Ice Claw

offer some comfort, a gesture of understanding. Sayid had not cried because of the terror these killers had inflicted on him, though the shock at hearing of the countess’s death was like a body blow. No, he had wept because he had told them that Max was in Morocco. That gut-wrenching sickness of giving up your best friend embedded itself in his stomach like a blunt sword.

How much danger did that pose to Max? Sayid had very little information about his plans, but his friend had shared enough with him for his enemies now to have a clearer idea of what had been discovered.

Max had been given a crystal pendant by Zabala and had then found something in d’Abbadie’s chateau, where the Germans and Sharkface’s gang had attacked them. But Sayid didn’t know anything else. Only that Max had gone to Morocco.

Sharkface had held the angle grinder across Sayid’s plaster cast, lowering it slowly and deliberately, letting the white powder shower across Sayid. Just another couple of millimeters and …

Sayid had yelled at Sharkface. Screamed the information. Gave it out so willingly. Anything to stop the horror.

Now, as he lay in the van, he thought of how many times he had fantasized about being a hero. About how, like Max, he could save people, and that no matter how frightening the situation he would get through.

But so far the reality of his life had betrayed him.

Before Max’s dad had saved Sayid’s family in the Middle East, his own father had worked to help bring peace to the region. The terrorists came in the night and killed him. Sayid could still feel the air shattering from the gunfire, smell the cordite and hear his mother’s screams. And his own. Moments later the darkness and smoke had been punctured with torchlight as British troops stormed their house. Gunfire flashed and echoed. More men died- the assassins. And then soldiers carried Sayid and his mother to a waiting helicopter. An Englishman, someone who spoke Arabic, comforted him and his mother. He was their friend. The man their father had called a brother. Sayid recognized him as the man who had shared food at their table. His name was Tom Gordon and he promised them he would care for them, in honor of Sayid’s father-a brave and great man.

That was how Sayid had ended up at Dartmoor High with Tom Gordon’s son. And now the avalanche, the fight at the chateau and his kidnapping all exposed Sayid’s fear. He had betrayed not only his best friend but also his own father’s memory.

The van jolted across a pothole. Sayid looked at the thugs up front. Yellow motorway lights flashed across the windshield. He looked at Bobby, whose eyes were closed.

One thing Sayid had not given his torturers was the information on the piece of paper. He saw the numbers in his head. Reaching forward, he scraped the dried mud from under the instep of his boot. They were part of the mystery and they were important.

Sayid comforted himself. There was still something he could do to help Max. Solve the code. Get the information to Max. How? He didn’t know. But somewhere deep inside he believed his friend would find him.

Abdullah put Max’s passport in his personal safe and asked if he wanted to keep the pendant there as well. Max declined. He caught the look in Abdullah’s eyes. A fleeting moment when he realized that Abdullah might know of its importance.

“A charm,” the riad owner said. “It is a good-luck thing for you, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“If it is valuable, you should put it in my safe. You are going to the main square?” Abdullah asked.

“Yes. Djemaa el-Fna,” Max answered.

“The Square of the Dead,” Abdullah said matter-of-factly.

Was he trying to frighten him? Max waited a moment and held the man’s gaze.

“I’ve heard it’s pretty lively,” he said.

Abdullah nodded. “But I am ashamed to say there are thieves in my city.”

Max thought about it for a moment and reached for the pendant as the man held out his hand. But Max simply took the slack in the leather thong, gave it a turn like knotting his school tie and tightened the cord until the loop sat closer to his throat.

“It’s not valuable, just something a friend gave me,” he said nonchalantly. “There.” He put a couple of fingers between the cord and his neck, a snug fit that didn’t constrict his throat. “No one can grab it now.”

“Not unless they cut your throat,” Abdullah said, unsmiling.

Djemaa el-Fna, the huge square in the center of Marrakech, blazed with dozens of cooking fires. Colored glass lanterns added to the fires’ shadows; the shuffling crowds’ movements fractured, as in a badly lit nightclub. Voices shouted. Food was cooked over the open flames. Traditionally dressed men with small, black-faced vervet monkeys on chains posed for tourists and let the tourists stand, more or less nervously, with the monkeys chattering on their arms.

A twinge of distress caught Max’s heart. The small monkeys somersaulted, then sat cowering, staring at the higher species of primate that tossed a few coins into the upturned hat. A tug of the chain, a guttural command and the monkey would perform again. “For the monkey! For the monkey!” the handler called, urging the bystanders to throw down more coins.

Max and Sophie edged deeper into the square. It was a closeup of faces, heads and shoulders as they angled and barged. Money changed hands, stained teeth grinned. Crumpled notes were pressed into grease-slicked fingers as locals and tourists alike bought the hot lamb kebabs and roasted vegetables. This is where the locals came to eat, streaming out of the narrow alleyways. Smoke hung across the square like a blanket of cotton wool. Max’s eyes stung, but they watched everything going on around him.

Groups of four or five men, playing flutes, tin whistles and cymbals, and beating drums with curved sticks, meandered through the throng. Ganga drums and haejuj bass lutes fought for dominance. Women sat having henna tattoos daubed delicately across their faces and arms. An old man, according to his small sign a doctor, surrounded by bottles of herbs, sat cross-legged, examining a woman’s swollen hand.

Max and Sophie visited half a dozen food stalls and ate as much as they wanted. Max loved eating with his fingers-no table manners to be concerned about. Almost as good as being out on a camping weekend, except here all the food was cooked for you.

On the fringe of the square, cafes served mint tea and fruit juices.

“Everyone comes to eat here. Every night. It goes on really late,” Sophie said.

“Like a street party!” Max shouted. Conversation was always going to be a shouting match against this noise level.

“You look good,” she said. “It suits you.”

Max tugged at the cotton djellaba he wore. There had been a moment of panic when he realized that the riad’s staff had taken his clothes to be washed and left the djellaba in their place. Thankfully they had left his trainers, and these were now peeping out from beneath the long flowing robe. It had felt a bit like wearing a dress at first, but within moments of slipping it over his head he saw the practicality of the loose-fitting cotton. It was cool to wear and made movement relatively easy.

Max eased his way through a knot of people, pulling Sophie behind him. She grasped his hand tightly, as if losing contact would set her adrift in the cross-currents of this human ocean.

Max was amazed that anyone got anywhere in these crowds. Stallholders had set up their wares. Piles of oranges, heaped in pyramids, were being cut and squeezed, dancing troupes joined the musicians, and fortune- tellers waved their hands, brushing aside people’s misery.

He stopped next to a snake-charmer sitting on a faded tribal rug as he mesmerized a cobra. Rising up, its coiled body swayed languidly to the old man’s flute-playing and the gentle teasing of his hand.

The snake’s hood flared; its black eyes reflected the scattered fragments of light. It gazed into Max’s soul. Held him with an illusion of calmness. The snake made a languid, hypnotic movement, a deceptive seduction that lowered a victim’s defenses.

Then the cobra struck. Its fangs bared, its hiss-like hatred.

The gathered strength of the unfurled body propelled it straight past the old man, directly towards Max and Sophie. Max jerked back, putting a protective arm in front of her, but the wrinkled old man, who looked half blind, simply swept his hand beneath the cobra’s hood, twisted his wrist and let the snake curl about his arm. Then he