He stretched out, his fingertips catching the heavy door. If the old hinges squeaked, Jackson would surely hear it.
“Bob, what’s wrong?” Jackson said the moment he heard Ridgeway’s voice. The MI5 man worked very unusual hours despite his seniority, but phone calls from anyone at this time of the morning always meant bad news.
Max strained; the safe door edged onto his thumb, the weight of it telling Max that was as far as he could close it. He and Sayid scrunched themselves as small as possible. They could hear only one side of the conversation, but if it was serious, then it might have Jackson’s adrenaline pumping-and that would make him more alert.
“Have the police been to see you yet?” Ridgeway asked.
“The police? No. There’s only a local constable, and there’s enough rural crime to keep him busy. He’ll get here in due course.”
“And Max Gordon-is he at school?”
“Max? Yes. He’s here.”
Sayid flinched. Max felt his muscles tighten. The phone call was about him! At this time of the morning? Was it something to do with his dad? Was he ill? He suppressed the urge to cry out to Jackson and ask what was going on. Sayid’s clawlike grip on his shoulder told him his friend was just as tense.
Jackson was listening to whoever it was on the other end of the phone.
“We’ve got a field office a couple of hours away in Bristol,” Ridgeway said. “I’ve just dragged one of the agents out of bed and told them to get down to you and have a chat first thing.”
“Oh? That sounds ominous.”
“Precautionary. Don’t be too alarmed, Fergus. I would have left this till a more decent time, but I thought you should know I had some feedback on that name you gave me.
“Yes?” Jackson replied cautiously.
“It’s part of a motto.”
“Ah,” Mr. Jackson said, not really knowing what else would be an appropriate response. Mottos and MI5. Perhaps not too strange a mixture.
“
“I see,” Jackson said, though he didn’t really. “And what on earth would they be doing here? Training, do you think? Along with our chaps?”
“No, Fergus, it’s nothing like that at all. We have a list of known assets, people who are in place to carry out covert dirty work for whoever pays the highest. You said the name on the man’s warrant card was Mark Stanton.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Real name, Markus Sutinon. Goes by the code name of Riga. Trained with their special forces and went private. Did some rather nasty work for the Russians last time we heard. He speaks perfect English. We don’t know who’s paying him, but if he’s posing as one of us, it must be something big. We haven’t pinpointed his current partner yet. He tends to go through them. They have a habit of dying-violently.”
“I see,” Mr. Jackson said again, the edge of fear now creeping into his voice. “Can you trace him?”
“Doubtful. He’ll have a dozen passports in as many different names. The question is, Fergus, what’s the connection between Danny Maguire, Max Gordon and a hired killer? Charlie, that’s my officer, will be there tomorrow to speak to you and the Gordon boy.”
“Right. I’ll make sure Max is here.”
Mr. Jackson replaced the receiver, bowed his head in troubled thought for a moment, switched off the light and without a glance left or right, turned on his heel and closed the door behind him.
After a moment the hall light went out.
Max and Sayid sighed like two deflating balloons.
Stanton nudged Drew. The sleeping man was instantly awake but made no sound.
“I was right. He’s there. He’s just busted into the safe in Jackson’s room. I heard two kids talking. Then there was a phone call and they stayed quiet. Jackson answered. Something about the local cops being expected. Sounded low-key to me.”
“So you think there was something in the old man’s safe after all? Maybe Maguire’s letter got here earlier than we thought and he stashed it?”
“Don’t be stupid. We’ve already heard Jackson asking someone if there was anything delivered for Gordon. No, Max was going after something else in the safe,” Stanton said.
“Maybe there’s money in there,” Drew suggested. “Something may have warned the kid and he needs cash.”
“Perhaps,” said Stanton, unconvinced but not knowing what it was Max was after.
Drew put a pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes. Nothing moved. An owl cut across his vision, and a pony shifted its weight as it slept beneath a thorn tree.
“OK,” Drew said. “We’ll wait. If he’s spooked, he’ll run.”
5
The air was dry from the school’s geothermal heating unit as Max ran quickly down into the pit of darkness. The vault lay buried like an Egyptian tomb. Deeper and deeper the steps went.
He reached the bottom. His headlamp scanned the boxes. Opening his own flooded him with memories of the last time he had been down here. His father had gone missing in Africa, and someone had tried to kill Max. Taking his passport then had been the start of a frightening adventure that left his dad’s mind wrecked and Max a changed boy. He took what he wanted from the box and began the muscle-burning exercise of running back up the stairs.
He had tried to eliminate the self-defeating anger he had felt over the past few weeks by hard physical activity. The sickness of suspicion and doubt had threatened to depress him as it ate away at his love for his father. Nothing could really shake that love-nothing except the thought that his mother had died because his dad had abandoned her in the jungle.
Now, as he pounded up the steep incline toward the faint glow of the corridor far above, he felt as though he had a focus for his pent-up emotions and energy. Danny Maguire was dead but had somehow managed to post the khipu to him. It was a message that needed an expert to decode it.
Max had just taken the first 133 steps toward finding out the truth about his mother’s death.
He closed his laptop’s lid, shoved it into its case and handed it to a waiting Sayid. He had done as much as he could to prepare for his journey.
“Keep this out of the way for me. Once they know I’ve gone, they’ll search this to see what they can find. Don’t lose any sleep over it, Sayid, but keep them guessing for a few hours, yeah? Then give it to them.”
“OK.”
“You remember everything I’ve asked you to do?”
“My name’s not Baskins.”
“Sorry, mate. Right. Time to get out of here.”
“You’re going now?” Sayid shivered and yawned. It was still dark, and the early hour meant Sayid’s bed beckoned. Unlike Max, he did not have the capacity to ignore the need for sleep or the crushing tiredness fear can bring.
“I have to get across the moor, Sayid,” Max said, pulling on his gloves. “It’ll be light in a few hours. If I hang around, I bet Mr. Jackson will have one of the masters keeping an eye on me, and they’ll find plenty of things to keep me busy until whoever’s planning to come and see me turns up.”
He zipped his fleece, then tightened the Velcro tab on his waterproof leggings. He’d be running part of the way, and the ground would be muddy despite the frost. He pulled his wool cap down over his head, but only to the
