David Gilman - Blood Sun

He could already hear their labored breathing.

Max left his kit and leopard-crawled down a sluice. It was an animal track barely as wide as his body, probably a badger or a fox run, and the ferns and gorse offered a low canopy of concealment-provided he stayed down. As he dug knees and elbows into the ground, fear gushed through him. In those few moments, he felt a huge sympathy for animals pursued to their deaths by huntsmen.

“There he is!” a voice cried.

Max stopped, holding his breath. Boots crushed the ground to the left, less than a meter from his face, and then to the right. He wriggled forward, almost between the two men, who saw nothing because they were focused on the dull glow up ahead. The wind shook fern and gorse, and another squall whipped rain across their vision.

“Come on out, boy! It’s over!”

The voices were behind him now, and the torchlight scanned the area he had drawn them to. Like slimy sewage, animal droppings and fouled water slithered under his clothes; his shins scraped rock, and his arms caught sharp-edged gorse sticks-he ignored it. Time to break cover.

Shadows loomed.

They had trapped him!

The men with the torches were the distraction; like any good hunter group, they had a second ring of men behind the first. They were the outer defense-and they didn’t use torches.

Max barreled into the dark bulk of one of them. The man cried out, swore, kicked and squirmed and grabbed Max’s ankle. Max couldn’t recover; someone else pinioned him, and his breath got knocked out of him. Something deep inside him exploded, a surge of power; an animal cry echoed through his mind as he gulped air and twisted free, slamming a third man in the chest as he leapt like a wolf.

Then he was gone into the storm with long, open strides, feet barely touching the ground, carrying him into the darkness.

“We seem to be out of chocolate biscuits,” Mr. Jackson apologized as he poured hot water into cups. “And it’s only instant, I’m afraid,” he said, handing the scalding mugs of coffee to the two men. He wanted them out of his school as soon as possible and had no intention of making them comfortable. “Now, where’s the sugar? I’m sure these boys sneak in here and help themselves.”

The two MI5 officers were in no mood for hospitality either. Stanton cursed under his breath as the hot liquid spilled. “We’re hoping Max Gordon can help us with information,” he said testily.

“I have to say,” Mr. Jackson said quietly, “that I don’t quite understand how the suicide of a former pupil on the London Underground can involve either this country’s Security Service or Max Gordon. Danny Maguire left here when he was eighteen, and that was well over a year ago, closer to two, in fact. He certainly hasn’t been in contact with anyone here, as far as I know.”

Drew quietly inhaled to ease his impatience. This was supposed to be a straightforward “get in, check the kid and get out” inquiry. And here they were, sitting in overstuffed chairs in front of a blazing log fire in a room crammed with so many books it looked like a country-house library. Fergus Jackson seemed to have a cozy number here, probably whiling away his days until retirement. Soft, cosseted academics. What did they know about the real world?

“Police agencies in South America picked up a flagged word a few months ago during a regular intel sweep of Internet traffic,” he said.

“Intel?” Mr. Jackson asked, looking perplexed, knowing full well what the word meant.

“Intelligence,” Stanton replied. “Look, Mr. Jackson. This is just a routine inquiry. If we could just speak to Max Gordon …”

“I wish I could help, I really do, but he’s on holiday. Half-term. He’s not here. He went to Italy with a friend and his parents,” Mr. Jackson lied. “But what kind of intelligence?” he asked, trying to momentarily divert interest away from Max.

The man answered patiently, humoring Jackson, not wishing to appear too eager to get to Max Gordon. “We think Danny Maguire might have been involved in drug smuggling.”

“Rubbish!” Mr. Jackson couldn’t hold back his incredulity. “Maguire? The boy barely took a headache pill when he was here.”

“I didn’t say he was taking drugs but that he might have been trafficking them. So, if we could at least have a look at Gordon’s room?”

“Of course. What a shocking business. We will endeavor to assist your inquiries as far as possible. Drug smuggling. Who’d have thought it?”

The men stood in anticipation, pleased at last to get past this dithering idiot of a headmaster. The phone rang. Mr. Jackson raised a hand to settle them back down again. He pressed a button. “Yes?”

“It’s Khalif, sir,” Sayid’s voice said into the room.

“I’m very busy on important business, boy. I don’t want to be disturbed. What is it?”

“Matron says that Harry Clark has cut his foot on broken glass.”

“Well, tell her to deal with it. I’m not a doctor. It’s what we pay her for,” Mr. Jackson said, convincingly grumpy.

“She said you might have to call an ambulance.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Very well, I’ll be right there.”

Mr. Jackson ended the call. “This’ll take only a minute,” he said apologetically. “There are some macaroons in that jar. Do help yourselves.”

Moments later he lifted the phone receiver in the staff room and patted Sayid’s shoulder as the boy reported back. “Nothing for Max in the mailroom, sir.”

“Well done. Go and check his room. Make sure there’s no recent mail there. If there is, hide it in your room. And take his laptop as well. Be quick.”

Sayid closed the door behind him as Mr. Jackson dialed a number. The soft voice of a pupil’s father responded.

“Ridgeway.”

“Bob, it’s Fergus. I need your help.”

Robert Ridgeway was a senior man in Britain’s Security Service, and his youngest son excelled at just about everything at Dartmoor High. He knew the value of Fergus Jackson’s care for his charges, and a phone call from him was not something to be taken lightly. He listened to Jackson’s requests, asked him to wait a moment and in less than a minute came back with definitive answers.

There was no known investigation into the death of the Maguire boy by MI5 and no record of any intel on his Internet traffic. As Fergus already knew, officers often dressed scruffily if they were working undercover, so the men’s appearance hadn’t aroused any suspicion, but there were no field operatives by the name of Stanton or Drew. Even if they had been what they’d said, MI5 officers did not have any personal choice of handguns, certainly not the kind of heavy-caliber chromed weapons Fergus had described. And the tattooed name, Velvollisuus ? Ridgeway had never heard of it, but it sounded Eastern European, possibly Russian. He would check. In the meantime, he would alert the local police firearms unit to get to the school. These two men were clearly impostors.

“No, don’t do that, Bob. I don’t want armed police here; that might escalate the situation. I’ll get rid of these people. I’ll get their number plate and pass that on so you can check it,” Jackson said.

“As you wish. And what about Max Gordon? Is he in danger?”

Like a huge firework, the mortar flare rocketed into the sky. It burst with a fluttering crackle, and despite the gusting conditions, it would be seen for miles, which was the intention.

Max watched. The road-a curved snake of wet tarmac that led to the soldiers’ assembly point-was clear. Half a dozen army lorries and a hot-food wagon were parked as forty or so soldiers stamped their feet, pleased the whole thing was over as they lined up for hot stew and a mug of tea. Mobile arc lamps flooded light across the men.