Dazedly, Cadel watched Kale flash his identification. It looked convincing—though what wouldn't have? No fancy shield by itself would have lured Cadel out from under that bed.
Only Sonja's name did the trick.
"That's it," said Kale, retreating to give Cadel some space. Wriggling slowly into the light, dragging his backpack behind him, Cadel disturbed a lot of dust. He started sneezing. To his surprise, Kale passed him a handkerchief.
"You okay?" the American inquired. "Not hurt?"
Cadel shook his head, wiping his eyes. "You—you know Sonja?" he stammered.
"That's right." Kale, who had holstered his pistol, touched Cadel lightly on the back. He was small and slim and dressed in a black suit with a narrow gray tie. His complexion was sallow. His mousy hair was cut very close to his skull. "Let's get out of here, eh?"
"They've brought a car up," Kale's companion remarked, glancing out the window.
"Good," said Kale.
"But how?" Cadel allowed himself to be led down the corridor, too urgently in need of an answer to worry about where he was being taken. "
How
do you know Sonja?"
"Well, now, that's complicated." Kale hesitated in the vestibule. "
Hey, Nick?" he.
called, to someone outside. "
We all clear
?"
"Yeah!" came the reply.
"Okay. Go."
Before Cadel could say anything else, there was a flurry of activity. He found himself suddenly hemmed in by six big men in suits and uniforms. Three were wearing helmets. He was swept out the front door, down the stairs, and into a dark blue car that was parked in the driveway.
Not until he had landed on the backseat of this car did he catch a glimpse of his adoptive mother. She lay flat on her face in a bed of annuals, with her hands cuffed behind her back and an armed man standing over her.
"Hey!" said Cadel, as Kale Platz slid into the seat beside him. "Hey, what are you going to do with her?"
"Her?" Kale didn't sound very concerned. "She's under arrest. She assaulted a police officer." He leaned forward and addressed the driver of the car. "Okay. Let's go."
The car began to move. Craning back over his shoulder, Cadel saw camellia hedges closing in behind them, blocking the Piggotts' house from view. He tried to count the police officers scattered around, but the car was moving too fast. Then they were on the road, and there were more cars, and more people, and someone was winding yellow crime-scene tape around telephone poles and tree trunks. Cadel saw, on the footpath, a shrouded human shape.
He gasped.
"Who—who—?"
"Nobody you know," Kale interrupted grimly. "A police officer."
By this time, however, Cadel was on his knees, peering out the back window. He had seen the gray BMW. It was empty. Its windshield was shattered.
But Cadel's car was gathering speed, and the BMW rapidly dwindled in size before disappearing behind a screen of fir trees.
"Where's Vadi?" Cadel demanded. "He was in the gray car—"
"He got away," said Kale. "But we'll find him. Sit down. Keep your head low."
"How do you know Sonja?" Cadel was still confused, but there was one thing, at least, that he had to find out. "Tell me!"
"I spoke to her," Kale replied. "I got the whole story. She was worried about you."
"She was?" said Cadel.
"I'm not surprised." The driver of the car was a policeman. He seemed to be chewing gum. He had an Australian accent. "Just look at the size of this kid."
"Good things come in small packages," Kale rejoined enigmatically.
"But how do you
know
her?" Cadel exclaimed.
"She contacted us," said Kale. "You were supposed to phone her on Sunday, and you didn't, so she figured you must be in trouble."
"I was."
"Yeah. Well. She's not stupid, is she? Poor kid. Anyway, she mightn't have attracted much attention if she hadn't mentioned the name Darkkon. Because of the Darkkon alert."
"The what?" said Cadel.
"We know who you are, mate." The driver glanced into his rearview mirror; Cadel saw his eyes reflected there. "You're his son, right?"
"Let's not talk about that now," said Kale without expression.
"But I
want
to talk about it!" Cadel was becoming agitated. What did it all mean? What was happening? "What's the Darkkon alert? Is it an international hot button, or something? Do you have to ring a special number if someone mentions the name Darkkon?"
The driver snorted, as if he was trying to swallow a laugh. Kale regarded Cadel thoughtfully.
"If a crime has been committed anywhere in the world and there appears to be a Darkkon connection, then my office is informed," he finally said. "I flew in yesterday."
"Because of Sonja?" asked Cadel.
"Because of the lawyer. Guy who murdered his girlfriend. He's scared to death of Darkkon, goes straight to the nearest lockup and spills his guts in exchange for protection. That was on Friday. Took a bit of time for word to filter through. Then your friend Sonja starts talking about someone called Cadel Darkkon, son of Phineas. At first we thought it might be a hoax. But Barry Deakin confirmed."
"And Sonja had my address," Cadel murmured, the scenario unfolding in his head. "And you've been staking the place out, waiting to see if I came back."
"That's right."
Cadel didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sonja had been worried! About
him!
He hugged the knowledge close, letting it warm his chilled heart.
"Listen, Cadel," the American went on. He spoke quietly. Dryly. "Sonja says you've had enough of your dad. She says you've been trying to dodge him. Is that right?"
Cadel nodded. He was hardly listening, being preoccupied with his own thoughts. Sonja! Where was she? Did she know that he was all right?
"Well, we can help you there," Kale went on. "We've had enough of your dad ourselves. This Axis Institute cesspit—we're only just getting a grip on it, but it's the kind of thing I'm talking about. The kind of thing we could do without." A pause. "Cadel?" He prodded Cadel's arm. "Are you listening?"
"Uh—yeah."
"You went there, didn't you? You attended the Axis Institute?" Again, Cadel nodded.
"We'll track down the other students," Kale assured him. "Find out what they can tell us. They've mostly dispersed, but we'll track 'em down. Meanwhile, what we
really
want to know is if you'd like to help us out." The small gray eyes were strangely compelling. "Your dad might be serving time, but his operation's still grinding on because of one man. His second-in-command. Guy called Prosper English. You know him?"
Cadel shook his head.
"Sure?"
"I don't know anyone by that name."
"What about Thaddeus Roth?" said Kale, and Cadel whipped around to face him. "That's the name Prosper's been using lately. Thaddeus Roth. You know Roth?"
"He knows Roth," said the driver, who had been using his rearview mirror again. "He's scared of Roth; look at him."
"The more you can tell us about Roth, the better," Kale remarked. "He's the one we need."
Cadel swallowed. Talk about Thaddeus? To the police?
He would be throwing his life away.
"If—if I tell you about Thaddeus, can I go?" he queried.
"'Go'?" Kale repeated.
"Somewhere. Out of the way. Where no one can find me."
Kale pursed his lips. They were very thin.
"I guess we can help you do that," he said at last, slowly. "Billet you with a foster family. But not until we've cleaned up Darkkon's whole outfit. Think about it. Until that organization is dismantled, you're a sitting duck. Your father's going to want you back. You're not only his son—you know too much about how he operates. How Prosper operates. We've gotta make sure you're safe; we can't let you run around on your own until the coast is clear."
"But I can disguise myself!" Cadel insisted. "I can! I'm really good at that! I'll have a whole different identity!"
"Sure, sure." Kale was peering out the window. "When we know it's safe."
"But—"
"Anyway, you're a minor. You need a social worker, legal representation, some kind of official status..." Kale shook his head. "I've got to tell you, Cadel, you're the invisible kid. We can't find any birth records, adoption records, nothing. We didn't even know you existed." Kale studied Cadel with a kind of subdued intensity. Cadel had rarely experienced such a sharp and searching regard—except from Thaddeus. "I've gotta say, you don't resemble your father any," the American murmured.
All at once, darkness fell. They had plunged into some kind of underground garage.
Cadel, who hadn't been paying any attention to their route, jumped like a rabbit.
"It's okay," said Kale, in soothing accents. "This is a secure facility."
"And it's where we get out," the driver announced. "How you feeling, Cadel?"
"I—I don't know."
"It'll be over soon," Kale assured him. "No more Darkkon. No more Prosper English. Just sit tight, and let us do the worrying."
It didn't take Cadel long to work out that he had been brought to a police station. It was a very big police station—a police
headquarters,
in fact—which seemed to contain several floors full of offices and corridors and laboratories. Everything had a slightly worn and grubby appearance. The gray carpet was stained and frayed, and many of the vertical blinds were broken.
Cadel waited in someone's office for half an hour. After that, he was put in a drab, putty-colored room with a nice young police officer called Bronwyn who gave him a can of Coke and a plate of chocolate cookies. Bronwyn, who had a big warm smile, asked him what his favorite TV shows were. When he replied that he didn't watch much TV, she asked him what he did instead.
"Stuff," Cadel muttered.
"Where do you go to school?"
"I don't."
"You should. How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen?"
"I've graduated," said Cadel. "Oh," said Bronwyn.
"What's happening? Why am I here? Don't they want to know about Thaddeus?"
"There's a lot going on at the moment." Bronwyn smiled encouragingly. She had large brown eyes and full cheeks. She was quite pretty. "They're looking for a social worker at the moment. You can't be interviewed unless there's someone present to take care of your interests. We have to make sure everything's done right. Just give them a few more minutes."
Munching a cookie, Cadel reviewed his situation. It wasn't good. On the one hand, he was out of Thaddeus's clutches. But now he was stuck inside a police station, which wasn't exactly the safest place in the world. Suppose Thaddeus had agents working for the police? Even if he didn't, a "secure facility" like this one would be the obvious place to look. Kale had been right. Dr. Darkkon would want his son back. He would stop at nothing to penetrate the police defenses. In fact...
Cadel's chewing slowed as his mind began to work more smoothly. It occurred to him that if Thaddeus—or Prosper—was Kale's number-one target, then Cadel would be the perfect bait. Who but Thaddeus would be given the job of rescuing Darkkon's son? No doubt the police were hoping to lure Thaddeus out of hiding by dangling Cadel in front of his nose.
Well, that wasn't going to happen. It didn't
need
to happen. Cadel lifted his gaze to the ceiling; he noted the sprinkler system, the air-conditioning ducts, the flickering fluorescent lights. He got up and drifted to the window, which commanded a view of inner-city treetops, chimneys, and apartment blocks. He judged himself to be on the second floor. Below him, the building stood in a small area of paved yard, with no fence or wall separating it from the street. Security must all be in the foyer.
Pressing his nose against the glass, he could see one half of the street that bordered the building's western side. There were several corrugated garage doors with
NO PARKING AT ALL TIMES
splashed on them in fading paint. There was a little kebab shop, a Laundromat, a row of blank-faced row houses with no front yards; and down the street a bit, near a busy intersection, a bus shelter. A bus shelter
and
a taxi stand.
Cadel wondered where Sonja was at that very moment. He wondered what she was thinking. He would never know if he stayed around here. Even if Thaddeus
didn't
get to him, Cadel would be kept apart. Monitored. Followed. It would be like the Axis Institute all over again; he shuddered at the thought. They would stick him in safe houses, smother him with police protection, and forbid him to go anywhere dangerous.
Like Weatherwood House, for example. Thaddeus had sent agents to Weatherwood House already. There was nothing to stop him from sending them again, if he was desperate.
Cadel's brain clicked through its calculations while his gaze roamed around the room. His backpack was on the floor. It contained all that he needed. He knew exactly where he was—in the dead center of a large and crowded city full of bolt holes. What's more, there was a taxi stand not far away, and a railway station not far beyond that. He checked the time: twenty to five. It would be getting dark soon.
After about five minutes, he turned to look at Bronwyn, who had subsided into a blank-eyed reverie.
"I know where Prosper English lives," he said.
Bronwyn blinked, then shook herself.
"What's that, sweetie?" she asked.
"I know where Prosper English lives," Cadel repeated. "The man you're all looking for. I slept at his house last night. Doesn't anyone want to hear about it?"
"Uh—well—yeah. Of course." Bronwyn was beginning to look flustered. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But I'm not the one to tell. Especially when you're by yourself, like this—"
"He lives in a house on a headland. A house called Curramulla," Cadel continued. "It's about forty-five minutes south of Wollongong—I'm not sure where, exactly. It's supposed to belong to a man called Ivan. I don't know the second name." Cadel regarded Bronwyn calmly with his guileless blue gaze. "Don't you think you'd better tell someone?" he said.
"Probably. Yes. Urn..."