The Devil's breath

9

The chilled night cramped their muscles, and for a long time Max had lain, staring into the cave’s void, knowing his father had been there and had left a message. Only the exhausting anxiety of not knowing what that message meant had finally sent him to sleep.

!Koga shook him awake and, as he rubbed what little sleep he had from his eyes, gestured to Max to follow him to the mouth of the cave.!Koga pointed, smiling contentedly. “!Kognuing-tara-the Dawn’s Heart,” he said.

Max looked. Low on the horizon was a fat ball of light. Max had seen that star before. Years ago when they were in Egypt, his father had woken him early, wrapped him in a blanket and taken him out into the cold desert dawn. He pointed. “See that light? That’s Jupiter.” Max realized that’s what the drawing in the cave meant. His father was pointing to the “morning star”-the planet Jupiter, the Dawn’s Heart. Telling him where to go: east, beyond those mountains. Max smiled. The dawn swept away his self-doubt as the storm had blown away the clouds of darkness.

Max ran with renewed energy towards the rising sun. Spears of light shot through the ragged mountain peaks. His long strides kept up comfortably with!Koga, whose feet seemed barely to touch the ground. The grass was still sparse, barely ankle-deep, but it made the ground softer underfoot and running easier. They had clambered down the slope from the cave and pushed hard to reach the opposite mountainside, whose sweeping grassland curved up to embrace massive, sculptured boulders. The baboons had raced for the safety of the rocks during the night’s storm, so as they drew closer!Koga slowed the pace. The last thing they wanted was to burst unannounced into a baboon colony’s breakfast; their curved, razor-sharp canines could inflict lethal wounds.!Koga stopped as Max caught up with him. They were halfway up the mountainside, a thousand meters from the summit, where the jagged teeth barred any entrance. Down at this level the ground undulated, and if they stayed on course they could skirt the mountain range using these lower slopes-but they had to negotiate their way through the baboons.

A gateway through the boulders led them to a three-sided bowl in the hillside: a small amphitheater of grassland and trees, which offered shelter from severe storms and a collection point for any precipitation. Max and!Koga stood in silence. To reach the far side they would have to walk for at least a kilometer through what looked like a couple of hundred feeding and grooming baboons. The boys had not yet been noticed. “Walk slowly, yes?”!Koga told him.

“You bet,” Max said, licking his lips nervously.

Although they were scattered across the grassland, the baboons were in family groups; at various points big male baboons stood guard, watching over their females and offspring.

“The big baboons …”!Koga indicated them with a lift of his chin.

“The males?” Max asked.

“Yes. They come for you, they run at you, like attack … you stay. Stand still. They want to see if you a threat. OK?”

“Oh yeah, I’ll invite them for tea while I’m at it.”!Koga seemed uncertain about Max’s sarcastic answer, so he reassured the Bushman boy. “I’ll close my eyes and think of England. I won’t move.”

From somewhere ahead came a sound like a guttural dog bark. One of the guardian baboons had sounded the alarm. A sudden ripple of fear ran through the troop; youngsters ran to their mothers, but it was not the boys’ presence that had frightened them. The baboons crouched, looking up. A shadow drifted across them. Max searched the sky. A martial eagle had stepped off a high peak and glided into a thermal. The warm morning air carried him easily across the gathered baboons, but he was still too high to swoop and make an attack on any vulnerable youngster.!Koga tugged at Max’s arm. This was a good time to make their way through the distracted baboons.

After a few minutes the huge eagle, showing first its dark-brown back feathers, then its speckled white chest, curved lazily in the air and drifted away. Perhaps it had spotted easier prey further down the valley. Max reckoned it was big enough to take a small antelope, so a young baboon would certainly not have posed a problem for the winged predator, which could strike with stunning power. Its talons could pierce a skull, biting deep into the base of the brain, causing instant death. Then it would carry the prey to its nest and dismember the carcass, tearing out the intestines, severing the head and limbs to be eaten. The baboons obviously knew the ominous reality of the raptor’s shadow.

The danger passed, and now Max and!Koga were in the midst of the baboons. One of the males stood on its hind legs, watching them from a distance; the others returned to their nit-picking duties while the youngsters played in a chattering, raucous rough-and-tumble. A huddle of boulders lay in Max and!Koga’s path; baboons scattered as they approached. Some of the rocks were scooped out, worn down by centuries of weather and baboon activity; now they acted like the granite drinking troughs Max knew from Devon. A distant memory, Devon: gentle, forgiving Devon, where the enfolding hills nurtured the traveler into meandering pathways and fields, where the wildest creature likely to be seen might be a barn owl looking for field mice. Max’s mind wrenched back to reality. The baboons had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching them.

!Koga crouched at one of the basins; his hand tickled the water and brought it to his lips. “It is from the storm. It tastes good.”

Carefully they edged closer to the water. Would the baboons fiercely protect their invaluable resource or let them share it? Max pulled off his bush hat and peered down. The reflection that stared back looked nothing like the boy who had started his quest only days earlier. His fair hair was tufted and streaked with dirt. He was leaner, gaunt even, and the caked dirt made him look older. His eyes were red-rimmed from the sun’s glare, and his tears of the previous night had washed a couple of tracks in the grime. Beneath the dirt a tanned, weather-beaten face glared back at him. He looked like a wild man. And maybe now he was.

Without another thought he dipped his cupped hands into the cool water and drank thirstily. Then he pushed his head under, scratched his fingers through his hair, and rubbed his face. As he pulled free of the rock pool a baboon took fright and fled, chattering. Maybe Max was more acceptable as a dirt-clogged creature from the bush. A young baboon sitting in a rock bowl gazed back at him like a boy in a bath, then dragged one hand over its head, spiking its own short hair, punk-like. Max pulled the binoculars from his shirt to stop them banging against the rock and put them down next to him on his bush hat, as he took another luxurious wallow.

Lifting his head clear, he snorted dust and mucus from his nose. He would never take water for granted again. It was sobering to think how much of the precious liquid he wasted at home. He gazed out across the curved hillside. Watching the baboons was a momentary diversion. Max sensed their caution at his presence, but they did not seem to register any threat.

!Koga’s gleaming, dripping face emerged from another pool. “Max,” he said quietly.

Following his gaze, Max saw that the punk baboon had stolen his hat and binoculars. Max tentatively reached out towards it, but it jumped back and scurried into another’s arms, where they hugged and gazed warily at him. Max needed those binoculars. He stepped carefully towards the youngsters. A bark warned Max. He turned. A big, heavily built male was stalking towards him. Its front paws supported muscled shoulders and the mane of long hair around its neck and shoulders made it look even more threatening. It was a meter tall and the doglike muzzle snarled as it barked again. Max stood still, sensing the ripple of tension in the animals around him. The baboon bared its fangs. Max saw!Koga slowly ease an arrow into his bow. “Don’t kill it,!Koga. It’ll be OK.”

“I don’t know,”!Koga replied. “Maybe not. He is the leader. Others will attack if he does.”

Max glanced around.!Koga was right. The warning bark had alerted other males. The strict hierarchy of the baboon troop meant that the older juveniles, often acting as scouts for the troop, rallied when the danger call came from the leader. Other males stayed with their families but were nevertheless alerted.

Max reassured!Koga. “We’ll walk away … slowly.”

Once in a while Max had come across kids at school who were stronger than he, and there was always the odd bully to contend with. Despite best intentions, some kids just had to exert their dominance, and Max had had a couple of scraps at school. There were Baskins and Hoggart, two of the older boys. They got out of hand at times. If they weren’t looking for a scrap with someone else, they would rough and tumble each other. Whatever the outcome, it meant a few bruises, but this baboon with its razor-sharp teeth was way above the Baskins and Hoggart league-this was the equivalent of a knife-wielding, streetwise kid with a very bad attitude. If there wasn’t something to hand for self-defense, then a fast sprint for self-preservation brought no shame. Only Max would never outrun this bruiser. He flinched as the baboon coughed another bark and with a snarl charged to within four meters of where Max now stood with his back to the rocks. The other baboons began to join in, their screeches and threats sounding like a badly out-of-control football crowd.

“Next time he will really attack,”!Koga shouted, bringing attention to himself from the other young males. The height of the boulders offered some immediate sanctuary, but that would be short-lived once the frenzy spread. It was not much of a choice: an attack would come sooner or later.

“I want a chance to get out of this,!Koga. We walk slowly, and then we run. All right?”

!Koga gazed at the confident boy who stood unflinching before the baboon’s agitated aggression.

“We’ll run like hell,!Koga, once we reach those rocks over there. You ready?”

!Koga nodded and eased his back along the boulders, watching the gathering juveniles, who were eager for combat, once their leader attacked. Almost shoulder to shoulder, the boys edged away. Within moments, one of the juvenile males broke ranks and charged. The screaming, indignant bark of the leader barely stopped the young baboon before it reached Max-who smelled its fetid breath and saw the ragged spittle hanging from its lips.

Together, the boys eased away from the advancing baboons-it seemed like a small army was gathering around them. It was a hundred or more meters before they could reach the rocks, allowing them to put on a turn of speed. The rocks would divide the advancing baboons and give the boys a chance of reaching the flatter, wider plain beyond the fringe of the mountains.

“Get ready,!Koga, we have to go for it now!”

Max sensed the quivering anticipation in the startled looks of the baboons and felt his own energy gathering to explode. Then suddenly a shadow swept across them all.

The shrieking peaked. The commanding voice of the leader barked above them all and the baboons were unleashed. They surged towards Max and!Koga, who were helpless. Blurred images-fragments of his mother and father-slammed through Max’s mind. He saw!Koga level his spear in readiness. This was it! A fight to the death. He sucked in air to scream his defiance.

But the horde swept past them, jostling them, the juveniles now taking the lead, scouting ahead, leading the troop to safety beyond the place of exposed danger.

A reprieve!

Max and!Koga reacted instinctively and ran with them, pounding across the ground, immersed in the baboons’ hysteria. They were safe amidst the panic. The blackness fell across them again, but it was not the shadow of the hunting eagle. The darkness belonged to a far more dangerous creature.

Five hundred meters above, the silent predator rose higher on a thermal spiral. On huge, featherless wings stretched across a skeletal frame, it whispered through the sky. The glider’s Perspex cockpit, an all-seeing eye, held Shaka Chang.

Slye had tried to contact the men sent to kill the boys, but their radio transceiver responded with a lion’s rumbling growl and the sound of it being scraped across the ground. Chang was indifferent to the men’s fate and this morning’s flight served only to acquaint him with the terrain from where the boy might emerge-or where he had perished. Chang liked to know everything about those who were trying to interfere with his plans, and ultimately he trusted only his own eyes.

Chang gazed down at the fleeing baboons. He thought he saw a shape, different from the others, but the warm air scooped him upwards and obscured his vision. He heeled the glider around again and swept low across the broad, sloping mountainside, his glider chasing its shadow across the ground. The baboons clambered into rocks, seeking shelter from the perceived threat. Chang twisted left and right, searching for the figures that had caught his eye. Nothing. Once again he banked into the thermal and felt the surge of nature’s power lifting him above and beyond the mountain range. Power he could control.

On the far horizon, cumulonimbus, the king of clouds, gathered a storm-threatening army. Even Chang would not venture into that awesome turbulence. It was like a nature god, and any intruder would be tossed and ripped apart by the contained force the clouds held. Stacked like multiple atomic explosions climbing sixty kilometers high, their bonds would finally be broken and would release tons of rainwater, flooding the landscape below, then Shaka Chang’s dam would restrain the power of that water. And that control would give him command of life or death over the whole region.

Everyone needed water. Diamonds and gold were mere trading commodities, crystals and metal made glorious by the vanity of man; but he would still take them when they were thrust into his hands as payment for releasing the life-giving energy he had entrapped. But before that happened, those self-same rains would carry out the first step of Chang’s plan. They would scour the earth’s underground caves and fissures, carrying a plague of death, to destroy human and animal life for thousands of kilometers. Governments would then give even more for Shaka Chang’s unsullied water. And all that could stand between him and domination was a fifteen-year-old boy and the knowledge he might hold. And it was only that boy’s power over him that caused Shaka Chang a moment of doubt.

Satisfied that the harsh landscape below offered but a meager chance of survival for anyone foolish enough to challenge it, he eased the glider towards the heavens. Two hundred kilometers away, he would swoop from the sun like an all-powerful god and descend to earth, returning to Skeleton Rock, the earthly home of a celestial warrior: the bringer of chaos and destruction which were the instruments of success.

The rains were coming soon.

Sheltering under the lee of the rocks,!Koga and Max kept their faces turned away from the silent hunter. Who could be flying a glider out here? Was it a wealthy farmer indulging a hobby, or was there a more sinister reason for the silent approach? It was not worth risking being seen, and they hoped they had not been. Once the quivering wings had lifted the slender body across the mountains, the boys broke cover and ran. The baboons, still terrified, offered no threat. And provided the glider did not return, they were free to run as far and as fast as their legs could carry them into the distant scrubland and the safety of the trees.

Max and!Koga pushed themselves onwards; Max was convinced that, if his father’s cave message had shown them the way, there would be other clues waiting somewhere ahead. They ran across the open savannah flecked with thorn trees, moving deeper into more shaded areas. Soft-topped grasses undulated, their feathered tips touched with dust and sunlight. It was getting too hot to move at this pace, and Max slowed to a walk, but!Koga urged him on: he would crouch and, with extended thumb, point out animal tracks to Max, explaining that predators had also sought shade but were far enough away not to pose any immediate danger. Finally!Koga knelt and placed his hand in a darkened blemish in the sand: the remains of an old fire. “They are near.”

“Who?” Max asked.

“Those who helped your father. My family.”

When Mike Kapuo took Kallie home, his wife, Elizabeth, hugged her, let her soak in a hot bath, and then fed her the usual scrumptious meal that she always managed to feed to her family. Two sons, a daughter and now grandchildren, not counting waifs and strays like Kallie, all sat around the big kitchen table next to the solid-fuel stove that Elizabeth Kapuo refused to be parted from, even though they sweltered in the summer months. It was as comfortable a family home as anyone could wish for, and Kallie was envious. The pain of her own parents’ divorce had never left her. Her father was like a modern-day buccaneer. He was a free spirit who would die for his family, but getting him to stay at home was impossible. Kallie had grown up quickly, and being stuck out on the farm gave her a stubborn strength, but while she was wrapped in the warmth and friendliness of the Kapuo family, she allowed herself to relax. Finally, unable to swallow another morsel of food, she gratefully fell into bed.

She woke up the next day with dawn still an hour away. Suburban sounds had roused her from fractured dreams. The house still slept and, as she made her way towards the kitchen to make coffee, she walked past a room whose door was slightly ajar. A shaft of light cut into the passageway. There was a gentle scratching sound which she could not identify. She carefully opened the door wider. Mike Kapuo obviously used the room as an office. The desk lamp was still on and papers and files were evident-Mike had probably been working late. A cat was licking itself on the desk, its claws gripping the sheets of paper beneath it. That was the scratching noise Kallie had heard. The cat had obviously spent a comfortable, undisturbed night under the warmth of the lamp. But then Kallie’s movement at the door made it leap from the desk in fright, scattering papers across the floor.

Kallie muttered under her breath. Why hadn’t she just minded her own business? She scooped up the papers and tapped them together into a tidy pile, but as she went to put them back on the desk she saw a name typed on a sheet of paper and the air suddenly became even colder. Tom Gordon: Missing, Presumed Dead. It was a police report, dated a couple of weeks earlier. She scanned the single sheet. It was a cursory read, full of police jargon; a pseudoformality that police forces all over the world adopted, as if the clunky language made it all the more serious. She didn’t care, she kept reading. It had obviously been a search conducted with limited resources, which would have made it virtually impossible to find anyone presumed injured in the thirstland.

She thumbed through the rest of the papers. At least a dozen sheets had something to do with Max’s father. It took her only a few moments to realize that the papers the cat had spilled belonged in a folder that had been left open on the desk. She went to the door, quickly checked that no one was moving in the house, eased the door closed again and got down on her knees. She spread the sheets out on the floor, angling the lamp down.

The folder contained a description of the missing man, reports from search teams, the one-page summary she had just read and a photocopy of the area searched. There was nothing that seemed to offer any new evidence or information about Tom Gordon. She put the papers back together and put the file back on the desk. As she did so, her fingers touched another file, closed this time, but with the edges of photographs showing. She opened the folder. The black-and-white pictures were of a man’s body being pulled out of the harbor. Photo after photo taken by a police photographer. The victim finally ended up on his back, the feet of the policemen, just in frame, turned away from him. They had done their job now. It all had the cold, calculating feel of distant emotions, of routine. Of matter-of-fact death.

A square of official information had been glued to the top left of the picture. Date and time when the photos were taken, the name of the police photographer and finally the name of the deceased.

Leopold. Anton Leopold.

And someone had scribbled a reminder to themselves on a Post-it note, stuck to the inside of the folder. The pictures of the dead man were bad enough, but the message made her feel physically sick: Tell Peterson.

Thousands of kilometers away, the mists of Dartmoor settled, refusing to move until the next weather front shifted them with a hefty gust of wind. Life was going on as normal for Sayid despite his frustration at not being able to get into Mr. Peterson’s room to bug his phone. Having practiced on his own room’s door lock, he had learned how to tease the tumblers and open it, but Peterson’s door had a more efficient lock and he failed in his attempt to pick it. If only everything were electronic, he would have had it hacked and opened in minutes. What was the good of progress if these archaic door-locking devices were still around? He kept the small transmitter tucked in his pocket in case he saw Peterson leave his door open. He would need less than thirty seconds to slip the bug into the telephone’s casing.

After Kallie’s telephone call, Sayid sent an email through to Farentino, using the name Magician, just as Max had instructed him, ensuring his own identity could not be traced or revealed. He told Max’s protector what he knew-which was precious little. There was the information about Eros in Namibia; that someone called Leopold was supposed to meet Max; that someone powerful was going to cause chaos out there and that Max … well, Max was totally alone and could not be contacted. Sayid also told Farentino that a local girl had helped Max move northeast. And that was all he knew. Sayid decided not to mention Mr. Peterson until he found out more for himself-he desperately needed to get that bug into his telephone.

Sayid walked determinedly along the corridor to check once more if Peterson had left his room, giving him another crack at the lock. Thoughts of Max weighed heavily on his mind when suddenly Peterson’s voice echoed along the granite walls. “Sayid! One moment.” Sayid stopped in his tracks, caught completely off guard by Peterson’s stealth. One minute he wasn’t there, the next … “Where are you off to, Sayid?”

“I was … er … I was … I went to see Mr. Simpson about the details for next week’s cross-country run,” he lied quickly, clutching the transmitter in his pocket.

“Mr. Simpson is supervising homework. You know that.”

“Yes, sir. I lost track of time. Anyway-he wasn’t there. Obviously … because he’s … as you say …” It was all getting very lame, but Peterson seemed not to notice.

“I want to talk to you. I think my room might be best.” And he walked the few paces past Sayid and opened the door that Sayid had tried so assiduously to break into.

Given Mr. Peterson’s appearance of being clumsily attired, there was a surprising formality to his room. The books were neatly stacked and, from Sayid’s first glance, seemed to be in order of category: geography, history, biography, caving, mountaineering, English literature. The desk was composed of two doors, balanced at each end by a couple of two-drawer filing cabinets as a base, so there was a great amount of space for the tidily stacked papers and the big map that lay, spread out, across it. Boots (wiped clean of mud), trainers and cross-country sandals sat on a shoe rack. It was a small room, kept under strict control. No television, but a digital radio and CD combination, and a set of wireless headphones hooked on a purpose-made stand. Classical music CDs nudged language discs, which in turn nestled next to a wide variety of contemporary music.

“What?” Peterson asked, as Sayid looked around his room.

“It’s a heck of a tidy place, sir.”

“I suppose it is. I don’t see it that way. To me it’s … ordered. When you’re climbing, you need to know where every bit of kit is, sometimes in a hurry. It’s less stressful knowing where things are, as I learned when I was in the army.”

“I didn’t know you were in the army, sir. I thought you climbed mountains before you became a teacher.”

Sayid’s brain was racing. If Peterson had been in the army, was he still connected somehow? He had read that some ex-soldiers worked in security or as mercenaries. What if someone had paid Peterson to arrange the attempt on Max’s life? Sayid had to work hard to keep his imagination under control. He was in the room, and that was all that mattered. Now he had to keep things rolling until he could find a way of getting the small transmitter into Peterson’s phone. He edged around the room. A cordless phone sat on one corner of the desk. The slide-off battery compartment on the handset might not offer enough room for the bugging device, but the base unit would serve just as well. Better, in fact, because the phone signal would go through there from the handset.

While he tried to think how to pull it off, he studied some watercolors on the wall, which weren’t badly executed. One of them held Sayid’s attention. It was of a mighty snow-covered peak-higher than those surrounding it. The setting sun bruised the sky, absorbed by the snow. Peterson noticed his interest. “Mount McKinley,” the teacher told him.

“Alaska,” Sayid answered.

Peterson smiled and nodded. His geography teaching hadn’t fallen completely on deaf ears then. He poured water into a kettle. There were two mugs, two spoons, sugar and milk.

“Did you climb it?”

“Yes.”

“How high is it?” Sayid said, buying time.

“Twenty thousand three hundred and twenty feet-the north peak is a few hundred less. I still think in feet when it comes to mountains.” Peterson was making coffee for them both without asking if Sayid wanted any.

“Why not take pictures, sir? Why paint them?”

“Ah, well. Anyone can take a photo. Painting requires a certain eye, a certain attitude. I suppose it’s almost a kind of meditation. You sit there, get absorbed by the subject … it’s a skill I don’t have.”

“Then you didn’t paint these?”

Peterson handed Sayid the mug of coffee, studied the map on his desk for a moment, and turned it slightly so that Sayid could see it more clearly. It was a map of Namibia.

“No, I didn’t. Max’s father did.”

Max’s father! Max had never mentioned to Sayid that Peterson knew his dad, and Sayid was certain that, if it was true, then Max certainly didn’t know about it. And if that was the case, why wouldn’t Max’s dad have told him? Peterson had to be lying, trying to draw Sayid into giving information. It was sinister. Peterson was studying him closely and Sayid suddenly felt that his geography teacher was a lot more than he seemed.

“Max never went to Canada.”

“He didn’t?” Sayid hoped his look of surprise was convincing.

“Has he contacted you?”

“No, I thought he was just getting over everything.

Y’know, the attack and his dad …” He shrugged, there was nothing more to add.

Peterson tapped the map. “I know he’s in Namibia.”

Sayid gazed at the outline. It looked huge and empty-Blimey, Max, where are you? Sayid had to string this out as long as he could. “Namibia,” he muttered as if he weren’t sure where it was.

Peterson smiled. “Namibia. You know where I mean.”

“Oh yes, sir. I just can’t believe he’s there. I mean, why Namibia?”

Peterson watched him for a moment. Sayid felt as though he was being scanned by a magnetic resonance-imaging machine. Peterson’s eyes seemed to go right through him. Sayid felt his stomach quiver. Peterson was starting to scare him, yet he had said nothing threatening or ominous.

“I want to find Max,” Peterson finally said. “I want to help him. I believe he’s in grave danger and I know people who can get to him, who might just save his life. He’s out there in the wilderness and he’s not equipped to survive. Whatever you can tell me will help him. Do you understand?”

Sayid nodded. These “people” were probably the ones hunting Max right now. Sayid remembered the last text message Max had sent him. Don’t trust Peterson. “I wish I could tell you something, sir. Max is my mate, but … well, I just don’t know anything.”

Before Mr. Peterson could ask any further questions a sudden commotion exploded in the corridor. Two boys ran past at full tilt, yelling, followed by a terrific bang as they knocked over a bench and a picture above it. Baskins and Hoggart, the two boys who were always scrapping.

Peterson strode to the door and shouted: “You boys! Stop that! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Baskins and Hoggart had given Sayid the chance he needed. He grabbed the phone’s cradle and turned it over. The base had four small screws holding it together; although he had come prepared with a watchmaker’s screwdriver, there was no time to undo them and slip in the tiny transmitter which now stubbornly refused to be held by his fingers as he searched for it in his pocket. The shouting outside stopped, there was a muted apology from the two boys, and Peterson told them to get back to their dorm. He was only a couple of dozen paces away now and heading back in. Sayid saw there was a small gap in the base beneath a plastic hook which the thin transformer cable could be wound around for storage. He finally teased the elusive bug from his pocket and dropped it into the hole. He would just have to hope that it would work.

No sooner had he turned the phone right side up and pretended to turn his attention back to the map of Namibia than his cell phone rang, making his already-stretched nerves jump. He flipped it open as Peterson came back into the room. Sayid couldn’t take his eyes off the words on the blue screen.

“Something important?” Peterson asked. It sounded innocent, but Sayid knew it was a shorthand way of asking if the call had anything to do with what they had been discussing.

“Oh, er … just my mother … she’s trying to find me. I was supposed to have extra lessons.”

Peterson seemed to accept the inevitable. “All right, Sayid, get going. But if you hear from Max, I’d like to know. We’ll talk again later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sayid got out as fast as he could and ran for his room. Peterson had already picked up the handset and was about to make a call. Now that the bug was in place, Sayid needed to get his computer up and running to organize the trace.

And there was another reason for hurry. The text message was from Kallie. Only six words, but they meant that Max was in a much more dangerous game than Sayid had realized. He had to erase the message in case Peterson appeared like a ghost and snatched the phone from him. He looked at the text again: Leopold dead. Peterson knows. Max missing.

Three points on the compass-Max, Sayid and Kallie.

And none of them could know that Max was only hours away from death.