Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

“So why has she gone to Hong Kong?” Matt asked.

“Her father is there,” Tarrant replied. “He’s a lawyer. He works for the Nightrise Corporation.”

“Nightrise?” Jamie spoke for the first time. Jet lag had hit him badly and he was exhausted. He’d only managed to keep himself awake with a black coffee and a can of Red Bull. “They’re the people who came after Scott and me. Are you saying her dad is one of them?”

“Nightrise is a legitimate business,” Nathalie Johnson reminded him. “They have offices all over the world. They employ hundreds of people. The vast majority of them probably have no idea who – or what they’re working for.”

“Even so…”

“We don’t know, Jamie. His name is Paul Adams. He’s divorced. He and his wife adopted Scarlett fifteen years ago and as far as we can tell, he doesn’t know anything about the Old Ones.”

“So what do we do now?” Richard asked. “Scott and Pedro are still in Peru. Matt and Jamie are here. And Scarlett will soon be in Hong Kong. The one thing we know is that we have to get the five Gatekeepers together. How are we going to do that?”

“You may have to follow her there.”

It was the bishop who had spoken and the other members of the Nexus nodded. But for his part, Matt wasn’t so sure. He knew nothing about the city except that some of the toys he’d played with when he was younger had been manufactured there. MADE IN HONG KONG: it had always been a sign that they would probably break five minutes after they came out of the packaging. Certainly, he had no desire to go there. He had flown enough for one week.

“If I may…” The Chinese man had a soft, very cultivated voice. He hadn’t spoken until now. He was small, with heavy, plastic glasses and an off-the-peg suit. Perhaps he adopted this sort of appearance on purpose. It was as if he didn’t want to be noticed. “My name is Mr Lee,” he said, bowing his head towards Matt. “If you are thinking of making the journey to Hong Kong, I may be able to help you. I have connections throughout Asia and especially in that area. However, I would like to make one observation if I may.”

He waited for someone to speak against him, as if he was nervous that there might be someone at the table who didn’t want to hear what he had to say. When nobody protested, he went on.

“There is something very strange happening in Hong Kong,” he began. “I know the place well. In fact, I was there – passing through – just a week ago. On the face of it, there is nothing I can put my finger on. Life continues as normal. Business is done. Tourists arrive and leave. But there is something in the city that makes no sense. How can I put it? There is an atmosphere there that is not pleasant. Friends of mine who live there, people I have known for many years, seem to be in a hurry to leave and when I ask them why, they are afraid to say. And those who remain are nervous.”

“The Old Ones are there,” Susan Ashwood said, as if she had known all along. She worked as a medium, talking to ghosts. Matt wondered if they had told her.

“That is what I believe, Miss Ashwood,” Mr Lee agreed. “It is hardly a coincidence. Nightrise is based in Hong Kong. It is quite possible that much of the city is now in the control of the Old Ones. And if that is the case, then the moment this girl, Scarlett Adams, arrives there, it will be as if she is in prison and none of us will be able to reach her.”

“We have to reach her,” Richard said. “If we don’t, we might as well all pack up. There have to be five Gatekeepers.”

“Then we have to get her out of there – and that means following her. We have failed here in London. Maybe Matthew and Jamie will have more success over there.”

“You want to send the two of them to Hong Kong?”

“They have certain powers, Mr Cole, which may be of use to them.” Mr Lee nodded. “Yes. In my opinion they must find a way to enter the city, but without the Old Ones knowing they are on their way.”

“The two of them travelled here with false names and false ID,” Tarrant said. He sounded disapproving. “They can use them again.”

“Absolutely.” The Australian, Harry Foster banged a fist on the table. “They could be on the next flight out of here. There must be fifty thousand people a day flying in and out of Hong Kong. Who’s going to notice a couple of kids in a crowd like that?”

“I don’t agree.” Susan Ashwood shook her head. “If Mr Lee is correct and the Old Ones are there, it would be complete madness to attempt to go in by air. Matt and Jamie would be seized the moment they stepped off the plane… and I don’t care how many people there are at the airport.”

“I have an office in Hong Kong,” Harry Foster said. “I could look in there on my way back to Australia. Why don’t you let me try and find her? I can explain what’s going on and she – and her father, for that matter – can leave with me. I’ll take them down to Sydney and you can pick them up there.”

“I think it’s too dangerous,” Mr Lee said.

“Well, at least I can get a message to her. Let her know the score.” The Australian took out a pad and scribbled a note to himself. “A letter to warn her that she’s in danger. I can get someone in my Hong Kong office to deliver it by hand.”

“I think we have to be very careful,” Susan Ashwood said. “We all know what happened today. The Old Ones were waiting outside her house in Dulwich. They knew Matt was on his way and they were determined to stop him.” She glanced at Tarrant. “You had two men watching Scarlett and now you say they may have been killed. How many more mistakes do we have to make before we realize what we’re up against?”

“Then maybe it’s time to use one of the doors,” Richard said.

He had the diary and he slid it onto the table in front of him. All ten members of the Nexus stared at it. Only a few months before, they had been prepared to spend two million pounds to get their hands on it and here it was, right in front of them. They wanted to reach out and touch it. And yet at the same time they were afraid of it, as if it was a snake that might bite.

“I’ve been trying to work this out ever since Ramon brought it to us,” Richard went on. “I’ve read bits of it, though I won’t pretend I’ve understood very much… even with a Spanish dictionary and a magnifying glass. But there is one thing we do know. Twenty-five doors were built around the world for the Gatekeepers to use. They all connect with each other and they can all be found in sacred places. One of them is in St Meredith’s. When Matt went through it, it took him directly to the Abbey of San Galgano in Tuscany.”

“Scott and me found one of the doors in a cave at Lake Tahoe,” Jamie added. “It took us to the Temple of Coricancha in Cuzco, Peru.”

“That’s four of them,” Richard said. “But there are twenty-one more and our friend, the mad monk, may have helped us. He’s made a list…”

He unfastened the diary and opened it, laying it flat so that everyone could see. Everyone leaned forward. There was a very detailed map covering two pages, drawn in different colours of ink. It was just about recognizable as the world, although a world seen by a child with only a basic knowledge of geography. America was the wrong shape and it was too close to Europe. Australia was upside-down.

Joseph of Cordoba had used more care decorating his work. He had sketched in little ships, crossing the various oceans with their sails unfurled. Insect-sized animals poked out of the different land masses, helping to identify them. There was a tiger in India, a dragon in China and, at the North Pole, what could have been a polar bear.

“I don’t know how much you know about old maps,” Richard said, “but for what it’s worth, I studied them a bit at university. I did politics and geography. This one is fairly typical of the sixteenth century. That was a time when maps were becoming more important. Henry VIII was one of the first monarchs to realize how much they could give away about a country’s defences. And everyone was using them to steal everyone else’s trade routes. You see these little bags here?” He took out a pencil and pointed. “They’re probably bags of spice. Joseph may have drawn them to represent the Spice Islands because that was what everyone wanted.”