The Secret Prophecy (11 page)

Chapter 23

H
is room was a cramped monk’s cell with a single bed, a tiny wardrobe, and a kitchen chair; but it was better than a dormitory and a
lot
better than sleeping in a railway tunnel. It was now well past midnight, and Victor was anxious for him to get some rest. But Em was too excited—too worried—to think of sleep. “Any chance of more coffee?” he asked Victor.

Victor sighed and headed back to the kettle. “Okay,” he said, “maybe it was a bit unfair to spring it on you, but the
I Ching
advised directness.”

Em had been about to push him on the important stuff but sidetracked himself. “You asked the
I Ching
how to deal with me?”

“I asked for help in locating you, then how to deal with you.” He shrugged. “Hey, it works for me!” He turned on the tap to refill the kettle. “One more cup, then we get some sleep. I must get my head down even if you don’t—we need to be fresh tomorrow. There’s a lot we have to do.”

“Right,” Em said, not knowing what he was talking about and not much caring. “But for the moment, let me get this straight. There’s this big, really scary secret organization that’s trying to take over the entire world, but they’re taking time out to chase me? Because . . . ?”

“I don’t know why because,” Victor told him. “I wish to God I did—it would make life a lot easier. I just know they had a serious interest in your father—a
very
serious interest—and now they have an interest in you.”

“My mother thinks my father was murdered.”

Victor glanced at him uncomfortably. “She may be right. They’ve had her sectioned, which would suggest she knows something they don’t want made public. Did she talk about it a lot—that she thought your father was murdered?”

“I suppose she might have,” Em said.

“It’s standard Themis procedure when people get troublesome. If need be they’re murdered, assuming that can be done without raising suspicions. If they can’t be murdered—and they wouldn’t want to kill a second member of your family so quickly: might arouse police interest—having them sectioned is the next best thing. Once you’re in a mental institution, nobody believes anything you say.”

“Yes, but how do they get the doctors to—” Em stopped abruptly. He’d suddenly remembered where he’d seen the eye-in-the-triangle design that Victor had shown him on the dollar bill. It was the logo on the map the nurse had given him. “My God,” he said, “the Knights of Themis own the clinic!”

“Where they’re holding your mother?” Victor nodded. “Yes, they do.” He poured boiling water into the percolator. “I’m making this weak. You really need some sleep. So do I.”

Em had never felt less like sleep in his life. “Why did they kill my father, Victor? He had no interest in politics. He wouldn’t give a toss about some new world order so long as they left him alone to study his books. The only thing he really cared about was Nostradamus, for heaven’s sake!”

“He must have been a threat to the Knights of Themis, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken such drastic action,” Victor said bluntly. “They’re absolutely ruthless, but that doesn’t mean they go around swatting people like flies. Above everything else, they want to preserve their secrecy. So they’re careful. Murder is very much a last resort, and they only do it when they’re certain nobody will suspect their involvement.”

“You still haven’t told me why they murdered my father!” Em’s voice rose. “Last resort or not, it doesn’t make any
sense.
He couldn’t have been a threat to them. He couldn’t have been a threat to
anybody.”

“I don’t
know
why they murdered your father,” Victor said quietly.

“All right.” He made a massive effort to pull himself together. “All right, why are they after me, then? I can see they would want to put my mother away if she was blabbing about Dad’s death, but I haven’t been talking to anybody. I didn’t even think he was murdered after I heard Mum talking about it. I thought she was just being, you know, paranoid, or miserable or something. So why come after me?”

Victor handed him the fresh cup of coffee. “I don’t know that either.” He sighed. “Drink it down. Go to bed. I need you fresh in the morning.”

But Em wouldn’t leave it alone—
couldn’t
leave it alone. “You’re going to help me—right?”

“We’re going to help each other, kid,” Victor told him tiredly. “You could have information I need to know—I still haven’t debriefed you. But believe me, we’re both on the same side. I hate the Knights of Themis, hate everything they stand for.”

“Debrief me now,” Em offered.

“In the morning,” Victor said. “I’m too tired now.
Early
in the morning, if you like.”

“What else are we going to do tomorrow?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are we going to rescue my mum?”

“Who do you think I am—James Bond?” Victor demanded. “We don’t just burst into a psychiatric clinic guns blazing and drag your mother out by the ears. You’ll find that her commitment papers are perfectly legal. If we did try to take her out by force, we’d have every police station in the country on our case, as if we haven’t enough problems already.”

“Can’t just leave her there,” Em muttered. He was annoyed by Victor’s attitude.

“That’s exactly what we do,” Victor told him firmly. “What we
will
do. What we’re going to do tomorrow is debrief you properly, then make our plans.”

“Can’t you
start
to debrief me now?”

“No. Have you finished your coffee?”

“Do you have a gun, Victor?”

“Yes, I have. What do you want to know that for?”

“Can I see it?” Em asked.

“No, you can’t.”

“What sort of gun is it?”

“Czech CZ-TT 15-shot semiautomatic. Polymer frame so it won’t trigger airport metal detectors.”

“Can’t we just
start
the debriefing tonight?” Em asked again. “That way you can sleep on it, and we have a head start in the morning. We can make plans, and you can clarify any stuff that comes up that you need to clarify. Don’t you think that makes sense, Victor?”

Victor released a long, defeated sigh. “All right,” he said. “We try to get a handle on the situation. But I need to get some stuff from my room. If we’re going to do this, we may as well start off right.”

Em sat staring into his coffee, heart thumping, until Victor returned with a small, solid-state recording device, hardly larger than a credit card, and an old-fashioned notebook and pen. He set them all down on the table and sat facing Em like a policeman about to start an interrogation. “The last few months before he died,” Victor began without preliminary, “did you notice anything unusual in your father’s behavior?”

Em took a deep breath and began to tell him everything he knew.

Chapter 24

T
hey reviewed their situation over a breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, sliced fried mushrooms, baked beans, and a piece of toast each. Between the good night’s sleep, the place to stay, the first-class food, and a professional agent (with a gun!) to help him, Em felt almost optimistic.

“The problem,” Victor said thoughtfully, “is we don’t know who we’re up against. I mean, we’re up against the Knights of Themis, we know
that
; but that’s like saying we’re up against the Russian army. We might know all about the generals in Moscow, but it’s the sniper in the next tree we actually have to worry about. You don’t know the name of the man who followed you, nor the men who broke into your father’s study. I don’t suppose you remember the license plate number of the black Mercedes at the funeral.”

Em shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Didn’t think so. As I see it, we have two choices at the moment. We can sit tight, wait for them to make another move, then play it by ear, take things as they come. Or we can try to find out
specifically
who we’re dealing with in the Knights of Themis and take the fight to them.”

Neither option appealed very much to Em, but he couldn’t think of a better one. “How do we find out who we’re dealing with?” Something struck him, and he added, “Hey, we could start with the clinic! The one where they’re holding Mum.”

Victor poured himself his third mug of coffee. “I already know the names of everybody involved in running that clinic—Section 7 has had it under investigation for nearly three years. It won’t do us any good. The clinic is a genuine medical practice mainly looking after rich neurotics. These special patients’ backgrounds are on a need-to-know basis, and the clinic’s shrinks have only telephone contact with the Themis cell that sent them. They don’t even know the name of the Knight involved: he gives them a code word when he calls.”

“You’re telling me none of the doctors in the clinic knows why Mum’s being held there or the names of the people who had her sectioned?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Victor said.

“What about the other doctor?” Em asked at once.

Victor looked nonplussed. “What other doctor?”

“Alexander Hollis,” Em exclaimed excitedly. “Our family doctor. He was one of the two doctors who signed the papers. We’ve known him for years. He can’t be a member of the Knights—”

“
Anybody
could be a member of the Knights, believe me,” Victor interrupted. “That’s their strength.”

“All right, either he’s a member of the Knights of Themis, or he was forced to do what he did by them. Either way, he’s worth talking to.” He hesitated. “I think Uncle Harold said something about him being out of the country, but only for a few days. He might be back by now.”

“You know what?” said Victor thoughtfully. “You may have something there.” He stood up. “What did you say his name was?”

“Hollis. Dr. Alexander R. Hollis. His office is on Oakland Avenue, near the university.”

“Okay, I’ll go call, find out if he’s back at work. You do the dishes.”

Em blinked. “How come I get to do the dishes?”

“I cooked breakfast.”

“Yes, but I could call them.”

Victor gave him a long, slow look. “You really don’t know what you’re up against, do you? These people want to rule the world, and they’ve
already
gone a long way toward doing just that. They’ve infiltrated every power structure on the planet. They have money to spend—more money than some entire countries. They’re looking for you. Do you really imagine it’s beyond them to run a voice recognition bot throughout the British phone system? They could trace your call from
any
phone, including phone booths and the one in this apartment. Until this thing is over, until we know exactly what’s going on, it’s no more phone calls for you, my boy.”

Em stared back for a moment and then said, “You make the calls. I’ll do the dishes.”

Victor took his time getting through to Dr. Hollis’s surgery. Em rinsed and stacked the dishes, turned on the portable radio beside the sink, discovered he was listening to some boring news channel—there was a holdup in the distribution of Death Flu vaccine—and switched it off again when he couldn’t find any music he liked. Victor returned, frowning slightly. “He’s still not back at work, but he’s back in the country. I got that much out of his dragon of a secretary. What she wouldn’t tell me was where he lives. I don’t suppose you know?”

“I do, actually,” Em said. “Been there for supper twice with Mum and Dad.”

Victor instructed the cab to drop them off on a corner several blocks away from Dr. Hollis’s home. “How come we’re getting out here?” Em asked him at once.

“Just a precaution,” Victor told him as he paid the cabbie.

“Precaution against what?”

“Listen,” Victor said impatiently, “I spend most of my life undercover, hiding from Themis. You pick up certain habits—it’s the only way you can survive. For example, I don’t own a car: too easy to trace. That’s why we travel by cab. But I never give the final destination in case somebody questions the driver and he happens to remember us. I don’t use credit cards because they leave an electronic trail. The Section keeps me supplied with cash, and I wouldn’t buy so much as a cinema ticket under my own name. That way nobody can track you.”

“Okay,” Em said, chastened.

They walked together through the quiet morning streets to the head of the avenue where Dr. Hollis lived; and suddenly it wasn’t quiet anymore.

“What’s going on?” Em asked.

Victor gripped him by the arm and pulled him back a pace or two. There was an ambulance and two police cars parked, lights flashing, about two hundred yards ahead. Paramedics were carrying a stretcher up the steps of one of the Georgian houses that made up the avenue. “That’s not the Hollis house, is it?” Victor whispered urgently.

“Could be,” Em said. “Hard to be sure from here.”

“Get around the corner,” Victor said firmly. “I want you out of sight.”

“Where are you going?”

“To try to find out what’s happening. I don’t like the look of this.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

“Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? You’re the one they’re after, not me. Just stay out of sight, and I’ll fill you in when I get back. If I find out anything.”

It was nearly fifteen minutes before he did reappear, looking grim. “He’s dead,” he said without preliminary.

It came as such a surprise that Em said foolishly, “Who’s dead?”

“Your Dr. Hollis. His wife’s still out of the country, but their housekeeper found him hanging from a beam in his study when she arrived to tidy up this morning.”

“Like . . . suicide?” He couldn’t think why Dr. Hollis would commit suicide—he’d always seemed a cheerful soul. Unless, Em thought suddenly, it had something to do with sectioning his mother. Maybe the doctor felt guilty.

“That’s the police theory. There’s apparently a note, but they wouldn’t let me see it.”

Something in Victor’s tone made Em say, “But you don’t believe it?”

Victor shook his head. “Damn right I don’t. I’ve seen this happen before. I think he was murdered.”

Chapter 25

V
ictor wanted more coffee. They found a tiny café along a narrow alleyway and picked a table as far away from the counter as possible so they could talk. At this hour of the day they were the only customers.

“Listen, kid,” Victor said. “I’m sorry for springing that on you. I should have eased you into it.”

“Don’t call me ‘kid,’” Em muttered.

“So what should I call you: Edward?”

“Em. Everybody calls me Em. It’s, like, my initials: E. M. for Edward Michael.”

“Okay.”

Em declined coffee and tea, and felt like throwing up when Victor suggested a doughnut. He was frightened, jangled, and nervous, and was finding it difficult to sit still. What he wanted was to keep on the move. What he
really
wanted was to run. Except he didn’t know where, and he didn’t actually know what from. He licked dry lips. “Why do you think he was murdered?”

“It’s a familiar pattern. My guess is your Dr. Hollis wasn’t a Knight himself, probably not even a Themis sympathizer. I think they had something on him and used it to force him to sign the papers for your mother.”

“What would they have had on him?” Em found himself watching the doorway as if he expected the Knights to pile through it at any minute.

Victor frowned. “How should I know?” he asked crossly. “The Knights are experts at ferreting out dirty little secrets. But if I’m right, they blackmailed him with
something
until he agreed to sign the papers.”

“Why didn’t they kill him right away then?”

“My guess is they couldn’t find him. He left the country, remember? His big mistake was coming back. He obviously had no idea what he was up against.”

Em sat looking at Victor for a long moment. Eventually he said, “What do we do now?” He licked his lips. “Dr. Hollis was our best lead.” And whether he’d been murdered or killed himself, he was still dead.

Victor leaned forward in his seat to stare at him earnestly. “Listen, k— Listen, Em, I want you to think really hard. This whole mess comes right back to your father. I know it hurts you to talk about him, even think about him, and I’m sorry, but we have to face this if we’re to get any further. Section 7 is certain the Knights of Themis killed him. What we don’t know is why. Now they’re after his son—you. What does that suggest?”

Em thought about it for a moment. “That he had something or knew something or found something, and they’re worried he might have passed it on to me?”

“Exactly!” Victor exclaimed. He leaned back and took a long drink of his coffee.

“But he didn’t!” Em protested. “At least, if there was something he’d discovered, he didn’t pass it on to me. He didn’t talk to me about stuff that much. He was a university professor, for cripe’s sake. He lived in his head most of the time. Or with his nose stuck in a book. I don’t think he talked to Mum much either—maybe that was one of the reasons she drank too much. I promise you, he didn’t tell me
anything.
”

But Victor wasn’t ready to leave it alone. “I want you to
think
,” he said again with emphasis. “Before he died, maybe even weeks or months before he died, did he talk to you about anything unusual, anything at all?”

“No,” Em said firmly.

“Did he give you anything for safekeeping? A paper or a folder or an envelope; anything like that?”

“No,” Em said again.

“How about a gift of some sort?”

Em frowned. “You mean something valuable?”

“Not necessarily. But something you could conceal something in—a box or a case or even a book; you can slip a sheet of paper between the pages of a book. Anything like that? The Knights obviously think your father communicated something to you. I’m trying to figure out how he could have done that—tried to send you a message—without your realizing what he was up to.”

“Dad never gave me
anything
before he died,” Em said. “I mean, not immediately before he died. Like, I got presents from time to time the way everybody does. I mean, he gave me stuff the Christmas before, but that was months—”

“What did he give you for Christmas?”

“Oh, come on!”

“I’m serious,” Victor said.

Em thought about it, trying to remember. Finally it came to him. “Pair of gloves and a scarf. And a box of chocolates. Wasn’t very imaginative when it came to Christmas. He gave Mum a frying pan. I thought she was going to hit him with it.”

“Did you eat the chocolates?”

“Well, I shared them. With Mum and Dad. But, yes, we ate all of them.”

“There was nothing else in the box? Note? Slip of paper?”

“Just chocolates.”

“Did you ever wear the gloves?” Victor asked.

“Yes, of course. And the scarf. It was cold last Christmas.”

“There was nothing stuffed into the fingers of the gloves?”

Em shook his head. “No, nothing. Of course not. Look, I told you; he didn’t give me anything before he died. Why would he? It’s not like it was my birth—” He stopped suddenly, then finished slowly, “—day . . . or anything. Listen, Victor, there
was
something. He gave it to Mum to give to me for my birthday. This was when he had the high fever and I suppose he thought he might not make it, so he gave it to her to . . . you know . . . Thing was, my birthday isn’t until October, and Dad was always a last-minute merchant, so why would he get me something that far in advance?”

Victor was sitting forward again. “What was it?”

“It was an iPod. He even had it engraved. But that wasn’t exactly sending me a message, was it?”

“What did the engraving say?” Victor asked quickly.

“Just ‘Happy birthday from your loving father.’”

“Nothing else?”

Em shook his head. Then, “Something about ‘good listening.’”

“What did he mean by that?”

“Nothing,” Em said. “Just
good listening,
I suppose. You use an iPod to listen to music.”

“And did you? Listen to your iPod?”

Em shook his head again. “No. I never even switched it on. I was sort of . . . sad, you know. Mum gave it to me after my dad died. I just couldn’t cope with . . . I mean, it reminded me too much . . .” He could feel the tears beginning to well again.

“Where is it now? Do you have it here?”

“No, I left it at home. I put it away after Mum gave it to me. Didn’t look at it since.”

“Put it away where?”

“At home. I told you. In my room.” He’d shoved it in among his CD collection, some sort of mad thought that an iPod should be with his music. He supposed he’d thought he would take it out and use it one day when he got over the pain of his father’s death.

“We need to get it,” Victor said.

“You really think Dad may have sent me a message in the iPod?” It was possible, he supposed: he hadn’t even looked in the box properly. There could be a card in there—a whole letter for all he knew. He felt a curious sensation in the pit of his stomach. A message from his dad, maybe even a message about the Knights of Themis.

“I really think it’s worth finding out.” Victor looked at him thoughtfully. “The question is, how do we get hold of it?”

Em frowned. “I’ll go and get it.”

“They’ll be watching the house,” Victor said. Em didn’t have to ask him who he meant. Victor drained the last of his coffee. “What we need is somebody who can get the iPod for us, somebody who can enter the house without causing suspicion.”

“Uncle Harold,” Em said. “He has his own key, and he’s been sort of caretaking the place since they took Mum away.”

“Do you trust him?”

The question stopped Em short. He wasn’t sure he
did
trust Uncle Harold. From where Harold was standing, Em had gone off to visit his mother a couple of days ago and then simply vanished off the radar. Harold might even have reported him as a missing person. So how would Harold react to a message from Em asking for his iPod? He
might
just bring it, but he might just as soon tell the police the good news that his nephew had turned up again.

“Is there anybody else? Some other relative? A friend? It would have to be somebody who could go into the house without raising suspicion.”

Em thought about it. “Charlotte,” he told Victor.

“Who’s Charlotte?”

“A friend. She knows about my mother, and she knows I’m on the run. She was the girl who was with me in France when we were followed by the man with the gun.”

“The one who spilled the coffee?”

Em nodded. Victor grinned slightly. “A resourceful young lady. You think she’ll help out again?”

“Definitely—she’s already loaned me money. The thing is, her father works at the university, so she has an excuse to be on campus.”

“Do you have a key to your apartment?”

“Yes.”

Victor chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Wonder what would be the best way to get it to her . . .”

“We don’t have to,” Em said. “I know where Uncle Harold leaves his spare—under a flowerpot on the windowsill to the right of the door.”

Victor shook his head in disbelief. “No wonder you were burgled twice.” He pushed back his chair. “Do you have her number?”

Em nodded.

“Call her now,” Victor said. “Have her pick up the iPod and deliver it to you. Tell her to make sure she’s not followed, but we can’t really trust her about that since she’s not a professional, so we’d better make the drop someplace open where we can watch her before we make contact, make sure nobody has tagged along.”

“How about the Leslie Memorial?” Em suggested. Leslie Memorial Park was a two-hundred-and-fifty-acre parkland in the center of town, fifty acres of which were taken up by a picturesque man-made lake. Vast swaths of the site were open grassland with meandering pathways and little in the way of cover.

“Sounds good to me. If you meet by the memorial itself, we should be able to spot anybody following her half a mile away.”

“Okay.” A thought struck Em. “Hey, wait a minute—I thought I can’t make phone calls?”

Victor gave him a wicked grin as he pulled something from an inside pocket and handed it across. It was a black, almost featureless touch screen cell phone with no manufacturer’s logo. “Nobody will trace you when you use this little monster,” Victor said. “Special Section 7 issue.”

Em took the phone without a word, stared at it for a moment, then began to dial Charlotte’s number.