Hunted (13 page)

‘Sure.’ Nico roused himself from the couch where he’d been sitting.

It was obvious to me he had no interest in the book. Reading isn’t exactly high on Nico’s list of priorities, but he clearly didn’t want to seem rude. He followed Harry through the door. They disappeared from sight.

Seconds later there was a dull thud, like the sound of someone dropping a book or a shoe on the floor. Ketty and Ed glanced at each other.

‘Nico?’ I called. ‘Harry?’

No reply.

I stood up.

‘Wait.’ Ketty’s eyes glazed.

I knew that look – she was trying to see into the next few minutes. Ed and I watched her intently. Seconds later she shook herself, focusing on the room. And us.

‘
No
.’ Her face paled. ‘We have to leave. Now.’

‘You can’t.’ Harry was standing in the bedroom door. ‘You haven’t met my dad yet.’

‘What’s he doing to Nico?’ Ketty shrieked.

‘Who?’ I stared at her bewildered, then back to Harry. ‘What’s going on?’

Harry glanced at me, his eyes defiant. ‘I had to do this,’ he said.

‘Do
what?’
I said.

‘What his father asked him, of course.’ A familiar figure appeared in the doorway beside Harry. A man I knew only too well.

I stared from him, back to Harry, unable to believe my eyes.

Beside me Ed gasped. Ketty moaned.

‘This is your dad?’ I said to Harry.
‘Him?’

‘Now, Dylan, is that any way to speak to your godfather?’

And Jack Linden stepped into the room.

14: The scan

Jack Linden
was Harry’s father? For a second, I couldn’t accept it was true. But even as I reeled from the shock, I could see the similarity in their high cheekbones, wide, blue eyes and dark hair.

Jack stood, taking us all in. He looked just as I remembered him – right down to the smart designer suit, crisp white shirt and the Ray-Ban shades in his hand.

I stared at Harry. He was avoiding my eyes, keeping his gaze on Jack.

‘Take Ketty into the room with Nico,’ Jack ordered, putting on his sunglasses.

Harry grabbed Ketty’s arm and took her next door. I watched him leave, feeling numb.

‘Are you really Harry’s dad?’ I said, my throat dry.

Jack smiled – that wolfish grin I remembered so well from earlier in the year. ‘Yes, Dylan. Not that I’ve spent a lot of time with him. But that’s all about to change. It’s like with the Romans.’

‘What?’ I stared at him.

‘Roman soldiers would often leave their boys with the mothers, then call for them once they reached a certain age . . . to train them to be men.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What are you doing with Nico and Ketty?’ Ed stood beside me, his fists clenched.

‘They’ve both been drugged, so that Nico can’t perform any telekinesis and Ketty won’t be able to prefigure what’s going to happen in the future.’ Jack smiled. ‘You see how well I know and understand your gifts?’ He tapped his sunglasses. ‘Yours included, Ed. And don’t think you can scare me with the remote mind-reading either. I know that you can only read minds at a distance when you’re connecting to other people with the Medusa gene. Otherwise, it has to be face to face.’

I glanced at Ed, my mouth falling open. Was that true? One look at Ed’s expression suggested it was. Why hadn’t Ed said anything?

Harry reappeared from the bedroom. ‘Nico and Ketty are both unconscious,’ he said.

‘Good.’ Jack moved closer to his son, speaking in a low voice so I couldn’t catch the words.

I glanced at Ed, inviting him to mind-read me.

With a
whoosh
he was inside my head.

We have to stop them
, I thought-spoke instantly.

How?
Ed sounded frantic.
He’s completely on top of everything we can do.

Is that true that you can’t mind-read people at a distance unless they have the Medusa gene?
I asked.

Yes, I think so. I’ve tried loads of times and apart from my sister, Amy, it hasn’t worked with anyone, but she and I are related so—

Why didn’t you tell me?
I thought-spoke angrily.

You never asked. Look, I’m going to try contacting Amy again now. I did it a second ago, but she was asleep and I couldn’t wake her.

Ed broke the connection.

I turned to face Jack. Never mind remote mind-reading. How could I use my force field to help us get away?

Jack was watching Ed curiously. Harry vanished into the bathroom and shut the door.

‘What about me and Ed?’ I said. ‘What are you going to do with us?’

‘Nothing. That is . . .’ Jack drew a gun from his jacket. ‘I won’t hurt you if you keep still and stay quiet. Can you manage that, Ed?’

Ed nodded. I stared at the gun. My heart sank. I knew that
I
could withstand a bullet from a gun – but what about the others? I couldn’t leave them at Jack’s mercy.

‘Mmmn.’ Jack grinned again. ‘I think we’re better off with you unconscious, too, Ed. Come with me.’ He cocked the gun.

With a final despairing glance at me, Ed followed Jack into the other room. As he disappeared from view, my chest tightened. Now I was truly alone.

I knew the hotel door was locked, but maybe I could alert reception to the fact that we were here.

I crept across the room to the phone. Lifted the receiver.

‘Put that down,’ Jack barked from the doorway.

I replaced the handset and turned to him, defiant.

‘What do you want?’

‘The code for the Medusa gene that’s inside you, of course.’ Jack crossed the room and picked up a brown canvas bag I hadn’t noticed before.

‘How did you find out about that? You didn’t know earlier this year or you’d have looked for it, then.’

‘That’s true.’ Jack opened the bag and drew out what looked like a cross between a laptop and a gigantic cell phone.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

‘It’s how I’m going to find the code,’ he said. ‘It’s state of the art . . . a portable scanner.’

I stared, open-mouthed, as Jack set up the scanner. Harry reappeared from the bathroom. He stood awkwardly, in the doorway. He was still avoiding my eye.

‘Over here, Dylan,’ Jack commanded.

‘No.’

Jack smiled. ‘Then I’ll come to you.’

He advanced, switching on the scanner as he walked. It made a low humming noise.

I backed into the corner of the hotel room. Jack, still smiling, came closer.

I steeled myself, force field fully engaged, ready to bat the scanner away from me. But Jack stopped, about a metre away.

‘Listen, Dylan,’ he said. ‘I know you can stop me harming you, but Ed, Ketty and Nico are completely defenceless in the other room. I assume you won’t want me to hurt
them.
’ He held up his gun. It was fitted with a silencer.

Damn him. Even if I provoked him into shooting at me, no one outside the suite was going to hear.

I gritted my teeth.

‘It’s your choice,’ Jack said smoothly.

I stared at him, defeated. There was no way I could protect all the others.

‘Raise your arms away from your body.’ Jack brought the scanner closer.

I released my force field. Slowly and methodically, Jack moved the scanner up my back.

‘What are you going to do when you find the microchip?’ I asked.

‘It should be just below the skin,’ Jack said. ‘A touch of local anaesthetic and getting it out’ll be no problem.’

I couldn’t believe it. After all our attempts to keep the Medusa code away from Geri and the officials she reported to . . . and now here we were, captured by a man ten times less scrupulous than she was.

My head spun.

‘So how come it took you so long to capture me?’ I said, trying to sound as scathing as possible. ‘Harry found me two nights ago.’

‘Yes, and I
was
a little cross with him for letting you out of his sight,’ Jack said lightly, passing the scanner over my shoulder. ‘I’d have caught up with you myself sooner, but I was still on my way back to the country. I’d been travelling here since I found out you hacked into the murder database at the records office.’

‘How did you know about that?’ My mouth fell open.

‘An old contact with a line into the database. He alerted me that someone had done a search on William Fox. I got another contact to check the CCTV in the street outside and there you were. I knew you’d try and find out more, and that you’d think the information on your dad’s murder was stored in the Hub, so I sent Harry to find you there.’

‘So you knew my dad was murdered?’

Jack shrugged. ‘I know his death was classified – not the straightforward accidental death that everyone said. I don’t know exactly what happened to him, though.’

Was that true? I was way past being able to tell when anyone was lying to me any more.

‘Did you send me texts warning me not to look into my dad’s death?’

‘Of course not.’ Jack glanced up. ‘Why would I do that?’

Again, I had no idea if he was lying or not.

‘That’s funny,’ I said. ‘Milton and McKenna said they didn’t send me any threatening texts as well. One of you must be lying.’

Jack shrugged, then moved the scanner along my right arm.

‘Are you working with them?’ I said, seized with a sudden idea.

‘Those losers?’ Jack made a face. ‘I’m amazed they even managed to track you down.’ He sighed. ‘They hacked my emails to Harry. You see, after I found out you’d been looking into your dad’s death, I went back to some of his old papers and I found this note of his – a note to your mum – saying that there was a copy inside the most precious expression of their love. Milton and McKenna took that literally . . . They thought your dad meant your mum’s wedding ring, which you were wearing in the photo they had of you. I knew all along William meant inside you. He adored you.’ Jack chuckled. ‘I told Harry not to let that cat out of the bag, though. Didn’t want you finding the code before I found you.’

I glared at Harry. He gazed uneasily back, meeting my eye for the first time since Jack’s arrival.

‘Don’t blame Harry,’ Jack said cheerily. ‘He was under instructions from me to do everything he did.’

‘You mean, make friends with me so I’d call him if anything happened?’

‘Let’s get back to work.’ Jack transferred the scanner to his other hand and moved it slowly along my raised left arm.

My thoughts went back to my dad’s murder. Was Jack
really
ignorant about what happened? He was a low life and a conman, quite prepared to sacrifice us to make money – but he wasn’t, himself, capable of murder. At least I didn’t think so.

‘But if my dad was murdered, then people at the Hub
must
have known who did it,’ I insisted. ‘Those government agents
own
the police. You know that.’

Jack made a face as he passed the scanner across my stomach. ‘Well, I’m certain Geri didn’t know anything. She was pretty senior. The only person she reported to was Bookman – the main guy at the Hub. I know your dad had a series of meetings with him just before he died, but if Bookman was the one who hushed it up, he did a very thorough job.’

I thought back to Mom’s diary entries for the week before my dad was killed:
W to Hub.
Jack wasn’t just confirming what I already knew – that my dad had met the head person at the Hub during his final few days. He was giving me a name too: Bookman.

My dad must have told Bookman who he suspected wanted to kill him. Which meant Bookman might know who the murderer was.

My throat tightened. ‘So where’s Bookman now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t even know his real name.’ Jack frowned. ‘Dammit, the scanner’s not picking anything up. Let me try your head.’

‘My
head
?’ I said. ‘My dad wouldn’t have inserted a microchip into my
head.
’

‘I admit it seems unlikely.’ Jack moved the scanner carefully down the back of my head. ‘But maybe the chip travelled. It’s been there a long time.’

As he spoke, the scanner passed over the right side of the back of my neck. It let out a series of rapid beeps.

Jack froze. ‘That’s
it.’
He grinned. ‘We found it.’

I reached my hand round to feel the back of my neck. The right side felt exactly the same as the left – muscle and tendons stretched under the skin.

‘Are you sure?’

Jack nodded. ‘Only problem is, it’s going to be tricky to reach. I daren’t take it out by myself.’

‘Why?’ I snapped. ‘Scared you’ll damage the microchip?’

‘Or you.’ Jack smiled.

I snorted. Like Jack cared about me.

He put down the scanner and glanced over at Harry. ‘Keep an eye on Dylan for me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to make a call.’ He disappeared into the room that already contained Ketty, Nico and Ed.

Harry wandered over to me and sat, self-consciously, on the couch opposite.

‘What’s he going to do with us when he gets this chip out?’ I said.

‘Leave the four of you in here, unconscious. He’s going to up the drugs, so you’ll be out for almost a day or so. By the time you come round, we’ll be long gone.’ Harry fixed his gaze on the table between us.

‘
“We
”?’ I said as viciously as I could. ‘How nice for you to have such a lovely bonding experience with Daddy.’