The Shadow Project

Chapter Fifty-Two

Rory looked up from the corner of his cell where he was sitting when he heard the tinkle of the key in the lock. When he saw it was Ivan, his fear ebbed away as quickly as it had mounted.

This time Ivan had one of the guards with him, one of the most surly and taciturn ones, but said something to him that made him stay out in the corridor while he came into the cell and half-closed the door behind him.

‘I brought you something to read,’ Ivan whispered with a nervous glance behind him to make sure the guard couldn’t see. He reached into his jacket and brought out a tattered comic book.

Rory took it, grateful to have something to while away the hours with. He’d been here so long now, and the way day merged into night, he was losing all track of time and going slowly crazy. Ivan stood over him, smiling benevolently.

‘Something else for you,’ he murmured, handing the boy another chocolate bar.

Rory quickly hid the chocolate and the comic under his mattress, the way Ivan had told him to. Then he turned to the man, looking up at him with big, inquisitive eyes.

‘Do you know where my dad is?’ he asked him.

‘I have not been able to find out much,’ Ivan whispered. ‘That man Pelham—’

‘Shh.’

Rory spoke more quietly. ‘That man Pelham said he was coming.’

Ivan lowered his voice a notch further. ‘Pelham cannot be trusted,’ he said. ‘Don’t believe him.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Rory whimpered. There were times when he felt near the edge of hysteria, and that mood had welled up inside him more and more readily since the torture. It was as though some vital part of his inner core had been ripped out, leaving him as fragile as a sickly kitten.

‘If Dad’s not coming,’ he sobbed, ‘why am I here? What do they want with us anyway? When am I going home?’ Tears streamed down his face.

Ivan laid a hand on his shoulder and looked earnestly into his eyes. ‘Do not be so scared. I promised I would take care of you. And I will.’

Rory sniffed and smeared the tears away with his grimy sleeve. ‘Are you in contact with the other special agents?’

Ivan looked back at the door, then nodded, smiled and put a finger to his lips. ‘When it is time,’ he whispered, barely audible, ‘I will give the signal and they will come for us.’

‘Can’t it be now?’

‘I still have work to do,’ Ivan said. ‘It’s not over. But soon.’ He cleared his throat, gesturing at the door. In his normal voice he said, ‘You are to come with me. Time for your shower.’

Rory jumped up. The trips to the shower block were the only times he got out of the cell. In a world so limited and confined as his new environment, even something as simple as walking a few hundred yards through the dingy corridors to stand on cracked ancient tiles and get doused with lukewarm water from a rusty tank was something to look forward to.

Out in the corridor, the guard followed them. Ivan’s hand was on Rory’s shoulder all the way to the shower block, and the boy felt a little more protected with him there. As long as that terrible woman didn’t come back to get him, he knew he could make it through this. He imagined how it would be when Ivan’s special agent colleagues came storming through the place, taking out the guards one by one. How they’d drag the woman out from hiding, and put a gun to her head and blow her away. How Rory would watch, and smile to see it happen. After what she’d done to him, that would serve the witch right.

Running the scene through his mind as they walked, he looked round and up at Ivan with a conspiratorial smile. Ivan winked and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

They reached the shower block. Ivan opened the creaky door that led through to the washroom. A row of rusty metal shower heads fixed to the ceiling corresponded with a row of floor drains. It was a pretty Spartan arrangement. Ivan muttered something to the guard, who went off on some errand. Then he got the water running for Rory, turned it up as lukewarm as it would go, and left to give him some privacy.

Rory stripped off his clothes, bundled them on the side and stepped under the water. There was a rough piece of old soap lying on the floor, and he used it to lather himself up.

Ivan stood for a few moments around the corner, listening to the patter of the water on the tiles. Then he peeked furtively out into the corridor. He’d sent Miklós looking for Boris, and he knew that Boris was off duty and had gone off with some of the others to the nearest town, twenty kilometres away, to get his fill of beer and whores. Which meant the stupid Miklós would spend ages scouring the place, and he had time on his own.

Ivan slipped into a small room off the shower block that was used as an office. Inside the room was a desk, heaped with papers.

But he ignored it. Walked quietly over to the wall. Hanging from a hook was an age-faded framed print of Adolf Hitler, posing in uniform with the Nazi flag behind him and, below, the slogan ‘EIN VOLK, EIN REICH, EIN FÜHRER’ in gothic script.

He raised a trembling hand to the picture. Lifted the edge of the frame away from the wall.

A smile crept over his face and his heart began to beat faster.

He moved his eye to the peephole through to the shower block.

He watched as the naked boy soaped his smooth, young body. First the upper half. Then the lower half.

Ivan groaned softly to himself and started unzipping his trousers.

Meanwhile, down in the bowels of the mountain, inside the chamber behind the vault door, Adam felt the rising panic of desperation as he faced the task he’d been set.

‘I don’t think—’ His words died in his mouth. He laid his hand on the cold metal shell of Kammler’s machine.

Pelham was leaning against the wall a few feet away, watching him. They’d been there for hours.

‘What don’t you think?’ he said calmly.

‘I’m not so sure I can get this thing to work,’ Adam groaned. ‘I just don’t get it. It’s just… it’s mind-boggling.’

Pelham pointed at the makeshift worktop that had been set up against the wall, and the laptop onto which they’d loaded the research files retrieved from Teach na Loch.

‘You told me that once you had your notes, you’d be able to make it work. It’s cost me a lot of trouble getting them for you.’

‘I know what I said,’ Adam said, fighting to keep his voice steady. ‘But this goes way beyond anything I ever imagined. My notes are useless.’

‘You’re playing for high stakes, Adam. It would be wise not to forget that.’

‘You think I’ve forgotten? I’m doing my best, goddamnit.’ Adam glared at him, then looked back at the machine. It sat there silent, mysterious, unyielding, on its concrete plinth in the middle of the vault. The cold, smooth black metal shell gleamed dully in the lights. It seemed to him that the thing was taunting him, deliberately holding back the dark, terrible, wonderful secrets that were contained inside. Secrets that, he was beginning to fear, its inventor might have taken to his grave. The thought made him want to retch. He lashed out his foot at the bell-like casing.

Pelham peeled himself away from the wall and walked up to him with his hands in his trouser pockets. Adam could see the shoulder holster under his suede jacket, and the butt of the pistol he carried inside.

‘Then your best will just have to be better,’ he said.