And what would the policewoman do then, when she saw that nobody was on board? Would she assume that we had somehow drowned?
“Up!” the Traveller shouted.
I didn’t know what he meant by that but even as he spoke, I saw him disappear from sight and realized that there was a vertical shaft inside the tunnel, directly above his head. He’d swung himself as far as the opening and then across onto a second ladder that had taken him up. Jamie did the same. One minute he was in front of me, then it was just his feet. Then he had gone altogether. I was the last. Suddenly I was alone in the tunnel, dangling in space with my arms outstretched. I saw the second ladder in front of me. Jamie’s feet were above my head. But I couldn’t follow him. The Lady Jane had reached the tunnel exit and I had to see what happened next.
I watched as it slid into the open. I could actually see the tiller, the deck where we had just been standing, the name of the boat written in gold letters on the stern. There was no sign of the police or the fly-soldiers but I could imagine them, waiting to pounce. The boat was completely out of the tunnel now, framed by an O of light. I thought of the button that the Traveller had pressed and it was only then that I realized what was about to happen.
The Lady Jane blew up. The explosion was massive, not just tearing it apart but devouring it in a blazing red fireball. And as I stared, the flames rushed towards me, back through the tunnel. If the bomb had gone off a second earlier, I would have been killed instantly. I had about half a second to get out of there. Desperately, I threw myself onto the second ladder and pulled myself up even as a torpedo of burning air raced past. It must have missed me by less than an inch. I felt the heat on the soles of my feet and, looking down, everything was a dense, brilliant red. I looked up and saw Jamie’s face, also reflecting red, staring in horror. He was already climbing and I followed, putting as much space as I could between myself and the inferno below.
Ten rungs. Then we came to another opening and a horizontal passageway leading into inky blackness. We were above the water, still far underground. But I didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on.
THIRTY-NINE
“This way.”
The Traveller’s voice, barely more than a whisper, came out of the darkness ahead of me and I shuffled forward on my hands and knees because there wasn’t enough room to stand up. I was in a narrow, dark tube, buried underground and suddenly I found myself on the edge of panic, fighting for breath. But then, about ten metres away, a square of electric light appeared and I realized that a door had been opened. A door into what? I didn’t care. Jamie was already on his way towards it and I followed.
The door opened into a square room, with a light bulb dangling from the ceiling and breezeblock walls. I thought I could hear the distant hum of machinery. There had to be a generator powering the light. Jamie and the Traveller were being greeted by two people, a man and a woman dressed in grey overalls, both of them in their forties. The woman had fair hair tied in a knot. Her face was filled with concern as she tried to examine the Traveller’s wound.
“You’ve been shot,” she was saying. “You should have told us. We have to get you to the doctor.”
“Not yet.” The Traveller shook his head. “I need to see that it worked.”
“Graham…” the man began. He looked remarkably like the Traveller, with black, curly hair, a lean face and lots of stubble. Like the woman, he was quite pale, like two prisoners who hadn’t seen much of the sun.
“I’m all right, Will. Honestly, I am.” The two of them stood facing each other for a moment, then suddenly embraced, and in that moment I guessed that they were actually brothers, that Will had been part of the family the Traveller had mentioned, and that they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for a long time. “It’s good to see you,” the Traveller said.
“I’ve missed you.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah.”
They broke apart. The Traveller gestured at the two of us. “This is Jamie. And Holly – who was looking after him. I’ll tell you about it later. But now I want to get inside…”
There was a second door leading out. By now there were about a million questions I wanted to ask, starting with who these people were, what this place was and what we were doing here. But I was able to work out some of it for myself. The police would have seen the Lady Jane explode and hopefully they’d assume that we had still been on board, that we’d killed ourselves rather than fall into their hands. They’d look in the tunnel but they might not notice a ladder in the darkness above their heads and surely they would never suspect that there had been people waiting to meet us. At least, that was what I hoped.
We followed a long passageway with bare concrete walls and somehow I got the sense that we were being led further and further into the hillside. I could feel the weight of it pressing down on us. Then there was another doorway – all the light was coming from here – and as I turned the corner, I froze. I just stood there, gaping in astonishment.
We were standing on a raised metal platform above a huge room with at least twenty people looking up at us, applauding. They were all dressed in the same grey overalls as the two people who had met us, but they were every age – from twenty to about seventy. They were surrounded by equipment that I could vaguely remember from my childhood but that I had never seen working since then: electric lights, for a start, but also television screens, computers and telephones. There were other machines, too, banked up against the walls with cables everywhere. Even the air in the room was coming in through some sort of ventilation system. There were no windows.
The room was circular with a domed ceiling. A number of workstations had been arranged in a horseshoe shape in the middle and there was a proper kitchen with cupboards, fridges, ovens and a sink (did they really have running water?) to one side. Two wooden tables stretched out next to each other with different-coloured plastic chairs for meals and a short distance away, sofas had been arranged facing a widescreen TV. There were plants and flowers everywhere … in pots, vases and terracotta urns. Maybe that made them feel at home. Because this was definitely where they worked, ate and rested. I noticed more doors leading out, presumably to where they slept.
They were still applauding – but not me, of course. Jamie was the one they had all been waiting for and the Traveller had brought him here. They were the two heroes. I was just someone who had tagged along for the ride. But I still couldn’t help smiling. They were so glad to see us and, at the end of the day, if I hadn’t stood up for Jamie back in the village, he might never have made it. And even if the Traveller had wanted to leave me behind, I was part of the adventure too.
The Traveller held up a hand. The applause died away.
“My friends!” he exclaimed. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you all. I can’t believe I’m back. I’m so glad to see you … especially Sophie and Will.” He nodded at the man, who, I was sure, was his brother. “But the main thing is, all our work, everything we’ve suffered, hasn’t been in vain. I found the village and the door and finally it opened and one of the Five came through. This is Jamie Tyler. If there is any hope left in the world, it rests with him. He is here and we can help him take on the Old Ones and give mankind a second chance.”
At that, they all began to clap again. If I’d been in Jamie’s shoes, I wouldn’t have known whether to bow or make a speech or wave or what to do. But he just stood there, as if he had expected this sort of reception, and it seemed to me that in some ways I was seeing him for the first time. He wasn’t just another fifteen-year-old like me. He was a Gatekeeper. He was here to save the world.
The Traveller must have decided that this had gone on long enough because suddenly he was bounding down the stairs, making for the nearest workstation, where a TV monitor was flickering with a black-and-white image. Jamie and I followed. There was a young woman there, only a few years older than me. She was quite small with shaven hair.
“How are you, Linda?” the Travell
er asked. “I hardly recognize you. You were only twelve when I left.” His eyes flickered to the screen. “Has it worked?”
She nodded. “I think so. They’re in the water but they’re looking in the wrong place.”
I looked at the television, fascinated to see the canal and the moving figures. The last time I had seen a TV I had been six years old, and that had been a long time ago. There must have been cameras concealed close to the canal because we could see everything. The fly-soldiers seemed to have gone but the police were still there, standing on the bank on the other side of the tunnel or wading through the water. The image changed and I saw what was left of the Lady Jane. Only the front section had survived in one piece and smoke was still billowing out. The rest was either floating on the water or scattered over the ground. The image changed again and I saw the policewoman in her long coat, watching pensively, her elbow resting on her hand. In front of her, one of the policemen was slipping into the canal.
“They’re going back into the tunnel,” Jamie said. “What happens if they find the ladder?”
“There’s nothing unusual about a ladder set in the ceiling,” the Traveller replied. “When the canals were built, there were no engines and the horses that pulled the barges couldn’t go through the tunnels. So the crew would lie on their backs on the roof of the boat and use their feet to propel it forward.”
“What about the shaft?”
“It’s already locked,” the girl – Linda – said. She gestured at a set of controls in front of her. “As soon as you climbed up, a panel slid across behind you. The second door is locked too. Even if they light up the entire tunnel, they’re not going to see anything.”
“You knew we were coming,” I said.
“We’ve been watching you for the last few miles.”
Watching us? How? There must have been more cameras concealed along the way. “Why didn’t you come and help us when we were being chased?” I asked.
“I can explain that, Holly.”
Another woman had appeared, this one older, with white hair, holding a thin cane. Her eyes were covered with black glasses and because I had never met anyone who was blind before, it took me a few seconds to realize that was exactly what she was.
Next to me, Jamie started. “Miss Ashwood!” he exclaimed.
“Jamie…”
“You know each other?” I asked.
“We met once, ten years ago.” The blind woman smiled. “At least, it was ten years for me. We’re safe, I think. The police won’t find anything and they’ll assume that you died in the boat. Don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on things. What matters now is that the three of you get some breakfast. You need a shower, a change of clothes and some sleep. Then we can talk.”
“Miss Ashwood…” Jamie wasn’t moving. “What is this place? Is this the Nexus? Have you really done all this for me?”
“Yes, Jamie. We’ve been waiting for you for an awfully long time so another few hours won’t hurt. Eat something and get some rest. It isn’t over yet.” She turned and walked away, tapping her cane on the concrete floor ahead of her.
“Something to eat,” I said. “That sounds like a good idea.” I yawned. “Then bed. Then a shower. I don’t care which comes first.”
The next twelve hours were among the most blissful in my life. First we ate … real food. Meat and fresh vegetables, then chocolate pudding and custard. Chocolate! For me it was just a faint memory, but even smelling the warm, brown sludge in my bowl was like opening a treasure chest. I don’t think I’d ever felt full before. Every meal I’d eaten in the village had just taunted me, leaving me almost as hungry as when I’d sat down. But I was completely stuffed when I made my way to the sleeping quarters, where a room had been specially prepared for me.
I had a bed with clean sheets and a decent pillow. But first came the total luxury of a warm shower. Not hot but not icy cold either – and strong enough to cover my head and shoulders without me having to move around. They even supplied shampoo, which was a lovely golden colour and smelled of apples. My room was small and plain. It had no windows – but that didn’t matter. I was asleep in less than five seconds and it was another nine hours before I woke up.
Jamie had the room next door – identical to mine, I noticed – and that evening (if it was evening … it was hard to say) we had supper together in the main room with the other Nexus people, who seemed like a nice bunch and looked normal, even if they were all dressed the same. Of course, there was nothing normal about this underground complex but after Little Moulsford it was nice to be introduced to people who smiled and chatted and didn’t stare at you like they were imagining you served up as the Sunday roast.
Then the Traveller appeared, not just washed but shaved for the first time, which made him look ten years younger. He was dressed, like all of us, in grey overalls and his arm was in a sling. I could just make out fresh bandages wrapped around his shoulder, so I guessed they must have taken out the bullet and given him painkillers or whatever because he looked completely refreshed.
I still didn’t know very much about the other members of the Nexus. We’d eaten with Will and Sophie, who had wanted to know all about the end of the village and our flight down the canal but annoyingly told us very little about themselves. Perhaps they’d been instructed not to. Will admitted to being the Traveller’s brother, older by two years – so at least I’d been right about that. Sophie was just a friend, although a close one. It couldn’t have been easy for her either, being apart from him all this time.
The Traveller led us away from the dining area and through a door next to the kitchen. It led to a conference room with a glass table, comfortable leather chairs and maps of the UK pinned to the walls. Susan Ashwood was waiting for us. Sophie and Will had come too, so that made six of us sitting with the door shut in this private space.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” the Traveller said. “So I’ll begin by answering some of them. Jamie … you met Susan Ashwood just before you went to Hong Kong. She’s in charge here. You could say she’s our boss. She was the one who sent me to the village to find you, although I have no idea how she knew that you’d show up. That doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you’re safe. And in case you’re wondering, you’re about ten miles from St Meredith’s, to the north of London. Miss Ashwood will tell you the rest. Then we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”
The blind woman had been waiting for her turn to speak. It was interesting how all three of them seemed to be in awe of her, even though they had known her all this time. Nobody called her “Susan”, for example. She was always “Miss Ashwood”. She turned her head so that she could address Jamie directly.
“Jamie, you know that the Nexus existed only to help you and the other Gatekeepers,” she began. “We were always aware that the world would come to these terrible times – it had been predicted by Joseph of Cordoba, for a start. So when we met you in Farringdon all those years ago, we had already made preparations. We had millions of pounds at our disposal. Our members were enormously wealthy … industrialists, statesmen. We were effectively able to plan for the end of the world.
“We built survival pods. That’s what you’re in now. You may think it a little extreme but let me assure you that back in the Sixties – when I was a young girl – there were many places just like this in existence. The world was afraid of nuclear war and the British government built a series of bunkers deep underground. This was one of them. We bought it and adapted it to our own needs. There were six other pods. The one in Tokyo was destroyed and Istanbul was discovered by the Old Ones and overrun. But the Nexus still has people around the world. We have sent our agents to Mecca, Buenos Aires, Cairo and Delhi. It was fortunate that Matt and Richard Cole were able to bring us a copy of the monk’s diary. It gave us the locations of many of the gates and we have tried to maintain a presence near every one of them. In addition, we have planes. We have food and weapons. We are here to serve you.
; “I last met you ten years ago, when you and Matthew Freeman left for Hong Kong. Shortly after that, much of Hong Kong was destroyed by a typhoon and many of us believed that all five of you had been killed, particularly when we failed to hear from any of you. I knew otherwise. The spirits kept me informed. There is no time in the spirit world. They knew that you had been sent forward ten years and that if we could simply survive that long, you would be back.”
“Excuse me,” I said. I hadn’t meant to interrupt but I had to challenge what I had just heard. “Are you saying that you talk to ghosts?”
Miss Ashwood nodded slightly, as if the question was of no importance and the answer completely obvious. Then she went on. “A year after you had gone, on the ninth of May, the UK was hit by a series of dirty bombs – part nuclear, part biochemical. To this day we do not know who was behind the atrocity. It could have been religious extremists. It could have been anybody. It hardly makes much difference to the survivors. The government was completely wiped out. Any form of infrastructure disappeared. At the same time, the world was experiencing a series of catastrophes. Massive volcano eruptions in Japan. Floods in Europe and Australia. Famine in America. Plague in China. It was as if the four horsemen of the Apocalypse had finally arrived, only there were four hundred of them, riding in a stampede. We were left on our own. Nobody came to our aid.
“I was brought here originally by Sir James Tarrant. You may remember him, Jamie. He was the assistant commissioner of the London police and a good man. He died two years ago … a heart attack. There were a dozen of us to start with but more people joined. Over the years, we’ve had seven casualties – mainly on expeditions above ground.
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