The Secret Prophecy (14 page)

Chapter 30

E
m was still arguing as they climbed the stairs to the safe house apartment. “It’s finished if we get caught; you know that!”

“We won’t get caught. I’ve burgled lots of places—required skill for a Section 7 operative.”

“But I haven’t,” Em protested. “I’m not burglar material. I’m clumsy. I’m noisy.” He glanced briefly at Charlotte and added, “I’m scared.”

“University campuses are easy,” Victor said as if he broke into them all the time. “Always people about, day or night. You blend in if you’re dressed right. Nobody suspects for a minute you might be a thief.”

“What’s dressed right?”

“Well, you avoid the mask, the striped jersey, and the sack marked
SWAG.”

“Come on, Victor—I’m serious.”

“You’re making a big thing about this and you shouldn’t, Em. You dress in whatever you usually dress in, whatever kids wear these days. Nothing trendy or flashy or making you stand out. Sort of gear Charlotte’s wearing. Except she’s not coming.”

“Thanks a bunch!” Charlotte muttered, although Em wasn’t sure whether she felt insulted about her dress sense or was carrying on her long argument with Victor about why she should go with them to get the camera.

“And what do
you
wear?” Em asked Victor to divert them into calmer waters. “A jacket with leather patches on the elbows?”

Victor turned to look at him. “Very
good,
Em. Academic uniform. Now you’re thinking like an agent. But I’ll stick to a tailored three-piece pinstripe. Nobody ever questions you if you’re dressed like a wealthy city gent. Don’t suppose we’ll have to climb a drainpipe to get to your father’s office?”

“No,” Em said. “But, listen, the camera might not be there. I was thinking, they could have given his office to somebody else by now. I mean—”

They were at the door of the apartment, and Victor was kneeling to inspect his security thread. “Shut up, Em,” he said in an urgent whisper.

“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked.

Victor stood up slowly, his finger to his lips. Although he hadn’t answered, it was clear that something was very wrong indeed, and Em had no trouble guessing what. He watched while Victor placed the palm of his hand on the face of the door and applied gradual pressure. The door remained closed. There were two obvious locks: a Yale and a large mortice that triggered all four dead bolts from the outside. Victor already had the keys in his hand. He inserted one into the mortice—a complex thing with spikes—and turned it gently. He withdrew it again and pushed a second key into the Yale lock. He turned it softly, leaving the door closed but needing only a push to open it.

“Stand well back, you two,” he said quietly. He pointed. “Over there. First sign of trouble, you run. Got that?”

Em wanted to ask what sort of trouble Victor was expecting, but there was something in Victor’s tone that stopped him cold. Besides, Victor had drawn his handgun from his pocket. Em stepped back swiftly to the spot appointed, dragging Charlotte with him.

Victor moved like a pro. He slammed the door open with a flat-footed kick and was inside the room in a single fluid movement. Em steeled himself for gunfire, but none came; nor was there any sound of a scuffle. He waited for a moment, felt his muscles begin to relax. Then all hell broke loose.

A burst of gunfire was followed by a scream, then a single shot. There was the sound of a heavy object falling, like a body, then a long moment of silence. Victor did not reemerge.

Em looked at Charlotte. Should he call out? Run for help? Instead he gestured her to remain where she was, then moved slowly, cautiously, toward the open door. In his mind, masked raiders with Kalashnikovs would burst out spraying bullets everywhere, but in reality none appeared. He reached the edge of the door and peered around it into the room just in time to see Victor emerge from the kitchen, pushing his pistol back into his pocket. There was blood on his shirt.

“You’re hurt!” Charlotte was pushing past Em despite his clear warning to stay put. She walked directly toward Victor, completely uncaring of whoever had shot him.

Victor must have read his expression. “They’ve gone, I think.” Then to Charlotte, “Just a graze.”

“You
think
?” Em gasped. He moved a few steps into the room in case Charlotte thought him a wimp and looked around cautiously in case Victor was wrong.

Charlotte said, “You’re covered in blood.” To Em’s astonishment, she began to unbutton his shirt.

To Em’s even greater astonishment, Victor let her. “It’s nothing really,” he said. “I just bleed easily. The bullet scarcely broke the skin.”

“We need to get that cleaned up,” Charlotte told him. “Somebody tried to kill you!”

“Yes,” Victor agreed. He winced as she used his shirt to dab away blood from around the wound.

“You’re sure they’ve gone?” Em asked.

“Two of them. Through a back window. They’ve definitely gone.”

Unless there was a third one,
Em thought. He moved inside reluctantly and began to search systematically. There were remarkably few signs of the intruders. A back window had been opened, as Victor had said; but unlike his father’s trashed study, nothing seemed out of place. He wondered what might have happened if Victor hadn’t examined his security thread.

“Check your belongings,” Victor called briskly. “They came in looking for something, and I want to know what.” He was seated in the kitchen now. Charlotte had found some dressings in a drawer and was cleaning his wound.

When Em checked his stuff, the iPod was missing.

Victor spent more than an hour in his bedroom talking quietly into his secure cell phone while Em, nervously, brought him cups of coffee. He noticed that each time he entered, Victor would stop talking, then begin again as the bedroom door closed. Em was filling the kettle for the umpteenth time when he emerged, still looking pale and shaken. The shooting had obviously upset him badly. “Okay,” he said without preliminary, “put your stuff together. We’re moving out.”

“Where to?” Em asked.

“Another secure location.” The look on Victor’s face matched the anger in his voice. He glared at Em as if it were all somehow Em’s fault. “This place must have been compromised before we moved in. They let themselves in through the front door, which means they had a duplicate key. The Section locksmith tells me the lock’s impossible to pick, and now that he’s described how it’s put together I believe him. Worst of all, they knew exactly what they were looking for: your nifty little iPod touch. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Em looked at him blankly. “No.”

“It means this place is bugged!” Victor turned his face toward the ceiling and yelled, “Are you still listening, you creeps? Well, you won’t be listening for long!” He turned back to Em and went on in a more modulated tone. “There’s an electronics team from the Section on their way. They’ll strip the place after we leave, change the locks, put in a few extra securities: classic stable door maneuver. But we need to find another place. So grab your socks, as they used to tell us in the army, and let’s get moving.”

“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked.

Victor turned his eyes upward in exasperation. “Aren’t you listening? I just said the place is bugged! But in any case, you’re not going anywhere except home, young woman. Now that the guns are out, this whole situation has become far too dangerous for a kid.”

“Firstly, I’m not a ‘kid,’ as you say,” Charlotte snapped in her coldest tone. “Secondly, Em’s going with—”

“Em’s
involved
,” Victor cut her off. “He’s already in the middle of all this. You’re not.”

The argument went on for some time, but Charlotte proved more stubborn than Em would ever have believed possible. To his astonishment, she continued to argue with Victor until his stamina wore out and he proposed a compromise. “You can stay with us for now—at least that way I can keep an eye on you. But any more signs of trouble and you’re going home. And you’re not, positively not, playing any part whatsoever when we go to get the little item we discussed earlier. Is that clearly understood?”

“Yes, of course, Victor.” Charlotte nodded sweetly.

“Where are we going now?” Em asked as they emerged into the street.

“I know a place where we can hide out until we’ve done what we have to do. I have to cut all communications with Section now that there’s been a breach—standard security procedure. They’ll make contact again when they’ve investigated; but that could be weeks, maybe as much as a month. Meanwhile, there’s absolutely no way the Knights will be able to find us. That’s the good news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Em asked.

“Until Section makes contact again,” Victor said, “we no longer have any help or backup. We’re entirely on our own.”

Chapter 31

V
ictor let them in through the back door of a terraced house in the poorer quarter of town. The place looked nondescript, with minimal—cheap—furnishings and worn linoleum on the floor. It had that slightly damp smell places get when they haven’t been lived in for a while. “A poor place, but mine own,” Victor murmured. He pulled down a blind on the window set in the back door, then turned the key to lock it.

“Where are we?” Em asked.

“Hopefully in a safer safe house,” Victor told him. “Doesn’t even have anything to do with Section 7. I bought it four years ago under an assumed name, told nobody, just in case. Now . . . I suggest you look the place over, find out where things are, settle in, gather your strength after all the excitement. We have a busy night.” He gave Charlotte a piercing look. “That’s to say, Em and I have a busy night. You’re staying here and keeping your head down.”

“Yes, of course, Victor,” said Charlotte meekly.

Em felt weird walking onto the university grounds. He knew every inch of the place, of course, probably better than its students, most of whom attended for four or five years at most. Thing was, it felt as if he’d been on the run for months, so coming back was scary, like listening to the creaks as you walked across thin ice. But what Victor had said proved right. Even at this late hour there were people about—students, staff, faculty—and nobody paid them the slightest attention.

Victor himself, true to his word, looked like a stockbroker up from London for the evening. His beard was tightly, neatly trimmed, his shoes were highly polished, and he really was wearing a three-piece pin-striped suit in a very sober shade of blue. Not one person in ten thousand would have guessed that the personal tailoring concealed a handgun (that couldn’t be detected by airport security) and, although Em hadn’t actually seen them, lock-picking tools.

They entered the main building side by side. “Is the office far?” Victor asked casually. He might as well have been inquiring about the weather. His whole demeanor oozed a confidence Em was working hard to match.

“Not far,” Em grunted. The number of people about had begun to worry him now. It might mean no one questioned them while they kept moving, but once they reached the office itself—the darkened, closed-up, door-locked office—it would surely be a different matter. They could hardly just hang about outside, not without looking suspicious however well Victor was dressed. And what happened when he started work with his lock picks? Em had no idea how long it took to pick a lock, but he imagined it must be at least ten minutes. How did you disguise what you were doing for all that time? The first person to wander past would spot what was going on at once.

But even before they turned into the corridor that housed the offices he noticed there were fewer others in their vicinity, and in the corridor itself there were none. It was something he should have anticipated. There might be activity on campus twenty-four hours a day, but not concentrated around the empty offices.

“Which door?” Victor asked. Just the barest hint of tightness had crept into his voice.

“Second right,” Em said tersely.

Without breaking stride, Victor extracted a small leather pouch from an inside pocket. On a quick glance, it could have passed for his wallet. “When we reach the door, I want you to stop, kneel down, and pretend to tie your shoelace. But keep an eye to the corridor and tell me at once if there’s anybody approaching. When I pick the lock, we both go inside. You show me the places where the camera is most likely to be—this cupboard you mentioned, desk drawer, wherever: all you need do is point. Then you come back out and hang around in the corridor. Cough if anybody appears, and I’ll stand quiet until they’ve passed. Got that?”

“What am I supposed to be doing in the corridor? If somebody comes?”

“Nothing. You’re supposed to be looking like innocence personified. Whistle. Stare up at the ceiling. Tie your rotten shoelace again if you have to. Or walk off if need be—you can always come back. God’s sake, Em, you’re an intelligent boy. Improvise. Once I have the camera I’ll join you, and we’re out of here. Okay?”

Em took a deep breath. “Okay,” he repeated.

They reached the door. “Whoops,” Em said, sliding into character. He dropped to one knee and began to fiddle with his shoelace.

Victor stopped and turned toward the door. “Come on,” he said quietly.

Em glanced up to see him politely holding the door open. “How did you do that?” he gasped. What he meant was, how did you do that
so quickly
?

“Standard lock,” Victor said, as if that explained something. “Don’t hang about. I want us inside.”

They entered the office together, and Victor switched on the overhead light. “What are you doing?” Em demanded in sudden panic.

“What do you want me to do: use a flashlight?”

That was exactly what Em had expected him to do. “Yes. People can see we’re in here.” There were two windows between the office and the corridor. Both were of frosted glass, but with the overhead light on you could still see shapes inside.

“People could see that light as well. Which looks more suspicious: a darkened office with somebody fumbling about by flashlight or a well-lit office with somebody inside obviously going about their legitimate business—otherwise they wouldn’t have the light on?”

“Oh,” Em said.

“Show me where to look, then get out,” Victor said.

Em pointed wordlessly to the cupboard, the filing cabinet, and then, after a moment’s thought, to his father’s desk. Both the cupboard and filing cabinet locked. As far as Em remembered, the drawers in the desk did not.

“Okay, lookout duty. Off you go,” Victor told him. “Remember—cough and I go into my masterful disguise as a university executive working late.”

Em slipped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. There was no one in the corridor. He stood, feeling nervous and stupid, not knowing what to do with himself. He was worried about what he would say if anyone asked him what he was doing here. The corridor was
still
empty, but in his head he was standing under the full glare of an enormous spotlight, carrying a notice:
SHOULD NOT BE HERE
!

Em dropped on one knee, undid his shoelace, and began—slowly—to do it up again, taking care to allow the knot to slip out so he could pretend to tie it again. After a moment he realized a drawback of his position. To make the action look natural, he was facing along the corridor, with the result that he could only see people coming from one direction. But it was only a small drawback, because he was confident he would hear anyone who approached from behind. He fiddled with his lace, allowed it to flop open, fiddled with his lace again. Maybe the camera wasn’t there at all. Maybe his father had left it somewhere other than his office. Maybe he’d had the use of a locker, or loaned it to a friend. Maybe—

“Playing cat’s cradle with your shoelace?”

Em started so violently he almost toppled over. He swung around in panic to find Charlotte looking down on him, grinning broadly.

“What the hell are you doing here!?” he gasped. “Victor said you weren’t to come!”

“Like I was going to pay attention to that.”

“How did you find us?”

“I’ve been to your father’s old office before. With Daddy. Is Victor inside?”

“No!” Em glanced through the frosted window at the figure plainly moving inside. “Yes. Listen, you can’t stay here . . .”

“I thought I might help.”

“Well, you can’t. Victor will
kill
you if he finds you here.”

“You think so?”

“Know so!” Em exclaimed fiercely.

“Soon find out,” Charlotte said, still grinning. “It looks like he’s finished inside.”

The office door opened, and Victor slid through it. If he was surprised to see Charlotte, he didn’t show it. “Thought you’d never stay behind,” he muttered. “Right, let’s get out of here before we’re spotted.”

Em asked, “Did you find the camera?”

Victor’s face broke into a smile as he pulled the camera from his pocket and waved it under Em’s nose.