Alex paused, breathing heavily. “How do I get out of here?” he asked.
“Just follow the lake round,” Rufus said.
“There’s a path…”
Rufus was still on his knees. There were tears in his eyes. Alex realized that he was pointing the silver-plated shotgun in his direction. He turned it away, disgusted with himself. This boy wasn’t the enemy. He was nothing.
“Don’t follow me,” Alex said, and began to walk.
“Please…!” Rufus called after him. “Can I have my gun back? My mother would kill me if I lost it.”
Alex stopped. He weighed the weapon in his hands, then threw it with all his strength. The hand-crafted Italian shotgun spun twice in the dying light then disappeared with a splash into the middle of the lake. “You’re too young to play with guns,” he said.
He walked away, letting the forest swallow him up.
THE TUNNEL
The man sitting in the gold, antique chair turned his head slowly and gazed out of the window at the snow-covered slopes of Point Blanc. Dr Hugo Grief was almost sixty years old with short white hair and a face that was almost colourless too. His skin was white, his lips vague shadows. Even his tongue was no more than grey. And yet, against this blank background, he wore circular wire spectacles with dark red lenses. The effect was startling. And, for him, the entire world would be the colour of blood. He had long fingers, the nails beautifully manicured. He was dressed in a dark suit buttoned up to his neck. If there were such a thing as a vampire, it would look very much like Hugo Grief.
“I have decided to move the Gemini Project into its last phase,” he said. He spoke with a South African accent, biting into each word before it left his mouth. “There can be no further delay.”
“I understand, Dr Grief.”
There was a woman sitting opposite Dr Grief, dressed in tight-fitting Lycra with a sweat band round her head. This was Eva Stellenbosch. She had just finished her morning work-out – two hours of weightlifting and aerobic exercise – and she was still breathing heavily, her huge muscles rising and falling. Mrs Stellenbosch had a facial structure that wasn’t quite human, with lips curving out far in front of her nose and wisps of bright ginger hair hanging over a high-domed forehead. She was holding a glass filled with some milky green liquid. Her fingers were thick and stubby. She had to be careful not to break the glass.
She sipped her drink, then frowned. “Are you sure we’re ready?” she asked.
“We have no choice in the matter. We have had two unsatisfactory results in the last few months. First Ivanov. Then Roscoe in New York. Quite apart from the expense of arranging the terminations, it’s possible that someone may have connected the two deaths.”
“Possible, but unlikely,” Mrs Stellenbosch said.
“The intelligence services are idle and inefficient, it is true. The CIA in America. MI6 in England. Even the KGB! They’re all shadows of what they used to be. But even so, there’s always the chance that one of them might have accidentally stumbled onto something. The sooner we end this phase of the operation, the more chance we have of remaining … unnoticed.” Dr Grief brought his hands together and rested his chin on his fingertips. “When is the final boy arriving?” he asked.
“Alex?” Mrs Stellenbosch emptied her glass and set it down. She opened her handbag and took out a handkerchief which she used to wipe her lips. “I am travelling to England tomorrow,” she said.
“Excellent. You’ll take the boy to Paris on the way here?”
“Of course, Doctor. If that is what you wish.”
“It is very much what I wish, Mrs Stellenbosch. We can do all the preliminary work there. It will save time. What about the Sprintz boy?”
“I’m afraid we still need another few days.”
“That means that he and Alex will be here at the same time.”
“Yes.”
Dr Grief considered. He had to balance the risk of the two boys meeting against the dangers of moving too fast. It was fortunate that he had a scientific mind. His calculations were never wrong. “Very well,” he said. “The Sprintz boy can stay with us for another few days.”
Mrs Stellenbosch nodded.
“Alex Friend is an excellent catch for us,” Dr Grief said
“Supermarkets?” The woman sounded unconvinced.
“His father has the prime minister’s ear. He is an impressive man. His son, I am sure, will meet all our expectations.” Dr Grief smiled. His eyes glowed red. “Very soon, we’ll have Alex here at the academy. And then, at last, the Gemini Project will be complete.”
“You’re sitting all wrong,” Fiona said. “Your back isn’t straight. Your hands should be lower. And your feet are pointing the wrong way.”
“What does it matter, so long as you’re enjoying yourself?” Alex asked, speaking through gritted teeth.
It was the fourth day of his stay at Haverstock Hall and Fiona had taken him out riding. Alex wasn’t enjoying himself at all. Before the ride, he’d had to endure the inevitable lecture – although he had barely listened. The horses were Iberian or Hungarian. They’d won a bucketful of gold medals. Alex didn’t care. All he knew was that his horse was big and black and attracted flies. And that he was riding it with all the style of a sack of potatoes on a trampoline.
The two of them had barely mentioned the business in the forest. When Alex had limped back to the house, soaked and freezing, Fiona had politely fetched him a towel and offered him a cup of tea.
“You tried to kill me!” Alex said.
“Don’t be silly!” Fiona looked at Alex with something like pity in her eyes. “We would never do that. Rufus is a very nice boy.”
“What…?”
“It was just a game, Alex. Just a bit of fun.”
And that was it. Fiona had smiled as if everything had been explained and then gone to have a swim. Alex had spent the rest of the evening with the files. He was trying to take in a fake history that lasted fourteen years. There were uncles and aunts, friends at Eton, a whole crowd of people he had to know without ever having met any of them. More than that, he was trying to get the feel of this luxurious lifestyle. That was why he was here now, out riding with Fiona – she upright in her riding jacket and breeches, he bumping along behind.
They had ridden for about an hour and a half when they came to the tunnel. Fiona had tried to teach Alex a bit of technique – the difference, for example, between walking, trotting and cantering. But this was one sport he had already decided he would never take up. Every bone in his body had been rattled out of place and his bottom was so bruised he wondered if he would ever be able to sit down again. Fiona was enjoying his torment. He even wondered if she had chosen a particularly bumpy route to add to his bruises. Or maybe it was just a particularly bumpy horse.
There was a single railway line ahead of them, with an automatic level-crossing equipped with a bell and flashing lights to warn motorists of any approaching train. Fiona steered her horse – a smaller grey – towards it. Alex’s horse automatically followed. He assumed they were going to cross the line, but when she reached the barrier, Fiona stopped.
“There’s a short-cut we can take if you want to get home,” she said.
“A short-cut would be great,” Alex admitted.
“It’s that way.” Fiona pointed up the line, and there was the tunnel, a gaping black hole in the side of a hill, surrounded by dark red Victorian brick. Alex looked at her to see if she was joking. She was obviously quite serious. He turned back to the tunnel. It was like the barrel of a gun, pointing at him, warning him to keep away. He could almost imagine the giant finger on the trigger, somewhere behind the hill. How long was it? Looking more carefully, he could see a pin-prick of light at the other end. Perhaps up to a kilometre away.
“You’re not being serious,” he said.
“Actually, Alex, I don’t usually tell jokes. When I say something, I mean it. I’m just like my father.”
“Your father isn’t barking mad
,” Alex muttered.
Fiona pretended not to hear him. “The tunnel is exactly one kilometre long,” she explained. “There’s a bridge on the other side, then another level-crossing. If we go that way, we can be home in thirty minutes. Otherwise it’s an hour and a half back the way we came.”
“Then let’s go the way we came.”
“Oh Alex, don’t be such a scaredy-cat!” Fiona pouted at him. “There’s only one train an hour on this line and the next one isn’t due for” – she looked at her watch – “twenty minutes. I’ve been through the tunnel a hundred times and it never takes more than five minutes. Less if you canter.”
“It’s still crazy to ride on a railway line.”
“Well, you’ll have to find your own way home if you turn back.” She kicked with her heels and her horse jerked forward, past the barrier and onto the line. “I’ll see you later.”
But Alex followed her. He would never have been able to ride back to the house on his own. He didn’t know the way and he could barely control the horse. Even now it was following Fiona with no prompting from him. Would the two animals really enter the darkness of the tunnel? It seemed incredible, but Fiona had said they’d done it before and sure enough the horse walked into the side of the hill without even hesitating.
Alex shivered as the light was suddenly cut off behind him. It was cold and clammy inside. The air smelled of soot and diesel. The tunnel was a natural echo-chamber. The horses’ hooves rattled all around them as they struck against the gravel between the sleepers. What if his horse stumbled? Alex put the thought out of his mind. The leather saddles creaked. Slowly his eyes got used to the dark. A certain amount of sunshine was filtering in from behind. More comfortingly, the way out was visible straight ahead, the circle of light widening with every step as they drew nearer. He tried to relax. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
And then Fiona spoke. She had slowed down, allowing his horse to catch up with hers. “Are you still worried about the train, Alex?” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to go faster…”
He heard the riding crop whistle through the air and felt his horse jerk as Fiona whipped it hard on the rear. The horse whinnied and leapt forward. Alex was thrown backwards, almost off the saddle. Digging in with his legs he just managed to cling on, but the top half of his body was at a crazy angle, the reins tearing into the horse’s mouth. Fiona laughed. Alex was aware only of the wind rushing past him, the thick blackness spinning round his face and the horse’s hooves striking heavily at the gravel as the animal careered forward. Dust blew into his eyes, blinding him. He thought he was going to fall.
But then, miraculously, they had burst out into the light. Alex fought for his balance and brought the horse back under control, pulling back with the reins and squeezing the horse’s flanks with his knees. He took a deep breath, spat out an oath and waited for Fiona to appear.
His horse had come to rest on the bridge that she had mentioned. The bridge was fashioned out of thick iron girders and spanned a river. There had been a lot of rain that month and, about fifteen metres below him, the water was racing past, dark green and deep. Carefully, he turned round to face the tunnel. If he lost control here it would be easy to fall over the edge. The sides of the bridge couldn’t have been more than a metre high.
He could hear Fiona approaching. She had been cantering after him, probably laughing the entire way. He gazed into the tunnel – and that was when the grey burst out, raced past him and disappeared through the level-crossing on the other side of the bridge.
But Fiona wasn’t on it.
The horse had come out alone.
It took Alex a few seconds to work it out. His head was reeling. She must have fallen off. Perhaps her horse had stumbled. She could be lying inside the tunnel. On the track. How long was there until the next train? Twenty minutes, she had said. But at least five of those minutes had gone, and she might have been exaggerating to begin with. What should he do? He had only three choices.
Go back in on foot.
Go back in on the horse.
Go home and forget about her.
No. He had only two choices. He knew that. He swore for a second time, then seized hold of the reins. Somehow he would get this horse to obey him. He had to get the girl out and he had to do it fast.
Perhaps his desperation managed to communicate itself to the horse’s brain. The animal wheeled round and tried to back away, but when Alex kicked with his heels it stumbled forward and reluctantly entered the darkness of the tunnel for a second time. Alex kicked again. He didn’t want to hurt it but he could think of no other way to make it obey him.
The horse trotted on. Alex searched ahead. “Fiona!” he called out. There was no reply. He had hoped that she would be walking towards him, but he couldn’t hear any footsteps. If only there was more light!
The horse stopped and there she was, right in front of him, lying on the ground, her arms and chest actually on the line. If a train came now, it would cut her in half. It was too dark to see her face, but when she spoke he heard the pain in her voice.
“Alex,” she said. “I think I’ve broken my ankle.”
“What happened?”
“There was a cobweb or something. I was trying to keep up with you. It went in my face and I lost my balance.”
She’d been trying to keep up with him! She sounded as if she was blaming him – as if she’d forgotten that she had whipped his horse on in the first place.
“Can you get up?” Alex asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Alex sighed. Keeping a tight hold on the reins, he slid off his horse. Fiona couldn’t have timed it better. She had fallen right in the middle of the tunnel. He forced himself not to panic. According to her calculations, the next train must still be at least ten minutes away. He reached down to help her up. His foot came to rest on one of the rails … and he felt something. Under his foot. Shivering up his leg. The track was vibrating.
The train was on its way.
“You’ve got to stand up,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He could already see the train in his imagination, thundering along the line. When it plunged into the tunnel, it would be a five hundred tonne torpedo that would smash them to pieces. He could hear the grinding of the wheels, the roar of the engine. Blood and darkness. It would be a horrible way to die.
But he still had time. “Can you move your toes?” he asked.
“I think so.” Fiona was clutching onto him.
“Then your ankle’s probably sprained, not broken. Come on.”
He dragged her up, wondering if it would be possible to stay inside the tunnel, at the edge of the track. If they hugged the wall, the train might simply go past them. But Alex knew there wouldn’t be enough space. And even if the train missed them, it would still hit the horse. Suppose it derailed? Dozens of people could be killed.
“What train comes this way?” he asked. “Does it carry passengers?”
“Yes.” Fiona was sounding tearful. “It’s a Virgin train. Heading up to Glasgow.”
Alex sighed. It was just his luck to get a Virgin train that arrived on time.
Fiona froze. “What’s that?” she asked.
She had heard the clanging of a bell. What was it? Of course – the level-crossing! It was signalling the approach of the train, the barrier lowering itself over the road.
And then Alex heard a second sound that made his blood run cold. For a moment he couldn’t breathe. It was extraordinary. His breath had got stuck in his lungs and refused to get up to his mouth. His whole body was paralysed as if some switch had been thrown in his brain. He was simply terrified.
The screech of a train whistle. It was still a mile or more away but the tunnel was acting as a sound conductor and he could feel it almost cutting into him. And now there was another noise. The rolling thunder of the diesel engine. It was moving fast towards them. Underneath his foot, the rail was vibrating more violently.
Al
ex gulped for air and forced his legs to obey him. “Get on the horse,” he shouted. “I’ll help you.”
Not caring how much pain he caused her, he dragged Fiona next to the horse and forced her up towards the saddle. The noise was getting louder with every second that passed. The rail was humming softly, like a giant tuning-fork. The very air inside the tunnel seemed to be in motion, spinning left and right as if trying to get out of the way.
Fiona squealed and Alex felt her weight leave his arms as she fell onto the saddle. The horse whinnied and took a half step sideways, and for a dreadful moment Alex thought she was going to ride off without him. There was just enough light to make out the shapes of both the animal and its rider. He saw Fiona grabbing the reins. She brought the horse back under control. Alex reached up and caught hold of its mane, using the thick hair to pull himself onto the saddle in front of Fiona. The noise of the approaching train was getting louder and louder. Soot and loose cement were trickling out of the curving walls. The wind currents were twisting faster, the rails singing. For a moment the two of them were tangled together, but then he had the reins and she was clinging onto him, her arms around his chest.
“Go!” he shouted, and kicked the horse.
The horse needed no encouragement. It raced for the light, galloping up the railway line, throwing Alex and Fiona back and forth into each other.
Alex didn’t dare look behind him, but he felt the train as it reached the mouth of the tunnel and plunged into it, travelling at one hundred and five miles per hour. A shock wave hammered into them. The train was punching the air out of its way, filling the space with solid steel. The horse understood the danger and burst forward with new speed, its hooves flying over the sleepers in great strides. Ahead of them the tunnel mouth opened up but Alex knew, with a sickening sense of despair, that they weren’t going to make it. Even when they got out of the tunnel, they would still be hemmed in by the sides of the bridge. The second level-crossing was a hundred metres further down the line. They might get out, but they would die in the open air.