The pilot looked ahead again. Dry. But as they drove forward, the rain closed in, separating them, protecting them.
Impossible.
“She did that?” he said again.
Scarlett was still deep in concentration. Richard nodded. “You know, if I were you, I’d think very hard about upsetting her.”
Ten minutes later, they reached the airport. They parked in the same place and Richard retrieved his backpack, using the Inca knife to cut the pilot free. Together, they ran through departures, through security, back out onto the tarmac and round to the plane. Martins, the co-pilot, was sitting in a deckchair on the tarmac, smoking and drinking whisky, but scrambled to his feet when he saw them.
“Larry? I can’t believe they found you … got you out.” He saw the look on the other man’s face. “What’s going on?”
“Just get into the cockpit, Zack. Behind the controls. We’re getting out of here right now.”
They climbed the steps into the plane. The co-pilot closed and sealed the door. Larry was already on his way to the upper deck. Richard and Scarlett followed him, choosing two seats in business class, where they had a view of the controls. As Martins strapped himself in, they saw Larry go through the start-up procedures, flipping open the battery switch cover, turning on the standby power, the electronic engine control, the navigation lights. Finally, he switched on the IRS – the Inertial Reference System – which would send all the necessary information to the flight computer.
“This is going to take ten minutes,” he shouted at Richard.
“Can’t you do it any faster?”
“No. And we can’t do it in the air.”
Scarlett peered out of the window. She couldn’t see anything in the darkness and it was always possible that Rasheed’s men were closing in on them from behind. Meanwhile, both Martins and Carter were pressing more switches. The computer screens had burst into life, displaying numbers and diagrams that would have been meaningless to anyone but them. The engines started. Scarlett could feel their energy, vibrating in the air. But they still didn’t move. The seconds ticked away, agonizingly slow. Richard was standing with his hands resting on the pilot’s seat, leaning forward. Everything seemed to be taking for ever. She wanted to scream.
And then, finally, Carter opened the throttle panel, set the flaps, released the parking brake and at last they jolted forward. Scarlett had never seen so much activity taking place in such a confined space. The two men had flown together long enough for each of them to know exactly what they were meant to do and at what time. The huge plane had begun to move, leaving the stairs slanting up into thin air. Richard knew that they must be using all their skill to guide the Airbus without a tow truck, without airport staff showing them the way. Nobody was speaking. They were all gazing out of the window, their eyes fixed on the navigation lights.
Slowly, the plane wheeled round.
They taxied to the runway and although all of them wanted to be in the air and on the way, they had to stop again. Final checks. There were no lights to help them take off. If it hadn’t been for the moon, Richard knew it would have been impossible.
Carter turned to the co-pilot. “You ready?”
Martins nodded.
No need to wait for air traffic control. No need to look out for other planes. In the darkness of the cabin, the two men reached out and made the last adjustments. “OK. Let’s go.”
Scarlett heard the pitch of the engines rise. They began to roll forward, picking up speed. She had the seat nearest the window and suddenly she saw them, racing across the tarmac to cut them off. There was a Land Rover, a Jaguar and a Ferrari, a bizarre trio of vehicles. They must have entered the airport from the other side because they were ahead of them, at the far end of the runway.
“Richard!” Scarlett pointed.
Richard leant over her. “It’s OK,” he said. “They’re not going to make it.” But he didn’t sound convinced.
The plane was hurtling forward, moving faster and faster. The lines on the runway had already become a blur. They could see the cars, directly in front of them. The drivers were committing suicide. If there was a collision, the drivers would be killed instantly. But the Airbus would crash too. Was that their aim, to bring them down, no matter what the cost?
They had reached take-off speed.
“Let’s do it!” Carter shouted.
He pulled back on the controls, glancing at the primary flight display to check that the pink lines were centred and their climb rate was secure. Martins was already reaching for the switch to raise the landing gear. The cars were right in front of them. Richard actually saw the drivers crouching there, their faces white. They would be deafened by the noise of the engines. They were going to crash! They weren’t high enough.
The plane rose. They were clear. There could only have been inches in it, but they were away.
Richard and Scarlett saw the ground disappear below them. They couldn’t believe they had done it. Scarlett was exhausted. Beside her, Richard let out a huge sigh of relief.
In the cockpit, Martins said nothing until they had reached six thousand metres. Then he turned to the pilot. “You want me to set a course for Alice Springs?” he asked.
There was a long silence. Then…
“We’re not going to Alice Springs.”
“No?”
“No.”
“So where are we going?”
Another pause.
“Antarctica.”
Martins screwed up his face in puzzlement. “Are you serious, Larry? Why?”
The pilot took a while to answer. At last he spoke. “I don’t know, mate. It just seems like a good idea.”
The Emirates airline Airbus reached nine thousand metres over the desert. Then it changed course and began the long journey south.
LEGACY 600
THIRTY-ONE
They found another slave market soon enough. It seemed that every village and every town in Brazil had one, that there was no other way for the people to live. Men sold their wives and women sold their children … the younger and fitter they were, the higher their price. The most desperate people of all simply sold themselves. As Matt and Lohan drove south, they passed several chain gangs, like something out of an old American film, dusty figures shuffling forward with their hands tied and chains connecting them from ankle to ankle.
It seemed as if months had passed since the two of them had found themselves in the submerged, rotting city of Belém and had come to terms with the fact that the world had changed utterly in the few seconds it had taken them to travel there from Hong Kong. Environmental catastrophe, political breakdown, the dark influence of the Old Ones … they were aware of all these things but they hardly mattered when they were faced with the practical matter of how they were going to make it to the next day. They had no money, no food and no transport. It was only when they had stumbled on the Mercado de Ferro – the old iron market close to the quays – and discovered what it was now being used for that they had seen what they had to do. Matt hadn’t argued. In the end he had been sold three times and although the process was humiliating and sometimes painful, it had brought them the money they needed to survive.
The third sale had been the worst. It had brought them to Fernandinho. The drug lord was probably looking for them even now, and many of the traders in the country would have been warned about a Chinese man with an American boy and the trick that they were playing. But they had to try again. From the moment Matt had woken up in the stolen jeep, he had taken command. They were no longer heading for Salvador and Matt had no interest in trying to get to the United States. He had been back to the dreamworld and he had a new destination.
“Antarctica!” Sitting in the grey light of the jungle, cramped and mosquito-bitten after a bad night’s sleep, Lohan hadn’t believed what he had just heard.
“The Old Ones are there,” Matt said. “In a place called Oblivion. They’re waiting for us to arrive.”
“If they
’re waiting for you, then that’s the last place you should go.”
“No. They have Scott. That’s how they know we’ll come. Their armies are already there.” Matt looked into the distance, at the sun struggling to force its way through the grey clouds. “We’re not the only ones, Lohan. All over the world, people are heading south. There are still a few planes flying. They have ships …”
“How do they know about Oblivion?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve heard about it … like a rumour, spreading from country to country. Maybe they’ve dreamt about it. But it’s already begun. And I have to be there to help them…”
That had been three days ago. Since then, the jeep had run out of petrol and Matt and Lohan had been forced to continue on foot. They hadn’t even come across another vehicle they could steal. Matt knew that Lohan would kill anyone who got in his way, simply taking what he needed without any thought. The two of them were unlikely partners and although he had never said as much, Matt found himself badly missing Richard Cole. Lohan might be better equipped for survival but his very ruthlessness made him cold and untrustworthy. When Matt had been taken prisoner in the drug compound, part of him had even wondered if Lohan would stick to their agreement and come to his rescue. He wouldn’t have put it past the Triad leader to abandon him and make off with the money.
In fact, Lohan had considered doing exactly that.
Lohan was twenty-four years old and for much of his life he had been involved in organized crime. He had carried and sold drugs. He had sold weapons – to other criminals and to terrorists. He had been involved in gambling, blackmail and vice. In the course of his career, he had killed eleven men, finally rising to become Incense Master with the rank of 438 in the White Lotus Society in Hong Kong.
He was not ashamed of anything he had done. After all, he had never applied for the job. He had been born into it. His father had been the Master of the Mountain, the undisputed leader of the Triad, and Lohan had been groomed to take his place one day. Part of the lesson was to obey every instruction, to have no scruples, to be loyal only to the Triad and to himself.
It had come as a shock to him to find himself babysitting a fifteen-year-old English schoolgirl. Of course, he had always known about Scarlett Adams. She had been taken from the Pancaran Kasih Orphanage in Jakarta when she was a baby and sent secretly to England. For some reason, the White Lotus Society had sworn to protect her and they had been watching her ever since. Lohan had once asked his father why they should waste time and resources on a single girl, thousands of miles away. It was one of the few times the Master of the Mountain had ever turned his anger on his son.
“Ask no questions. Never question my commands. The life of this girl matters more to me than your own. She is more important than any of us.”
And then the Old Ones had come to Hong Kong and Lohan had understood. It was, at first, impossible to believe. It was as if the city had been invaded by aliens, creatures from outer space. They killed everyone who stood in their way – first hundreds, then thousands – and nobody noticed! The bodies were piling up in the harbour and nobody cared. The Old Ones infiltrated the government. They controlled the police. They turned the entire city into a giant trap – simply so that Scarlett Adams would fall into their hands.
Lohan had managed to grab Scarlett, even though she was surrounded by her enemies, and had tried to smuggle her out of the city on a cruise ship. The plan had only failed at the last moment when they had been betrayed – one of the few failures he had known in his life. The two of them had only met again at the Tai Shan Temple in the last few moments as Hong Kong had been destroyed.
And now this.
Despite everything, Lohan had been sorry to find himself separated from Scarlett. He had grown to like her. After all, she was an English schoolgirl, brought up in comfort in a quiet London suburb. She knew nothing about real life. She had never been in danger. And yet she had adapted remarkably quickly. There had been no hysterics, no tears. At the end of the day, she had actually saved them all, using powers that she had never known she had.
From one fifteen-year-old to another. It seemed to Lohan that Matt was very different from Scarlett. There was something detached about him, an inner strength and certainty that made him quite difficult to understand. When the two of them had found themselves together in Belém, with water lapping at the buildings and rotting corpses floating past in the gutter, he hadn’t even seemed surprised. And although Lohan was a lot older than him, with all the experience that his life in the Triad had brought him, it was Matt who had taken command.
Matt was still the one making the decisions. They were going to Oblivion. It didn’t matter that it would be almost impossible to get there and that anyway it was the worst place on the planet, even more dangerous than Brazil. He didn’t care that the ice and the cold would kill them even if the Old Ones didn’t. That was their destination.
And there was something else. Lohan was aware that Matt had changed since the business with Fernandinho. Maybe it was something he had seen or heard in the dreamworld. There was definitely something he wasn’t saying.
Tired and footsore, they had reached a shabby, whitewashed village where a slave market was actually about to start and that was where they were now, watching from the edges. As far as Lohan could see, it was ideal. There were just a few children for sale, as well as some animals and a one-armed man who probably wouldn’t raise as much as five dollars. But the very fact that it was quiet and out of the way was in its favour. If Fernandinho was looking for them, he would be unlikely to find them here.
Matt was leaning against a wall, looking weak and exhausted after the long walk. It occurred to Lohan that his value was probably going down with every day that passed, although the fact that he could pass as an American still added to his price. American slaves were highly prized. “I think we should go somewhere bigger,” he said.
“Why? This is perfect!”
“We’ll get a better price in a town.”
“I can sell you here for a hundred dollars. Then I can pull you out and sell you again for two hundred dollars when we get to a town. We might as well get all the money we can.”
“No, Lohan.” Matt shook his head. “We’re just wasting time here. Let’s keep going.”
Lohan was astonished that he could be ordered about in this way. Just six months ago, he would never have dreamt that such a thing could happen. But there was something in Matt’s voice that told him there was no point arguing. They turned away from the slave market and set off again.
It took them three hours to arrive at a much busier town, a place called Jangada, which stood at a busy intersection, with houses and shops piled up on each other like a traffic accident. There was a football stadium with broken floodlights and mouldering grass and even as Lohan and Matt arrived, another, larger slave market was about to begin. Once again, Lohan was suspicious. Could it just be coincidence that had brought them here? Or had Matt somehow known that the market was taking place?
A large platform had been constructed in the stadium, with twenty men and a dozen boys aged from about eight to eighteen huddled together in shared misery. There were no women for sale. Jeeps and trucks were parked along the edge of what had once been the football pitch and there were groups of men – the buyers – already examining the merchandise. The whole place stank of animal dung and there were flies everywhere. It occurred to Lohan that even slavery might be preferable to life in this drab, forgotten place.
Matt and Lohan were standing out of sight at one of the entrances, with empty seating rising above them. Lohan had brought a rope with him from the abandoned jeep. He began to tie a noose.
“It may not be so easy to find me this time,” Matt said. “But don’t give up.”
“Why should it be any more difficult than the last three times?” Lohan asked.
Matt didn’t answer. Lohan lifted the rope over his head and pulled it tight around his neck. Matt flinched. He knew what was
coming next and although he didn’t like it, he knew it had to be done. “OK,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Lohan hit him across the face. Matt jerked backwards, making no sound. They both knew what they were doing. Matt had to look subdued, the servant with his owner. He bowed his head. His eyes were filled with tears of pain and there was a fresh bruise on his cheek. Now he looked just like the other boys.
Lohan led him across to the trader, a small, mean-looking man dressed in an old football shirt with the name FLAMENGO printed in red on his back. He was bald and carried a bullwhip, curled up at his side. As he saw them approaching, his eyes filled with suspicion and Lohan wondered if he had heard of them and knew the trick they were about to play.
“You’re selling him?” the trader asked, speaking in Portuguese.
“That’s right.” Lohan spoke the language fluently. He had been taught it when he was at school in Macao.
“Where did you get him? He’s clearly not your son. Is he American?”
“I bought him,” Lohan spat. “Now I’ve got no further use for him. So I’m selling him. Do you have a problem with that?”
Matt knew that Lohan was being aggressive on purpose. He wouldn’t want to spin out long stories or make the trader think he had something to hide. There was a long silence and Matt didn’t dare look up. If he did, Lohan would have to hit him again. But then he felt the trader’s hands on him, pulling up his shirt to examine his torso and chest, feeling the muscles in his arms, and knew that he had been accepted for sale. The trader prised open Matt’s mouth and peered inside, looking for evidence of tooth rot or disease. Finally, he ran a hand through his hair, just as if he were a dog.
“All right,” he said. “The kid’s in good shape. He can join the others. But I warn you, prices are low today. They’re all being sold in a job lot.”