Silver Fin Page 26

  Once again he was struck by the intense green of her eyes, so clear and bright and clever, and the hint of a smile that always played around her mouth.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘This is going to sound mad, I’m afraid,’ said James.

  ‘Try me.’

  James explained his plan, and at first Wilder looked shocked, then dismissive, then intrigued, and finally very serious.

  ‘Do you think we’d have a chance?’

  ‘I don’t know, Wilder, but we’ve got to try. Are you up for it?’

  Wilder put a hand to his cut cheek and frowned. ‘Aye,’ she said quietly. ‘You know I’ve never liked the laird after what he did to my dad. And if what you say about him’s true, then he’s a rotten swine who should be taught a lesson. Come on, let’s go.’

  She dug her heels in, shouted some words of encouragement to Martini, and they were off again. The big horse was steaming in the rain, but he was tireless and sure-footed and knew his way across the treacherous surface of the moors.

  It was exhilarating, racing across open country, the sun in their faces, the powerful muscles of the horse pounding away beneath them. Martini easily carried the extra burden, but Wilder didn’t want to ride him too hard since they might have to make a fast getaway later on.

  In what seemed no time at all they came to the hills surrounding the loch and slowed to a walk. They passed through the gap at Am Bealach Geal and could see no one, so they rode round to the boys’ camp. Everything was as they’d left it. Hellebore’s men had obviously been too preoccupied with other events to search for it and destroy it, the way they had done to Meatpacker’s dismal den in the thicket.

  James drank long and greedily from his water bottle, then he stuffed a dry and curling sandwich into his mouth. He had a change of clothes in his rucksack, including a pair of plimsolls, and Wilder turned her back as he undressed.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to rest for a wee while?’ she said. ‘You look like death.’

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice hoarse with tiredness. ‘If I lie down to sleep, I think I’ll never wake up again. Let’s get this over and done with while I’m still standing.’

  Once he was dressed in warm and, blessedly, dry clothes, he began sorting through his kit for any useful items. He found his uncle’s gunmetal lighter and flipped the top open.

  ‘You still think this is no job for a girlie?’ said Wilder with a raised eyebrow.

  James smiled. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, testing the lighter. ‘I’d have been stuck without you.’

  ‘You’d have been dead, my lad. Here, let me look at that cut.’ Wilder inspected the deep gash in James’s cheek, which was still dripping blood.

  ‘Do you have a first-aid kit in that bag of yours?’

  James’s face brightened. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. Aunt Charmian put one in.’

  Wilder cleaned the wound with some iodine, which stung like the blazes, then fixed a sticking plaster over it.

  ‘There. You’re as good as new.’

  ‘Thanks, Wilder.’

  Wilder quickly kissed the plaster. ‘Don’t mention it.’

  James was going to say something else, but he suddenly put a finger to his lips and signalled with his eyes for Wilder to be quiet and careful.

  There was somebody coming, moving noisily through the bushes towards them.

  James scrambled behind a tree and crouched down while Wilder stayed in the clearing, trying to look as innocent as possible. After all, she could hide herself, but she could hardly hide Martini.

  The sound of breaking branches and rustling leaves came closer and closer, until James could make out the shape of someone crouching low, holding a shotgun out in front of him, pushing through the thin branches and twisted brambles.

  The figure came even closer and still hadn’t seen James, but then he spotted Wilder, straightened up slightly and hurried forward.

  It was George Hellebore.

  A bitter gobbet of poisonous anger rose in James’s throat. He had a sudden, overwhelming desire to fall on George and smash his skull into a thousand pieces; but he had to wait until he had a clear run.

  George was in the clearing now, and was confronting Wilder.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, and James hurled himself on to George’s back, flattening him.

  George yelled and fell, face first, dropping his gun.

  ‘Grab it!’ James yelled, and Wilder snatched the shotgun up off the ground.

  ‘Stop it,’ George gasped, badly winded, as James pounded the back of his head with his fists. ‘Please, stop it!’

  ‘I’m going to kill you, Hellebore,’ snarled James.

  ‘No. It’s all right, Bond, I’m on your side.’

  James laughed bitterly. ‘Oh yes, of course you are,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You have been from the start.’

  ‘No. Please. You can trust me.’

  ‘Why should I?’ said James, and he twisted George’s face round so that he could see him better. It was stained with tears, there was no fight left in it.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to my father,’ said George sadly. ‘I can’t stand it any more. He’s gone crazy.’

  ‘I repeat,’ said James. ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘I can help you. If you help me. I’m your only chance, James. We have to stop my father doing what he’s doing.’

  ‘I think he’s telling the truth,’ said Wilder.

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  ‘True. But I’ve got the gun.’

  James looked over and saw that Wilder had the shotgun aimed steadily at George’s head.

  ‘Careful with that thing,’ said James, jumping up off George’s back and scurrying backwards out of the line of fire.

  George sat up and rubbed his head. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Talk,’ said James.

  ‘This morning,’ said George miserably, ‘when I woke and found that all hell had broken loose, I made up my mind. I wanted to help you last night, James, believe me I did, but I was scared. You don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ said James quietly.

  George stood up and brushed the dirt and leaves from his clothing. ‘I feel pretty bad about what’s happened. How I’ve treated you.’

  ‘You feel bad? Well, hurrah. You think that makes up for what you’ve done, do you?’

  ‘I’ve been crazy too, but my head’s cleared now.’

  ‘The pills,’ said James. ‘The white pills. I know.’

  George looked at James and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said James, shrugging the hand away. ‘But at least I’m alive.’

  ‘I’m going to make it up to you,’ said George. ‘I’m going to help you. I’ve been searching for your camp all morning, and then I heard voices.’ He looked from James to Wilder and back again. ‘What were you going to do?’

  James stared long and hard at the American boy. He seemed genuine. Eventually James held out his hand and, after a brief pause, George shook it.

  ‘If this is a trick,’ said James, ‘I will surely kill you, George.’

  ‘It’s no trick. I’ve had enough. I can’t live like this any longer.’

  Twenty minutes later, James and George were hurrying along a hidden path in the undergrowth. The track led deeper and deeper into the woods, until eventually it came out by the fence. George pointed to a hole under the wire.

  ‘I think a fox dug it originally,’ he said as he wriggled through and James followed. ‘Dad doesn’t know about it, or he’d have had it filled in.’

  There was a steep bank on the other side and they crawled down it through more dense and tangled growth until they were able to climb down a small rocky cliff to the edge of the loch.

  There was a rowing boat tethered there.

  ‘I rowed over a couple of hours ago,’ said George, stepping aboard and taking the oars. ‘Nobody saw me, I think, but we’v
e got to be careful.’

  James boarded and sat down. Wilder had stayed behind with Martini to keep a lookout and provide a getaway if needed, and James hoped he had made the right decision to trust George. He looked at him now, pulling hard on the oars with strong and confident strokes, and prayed that he wasn’t being led into a trap.

  ‘Most of Dad’s workers went with him,’ George explained, keeping close to the edge of the loch in the shadow of the overhanging rocks. ‘But there are still a few guys around, repairing the gates and cutting down the big pine tree.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Dad doesn’t hang about. When he wants something done, he wants it done now.’

  ‘What about the laboratory?’

  ‘The scientists’ll be in there right now. We’ll just have to bluff it out. There’s a small dock round the back of the island that leads straight into the lab.’ George’s voice was strained from rowing. ‘There’s some big old loading doors there, they’re usually locked, but I swiped a set of Dad’s keys from his office, so we should be OK. I’ll go in first and, once I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll whistle and you can follow.’

  ‘Right. Then what?’

  ‘Then we wreck the place. We should start with the paperwork, and all the completed SilverFin serum, which is kept in a strongroom at the back. We’ve got to do as much damage as we can before we’re stopped.’

  James nodded. He was still feeling light-headed, as if all this were happening to somebody else. It felt extraordinary that they were calmly plotting to ransack the laboratory and destroy George’s father’s life’s work.

  But he knew he was right. It had to be done. If James didn’t stop him now, before Hellebore was expecting it, then there would be no other chance. The man was too strong, too rich, too powerful.

  James coughed, trying to stifle the noise and ignore the burning pains in his lungs, as the brooding bulk of the grey castle loomed overhead.

  A chill gripped him. He was lucky to have escaped from hell once.

  Surely nobody ever escaped twice.

  27

  The Fist Closes

  They came in under the shadow of the castle and moored the rowing boat at a small stone pier. As they were tying her up, a blast of wind and freezing rain came in low across the lake and lashed their faces. James coughed and shivered, his teeth rattling in his aching head. His fingers were numb and his vision blurred. His head was throbbing. He felt as if he had the flu. He wondered how much longer he could carry on.

  George took James over to where a pair of large wooden doors was set into the castle walls.

  ‘They lead straight into the laboratory,’ he said. ‘It used to be a storage area and they’d bring supplies over by boat.’ He fished a set of keys out of his pocket. ‘You wait here, and remember – only follow me in when I give the all-clear. One whistle.’

  James nodded. His throat was too dry and raw for him to speak.

  George found the right key, fitted it into the lock and turned it. There was a click, then the door swung open a little way. James saw George illuminated by the eerie violet light from within.

  George took a deep breath, offered James a tight, grim smile, then pushed through the opening and went down a flight of stone steps, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

  James crept to the door and peeped through. Had he been a fool? Was this a trap? Was George about to turn him over to the scientists again?

  There were several men in here, wearing stained white coats. They were blinking at George and frowning, and James could just hear George’s voice, trying to sound authoritative.

  There was no sign of Dr Friend.

  ‘My father wants to see you all now.’

  The scientists looked confused.

  George carried on. ‘As you know, we’ve had some problems last night and this morning. We are on full alert. Lord Hellebore needs to see you all now in his office.’

  ‘Why can’t he come here?’ said a tall, grey-haired man who looked like an irritable Oxford professor.

  ‘Because he’s too damn busy!’ shouted George. ‘Now do as you’re told.’

  ‘This is most awkward,’ went on the grey-haired scientist. ‘I am halfway through an experiment –’

  ‘Just do it,’ George snapped. ‘Or do you want to make him mad?’

  With much mumbling and grumbling, the scientists tidied their work and drifted out in ones and twos. Once George was satisfied that he was alone, he whistled and James hurried in through the doors, shivering once again in the freezing air inside the laboratory.

  ‘This way,’ said George, running towards the back of the huge chamber. ‘We may not have much time.’

  They threaded their way through the tightly packed tanks, and then past the cages of squealing and grunting pigs, some of whom threw themselves at their bars with mad cries and tried to bite their way out.

  They came to a small steel door and George fumbled with the lock, trying to find the right key, his hands shaking violently. At last he got the door open and they went into the strongroom, where George turned on the light.

  It was even colder in here. And James felt light-headed, as if his blood were freezing in his brain. He looked around.

  One wall was filled with wooden filing cabinets, and opposite them was a bank of refrigerated, glass-doored lockers with row upon row of labelled test tubes in racks. This was the SilverFin.

  ‘I’ll sort this lot out,’ said George, unlocking the first door. ‘You see to the paperwork.’

  James pulled open a filing cabinet, grabbed a handful of files and dropped them on to the floor. He heard a smashing sound behind him and turned to see George hurling racks of tubes against the wall. It wasn’t a trap; George was definitely on his side.

  James’s spirits lifted and he set to with fierce determination, ransacking drawer after drawer, pulling piles of paper out on to the floor until there was a mountain of it. George was stamping phials of SilverFin underfoot and spilling jars of pills everywhere. Once James was sure he had removed all the papers and that George had destroyed the last of the test tubes, he took his uncle’s cigarette lighter from his pocket.

  ‘Should I do it now, or should we wait?’ he said.

  ‘Start the fire,’ said George. ‘Then we’ll wreck as much of the lab as we can.’

  ‘OK.’ James knelt, picked up a handful of papers, flicked the lighter into life and put the flame to an edge. The papers soon caught light, and once they were blazing steadily he dropped them to the floor and started carefully feeding the other papers to the fire until the mound was burning strongly. The smoke very quickly filled the room and the two of them had to back out, coughing and choking.

  The pigs had smelt the fire now and were charging crazily around in their cages, screaming.

  ‘Shouldn’t we let them go?’ said James.

  ‘They’re monsters,’ said George. ‘Freaks. They won’t live long anyway, they can’t. Once Perseus Friend starts injecting them, they’re doomed; not one has ever lived more than a few weeks. And besides,’ he said with a shudder, ‘they’d kill us if they got the chance. Come on. It’s kinder to let them die.’

  James suddenly put a hand on George’s elbow. ‘Algar!’ he said.

  He ran along the row of cages until he found the one that contained Algar and the piglet.

  The big man was sitting there, bent over, fear in his eyes.

  ‘George!’ James yelled. ‘We can’t leave him here…’

  George reluctantly came over and looked at Algar, unsure what to do.

  James snatched the keys from him and tried them in the lock, but he couldn’t find one that would fit.

  ‘We don’t have time,’ said George, and he picked up a large spanner from under a workbench. ‘Stand back!’

  He swung the spanner at the padlock, which broke off and clattered to the floor.

  Algar pushed the door open and wriggled out of the cage. He looked at the boys, and James was sure that he was trying to smile.
Then he picked up the piglet, raced across the laboratory and crashed out through the loading doors.

  ‘We’re running out of time,’ said George, looking back to where smoke was billowing out of the strongroom.

  James remembered the fire safety axe hanging near the steps. He rushed over and grabbed it off the wall. ‘Ready?’ he said, walking over to one of the eel tanks.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said George, and James swung the axe against the glass. There was a terrific crash and a flood of foul-smelling water gushed out. A long, fat eel flopped on to the floor, where it slithered away right under the door and into one of the pigs’ cages, where it was instantly ripped to shreds.

  George joined in, and they demolished as many tanks as they could before smashing open cabinets, pulling down shelves and destroying the experiments on the operating tables.

  The floor was soon strewn with broken glass and writhing eels and mangled equipment, but the smoke pouring from the strongroom was beginning to fill the main laboratory, stinging the boys’ eyes and choking their lungs.

  Covering his mouth and nose, James found another huge tank containing countless glass eels, and he had just raised his axe to shatter it when a shout came from the platform above.

  ‘That’s enough!’

  They looked up to see Cleek MacSawney, armed with a hunting rifle.

  ‘Put that axe down and come over here,’ he said, his voice filled with quiet menace.

  ‘Make me,’ said James, getting ready to swing the axe again.

  ‘With pleasure.’ MacSawney grinned and fired at James. The bullet ricocheted off the wall, two inches from his head. James ducked down and scuttled out of the way behind a row of cabinets. The next shot exploded the very tank that James had been about to demolish, and MacSawney swore and clattered down the iron steps.

  James peered through the smoke for George and saw that he’d climbed on top of one of the pig pens. He signalled for James to join him. James looked around but could see no sign of MacSawney and, keeping low, he darted over to George and shinned up the side of the pen.