“Twins.”
“Yes. I saw the mark when you were in the shower and guessed at once who you must be. But you confused me. You lied to me. You said you had no brother.”
“I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone.”
Joe nodded. “If I had known, I might have acted sooner. Even so, I made contact with my friends. That was not easy. I had to contact them by satellite phone and all the calls at Silent Creek were monitored. But I made them understand and they agreed to gather. Then Max Koring found out who you were. He told me your real name and said that you had a twin. That was when I knew you were in great danger.”
“So you raided the prison.”
“Yes.”
“Where are your friends now? I never even got a chance to thank them.”
“They don’t need your thanks. They were honoured to be able to help you. Most of them have now returned to their homes. A couple of them were wounded. None of them were killed.”
There was a movement and Daniel appeared, crawling bleary-eyed out of the tepee. He had nodded off during the afternoon but now he blinked and smiled, pleased to see Jamie. “You’re awake!” he said.
“Danny… I need to talk to you.” Jamie struggled to raise himself up. It hurt his back but eventually he managed to position himself, sitting cross-legged in front of the fire. Both of them were still wearing their prison trousers but someone had supplied them with new T-shirts. Danny’s shirt was advertising engine oil.
“I thought they’d killed you,” Danny said. “This old woman came – and I mean really old. She spent ages looking after you. They wouldn’t let me watch. I don’t know what she did but this morning she packed up her horse and left. I figured you were dead.” He shrugged. “I’m glad you’re not.”
Joe got to his feet. “I’ll leave you two together,” he said. “I must prepare the meal.” He disappeared behind the tepee.
Jamie looked around him. They were in a sort of cleft in the mountains, surrounded on all sides. Unless a helicopter flew directly overhead there was no chance of their being seen – and, as Joe had said, why would anyone be looking for them here? He examined the tepee where Daniel had been sleeping. It looked like the genuine article, made out of animal skin with a simple pattern of interlocking lines around the base. The sun was low in the sky, making the mountains glow a deep red. Nothing moved apart from the fingers of flame, licking at the dead wood and the trickle of smoke, folding in on itself as it climbed up.
He glanced at Daniel. “How are you?”
“I’m good.” Daniel sighed. “But I’d like to go home now.
Joe has a cell phone but there’s no reception here. I haven’t even been able to phone my mum.”
“Can you tell me about Silent Creek?” Jamie asked. He paused. “Can you tell me about Scott?”
“There’s not much to tell.” Daniel sat down on the other side of the camp fire. “They grabbed me when I was on my way home from school and they took me there. There were sixteen of us in the Block. I was the youngest. There were four girls. The rest were boys.” He thought for a moment. “The first month was the worst. They did these experiments. They had this idea that I had some sort of power. That was what they were interested in. They were looking for kids with powers.”
“You saw into the future.”
“Did my mum tell you that?”
Jamie nodded.
“It only ever happened a couple of times and it wasn’t like seeing the future. It was more like having a bad feeling. There was a bus that crashed and I sort of knew it was going to happen. Maybe that’s how they found out about me, because it got into the newspapers. Anyway, they tried to make me do it again and when I couldn’t, they hurt me. They had a special room. They said that was the only place in Silent Creek where my power would work, but it didn’t make any difference because there was nothing I could do and after a bit they lost interest in me.”
That at least explained one thing that Jamie hadn’t understood – why he had been unable to force Max Koring to do what he wanted. He had thought his power had failed. But it was the position of the prison that was to blame. A natural phenomenon – perhaps some sort of natural magnetism – had neutralized him. Nightrise had left nothing to chance.
“They were searching for the Five,” Jamie muttered. It was suddenly obvious to him.
“They called it the Psi project,” Daniel went on. “The other kids were from all over America. It was the same for all of us. They did the tests. They hurt us. Then they left us alone. After that, we were just kept in prison, which sucked because we hadn’t done anything wrong. Billy was afraid they would kill us one day – if they didn’t need us any more.”
“Who was Billy?”
“He was my friend. I’m sorry we had to leave him behind. I hope he’s OK.”
“Tell me about Scott.”
“Scott was the last to arrive. That must have been a couple of weeks ago. He had the cell next to mine and I saw him before they began on him.” Daniel saw Jamie flinch. “I’m sorry…” he muttered.
“How badly did they hurt him?”
“Well, they took him away and I know they must have done a lot of bad things because after a few days he wouldn’t talk to me any more. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. The bald man was working on him… Mr Banes.” Daniel paused. “We knew Scott was important to them because this woman arrived. She was thin and scrawny with grey hair and a face like a sort of rotten fruit. We’d only ever seen her once before. Everyone was scared of her.”
“Do you know her name?”
Daniel shook his head. “She never said who she was.”
There was one more thing Jamie wanted to know, although he almost dreaded putting it into words. “What happened to Scott?” he asked. “What did they do with him?”
“I don’t know, Jamie. I’m sorry. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. Nobody knew where they took him.”
So that was it.
It was the same as Joe had told him. Jamie felt a wave of black despair but he forced it away. He wasn’t going to give in. He remembered everything that Matt had said. He had led an army and fought in a war… even if it had been in another world at another time. The strange thing was, there wasn’t a single part of him that believed it hadn’t happened, or that the whole experience had been some sort of fantasy, imagined while he lay unconscious. He knew it was real. And Joe recognized him for what he was. One of the Five. Whatever happened, he would find Scott – no matter how long it took.
“When can we leave?” Daniel asked.
The boy was eleven years old. He had been kidnapped in broad daylight, separated from his mother, kept prisoner for seven months. Jamie understood how he must be feeling.
Then Joe appeared, carrying a saucepan.
“When can we leave?” Jamie repeated the question.
“Where do you want to go?” Joe asked.
“We have to get back to Reno. Danny’s mother is waiting for him there.”
Joe considered. “Another twenty-four hours,” he said. “The nearest road is seven miles away and we’ll have to move at night. I have friends waiting for us. They’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”
“Can we really leave tomorrow?” Daniel said.
“If Jamie is ready.”
“Don’t worry, Danny,” Jamie said. He took a sip of the tea.
“I’ll be ready.”
They left the following evening, Jamie supporting himself on a staff that Joe had brought for him. He knew he wasn’t really ready for the journey. His shoulder and left arm were on fire and he was still weak from loss of blood. But he couldn’t keep Daniel waiting any longer. It was a perfect night with a full moon and perhaps a million stars guiding them on their way. They came slowly down the mountains, but once the ground had levelled out they made better progress. Joe knew exactly where they were going and never hesitated once. Jamie imagined that he had been born with these skills, something handed down instinctively from generations ago.