The Rescue (21 page)

Again, an image of Luz’s slumped body flashed into my head. I saw her face, turning to me, her mouth opening to speak.
Ed, help me
. . .

I closed my eyes, unable to bear it.

She had died asking for my help, just as she had lived believing I would help her.

What had Carson said to me?
You did this.

It was true. I felt sick. I’d promised to help Luz and, instead, I had led her into terrible danger. I had insisted Carson brought her with us and now . . .

The door opened. I caught a flash of a guard’s uniform, then Nico – blindfolded and bound by metal chains at the wrists and ankles – was pushed into the room.

The door shut. Nico stumbled forwards. ‘Hello?’ His voice sounded weaker and more scared than I’d ever heard it. ‘Is anyone there?’

‘Just me, Ed,’ I said.

‘Phew.’ Nico relaxed a little. ‘They’ve moved me. Need my room for something – it sounded like they were leaving a body down there, but I couldn’t be sure.’

He didn’t know.

‘Right.’ The word came out like I was being strangled.

‘You don’t sound very pleased to see me,’ Nico said, with a terse grin. ‘God, these frigging chains they’ve put on me. I have no idea how to undo them – it feels like they’re frigging welded together.’

I said nothing.

‘Ed, has something happened? The girls are all right, aren’t they?’

I bit my lip and stared at the ground.

Nico sat down in the middle of the room. ‘Ed?’ His voice was suddenly tense. ‘What’s going on?’

I told him about Luz, keeping my eyes on the dirty concrete floor at my feet and my explanation as brief and factual as possible. ‘So afterwards,’ I said, flatly, ‘I went mad and attacked Carson and the guards knocked me out. I just this minute woke up.’

Silence. I looked up. Nico’s face behind the blindfold was pale.

‘Oh, God,’ he whispered. ‘He actually
killed
her?’

I swallowed, the image of Luz’s lifeless body forcing itself into my mind again.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m guessing it’s her body they’ve put in your room.’

Silence again. ‘What about Geri?’ Nico said. ‘Have you made contact with her?’

‘Not yet,’ I said. Everything that had happened earlier had knocked my plan to make contact with Amy – and therefore Geri Paterson – out of my head.

‘It’s even more important now, Ed,’ Nico insisted. ‘Now we know how far Carson’s prepared to go.’

I suddenly remembered Tsonga – and Djounsou’s mission to punish the rebels in Mahore. He’d told his soldiers he’d be there in two hours, less than thirty minutes ago. Here was my chance to keep my promise to help Tsonga’s daughter. If I could just contact Geri she would be able to rescue us
and
stop Djounsou murdering Tsonga’s family and the other rebels. I’d failed to save Luz. I
had
to help Tsonga.

I took a deep breath. ‘Okay,’ I said.

Nico lay back on the floor. I tried to focus on my sister, Amy. Would I be able to connect with her a second time? After all, the remote mind-reading hadn’t worked with anyone else apart from Nico and Ketty.

I slowed my breathing and pictured Amy’s pale face and blue eyes.

With a whoosh, I was there. I recognised Amy’s mind straight away – the same high-pitched level of hysteria as before.

Hi, Amy.

Ed?
The whirlwind of emotion that was Amy’s mind spun faster.
Ohmigod, ohmigod, it’s you, it’s really you.

Yes, did you tell Mum and Dad? Did they get Geri?

Yes. They’re all here. Geri’s been here all night, waiting.

I sighed with relief.
Okay, Amy, I need you to tell her exactly what I tell you. All right?

I don’t like her, Ed. She looks at me like I’m some stupid little kid. And she’s been really rude to Mum and Dad too.

I know, but, Amy, this is important. Blake Carson has captured us. We’re okay but being held prisoner in a compound, somewhere in North Africa, near a place called Mahore. Tell her now, then tell me you’re done.

Ohmigod, ohmigod. Okay.

I waited while Amy spoke out loud to Geri. I could hear the echo of her voice as it sounded in her head, but not anything going on in the wider world, which meant I couldn’t hear Geri’s reply. After what felt like a long time, Amy was back.

Ed?

What did she say?

She said I had to tell you that the four of you should attempt to get yourselves out of the compound and—

What?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Isn’t she coming to rescue us?

She says she has no idea where you are – that her contacts at Interpol don’t know where Carson’s compound is. That the satellite pictures over the area aren’t giving any useful clues. She wants you to get to safety, then contact her – to say where the compound is. She’ll send people to pick you up – and to deal with Carson.

But
. . . I could barely formulate my thoughts into anything coherent enough to communicate.
Getting out of here without help is impossible. Tell her we can’t do it.
I explained how Carson had killed Luz and about Djounsou and what he’d made me find out from Tsonga and how Tsonga’s family and village were now in terrible danger.

It took a while. Amy kept stopping me, uncertain of the names, then telling Geri small bits of information at a time. Geri’s reply was much more succinct. Through Amy, she told me:

I’m sorry about the girl, but that just shows you what Carson is capable of. As for Djounsou, he’s small fry in global terms and I don’t want you sidetracked. I will report what you’ve said to the Foreign Office, but they’re already well aware of his activities in the region.

Then why aren’t they doing anything about it?

It’s not our problem
, Geri’s response came back.
I’m sorry you’re caught up in this, Ed, but you need to stay focused on getting to safety as fast as possible
. . .

So that’s what it came down to – Geri didn’t care about Tsonga and his family and she certainly didn’t care about Luz. She didn’t even really care about me and Nico, Dylan and Ketty. We were all just pawns in her game.

Well, Tsonga had asked for my help to save his daughter and I had promised to give it. I was never going to make that promise again – to anyone – and fail.

I ended the connection and told Nico – using remote telepathy, in case Carson had bugged the room – what Geri had said. He was as shocked as I was.

So we have to get out of here alone and find a safe place to contact Geri.

Yes, but we’re not doing that.

What?
Nico thought-spoke.
What are we going to do, then, Ed?

I gritted my teeth, Luz’s lifeless body filling my mind again
. We can’t just desert Tsonga and the people in Mahore. Djounsou’s going to kill Tsonga’s daughter. We have to at least
try
to stop him.

Ed, have you gone mad? How the hell are we going to do that? Djounsou’s got a frigging army!

We go to Mahore. Prevent the killings.

What? How are we going to get there? And even if we do, it’s a suicide mission.

We’ve got powers. You were all keen about being part of The Medusa Project. Well, this is what we do. We fight crime. We stop bad people like Carson and Djounsou from starting wars and creating innocent victims – like Tsonga’s daughter – because ordinary people
can’t
do it themselves. But we can
. . .
between us we’ve got amazing skills.

Okay. Listen, Ed
. . .
Even if we
can
get ourselves to Mahore, how are we going to stop Djounsou’s army from killing the rebels?

I don’t know yet, but we will. Somehow.
I took a deep breath.
There’s something else. If we manage to get out and tell Geri where Carson’s compound is, there’s a big chance that he won’t be here when she arrives. We have to make sure he follows us to Mahore. Then we can be certain she’ll have a chance of finding him – and dealing with him.

Nico’s thoughts and feelings swirled up in his head – a mix of intense emotions. He thought I was mad. He thought I was brave. He was astonished I was capable of coming up with – let alone acting on – such a plan.

Never mind all that
, I cut across his thoughts.
Djounsou’s men are probably already on their way to Mahore. They’ll have had almost an hour’s start on us. Which means our first priority is to escape from this room.

Escape?
Nico’s thought-speech now sounded completely bewildered.
But I’m chained and blindfolded and you must be tied up too.

I know.
I paused for a second.
Here’s what I think we should do.

22: Cornered

We were ready when the guard arrived with our food. As he pushed the door open, I held my breath. What we were going to do would require split-second timing.

As I’d feared, the guard was wearing sunglasses, like Carson and Djounsou had been earlier. That would make what we were planning even trickier. He put the tray, containing two bowls, cups and spoons, on the floor in front of Nico, then stood back.

Nico groped for the food. He found one of the bowls and fell on it, grabbing a spoon and shovelling in the contents – some sort of watery stew. It was clearly hard for him to coordinate the movement with his hands tied, but the guard didn’t seem to have any intention of helping by untying him.

He was a stocky guy – one of the unsmiling men I’d glimpsed through the doorway of the communications room round the corner. I cleared my throat.

‘What about me?’ I said.

The guard’s bunch of keys slapped against his side as he turned to me, then picked up the second bowl and shoved it into my hands. Nico was still scooping up stew like he hadn’t eaten for a week.

‘Eat,’ the guard ordered.

I nodded, then raised my arms. ‘I can’t eat with chains on.’

‘Tough.’

I swallowed. ‘Maybe if you took off your sunglasses you’d be able to see to undo me.’

‘Keep quiet.’

This was Nico’s cue. He held his bound hands outstretched towards the man, clearly working out where he was from his voice. Then he telekinetically whipped the sunglasses from the man’s face. Before the man had time to react, I jumped up, right into his face, forcing him to meet my eyes.

Whoosh.
The man’s mind filled with shock and fear.

What
. . .
what’s happening
. . .
how
. . .

I sensed the man’s personality – dull and plodding with a cruel streak. I let him expend his energy in confused raging, while focusing all mine on holding his mind in place.

‘Over here, Nico, the key’s on his belt.’

Nico shuffled towards us, feeling his way with his hands. As he got closer I reached out and yanked off his blindfold, still keeping my gaze on the guard. Able to see at last, Nico chucked my blanket over the camera, then unhooked the key from the guard’s belt and undid first his own hands and feet, then mine.

‘So that’s how they work,’ he muttered. ‘That’s a really clever design.’

‘Come on,’ I said. My heart was beating fast. Once the guys in the communications room noticed the monitor showing us was covered, they’d be here in seconds.

As Nico fastened the chains round the guard’s hands and feet, I felt the man’s resistance to my mind control increase.

It’s not a part of my ability that I like, being able to control people’s actions. It works in kind of a weird way. Obviously I can’t stop people from thinking and feeling whatever they’re going to feel, but I can prevent thoughts which are basically instructions to the body from getting through.

‘Done,’ Nico said, fastening his blindfold around the guard’s mouth.

I broke the connection with the guard at last, pushing him down onto the bed.

We raced to the door, ducking under the blanket that was still covering the camera lens. How much time did we have before more guards arrived from the communications room to see what had happened?

We ran out into the corridor.

‘Where are the girls?’ Nico asked.

‘Down here.’ I pointed to the room where, such a short time ago, Luz had been killed. I shivered.

We ran down the corridor. Shouts were already echoing towards us from the communications room round the corner – presumably the security guards had just seen that the camera in our cell had gone dark.
God
, were we going to have enough time to reach the girls?

Nico skidded to a halt at their door. With a single twist of his hand, it flew open. Dylan and Ketty jumped up from where they were sitting on the far side of the room. I didn’t want to look at the place where Luz had died, but my eyes took me there anyway. The mattress was gone – as indeed was all the furniture in the room – only a bloodstain on the wall was left.

My heart thumped a furious beat against my ribs, as Ketty ran across the room and flung herself into Nico’s arms. Sobbing, she reached out for my hand.

‘Oh, Ed,’ she whispered, ‘you’re safe . . . you’re both safe . . .’

At that moment the screech of a high-pitched alarm started. Footsteps sounded in the distance.