around him. It wasn’t pitch black. There was a band of light beneath the door. Shapes emerged from the gloom. The ceiling was very low – he could reach up a hand and touch it. His fingers brushed against rough plaster and cobwebs. He made his way slowly back to the door and felt the wall all around it, on either side. There did not seem to be a light switch. He explored the walls further until he had gone all round the room. The same dusty, rough plaster, but no switches. No doors or hatches either. No way out.
And, he couldn’t help noticing, no heating. The cellar was basically the same temperature as the rock it was built into, and the rock was the same temperaure as the outside. It was not going to be a pleasant night. Beck was at least grateful they hadn’t taken his clothes off him. He was still dressed for outdoors.
Something else that was definitely missing was food and water. How long were they going to keep him here? He shuddered, because it was quite possible that Edwin Blake did not intend to let him out. At all. Beck knew precisely how long the human body could go without food and water. He had spent a large part of his life finding both of them in strange places. Without food, he could still be alive a week from now or longer. Anyway, there would be spiders here, probably edible. He gave a strangled, snorting sort of laugh as he remembered something else: he also had his very own supply of maggots. It couldn’t get much worse than that, Beck mused: eating maggots that had been feeding off your own body.
Of course, without water he would be dead in a couple of days. Slowly and painfully. And that was all there was to it. None of the tricks he knew about finding water would work here, because he was in a cellar buried deep in a mountain.
Well, deep in a monastery. The complex was so high up that even the deepest part of the basement was well above ground level. For all the good that did him.
But what was in the crates? he wondered. He could pick out the outlines of the jumbled pile against one wall. He made his way over and felt them with his hands. He winced as a splinter dug into his palm. They were just wooden packing crates, all empty. Nothing he could use for food. Nothing for warmth. He turned one of them upside down so that he could sit on it, elbows on knees, chin in hands.
There was no point assuming that Blake would let him out again. The man had no need to. He had talked about shooting Beck in the cellar. Beck’s one comfort was that he probably wouldn’t do that. He would get much more of a buzz out of knowing that Beck was slowly starving to death.
And James? James could not be relied on. Forget him, Beck thought. James might or might not come good. Beck wasn’t going to factor the other boy into his plans.
He got off the crate and lay down on the floor. He might as well try to sleep; it was pretty well the only useful thing he could do right now. He needed his strength for whatever lay ahead.
The stone floor was hard and uncomfortable, and the cold soaked into his bones. There was also a chill draught running across it. Beck got up again and stacked some of the crates together to make a bed. They were only slightly less uncomfortable, but he was out of the draught and off the floor that sucked the heat from his already cold limbs.
And then he was on his feet again, cursing himself for an idiot who didn’t deserve to escape. If there was a draught, that meant air was moving. From somewhere, to somewhere. Which meant that the air had found another way out of this room.
He plucked a hair from his head and knelt down on the floor in front of the door, where the light was best. With his head almost touching the f
loor he held the hair between thumb and forefinger and watched it twitch in the breeze. The draught was blowing from under the door.
He shuffled on his knees a bit further into the room, and crouched down again to pick out the direction the hair was blowing in. Bit by bit, the hair led him over to one corner of the room. There was a narrow gap between the crates and the back wall. He pulled the crates away so that the light from the door could reach as much of the wall as possible, and bent close to the plaster to investigate.
There was no obvious grating or hole there. Beck licked his finger and held it up so that the draught tickled his wet digit. There, about halfway up the wall – that was where it was strongest.
He bent closer – and then he had it. A thin, hairline crack in the plaster. No doubt about it: air was going into it. Behind the plaster was a hollow space.
And then, out of nowhere, he remembered Sangmu talking about the history of the monastery. There had been a community living here before that, in a cave. In a network of caves. The monastery was built on top of it.
So where were the caves?
Presumably they were still here . . .
Beck picked up the nearest crate, held it above his head and smashed it down on the stone floor; then again, and once more after that. He wasn’t worried about the noise. If there were any guards outside, he hoped they would think he was just smashing up the furniture out of frustration. The crate came apart, and now he had a tool – a length of wood with a jagged, pointed end.
He took a firm grip with both hands and jammed it into the crack.
Chapter 41
James came awake with a shudder and a gasp. It took him a moment to remember where he was. Soft mattress, duvet, moonlight shining faintly through the curtains . . .
