‘I can see flags!’ said Vijay.
The storm had died for a moment and the children stood still, catching their breath. The ground around them was covered in red-and-black flags.
‘You think Captain Routon’s up there?’ said Miles. ‘Up at the top? Do you think we’ve won?’
‘We must have,’ said Millie. ‘You don’t think anyone else will make it, do you? I bet they’ve all given up. The Priory kids will have gone straight back.’
‘Let’s go up. See if there’s food . . .’ said Miles. He stopped.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Vijay.
Millie started to laugh. ‘That is impossible!’ she gasped.
They had clambered up a shelf of rock and were in sight of a narrow track. Fifty metres further up, an ice-cream van had parked. Its roof was the shape of a vanilla cone, just like the one that had seen on the driveway to their school.
They were exhausted, but managed to run to the van, laughing and gasping. They huddled against it for shelter. There was one more stretch of path up to the crater, but the last sprint had worn them out. Millie could barely stand as another twist of lightning struck and they all screamed with joy. The world was drenched in whiteness so the children didn’t see the three men until it was too late. They pounced with savage violence and it was over in seconds.
Vijay and Anjoli were slammed into the mud.
Sanchez found his arms twisted up his back and the breath driven from his body. Miles ducked a blow from Gary Cuthbertson and had the presence of mind to go for his sword. But the man was too quick and drove his fist hard into the boy’s chest, knocking him flat on his back. They felt heavy knees on their shoulders and in a moment their wrists were bound. A length of chain pulled four of them together, while Sanchez was dragged aside and flung into the vehicle.
Timmy Fox bent over Miles.
‘This is the one,’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘If it hadn’t been for this one . . .’
Gary Cuthbertson drew him back and Miles coughed up lungfuls of mud, gasping for breath.
‘Get the balloon ready!’ he yelled.
‘Let me look at him. I’m not a violent man, but—’
‘Get the balloon up! I’ll deal with them!’
Timmy Fox staggered off into the wind and Gary Cuthbertson turned to Millie. He rolled her over with his boot and knelt by her side. The rain poured upon them both and he grinned into her wide, frightened eyes. ‘Think you can walk, girlie?’
‘Where’s Sanchez?’
‘You recognise me? You weren’t expecting this, were you?’ The man started to laugh, for the child was speechless. He could see her mind racing, as the horror and helplessness dawned. All four were shivering now and he drew the chain that bound them tighter. ‘I can drag you, if you want,’ he said. ‘I’ll drag you like dogs and skin you on the rocks!’ He took Millie’s chin. ‘You do remember me, don’t you?’
Still Millie couldn’t speak.
‘Get them up to the top,’ shouted Percy. He slammed the door of the ice-cream van and wiped blood from his nose. ‘The boy’s in the bag. I’ll finish off up top and be back for him.’
They hauled the children to their feet together. Gary Cuthbertson yanked them forward, up the steps. When they tripped, he jerked them up again. The ex-policeman guarded from the rear, kicking them in front of him, and they made slow progress up towards the crater. They could hear Sanchez, yelling and kicking, but the wind soon obliterated his cries.
Chapter Forty-Five
What, meanwhile, had happened to the teachers?
The children were now spread across the moor – in mortal danger – and their teachers knew nothing. Dawn had broken and it was just as ex-Inspector Cuthbertson had said. The police were all around the campsite, waiting to spring. They had learnt from their mistakes and had arrived in darkness. Mercifully, however, Captain Routon had risen early . . .
He had been woken by the grumbling of the camel and noticed at once that its water dish was dry. Why that would make it anxious, he couldn’t imagine; camels, he thought, could go for months without drinking. He took her down to the stream anyway and the donkeys followed. When he turned, the silhouette of armed officers was clear against the skyline and his training kicked in at once. In a second, he was on his belly. He squirmed along the bed of the stream and, finding cover, crossed to higher ground. He gasped in amazement. A long convoy of police vehicles stretched down the road. There were men everywhere – dogs, too. There was a bus and he read five dreadful words: Child Protection Emergency Recovery Unit.
Routon worked fast.
He scraped mud over his face and rabbit-crawled around the flank of Flashing Tor. Then he slid through the grass and got close to a policeman. There was little he could do, clearly – to take on a whole unit would be suicide. The main thing was surveillance. He toyed with the idea of infiltration, for the officer nearby was smoking, away from his mates, radio by his side. Routon sized him up, knowing that one blow to the neck would do the trick. He could pull on the uniform and be at the heart of the mission, working from within. It was a foolish fantasy, though, and the wise words of an old commanding officer came back to him. ‘Watch and re-group, Routon! Don’t ever be hasty.’
He lobbed a stone at a dog some fifty metres off and waited for the brute to bark in agitation. The distraction was all he needed. The young officer jerked round to see what had happened and Routon’s arm moved in and snatched his radio from the rock. He rolled out of sight, somersaulting back down the side of the tor. It hurt to abandon his fellow teachers, but the children came first – they were the priority and he would get to them. He dived into the water and swam upstream, strong as a salmon. In half a minute he had lodged himself under the belly of the startled camel, his hands clutching its nipples. He kicked it hard and the beast broke into a hysterical run straight out towards the open moor. Behind him, he heard the first cry of warning, howled from a megaphone.
‘This is the police!’ It echoed over the moor. ‘Do not move – you are surrounded!’ The sirens started to wail.
The camel ran faster.
‘Give yourselves up!’ cried the voice. ‘Resistance is futile!’
He closed his eyes at the thought of the poor headmaster. Professor Worthington, too – and the boy, Doonan – they would be in their pyjamas still and the police would take full advantage of their terror. There was nothing he could do for them, nothing . . . The radio would tell him where they were going and a proper rescue could be attempted in due course.
He swung onto the back of the camel and urged it on. The main thing was to gather up the children.
When he came upon an abandoned field telephone some hours later, he nearly wept for joy. Communication was strength. Isolation was weakness. He wound the handle, but there was only the dull static of interference. He swung it over his shoulder and carried on.
Lightning Tor reared up before him at noon, the thunderstorm hammering it with rain and fire. Soon his beast was breasting the swollen river and cantering up the far bank. The gates they came to yawned open and they ran down the slope to the foot of the volcano. There were more peals of thunder, bursting like bombshells. The lightning was almost constant and he had to shield his eyes against the brightness.
Then he stopped and looked around him in horror.
How had he not seen them earlier?
He had run straight into a circle of Ministry of Defence warning flags. They were red with the black symbols he recognised from his days in the bomb squad. Red and black; if you were close enough to read the symbols, you were in mortal danger. They meant charges were right there, under your feet. They meant the fuses were in place and the switches primed – they were the last things the engineers laid before they cleared the area – concentric circles, warning you. He looked up at Lightning Tor and saw lines and lines of the same flapping colours.
For the first time in many years, Captain Routon simply didn’t know what to do.
Vicky Stockinger
was looking at police tape.
She had left Ribblestrop in the library van, reaching the Flashing Tor campsite just after lunch. It was wrapped in blue and white: Police Line – Do Not Cross ran the words, repeated again and again, criss-crossing into the trees and rocks. She could see a handful of officers sheltering under the remains of a teepee, so she climbed down and went towards them. A dog started to bark.
‘No press,’ called its handler. ‘Nothing to see here.’
‘I was meeting . . . a friend,’ said Vicky.
‘Were you, my dear? Why was that then?’
‘Well, I was . . . going for a walk.’
‘You picked the wrong day for a walk, darling. Pissing down.’
‘Has there been an accident? Or . . .’
‘Can’t say at the moment – not till the Chief Constable’s been.’
The dog was staring at her vehicle, growling, so Vicky ran back to it and climbed inside.
She checked Eleudin, wrapped and boxed as he was, and tried Doctor Ellie’s phone again. Then she tried Captain Routon, and then Oli – every number went unanswered. She hadn’t been sensible enough to bring a map, but she saw on the dashboard one of the old ones that Captain Routon had distributed.
There was a red ring around Lightning Tor.
It would be sealed off, she knew, for the public weren’t allowed near it. But something told her she had to get there – and that a lot depended on her trying. A policeman was walking towards her, staring at her number plate. She started the engine and reversed fast. She could see him speaking into his radio and the dogs were barking again.
She did the fastest three-point turn she’d ever done and accelerated down the lane. She pressed her nose to the glass, gazing through the deluge. She put her lights on and floored the pedal.
Deep underground, Asilah’s party was hurrying too.
They were in a cavern stretching high and wide, and they could feel hands on their backs, pushing. There was a whisper emerging from fissures in the rock and their torches revealed long threads of flashing silver.
‘I don’t know which direction to go,’ said Sanjay.
‘Look,’ said Podma. ‘Get over here and look at this.’
He was crouched over a low ridge in the floor that led into the next chamber. When the children gathered they saw a small footprint. There was another, just beyond it.
‘What are they?’ said Asilah. ‘Are they fossils?’
‘No,’ said Tomaz. ‘I don’t think so.’
A Priory boy said, ‘If they’re fossils, that means millions of years. They can’t be that old, can they?’
‘Don’t step on them,’ said Jacqueline. ‘Look! You can see the toes. Who . . . ?’
She saw him, for a moment, then – and didn’t believe her own eyes. He was simply a movement at the edge of the torchlight, then gone again – too quick to be sure of. She heard his feet, but the quick slap on stone could have come from anywhere, so she couldn’t trust her senses. She jumped forward in pursuit, but stopped. Israel heard the cry and spun around – and he knew this time. He grabbed Tomaz’s wrist. Tomaz put his finger to his lips and one by one they all fell silent. They held their breaths.
‘What did they say?’ said Israel.
‘I couldn’t hear. It was a word, but – ’
‘It was our language,’ said Asilah. ‘Wasn’t it? Did you hear what they said?’
‘Ky-dián,’ said Eric. ‘Jaldi.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means, “hurry”,’ said Israel, ‘But you use you it . . . you use it when something bad’s going to happen. It means “move” – “get there!”’
‘They’re guiding us,’ said Tomaz. ‘They have been, for weeks.’
Something whistled over their heads and there was the clunk of metal on wood. Tomaz moved past Jacqueline and the tunnel narrowed into a crack. There was a circle of polished metal, like the one they’d found on the Edge. It was sharp, and etched with silver and bronze, and it lodged in the damp sand beside another footprint. The tunnel widened beyond it.
‘Hurry,’ said Eric. ‘They’re going to take us somewhere.’
‘There’s a tunnel. A proper tunnel!’ said Tomaz.
‘Have you been here before?’ said Charles.
Tomaz was pressing through. ‘There are tunnels everywhere,’ he said. ‘There’s miles and miles of them, and . . . maybe they connect. I think we should run.’
They came to a staircase and the children flowed down it. At the bottom was a metal grille, twisted out of shape as if the rock had half crushed it. The gate had burst open and led them into a passage identical to the labyrinth that ran round Tomaz’s home. There was sand on the floor and the walls were smooth.
‘Look,’ said Israel. ‘Railway track!’
They shone their torches and saw metal rails gleaming back at them – long, thin, and curling into the distance. Ahead was north. Behind was south: every compass made it clear.
‘South means Ribblestrop,’ said Asilah. ‘North means . . .’
‘Shhh!’ said Tomaz. ‘Don’t speak.’
‘What is it?’
‘They’re waiting for us. Don’t shine your torches! Put your torches down.’
They did so.
‘Turn them off. There’s three of them.’
‘Who?’
‘Turn the torches off. I think we have to go north.’
‘Who did you see?’
One by one the torches were clicked off and the darkness took hold. It was a darkness so thick it seemed airless and the children stood motionless.
‘They just want to look at us and . . .’
‘Why?’
‘They want to be sure. Stay still.’
They stood, like statues, though there were many who longed for the comfort of light. Some felt a hand on their arm and others felt fingers – delicate fingertips – in their hair and on their faces. Some felt what might have been breath on their feet. When Tomaz turned his torch back on, everyone winced at the shock of it. The trance was broken and at once they saw that things had changed, slightly – everyone was in some way different. In the seconds or minutes that had passed, wrists, ankles and necks had been festooned in a fine, golden thread – it was as fine as silk, woven, looped and knotted. Behind each ear was a flower and then, as they stood dazed by this, a small voice said the soft words again: ‘Ky-dián . . . jaldi!’
It was written in the sand on the floor, and on the walls, scratched in dust. Sanjay raised his arms and saw the letters on his skin, in bright red clay.
‘Let’s go,’ said Imagio.
They ran, fast.
The passage filled with the drumming of feet. They followed the rails and soon came to remains of a train, its carriages empty and windowless. They couldn’t stop to inspect it. They came to rock falls and clambered over them, to resume their running. At one point a bird shrieked and flew bright white over their heads. A flurry of bats came from the rear and passed with the beating of a thousand wings. They ran through rain, for in places the roof sprayed fountains upon them, then the tracks led upwards over sand.
They came at last to an archway, where sand and dust poured from above as if the ground was moving. Beyond it were steps, hammered in pure silver.
‘Oh God,’ said Sanjay. ‘Where are they taking us?’
‘Go,’ said a voice. ‘Follow!’
The tunnel was alive with cries: ‘Jaldi! Jaldi!’
The steps twisted up in tight circles and the children’s torches made the walls glimmer, for there were ropes of silver marbling every surface. As they started to ascend, they felt a low rumble deep underground.
‘What was that?’ said Jacqueline.
The rumble continued and dust ran faster from the rocks above their heads.
‘It’s an earthquake!’ said Charlie.
‘No,’ said Nikko. ‘I worked in a quarry. I think someone’s blasting.’
There was another long peal of thunder.
&
nbsp; ‘That’s explosives.’
Chapter Forty-Six
Cuthbertson had activated the switch codes he’d been given and he was ready for full detonation.
The main charges were linked to timers, for obvious reasons; what the children below had heard were what the setting engineers called ‘testers’. The testers blew when everything was live and ready, for their job was to crack the heart of the rock. The cracks would allow oxygen to reach the high explosives deep inside the tor, for oxygen guaranteed cataclysmic reactions. The whole landscape would erupt and change forever.
The man’s fingers were trembling, because everything was going so well.
Sanchez was safe in a bodybag, securely bound. He’d dragged the boy out of the van and given him a few more blows. That had subdued him. The Fox had hauled him up into the balloon basket, which was now anchored close to the radio mast. The other children were tied to the railings of the bridge, the volcano crater yawning below them. The storm raged on over their heads and Cuthbertson could feel the wind tugging at the control room’s roof.
The computer screen was green. It now demanded final confirmation and Cuthbertson smiled. He had waited so long for this moment of destruction and he wanted to savour it. Fifteen minutes, they would have – that was the minimum countdown. Millie and her friends had fifteen minutes of life left, and he would be flying out with a boy worth five million pounds at his feet. He chuckled and tapped in the final code. Are you sure? he was asked, and he wanted to shout.
He typed one word. Yes. He re-entered the last four digits. One click and the job was all but done. He wiped his eyes and pressed the key. The screen turned red and the countdown started in clear white digits.
He pushed out into the wind and staggered as the rain hit him. The children were cowering on the bridge.
’You’ve got quarter of an hour,’ he cried. ‘Use it well!’
‘Where are you taking Sanchez?’ screamed Miles. ‘We know what you’re doing! We—’
The ex-policeman turned and slapped the boy hard. He couldn’t resist it and Miles crumpled at once, bent double from the blow. Vijay, however, managed an extraordinary acrobatic manoeuvre, using Anjoli’s back as a platform. The boys were bound together at the wrist, but he could still roll and bring his right leg high. He sent the ex-policeman staggering back with a kick to the throat and Cuthbertson fell against the handrail, teetering dangerously close to the edge.