Ivan was laughing now. ‘Come here, little fish. Come to Ivan.’ Rory thrashed out with both feet, but the man’s grip was like iron.
It took several nightmarish minutes for Ivan to drag the boy all the way back out of the vent. Rory fought him every inch, until his breath was rasping and his fingertips were raw. Ivan pulled him clear of the mouth of the pipe and dumped him hard on the concrete floor. Slapped him across the face, twice. ‘You will not run from me again.’
‘You lied to me,’ Rory screamed at him.
‘That’s right. I did.’ Ivan hit him again, making him taste blood on his lips. Then the hands were running over his body, and he felt sick. He twisted away in desperation, managed to break free. Clawed up a handful of loose dust and grit and, as Ivan came close to try to kiss him again, he dashed it in his eyes. Ivan bellowed in pain and anger as Rory scrambled to his feet and ran like crazy through the twisting passages. He was working on pure survival instinct now, his mind as blank as a deer’s running from a pack of wolves. Darting through an archway, he found himself staring up at a huge space carved out of the rock, with a gigantic lattice-work steel stairway that wound upwards through it to the next level.
Ivan was already gaining on him.
Rory grabbed the rusty handrail and started leaping up the steps. He could hear Ivan’s racing footsteps hammering behind him. The boy’s legs were like jelly, but he willed himself to keep going. He came to a landing where the stairway twisted ninety degrees, slipped on the metal floor and almost fell through the railings and out into the abyss. He managed to get back on his feet just as Ivan’s hand came lashing out at him, wriggled away and ran madly on until he was nearly at the top. But the tumble had cost him precious seconds. Ivan’s fingers closed on his belt and he cried out as he felt himself being pulled back. Ivan just absorbed the kicks. He pressed Rory down hard on the steps and started tearing at his clothes. His eyes were blazing and there was spit foaming in the corners of his mouth.
Rory was helpless to stop him.
Ben and Jeff moved quickly through the maze of corridors in the upper level, scanning left and right with their pistols. Ben checked the map again.
‘We should find the access point for the main lift shaft down here somewhere. I don’t think it’s far away.’
‘Something’s wrong with this place,’ Jeff muttered. ‘I can feel it. It’s weird.’
Ben had the same sensation. It was as though the air was crackling with energy, almost like static electricity, but somehow different. He’d never experienced anything like it before. He was convinced he could feel a thrumming vibration coming through the walls, growing steadily more intense with each passing minute.
‘Listen.’
The sound of someone yelling, echoing up the corridor. The voice was high-pitched, but it wasn’t a woman’s. It was a boy’s.
They ran towards the sound, and round the next bend they found themselves at the top of a tall iron stairway. A few steps down, a boy Ben instantly recognised as Rory O’Connor was lying on his back with a man on top of him. In the split second that he stood staring, Ben’s first thought was that the man was trying to throttle him – until he realised what he was seeing.
The man was too intent on trying to tear the boy’s clothes off to notice their presence. Ben stepped quickly over to him, grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him up and dashed his head against the steel railing. The man’s hand flew to his belt and came out holding a pistol. Ben sent it spinning, headbutted him and threw him bodily down the stairway. The man went somersaulting down the metal steps, hit the landing. His fingers scrabbled for a hold on the rails as he slipped over the edge. His scream lasted about three seconds before he hit the stone floor down below, and then was silenced by a crunching impact that echoed through the cavern.
Ben and Jeff helped the pale, trembling boy to his feet and checked him over. ‘Rory? We’re getting you out of here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of your Aunt Sabrina,’ Ben said. ‘I think my dad’s here somewhere.’
‘Well then, let’s find him.’
In the time it had taken to save Rory from the attack, the thrumming in the air had intensified. It was getting more noticeable and uncomfortable every second. The kid looked scared. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t like it.’ He held on to Rory’s arm as they moved quickly back along the corridors. By his reckoning, any time now they were going to reach the passage leading to the circular gallery where the access point was for the main lift shaft. If Adam O’Connor was down there working on the machine, they still had a chance of finding him. But Ben couldn’t ignore the nasty feeling that they were running very short of time.
Jeff was rubbing his temple. ‘Are you getting a headache? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, mate, but I’m feeling really weird.’
Ben was feeling it too. A strange kind of inner turmoil that was both mental and physical. It seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside him, as though the cells of his body were being agitated, the way water molecules were vibrated by a microwave oven. The headache was steadily getting worse, rising at about the same rate as the strange sound that was now thrumming loudly through the facility, rising to a howl.
But that wasn’t all he could hear as they drew nearer to the location of the main shaft. He strained to listen.
‘I can hear someone calling your name,’ he said to Rory.
As she and the tall man scoured the upper level for the missing boy, Irina knew something was badly wrong. She couldn’t understand the strange sensations she was feeling, like ants crawling under her flesh and the worst headache she’d ever known building swiftly to an alarming crescendo inside her skull. She was sure it was something to do with the sound that was throbbing through the walls around them.
For several minutes now she’d been trying to raise Pelham on the radio and getting nothing but strange interference. The lights were acting strangely too, dimming and flickering as if all the electrical systems in the facility had gone haywire. Her instincts were telling her that this whole operation was quickly going into meltdown, and it was going to be time to evacuate.
They emerged into the wide open space that was the aircraft hangar, scanning left and right for any little hiding place the boy could have curled himself up into. Irina eyed the derelict Me 262, then clambered up onto one of the jet fighter’s rusty wings and brusquely tore open the cockpit canopy. Empty. She swore loudly.
‘He has to be around here somewhere,’ the tall man said.
Irina jumped down from the plane wing, dusted the red powder off her hands, and strode onwards across the hangar.
Suddenly she stopped. Pointed. ‘Look.’
A glistening blood trail traced a weaving line across the hangar floor. It led from the lift shaft gallery entrance. Her nostrils flared. She glanced at the tall man, and they began to follow the trail.
It led them away from the hangar and down the passages. Irina stopped to examine a bloody palm-print on the wall. Made by a man’s hand, the blood still sticky and warm.
That was when they heard a ragged, hoarse voice calling out a single name over and over again. ‘Rory! Rory!’
They found him just moments later, staggering along as if drunk, dragging his leg behind him and using the walls for support. It was the child’s father. O’Connor.
