The search for Millie had been long and the boys were frozen.
Asilah had taken seven boys with him and had gone to the Greek temple. He’d led them clockwise round the lake. Sanchez had taken Ruskin, Sam, and Henry, and the rest of the orphans, and had moved counterclockwise. The group leaders were in radio contact, having grabbed the crane operators’ headsets, which Captain Routon had thoughtfully left on charge. They’d done a sweep right round and found nobody. They stretched out again, getting colder and colder. They would do one more circuit.
“Nothing so far,” said Sanchez into his radio. “I’m back at Neptune. This is hopeless, over.”
“I can see where you are,” said Asilah. “Nothing so far. I’ll try toward the gates, why don’t you go back to the school? Over.”
“She won’t go back to the school. Over.”
“Anjoli might, if he didn’t find her. I’ll try the telephone box, and then the back road. Over.”
“Wait.”
“What? Over.”
“I said wait. Asilah . . .”
His teeth were chattering. Sanchez thought for a moment it was a trick of the mist, but as he stared, Neptune’s head appeared to be turning. The giant’s nose definitely shifted toward him until they were making eye contact. He was no longer surveying his own lake, he was watching Sanchez.
“What’s the problem? Over,” said Asilah into the radio.
Sanchez couldn’t utter a sound.
The chin tipped up. Neptune was now staring at the stars. There was a hinge at the back of his neck and his head kept lifting; now the neck was a rather disturbing hole. A figure with long hair was appearing through it, as if from a chimney pot. He was standing on the giant’s shoulder, helping somebody else, and that person was Millie.
“She’s here,” said Sanchez. His voice was a whisper.
“What? I can’t hear, Sanchez! Speak clearly. Over.”
“She’s here. I said, she’s here!”
“With Anjoli?”
“Millie’s here! She’s okay. Over!”
Everyone raced toward the statue. Asilah’s team appeared over the first bridge and bounded round the lake. Then Sanchez stopped again, and this time he was turned to stone. Millie was running toward him, shouting something, but he couldn’t hear what and he didn’t care. Sanchez had recognized the boy with the long hair and could not believe it; he dared not hope. He found himself backing away. By now Millie had reached the throng, but he couldn’t go forward. The long-haired boy looked up and saw him and smiled. Sanchez hesitated; it was the long-haired boy who walked up the bank to his friend. Sanchez was mute, so Tomaz said, “Hello.”
Sanchez found the words at last. He said simply, “Hello, Tomaz.”
Words deserted him again, and he strode forward to embrace his friend, and it would have been a deeply emotional and a great lingering, joyous reunion had Millie not dived between them and grabbed Sanchez by his shirt.
“You haven’t found him!” she cried. “Have you?”
Sanchez went to embrace her, but she twisted out of his arms and said again, “Anjoli’s been taken. We don’t have any time, Sanchez, he’s gone. Do you have your gun?”
“No.”
“Get it now. We need it.”
“Why? What—”
“You won’t believe me. They’re experimenting on the orphans and they’ve chosen Anjoli.”
Asilah was next to her and the other orphans were muttering, clustering, holding each other. “He was in the kitchen,” said Asilah. “He was on duty.”
“I know where he was and he didn’t come back—I asked you!” said Millie. “I said, ‘Where is he?’ ”
“Where is he?” said Israel.
Millie said, “Don’t you remember? Oh, you’re so dumb, I asked you, I told you!”
It was Asilah’s turn to grab somebody. He put his hands on Millie’s shoulders and shook her once: “Where is my brother?” he said. There was a frightening calm in his voice and Millie felt his hands crushing her collarbones.
“Underground,” said Millie. “I think the policeman took him; I think he’s in the lab.”
Asilah made a terrible noise, half groan, half sob. A child started to cry.
Sanchez said, “There’s a lift in the headmaster’s study—we were going to explain all this, but . . . we started playing that game.”
Asilah simply ran and every orphan followed him.
Sanchez and the others watched them sprinting away. “They don’t know what’s down there,” he said. “Millie, this is so dangerous—what can they do?”
“Follow them,” said Millie. “Give me your radio, I’ll go down the ventilation shaft. Follow Asilah and get your gun.”
“Not on your own, no—”
Millie screamed at him and shoved him so hard he nearly fell. “For once, Sanchez, do what I tell you! You know the way, he doesn’t. Take Tomaz—Tomaz knows the tunnels.”
Millie turned and ran. In half a minute she was over the first humpback bridge, racing to the Vyner monument.
*
Six minutes it took. Asilah’s gang piled up the stairs and along the corridor, and Sam was dragged to the door. The toothbrush sprang the lock and they dived for the wall. Eager hands fluttered over the joins and in seconds the paneling was swinging open, to reveal both metal grille and control panel. They stared into a dark lift shaft. They could hear a motor grinding below them and Asilah smashed at the switch panel with his hand.
Nothing happened.
“Someone might be using it,” said Ruskin. “Press the button again . . .”
Asilah clawed at the grille and other fingers pressed the button. Deep below in the dark vault, the vibrations stopped. The humming was replaced by silence. Then there was a click and the lights in the panel closed down.
“They’ve turned it off,” said Sam. “Does that mean we’re too late?”
“We’re not,” whispered Asilah. He yanked at the metal grille, but it wouldn’t budge. He started talking in a soft clear voice and Ruskin thought he must be cursing, but he couldn’t understand a word. It was the orphans’ own language, of course, and the boy was giving instructions. He spoke in rapid bursts, and after every line a pair of boys leaped into action.
In seconds everyone was running again, pouring back out of the room and down the stairs. Henry, Ruskin, and Sam ran with them; Tomaz and Sanchez met them in the courtyard.
*
In the tunnels below, Millie paused for breath. She clicked her radio on and tried to speak clearly and calmly.
“Sanchez, where are you?”
“They can’t get down,” he said. “The lift’s dead. Over.”
She was trembling. She’d slid down the rope so fast her hands were burning. Then she’d sprinted all the way. “What’s your plan?” she said.
“I don’t know. Asilah’s in charge.”
“You have the gun, don’t you, Sanchez? Over.”
Sanchez paused. “No,” he said.
“Get it! For the love of God, get your gun. I’m going to the lab, I’ll be there in five minutes. You don’t know how dangerous this is, now—”
“All right! I’ll get it!”
Millie clicked off the radio and set off again. She knew she was close, as long as she hadn’t taken a wrong turn.
*
Down on the building site, Henry forced a crowbar behind the bolt mechanism of the storage unit. He took a deep breath, heaved, and the metal clasp sprang from its rivets.
Sanjay and Israel moved inside, pulling out the grinders and welders. There were gauntlets, masks, tool belts, and—heaviest of all—the chainsaw. They fed them into a queue of willing hands.
Asilah grabbed hold of Ruskin and Sam. “Go with Vijay, take the van. He’ll get the chain. I want you to chain up the park gates, then come back here. If you see any cars—anything—stop them, he might be inside.”
“Right,” said Ruskin.
Israel moved off, dragging an acetylene cylinder behind him. Sam and Ruskin shouldered a burden of pipes, rods, and asbestos matting and followed Vijay. The main doors were unlocked still after Millie’s flight, so in seconds they were out onto the courtyard. A motor was kicked into life: two small orphans cut down the ornamental chains round the front lawn. They were using the huge slate-cutting tool and it sprayed an arc of sparks over the gravel. As the chains fell, they heaved the machine to shoulder height and ran back to Asilah, who was waving them into the main school.
Round the back, Vijay had climbed into Captain Routon’s van. He was twisting wires from the steering column and in seconds the engine was revving. His legs were short, so he pulled at Ruskin. “Drive!” he said.
“Me?” said Ruskin. “I’m not sure I can. Have you ever driven a vehicle, Sam?”
“I’ve done the gears for my father.”
“Come on, go!” shouted Vijay. “Go! Go!”
“I’ll give it a try, I’m sure it’s not rocket science. That’s the brake, presumably . . .”
The welding gear was loaded. Ruskin revved hard and Sam yanked the gearstick into reverse. The van cannoned backward into the wall, jarring everyone onto the van floor. Sam plunged into first gear and Ruskin accelerated hard over the grass. He snaked wildly, avoiding a tree by centimeters. Then he saw the long ribbon of tarmac that led to the gates and he managed to guide the screaming vehicle onto it.
“I told you, didn’t I?” said Ruskin to Sam. He had his mouth to his friend’s ear, but he still had to shout.
“Told me what?”
“These boys! They’re good in a crisis!”
*
Lady Vyner was peering through her window in disbelief. She had heard engine sounds and was now staring down into the quadrangle. A crowd of children had gathered, their flashlights lighting up the school’s main fuse box.
“We’ll cut the electricity,” said Asilah.
Sanchez nodded. The fuse box was sealed in a metal case and three armor-plated cables, the thickness of Henry’s arm, snaked up out of it, clamped to the wall. Henry had worked each one free from its clips with his crowbar, so they stuck out like twisted drainpipes.
“Is it safe?” said Sanchez. “That’s a lot of power, that does the whole school . . .”
The orphans wore thick rubber gauntlets and Wellington boots; they pulled visors down, and one of them wrenched the cord on the chainsaw. It caught first time and howled. Lady Vyner saw Henry stand back and cover his eyes, then the child with the chainsaw leaned into a savage cut clean through the cables. The explosion cracked windows and a bolt of lightning went from the fuse box to the floor. The saw screamed louder and another great arc of jagged electricity reared up, swung over everybody’s heads like a snake, and whipped into the ground. When the smoke cleared and Asilah shone his flashlight, Sanchez saw that the fuse box had melted and a black, bent chainsaw was welded to it.
“Not safe at all,” said Asilah. “Very dangerous.”
Now the school was in total darkness. The boys’ flashlights bobbed madly as they buckled on their tool belts. They jammed in screwdrivers, hammers, chisels, pliers, and as they set off, they clanked. The grinder was heaved up onto shoulders and in a moment everyone was up in the study again.
Asilah said, “Let’s go.”
Sanchez said: “Come in, Millie—where are you? We’re coming down the lift shaft. Where are you? Over.”
“I’m nearly there.”
“We’ve killed the power. Over.”
“I know, the lights went out down here. Clever.”
“Be careful, though. I think they might know we’re coming. Try to . . .”
Whatever Sanchez thought Millie ought to try was drowned out by the frenzy of the grinder, as its motor screamed. He saw Tomaz in the doorway. “Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
The boy had a box of bullets in one hand and the heavy black pistol in the other. Sanchez took both and loaded in the light from the flashlight. Israel set the grinder to the metal grille and there was another plume of sparks.