Prosper frowned. Deep within him, some kind of seismic disturbance caused his features to shift like a subsiding wall. There was a hint of irresolution in the set of his mouth—a puzzled look in his eyes.
Before he could utter a word, however, he was distracted by a distant growl, wafting through the open door of the cabin.
It was the growl of an approaching car.
"Shit," he said.
For one instant, he and Cadel stared at each other. Then Prosper sighed
"You re not going to keep quiet, are you?" he muttered. Before Cadel could think of a response, Prosper was looming above him, poised to pounce.
There followed a short, sharp scuffle.
Pulled from his seat and thrust toward the rear of the cabin, Cadel found himself faced with a closed hatch in an upholstered bulkhead. "No!" he cried, instantly comprehending. "No! No!" And he lashed out wildly, having no wish to be locked in the baggage compartment.
But Prosper had the advantage over him in height, weight, and reach. Within seconds the open hatch gaped before them; though Cadel planted his feet against its rim, Prosper simply knocked them aside with his own foot, while his hands were engaged in gagging Cadel and pinning down his arms.
"It won't be for long," Prosper gasped. "You re not going to suffocate."
"N-n-n-h!"
"It's really very roomy—look." With a full-body heave, he shoved Cadel into a long, dark hole. "I ll be back soon."
"No!"
The hatch slammed shut, leaving Cadel in total darkness. "Now don't make a fuss," said Prosper, his voice muffled by the intervening bulkhead, "because no one's going to hear. Just sit tight and be good. I won't leave without you."
"Wait!" Cadel punched at the hatch, which wouldn't open. It didn't seem to have a handle on the inside. "Don't! Come back, please!"
There was no answer.
"Don't leave me in here!" Cadel screeched, kicking and pounding. He threw himself against the bulkhead. He bounced from one end of the compartment to the other, casting about for another exit. But he was completely enclosed in a narrow, upholstered drum. He couldn't even stand up straight; he had to crawl around on his hands and knees.
"Okay. Okay." Stay calm, he thought. It was already hot, and he had no idea how well ventilated this stowage hold might be. Panicking wouldn't help. Throwing a fit wouldn't help. If he screamed too much, he would lose his voice. If he kept blundering about, he would hurt himself.
So he wrenched off one shoe and began to hit the floor with it, rhythmically. Bang-bang-bang. Bang-bang-bang. Physical activity of this kind helped him to keep his fear in check. He was so desperately afraid—for Sonja, for himself, for the newcomers in the approaching car—that he couldn't concentrate. Little surges of hysteria kept making his heart race and his hands tremble.
A sob escaped him, followed by another.
He clenched his teeth.
No, he thought. Don't let it get to you. Don't, don't, don't.
He tried to ignore the fact that he was trapped in a small, confined space. He tried to stop gulping down air so frantically, because the noise of his panting made it hard to hear what was going on outside. Not that he had the slightest chance of hearing much, anyway, through the layers of bulkhead and padding—not unless someone came really close to the plane and raised his or her voice. If that happened, then his banging might become audible to the newcomers, whoever they might be.
Bang-bang-bang! Cadel drummed on the floor with all his might, before it suddenly occurred to him that he was being overly optimistic. There was very little chance that anybody would approach the airplane—not if Alias was successful. Providing that his disguise was good enough, Alias might be able to convince the new arrivals that he really was Eric the airstrip manager, and send them away—especially if they weren't the police. And if they were, they might believe his claim that no one else had approached the airfield that morning.
Of course, even Alias wouldn't persuade the police to leave. That much was certain. They would want to stay, no matter what they were told, just in case Prosper should appear. For that reason, too, they would probably evacuate Alias. And if he had any sense, Alias would immediately take off in Eric's car, before anyone saw who was lurking in the office.
Cadel groaned. The entire scene had flashed into his head: Alias vanishing down the road; the police lulled into a false sense of security; one policeman heading for the office and carelessly opening the door....
What if that policeman turned out to be Saul Greeniaus?
"Don't panic," Cadel told himself, his ears cocked for the rattle of gunfire. "Keep calm. It might not happen." The police might not have arrived. Or if they had arrived, Vadi might have escaped already, by climbing out of a window during Alias's chat with them. In which case Prosper would surely have followed Vadi's example and slipped away quietly, instead of firing at the police from behind the hangar door.
Unless, of course, only a couple of police officers had shown up. Faced with such a modest force, Prosper might choose to risk a shoot-out for the sake of stealing Judith's plane....
Cadel didn't know what to think. He wasn't in the right frame of mind to calculate probabilities. He could hardly control his breathing, let alone the direction of his thoughts.
Then he heard a dull crack from somewhere outside.
At first he held his breath. He listened hard, his ear pressed against the bulkhead. But when nothing else reached him, he couldn't contain himself. He beat his fists against the floor, screaming.
"Help! Help! I'm here! Let me out!"
It was a crazy thing to do. All he gained from it was a pair of sore hands. As he fell back onto his haunches, however—dejected and defeated—he noticed a slight tremor in the fabric of the airplane, which had responded to his shifting weight. And he realized that, since it wasn't a big machine, the impact of something heavy might rock or shake it a little.
So he began to hurl himself against the curved wall in front of him, conscious that the space it encompassed was becoming very stuffy.
"I'm in here! Let me out!" he bawled.
Sonja knew where he was. But Sonja couldn't talk—not without her DynaVox. Prosper also knew where he was, but Prosper might have escaped.
Oh god, thought Cadel. Oh god, oh god, what if everyone goes away and leaves me?
At the top of his voice, he bellowed, "I'M IN HERE!" Whereupon the plane juddered.
He could feel it through the palms of his hands. A kind of lurch, as if someone was climbing on board.
"Hel-hello?" he squeaked.
And he received an answer. It was faint and distorted, but it was still an answer.
"Hello? Who is that? Where are you?"
The accent was Canadian.
FORTY-THREE
"Saul!" Cadel hammered on the hatch. "In here! It's me!"
The hatch was yanked open. Light flooded into the compartment, momentarily blinding him. He shielded his eyes.
"Oh, my god," Saul croaked.
Two hands seized Cadel, one on each arm. He was pulled through the hatchway. Next thing he knew, he was nose to nose with a crouching Saul Greeniaus.
The detective's eyes were red. He was pasty, unshaven, and rumpled.
He wore a stained white T-shirt.
"Are you all right?" he demanded, his voice raw with emotion.
Cadel couldn't speak. Instead, he nodded.
"You're not hurt?" Saul seemed to need reassurance. "He didn't hurt you?"
Cadel shook his head. A lump in his throat prevented him from speaking.
"Thank Christ." Lunging forward, the detective hugged him. "Thank Christ."
Saul's grimy T-shirt smelled of shoe polish, or something similar; Cadel realized that the garment must once have been used as a cleaning rag, and had probably been picked up at Clearview House. Chances were good that Saul hadn't stopped to change or eat or do one single thing for himself since waking up on the floor of that storage cupboard.
Cadel didn't want
to let him go.
"I found Sonja. She's fine. She's in my car," Saul continued, a little unsteadily. "I'm going to get you both out of here. Right now. Is that okay with you?"
Cadel made a huge effort and forced out a husky "Prosper...," at which point Saul pulled away.
"Where is Prosper?" he said, seizing Cadel by the elbows. "Did he shut you up in here?"
Cadel's heart sank. He closed his eyes briefly.
Oh no, he thought. And aloud he croaked, "You mean you didn't get him?"
"No." The detective sounded enormously tired. "Why? Was he here with you?"
"He ... he..." Cadel had to stop for a moment. He swallowed, and licked his dry lips, before continuing. "He heard a car. I think it was yours." Seeing the detective frown, Cadel nodded toward the rear of the hangar. "There's a back door. If you didn't see him, he must have gone out that way."
Saul's whole body sagged. His head drooped. But he didn't let go of Cadel.
He seemed to be thinking.
"What about the other two?" Cadel asked, in a bloodless voice. Saul immediately raised his head again.
"You don't have to worry about them," he replied. "We got both of them—whoever they are."
"You did?" Cadel was astonished. "Even Alias?"
"Alias?"
"The one disguised as the airstrip manager." As Saul blinked, Cadel added, "I told you about him. He used to teach me at the Axis Institute."
"You mean we have Dean Tucker out there?" Saul exclaimed.
"Who?"
"Dean Tucker! That guy! The disguise expert!" Saul's grip tightened. "Are you sure? Really sure?"
"I ... I guess so."Confused, Cadel tried to recall some of Alias's false identities. "Though I've never heard him called Dean Tucker before."
"That's his real name." Saul sat back on his heels, craning around to peer through a window. "I don't believe it," he said. "Dean Tucker. We got Dean Tucker."
"How?" Cadel urgently needed to know. It was clear that events hadn't unfolded according to his predictions. And he was anxious to discover why. "How did you get him? What happened? Didn't he try to fool you?"
"Oh, yeah." Without releasing Cadel, Saul began to shuffle backward out of the cabin, shoulders bowed, knees bent. "And he almost succeeded."
"So what did he do wrong?" Cadel inquired, matching the detective's pace. "What happened?"
Saul reached the cabin door and halted there, hunkering down to check that the coast was clear. Then, upon catching sight of Cadel's face, he heaved a sigh and continued.
"Tucker said he was Eric Rowley. Told us he hadn't seen anyone else this morning. I asked him to go, for his own protection. And he got into that white car." One side of the detective's mouth lifted. "Then I saw him adjust the driver's seat."
"Oh." Cadel understood. If no one else had been at the airstrip, why would Eric have needed to adjust the driver's seat in his own car?
It seemed that Prosper had been wrong about Saul Greeniaus.
Saul wasn't a fool, after all.
"That's when I told him to put his hands up," Saul went on. "We were lucky. The other guy could have fired on us at that point, but he was halfway out a window, and we caught him in the act. One warning shot was all it took. If we hadn't been on the alert, we might have missed him." Saul jumped down from the plane, landing lightly on the floor of the hangar. "Sergeant Cope!" he cried. "Over here!" And he reached back to help Cadel.
"So no one was hurt?" Cadel demanded, fumbling his own jump slightly.
"No one was hurt."
"Did ... did Fiona pass on my message?"
Saul's arm encircled Cadel's shoulders. "Do you think I'd be here if she hadn't?" he said, before turning to confront the owner of the heavy boots galloping toward them.
These boots belonged to a very large, uniformed policeman.
"Is that him?" the policeman panted. "Or is it a her?"
"Yeah." In his oversized T-shirt, Saul looked rather fragile next to the big and beefy Sergeant Cope. "But we just missed Prosper English."
"Bloody hell."
"He's out there, somewhere." Saul pointed at the little door behind the airplane. "He must have taken off—when? About ten minutes ago?" With a raised eyebrow, he sought confirmation from Cadel.
"Something like that," Cadel agreed. (Though he couldn't be sure, because he didn't have his watch.)
"So he can't have got far," Sergeant Cope speculated.
"No," Saul agreed.
"Then we'd better start searching." Plucking his two-way radio from his belt, Sergeant Cope began to retrace his steps. But he froze when Cadel blurted out, "Be careful. He's armed."
"Who?" The sergeant turned back. "You mean English?"
"He's got a gun," said Cadel, and Saul observed, "It's probably my gun." As his audience gaped at him, Saul could only offer up a bitter and humorless smile. "Prosper English took my gun," he admitted, in a tone suggesting that he wasn't about to defend himself against charges of unacceptable negligence.
Sergeant Cope looked embarrassed. Cadel, however, was reviewing the night's events. As far as he could recall, Alias had been wearing Saul's shoulder holster at Clear-view House—and in the car afterward. The holster had been quickly abandoned, but not the gun extracted from it, which had been placed in the glove box of the four-wheel drive.
The four-wheel drive used by Vadi.
"No. It wasn't yours," Cadel told Saul. "Prosper always had his own gun. He gave yours to Vadi—that guy in the yellow shirt. Vadi has it."
Saul glanced at Sergeant Cope, who said, "Not anymore, he doesn't. We disarmed him."
"Where's the gun?" Saul wanted to know.
"With Cam." Sergeant Cope started to move again. "Didn't you see him take it? You must have been heading over here at the time." And he barked a series of call letters into his two-way radio.
Saul followed the sergeant, taking Cadel with him. Outside, the sun was dazzling. It was a moment before Cadel could see, because his eyes still hadn't adjusted fully to daylight after his long spell in the baggage compartment.
"Which one's your car?" he asked, squinting across a wide expanse of concrete toward the office. A police car was parked beside Eric's station wagon; an unmarked, bronze-colored sedan stood nearby, partially blocking the road out. All of these vehicles appeared to be empty, however. Though one uniformed officer was stationed next to the police car, most of his colleagues were clustered around Vadi and Alias, who were sitting on the front steps of the office, wearing handcuffs.
"My car's just over there." Saul indicated a silvery four-wheel drive that had been positioned behind him, close to the hangar. "Sonja's safe inside it, don't worry. I gave her a drink."
"Where's Eric?" asked Cadel.
"In the bathroom. Throwing up."
By this time the four policemen in front of the office had swung around to face Sergeant Cope, who was jogging heavily toward them. Though Cadel assumed that these four men were police officers, only one wore a uniform. The others possessed a kind of dense, serious, no-nonsense quality, which he recognized from countless surveillance teams.
Saul moved to join the group.
"I just want to get my gun," he informed Cadel, in a low voice. "I shouldn't leave here unarmed—not if Prosper's hanging about."
"Where are we going?" Cadel queried. And Saul fixed him with an enigmatic look.
"I don't know," the detective replied. "Somewhere that's not Clearview House is what I'd recommend."
Cadel flushed. He would have liked to speak—to apologize, perhaps—except that he couldn't find the words. In any case, Saul had already focused his attention on Sergeant Cope, who was waving his arms around as he stressed the need for defensive measures. Prosper English was known to be in the vicinity of the airstrip, Sergeant Cope explained. The suspect was armed and dangerous, but was apparently proceeding on foot. For that reason, he might try to hijack a car.
"Or a plane," Saul interjected. "We can't leave this airport unsecured or he might c
ome back." Before anyone could comment, he addressed the youngest uniformed policeman. "You're Cam, aren't you? I'm told you have my gun."
Startled, Cam threw a questioning glance at Sergeant Cope. But the sergeant shook his head.
"I dunno, mate. That gun was in the possession of a fugitive," he demurred, gesturing at Vadi—who sat staring straight ahead, his face utterly impassive. "I dunno if we should let it go. Not right now. Not until it's processed."
"For Chris'sake, Ian, give him his gun," another policeman objected.
"It's evidence," said the sergeant.
"It's protection," said one of the plainclothes officers.
"It's all right." Saul raised a hand. "I just thought I'd ask."
"Aren't you taking those kids?" Sergeant Cope inquired, making a halfhearted attempt to reassure his unarmed colleague. "You won't need a gun if you're getting them outta here. I mean—I wouldn't advise that you slow down for anyone, but other than that—"
"Yeah, I know. You're right." Saul spoke abruptly, as if the whole subject was distasteful to him. "Where are the others? On their way?"
"Yup."
"Then wait for them. Just to be on the safe side. Don't split up, for god's sake—because you're gonna need all the help you can get, if you're taking on Prosper English."
And Saul turned on his heel, walking away with his arm draped around Cadel's shoulders. One of the plainclothes officers called after them, not unsympathetically, "If he tries to shoot you, Saul, just drive straight over the bastard!" But Saul didn't acknowledge this jocular advice.
"What's wrong?" Cadel asked, with some apprehension. He eyed the detective's rigid profile. "Are you mad about something?"
"They think I screwed up," Saul rejoined. His tone was flat. "Which I did, of course. Letting that asshole jump me. No wonder they won't give my gun back. I already lost it once."
"That wasn't your fault!" Cadel hated to see Saul's dejected look, because he felt responsible for it. "Alias is a master of disguise—he'd fool anyone! And he didn't fool you the second time!"
"No," Saul conceded, relinquishing his grip on Cadel in order to drag out his car keys. "But Prosper's no expert, and he fooled me, too."