by Paul Adam
‘Take a look at this lot,’ Lucas said. He clicked on an icon on the screen and pages of what looked like accounts appeared.
‘What are they?’ Chris asked.
‘Hard to say,’ Lucas replied. ‘I’ve scanned through them. It’s all gobbledegook to me. Company records, payments, sales figures, that kind of stuff. You’ll need a financial expert to makes sense of them.’
‘We can give them to Dan Kingston,’ Max said. Kingston was a financial journalist on the London News Chronicle who had been helping Max in his fight against Julius Clark.
‘You cracked them all?’ Rusty asked.
Lucas shook his head. ‘Just a few. But I thought you ought to see them straight away. I’m still working on the rest. This guy has got a hell of a security system. He must have a lot to hide.’
‘He has,’ Max said. ‘Could you show us some more files?’
‘Sure. But they’re just as difficult to understand. For me, anyway, but then what do I know about money?’
He clicked on a couple more icons in turn. ‘See, just meaningless numbers. This one too.’ He clicked again. ‘And this one. And this.’
He went quickly through the files he’d decrypted. Max caught the flash of numbers and columns of figures, then a glimpse of something else that triggered a response in his brain.
‘Wait a second,’ he said abruptly. ‘Go back to that file.’
‘Which one?’ Lucas said.
‘That one.’ Max pointed to a file that was named EP01. It came up onto the screen.
‘You understand any of that?’ Lucas said.
Max was staring at a word at the top of the file – Episuderon, followed by a list of dates and what seemed to be invoices for payment.
‘Episuderon?’ Lucas said. ‘Does that mean something to you?’
‘It’s a drug,’ Max replied. He glanced at Consuela and Chris, who had moved closer to the computer to get a better look.
‘A drug?’ Lucas said with a frown. ‘This guy’s a drug dealer?’
‘Not exactly,’ Max said. He studied the words and figures on the screen, feeling a mounting sense of excitement. Episuderon – the drug Julius Clark had been using on Shadow Island to brainwash his opponents.
‘What’re we looking at here, Max?’ Consuela asked.
‘Orders and payments for Episuderon,’ Max replied. ‘Look at the dates. The last one is the end of June. That’s after we destroyed Clark’s laboratory on Shadow Island. He’s still buying the stuff. Which means he’s still using it, still brainwashing people.’
‘But using it where?’ Chris said.
Max touched the screen with his fingertip. ‘You see the name and address of the supplier – Phobos Pharmaceuticals, Woodford Down Laboratories, Wiltshire. I think we should go there and check it out, don’t you?’
Max went with Chris in the Nissan for the journey home. They knew there was no risk of them being followed this time, so Zip’s expert driving wouldn’t be needed. Max wanted to talk to Chris alone, discuss when they were going to head down to Wiltshire and what they would do when they got there. He was feeling exhilarated. This was the breakthrough they’d been waiting for. For the first time in three weeks he felt they were making progress, that they finally had a target to aim for.
Nearing home, they parked the car in a side street and walked the last quarter of a mile, scrambling over the garden wall and running across the lawn to the house. Chris unlocked the basement door and stepped inside. Max followed him, and was about to go past when Chris suddenly stuck out his arm to stop him.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said softly.
‘What’s the matter?’
Max could hear the warning note in Chris’s voice, sense a tension in his body. He was staring at the keypad beside the door, the control panel for the alarm system.
‘The alarm’s off,’ he said.
‘The others must have got back before us,’ Max said. ‘They’ll have turned it off upstairs.’
Chris had his head tilted to one side, listening hard. ‘You hear anything?’
‘No.’
‘That’s the problem. Wait here.’
‘Chris—’
‘Wait here.’
Chris padded quietly across the room and edged his way cautiously up the stairs. His anxiety had infected Max now. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling, his stomach beginning to tighten. He knew that something was wrong. He had an urge to follow Chris, to give him some support, but he made himself stay where he was. Chris could take care of himself, and do it better without Max tagging along behind.
Where were Consuela, Rusty and Zip? Not in the house, that was clear. The place was eerily silent. So why was the alarm off? Why was the house unprotected?
Then Max remembered the CCTV cameras. He darted across the basement, threw open the doors of the trick cabinet and switched on the monitor, rewinding the tapes from the three cameras. He checked the one in the hall first, fast-forwarding through the footage, one eye on the time code in the bottom corner of the screen. For a while there was nothing in the picture but an empty hall and a closed front door. Then the front door opened and a man came in. Max jabbed the ‘play’ button. The man was in his twenties, wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and, strangely for the summer, a pair of black leather gloves. He turned to the keypad immediately inside the door and swiftly levered off the front, taking another tool from the pouch around his waist and doing something with it on the keypad. Max couldn’t see exactly what because the man’s body was blocking the view, but he knew he was disabling the alarm.
‘Chris!’ Max yelled. ‘Chris!’
He kept watching the monitor. The man was moving away from the door now, heading down the hall. Max punched the button for the camera in the kitchen and fast-forwarded through the tape, searching for the right spot. There he was. Just entering the kitchen. The camera had a perfect shot of his face, his thin mouth and close-set, beady eyes. He seemed completely unaware that he was being caught on camera. He crossed the room and knelt down in front of the gas cooker. He pulled open the oven door and took an object out of his pouch. Max couldn’t see clearly what it was, but he realized suddenly what the man was doing.
He spun round and raced across the basement and up the stairs. ‘Chris! Chris, where are you?’ he yelled. He burst into the kitchen, glancing across at the cooker, then sprinted down the hall. ‘Chris!’
Chris leaned over the banisters on the first-floor landing. ‘What is it?’
‘We have to get out.’
‘What’s the—’
‘Now!’ Max was almost screaming. He gestured frantically with his arms. ‘I’ve looked at the tapes. There was a man. We have to get out.’
Chris came hurtling down the stairs. ‘What man?’ he demanded urgently.
‘In the kitchen. By the cooker.’
‘The cooker? Jeez …’
Chris flung open the front door and tried to push Max through. But Max had thought of something, something important.
‘The tapes …’
He dashed along the hall and back down the stairs into the basement. Chris came after him. The tape from the kitchen camera was still playing. Max ejected it and gripped it tight in his hand. Chris had the external door already open. He took Max’s arm and hauled him out into the garden. Then they sped away across the lawn.
They were almost at the shrubbery when the bomb detonated. The force of the explosion knocked them off their feet, sent them tumbling into the bushes. Chris threw his arms around Max, shielding him with his body as debris flew out across the garden – bits of brick and mortar and plaster, all enveloped in a choking cloud of dust and smoke.
Max was winded by his fall, struggling to breathe. He whooped for air, then started coughing violently as he inhaled a mouthful of dust. Chris helped him to sit up.
‘You all right?’
Max nodded, spitting out the dirt and wiping his mouth with his hand. Then he looked back across the garden. For a moment he coul
d see nothing but the thick cloud of dust, but then as it settled the house gradually began to emerge from the fog. The kitchen wall and part of the bedroom wall above it had gone completely. There was just a large, gaping hole in the house, a huge pile of bricks on the patio below and more scattered across the lawn.
Max took in the shattered remains of the kitchen – the fridge crushed like a tin can, the worktops and oven blown to smithereens, the ceiling obliterated, revealing the joists of the floor above. Flames were licking out through the opening, the fire spreading, feeding off the gas that must have been leaking from the broken pipe. The flames got bigger, fanned by the breeze until the back of the house was a raging inferno, clouds of smoke billowing out over the garden.
‘We have to go. It’s not safe here,’ Chris said.
He picked up the tape that Max had dropped when he fell and slipped it away into his jacket pocket. Then he pulled Max to his feet. Their clothes were covered in dust, their faces smeared with dirt. Max’s legs were shaking so much he could hardly walk. Chris helped him over the garden wall and down onto the street on the other side. Then he took out his mobile phone and punched in 999.
FOUR
THE FIRE BRIGADE arrived first, three ordinary tenders and an engine with a long, extendable ladder that could reach the roof of the house. By then, Max and Chris had walked round the block to the front and sat down on a low wall seventy metres up the street. Chris had phoned Rusty to tell him what had happened and discovered that they were stuck in a traffic snarl-up caused by an accident near Bethnal Green. It would probably take them another fifteen minutes to get home.
The whole ground floor of the house was now ablaze, flames leaping from the windows, the sky thick with smoke. Max watched in a daze, feeling tired and numb all over. They’d got out just in time. A minute later and they’d have been caught in the explosion. The realization of just how close to death he’d been sent an icy shiver through him and he started to shake again, his whole body trembling, his insides suddenly freezing though it was a warm night.
Chris put his arm around him and pulled him close, trying to stop the spasms.
‘What’s the matter with me?’ Max asked, his teeth chattering.
‘You’re in shock,’ Chris replied. ‘When the ambulance arrives, I’ll get them to look at you.’
The firemen were swarming all over the street, connecting hoses to hydrants, getting the extendable ladder into position, making sure the neighbouring properties had been evacuated. Chris had already gone over and spoken to the officer in charge, told him that there was no one inside the burning house. He didn’t want anyone risking their lives going in to look for the occupants.
It was a slick, practised operation, but even so it seemed to Max that it was an eternity before the firemen actually began to deal with the blaze, before the powerful jets of water were directed onto the flames, three hoses playing across the windows and roof, the fire sizzling, smoke belching from every orifice of the building.
That’s my home, Max thought in deep anguish. My family’s home. Everything we own is in there. My parents’ possessions, their furniture, my books, my music, all the equipment for my stage shows. The whole lot will have been destroyed. He blinked away a tear and tried not to get upset. He and Chris were alive – that was all that mattered.
Three police cars had arrived shortly after the fire brigade. Uniformed officers had moved spectators away from the scene and cordoned off the area with blue and white tape. Now an ambulance was pulling in behind the police cars. A couple of paramedics got out and threw open the rear doors.
‘Come on,’ Chris said gently.
He pulled Max to his feet and led him over to the ambulance, giving the paramedics the story that they’d already agreed between them. Max had been alone in the house, but had fortunately just gone out into the garden when the explosion occurred. No mention of CCTV cameras or tapes, or the man planting the bomb in the cooker. No mention that Chris had also been present. Chris was a wanted man. At all costs, he had to stay out of the picture.
The paramedics made Max sit down in the back of the ambulance. They draped a blanket around his shoulders and probed him with questions. Did he feel any pain? Had he been injured or burned? Had any of the flying debris hit him? Then they cleaned the dirt off his face and examined the skin for cuts or bruises.
‘How’s your head?’ one of the paramedics asked. ‘Any aches?’
‘No,’ Max replied. He was feeling a bit better now. He wasn’t so cold, his limbs were shaking less.
‘I think you’ll be all right,’ the paramedic said. ‘It’s not clinical shock. No burns or blood loss. You’ve just had a pretty horrific experience. Take it easy for the next few hours, OK?’ He frowned and peered more closely at him. ‘Don’t I recognize you? What’s your name?’
‘Max Cassidy.’
‘I thought so. I saw you on the television, that Tower Bridge thing.’ He glanced out of the ambulance at the burning house. ‘My God, you’ll never have a luckier escape than today.’
Max nodded in agreement. It had been a very close call. He wondered about the timing of the explosion. Why just then? He didn’t believe the bomb had been planted simply to destroy the house. It had been put there to kill them. Which meant that whoever detonated it had known they were in the building. How? They must have been watching the garden and the rear of the house and seen them enter. That was disturbing. Max had thought the back way in was safe. Not that it mattered any more now. He wouldn’t be going into the house any way for the foreseeable future. It would be uninhabitable for months.
He looked out through the doors. The fire seemed to be under control. The firemen were still hosing water over the house, but he could see no flames, just gusts of smoke and the gutted remains of his home behind them. He was stunned by how much damage had been done – maybe so much that the house would have to be demolished. The thought filled him with sadness. This was the only home he’d ever known. It wasn’t just furniture and carpets the fire had incinerated, but a part of his life too. That made him angry. And the anger gave him energy, revived him.
He threw off the blanket, stood up and went to the doors of the ambulance.
‘Hey, maybe you should rest a while longer,’ one of the paramedics said.
‘I’m OK now,’ Max replied. ‘Thanks for your help.’
He stepped down into the street. Chris was waiting for him, standing back a little from the ambulance where he wasn’t so obvious. There were a lot of police officers around. They were preoccupied with the fire, but Chris still didn’t want to draw any attention to himself.
‘How are you, Max?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘The police are going to want to talk to you. You’ll have to make a formal statement.’
‘I know what to say.’
‘If they come over, I’ll have to disappear. But I won’t be far away. I’ll be keeping an eye on you. You need me, just yell.’
At that moment, Max saw a police officer walking towards the ambulance and sensed Chris melting away into the crowd.
‘You’re Max Cassidy, aren’t you?’ the officer said, his eyes taking in the dust on Max’s clothes. ‘You were inside the house when the fire started?’
Max shook his head. ‘I was in the garden.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. There was some kind of explosion.’
The policeman took out his notebook. He studied Max with warm, sympathetic eyes. ‘Have you been examined by a paramedic?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Do you feel up to answering a few questions?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s find somewhere more private. It’s becoming a complete circus out here.’
He was only exaggerating slightly. In addition to the emergency services, the fire had attracted a large crowd of curious spect
ators – initially just the residents of the street, but their numbers had soon been swollen by people from the adjoining areas who had seen the smoke pluming up into the air, the flames lighting up the night sky. Press photographers and a television crew had followed, making the scene even more chaotic.
The policeman took Max to one of the police cars parked up the street and they sat in the front, Max answering the officer’s questions as convincingly as he could without giving away what had really happened. When they’d finished, Max got back out of the car and walked away. He glanced along the street and stiffened. A black Mercedes, with tinted windows, was coming to a halt not ten metres away. The rear door opened and a plump, pink-faced man in a dark grey suit climbed out. He stared at the smouldering ruins of the house for a few seconds, then turned his head and saw Max. His face darkened, his mouth twisting into a grimace of distaste.
Max stared back at him. The last time he’d seen Rupert Penhall had been in Mount Pleasant lunatic asylum, where Penhall had imprisoned him, threatening to leave him there to rot if he didn’t cooperate with him. Penhall was some kind of shadowy government official with close links to the security services and Julius Clark. He scared and intimidated Max, even more so now his house had been destroyed. He knew now without doubt that it must have been Penhall who had organized the bomb attack.
‘Come home to a welcoming fire, eh, Max?’ Penhall said with a sneer as he approached. ‘You won’t be going back in there for a long time. If ever.’ He smiled gloatingly, as if the thought gave him great pleasure.
Max clenched his fists, his blood boiling. Keep your cool, he said to himself. Don’t let him see how upset you are.
‘Is that why you’ve come here?’ he said. ‘To enjoy watching my house burn? Did you hope I’d still be in there somewhere?’
‘The gloves are off, Max. We mean serious business. But then, after your experiences in Borneo, you must have realized that by now.’
‘You can’t frighten me,’ Max said, trying to keep his voice steady.
