A bomb has gone off in London. I’ve just been watching it on the television news and I wonder if it might have something to do with Scarlett. Richard thinks it’s unlikely. According to the reports, the bomb had been hidden in a restaurant in Chinatown. It was something to do with Chinese gang warfare. Three people have been killed.
I saw the images on the big plasma screen TV in my hotel room. Dead people, ambulances, screaming relatives, smoke and broken glass… it was hard to believe that it was all happening in the middle of Soho. You just don’t expect it there. It made me feel even further away than I actually was.
Miami. I’ve never been here before and I certainly never dreamed that I’d wind up in a five-star hotel overlooking the beach, surrounded by Cadillacs, Cuban music and palm trees. The Nexus has certainly put us up in style while we wait for my new passport to arrive. The only trouble is, it’s taking longer than we had hoped. We’re now booked onto a flight leaving on Monday evening and we’ll have to kick our heels until then. Scarlett will just have to manage without us for a couple more days. We’ll be with her soon enough.
It feels strange, being back in a big city after spending so much time in a backwater like Nazca. Miami is full of rich people and expensive houses. It’s too cold to swim at this time of the year, but a lot of life still seems to be happening in the street. We didn’t do much today. I bought myself some new clothes, replacing the stuff that got lost in the fire. We walked. And tonight we ate on Ocean Drive, a long strip of fancy cafes and bars with bright pink neon lights, cocktails and live bands. It was good to be able to enjoy ourselves, sitting there, watching the crowds go past.
Nobody noticed us. For a few hours we could pretend we were normal .
Monday afternoon
This morning, the passport finally arrived, delivered in a brown, sealed envelope by a motorbike rider who didn’t say a word. Terrible photograph. The Nexus have sent Jamie a new passport too, and they’ve decided that we should both travel under false names, for extra security. So now I’m Martin Hopkins. He is Nicholas Helsey. Richard is going to stay as himself but then, as far as we know, nobody is trying to kill him.
We have economy tickets. The Nexus could have flown us first class but they didn’t want us to stand out.
We had our final meal on Ocean Drive. A huge plate of nachos and two Cokes. Richard had a beer. I wondered what the waiter must have made of us: Richard in a gaudy, Hawaiian shirt, sitting between two teenagers, the two of us wearing sunglasses even though there wasn’t a lot of sun. We’d bought them the day before and hadn’t got round to taking them off. We liked them because they kept us anonymous. If anyone had asked, we were going to say that he was a teacher and that we were on a school exchange. It was a pretty unlikely story – but nothing compared to the truth.
I’ve spoken to Pedro via satellite phone a couple of times while we’ve been here. He and Scott reached Vilcabamba without any problem. We’ve agreed to contact each other every day while we are apart. If there’s silence, we’ll know something is wrong. Pedro told me that Scott was OK. But Scott didn’t come on the line.
Jamie asked me something today. It took me by surprise. “Why did you really leave Scott behind? You didn’t think you could rely on him, did you?”
“I never said that.”
“But you thought it.” He lowered his voice. “You have no idea what he went through with Mrs Mortlake. It was worse than anything you can imagine.”
“Has he talked to you about it?”
Jamie shook his head. “He’s put up barriers. He won’t go there. He’s not the same any more. I know that. But you have no idea how he looked after me all those years. When Uncle Don was beating me around or when I was in trouble at school, Scott was always there for me. The only reason he got caught was that he was helping me get away.” He suddenly took off his sunglasses and laid them on the table. “Don’t underestimate him, Matt. I know he’s not himself right now, but he’ll never let you down.”
I hope Jamie is right. But I’m not sure.
I looked across the road. There were some little kids throwing a ball on a lawn beside the beach. A couple of rollerbladers swung by. A pale green convertible drove past with music blaring. And just a few metres away, we were talking about torture and thinking about a war that we might not be able to win. Two different worlds. I know which one I’d have preferred to be in.
We finished eating and went back to the hotel. Our car was already there. The concierge carried out our cases and then it was a twenty-minute drive across the causeway. The water, stretching out on both sides, looked blue and inviting. We reached Miami International Airport and went in, joining the crowds at the check-in desks. Thousands of people travelling all over the world. And this is what I was thinking…
Suppose the Old Ones are already here. Suppose they control this airport. We are allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by a system… tickets, passports, security. How do we know we can trust it, that it will take us where we want to go, or even let us out again?
We got to the baggage check. Richard took one look at the X-ray machines and stopped. “I’m an idiot,” he said.
“What is it?”
He was carrying a backpack on his shoulder, cradling it under one arm. He’d had it with him at the restaurant too and I knew that among other things, the monk’s diary was inside. But now he was watching as people took out their computers and removed their belts and I could see that he was furious with himself. “The tumi,” he said. “I meant to transfer it to my main luggage. They’ll never let it through.”
The tumi is a sacrificial knife. It was given to him by the prince of the Inca tribe just before we left Vilcabamba. I could understand Richard wanting to keep it close to him. It was made of solid gold, with semi- precious stones in the hilt, and it must have been worth a small fortune. But this was a mistake. He might try to argue that the tumi was an antique, an ornament or just a souvenir, but given that the airlines wouldn’t even allow you to carry a teaspoon unless it was made of plastic, there was no way it was going to be allowed on the plane.
It was too late to do anything now. There was a long line of people behind us and we wouldn’t have been allowed to turn back. Richard dumped the bag on the moving belt and grimaced as it disappeared inside the X-ray machine. I suppose he was hoping that the security people might glance away at the right moment and miss it. But that wasn’t going to happen. The bag came out again. It was grabbed by an unsmiling woman with her name – Monica Smith – on a badge on her blue, short-sleeved shirt.
“Is this yours?” she asked.
“Yes.” Richard prepared for the worst.
“Can you unzip this, please?”
“I can explain…” Richard began.
“Just open it, please.”
The tumi was right on the top. I could see the golden figure of the Inca god that squatted above the blade. I watched as the woman, wearing latex gloves, began to rifle through Richard’s clothes. Briefly, she picked up the diary, then put it back again. She examined a magnifying glass that Richard had bought in Miami, trying to decipher the monk’s handwriting. But she didn’t even seem to notice that the tumi was there. She closed the bag again.
“Thank you,” she said.
Richard looked at me. Neither of us said anything. We snatched up our belongings and hurried forward. It was only afterwards that we understood what had happened.
The tumi has another name. It’s also known as the invisible blade. When the prince of the Incas gave it to Richard, he said that no one would ever find it, that he would be able to carry it with him at any time. He also warned Richard that one day he would regret having it – something neither of us really like to think about.
But now we both realized what we had just seen. It was a bit of ancient magic. And it was all the more amazing because it happened in the setting of a modern, international airport.
Monday night
We took off exactly on time and once the seat belt signs had been turned off, I sat back in my seat and began to write this. In the seat next to me, Jamie had plugged himself straight into the TV console, watching a film. Richard was across the aisle, working with a Spanish dictionary, trying to unravel the diary.
A bit later, I fell asleep.
And that was when I went back. I had wanted to visit the dreamworld again, ever since I had discovered the
