The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (17 page)

Danny’s head soon started to ache from the thunder of the traffic and the fumes so soon after the peace of the ghost roads. He put his hand into one of the inside
pockets of his coat and felt a wad of cash. Down a side street he spotted a small café. He slipped in and took a table in the corner.

The place was busy with workmen and taxi drivers sipping giant mugs of tea and eating sandwiches, and no one paid him any attention. The waitress brought him a cup of tea and he tried to gather his thoughts. One of the taxi drivers left, leaving a newspaper on the table. Danny picked it up. There were references to failed peace talks and the buildup of troops. There were photographs of warships, and there was talk of tense standoffs on the high seas.

“We ain’t going to attack first,” he heard a taxi driver say as he came in.

“They say they won’t either,” another replied.

“Something’s got to give. It can’t go on like this.”

“At least they caught one of the little rat-spies they been sending in. Like that other who attacked the military base. Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on him for five minutes. Always check the fares getting into the cab, make sure they don’t have them different-colored eyes. Dead giveaway, that.”

Danny ducked his head, hiding it behind the newspaper. Still half in the dreamworld of the ghost roads, he had forgotten about his eyes! Glancing quickly over the top of the paper, he saw the driver who had spoken. He was small and weaselly-looking, and his eyes darted about suspiciously. How was Danny going to get out of this place past him? Desperately, he fished about in his raincoat pockets, and yet again, the marvelous coat did
not let him down. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses. They were very large and dark and would probably make him look like a film star trying to avoid the press, but he slipped them on, grateful to be shielded from the world.

He quickly paid for the tea and slipped out into the street. He had forgotten what it was like to be hunted, but now the full realization of it hit him. He had forgotten about the security cameras covering almost every inch of the city too, and he was lucky to pass through one street when he did: seconds later, a squad of police, backed by soldiers, blocked the pavements and started to check everyone’s identification.

Now that he had gotten out of the café, he started to think. The taxi driver had talked about another person with eyes like Danny’s being caught. Danny had a sinking feeling that Nala had been snared in Longford’s web. If he had, would Longford use him as bait to bring Danny in again? Probably not. It wouldn’t enter Longford’s mind that Danny would have become fond of Nala. But that wouldn’t stop them from interrogating Nala to find out how he had gotten to the Upper World and what he was doing there. Nala wouldn’t crack easily; they would have to use harsh methods to force him to tell them what they wanted to know. After that he would be dispensable.

Danny’s spy training was starting to kick in. He got on a bus and got off at the next stop in case he was being tailed. He doubled back on his own tracks. He had to find a base. He couldn’t book into a hotel—he had no credit card—but he couldn’t stay on the street and run the risk of encountering another checkpoint. He went into a
newsagent and picked up a free advertising magazine. He found what he wanted on page three. He bought a mobile down the street, made a call and agreed on a price, saying he wanted delivery.

Half an hour later a red camper van pulled up down the street. Danny paid the puzzled-looking owner in cash and took the keys. He couldn’t drive, but he didn’t have to. He could leave the camper parked on the street and sleep in the back. It wasn’t much, but it was a headquarters safe from prying eyes.

S
afety was something Nala had forgotten about. He had not gotten far from the shelter in the woods. He had intended to find Longford, because he knew Danny would seek him out. But Nala had no spy training and was not familiar with the Upper World. It wasn’t long before he attracted suspicion, crossing the road against the traffic lights, bumping into people as he walked through the shopping district of a nearby town. The police were called when he went into a café and started to help himself to food. Nala was used to dormitories and soldiers’ canteens. He had never had to pay for food and didn’t understand the idea of a restaurant. He was gone by the time the police arrived, but an alert was sent out, and it was picked up by a government department recently formed by Longford: the Department of Information Security, the DIS. Within an hour the department’s discreet blue vans were cruising the town.

It was the train system that finished Nala. The trains
in his Westwald home were free to military personnel. Nala wasn’t stupid. He knew that people were looking at him in a funny way and that it was time to get out of town. He found a train station and headed for the platforms. When he saw a barrier in his way, he jumped over it, the way soldiers did in Westwald, where no one would dare challenge him.

“Hey, you!” A cross-looking inspector came up behind Nala and put his hand on his arm. Nala upended him easily and strode on. Behind him a police radio crackled. He had found a seat on a train, not knowing where it was going, when the DIS agents descended. Nala got to his feet, but the DIS men were prepared. Three Tasers flashed. Writhing in pain, Nala fell to the floor.

He woke up on the floor of a DIS van, bound hand and foot. Since then he had been held in a secret detention center of the kind the DIS had established all over the country. The head warder was a calm, cold man called Smith.

“You’re to be kept for Minister Longford himself,” Smith said drily. “You should be honored. But he asked for you to be softened up.”

Nala didn’t know what “softened up” meant, but he found out later that night when his door burst open and he was drenched in freezing water. By the time his cell door opened in the morning, he was blue with cold. The following night loud, featureless noise was piped into his cell. It went on for a night and a day. The lights were never turned off.

But his captors had never dealt with a Cherb before.
Each time the door was flung open and another torment dealt out, he retreated into a corner of his mind where he could not be reached. Even so, he remembered the face of each of his tormentors.

Occasionally there were lulls, quiet periods at night that were almost worse than the torture itself as Nala lay awake wondering what was going to happen next. He had lost track of the days and nights he had spent there. He had lost track of the last time he had spoken to anyone but a jeering DIS operative. But one night there was something different, a noise he had not heard before. A tapping. Where was it coming from? He felt around the back of the hard little bunk and realized it was coming from the heating pipes. The tapping had a rhythm—three short, three long, three short. Nala had studied Morse code in military school and recognized it: SOS. Quickly he tapped back
Hello
. The answer came:

Who are you?

Nala. Who are you?

A friend
, the response came. He heard the crash of boots outside his cell and vaulted back onto the top of his bunk as the door opened. Let them do what they will, he thought. He was not alone.

D
anny set about planning his approach to Longford. He studied the newspapers and television to find out where Longford might be. He improved his disguise—the weather worked in his favor, the cold nights and
sunny cold days meaning he could keep his sunglasses and coat on all the time. He walked the streets around the prime minister’s residence, noting security checkpoints and cameras, trying to find a weak point. He remembered the words of Duddy, his Camouflage and Concealment teacher.

“There’s always a weakness. But remember, it’s the sneak thief who gets caught. The spy who walks in with his head held high is the one who succeeds. Hidden in plain view, hidden in plain view!”

But still he could not find a weak point, and according to the news, tensions were growing with more sightings of winged figures, thought now to be some kind of foreign spy drone. There were encounters between warships and border incursions, but there was still no excuse for war. Reading the papers, Danny felt that deep in their hearts, neither side wanted war, but they’d gotten themselves into a situation where there was no alternative.

Longford felt the same thing. For weeks now he had been trying to manufacture a provocation, some kind of incident that would bring about war, but there was resistance in his generals’ hearts. He needed to find Danny. Power was within Longford’s grasp, and he was impatient for it.

Conal had flown to Westwald and met with Rufus Ness in the fortress of Grist. Now the gaunt winged figure stood in Longford’s study. It was midnight, and the desk light cast an evil shadow against the wall behind the Seraphim. A faint odor of corruption hung in the air.

“Ness is furious,” Conal said. “He paces the floor calling for executions. The remnants of his army are dying on the bridge and he refuses to rescue them.”

“Have you informed him that I’ve had the entire crew of the weather station hanged on their own antennae?”

“Yes, but he wants to know what has happened to Nurse Flanagan.”

“Nurse Flanagan is a traitor,” Longford said, “but she was close to Ness. There’s no point in upsetting him more with that information.”

Conal looked uncertain. Longford got up from behind the desk and put his arm around the Seraphim’s shoulders.

“Sometimes, my dear friend, it is necessary to deceive one’s allies—for their own good, I might add!”

Conal nodded, the movement releasing more musty smells from his feathers.

“All right. What do you want me to do now?”

“We must find the Fifth, Conal. All of our plans now rest on his shoulders.”

Longford fell silent, his mind searching for Danny’s. He could feel Ness in the distance, furious and incoherent. And Nurse Flanagan, fragrant and scheming. He shut them out and tried to clear his head of Conal’s presence, which felt as though the odor of slightly rancid meat had filled his head. For a tantalizing moment Danny was almost there, but then he was gone.

It was enough. Danny lived, and he was somewhere close.

“Get in the air. The Fifth is nearby.”

SLUGS OF SOMNOLENCE

E
verything had changed in Wilsons. There were checkpoints everywhere. You were required to give your name and destination twenty times a day. Surveillance cameras had appeared on the outside paths and in the corridors. Smyck complained personally to Brunholm when Dixie once disappeared at one side of a checkpoint and reappeared at the other.

“All you wanted was to check my identity, isn’t that right?” Dixie said, when she was summoned to Brunholm and Smyck. Smyck nodded.

“Well, do you know anyone else who can do what I just did?” Dixie demanded. Smyck shook his head, furious. It didn’t stop Brunholm from giving Dixie a Third Regulation offense, but at least she got the satisfaction of seeing the look on Smyck’s face.

“We can’t do anything,” Dixie complained later to Vandra, Les and Toxique. “You can’t even go to the toilet without Smyck’s permission.” The cadets had managed to keep their summerhouse secret—it was the only place they could talk now. There was a gap in camera coverage in the shrubberies. If they ducked beneath the big laurel and climbed through the branches of the yew, they couldn’t be seen.

“Whatever Brunholm’s scared of, the security isn’t doing him any good,” Vandra said. Toxique nodded in agreement. They had both run a professional eye over Brunholm: he was pale, losing weight, his hair not brushed and his clothing disheveled. Something was definitely wrong.

“What’s this?” Les said. He touched the doorframe. Someone had carefully carved initials in it—
S & G
.

“Same as on Danny’s ring,” Dixie said.

“But why is it written here?” Vandra asked.

“Somebody’s trying to tell us something,” Dixie said.

Toxique examined the doorframe. “We need to find them.”

“But we can’t if we’re being followed everywhere,” Les said. “At least Smyck has to sleep sometime. The cameras are worst of all. They’re always on.”

“Where are they controlled from?”

“Brunholm has a control room in the Pinnacle of the Leaning Buttress. There’s only one way in or out. We’d never get there.”

“We could ask Gabriel,” Vandra said.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea at the moment. Gabriel is acting pretty strange since Daisy got killed.”

“What’s that?” Dixie cried. They sat up. An eerie howling noise was coming from the direction of Wilsons. The sky exploded into light.

“Come on,” Les said. “Run!”

They raced back to the shrubbery, Toxique, surprisingly, keeping his cool and insisting that they climb back the proper way, out of sight. As they scrambled out of the yew, a small figure, keeping to the shadows, ran fast toward the woods.

Wilsons was lit up by floodlights and hazard flashers. The howling noise was caused by a large siren mounted on the roof.

“Where did all that come from?” Dixie said in wonder.

“And what’s going on there?” Les said, his eyes narrowing. On the very edge of the pool of light, a winged figure was taking to the air, and perched on its back was the small figure they had seen running through the shrubbery.