Shadow Creatures (25 page)

The video finished. Gecko stood there, in the centre of his room, his thoughts whirling as if there was a hurricane inside his head. Tara was in danger.
Tara.

He had to go back. He had no choice.

Without showering or changing, he headed straight for Rhino’s room.

Rhino was sitting at the desk. He had connected the removable hard drive to his own laptop using a USB cable. As Gecko knocked and entered, he glanced up. ‘No good,’ he said grimly.
‘It’s encrypted. We need Tara to take a look at it. She can do that from England, can’t she?’

‘I do not think she can,’ Gecko said. He played the video for Rhino. The ex-soldier stood there for a good thirty seconds after it had finished, staring into space and thinking.

‘I need to go back,’ Gecko said.

‘Don’t overreact,’ Rhino cautioned.

Gecko moved to where he could stare Rhino in the face. ‘I have to go back,’ he repeated.

‘Look, Gecko, I’m trained in hostage rescue. That means I’m also trained in negotiation. The first rule of negotiation is: work out what the kidnappers actually want. The
second rule is: don’t give them anything until you have proof of life. The third rule is: don’t give them anything until you can be sure that you’ll get their captive back alive
and well.’

Gecko knew that Rhino was talking sense, and he tried to calm himself down. ‘Are there more rules?’ he asked.

Rhino nodded. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s a fourth rule as well: don’t give them anything at all, if you can help it. Take swift and harsh action to get the captive
back, if you can do it without the hostage getting hurt.’

‘And what about the kidnappers?’

‘Oh, nobody cares about them.’

Gecko sighed, feeling dark thoughts swirling around him again. ‘This is my fault. I caused this. I need to fix it.’

‘Not by giving yourself to them. Let’s think this through.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m surprised that Calum hasn’t told us anything about this. Maybe he
doesn’t know. We need to talk to him, and quickly. The trouble is he’s not answering his phone. I’ve tried him on his computer – he’s usually glued to that like
football fans glued to a sports-bar TV set – but he’s not answering that either.’ He raised a hand to his head and pushed his hair back. ‘I’m not sure what the next
move is,’ he said with an uncertain tone in his voice.

Tara listened nervously at the door to her cell/bedroom until all the noise from the flat died away apart from the murmur of a television set. Her pulse was racing. It was dark
outside, and she guessed that one of the Karavla brothers had gone to bed while the other one sat up on watch. After all, it wouldn’t be good for them if they were both asleep and Tara
managed – somehow – to get out. If she could work out what that ‘somehow’ was, then she might even try it, but short of pulling the pins out of the door hinges – and
her nails were bitten too short for that – she was out of ideas.

But she did have a mobile phone – Tom’s mobile phone.

It was security locked, but it was a simple-four digit code and she knew all kinds of ways past that. Within seconds she was in.

Who to call? Rhino would have been the best bet at getting her out, but he was in Hong Kong. Gecko she was worried about – he apparently hadn’t got in touch with the Karavla brothers
yet, and Tara was beginning to wonder, with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, whether something had happened to him, despite the fact that Rhino was meant to be looking after him.
Natalie was . . . well, just Natalie. Which left Calum.

Actually. Calum had resources and courage, and nothing fazed him. He was also the de facto leader of their little group, despite (or maybe because of) his physical issues. He would know what to
do.

Tara worried about whether she should send him a text message or call him and risk being overheard, but she needed to know that her words were actually getting through to someone, rather than
just being dumped in a recorded message bucket on a server somewhere in the world. She could call Calum, but then when he asked her to describe what was outside so he could locate her she would
have to resort to words, or take a photograph and email it to him. No, the best bet was a video chat. That way she just had to turn the camera round and actually show him what was outside.

Fortunately Tom’s camera phone had a front lens as well as a rear one. That made things a lot easier.

She quickly downloaded a few specialist apps that Tom hadn’t got, and then used one of them to set up a video chat. Calum usually spent every waking hour in front of his computer screens,
and he didn’t sleep much, so she was bound to get hold of him.

Unless he had gone out walking with his new bionic legs. That thought momentarily brought her up cold, before she convinced herself that he would be following Dr Kircher’s instructions and
not going out without company.

When Calum’s face appeared on the screen of Tom’s phone, Tara was ecstatic. That faded away after a moment and was replaced with surprise. He wasn’t in his apartment. The
background was white and sterile, like a hospital, and she could see a sign behind his head that said:
Bed I.
The bottom of the sign was rough-edged, as if part of it had been snapped
off.

Calum was wearing pyjamas. That was odd. Tara had
never
seen him in pyjamas.

‘Tara!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank God!’

‘Calum, be quiet. I have to talk quickly. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m being held prisoner. You need to help me get out. Do you understand?’

‘I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being held prisoner,’ he repeated. ‘You have to get me out of here!’

‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘No, that’s what’s happened to
me
!’

She frowned. This wasn’t the conversation she had imagined in her head. How long had he been awake for? ‘No, Calum,’ she said slowly, ‘
I’m
the one who has
been kidnapped. I’m somewhere in east London. I don’t know exactly where.’

‘Stop talking for a minute and listen!
I’ve
been kidnapped, and flown to America. I’m in a Robledo Mountains Technology facility in Las Cruces, but Robledo is actually
owned by Nemor Incorporated. I stole one of their tablet computers and I’ve tried sending a message to Gillian Livingstone, but I’ve had no answer.’

‘If you’re in Las Cruces, how come I was able to get hold of you on your computer system?’ Tara asked, puzzled.

‘I used the stolen tablet to log into my own system remotely. As far as the internet is concerned, I’m in London, in my apartment. I wanted to try to link up with Rhino and tell him
what’s happened, but he hasn’t been at his computer.’ He paused for a moment, and frowned as he caught up with
her
news. ‘Hang on – you’ve been kidnapped
too? Who by?’

‘Two brothers with the surname Karavla. They’re Croatian. They belong to the same gang who wanted Gecko to work for them as a thief. They want to use me to influence him. They got me
to record a video message to send to him, but they’ve not heard back yet. I hope he’s all right.’ She stopped to catch her breath. This was all going too fast for her. ‘What
does Nemor Incorporated want with you?’

‘They want the Almasti genetic material you retrieved from Georgia.’

‘Well, give it to them.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple. I don’t think I have the right to do that.’

‘How did they get through your security to kidnap you?’

‘Long story’ he said, wincing. ‘Back to you. How did these Croatians get past your well-known paranoia to kidnap
you
?’

‘Ah.’ She could feel herself blushing. ‘There was this boy, named Tomas. It turns out that he is their nephew, but I don’t think he actually wants to work for them. I
think they frightened him into it.’

‘And he was the one who managed to get you out of your shell?’ Calum raised an eyebrow. ‘There must be something special about him.’

‘He’s very convincing,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘But I got my revenge. I stole his phone.’

‘Oh, he visits, does he?’

‘Leave it, Calum. Seriously – leave it.’

There was a long silence as they both looked at each other. Eventually Calum summed it up: ‘We’ve
both
been kidnapped, and we
both
need rescuing.’

‘That appears to be the situation.’

He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration while he thought. ‘OK, here’s what we’ll do. In case anything happens to one of us, we’ll
both
do this so at least
one of us will be successful. First thing you do is to phone Mr Macfarlane – you remember him?’

‘Small man, tight suit, strange taste in music.’

‘That’s him. I’ll give you his number in a second. We need to tell him roughly where you are, and he can come and get you out.’

‘I don’t
know
exactly where I am!’

‘OK – leave that to Macfarlane. If you can describe the buildings outside your window, he might be able to locate you. He knows east London like the back of his hand. How many of
them are there in the flat?’

‘There’s at least two of them, and they have guns and knives and stuff. Isn’t that, like, overwhelming odds?’

‘It is,’ Calum agreed, ‘but they’ve got it coming to them.’ Before Tara could correct his understanding of her question, he continued: ‘The second thing is to
get in touch with Rhino, whenever he switches his laptop on again. I need him to try to contact Gillian Livingstone for me. I’ve tried to get hold of her myself but nothing’s happened.
Maybe she didn’t get the message. If he can’t get her, then he has to find some way of getting me out of here. The British embassy might be a good start – I’m sure he knows
people who know people. So, I’ll talk to Rhino and you talk Mr Macfarlane, then
you
talk to Rhino and
I’ll
talk to Macfarlane.’

‘What’s his number?’

Calum recited it from memory.

The two of them stared at each other in silence for a long moment, neither one wanting to break the call in order to make another one. This was human contact. This was a rare moment of warmth
and a reminder of better things.

‘We need to go,’ Calum said eventually.

‘I know,’ Tara said. She paused, then, ‘You first.’

‘No,
you
first.’

‘Calum!’

‘OK, then – both at once. On a count of three. One . . . two . . .’

‘Calum!’

‘What?’

She felt her breath catch in her throat. ‘Good luck.’

‘You too, Tara. Right – one . . . two . . . three!’

Her finger came down on the
Disconnect
button at the same time his did. Her screen went blank.

She felt desolate. Lost.

Shoving the desolation and the fear to one side, she quickly got into the operating system of Tom’s mobile and deleted any logs of her video call. If anything went wrong, the Karavla
brothers wouldn’t know she had used the phone. She would do the same after she had made the call to Mr Macfarlane.

She was just about to dial the number that Calum had given her when the door suddenly opened. She tried to hide the mobile behind her back, but in her panic she dropped it.

‘So – you have mobile.’ She felt her heart go cold. One of the Karavla brothers was standing in the doorway. ‘I think we need to have a talk with young Tomas.’

‘It’s not his fault,’ Tara said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. ‘I stole it from him.

‘Then it
is
his fault,’ Tomas’s uncle said grimly, ‘and he will be punished. If you have actually made call, then he will be punished in a way he will never
forget!’

Despite the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Calum tried to contact Rhino again via video link. This time the electronic request was answered. A window opened on the
tablet’s screen and Rhino’s worried face appeared.

‘Calum – we have a problem,’ he said quickly.

‘Actually, we have several problems,’ Calum corrected. ‘Do you know about Tara?’

‘We’ve just found out, and we also have two giant poisonous centipedes on the loose in Hong Kong.’

‘And I’ve been kidnapped by Nemor Incorporated.’ Calum explained where he was, and took a deep breath. ‘It looks like we’re all in trouble, then.’ He
hesitated for a moment, replaying the conversation. ‘
Centipedes?
’

‘It’s a long story. We think we might have some intelligence on a removable hard disk, but it’s encrypted and I can’t read it. That’s why we need Tara.’

‘And Tara’s kidnapped as well.’ Calum thought for a moment. ‘OK – priorities. We need to get Tara out first. She can hopefully decrypt your hard drive, so you can
locate the centipedes. Once that’s done, you can all come for me.’ He remembered Dave Pournell’s parting comments, and felt another shiver run through him. ‘If I’m
still here.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m facing non-elective brain surgery if I don’t give Nemor Inc. the Almasti DNA.’

Rhino frowned. ‘Well, give it to them, then.’

‘I may have to, but I’m holding out.’ He paused again, thoughts racing. ‘I can get Tara out, but I need to know her location first. I’ll work on that – you
get in touch with Gillian Livingstone and tell her where I am. She might be able to exert some leverage. I’m working on a stolen tablet at the moment, so I don’t know how much longer
I’ve got, but I’ll try and get back to you in an hour or two. OK?’

‘OK.’ Rhino looked as if he was going to say something else, but Gecko’s head appeared in the video window, pushing the ex-SAS soldier out of the way.

‘Calum, I could fly back to England and give myself up to them!’

‘Not a chance,’ Calum said. He could hear Rhino saying something similar in the background. ‘Tara has seen their faces. They won’t let her live, even if they get
you.’ He tried to look earnest and believable. ‘Gecko, trust me – I’ll get her back. I promise.’

Gecko nodded, reluctantly. ‘You have to, Calum.’

‘I know. Talk soon.’ He suddenly remembered the other thing he’d meant to say. ‘Oh, by the way – there’s a Nemor team headed your way. Be careful.’
Calum cut the connection. He felt a wave of depression and loss wash through him, but he pushed it away. There was no time for that now.