The Devil's breath

most hackers, was self-taught, but he had enough skills to go a long way. He had started programming with Python, then Java, and over time progressed to C, but that always needed debugging, so he updated his hardware and went back to Python. He knew he had to eventually get to grips with one of the oldest programming languages, LISP, the name derived from “List Processing,” but it needed time and experience to write properly although it was the preferred choice for artificial intelligence research. Among the cyberspace community Sayid’s reputation was slowly becoming established. It was a love of programming that kept the hacker community in touch with each other. There were people in America who spent their lives underground in basements, surrounded by computers, absorbed in the endless possibilities at their fingertips. Sayid knew a few who worked in research and development of major computer companies and, although their names were buried deeply in code, he had sent an urgent help request to one of them. That was yesterday.

He ran the squeegee across the floor one more time: the place sparkled. He had done a good job quickly. Now he needed to get back to his room. He left the floor marker warning that the floor was wet, propped the mop, bucket, squeegee and cleaning materials as a small assault course in case any of the teachers got nosy-they were bound to knock something over, then he could be out of his room and down the corridor in time to cover his absence.

The small figure of a whirling dervish danced across his computer screen. This was a message from America. To connect to the message, he had to double-click on the dervish icon. Once he had done that, a page of code clogged the screen and he tapped in a previously agreed-upon access number. Like harpoons, these numbers shot out from the base of the screen, grabbed letters and words from the code page, rejumbled the letters and decrypted the message.

hey bro, this is your Code King Buddy. how you doin? this is big, kid that number forget the exchange that’s no good to you anyway. doesn’t mean nuthin. he could be anywhere and reroute. this number. cool. no time for guessing games. your man is high clearance. this is defense-code-scrambled. don’t have a name. he’s MI6. tread careful, pal. peace and goodwill. except to the bad guys.

The British Secret Intelligence Service; the words sounded like a huge pyramid of power in Sayid’s head. He stared at the screen for a moment, then erased everything. If MI6 was hunting Max’s dad, then he must have done something pretty serious and Peterson had connections in much higher places than your bog-standard geography teacher. Sayid tried to make some sense of it all. Max’s dad was missing, someone tried to kill Max, then Peterson had Max followed to the airport. The police in Namibia were in touch with Peterson, and Peterson was asking for help from MI6. Whatever Max’s dad had discovered, it had everybody scared and they were trying to stop Max from discovering his father and his secret. Sayid stopped his mind going down the wrong route. This was not an MI6 operation. The state was not involved. This was Peterson asking for help from a well- placed contact who would be untouchable. Peterson was owed a favor, so maybe Peterson had done dirty work for MI6 in the past. That made more sense. And it was also more frightening. How did Peterson come to be teaching at Dartmoor High? Just what kind of clout did he have to get help from a foreign police force?

His cell rang; the screen showed it was an unknown name but the number was familiar.

“Sayid, it’s me.”

“Kallie. Have you found Max?”

“No, he’s still missing. I don’t know whether no news is good news or not. But things are going a bit crazy.” She explained everything that had happened to her and how she was trying to keep out of everyone’s sight. She was convinced that the Walvis Bay docks, Shaka Chang’s shipping line and his warehouse were connected to Tom Gordon’s disappearance and Anton Leopold’s death. Somehow the whole mess would lead them to Max.

“Listen, Kallie, Max is my best mate, but I think you should back off,” Sayid said, beginning to realize how completely out of their depth they all were now.

“No way. Someone tried to kill me. I’m involved and this whole thing with the cops and your Mr. Peterson stinks. Something’s being hushed up big time and I’m going to find out what it is-and when I do, I need you to alert the British authorities, the Foreign Office or someone, because I don’t know who I can trust out here.”

“I don’t know who to trust either. I did a bit of illegal snooping. Peterson is getting help from MI6.”

“Who? Oh, the spooks?”

“Yeah. This is even bigger than we imagined, Kallie.”

There was a pause at the end of the phone and Sayid guessed that, like him, Kallie was trying to think what to do.

“I don’t care, Sayid, I’m going ahead with my plan.”

“Which is?”

“I’m flying over the route from Walvis Bay towards the mountains. Shaka Chang has trucks shipping machinery from the docks. Anton Leopold was killed at the docks. I can’t get in, but they must be bringing something out. I’ll be following them.”

“That’s dangerous, Kallie. They might have guns. If they spot you, you could be like a fat pigeon on a duck shoot.”

“I’ll fly high enough,” she lied, knowing that over a certain height one or two of the military control towers might pick her up.

“I hate this business of not being able to stay in touch,” Sayid said.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. I don’t have a satellite phone.”

“Me neither.”

“So. That’s it then.”

Her words sounded so final, prodding his conscience. “I have to be able to do more than just sit here,” he said. Beyond all their fears, a simple fact remained: a father and his son were missing in a hostile environment. They were both British subjects and Sayid remembered his own citizenship ceremony after Max’s father had sponsored him and his mother. They had been given a new life, a place of safety away from the terror of war, and he was not going to stay silent. “I’m going to the police, Kallie. What’s happening isn’t right. It’s just not right. I’m going to tell them everything I’ve found out. The cops can make a fuss of their own, and if they don’t I’ll go to the papers.”

“The cops might throw the book at you. And the spooks might just lock you away in a dark hole somewhere. Sayid, that’s a crazy thing to do.”

“And what you’re doing isn’t? This way, at least one of us might get through to somebody who cares and who can do something. I won’t mention you when I talk to whoever.”

“And if I get nabbed I won’t say anything about you being my contact in England.” She paused a moment. “Hey, I hope we get to meet one day.”

“Me too.”

“And Max.”

“Definitely. We can do this.”

“We’re on our own then,” she said.

“No. There’s three of us in this thing, and Max is strong and he’s really determined about everything he does, and even if he had both legs broken he’d crawl to get to where he wanted to be. We have to be as brave as he is, Kallie. I have to tell someone.”

Those final words brought the realization that he was risking everything he had been given. And not just him: they could repatriate his mother as well. They might both be sent back to the place that had claimed his own father’s life at the hands of assassins.

“Let’s talk when we can,” he said.

“Sure. Good luck, Sayid.”

“You too.” Sayid switched off the phone. He had reached a point of no return.

A few minutes later, he stood outside his mother’s room. He knocked, heard her call “Yes?”

He opened the door. His mother sat, marking term papers. Sayid didn’t move. She gazed at him for a moment and saw the boy’s uncertainty.

“What is it?” she said gently.

* * *

Kallie gazed across the heat-baked landing strip, mentally plotting her route. There would be a lot of flying and she was tired, having already been in the air for hours. Tobias moved next to her and shared the view. He