The Power of Five Oblivion (22 page)

Three days had passed. And then, while he was sleeping, they had come for him, tied him up, put a bag over his head and brought him here.

Pedro had been glad to see Scott at first but that feeling had long since faded. He was worried. He had no connection with the other boy. There wasn’t even a hint of friendship. They barely spoke to each other any more. Maybe Scott was afraid – but Pedro knew that there was something else going on. It was worse than that. Scott had allowed them to get into his head. Maybe it was a result of everything he had been through. But he was changing. Gradually, day by day, he was becoming one of them.

Pedro slept. It was his one escape. And when he was asleep, he found himself in the dreamworld where he had first met Matt. It was the same as it had always been – a desert empty of colour and life, where the clouds never moved and the landscape never changed. Despite the fact that everything was so dead, Pedro felt comfortable here. He was certain that in some way this strange world was on his side. He hoped he would find the others there, but no matter how far he travelled, he arrived nowhere and he was always on his own.

And then, one night, he saw something.

It was so extraordinary that at first he thought he was imagining it; a dream within a dream. It was a tree, growing quite by itself in the middle of a piece of barren land. There wasn’t anything else for a mile around, not so much as a weed – in fact it was the first sign of life that Pedro had ever seen in this world. The tree had no colour. Like everything else, it was different shades of black and grey, like the images on the old television set that had once stood in the village square where he had been born. It was a palm tree with a thick, round trunk soaring towards the sky and, far above, a ball of jagged leaves that seemed to have been captured just as they exploded outwards. Pedro walked towards it in the knowledge that it hadn’t been there moments before, that he hadn’t seen it on the horizon. It had just appeared, in front of him, and it was impossibly large.

The tree worried him. He knew that the dreamworld sent warnings – the cowboy and the giant swan. The images never made sense until the last moment and by then it was too late. Was that what he was seeing now? Was the tree telling him something that he needed to know?

The door of the cell crashed open.

Two guards marched in. Instinctively, Pedro drew his legs up, preparing to defend himself. But the men hadn’t come for him. They closed in on Scott and dragged him to his feet.

And Scott couldn’t prevent himself. His eyes widened. His voice cracked.

“No!” he shouted. “Not me…!”

The men laughed. They were huge, muscular, dressed in black uniforms. Pedro scrambled to his feet and lunged forward but he had no chance against them. One of them kicked out and he was sent sprawling, crashing into the far wall of the cell.

It was all over in a few seconds. Scott felt his arm being seized. His sleeve was wrenched up and there was a stab of pain as a needle was inserted into his flesh. Then they dragged him out. The door slammed shut. The lock was turned. And once again Pedro was on his own.

EIGHTEEN

Scott didn’t even try to fight back. The men were holding him too tightly and after so many weeks without exercise, with barely any food, he knew how weak he had become. He wondered vaguely if he was going to be killed. They were taking him upstairs. Would there be a courtyard with a stake and an execution squad, like in an old film? That was what this reminded him of, and the truth was that he didn’t really care. He was fed up with this whole business. Let it be over one way or another.

They stopped in front of a doorway. He heard a key being turned. And then they were inside a brightly lit room that already smelled and felt familiar and awakened in him memories that he had struggled to leave behind.

The guards released him.

Scott stood there, swaying on his feet. As he took in his surroundings, he felt a shudder of terror so overwhelming that his head swam and tears began to trickle down his cheeks. He felt the strength drain out of his legs so that they barely supported him. He thought he was going to faint. He heard someone whimpering and realized it was him.

This was worse than execution. This was worse than anything he could have imagined. He knew this room.

The bed with the dangling straps for his wrists, his ankles and his chest. The plastic tubes snaking down. The white metal boxes that pumped chemicals in carefully measured doses. The dentist’s light. The electric cables with the plastic suction caps that could be attached to any part of his body … his stomach, his neck, over his heart. Just seeing them brought back the pain that had once torn through him, separating him from any coherent thought. He was in America, in the prison called Silent Creek! He must be. This was the room where they had first brought him.

This was where he had been tortured.

“Hello, Scott.”

He knew the voice and looked up with dread. And there she was, smiling at him, even though he knew she was dead. He had actually seen her shot, right in front of him, with a bullet in the head. Susan Mortlake. She had been the one in charge, choosing the items on the menu that had been so carefully designed to destroy him. She had listened to his screams, analysing them as if they were a particularly complicated piece of classical music. And then she had made her recommendations. A little higher, Mr Banes. Let’s try the knife. Or another injection. Always smiling, always reasonable. And Scott realized that there was nothing he could give her that would satisfy her. She wasn’t hurting him because she needed information. What she wanted was him.

He had seen her die but here she was, walking towards him, dressed in a silvery-grey jacket and dress that clung to her too tightly, almost restricting her movements. He saw her close-cropped hair, her glasses, her thin, slightly upturned nose, the pitiless slash that was her mouth. There was something else. A circular hole gaped in the very centre of her forehead. As she reached him, Scott toppled forward, retching, his hands sprawled out in front of him. He didn’t care what he looked like. He wasn’t going to pretend to be brave. The simple truth was that he couldn’t take any more.

He felt a hand rest on his shoulders.

“Scott?” the voice asked, but now it was a different voice. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

He looked up.

It must have been the drug they’d pumped into him because in an instant the room had changed. It wasn’t a surgery any more. And it wasn’t Susan Mortlake. It was a man in a suit, although in a strange way he looked a little like her. He also wore glasses, round ones, and there was something about the shape of his face, the very thin mouth that reminded him of her. The man had short, almost military-style fair hair, made up of tight curls. His skin was smooth and there was no hint of any beard or moustache. He looked both puzzled and concerned, as if he didn’t understand why Scott should have collapsed in front of him.

And the machines had gone. So had the bed. Scott was in a much larger room than he had first thought – it was actually more of a chamber – with a vaulted ceiling and a chandelier with at least a hundred candles. Was there even electricity? The room could have been modern or it could have belonged to the Middle Ages. It was hard to be sure of anything. There was an oversized fireplace on one side, with a neat pile of logs blazing cheerfully. The floor was paved with flagstones but there was a thick antique rug spread out in front of the fire. Two sets of glass doors led out onto a balcony with a stone balustrade. Although it was the middle of the day, it was very dark. The sky seemed to be full of soot.

“Are you all right?” the man asked.

Scott was on the floor, on his knees. He looked around him, afraid that if he so much as blinked the room would change again.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” the man said. “In fact, I’ve brought you some lunch.”

He gestured. Scott hadn’t noticed it before but there was also a table in the room – or maybe it was part of the same trickery and it had just appeared. It had been laid for two with plates of cheese, fruit, cold meat, cakes and a jug of some dark red liquid, like wine. There were paintings on the wall – portraits of people who might have died centuries ago – and an old tapestry showing men with bows and arrows, chasing a deer. None of this had been there before. It was as if everything was assembling itself around him. Like a dream.

“Are you hungry?” the man asked. Scott had no appetite. Not right now. But he was also aware that he hadn’t eaten properly for weeks. His stomach had never been more empty. The man reached down and helped him to his feet. “Here, let me give you a hand. You certainly seem to have been going through the wars!”

Scott was sitting at the table, although he couldn’t remember walking there. The chair was shaped like a throne with arms that curved around him. The food was very simple but the smell of it was absolutely delicious. He looked down. Incredibly, he seemed to be wearing different clothes: black trousers and a black shirt. It was the same sort of outfit he’d been forced to wear when he was working in the theatre, only the fabric was more expensive; the softest cotton.

“Please – help yourself.”

The man poured some of the red liquid and Scott drank greedily. It wasn’t wine but it had the same intoxicating effect. It was cold and tasted sweet – some sort of berries.

“Where am I?” Scott asked.

“You’re in Naples. In Italy. You were brought here by helicopter from the Abbey of San Galgano. That was where you came through the door. I’m sorry you’ve had such an uncomfortable time but it took a while for the news to reach America. I came as quickly as I could.”

“What about Pedro?”

“What about him?” The man seemed genuinely surprised that Scott had asked. “Do you want me to invite him up?” he asked.

Of course Scott wanted Pedro here. He couldn’t possibly leave him on his own in a freezing cell, eating the scraps that were thrown his way. He was about to say so but perhaps he hesitated for just a moment too long because the man cut in again.

“We don’t really want the Stick Insect, do we?”

“No.” The word fell heavily from Scott’s lips. He felt guilty but something in the man’s voice had persuaded him. There was plenty of food on the table. He would save something and give it to Pedro later.

“I thought not.” The man smiled again. “Pedro is different from you, Scott. And I’m afraid to say that we don’t have very much use for him. We won’t kill him. I’m told there’s not much point in killing you boys … it just complicates things. But we’ll probably keep him locked up until he’s a very old man. Maybe you can visit him from time to time if it amuses you, but my guess is that you’ll probably forget him. Anyway, do tuck in. You must be starving!”

The food was in front of him. Scott hesitated, still wondering if this was a trick and it would all disappear the moment he reached forward. He picked up a peach. It felt soft and warm in his hand. He glanced at the man, who nodded, and he bit into it, the juice running down his chin. It was delicious. He had never tasted anything like it. And once he had started, he found himself eating ravenously, not even using a knife and fork, tearing into it with his hands. The bread was fresh, the cheese soft, the ham and salami thinly sliced and salty. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Scott was aware of the spectacle he was presenting. He was behaving like an animal. But he didn’t care. It was the first time he had eaten properly in a month.

And all the time the man spoke to him in a voice that was pleasant and utterly reasonable. Perhaps an hour passed. Perhaps it was just a few minutes. Later on, Scott would remember it all.

“We haven’t got a great deal of time,” the man began. “We have to leave Naples in the next forty-eight hours and we have a long journey together … for you a journey in many senses of the word. Right now, Scott, you have a choice. There’s a decision you have to make. And it’s this. Are you with me or aren’t you? Or to put it another way, do you want to travel in first-class comfort with an in-flight movie system and a choice of computer games – or are you going to leave, naked, in a cage? Nobody’s putting any pressure on you. Nobody’s hurting you. It’s entirely up to you.

“Do you want to be a hero, Scott? Is that what you want? I’m sure you used to read lots of books about heroes who wanted to save the world. They never really had any reason. They were just ordinary people like you. But they were the hero and somehow it always worked out all right for them in the end. Harry Potter. Batman. James Bond! You name them.

“But you and I know that real life was never quite like that. It wasn’t as simple. You’d try to help people but they were never that grateful. And I’d say that if you looked at most people living in your street, they were basically just plain bad. Did anyone ever try to help you when you were being beaten around by your foster parents in Carson City? I don’t think so. They were too busy getting on with their own lives to worry about you.

“The fact of the matter is that since the world began – you know it and I know it – the vast majority of people on this planet have only been interested in themselves. Who are the heroes who have always been on the front pages of the press? I’ll tell you. Footballers in fast cars. Actors and singers with their drugs and fat salaries. Models preening themselves on the catwalks all over the world. People were never judged by what they did. They were judged by what they earned – and it didn’t matter that the rest of the world was going hungry. They were the heroes. Everyone wanted to be like them!