The professor nodded. Pedro pointed. “Allá…” Over there.
Richard didn’t take the jeep. He was afraid he would miss Matt if he drove too quickly. He was sure that he couldn’t be far from the helicopter, but even so it took him twenty minutes to find him, and when he did it looked as if he had arrived too late. Matt was lying on his back and Richard had never seen anyone more broken or more still. The boy had wept blood. His face was completely white.
He was dead. He had to be. There was no sign of any breathing, not the slightest movement in his chest. Richard had to blink back tears – not just of sadness but of anger. What had been the point? Had they come all the way from Britain just for this? The gate had opened. Pedro was wounded. And Matt was dead. Briefly, he wondered what had happened to Salamanda. He could see the wreckage of the mobile laboratory in the distance, but there was no sign of the man himself. Had he been responsible for this? But, examining Matt, he could see no sign of any external injury. He hadn’t been shot. It was more as if the life force had somehow been sucked out of him.
Richard reached forward and took Matt’s wrist in his hands. Matt’s flesh was cold. But that was when he felt it – tiny, irregular, but definitely there. His pulse. Richard wondered if he was imagining it. Quickly, he rested his fingers against Matt’s neck. There was a pulse there too. And although it was so faint as to be almost imperceptible, there was still some breath reaching his lips.
But he needed help. He had to get to hospital – fast.
Richard straightened up and set off, running back to get the jeep.
Hong Kong
The chairman of Nightrise was standing in his office on the sixty-sixth floor of The Nail, just down the corridor from the conference room where he regularly addressed his executives. He was watching the boats in the harbour and holding a glass of the most expensive Cognac in the world. It was almost a hundred years old and came in a crystal bottle. It had cost five thousand American dollars. How much of the golden-coloured liquid was he cradling in his palm? It seemed to him a strange thought, and a very satisfying one, that outside the window – in Kowloon – there were people who could barely afford to eat, women and children stuck in factories all day and much of the night, working for pennies simply to survive, while he could enjoy this vintage brandy at perhaps two hundred dollars a sip. That was how the world should be, he reflected. And very soon the gap between those who had and those who had not was going to be greater than ever. How fortunate he was to be on the right side.
A sleek cruise liner slid past far below and the chairman turned away. He didn’t like boats. More than that, he had a fear of them – and with good cause. He went back to his desk and sat down. It was time to consider the events of the night before.
The Old Ones were back. That was all that really mattered. His agents in Peru had reported that the stars had aligned exactly as predicted ten thousand years before, and that the great gate, hidden in the Nazca Desert, had unlocked. He wished he could have been there. He had heard it said that you could be struck blind looking into the eyes of the King of the Old Ones – but even so it would have been worthwhile.
Not all the news was good. At their last telephone conference his colleague, the South American industrialist Diego Salamanda, had said that one of the children who called themselves the Gatekeepers was coming to Peru. He had said he would have no trouble tracking him down. But now it seemed that Salamanda himself had been killed, and as for the boy, he was still at liberty. The chairman didn’t care about Salamanda. That was one less pair of hands to share in the rewards. But the fact that the boy might have survived … that was unsatisfactory. That was a loose end. In his part of the organization, it wouldn’t have been allowed.
The private telephone on his desk suddenly rang. Very few people in the world had the number that connected to it. Any call that came through on this line had to be worth taking. He set the brandy glass down on his desk and picked up the phone.
“Good evening, Mr Chairman.” It was Susan Mortlake. She was calling him from Los Angeles.
“Mrs Mortlake.” As ever, the chairman sounded neither happy nor sad to be hearing from her.
“My congratulations, sir.” Of course she had heard what had happened in Peru. “It’s wonderful news.”
“What have you got to report, Mrs Mortlake?” Even at a time like this, business came first. The executives of Nightrise didn’t telephone each other simply to scratch each other’s backs.
“I’ve been thinking about Charles Baker,” Susan Mortlake replied. “The presidential campaign. In view of what’s happened, it’s even more critical that he should win.”
“Yes.” The single word showed that the Chairman was getting impatient.
“You’ve seen the latest figures…”
John Trelawny was edging further ahead in the polls.
“Of course I’ve seen them, Mrs Mortlake.”
“And our agent in New York has been unable to come up with a strategy?”
“I’m afraid Mr Simms has resigned.”
Two days before, Mr Simms, the New York executive, had plunged head first into the Hudson River. In fact, his head had entered the water several minutes before his body. The two of them had later been found washed up, fifty metres apart.
“I believe I may have a solution to the problem, Mr Chairman. As a matter of fact, it was something that Mr Simms suggested himself … while he was still with us. He said that the only answer might be to assassinate Trelawny.”
“I don’t think he was serious.”
“But I am, Mr Chairman.”
The chairman considered. Killing a presidential candidate was possible but it would not be easy. Quite apart from the fact that Trelawny was continually surrounded by secret-service men and that nobody with a gun could get close, the real problem would come later, if the attempt succeeded. There would be a public outcry and the police investigation would be huge and never-ending. It might even lead them to Nightrise. You pay someone who pays someone who pays a madman to fire the fatal bullet – but still the line can be traced back. Assassination was messy and full of danger. It was always a last resort.
But Susan Mortlake was confident.
“Suppose Trelawny was shot by someone who was close to him,” she said. “Someone who had absolutely no link with us. Suppose the killer was caught immediately and was unable to explain his actions but seemed to have suffered some sort of massive nervous breakdown. There would be no doubt about his guilt. He would be tried, sentenced and executed. There would be no further investigation. Trelawny would be dead and that would be the end of it. Of course, someone would take his place, but it would be too late. He’d never catch up. Meanwhile, Charles Baker would look sad and sombre. He might even attend the funeral. In fact, that would help his poll ratings. Nothing would stop him becoming the next president of the United States.”
“Can you do this?” the chairman asked.
“Yes, Mr Chairman. I can.”
The chairman thought for a few seconds. But he knew Susan Mortlake well. He recognized the confidence in her voice.
“Then do it,” he said. And hung up.
He reached out again and lifted up the precious brandy, contemplating its colour swirling in the glass. The Old Ones needed time. More than that, they needed a world that was ready to do things their way. He had no doubt that Charles Baker would be the right man in the right job at the right time. He smiled to himself and lifted the glass to his lips. At the last second he changed his mind and up-ended it, pouring the last inch into a potted plant.
Expensive fertilizer.
Then he got up and walked quietly out of the room.
New York
The car carrying John Trelawny pulled up outside the great tower at the southern end of Broadway in Lower Manhattan. There were two men with him. The driver, as always, was a secret service man. Trelawny knew that he was armed and in constant contact with his back-up team who would be in a second car, probably just a hundre
d metres behind. Warren Cornfield was sitting next to him. He was such a large man that he barely left enough room for the senator but, over the past few months, Trelawny had got used to it. From the day he’d started his run for president there had been many things he’d had to get used to – and never being alone was the first of them.
“I’ll be one hour,” he said, and reached for the door handle.
“I’m coming in with you, sir,” Cornfield announced.
Trelawny hesitated. This was an argument he’d had a hundred times. He appreciated what Cornfield was doing. Essentially, it was his job. He just wished he liked him more. “It’s all right, Warren,” he said. “This apartment building has its own security and nobody knows I’m here. I’m having lunch with an old friend and you’re not going to tell me she’s a security risk.”
In the end, they compromised. Cornfield came with him through the lobby but allowed him to enter the lift on his own. There were times when Trelawny wondered if all this security was really necessary – but he supposed it only took one crazy person with a gun to prove that it was. And, of course, it was so easy to buy a gun in America. That was one thing he planned to look into one day, if…
He barely felt any motion as he was whisked up to the seventieth floor. The owner of the penthouse knew that he was coming and had programmed the lift to take him there. Trelawny thought about the woman he had come to see. The two of them had known each other for most of their lives – although he sometimes thought that what the two of them didn’t know about each other probably outweighed what they did. She was very wealthy. She had made a fortune creating and selling low-cost computers to inner-city schools, hospitals and youth clubs. She had supported his campaign from the start, holding a series of fund-raising dinners on both the East and West Coasts. The strange thing was, he probably trusted Nathalie Johnson more than any woman on the planet, even including his own wife. And she knew things. She had connections all over the world and seemed to be in tune with the stories that never made the news. He thought of her as a keeper of mysteries. That was why he had come to see her now.
The lift doors opened directly into a fan-shaped living room with windows giving extraordinary views over the Hudson River on one side and the East River, with the Brooklyn Bridge cutting across, on the other. His eye was instantly drawn to the panorama. There was the Statue of Liberty, looking very small and distant at the entrance to New York harbour. And there was Ellis Island, where the great waves of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had first arrived. The floor-to-ceiling windows were like a picture postcard on a gigantic scale and captured one of the most famous views in the world.
“John! How are you?”
Nathalie Johnson had come out of the kitchen carrying a tray with two glasses and a bottle of wine. She set the tray down and the two of them embraced. She was about fifty years old, slim and serious-looking, with dark reddish-brown hair that came down to her shoulders. She was wearing a simple black dress. In all the time that Trelawny had known her, he had never seen her in jeans.
“It’s good to see you,” she went on. “How long are you in New York?”
“Just a few days.” Trelawny sighed. He was never in one place for very long. “I have to go back to Washington, then Virginia and then next week I’m heading back to California. My home town is giving me a parade.”
“Auburn?”
“It’s my birthday. They’re closing the whole place in my honour.”
“That’s very sweet! Maybe I should come.”
“You’d be very welcome.”
The two of them sat down. Nathalie poured the wine and for a few minutes they talked about the campaign, the speech in Los Angeles, the latest negative advertisements that had been playing on TV. But after a while, Trelawny fell silent.
“There was something you wanted to ask me about,” Nathalie said.
“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to work out where to begin. “Something happened when I was in Los Angeles,” he explained. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced and I can’t get it out of my mind. I have to talk about it with someone and you’re the only person I could think of who wouldn’t think I was going mad.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Well, I had a visit from an old assistant of mine, Alicia McGuire. You remember her?”
“Wasn’t she the one who lost her child?”
“Her son, Daniel. Yes. He vanished into thin air at the end of last year.”
“How awful for her.” Nathalie Johnson had never married and had no children of her own. She couldn’t imagine what the other woman must have been through.
“When I was in LA, Alicia turned up at my hotel. She hadn’t found Daniel but she had another kid with her, a fourteen-year-old boy. A Native American from the look of him. She told me this incredible story. I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. I’d have thought she was out of her mind. But then she showed me something which was completely impossible and which could only have happened if everything she had been saying had been true.”
“Tell me…”
Choosing his words carefully, Trelawny described everything that had taken place at the Carlton Hotel, his meeting with Jamie Tyler and the business with the little wooden box. If he had expected Nathalie to react with amazement or disbelief, he was disappointed. She showed no emotion when he talked, but she flinched at the mention of Nightrise and nodded in understanding when Trelawny mentioned their interest in children with paranormal abilities.
“Where is Jamie Tyler now?” she asked, when Trelawny had finished speaking.
“Maybe I acted against my better judgement,” Trelawny replied. “But he was so desperate to find his brother. And I believed it was the right thing to do.” He made a gesture with his hands. “I arranged for him to be sent to Silent Creek.”
“He’s in jail?”
“Not under his own name. We changed his appearance too. Don’t forget, the Nevada authorities are still looking for him for the death of his two guardians.”
“Let me just ask. Did this boy ever mention anything about England or Peru?” There was no answer, so she went on. “Did he say anything about the Old Ones? Or the Gatekeepers?”
“No.” Trelawny shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nathalie. The Old Ones? What are they? What have they got to do with a bunch of disappearing kids?”
“If I’m not mistaken, they have everything to do with it,” Nathalie replied. “And these two boys – Scott and Jamie Tyler – you have no idea how important they may be. They’re both at Silent Creek?”
“I can’t tell you. Jamie’s there … probably. He was sent there several days ago. As for his brother, he was going to find out when he got there. That was the plan.”
Nathalie put down her glass and leant forward.
“Listen to me,” she said. “You came to me for advice. You chose me because I’m an old friend. But – don’t deny it – you also came here because you know that I’m a member of … an organization.”
“The Nexus.” Trelawny spoke the two words and smiled as Nathalie sat back, alarmed. “I’ve heard that name,” he admitted. “I know it’s some sort of secret society and I’ve always suspected it might have something to do with you.”
Nathalie nodded slowly. “You’ve been touched by something you know nothing about,” she said. “But I know a great deal about it. For half my life I’ve been involved with it. So you must believe me when I say that it is absolutely vital that we find Jamie Tyler and get him out of Silent Creek immediately – and his brother too, if he’s still there.”
“That may not be so easy.”
“John, you could be the next president of this country. But there may not even be a country to be president of – unless you do what I say.”
“What are you talking about? Who are these two boys?”
Nathalie Johnson took a deep breath. “This is what you have to do…”
Los Angeles
Colton Banes was sitting at his desk when the telephone rang.
He didn’t like being in the office. It felt too much like the prison where he had spent the eleven years before the Nightrise Corporation had employed him. True, he could leave when he wanted to. He was well paid. But being stuck indoors, dressed in a suit, waiting to be told what to do … it made him uneasy.
And yet he had to admit that he’d never had a better job. In fact no job could possibly exist that was better suited to his talents. Colton Banes liked hurting people. He liked killing them too – but hurting them was better because they were still around to talk about it afterwards, to tell him how it felt. From school bully to delinquent to armed robber to prisoner and finally to this… His whole life had been leading him in only one direction. He knew that one day he would slip up and Mrs Mortlake would get rid of him with the same carelessness with which she had got rid of Kyle Hovey. But he didn’t really think about it. People like him never had long lives. It went with the territory.
He picked up the telephone on the third ring. “Yes?” He didn’t have to announce his name. The switchboard wouldn’t have put the call through unless the caller had asked for him.
“This is Max Koring.”
“What is it?” Banes recognized the name of the senior supervisor at Silent Creek. He was calling from there now. It was easy to tell. There were no landlines in that part of the Mojave Desert and the satellite reception was poor. The prison had been built in a dead zone, in the middle of a natural magnetic field, making communication almost impossible. The field had other side-effects too. The location had been chosen with great care.
“There’s something you should know,” Koring continued. “We had something weird happen last night. One of the kids – a new arrival – tried to get me to take him over to the Block.”
“What do you mean?”
“He asked me to take him to the other side of the wall. In fact, he didn’t ask – he told me, like he expected me to do what he wanted. And he said he wanted to see his brother.”