Blood Sun

4

Sayid breathlessly told Max about the men who had nearly run him over.

“They must have been watching the school,” Max said as he fingered the envelope, suspicion making him wary. What if this was a letter bomb? That was a stupid anxiety, he decided. It was more the anticipation of what lay inside it that was making him nervous.

“They must have been watching for you,” Sayid said.

“Or for this being delivered. That’s what they came here for, isn’t it? A letter from Maguire to me?”

“But they were out at Hunter’s Tor. You’re not going to see Postie deliver a parcel with your name on it from there, are you?”

Max knew it didn’t make sense, but right now it was this envelope that was important. Max suspected Danny Maguire had died trying to get it to him.

The two boys sat on Max’s bed. A bold, strong hand had written Max’s name and Dartmoor High’s address on the packet in block letters, so there could be no mistaking for whom it was intended. He carefully cut open the padded envelope, and a tangle of string fell out.

“What is that?” Sayid asked.

“I’ve no idea. Are you sure this was the only thing Postie had for me?” Max said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it must mean something. It’s not just … string. Is it?” Max teased the strands apart. The pattern across was as big as the palms of his hands side by side. A top strand of coarse string had several other pieces tied on to it, like a small skirt. Each of the dangling strings had knots tied in it at various places along the strand. A few turns in the string were dyed red.

Max rubbed the rough strands in his hand. Was this what Danny Maguire had died for? A handful of string?

He pressed a button to bring his laptop out of hibernation, then keyed in “string messages.” Google said there were 877,000 bits of information and started with string messages in Java computer language.

“You think there’s any link between this and computer code?” Max asked Sayid.

Sayid watched as Max scrolled down. The links continued in the same vein: protocol and error messages. “Maybe. This might be something you’re supposed to decipher. Y’know-one knot means something in the binary of a specific string that he’s laid in somewhere. Has he sent you anything by email that we could look at?”

Max shook his head. “Only that he was coming to London and he’d be in touch. That was a month ago.”

“Well, this is going to take some kind of genius to work it out. I’m happy to have a go at it.”

“Nothing like modesty, Sayid. Who appointed you chief scientific officer?”

“Someone’s got to try.”

“This hasn’t got anything to do with computers; I’m sure of it. He was doing field studies in South America. This has something to do with where he was. What is it he’s trying to tell me?”

Max scrolled down the screen. There was nothing apparent. String instruments of South America, shoestring holidays … nothing that indicated what he was looking for.

The door burst open. Max slammed the laptop’s lid down. It was Baskins, as subtle as a bull in a china shop. “Hey, Max, I need one more for seven-a-side. Be great in the snow, yeah? Oh, hi, Sayid. You up for it, Max? Come on, it’ll be raining again soon, and where’s the fun in that?”

“No, thanks. I’m busy.”

“Ah, come on! I need some speed and muscle on my team. Look, I’m sorry for what I said, OK? No hard feelings-you caught me a good one. My ears are still ringing. Why’ve you got a khipu?” Baskins rattled on, never drawing breath as he picked up the tassels of string.

“A what?” Max said.

“Khipu.”

“How would you know what this is?” Max said.

“We did a whole thing on South America with Mr. Peterson last year. Hoggart called ’em kippers when the bloke came down from the university and told us about them. Hoggart’s such a prat at times. It was all about ancient stuff. It was so boring except for the sacrificial bits. That was cool. They used to disembowel their victims and-”

Max took the strings back and cut short Baskins’s gory recounting of blood sacrifices. “What’s it for?”

“Apparently, Incas used them for keeping tabs on things. Y’know, how many bags of corn they had, information and stuff, shorthand or something. Look, I dunno. Are you coming or what?”

Max eased him out the door. “I can’t right now. Thanks, you’ve been a great help.”

Baskins had never been a great help to anyone before, so the compliment needed some thought. By the time he’d reached the top of the stairs, he still had no idea what he’d said that was so useful, but he remembered someone else as a replacement for Max. He pounded down the corridor to press-gang the boy.

Max tapped another query into the computer: “k-e-e-p-u.” That made no sense at all. He reached for his dictionary. He couldn’t see anything that spelled what Baskins had said.

“Let’s try Incas,” Sayid said as his fingers quickly touched the keys. “Here we go!”

They scrolled down the information bars. Incas: pre-Columbian tribes, distinct language, located in Peru, Ecuador and Chile.

Max clicked on one of the links: British Museum: Sun God Exhibition. A series of photographs spread themselves across the screen. Figures carved into stone tablets, double-headed snakes made of jade, burial masks, temples, figures decorated in plumes of exotic birds.

Sayid double-clicked another link. “Stand back-genius at work.”

They had found the correct spelling. Max read the paragraph on the khipu, which described it as an abacus, but then went on to explain that khipu knots might well be arranged in a binary code, which meant they held more information than a simple memory aid.

“Y’see, I was right,” Sayid said. “Binary. You send an email or anything and what you see is really eight-digit sequences of ones and zeros. Then that gets translated by the computer that received your text.”

“Then maybe there is a message here somewhere.”

“Well, you’re good with knots.”

“I’ve never seen any like these, though. And what’s this got to do with Mum?” Max inadvertently asked the question aloud that echoed around his mind.

Suddenly, what had been upsetting Max recently was becoming more apparent. “This is about your mum?” Sayid asked carefully.

Max nodded. He fished out the half-dozen photographs and gave them to Sayid, who thumbed through them.

“But she was in Central America when she … when she died, wasn’t she? I thought Maguire was doing his field trip in South America,” Sayid said.

“That’s right,” Max said, taking the pictures back, regretting mentioning his mother. “But there has to be a connection. I’m just not sure what it is.”

“Do you want to tell me what this is all about?” Sayid asked.

“I just want to find out more about her, that’s all. I put a thing out on the Net. Danny Maguire said he knew about her.” Max did not want to tell even his best friend about the accusation against his father. That he had left his mother to die alone in the jungle. That in fact even Max did not know exactly how she had died.

“But your dad must know all that stuff.”

“But how do I get it out of him? The way he is, I mean.”

Sayid did not press his friend. It was obvious Max was being cagey, and given his recent unsettled behavior, he did not want to risk pushing any wrong buttons, as Baskins had done earlier. Word had zipped around the few boys left at the school that Max Gordon had lost it big-time.

“Maguire’s death was suicide,” Sayid said gently.

Max gave him an “oh yeah?” look.

Sayid shrugged. “Well, OK. The guys who came here were pretty creepy, and maybe it is a bit of a coincidence. But they thought Maguire was involved in drug smuggling. We don’t know for sure.”

Max pulled his backpack down and began folding clothes. “I’m going to see my dad. And I need a couple of things.”

“Like what?”

“A school letterhead, and Mr. Jackson’s signature.”

“Max, that’s crazy. It’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible, Sayid-you should know that. Anyway, that’s the easy bit. I need my passport.”

“To go where?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, your passport’s in the vault. End of story.” It was a flat statement of finality.

The vault was 133 steps below Dartmoor High’s granite walls. Each boy had a safe-deposit box, and in each box, which could be opened only by a key that Mr. Jackson held, was that boy’s life. A passport, a legal guardian’s letter, a parent’s last words. If anything fatal happened to any of the boys’ parents, Mr. Jackson would take him down into the gloomy cavern, open the box and hand the boy a prerecorded message on an MP3 player. It was a final act of love from a father and a mother to their child-the last words the boy would hear from his parents.

The vault gave everyone the creeps-it was as if the dead were waiting.

Max had almost finished rolling T-shirts, cotton shorts and cargo pants. He pulled the compass cord over his head and let it sit below his sweatshirt.

“I know. But I have to get it.”

“Just like that? You get caught and they’ll kick you out.”

“If we get caught, they’ll kick us out,” Max said, giving Sayid a comforting smile that the other boy did not find reassuring.

Stanton had changed his mind. Why would Jackson have phoned the nursing home to inquire about Tom Gordon? Stanton’s people had already checked the place out, and there had been no sign of Max. That was understandable given his father’s condition. So why phone? To reassure a boy about his father? He had underestimated the possibility that Jackson might be canny enough to be suspicious of them.

Jackson had lied; Stanton was beginning to be sure of it. He was protecting one of his pupils. Max Gordon was somewhere in that school, and if somehow Maguire had managed to get any kind of message to him, what would he do? Try to find answers.

Under cover of darkness, Stanton edged the Range Rover beneath the overhang of a hollowed-out rock face. The night shadows swallowed the 4?4 easily, and the shelter allowed a brief respite from the cutting wind. The rain had not come, but a scarring north wind had frozen the last snowfall. From their vantage point, he and a less-than-happy Drew gazed across the hills, beyond the moon-white river, toward the fortresslike Dartmoor High.

Wind crept and growled. Oak beams, hundreds of years old, creaked and twisted, moaning their discomfort like trapped ghosts. In the darkness of the school, only a couple of dim lights glowed at the end of each corridor.

Max’s headlamp cut a wedge into the blackness. Sayid followed him down the stairs, a constant whispering of apprehension, teasing Max’s ear like a draft from below the heavy-paneled doors.

Max stopped. “Sayid,” he said quietly, “shut up.”

“Sorry. But it’s two in the morning and I’ve never liked the dark. And all this creaking and groaning gives me the creeps.”

A door banged closed somewhere. Max turned off the light, grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him into the blackness of the stairwell.

Footsteps. Leather shoes creaking. A cough. A door opening and closing. Somewhere to the left. Max whispered close to Sayid’s ear. “Probably Mr. Chaplin. He’s the only one who wears leather-soled shoes. And he fancies a hot chocolate before he goes to bed.”

“Which is where we should be,” said Sayid, grimacing.

Max led him down the corridor, eased open a set of swing doors, careful not to let the hinges squeak, and finally squatted down in front of Mr. Jackson’s door with his prized multitool pocketknife.

Metal scraped metal inside the old mortise lock. He eased the handle, the lever clicked and he scurried into Mr. Jackson’s office with a huffing and puffing Sayid behind him. He was scared and it made his breathing ragged.

Max gestured. Stay at the door. Listen. Watch. Max knelt in front of the safe. Like the granite of Dartmoor High, it looked solid. It was about the size of an undercounter fridge, had one opening lever and a combination dial. The best plan when robbing a safe is to steal the whole thing and then blow it up later, but Max couldn’t see that happening with only Sayid’s bike for transport and a few bangers from last year’s firework display. A half-empty Pot Noodle cup stood on a shelf next to the safe. Max could just see Mr. Jackson mooching around his bookshelves, putting the container down and forgetting about it.

Memory carries smells and tastes, and as Max pressed his hands against the cold steel, his mind flooded with both.

Hong Kong. Rich spicy food, the soft misty air of steaming noodles. A cacophony of sounds. A trip when he was eleven to meet his parents, who were investigating the massive contamination the Chinese government was inflicting on the rivers and coasts of China. Tom Gordon had been banned from the mainland, and what was supposed to be a few days’ holiday turned into a daily round of arguments between his parents and government officials. He didn’t know the exact details of what was going on, but his mother woke him in the early hours one morning and told him to get dressed. She was packing their holdalls. Where was his dad? he had wanted to know. In the manager’s office sorting things out, she had told him, putting a finger to her lips. The moment her back was turned, Max ran down to the darkened reception area.

A night doorman, feet propped up, snored behind the desk, and a soft glow of light crept beneath the manager’s door.

Max turned the handle and came face to face with his dad, who was kneeling in front of a safe. For a moment he thought his dad was going to strike him-he had moved so quickly. Faster than a striking cobra. It was the trigger of recognition that stopped him from finishing the attack. He quickly closed the door behind Max and eased him to the safe.

“Our passports and laptops are in here. The manager’s been told that the police are coming first thing to interview us. Which could prove awkward,” his dad said, and smiled.

Max was in awe of his father. Everything he did seemed to have such a definite purpose. He just nodded while his dad kept up a whispered running commentary as his fingers delicately tweaked the safe’s dial.

“You have to find the contact points on the lock. You listen for the click. That tells you which way the lock’s drive cams-its levers and arms-are balanced inside.” He had pulled Max’s face to the safe, turned a notch and let him hear the soft click. Max nodded enthusiastically. This was great stuff. Safecracking with his dad!

“Old hotels, old safes. Not that difficult. Look …” There were a hundred numbers on the dial, and his fingers turned the pointer to rest on the number sixty. “That’s called parking the wheels, aligning the clicks you heard, and then you have narrowed down what the combination is.”

His dad caressed the wheel with his fingertips. “Now, when I move the dial, these drive cams click out of place again, left or right. Find which way”-he listened again, head pressed against the safe door-“and you should … get in.”

Max heard a final accepting click. His dad opened the safe and hauled out their papers and their laptops, shoving them into a backpack.

“How did you learn to do that?” Max remembered asking his father when they had finally found the safety of the plane home.

“My dad taught me,” Tom Gordon said, and smiled.

“Max! How did you do that?” Sayid asked as Max opened Jackson’s safe.

“It’s a long story,” he whispered, subduing the prickling emotion he felt at his father’s memory. He found the name-tagged keys he was looking for. “Come on, let’s go.”

“What about the safe?”

“We leave it open. I’ve got to get this key back.”

“We’re coming back?” Sayid felt the wall of his stomach twitch. His family owed so much to Max and his dad. His own father had been assassinated in the Middle East, and it was Tom Gordon who had rescued Sayid and his mother. It was Tom Gordon who’d secured a home in England for them because of the brave work his own dad had done-and because Tom Gordon was a sworn friend, almost like a brother, to his father. His mother taught Arabic at Dartmoor High, and Sayid had never felt safer. Max was his very best friend. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to help him. But he did not want to be caught and kicked out. It was not just his own life that might be ruined-it was his mother’s too.

Max saw the doubt flicker across Sayid’s eyes.

“It’s a piece of cake. You’ll see. Come on.”

But Sayid shook his head.

“Sayid!” Max insisted.

“I can’t. Anything happens and I’ve messed up Mum’s life.”

There was an uncharacteristic look of anger on Max’s face. He needed Sayid to keep watch for him. Now he was chickening out. He checked himself. Sayid was right. He had to look after his mother. He was all she had. Max nodded, patted his shoulder.

“Off you go, mate. I can do the rest and-”

Shrill, heart-stopping ringing tore through the stillness, cutting off Max’s words. An alarm? Had he triggered something? The thousandth-of-a-second thought was immediately dismissed. It was Jackson’s phone.

Sayid flinched. Max nearly dropped the keys as he scrambled to pull Sayid between the safe and office door. A light flickered on in the corridor. Mr. Jackson’s private quarters were down the hall.

Scuffling feet got closer, the door opened and a bleary-looking Mr. Jackson, wearing pajamas with a hastily thrown-on dressing gown, walked straight to the desk, flicked on his desk light and picked up the phone.

Max had squeezed them both into the corner. The open door shielded them, creating a small enclave of darkness next to the safe. He could feel Sayid’s heart thumping as they huddled like two monkeys in a rainstorm.

“Jackson,” the headmaster said into the receiver, unaware that he had walked straight into his office without having to unlock the door.

Max peered round the edge of the safe. Mr. Jackson’s back was to him, but Max could see that the safe door was open enough to be noticed when Jackson turned back to leave the office.

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. Velvollisuus.”

“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.

“Kunnia-Velvollisuus-Tahto. It means ‘Honor-Duty-Will.’ It’s the motto belonging to the Finnish Rapid Deployment Regiment. Special troops.”

“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.”