Cazamind sighed, his palms opening in a small gesture of inevitability. “Then, if he is that tenacious, we should assume the worst-case scenario. We must find him, wherever he is.” He fixed his eyes on the mercenary. “And have you kill him.”
Twelve hours later, in Florida, a bus lurched, a car swerved and there was a scrape of metal. The drivers swore at each other. A man who had obviously been living rough threw up in the back of the bus, and the stench was foul. Passengers shouted abuse at him. The driver turned and called to everyone.
“OK, folks, take it easy. End of the line. I have to call this in. There’ll be another bus along in a few minutes.”
The driver eased himself down the aisle, muttering apologies to his passengers, most of whom he knew by name. His belly pushed against his trouser belt. Maybe that was why he wore suspenders as well, Max thought, just in case the belt snapped one day and, like a dam bursting, his belly disgorged and smothered everything in its vicinity. Max was surprised the man was as good-natured as he was, considering his bus had just had an accident, a bloke had puked all over the backseats and it was hot.
Miami.
Hot, bustling, big sky and brightly dressed people in floral shirts. It looked just like a travel poster. Except down this part of town. This was where the opulent lies of television and movies stopped. There was no glamour around here. There were poor people living on welfare who caught buses. Some of the shops were boarded up.
They stood in the heat while the drivers exchanged details. A Miami-Dade County police car arrived, but there was no sign of a replacement bus. Max turned to a woman who waited in the queue with him. “Excuse me, can you tell me where Backpackers’ Big House is?”
She looked at him for a moment as if an extraterrestrial had suddenly appeared next to her. “You English?”
“Yes,” Max said. “And you’re an American.”
She laughed. “You got a smart brain, son. What you doin’ all the way down here? This is no place for sightseein’, hon. This is the
“My friend in England booked me into a place called Backpackers’ Big House.”
“He wou’n’t be no fren’ o’ mine, he did that to me. I can tell you. No, sir.”
“Still, I guess mebbe you kids’ve gotta have somewhere to stay, and it’s better’n bein’ on the streets.”
“I guess,” Max said.
“Well, you go three blocks south, two blocks east and it’s down there near the docks.”
“Thanks.”
“You sure you heard what I just said?”
“I’ve got a compass. I’ll find it, thanks.”
“What are you, some kinda Boy Scout? Son, this ain’t cowboy country-this is hostile territory. You get to this place you lookin’ for, you lock your door and don’t go out at night, you hear?”
“Yes. OK. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” She watched Max walk away. “Damn fool kid’s walking into a mess of trouble. But do they listen? They do not,” she said to herself, and then yelled at the driver being questioned by the police. “Clarence! Where’s this damn bus you said was comin’?”
At least the room at the Backpackers’ Big House was halfway clean. There were only a few cockroaches scurrying around the bare floor. A solid, old-fashioned bed, with a well-worn but laundered sheet and a cotton bedcover on the mattress, was the only furniture. There wasn’t even a wire coat hanger to hook over the back of the door for his clothes. There was a bathroom down the hall. Smelly, industrial-sized rubbish skips, or Dumpsters, as the desk clerk had called them, were below his first-story window. It was the only room the guy at the desk had available. He wore a bandanna over his head, a Grateful Dead T-shirt and a gold earring. White whiskers clung like cactus spines to his face. It was no good Max’s arguing that his friend in England had made a booking-there was no trace of it, and a whole tour of German backpacking kids had reservations, taking all the rooms. But they hadn’t arrived yet, so why couldn’t he have a room that wasn’t over the Dumpsters? Max wanted to know. Because, the man said slowly, the bookings had all been paid for with a deposit. It was the room above the Dumpsters or nothing.
There was no key in the door lock. That was because, Cactus-Face told him, some dumb kid had lost it. If Max wanted to pay for a new lock, he could have a new key.
Max had slept in worse places. He took his backpack into the bathroom down the hall, where there was a lockable door, and showered. The hair color didn’t wash out. Back in his room, he pulled the bed across the door. He could hear the belly-growling blast of a ship’s horn not too far away. He had enough food and drink he’d picked up at the airport to keep him going until tomorrow. Just as well, looking out at those bleak streets. It was obviously not the kind of area renowned for family diners.
Max lay on the bed fully dressed, dismissing the idea of leaving his clothes on the floor. He hated doing nothing. It was like being in a hide, waiting for an animal to appear and having to find that stillness inside himself. Just as he’d done with his dad when he had taken him to Scotland and they sat next to a sea loch in a camouflaged hide waiting to see the wild otters. He and his dad had barely spoken, because they had had to stay silent, but they shared the same passion. Father and son on a small adventure together. Well, not anymore. His father had abandoned his mother, and now Max was on an adventure on his own.
He calmed himself as the adrenaline pumped at the thought of his dad. He needed to take every day as it came. He fingered the khipu, wishing his thoughts could show him the pictures the knots represented. He was warm, and safe from anyone pursuing him. All he had to do was get up early and reach the airport for the connecting flight to Central America.
He pulled out the wallet that held the half-dozen dog-eared pictures of his mother. Her hair was tied back, her tanned face smiling. Max pored over every inch of her. She wore a jungle fatigue shirt, its sleeves rolled halfway up her arms, and an army-style floppy hat. She looked so beautiful. Each picture was in a different location in the rain forest. A waterfall, a ruin-which Max now felt certain was a Mayan site-some huts and a cloud-shrouded mountain. The plume of cloud looked like a smoldering volcano.
A volcano was exactly what it was. That was what Dr. Miller had translated from the khipu. He kissed his mother. Now he felt stronger. The message was accurate. Jungle and volcano. It was as if his mother’s memory were calling him.
“I will, Mum, promise,” he whispered.
He tucked the photos back into the wallet and buttoned it into his shirt pocket. He wanted her close to his heart.
Knowing he had evaded those who pursued him enabled him to control his fears and uncertainties and allowed his thoughts to settle. He closed his eyes, set his mental alarm clock, which always worked, and drifted into sleep. His final thought was that he was safe.
For now.
Fergus Jackson ran down the corridor. The few boys on their way to various activities scattered. When Mr. Jackson ran, his arms flailed like a drowning man, but he could put a fair pace on that uncoordinated body.
“Yes?” he gasped down the phone that he’d been summoned to.
“Fergus. It’s Bob Ridgeway.”
“You’ve found Max?” Jackson said hopefully, praying the boy was safe.
“Can you check something first before I go into details?”
Mr. Jackson listened, did as he was asked and within ten minutes, having run down and then back up the 133 steps, confirmed Ridgeway’s question.
“Yes. Josh Lewis’s passport is missing from the vault. The boy’s at home in Herefordshire with his family. How did you know Max had stolen it?”
“Our friends in the FBI and Homeland Security run biometric fingerprint checks on all visitors to the States.”
