David Gilman - The Devil's breath

“The whole place is buzzing, Max. The army, the police coming and going. What’s going on?” Sayid whispered quickly.

“I went for a run and decided to get a closer look at the guns.” Max shrugged.

“You can be gated for that! No more Saturdays in town for months.”

“Yeah, I know, it was stupid. The firepower was awesome, though. The whole place was shaking.”

Sayid looked over his shoulder at the closed door nervously and Max could see something was up. “Max, you’d better tell me if there’s anything else. I’m your mate, yeah?”

“Yeah, course. It was nothing. I broke a school rule. Big deal.”

Sayid gave him a disbelieving look and then pulled a crumpled envelope out of his back pocket. “Sorry this got a bit mangled, but I didn’t want anyone else to see it.”

“What?” Max asked, because Sayid still looked as though he knew there was something going on.

“This is addressed to me,” Sayid said as he handed over the letter. The envelope was open but there was another one inside with one word written clearly-MAX. Sayid shrugged. “Your dad obviously wanted this to get to you without going through the usual channels. It came in this afternoon’s post-I couldn’t find you.”

Max nodded. His father had used the one person in school whom Max could always rely on in a tight corner. He ripped the envelope open-and on the piece of folded paper inside there was, again, only one word. FARENTINO .

Max knew what his dad wanted him to do.

Sayid waited patiently.

Max took a deep breath. “Sayid, listen. My dad’s in trouble, he’s gone missing….”

“Bloody hell! Where?”

“I’m not sure, but he was last heard of in Africa, and this note he sent you confirms that he’s trying to contact me. He’s laying a trail for me. Sayid, listen, mate, you’ve got to keep this to yourself. I mean, things are pretty bad…. I didn’t just wander into the Danger Zone tonight. I was running from a bloke who was trying to kill me.”

Sayid Khalif knew the gut-wrenching fear that assassins had brought into his own life. Only he and his mother had survived an attack in Saudi Arabia, and if Max and his dad were targets then he felt the fear as keenly as Max. “I won’t say a word, promise.”

“Not even to your mum.”

“Especially not Mum, she’d be frantic for you and your dad.”

“Thanks. Right, well, I reckon that once I’ve opened my box in the vault tomorrow morning I’ll be off. My guess is Dad has left me another clue in there.”

“You leave school, and Mum’ll find out your dad’s missing.”

“No, Mr. Jackson will tell everyone it’s compassionate leave, that Dad’s sick or something. Don’t tell her the truth, Sayid, I’m already putting you in danger by telling you.”

“I could come with you.”

“No you couldn’t. Besides, I’ll need someone back here I can trust. Can you sort something out computer-wise, a decent code system or something? Then you can act as my backup.”

When it came to computer science and technology, it was Sayid everyone turned to. He’d come close to causing a major scandal and a national security alert when he hacked into the Ministry of Defense’s computer system which the government had paid hundreds of millions to create. Their computer analysts had chased Sayid through a labyrinth of code and almost got to him, before he led them down a dead end with a trapdoor and self-destructed his whole program. Had they caught him, the repercussions would have been enormous: a fourteen-year-old kid from Saudi, inside the heart of the British defense security system! Only he and Max knew about it. That was a secret worthy of real friendship.

“I’ll be here. I’ll set up a rerouting system so any message you send will be hard to trace.”

“Make that ‘impossible to trace,’ Sayid. My life might depend on it.”

The vault was one hundred and thirty-three steps below the ground floor. It was amazingly dry and damp-free because the granite walls were so thick and the warm air from the geothermal heating unit was channeled into the school from beneath there. Mr. Jackson stood back a respectful distance as Max opened his safe-deposit box. The envelope inside was security-stamped and tagged with a tamper-proof clip. Max tore open the envelope. Inside was a USB memory-stick MP3 player that would hold his father’s message. Max’s passport was there, a credit card with a PIN and account number and what looked like a couple of thousand pounds in cash. There was also a lawyer’s letter, which stated that Max’s father had few assets other than the country cottage in France; his dad always rented a furnished apartment during his brief stays in London. All of which, Max realized, meant he was pretty much broke and that Max’s legal guardian was to be someone in Toronto whom he had never heard of-Jack Ellerman. Max looked again at the packet that held the envelope with the money and credit card. But if Dad was stony broke, what was all this about? Then he saw the symbol on the envelope: a small drawing of an Egyptian hieroglyphic-the jackal-headed figure of Anubis, god of the underworld. Underworld. Hidden from view. His dad was sending him a message to hide the contents of the envelope. Max pushed the money and the credit card under his jacket and then turned. Mr. Jackson was right behind him, had he seen Max hide the envelope?

“Everything all right, Max?”

Max held up the USB player and the letter. “Seems Dad’s broke and he’s sending me somewhere I really don’t want to go.”

Mr. Jackson put a protective arm around Max as he read the letter from the lawyer. “I see. Well, that’s why we hold a parents’ contingency fund. We’ll arrange that ticket for you. But there’ll be enough in your school trust fund to cover the rest of this term; we wouldn’t force you to leave. We can make a plan, Max. A lot of the boys have scholarships to be here.”

Max smiled gratefully, but shook his head. “Once I’ve heard Dad’s message I suppose I’d better do as he asks.”

They started their long walk up from the vault-ascending from the underworld-and Max remembered that Anubis was also the Egyptian god of the dead.

* * *

Max said his goodbyes to Sayid and his mother, then Mr. Peterson drove him to the station for the London train. Three hours later, he was in London, a modest-sized rucksack on his back with everything he needed-which was little more than a change of clothes. He’d listened to his dad’s voice on the recording three times, but it was only twenty minutes’ worth. There were no clues, no hint as to what his dad might have expected to happen to him. It was mostly about Mum and how much they’d always loved him, and how his dad hoped that the school had been the right choice … how much he missed Max. It was all a bit vague. But his father’s secret message on the envelope made Max extra cautious.

When Max got off the intercity train, he turned as if making for the Heathrow Express platform, but then he cut around a fast-food stand and backtracked, towards the short tunnel that led to the taxi rank. There was a long queue but he lingered for a while, casually watching to see if anyone was following him. Then he moved quickly back inside the building and went down to the tube station. He kept looking; there didn’t seem to be anyone familiar, but then he saw a man in his twenties-quite scruffy, possibly a musician or art student, listening to his iPod. His rough-cut hair and worn clothes blended in well, but Max noticed that he was wearing a pretty expensive-looking watch, which he checked frequently. Max suddenly realized that he had seen him hanging around the Heathrow train platform.

Max squeezed into the carriage and the iPod man, using another door, got into the same one.