‘How though? We don’t even know where he is. And Dom’s tried and tried.’
Isabelle studied her thoughtfully for a moment. Then she turned the water on and soaked a hand towel in the stream.
‘Here’s the thing.’ Turning back to Allie, she dabbed the warm, damp cloth against her cheeks and forehead. ‘Nathaniel just made one huge error. Until now all we had was his comms system. He just gave Dom a poorly protected computer system and an open web cam. She can use it to track his location.’ She leaned forward, holding Allie’s gaze; excitement glittered in her golden eyes.
‘We’re going to get him back.’
The next morning, Dom’s office was packed. Rachel, Dom, Zoe and Shak were at the table with Allie, all working furiously. Across the room, Nicole, Eloise, and several security guards milled around maps and photos of enormous rural houses. Isabelle and Zelazny hovered around Dom’s desk in a tight cluster.
Outside, rain tapped a staccato beat against the windows. Inside, the room buzzed with energy. Everyone believed they had a chance now. They had the information they needed to beat Nathaniel, and he didn’t even know he’d handed it to them.
He’d be undone by his own arrogance.
The mood was contagious, and Allie could buy into it now and then, for a few minutes. Until her eyes fell on the wall-mounted screen.
And there was Carter, chains fixed to his wrists and ankles.
He wore a grey, ill-fitting t-shirt and oversized trousers. His hair was a mess. He didn’t look like he’d been beaten. Mostly he just looked bored. And furious.
Nathaniel had left the feed live for hours now – a boon to Dom, but excruciating at the same time.
‘He thinks he’s torturing us,’ Isabelle had told her earlier. ‘But he’s giving us the weapon we need to kill him.’
To Allie, though, it just felt like torture.
There was a clock on the bottom of the screen. She’d missed it last night in her panic, but she was very familiar with it now. The red, digital numbers glowed like dragons’ eyes: 72:45:50
The last number was going down.
49, 48, 47, 46…
Those numbers were all the time they had left. Seventy-two hours, forty-five minutes.
Three days.
If they weren’t out of the school by then, Nathaniel swore Carter would die. The returned prisoners had explained it all, in tones of regret and muted outrage.
It was Nathaniel’s ‘little flourish’, Isabelle said bitterly. ‘He’s trying to scare us.’
The only problem was, it worked.
Allie couldn’t keep her eyes off the numbers. Her gaze strayed to them, over and over again. Their inexorable decline fuelled a constant sense of borderline panic. Her heart never stopped racing.
Faster, she kept thinking. We have to be faster.
She was exhausted. Isabelle had thrown her out of Dom’s office at four in the morning – ordering her not to come back until she’d rested. But her attempts to sleep had been plagued by nightmares of bombs with clocks on them, ticking down, down, down…
She’d been back in the office at seven.
She wasn’t alone. Dom, Shak and Zoe were working to hack into Nathaniel’s computer systems. Raj and his guards were out systematically identifying and searching mansions owned by Nathaniel’s supporters – looking for signs that Carter was being held there.
With one last, long look at Carter, she slid the headphones back on her head. All she could do was listen to Nathaniel’s guards.
And hope they made a mistake.
‘Another day in the salt mines, eh Five?’
Nine sounds tired today, Allie thought. She sat at the table, her feet propped on a nearby chair, munching on a granola bar. The headphones blocked all sounds except the guards’ voices; she kept forgetting anyone else was in the room.
‘It’s the glamorous life,’ Five replied, his voice thick with irony.
‘Isn’t it just?’ Nine replied. ‘How’s the boss today? He’s been in a good mood ever since the last excursion.’ He paused. ‘Gives me the creeps.’
‘Christ, Nine.’ Allie could almost hear Five rolling his eyes. ‘Does anything ever make you happy?’
‘Shagging your wife cheers me right up,’ Nine replied without missing a beat.
Five responded with a creative string of expletives.
‘You’re a company man, Five,’ Nine said when Five’s enraged sputtering ended. ‘You don’t see the truth because you don’t want to. Our boss is a nutter. And we’re all looking at ten years if he loses this thing. Hard time.’
Allie nodded in agreement.
‘Don’t be so wet, Nine.’ Five scoffed. ‘He’ll win. And if he doesn’t… So what? You get three squares a day at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I’d be happy with that.’
‘You would, too.’ Nine didn’t sound like he thought it was funny. ‘I bloody well wouldn’t.’
They exchanged insults for a while. Allie was reaching for a cup of tea when Nine said, ‘You see that girl, last night? At the school? The one in the uniform?’
She froze, the mug halfway to her mouth.