Red Centre (9 page)

Paulo was sitting nearest to her. She touched him on the arm and pointed. 'Look.'

They looked at the screen, willing it to happen again. It did. This time it was longer.

'Alex,' said Paulo quietly. He touched Li's arm and indicated the screen. He mouthed Alex's name at her. Relief flooded through her face like a light.

Pirroni's voice crackled through the speaker. 'I have a new hostage.'

Paulo still had his hand on Li's arm. The fingers tightened.

'Tell me about him,' said Pirroni.

'I don't personally know any of the people you have with you at the moment,' said the negotiator. 'However, if you give me your questions, I can find you the answers and get back to you.'

Pirroni asked his question: 'Just tell me this. What does this new kid's father do?'

In the monitoring room Amber, Li and Paulo saw the screens start to blink rapidly.

Paulo said quietly. 'Alex is trying to get a message to us.'

'Could be Morse code,' said Amber in a low voice. 'Damn! It's years since I did any for sailing. Now we just use satellite phones.'

Sergeant Powell had been listening to Amber, Li and Paulo. He barked an order: 'Murphy, can you take down that message?'

Murphy seized a pen and started to scribble down dots and dashes, translating them into letters as he went.

Li noticed that Murphy was looking puzzled. What he was writing seemed to be gobbledegook. 'Can the negotiator keep Pirroni talking?' she asked Powell. 'The hostages are trying to get a message through.'

Sergeant Powell hit a key on the keyboard in front of him. It sent a code to the other room.

The negotiator asked his next question smoothly, as though it was completely natural to keep talking. 'While you're here, Peter, is there anything you need? Water? Food?'

'We don't need anything. Except what I asked you for.'

'Do you have any family you would like us to get a message to?'

'You know my needs,' said Pirroni. They could see on the screen that he looked irritated, and it came through in his voice. 'I want a car with a police escort and safe passage to a neutral territory. Have you got that for me?'

The negotiator's voice was patient. 'Some of the things you are asking for will take time. They're not directly within my power. I have to ask government officials. However, if you're prepared to be patient, I'm sure things will work out. I need you to bear with me so that this goes as smoothly as possible for everyone. Can you do that?'

Alex, sitting on the floor of the control room, had heard the question. He wished his thumbs could signal faster. The button was fiddly and he was in danger of turning a dot into a dash. He prayed Pirroni would keep talking so that he could transmit a meaningful message. Once he came back in he was bound to notice what Alex was doing. He clicked away on the button and prayed someone was receiving him.

Then he heard something he didn't want to hear: Pirroni said, 'Goodbye.'

12

A
LONE IN THE
D
ARK

In the monitoring room the screens became steady again.

'They heard him come off the phone and had to stop,' said Murphy. He was looking down at the pad on which he'd scribbled Alex's message. 'But this doesn't make sense.'

The door to the lorry opened and the negotiator walked in. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I couldn't keep him.' He was grey-haired, in his fifties, and his face looked tired and haggard.

Murphy was shaking his head.

Sergeant Powell stood up. 'Leave that,' he told Murphy. 'Not many kids know Morse these days. I doubt they even knew we were picking anything up, much less that they intended it to make sense.'

'We can easily find out what his dad does, surely?' said Murphy.

Sergeant Powell thumped the desk. 'What we need is a way in past those cameras. That's what's going to save those kids, not answering twenty questions. Then if he starts shooting or makes a run for it, we can take him down. We'll send two snipers in as close as we can. We keep pushing the government to let us use force and stage an assault. The monitors are a big breakthrough. We can see if the kids are inside and safe.'

He turned to the negotiator. 'When we get the nod, you can call him on the phone. Tell him you're about to meet his demands, so he'll want to listen. We'll put some crackle on it to sound like the reception's bad. When he walks to the bottom of the steps and away from the kids to get better reception, we nail him. Unless anyone has any other ideas . . .'

Murphy nodded. 'He's going to have to come out soon. He's got no supplies.'

Amber looked at Paulo and Li. They weren't part of this discussion any more. She nodded towards the door, then got up. The others followed her out.

Outside it was dark. 'Look at this, guys,' said Amber. She turned her head towards the sky, where the tree canopy was silhouetted against the darkening sky. 'Is Hex still out in this?'

Paulo put a soothing hand on her arm. 'He's got his palmtop. He can use the GPS.'

They had sat down on the steps of the nearby field ambulance, but now Amber stood up again and started to pace. 'I can't keep still at a time like this. And fancy Alex sending a message that was rubbish.'

'I don't think he'd have sent a message that was rubbish,' said Paulo.

'Neither do I,' said Li firmly. 'He sent it after Pirroni asked the question about his father.'

'He may simply have been telling us not to say what his father really does - not to say he's in the SAS,' said Paulo.

'No, I think he was trying to say something,' said Li. 'If Pirroni doesn't get a satisfactory answer to his question, he will be suspicious of Alex. If the SAS get the all-clear to go in, that may not matter.'

'But if they don't,' said Amber, 'what does Alex do?'

The chorus of animals was dying down. The jungle was going to sleep. Hex was making progress but it was painfully slow. He was confident that he was clear of the cameras, but now he had to get back to the road. He trod carefully, stopping for every rustle and movement. The memory of the snake on the camera kept haunting him; the feel of its strong, muscular body as it slid over him. It could have stopped at any moment and squeezed the life out of him.

How dark was it? Hex realized he was having to use the screen from his palmtop as a torch. He stopped and looked around. It was really dark now. Hex tried to tell himself it wasn't, but it was. When he looked away from the palmtop it was like he had black material pressed up against his face. Panic began to well up inside him. He felt as if he was in a confined space, suffocating. He glanced down at his palmtop again. The panic receded a little, became more controllable.

He stepped onwards, carefully. At least with the GPS he could see he was making progress.

Something touched his face. And then he felt something that he had been dreading. Something heavy dropped onto his neck and around his shoulders. It was large, brawny and solid. He let out a yell and his hands tore at it, but still more of it tumbled down onto him. He struggled and wriggled, fired by pure panic. He realized that it was one of those constrictors - if he didn't get out quickly that would be the end of him. It was coiled loosely around his body, his legs, bumping against them as he tried to jerk his way out. It slithered off his shoulders, brushed down against his arms and fell heavily around his feet. He leaped sideways and managed to get free.

Incredibly, he hadn't lost his palmtop. It was stuck to his calves, on the sticky stuff he had picked up from the cables. He prised it off his trousers and decided to attach it to his left forearm. The light from the screen flashed off another shape hanging in the darkness. It was very close to Hex's ear. He turned slowly. He brought his left arm up in an automatic gesture of defence and saw . . . a rope.

It was hanging in the trees. Next to it was another. Feeling a bit braver, he crouched down and shone the palmtop light on the ground. Another rope.

It wasn't a snake that had attacked him earlier, it was a rope. He had blundered into one of the games.

Relief flooded through him. He walked on again, feeling fragile and battered, as though his nerves had gone through a shredder several times. The hardest thing was that he was alone.

A thought occurred to him. He began to type. Hex had many friends throughout the world on the Net, and now he sent out a desperate plea into the ether. 'Is anyone there?'

Two replies came instantly: 'Hi, Hex, it's sunny, I'm sitting by the pool working on my tan. Whaddya doing?' Hex clicked to the next message. 'Hi, Hex, save me! I'm in a meeting. It's boring and it's going to be boring for another two hours. Tell me something amazing before my brain strangles me out of revenge.' Hex mailed back: 'I'm doing something very exciting and hating it. Tell me something boring.'

Hex took a few deep breaths. OK, he was not alone any more. He flipped to the GPS screen and resumed his journey. Still taking every step with the utmost care, he sent short messages to friends around the globe. Using the little keyboard while giving a task his full concentration was second nature to Hex. He kept the GPS program on view to make sure he was still on course. Then he would flip to his e-mail to see if he had another reply. Little did those correspondents know that their words were a vital lifeline. It could only be another few minutes, Hex told himself. Not far now.

The lights were on in the control room. Outside was pitch dark, which made the wooden room seem tiny and claustrophobic.

Pirroni went out onto the veranda again.

Milla Davey voiced what was on all their minds. 'Look how dark it is,' she said quietly. 'How long are we going to be here?'

It was Sarah Compton, the journalist, who replied. 'What if we're here all night?' She kept scratching at the bite she had wanted the doctor to look at. At least it didn't seem to be getting worse.

Milla was huddling against Holly, her arm around the smaller girl. She squeezed her tighter, seeking comfort. 'Surely we won't be here that long,' she said.

Alex was working fast. He had seen Pirroni take a packet of cigarettes from the console and estimated the terrorist would be outside for a couple of minutes at least. He pressed the switch on Hex's watch and tried sending his message again. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the screens flicker. He knew he ran the risk of Pirroni noticing, but he had to take the chance.

'What are you doing?' asked Zoe Patterson. The pink streak in her hair looked even brighter under the strip lights. Her face looked pale with strain.

Alex shrugged. 'Sorry. It's a thing I do when I'm nervous.' He carried on clicking away, struggling to remember the Morse. It was tricky to do that and talk at the same time.

'That's a cool watch,' said Mark Roland. He was sitting next to Zoe and peering around her to get a closer look. 'Can I see it?'

Alex was right in the middle of his message. He didn't want to stop sending while he had the chance, and he also didn't want to let anyone know what he was up to in case they accidentally betrayed him to Pirroni. He would have to cover up what he was doing. 'Hang on a moment,' he said. 'I've reset something and I have to keep clicking until it's back to normal.' He tutted and muttered to himself as he finished the message. Then he clicked the time-check function off and took the watch off his wrist to let Mark look at it.

'Cool,' said Mark. 'Why are you wearing another?' he said.

Alex realized his own watch was peeking out of his shirt cuff. He pulled back his arm self-consciously. 'That one belongs to my girlfriend,' he said. It was the first thing that came into his head. 'She wanted me to wear it, but it's not as accurate as the other one.' He knew it sounded lame and grimaced to himself.

'Won't she see you're wearing both watches? Like, doh, you're on TV!' said Zoe.

'She knows,' was all Alex could think of to say.

'I suppose the fact that you're wearing it is like a message,' said Milla Davey. 'That you love her, I mean,' she added, seeing the look on Alex's face. 'That's what counts.' She was fiddling with her plaits, undoing the ends and then braiding them again.

Zoe was huddled up to Mark. She said in a quiet voice, 'We should be doing something. Not just sitting here. I mean, I feel so helpless. How long do we just sit and wait?'

Alex glanced at the door. The figure outside remained still. A curl of smoke drifted in. He kept his voice low when he replied. 'People know we're here. It's being sorted out. We just need to sit tight.'

Zoe snorted. 'How do you know that?'

Alex had to think quickly again. 'Because they keep phoning him. They're asking him what he wants.'

'The TV company sure as hell knows we're here,' drawled Jonny Cale. 'They've had to take the programme off the air. It was going to go out every night. It'll have made a hell of a hole in the schedule.' Jonny spoke with a worldly-wise swagger, but underneath it all Alex could see he was as scared as the rest of them.

'What if they don't give him what he wants?' whispered Zoe fiercely. 'What happens to us? Does anyone care? We're just a bunch of pawns. How long do we just sit here?'

Some of the others looked daggers at Zoe and hissed at her to be quiet. There was real fear in their eyes. Peter Bailey and Woody Brasher had been silent throughout the whole episode. They seemed to have shut down, almost as if they were hoping the situation would just go away. According to Alex's dad, that was how some people reacted in sieges. Others became frustrated at their powerlessness, which was dangerous for two reasons - it might provoke their captor into premature action, and it undermined the morale of the rest of the hostages. Of the two approaches, Peter's and Woody's was the more sensible. Zoe was right - they
were
pawns; the best thing they could all do was stay quiet and let the SAS solve the problems.

'Listen, guys,' said Alex. 'We're doing the right thing. We have to stay calm. Nobody must even think about escaping or heroics. If we do that, he'll kill someone.'

Mark looked incredulous. 'We just sit here, is that it?' he whispered.

Alex nodded. 'Think of it this way. We think it's just the nine of us here against him. But outside there are lots of people trying to get us out. We don't have to try and get out - it's
their
job to do that.' From the angle of the smoke curling in through the door he could see that Pirroni was listening. So far what he'd said should reassure the terrorist as well as the hostages. Alex didn't mention the SAS; that might make Pirroni panic.

'Well, why haven't they got us out yet?' retorted Jonny.

'It takes time. They can't always get what he wants immediately. Trust me. If we sit quietly and wait, we
will
get out.'

'How do you know so much about it?' said Milla.

'My dad trains bodyguards,' replied Alex. At least that was not a lie.

Holly asked him, 'How long do you think this will go on for?'

Alex thought carefully. Now it was dark, he doubted they would be released before morning, if then. Should he tell them they were definitely there for the night? Peter and Woody would cope, but some of the others might panic. On the other hand, if the night dragged on and nothing happened, their fear might boil up into even more frustration. No, he would gain credibility if he told them. If the siege carried on for days, they had to keep believing he was right when he said they had to sit quietly.

'Listen, guys. I've no idea how long we will be here. But I can guarantee we will be here for the night. Nothing can move in the jungle at night, so they can't get him a boat or a car or whatever he wants yet.'

Eight faces looked back at him. Peter and Woody looked stoical. The others looked at him with varying degrees of horror.

'It's not a sign that it's all going wrong,' Alex continued, 'or that they've abandoned us. You'll hear them phoning him from time to time, and that's a sign that they're still looking after us. But nothing can happen until morning. The best thing to do now is get some sleep.'