Evil Star

HOTEL EUROPA

Matt hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep until he began to wake up again. He groaned quietly and curled up, not wanting to return to full consciousness. He wasn’t ready to face reality quite yet. He was utterly drained. His entire body felt as if it had been hollowed out. Maybe it was the jet lag. More likely it was the shock of what had happened. His arms and shoulders were aching and his mouth was dry. What had woken him? Oh yes – a hand in his jacket pocket. Just to add to his troubles, he was being robbed.

Matt opened his eyes and saw a dark-haired boy leaning over him. At the same time, the boy’s own eyes widened in alarm. Matt cried out and pushed the boy away. The boy had been crouching on his heels. He lost his balance and fell over backwards. Matt sprang to his feet.

“Get off me!” he shouted. “Who are you? Leave me alone!”

The boy said nothing. Of course, it was unlikely that he spoke a word of English. Matt looked down at him and, despite everything that had happened, and all the confusion in his mind, he thought he knew him. It seemed to Matt that they had met long ago, but then he remembered – in the car, on the way from the airport. He was the boy who had been juggling at the traffic lights and who had sworn at them.

“No hacia nada. Solo intentaba ayudarte!” the boy said.

He was protesting his innocence, but Matt didn’t believe him. It was there in his eyes – deep brown and suspicious – in the way he held himself like a cornered animal, as if he was going to lash out at any moment. The boy was all bone. If Matt grabbed hold of his arm, he was fairly sure his thumbs and fingers would meet. He was wearing a yellow T-shirt that advertised a drink called Inca Cola, but the words had faded and the fabric had worn away into holes. His jeans were disgusting, tied with a piece of rope around the waist. He was wearing sandals made of black rubber.

The boy stood up and brushed himself down, as if the action could remove months of accumulated dirt. Then he looked balefully at Matt.

“No he tomada nada.” He showed his empty hands to make the point. He hadn’t taken anything.

Matt felt in his pockets. He’d had ten pounds when he came from England and fortunately he had kept it in his trousers. It was still there. His passport was still in his jacket. That was something, anyway. The boy was looking at him with injured pride, as if to say “How can you possibly mistrust me?” But Matt was sure that if he’d slept for another thirty seconds, he would have woken up with nothing.

He looked around. He had been sitting, slumped against a low, brick wall beneath a tattered poster advertising mobile phones. The wasteland that he had crossed was in front of him, with a row of partly built houses on the other side. All the buildings looked as if they had been cut in half with a knife. Wires and metal poles sprouted out where the roofs should have been. It was still dark, the area lit by ugly arc lamps, curving out of concrete posts. But the first grey fingers of the morning light were already creeping through the sky. Matt glanced at his watch. It wasn’t there. The boy shuffled uneasily.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got the time?” he asked.

The boy held out his hand. Matt’s watch was on his wrist.

It was five o’clock in the morning.

Matt didn’t even try to take the watch back. He was a little surprised that the boy hadn’t run off and abandoned him. Perhaps he was curious. A foreign tourist lost in a city. And one who was about his own age. Perhaps he could see a chance to make more money. Well, it was possible that he might come in useful – even if he was a thief. After all, he was Peruvian. He knew the city.

It was time to think.

Matt had to get back in contact with the Nexus… and in particular with Fabian, who must be searching for him even now. The trouble was, nobody had counted on Richard and Matt being separated. Richard had money and credit cards. He had phone numbers for reaching Fabian day or night. But he hadn’t given them to Matt.

Apart from the ten pounds, Matt had nothing. Perhaps if he could work out how to use directory enquiries he might be able to get a number for Susan Ashwood back home in Manchester… But even that seemed complicated and somehow unlikely. How about the police? That was the obvious choice, although Matt doubted that the Peruvian boy would be too keen to show him the way to the nearest station. Perhaps he could find his way to Barranco, the suburb where Fabian lived. It couldn’t be too far from here.

Then Matt remembered what the driver, Alberto, had said. Fabian was waiting for them at a hotel. What was its name? It took Matt a few moments to get his brain back into gear. The Hotel Europa. That was it. The Hotel Europa in Miraflores.

The boy was still waiting for him to say something. Matt tapped himself on the chest. “Matt,” he said. There was no point in hiding behind a false name now.

The boy nodded. “Pedro.”

So that was what he was called. And the strange thing was that Matt knew his name before he said it. Could he have heard it when he was asleep?

“Do you know the Hotel Europa in Miraflores?” he asked.

Pedro looked blank.

Matt tried again, more slowly. “Hotel Europa.” He pointed to himself. “I go.”

“Hotel Europa?” This time Pedro got it. “Si…”

“Can you show me the way?” Matt gestured down the street. “Do you understand?”

Pedro understood. But he wasn’t agreeing to anything. Matt saw the doubt in his eyes. Why should he help this foreign boy?

Matt took out the ten pounds. “If you take me there, I’ll give you this. It’s a lot of money.”

Pedro’s eyes zeroed in on the banknote. It was what he had been looking for in the first place. He nodded a second time. “Hotel Europa,” he repeated.

“Let’s go.”

The two of them set off.

It took them an hour to reach the hotel: a modern building, twelve storeys high, with a drive that swept up to the front door, where a uniformed doorman was already standing waiting to receive early-morning guests. Miraflores was one of the most exclusive parts of Lima. The streets were quiet and ran between well-manicured lawns decorated with palm trees and fountains. There was an expensive-looking arcade boasting the sorts of shops and restaurants that wouldn’t have been out of place in London. The whole suburb was perched on the end of a miniature cliff. Far below, the sea formed a giant crescent, stretching into the distance with the rest of the city barely visible, a mile away.

Hotel Europa. Matt felt a surge of relief as he saw the name written in large, white letters above the entrance lobby. And there was something else. He hadn’t noticed them at first, but there were two police cars parked outside. He had no doubt at all that they were there because of him. Fabian would have been waiting for him and Richard to arrive. When they hadn’t, he must have raised the alarm.

Matt started forward but Pedro reached out and grabbed hold of him.

“Yeah. All right.” Matt took out the ten-pound note and offered it to the other boy. “Here you are. Thanks.”

“No!” Pedro was looking scared. He pointed at the two cars and uttered the single word that was almost the same in so many different languages. “Policia!”

“It’s OK, Pedro. I want to see them. It’s not a problem.”

But Pedro was worried. He shook his head and seemed unwilling to let Matt go.

Matt broke free, pocketing the note. “I’ll see you around,” he said, knowing that he never actually would.

He walked up the drive and into the hotel. The doorman glanced briefly in his direction and then decided to let him in. He was a child and he was scruffy – but he was a European and that was all that mattered. Somewhere inside himself, Matt knew that Pedro wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near.

The front doors opened onto a large reception area with leather sofas, antique tables, oversized potted plants and mirrors. Matt had hardly ever been inside a luxury hotel before – and never on his own. He felt uncomfortable walking into this enormous space. The Hotel Europa was a place for rich tourists and businessmen and he was neither. There were two smartly dressed women standing behind the slab of marble that served as a reception desk and they watched him with faces of frozen politeness as he walked over to them.

“I need your help,” he said.

“Yes?” The younger of the two receptionists sounded surprised, as if helping wasn’t part of her job description.

“My name is…” Matt hesitated. What name should he give? He decided not to bother. “I was meant to meet someone here.”

“Who are you meeting, please?”

“His name is Mr Fabian.”

The receptionist tapped at the keyboard of a computer hidden just below the level of the desk. Her nails clacked against the keys. A moment later, she looked up. “I’m sorry. There is nobody of that name staying at the hotel.”

“He may not be staying here.” Matt tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I arrived at the airport yesterday. I was on the way here to meet him. But I got delayed.”

“Where are you from?”

“From England.” Matt took out his passport and laid it on the desk. He hoped the cover, with its gold lettering, would impress the girl more than he could.

The girl opened it and looked at the name underneath the photograph. “Paul Carter?” She glanced at him strangely, as if she had been expecting him. The other girl picked up a telephone and dialled a number. “Where is your brother?” she asked.

“My brother?” Matt realized that they were talking about Richard. So he was right. They were expected. “I don’t know. Where is Mr Fabian?”

“Mr Fabian is not here.”

Next to her, the second girl had been connected. She spoke briefly in Spanish, then put the phone down.

A side door opened.

Four men came out, walking purposefully towards him. There was something menacing about the way they walked. They could have been coming out of a bar, half drunk, looking for a fight. If it weren’t for the police cars parked outside, Matt would have assumed they were soldiers. They were wearing grey trousers, tucked into their boots, dark-green jackets that zipped up the front and caps. Their leader was a huge, pot-bellied man with a heavy moustache and leathery, pock-marked skin. His hair was dark. Was there a single man in Peru who didn’t have dark hair? He had the body of a wrestler. His hands were enormous. Everything about him seemed brutal and oversized and Matt had to remind himself that he was the one who needed the police, that he hadn’t himself committed any crime.

Or so he thought.

“You are Paul Carter?” the policeman asked. Even from the four words, Matt could tell that his English was good. He had a heavy Spanish accent but there was a certain rhythm to the way he spoke. And despite his looks, his voice was soft.

“Yes. My name is Captain Rodriguez. I have been waiting for you. Where is your friend…” He smiled unpleasantly. “…Robert Carter?”

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

Matt was becoming increasingly nervous. The policeman had referred to Richard as his friend, not as his brother – which was what he was supposed to be. And he had spoken the names as if he already knew they were false. Pedro had warned him not to go into the hotel and Matt was beginning to wish that he’d listened. He certainly hadn’t been expecting this degree of hostility. The senior policeman was standing right in front of him. The other three had moved to surround him. They weren’t treating him as if he needed help. It was more as if he was a suspect, a wanted criminal.

“Did Mr Fabian call you?” Matt asked.

“Fabian? Who is Fabian?”

“Listen… I was attacked last night. I need help.”

“Your name is Paul Carter?”

“Yes.” Even as Matt spoke the word, it died on his lips. The policeman knew who he was. He had only asked the question to test him. Slowly, he reached for the passport and turned it around, handling it as if it was something dirty. Then he picked it up and opened it. For a long moment, he squinted at the photograph at the back.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“It’s my passport.” Matt felt a nameless terror opening up beneath him.

“This passport is a forgery.”

“No…”

“Tell me your true name.”

“I just told you. It’s Paul Carter. Didn’t you hear what I said? I was attacked last night. There were men with guns. You have to ring Mr Fabian…”

The girls at the reception desk were watching all of this, their eyes filled with fear. One of the policemen rapped something at them and they hurried away, disappearing down a corridor. Another policeman went over to the main door and stood there, making sure nobody could see in. It was still early in the morning. None of the guests had got up yet. There was nobody to witness what happened next.

The senior policeman – the one who called himself Captain Rodriguez – punched Matt. He barely had time to see the huge fist swing in an arc towards him before it had made contact with his stomach, throwing him off his feet. If he’d eaten anything in the past twelve hours, he would have been sick. As it was, he felt the breath explode out of him as he crashed backwards onto the floor. Darkness shimmered in front of his eyes as he hovered at the edge of consciousness and he had to fight with all his strength simply to breathe again. He felt the cold marble against his cheek. He needed it. It helped fight the dark away.

“You are lying to me,” Rodriguez said and Matt knew that he was in more trouble than he could begin to imagine. The policeman knew everything. He had been waiting for Matt at the hotel. Perhaps he had been there all night. “You think, perhaps, that I am an idiot? You think that the police officers of Peru are not worthy of your respect?”

“No…” Matt tried to speak but he still hadn’t caught his breath and he was in too much pain. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He forced himself to go on. “I want…” he began. He was a British citizen. It didn’t matter what he’d done. They couldn’t treat him like this.

Captain Rodriguez swung a foot almost lazily and Matt yelled out as it came into contact with his ribs. A new wave of pain seared through his body. For a few seconds, the hotel went red and he wondered if they were going to kill him, here and now, in this upmarket hotel.

“What do you want?” Rodriguez taunted him, imitating his voice. “You want to confess? I think that would be a good idea, my friend. I think you should tell me who you really are and why you have come here. I think you should tell me now!”

He lashed out again. Matt saw the boot coming and was able to ride with it, rolling over and over across the marble floor. The other policemen laughed.

Rodriguez walked over to him, one slow step at a time.

“You should not have come here, my friend,” he crowed.

“I… haven’t… done… anything… wrong.”

“You have no papers. You have no nationality. You have entered this country illegally.” Rodriguez reached down and grabbed Matt’s hair. He tugged it so hard that Matt cried out. He could feel the tears being squeezed from his eyes. “Maybe you are a terrorist. Yes. You are young, it is true. But there are others who are younger. Are you prepared to tell me the truth?”

Matt nodded. What else could he do? He would tell this man everything.

“Where is Richard Cole?” Rodriguez asked.

So the charade was over. The policeman knew who they were. He had known from the start.

“Where is he?” Rodriguez pulled even harder.

“I don’t know!” Matt screamed. He was sure the hair was going to be torn from his scalp. There was blood trickling from his nose and down the corner of his mouth. “He said he’d meet me here! I don’t know where he went.” It was a lie – but it didn’t matter. He just had to say anything to stop the pain.

He heard the sound of a bell and the lift doors opened. A businessman had appeared, on his way to an early meeting. He stepped out of the lift and saw the four policemen, the boy lying on the floor between them. Nobody said anything. The businessman blinked and disappeared back into the lift. Matt could imagine that he wouldn’t even draw breath until he was back in his room.

But at least Captain Rodriguez had let go of his hair. Matt lay where he was, sprawled out on the floor like one of those drawings the police make after there’s been a murder. He wondered if some of his ribs had been broken. His entire body was in pain.

Rodriguez dropped down next to him and cupped a hand under his cheek. For a moment he could have been a father, consoling an injured son, but every word he spoke dripped with venom and hate. “You are a very foolish child,” he muttered. “You have come, uninvited, to my country and nobody can help you. Because, you see, you are ‘Paul Carter’. You do not exist. Nobody knows that you are here and nobody will know when you disappear. For that is what will happen to you, my friend. We have places here that nobody knows about. Prisons far away where you can go in and never come out. It would be easy to kill you. I could kill you now and go to have my breakfast and not think twice. But that is not what is going to happen to you, Matthew Freeman. You are going to be buried alive in a concrete cell far beneath the ground and you are going to be left to rot and nobody is going to hear from you again.”

He raised Matt’s head a little further so that his lips were almost touching his ear. And then the final words came, a whisper of sheer hatred.

“Diego Salamanda sends you his regards.”

He let the head fall and Matt felt another spasm of pain as his skull came into contact with the marble floor.

Rodriguez must have given a signal. The other three policemen closed in on him and scooped him up. Between them, they dragged him out of the hotel. Matt didn’t even try to resist. He could feel his feet, toes downwards, sliding along behind him. His vision was blurred. He could just make out the reception desk with Rodriguez standing in front of it, but both of them were out of focus. He was bundled out through the door. There was no sign of the doorman. Like the businessman, he must have got out of sight as quickly as he could. Matt remembered the two cars parked at the front. They had been waiting for him! And he had just walked in and given himself up.

They dragged him across to the first car and one of the policemen fumbled in his pockets for his keys. That left just two of them supporting Matt. Did he have the strength left to fight back? No. They were holding him too tightly. What about his powers? Briefly Matt remembered the chandelier exploding at Forrest Hill. It felt as if it had happened a century ago. He wondered if he could do something similar now. Turn on the power and make the police car blow up. Send these two men spiralling away like puppets in the wind. But it wasn’t as easy as that. There was no switch he could throw. Whatever power he had, it still wasn’t under his control.

But then the policeman holding him on the side nearest to the car cried out and suddenly let go. Looking up, Matt saw blood pouring down his face. Had he done that to him? Matt was so shocked that for a moment he thought he had. But then he saw a fist-sized stone come flying through the air and the second policeman staggered back, his hand clutching his face. Matt was free. He fell against the car and looked away from the hotel, down towards the main street. And there was the answer.

Pedro. He was holding a slingshot made from a strip of some sort of black material – rubber or leather. He had used it twice with deadly accuracy, bringing down both policemen. But that still left one more: the one with the car keys. Matt shouted a warning as the man reached for his holster and pulled out a gun.

But before it had come halfway out, Pedro swung the slingshot a third time. Another rock flashed through the air and slammed into the third policeman, catching him just above the eye. The man swore and dropped the gun.

“Matt!” Pedro called out his name.

Matt looked back at the hotel doorway. Captain Rodriguez had appeared, alerted by the cries of his men. His own gun was in his hand. Quickly, he took in what had happened. His men were hurt. The English boy was free, leaning against the car that should have been taking him away. And there was another boy, with a catapult. Rodriguez took aim at this second boy.

Matt dived forward and snatched up the dropped gun. He rolled over on his stomach and fired six shots in the direction of the hotel. He wasn’t sure if any of them hit Captain Rodriguez but he saw the senior policeman dive for cover behind a parked car. Behind him, the glass doors of the hotel shattered. At the same time, an alarm went off inside the hotel. Matt dropped the gun and got unsteadily to his feet.

The first policeman that Pedro had hit was already recovering. Matt took one look at him and then, finding some last hidden reserve of strength, lashed out with his foot. His toecap came into contact with soft flesh. He had kicked the man right between the legs and he crumpled without a sound.

Another rock sailed past. One of the other policemen was hit a second time and knocked off his feet, stumbling into the side of his car and setting off another alarm. The third had crawled away to hide.

“Matt!” Pedro called again.

Matt didn’t need any more encouragement. With his hands gripping his stomach, he lurched forward. The Peruvian boy waited for him, another stone ready in his slingshot in case anyone tried to follow. But nobody did.

Pedro reached out and grabbed Matt and together they ran off as fast as they could. The alarm bells were still jangling and now they were joined by the scream of sirens as more police cars approached. Seconds later, they pulled up in front of the hotel. Captain Rodriguez had reappeared, his face full of fury. But they were too late. The street was empty. The two boys had disappeared.