Hunted (6 page)

I hesitated, annoyed that he’d seen through me, but also aware he was offering to help.

Thanks, but no
, I thought-spoke.
But if you can get Ketty to cover for me tonight, when you get back from dinner, that would be great
.

Sure .

And Ed, please don’t say anything to Geri.

I won’t.

He broke the connection.

I considered what Ed had just told me. If he was lying about the Hub address
and
knew what I suspected about his dad, he could be leading me into a trap. Jez was always telling us to have cover stories up our sleeves, so we could ‘lay a false trail’ if we needed to.

Maybe acting all helpful was Ed laying a false trail for me.

Maybe it was Ed who’d sent me the text warning me to ‘stop looking or die’.

No, I shook the thought out of my head. Ed was no liar and I certainly couldn’t imagine him sending me such a horrible message. Anyway, I was prepared to take the risk.

I sped up to my room, a plan forming in my head. Once everyone left for the hotel, I’d spend a bit of time chatting to Alex, who was staying behind with me, then pretend to go to bed early and call a taxi to pick me up from down the road. It was about twenty minutes to the nearest big station, then just over three hours to London by train. I reckoned I should arrive at the MoD building in Great Portland Street between 2 and 3 a.m.

That should give me plenty of time to find the records of my dad’s meeting with the boss of the Hub – which would hopefully reveal who my dad suspected of trying to kill him. A genuine lead. And, with any luck, I’d even be able to get back to the cottage before anyone realised I was missing.

I waited for a non-suspicious time to go to bed. The next few hours passed slowly, but at last I told Alex I was turning in. She nodded in agreement, saying that she was wiped out after all the families arriving that morning.

I went to my room, shoved a couple of pillows under the covers in case Alex popped her head round the door before Ketty got back, then jumped out the window. Jumping is
sooo
cool with my Medusa ability. I could hurl myself off a real high building and be fine thanks to the force field that protects me as I land.

Five hours later I was standing outside the MoD building in Great Portland Street. I’d already disabled the power to this section of the street. It’s a neat trick – Jez showed me one day during our daily training sessions. You just find the power supply to the street, then burn through the cables. Obviously, most people would electrocute themselves doing something like that, but my Medusa gift protects me.

It was dark now, with all the lights out, and the street around me was deserted. I’d barely passed anyone on the short walk from the station – though there was still lots of traffic around, considering it was the middle of the night.

I peered down at the basement windows. They were, to my relief, not barred. The fact that they were also thick, double-glazed and clearly locked was not a problem. I selected a pane of glass. Staring into the dark room on the other side of the window, I psyched myself up, then punched.

With a sharp smash, the window crashed into pieces. I tensed, listening for an alarm, but nothing. Good. Swiftly, I pulled out the biggest pieces of glass with my hands and scrambled inside.

Heart pounding, I crouched, listening for sounds, but no one was here. I smiled to myself. Nico might be able to open locks with a flick of his wrist, but being able to overcome fire, glass and electricity without getting so much as a scratch was even cooler.

At least, I thought so.

I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I was in some kind of office area. A photocopier stood in one corner. There were desks and chairs everywhere, but no files on the shelves . . . no computers . . .

I headed out into the corridor, fishing for my flashlight.

There were three rooms off on the right . . . two on the left . . . I stopped, listening hard again. No sound. I was definitely alone.

I tried the first room on the right – a small kitchen. The next was a toilet.

The third was full of filing cabinets. An archive, if ever I saw one.

Resting the flashlight on the nearest cabinet, I took my art knife out of my bag and forced the drawers. Nothing remotely related to Medusa in either of the first two. I stopped, doubt creeping into my mind for the first time.

The original Medusa Project had been part of a top-secret operation into unexplained phenomena. How likely was it that the files – paper or digital – would be stored in an ordinary filing cabinet that anyone in the building could have easy access to?

As I thought this, there was a sound in the corridor. A tiny creak.

A footstep.

I froze, ducking back behind the nearest cabinet.

A bead of sweat trickled down the back of my neck. Holding my breath, I summoned my energy force field. I switched off the flashlight and the room was plunged into darkness.

Another footstep outside. Who was it? The police? Surely they’d have come in mob-handed with lights and noise?

Another footstep. I looked round. The edge of the cabinet wasn’t big enough to hide me fully. But, short of moving the furniture, there was nowhere else to hide.

Suddenly a light was shining in my eyes. I dropped to the ground, but the light followed me.

Heart pounding, I rolled away from it, snaking across the floor. I reached the only table and rose to a crouch.

The light moved away, illuminating the filing cabinet I’d prised open and the files on the floor. Someone was standing by the door, holding a flashlight. A boy in a hoodie. Tall, slim . . . From the little I could see of him, he didn’t look much older than I was.

‘You’ve made a right mess in here, Dylan,’ he said.

I gasped. How did he know my name?

‘You might as well stop pretending that table is hiding you,’ the boy went on. ‘Oh, and the police are on their way here – so you might want to think about leaving as well.’

I straightened up. ‘Who are you?’ I said.

‘Cool accent.’ I could hear the grin in the boy’s voice, though his face was in shadow. ‘I’m Harry. And I’ve got all the answers you need. But shall we leave full explanations for later? As I just told you, the police are on their way.’

As if to underline his point, the squeal of a police siren sounded in the distance.

Panic filled me. I raced to the door and turned left, intending to run along the corridor and climb back out the window I’d broken through earlier. Harry caught my arm.

‘Not that way,’ he hissed. ‘The police will see you. Follow me.’

He set off in the opposite direction. I hesitated for a moment. Outside I could hear a police radio crackle into life. Two voices spoke in low murmurs.

What choice did I have?

I turned and followed Harry.

7: Harry

Harry led me to the end of the corridor, then up some stairs to the ground floor. The building was empty and dark. We could hear the police officers in the basement below, stomping around. One of them was speaking into his radio mic, though I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying.

‘Shouldn’t we be trying to leave?’ I whispered. ‘Those guys are gonna call for back-up.’

‘Don’t talk. Move,’ Harry ordered.

Torn between anxiety about getting caught and irritation at being ordered about, I bit my lip and kept walking. Harry led me up another flight of stairs to the first floor.

‘Where are we going?’ I hissed.

Harry stopped at the fire door at the end of the first-floor corridor. He stood for a second, listening for sounds downstairs. The policemen sounded more distant now, which presumably meant they were still in the basement. Harry pressed the fire-door bar down, then stood back.

‘Ladies first,’ he said. ‘But hurry.’

‘You are seriously winding me up,’ I muttered, scurrying through the door.

Harry chuckled as he followed me out onto the landing of a fire escape. The stairs led down to the ground floor. Harry pointed to a fence just below us on the left, with a dark alley on the other side.

‘Can you make that jump?’ he said, a slight mocking note to his voice.

‘Can you?’ I was over the fire escape and into the alley in an instant, landing lightly on the balls of my feet.

Harry thudded to the ground beside me a moment later.

‘Cool jumping,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘I meant me, Red,’ Harry said, with another chuckle.

Red?
Was that a reference to my
hair?

Before I could say anything, he’d sped off again, only slowing as we reached the main road. I peered past him, round the wall. The police car, lights flashing, was parked out front of the building. There was no sign of the officers. Presumably, they were both still inside.

Harry tugged at my arm, pulling me onto the street. I followed him across the road. We took a left, then a right, running all the way past the underground station at the top of the road and across the much bigger, busier road at the top into a park.

Harry vaulted the park railings without any problem and darted into the shadow of some trees. I followed him, then bent over, trying not to pant too hard, as Harry leaned against the nearest trunk.

I stood up. ‘Who the hell
are
you?’ I demanded. ‘How do you know my name? How . . .
jeez
. . . how did you know I was in that building?’

‘Hey, Red.’ Harry pushed himself up from the tree with a grin. ‘Didn’t your aunt and uncle teach you to say “thank you” when someone rescues you?’

I stared at him, dumbfounded again.

Harry pulled back his hood. The street lamp on the other side of the park railings shone across his face. High cheekbones and dark hair. He was more interesting-looking than conventionally handsome . . . His features weren’t precisely symmetrical and his nose was a little long while his eyes were set slightly wide apart. But there was something about him. Something that kept me looking.

Harry took a step closer, into even brighter light, and I could see that his eyes were a startling blue.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You look good when you’ve been running, Red.’

I curled my lip. ‘Don’t call me Red,’ I said. ‘And will you please answer my questions.’

‘Sure.’ Harry sat on the ground and patted the patch of grass next to him. I hesitated a moment, then sat down opposite.

‘My parents worked with your dad,’ Harry said matter-of-factly. ‘Dad was in IT . . . Mum was one of your dad’s research assistants. She was doing a PhD. They met, fell in love and had me.’

I stared at him. ‘How old are you?’

Harry grinned. ‘Exactly one year older than you.’

‘Your birthday is the same?’

‘Yeah . . . well, it’s at the beginning of February,’ Harry said. ‘Just like yours. My mum was made up when your mum got pregnant . . . said they’d have so much fun being mothers together.’

‘Your parents knew my mom as well as my dad?’ I said. ‘What are their names?’

‘Laura and Jason Smith,’ Harry said. ‘Actually, our mums knew each other really well. They were good friends.’

I nodded. I couldn’t place Jason, but the name Laura definitely cropped up in my mom’s diary as one of her regular lunch dates.

‘I think my mum introduced your parents to each other,’ Harry explained. ‘And they went out together as couples, too . . . before and after we were born. There’s a picture at home of us playing together.’ He paused. ‘You look a lot better now than you did as a baby.’

I blushed, remembering the photos and the red-raw skin I’d suffered from when I was little. Then I felt annoyed that he’d made me blush.

‘Well, all that’s an awesome nostalgia fest for you, but would you mind telling me how you knew I’d be—’

‘At the Hub?’ Harry interrupted. ‘My dad rang me . . . He . . . er, he lives abroad now. He said you’d hacked into the file on William Fox – your dad – in the murder database. He has some ace software that tells him when stuff like that happens. He said he knew it was you from the cameras in the street outside the public records office. He hacked those as well.’

I shook my head. ‘How did he know I would come to the Hub?’

‘He guessed that once you learned your dad was murdered, you’d ask more questions and find out that all the recordings detailing who your dad thought was after him were held in the Hub archives.’

My mouth fell open. ‘And he sent you along to . . . to help me?’

‘More to rescue you before the police arrested you actually. And to tell you that you won’t find what you’re looking for in that old MoD building.’

‘So where will I find it?’

‘Dunno,’ Harry said. ‘But I can tell you almost everything you want to know.’

‘You
know
who killed my dad?’

Harry shook his head. ‘No, but I know who your dad suspected. He told my dad all about it. And my dad told me on the phone last night.’

I stared at him. ‘Why does he want me to know now?’ I said.

Harry sighed. ‘My parents thought you were better off not knowing the truth, but as you’ve found out that William Fox was murdered, they reckon you deserve—’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You’re saying your parents
believe
my dad was murdered?’