CHAPTER thirteen

It was next morning, some indeterminate time between breakfast and lunch, that Dave Pournell came back to visit Calum.

The tablet computer was hidden beneath Calum’s mattress. He had already realized that daytime was the riskiest time for using it. Instead he just sat there quietly in bed, apparently staring at the wall but in reality working through in his head all the possible permutations of what might be happening to his friends, in England and in Hong Kong.

Pournell stood in the doorway. He was still neatly dressed in suit and tie. He checked the edge of the door to see whether Calum had ‘fixed’ it again, and then grinned at Calum as he entered the room.

‘Hey, kid, how’s things?’

‘What can I say?’ Calum responded with a shrug.

‘The standard phrase is “Same old, same old”,’ Dave said. ‘But, just to save you the trouble, let me say that I know what you’re going to say – you’ve been kidnapped, you can’t communicate with anybody, you want to get out of here and go back home, blah, blah, blah. Am I right?’

‘Pretty much,’ Calum admitted. ‘I was going to complain about the lack of entertainment as well. Would it kill you guys to put cable TV in these rooms?’

Pournell laughed. ‘I like your spirit, Calum, I really do.’ He walked to the end of Calum’s bed and put his hands on the rails. ‘It’s crunch time, kid. I offered you a bargain, last time I was here. Now I need your answer. It’s a very simple choice: you can walk again, or you can keep the Almasti DNA to yourself.’

Calum was silent for a few moments, staring at Pournell’s smiling face. He had been mulling the choice over for hours, and it all came down to a very basic question – was he searching for cryptids so he could use their DNA to help cure a whole load of people of a whole load of diseases, as he had told Gillian Livingstone, or was he in it just to cure himself and damn the rest. If it was the former, then he had to keep the Almasti DNA to himself until he could get it into the hands of a laboratory that would sequence it for free and distribute it widely. If it was the latter, then he might as well give the DNA to Nemor Inc. in return for them treating him with their stem-cell technology – if it existed and if it worked as well as they said it did. Was he as altruistic as he liked to think in his better moments, or as selfish as he believed himself to be in his darker moments? What kind of person was he?

‘Can’t do it, Dave,’ he said, surprising himself. He hadn’t meant to say anything, not that quickly anyway, but it seemed as if his subconscious mind had already decided for him. He was a better person than he had feared.

Pournell looked disappointed. ‘You sure? You’re throwing away a lot.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘I wish I could say I respected your principles, but I don’t. I just think you’re being stupid.’

Calum shrugged. ‘What can I say? Look, there’s no point in you keeping me here any more. You’ve tried your best, but I haven’t played ball. Take me back home, and we’ll call it quits. I won’t make any trouble over the kidnapping. If you can’t take me home, at least take me to an airport, and I’ll find my own way back.’

Pournell stared at him for a few long seconds, and Calum realized as he watched the man that his smile was just a muscular reaction. It didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t happy, cheerful, friendly, or anything else that a smile might indicate. He was a deeply dangerous man, behind that mask.

‘You know, let’s not do that,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to plan B instead.’

‘Plan B?’ Calum asked, feeling his spirits drop.

‘Yeah.’ Without turning his head, Pournell called, ‘Hey, Kircher, get in here!’

Dr Kircher hurried through the door. ‘Yes, sir, what is it?’

‘You were telling me earlier about some conclusions you’d come to about that mental link to the bionic legs.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Kircher sounded as if he was reading from a script. ‘I think that the problem with the stray signals affecting the ARLENE robot can be solved by reducing the wireless signal strength.’

‘Great!’ Pournell said. ‘And how do you go about doing that?’

‘Well,’ Kircher went on, ‘having the sensors on Calum’s scalp gives us a level of signal blockage that has to be overcome by high sensitivity. If we can actually implant the sensors in Calum’s brain, then we can reduce the sensitivity by a factor of a hundred or so.’

‘Wonderful! So brain surgery is the answer. Let’s start preparing the operating theatre!’

Kircher looked uncomfortable, but all he said was, ‘Yes, sir!’ He turned to leave, and didn’t even look at Calum as he went.

‘For the record,’ Calum said in a shaky voice, ‘I don’t want brain surgery.’

‘Nonsense. You want this problem fixed, don’t you?’

‘Not this way!’

‘Unfortunately, that release document you signed – you really should have read the small print – it gives Dr Kircher carte blanche to do anything he needs in order to get those bionic legs working, up to and including radical surgery. Of course, there is a risk of possible side effects, including brain damage, coma and death, but then any serious surgery carries risks. I’m sure you understand.’

‘I looked at the small print. I’m a fast reader. It didn’t say anything about you being able to conduct surgery on me.’

Pournell smiled. ‘It does now. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to add an extra page or two to a document that’s already been signed.’

‘I want to rescind my permission,’ Calum said. His stomach was churning, and he could hear a loud buzzing in his ears.

‘No can do, kid.’ Pournell turned to go, and then turned back. ‘You can stop this any time you want,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Just tell us where that Almasti DNA is.’ He stared at Calum for a moment. His smile faded, and Calum got a clear sight of the single-minded insanity underneath. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘is it really worth losing your mind over?’

He turned and left.

Calum sat there, trembling, unable to believe what had just happened. This wasn’t going to end until either he gave in or Nemor performed whatever torture they could on him. And it seemed there wasn’t any limit to the torture they were prepared to perform. Eventually he would crack, but would that be too late to save himself?

He didn’t know.

By the time Gecko and Rhino got back to the hotel it was well after midnight and Rhino was furious.

‘Natalie tipped the police off,’ he said as they entered the lobby. ‘I know it was her.’

‘I doubt that she alerted the police,’ Gecko said, trying to calm Rhino down. ‘Your reasons for not involving them were good. However, I think she may have followed through with her second option of alerting the United Nations. If they have an office covering illegal animal shipments here in Hong Kong, then they may have been able to mobilize the police through their own contacts and move quickly.’

‘The UN!’ Rhino snarled, making it sound like a curse. ‘When you actually want them to do something, it takes nine months and a unanimous resolution to get them moving, but when you don’t want them to move they’re like greased lightning!’

‘To be fair,’ Gecko interrupted, ‘I think Natalie did want them to move. She has taken this animal stuff to heart. I think it has hit her somewhere personal.’

‘Why does she choose now to suddenly get a conscience?’

Gecko shrugged. ‘I think it has been building for a while.’

‘I ought to go up to her room now and have a strong chat with her, culminating in her flying straight home, alone! I can’t have her undermining our missions like this!’

Gecko held up a warning hand. ‘That would not help. I’m sure she didn’t mean to undermine our mission. I think she was just trying to do something for those animals.’

‘Maybe that’s the case, but because of her those two giant centipedes have escaped. Who knows what they’re capable of?’ Rhino looked at Gecko with sudden interest. ‘You live in Brazil, don’t you? What do you think they’re capable of?’

‘What?’ Gecko said, feeling a flush of anger. ‘Just because there’s a rainforest within fifty miles of my family home, you think I’m some kind of expert on strange animals?’

‘Yes,’ Rhino said, looking confused, ‘of course I do. You knew about capybaras and coypus, didn’t you? That’s more than I did.’ He sighed. ‘Look, I was born on Canvey Island. I can do seagulls and that’s about it. At least you have exotic animals in your country.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘My point is that I can predict people. I can’t predict animals.’

Gecko nodded, calming down. He knew that Rhino was frustrated and angry, and didn’t really mean what he was saying. ‘I guess I understand. OK, then, the centipedes are carnivores, yes? And they have a poisonous bite. They have presumably not had very much food during their captivity. They will be hunting.’

‘Hunting for what?’

Gecko closed his eyes briefly. Images of what the centipedes might be hunting for were flashing through his mind, and he didn’t like what he was seeing. ‘Live food,’ he said quietly. ‘Smaller centipedes hunt other insects. For ones this size, insects won’t be enough. I would imagine that their usual food, wherever they come from, is likely to be small mammals – monkeys, maybe, or rodents. In a city like this –’ he shrugged – ‘cats, maybe. Dogs. Even small children.’ In his mind he was imagining the carnage that could result from the release of the two centipedes, and the thought made him feel sick. ‘Rhino, it’s worse than you think.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rhino asked warily.

‘What if they are male and female centipedes – a breeding pair? What if they mate, and lay eggs? In a few months’ time Hong Kong could be swarming with these things!’

Rhino didn’t reply for a moment, but he lost colour from his face as the thought hit home.

‘We have to do something,’ Gecko urged. ‘We have to kill them, or recover them somehow’

Rhino nodded. ‘You’re right. We caused this situation. We need to fix it.’

‘But how are we going to find them?’

Rhino thought for a moment. ‘We obviously need to know more about them.’ He lifted his hand, which was still holding the hard drive that he had retrieved from where the fleeing Tsai Chen had dropped it on the warehouse floor. ‘There might be something on this about the centipedes, if we’re lucky – their likely habitats, their diet, something we might be able to use. I’ve got a laptop in my room – I’ll connect it up and see what I can find. Do you want to join me?’

Gecko shook his head. ‘I need a shower and a change of clothes. Can I join you in half an hour?’

‘OK.’

The two of them split up, each heading to his own room. When Gecko entered, he saw that his mobile phone was sitting beside the bed where he had left it. Instinctively he checked it for messages. There hadn’t been any calls – which was strange, because he would have expected to have heard from Calum or Tara by now – but he had received a text message. It was from an unknown number. Gecko half thought about deleting it, on the basis that it was probably some kind of advertising scam, but he clicked on it anyway, just in case.

The message was very plain and simple:

We have the girl – Tara Fitzgerald.

Watch the video file.

It was not signed, but Gecko was pretty sure he knew who had sent it.

He felt as if he was standing on the deck of a boat in a storm. The ground seemed to be moving beneath his feet, rocking up and down, and his stomach was churning. He didn’t want to watch the video file, but he knew he had to. So he pressed on the Play button.

He watched with increasing feelings of nausea and guilt as Tara read out her brief message. He listened to the words, but more importantly he watched her expression as she spoke them. She was frightened. She was trying to hide it, trying to put a brave face on things, but she was frightened.

She had good reason to be. He knew what these men were capable of.

The video finished. Gecko stood there, in the centre of his room, his thoughts whirling as if there was a hurricane inside his head. Tara was in danger. Tara.

He had to go back. He had no choice.

Without showering or changing, he headed straight for Rhino’s room.

Rhino was sitting at the desk. He had connected the removable hard drive to his own laptop using a USB cable. As Gecko knocked and entered, he glanced up. ‘No good,’ he said grimly. ‘It’s encrypted. We need Tara to take a look at it. She can do that from England, can’t she?’

‘I do not think she can,’ Gecko said. He played the video for Rhino. The ex-soldier stood there for a good thirty seconds after it had finished, staring into space and thinking.

‘I need to go back,’ Gecko said.

‘Don’t overreact,’ Rhino cautioned.

Gecko moved to where he could stare Rhino in the face. ‘I have to go back,’ he repeated.

‘Look, Gecko, I’m trained in hostage rescue. That means I’m also trained in negotiation. The first rule of negotiation is: work out what the kidnappers actually want. The second rule is: don’t give them anything until you have proof of life. The third rule is: don’t give them anything until you can be sure that you’ll get their captive back alive and well.’

Gecko knew that Rhino was talking sense, and he tried to calm himself down. ‘Are there more rules?’ he asked.

Rhino nodded. ‘As far as I’m concerned, there’s a fourth rule as well: don’t give them anything at all, if you can help it. Take swift and harsh action to get the captive back, if you can do it without the hostage getting hurt.’

‘And what about the kidnappers?’

‘Oh, nobody cares about them.’

Gecko sighed, feeling dark thoughts swirling around him again. ‘This is my fault. I caused this. I need to fix it.’

‘Not by giving yourself to them. Let’s think this through.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m surprised that Calum hasn’t told us anything about this. Maybe he doesn’t know. We need to talk to him, and quickly. The trouble is he’s not answering his phone. I’ve tried him on his computer – he’s usually glued to that like football fans glued to a sports-bar TV set – but he’s not answering that either.’ He raised a hand to his head and pushed his hair back. ‘I’m not sure what the next move is,’ he said with an uncertain tone in his voice.

Tara listened nervously at the door to her cell/bedroom until all the noise from the flat died away apart from the murmur of a television set. Her pulse was racing. It was dark outside, and she guessed that one of the Karavla brothers had gone to bed while the other one sat up on watch. After all, it wouldn’t be good for them if they were both asleep and Tara managed – somehow – to get out. If she could work out what that ‘somehow’ was, then she might even try it, but short of pulling the pins out of the door hinges – and her nails were bitten too short for that – she was out of ideas.

But she did have a mobile phone – Tom’s mobile phone.

It was security locked, but it was a simple-four digit code and she knew all kinds of ways past that. Within seconds she was in.

Who to call? Rhino would have been the best bet at getting her out, but he was in Hong Kong. Gecko she was worried about – he apparently hadn’t got in touch with the Karavla brothers yet, and Tara was beginning to wonder, with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, whether something had happened to him, despite the fact that Rhino was meant to be looking after him. Natalie was . . . well, just Natalie. Which left Calum.

Actually. Calum had resources and courage, and nothing fazed him. He was also the de facto leader of their little group, despite (or maybe because of) his physical issues. He would know what to do.

Tara worried about whether she should send him a text message or call him and risk being overheard, but she needed to know that her words were actually getting through to someone, rather than just being dumped in a recorded message bucket on a server somewhere in the world. She could call Calum, but then when he asked her to describe what was outside so he could locate her she would have to resort to words, or take a photograph and email it to him. No, the best bet was a video chat. That way she just had to turn the camera round and actually show him what was outside.

Fortunately Tom’s camera phone had a front lens as well as a rear one. That made things a lot easier.

She quickly downloaded a few specialist apps that Tom hadn’t got, and then used one of them to set up a video chat. Calum usually spent every waking hour in front of his computer screens, and he didn’t sleep much, so she was bound to get hold of him.

Unless he had gone out walking with his new bionic legs. That thought momentarily brought her up cold, before she convinced herself that he would be following Dr Kircher’s instructions and not going out without company.

When Calum’s face appeared on the screen of Tom’s phone, Tara was ecstatic. That faded away after a moment and was replaced with surprise. He wasn’t in his apartment. The background was white and sterile, like a hospital, and she could see a sign behind his head that said: Bed I. The bottom of the sign was rough-edged, as if part of it had been snapped off.

Calum was wearing pyjamas. That was odd. Tara had never seen him in pyjamas.

‘Tara!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank God!’

‘Calum, be quiet. I have to talk quickly. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m being held prisoner. You need to help me get out. Do you understand?’

‘I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being held prisoner,’ he repeated. ‘You have to get me out of here!’

‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘No, that’s what’s happened to me!’

She frowned. This wasn’t the conversation she had imagined in her head. How long had he been awake for? ‘No, Calum,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m the one who has been kidnapped. I’m somewhere in east London. I don’t know exactly where.’

‘Stop talking for a minute and listen! I’ve been kidnapped, and flown to America. I’m in a Robledo Mountains Technology facility in Las Cruces, but Robledo is actually owned by Nemor Incorporated. I stole one of their tablet computers and I’ve tried sending a message to Gillian Livingstone, but I’ve had no answer.’

‘If you’re in Las Cruces, how come I was able to get hold of you on your computer system?’ Tara asked, puzzled.

‘I used the stolen tablet to log into my own system remotely. As far as the internet is concerned, I’m in London, in my apartment. I wanted to try to link up with Rhino and tell him what’s happened, but he hasn’t been at his computer.’ He paused for a moment, and frowned as he caught up with her news. ‘Hang on – you’ve been kidnapped too? Who by?’

‘Two brothers with the surname Karavla. They’re Croatian. They belong to the same gang who wanted Gecko to work for them as a thief. They want to use me to influence him. They got me to record a video message to send to him, but they’ve not heard back yet. I hope he’s all right.’ She stopped to catch her breath. This was all going too fast for her. ‘What does Nemor Incorporated want with you?’

‘They want the Almasti genetic material you retrieved from Georgia.’

‘Well, give it to them.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple. I don’t think I have the right to do that.’

‘How did they get through your security to kidnap you?’

‘Long story’ he said, wincing. ‘Back to you. How did these Croatians get past your well-known paranoia to kidnap you?’

‘Ah.’ She could feel herself blushing. ‘There was this boy, named Tomas. It turns out that he is their nephew, but I don’t think he actually wants to work for them. I think they frightened him into it.’

‘And he was the one who managed to get you out of your shell?’ Calum raised an eyebrow. ‘There must be something special about him.’

‘He’s very convincing,’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘But I got my revenge. I stole his phone.’

‘Oh, he visits, does he?’

‘Leave it, Calum. Seriously – leave it.’

There was a long silence as they both looked at each other. Eventually Calum summed it up: ‘We’ve both been kidnapped, and we both need rescuing.’

‘That appears to be the situation.’

He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration while he thought. ‘OK, here’s what we’ll do. In case anything happens to one of us, we’ll both do this so at least one of us will be successful. First thing you do is to phone Mr Macfarlane – you remember him?’

‘Small man, tight suit, strange taste in music.’

‘That’s him. I’ll give you his number in a second. We need to tell him roughly where you are, and he can come and get you out.’

‘I don’t know exactly where I am!’

‘OK – leave that to Macfarlane. If you can describe the buildings outside your window, he might be able to locate you. He knows east London like the back of his hand. How many of them are there in the flat?’

‘There’s at least two of them, and they have guns and knives and stuff. Isn’t that, like, overwhelming odds?’

‘It is,’ Calum agreed, ‘but they’ve got it coming to them.’ Before Tara could correct his understanding of her question, he continued: ‘The second thing is to get in touch with Rhino, whenever he switches his laptop on again. I need him to try to contact Gillian Livingstone for me. I’ve tried to get hold of her myself but nothing’s happened. Maybe she didn’t get the message. If he can’t get her, then he has to find some way of getting me out of here. The British embassy might be a good start – I’m sure he knows people who know people. So, I’ll talk to Rhino and you talk Mr Macfarlane, then you talk to Rhino and I’ll talk to Macfarlane.’

‘What’s his number?’

Calum recited it from memory.

The two of them stared at each other in silence for a long moment, neither one wanting to break the call in order to make another one. This was human contact. This was a rare moment of warmth and a reminder of better things.

‘We need to go,’ Calum said eventually.

‘I know,’ Tara said. She paused, then, ‘You first.’

‘No, you first.’

‘Calum!’

‘OK, then – both at once. On a count of three. One . . . two . . .’

‘Calum!’

‘What?’

She felt her breath catch in her throat. ‘Good luck.’

‘You too, Tara. Right – one . . . two . . . three!’

Her finger came down on the Disconnect button at the same time his did. Her screen went blank.

She felt desolate. Lost.

Shoving the desolation and the fear to one side, she quickly got into the operating system of Tom’s mobile and deleted any logs of her video call. If anything went wrong, the Karavla brothers wouldn’t know she had used the phone. She would do the same after she had made the call to Mr Macfarlane.

She was just about to dial the number that Calum had given her when the door suddenly opened. She tried to hide the mobile behind her back, but in her panic she dropped it.

‘So – you have mobile.’ She felt her heart go cold. One of the Karavla brothers was standing in the doorway. ‘I think we need to have a talk with young Tomas.’

‘It’s not his fault,’ Tara said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. ‘I stole it from him.

‘Then it is his fault,’ Tomas’s uncle said grimly, ‘and he will be punished. If you have actually made call, then he will be punished in a way he will never forget!’

Despite the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Calum tried to contact Rhino again via video link. This time the electronic request was answered. A window opened on the tablet’s screen and Rhino’s worried face appeared.

‘Calum – we have a problem,’ he said quickly.

‘Actually, we have several problems,’ Calum corrected. ‘Do you know about Tara?’

‘We’ve just found out, and we also have two giant poisonous centipedes on the loose in Hong Kong.’

‘And I’ve been kidnapped by Nemor Incorporated.’ Calum explained where he was, and took a deep breath. ‘It looks like we’re all in trouble, then.’ He hesitated for a moment, replaying the conversation. ‘Centipedes?’

‘It’s a long story. We think we might have some intelligence on a removable hard disk, but it’s encrypted and I can’t read it. That’s why we need Tara.’

‘And Tara’s kidnapped as well.’ Calum thought for a moment. ‘OK – priorities. We need to get Tara out first. She can hopefully decrypt your hard drive, so you can locate the centipedes. Once that’s done, you can all come for me.’ He remembered Dave Pournell’s parting comments, and felt another shiver run through him. ‘If I’m still here.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m facing non-elective brain surgery if I don’t give Nemor Inc. the Almasti DNA.’

Rhino frowned. ‘Well, give it to them, then.’

‘I may have to, but I’m holding out.’ He paused again, thoughts racing. ‘I can get Tara out, but I need to know her location first. I’ll work on that – you get in touch with Gillian Livingstone and tell her where I am. She might be able to exert some leverage. I’m working on a stolen tablet at the moment, so I don’t know how much longer I’ve got, but I’ll try and get back to you in an hour or two. OK?’

‘OK.’ Rhino looked as if he was going to say something else, but Gecko’s head appeared in the video window, pushing the ex-SAS soldier out of the way.

‘Calum, I could fly back to England and give myself up to them!’

‘Not a chance,’ Calum said. He could hear Rhino saying something similar in the background. ‘Tara has seen their faces. They won’t let her live, even if they get you.’ He tried to look earnest and believable. ‘Gecko, trust me – I’ll get her back. I promise.’

Gecko nodded, reluctantly. ‘You have to, Calum.’

‘I know. Talk soon.’ He suddenly remembered the other thing he’d meant to say. ‘Oh, by the way – there’s a Nemor team headed your way. Be careful.’ Calum cut the connection. He felt a wave of depression and loss wash through him, but he pushed it away. There was no time for that now.

Tom Karavla. He was the key to this.

Calum knew that he wasn’t as good at computing and hacking as Tara was, but he knew a lot and he’d learned more from her. Using the Robledo Mountains Technology tablet, and knowing that someone might come through the door any moment, he remotely accessed his system back in London to search for the name Tomas Karavla. Within a few seconds he had an email address and IP address. Tomas Karavla was logged on at a coffee shop in central London. Calum hacked into the boy’s laptop and activated the camera above the screen. Within seconds he was looking at Tomas’s face. The boy had obviously been in a fight. He had a black eye, a bruised cheek, a split lip and a gash on his forehead.

Calum activated a two-way interchange. He knew, from Tomas’s amazed expression, exactly when a window had opened up on the boy’s computer with Calum’s face in it.

‘My name is Calum Challenger,’ he said. ‘You are Tomas Karavla, and you helped kidnap Tara Fitzgerald.’

‘Not through choice,’ the boy said. He frowned. ‘You are not the way I imagined you.’

‘Never mind that. I need your help. Where is Tara being held?’

Tomas tried to lick his lips, but when his tongue touched the bloody split in his lower lip he winced. ‘Why should I help? My uncles – they beat me up just because Tara took my mobile without me knowing. If they do that for an accident, what would they do if I deliberately betrayed them?’

‘They are going to kill her,’ Calum said quietly but urgently. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘No! They said they would release her unharmed when this Gecko boy comes to work for them.’

‘And do you believe them?’

Tomas was silent.

‘You know that she knows what they look like. Do you really think they’ll let her go?’

‘If they frighten her enough,’ Tomas said, as if the words hurt him, ‘then she will keep quiet about them.’

‘Even if that was true, and we both know it isn’t, do you really want them to hurt her badly enough to scare her forever? That doesn’t seem to be something you’d be comfortable with.’ Calum didn’t know that for sure, but Tara seemed to think that Tomas was OK, and Calum didn’t have much choice but to go with that.

Tomas’s face was tortured. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘but they will hurt me. Badly. They will cripple me.’

‘Not if they don’t know what you’ve done. And not if they get hurt first.’ He paused. ‘Do they still have your phone?’

‘Yes. They smashed it in front of me.’

‘Then they probably think you can’t talk to anyone. Tell me where they are holding Tara. I promise that nobody will know you’re involved.’

‘I don’t want her to be hurt.’ Tomas looked as if he was trying to convince Calum of what he was saying. ‘I don’t even want her frightened.’

‘Then tell me.’

A long pause, then: ‘St Alkmund’s Court, in Stratford. It is a block of flats. She is in number forty-five.’

‘Thank you,’ Calum said.

‘Get her out. Get her out alive.’

‘I will,’ Calum said, cutting the connection.

He looked around. He was immobilized in a medical facility in a different country, and someone might come through the door any moment and take the tablet away. How come this was all on his shoulders?

He sighed. Now he just had to get hold of Mr Macfarlane . . .