He checked his passport and ticket, and the piece of paper with the magic square of numbers they had found in d’Abbadie’s chateau fell from his pocket. Sayid had shoved it in his jacket when they moved out of the library and into the observatory. If he was picked up he would be searched, and this piece of paper might be a clue as to where Max was heading. Sayid studied the five-by-five box of numbers. Max might have the instincts of a wild animal for survival, but Sayid had the ability to focus totally on anything mathematical.
He had used it effectively when cramming for exams. He supposed it was a bit like a musician being a sight reader. The immediacy of what lay on the score, or in this case the page, allowed him to embed the relevant numbers in his memory. Up to a point, that is. Heat-seeking missile, your brain is, Max always said.
Sayid concentrated, locking out all sounds from the passing night, worked each line up and down, and saw the numbers take shape in his mind’s eye, burning them into his memory. Then he wrote the other numbers that Max had dictated to him under the instep of his boot. Even Sayid’s memory recall wasn’t good enough to remember that sequence and the boxed numbers. Once he was satisfied the indelible ink had dried and there was no chance of misreading the numbers, he crumpled the piece of paper in his mouth and chewed it into a soggy mess and swallowed it.
That was what Max would have done.
It tasted horrible but at least part of the secret, whatever it was, was safe.
The taxi driver dropped Sayid off at the departure entrance. A car horn tooted. Like a Morse code signal. Calling him. Demanding he look. He turned. A gush of relief making him forget his trepidation about the flight home. Bobby’s van pulled up at the curb.
Sayid limped towards the door that swung open.
“Bobby, where the heck have you been?”
Hands grabbed him, pulling him into the unlit van, and threw him roughly into the back. He cried out, but the van’s engine was already revving as it pulled away. Someone had an arm around his throat, someone else bound his hands with gaffer tape, and then the tear of the sticky cloth as a strip was pulled across his mouth. Sharkface had split the hunting pack. Three of his thugs had staked out the airport while he had invaded the comtesse’s chateau.
There was a smell of neoprene and a tang of seaweed as they let Sayid fall against the black-clad body that lay trussed in the back of the van.
Eyes wide, he saw Bobby Morrell’s lifeless form. Panic nearly suffocated him. He had no idea if Bobby was alive or dead. He was unconscious, that was for sure. There was no warmth coming from his body, but that might have been because he still had on his wet suit.
The van pulled off the autoroute, leaving behind the glare of the yellow motorway lights, and stopped. The back doors’ tortured hinges screeched open, and without any care for the well-being of their captive, the thugs pulled Sayid out by his ankles. His back thumped onto the ground; the pain knifed into him, but his gasp was smothered by the tape across his mouth. He twisted his head left and right, but the old buildings around them were in darkness. An abandoned site. Fear and desolation.
Bobby’s body hit the ground next to him. Sayid heard a groan. Good! Bobby was still alive. Other men appeared; Sayid couldn’t see their faces clearly, but then one of them bent down and he recognized him from the attack at the d’Abbadie chateau.
Their faces were ugly with violence. Someone kicked Bobby, another dragged Sayid to his feet. They were bigger and stronger than he realized. Now Bobby, too, was on his feet, shaking his head groggily. A fist in the back prodded Sayid towards the darkened interior of what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. As he was frog-marched towards the doors, Sayid deliberately dragged his boot through a muddy puddle-he had to hide those numbers.
There were other vans parked in the background. Two older teenagers leaned against them, smoking; another was finishing off repairs to a rack of motorbikes that slid out on a ramp. Sayid realized those were the bikes Max had knocked over.
One of the men pulled back the other van’s door, reaching for something. Peaches! She was unhurt but sat guarded by another thug. She glanced up. She was probably terrified, Sayid realized. They must have caught her and Bobby down in Hendaye. He wanted to shout. Wanted to tell her not to worry. That it’d all be OK. But he couldn’t and it wasn’t going to be. The door slid closed on her.
A biker circled the fringes of light, dipping in and out of the gloomy shadows, filming everything with a small video camera held almost at arm’s length. Sayid noticed there was an antenna on the roof of the van.
Another man stood in a pillar of light cast downwards by an overhead spotlight, which threw an ominous shadow across his pinched features. He was leaning against a metal table, an old workbench, rusted but solid, which had an angle grinder resting on it.
This ragged-toothed man ripped the tape off Bobby’s mouth, then Sayid’s. Pushing his face next to Bobby’s, he made the young American jerk back in fear, or maybe he had rotten breath with teeth like that, Sayid thought.
“Where’s Max Gordon?” Sharkface said.
Bobby shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Sharkface nodded to a couple of the henchmen, who slammed their fists into Bobby. He was tough and fit, but Sayid could hear the sickening thuds and watched as the boy went down.
“Where is he?” Sharkface asked again.
Bobby gasped for breath. Shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“You tell us where Max Gordon is hiding and we won’t hurt the old lady at the chateau.”
Bobby and Sayid couldn’t hide their alarm. They knew about the countess!
“Don’t hurt her! She doesn’t know anything!” Bobby yelled at Sharkface.
“Where is-?”
“I don’t know! I left him at the place in Hendaye!”
Sharkface let his heartless eyes gaze at the boy and then nodded. “Know what? I believe you.”
“Then you won’t hurt her. Please!”
“She said you were due home. We told her otherwise,” Sharkface sneered.
“What?”
“If you knew anything you’d have told us. To save her. Wouldn’t you?”
“If you’ve hurt her I’ll kill you!” Bobby shouted.
Sharkface grinned, which made him look as though he was going to tear apart a piece of meat. “Too late, Bobby.”
Bobby yelled and threw himself at Sharkface, but the men holding him kicked his legs away and pinioned him to the floor.
There were tears in the American’s eyes and his voice sounded as broken as his heart. “You shouldn’t have hurt her! She was an old lady … she was my gran!”
Sayid felt a wave of pity for Bobby. He knew what it meant for a loved one to die.
“I didn’t touch her. She fell off a balcony,” Sharkface said dismissively.
He turned and looked at Sayid-who shuddered. A brief glimpse in his mind of the comtesse falling off the derelict balcony flitted across the image of Sharkface staring at him.
“But you know where he’s gone, don’t you?” Sharkface said, wiping saliva from his leaking mouth.
Sayid shook his head vigorously. A spasm of vomit squeezed into his throat. He gagged, swallowed the acid taste and tried to think of what he could do. There was nothing. He was helpless. At their mercy.
The face came closer, like a shark coming out of the depth of the ocean towards a helpless diver. Closer, until the overhead light picked the button eyes out of the frightening face.
“How’s the ankle?” Sharkface whispered in Sayid’s ear.
“Listen, I don’t know where he’s gone. He does things his own way. I dunno. Honest. Just let us go. We won’t say anything about any of this. We won’t-I promise.”