He looked round once more. Panic was beginning to set in. Phil hated confined spaces. Had always suffered from claustrophobia. Being underground just made it worse.
He tried once more to pull himself up the shaft. Thrust his elbows out, forced his body to move behind him. The space wasn’t wide enough. He tried again.
And his elbows jammed against the sides. He couldn’t move.
His breathing increased. He felt himself start to panic. He didn’t want to stay here, stuck. He didn’t know how long it would take Marina to return with the rope. There was only one thing for him to do.
He relaxed his arms. Felt able to move once more. Wriggled his body down the tunnel until he collapsed on to the floor, back in the same place he had started from.
He stood up as far as he could go. Looked around again. Whoever lived down here must have another way out, he reasoned. The entrance was only one way. He knelt down on the floor, played the beam of the torch round the base of the walls. Looking for cracks, other tunnels, anything.
There were a few. Most of them just looked like fissures, cracks in the rock. Not big enough to climb inside, just tapering away to nothing. But there was one that seemed to widen out into a tunnel. It was small, cramped. But big enough to get inside, pull himself along with his elbows. And push himself backwards if he had to.
Probably.
He heard the noise again. Echoing round the rock. It sounded like a cry.
Of pain. Of fear.
Was it an animal? Or a human? And more importantly, was it coming from the tunnel he was preparing to go down?
He had to find out.
He knelt down, stuck the torch between his teeth and, flattening down on to his stomach, pushed himself into the small space.
He remembered a similar situation a couple of years ago. He remembered what was waiting for him at the end of that tunnel. Felt his breathing increase at the memory, tried to control it. Save his energy for movement.
Then, not knowing whether he was going towards the sound or away from it, whether what was up ahead was worse than what he was leaving, he began to edge his way along.
114
The child was still shivering. Good. The Gardener liked that.
No he didn’t. He loved that.
Made him even more excited. Made the anticipation all the sweeter.
The child gripped the bars of the cage. Pulling on them, rattling them, trying to escape. No good. Too well made.
He laughed at the boy. It ended up as a cough.
Deep, racking, bent double while the painful, angry barks came from his body, gasping for breath as his lungs, his chest burned.
Eventually the coughing fit subsided. He had something in his mouth. Lifting the hood up, he spat on the ground. Looked at it. Black-dark and glistening.
Blood.
The cough had weakened him. It was getting worse. Taking more out of him. Putting his body through more pain. Each spasm taking longer to recover from.
He pulled the hood back in place, looked down at the altar. His tools were laid out in their usual precise manner. Candles lit now on either side. He drew strength just from seeing them. Stood up straight. Looked at the boy.
Smiled. No laughing this time.
‘Soon… soon… ’ He picked up the sharpened trowel. Played the candlelight off its gleaming blade. Sent mirror flashes of light on to the boy, who flinched each time the light caught him. That gave him an idea.
The Gardener smiled again. This was a good game. He angled the blade, caught the light, flashed it at the boy, who recoiled every time, moved away to a different spot in the cage. The Gardener giggled, changed the position of the blade, tried to catch the boy again. The boy whimpered, moved once more.
The Gardener loved this, could have played it for hours.
But he didn’t have hours. He looked at the chart. It had to be done soon. It had to be done now.
He advanced on the cage.
Ready for the boy now.
Ready for the sacrifice.
So the Garden could live again.
115
‘Wait for my signal. Have you got that? No one does anything until they get my signal. Understood?’
It was understood.
Glass had never felt so alive. He had forgotten just how good it felt to take down a villain. To feel the adrenalin and testosterone surge through his system, build up inside him like it was living lightning, ready to pulse from his fingertips, take out anyone who tried to stop him.
It wasn’t living lightning. But the semi-automatic in his hands was the next best thing.
The firearms unit was in front of him. They were standing in the overgrown back yard of the farmhouse. The night was sin-black, hiding them from any eyes that might be watching. The farmhouse was boarded up. No lights showing. It seemed uninhabited. But it wasn’t empty. Glass knew that. For a fact.
‘Right,’ he said to the unit. ‘The target is in that building. My information tells me he’ll be in the cellar. What plans we have indicate that that’s in the front of the house, with a door going down to it from the kitchen, which is in the middle. That’s where we’re headed.’
He turned to the firearms unit’s senior officer, Joe Wade. ‘Now, Sergeant Wade has briefed you all. You know where you’ve got to be. I’ll be going in through the front here with the A Team. Remember. This man is highly dangerous. Shoot to kill. And get that boy out alive.’ One more look at the men. They stood there, all in body armour, guns held before them, looking like shock troops sent from the future. Glass’s adrenalin and testosterone surged even more.
One more look at Sergeant Wade.
‘On your signal, Sergeant.’
Wade gave the order. The unit moved in, surrounded the farmhouse.
On Wade’s signal, the front and back doors were simultaneously battered down, the officers streaming in towards the middle of the house.
The only illumination inside came from the lights of the officers. Checking every corner of every room, securing each one before moving through the old house. It smelled of damp, abandon. The air stale, old. Dust rose as the officers tramped through.
Glass was loving it. What he was born for. A leader of men, gun in hand, ready for a righteous kill. As soon as he had picked up the gun, he had felt his finger begin to twitch. He had thought that itchy trigger fingers were an old cliche, but to his surprise he had found it to be actually true. And now, running through the farmhouse with the rest of the men, he wondered just how easy it would be to accidentally squeeze that trigger, take out one of the CO19 boys just for the hell of it.
He mentally slapped himself out of it. These were his own people. He had a job to do.
They reached the cellar door. Sergeant Wade looked to Glass, waiting for him to give the nod. Glass took a deep breath. Another. Nodded.
The door was battered to splinters. The unit rushed down the cellar steps. Glass followed. Finger wrapped
