Moments later Max’s trembling hand touched Peaches’s neck. She looked as though she were sleeping, curled on her side. But there was no pulse. Conflicting feelings confused him. Was he afraid of touching the girl he had once thought of as a friend, who was now dead-or fearful of resting his hand on a killer?
Corentin checked Sophie’s injuries. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. Thierry tied up the bikers, leaving them facedown, wrists bound to ankles.
“Police will be here any second,” Corentin said. “We’re taking her to the hospital.”
Max nodded. “How badly hurt is she?”
“I don’t know. A crack on her head and something wrong with her leg. There’s blood, look, in her ear. I think it’s a fractured skull. We have to be careful with her.” Corentin turned away, whistled to Thierry to join him.
Max pushed the hair back from her face. “Sophie, what’s going on? I don’t get it.”
Her eyes opened, blinked a few times, and stayed open, as if she were just waking from sleep. “Max?” She smiled. “Thought I was dreaming. Knew it was you. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you steal the pendant? You should have told me everything.”
She was weak but she could hear him. Her voice faltered. “You were sick. You did not trust me.”
Her words hurt, but it was the truth.
The Audi rolled across the grass towards them. Sophie tried to reach something in her jacket pocket. “Max, he’s in the mountains. My phone, get my phone. She told me, Peaches told me. That’s where they have him … in the Citadel.”
Max pulled out her phone. She was losing consciousness again.
“Sophie, hang on. Your dad sent these men to help us. We’re OK now.”
She shook her head. “Sayid …,” she whispered. A brief smile and she reached up her hand to touch his face. “I tried…. Sorry, Max.” And then her eyes closed.
Max held her, not wanting her to die.
Corentin eased her away from Max, checked her pulse. “She’s alive. We’ll get her to Emergency.”
Corentin and Thierry lifted her gently onto the backseat of the Audi.
“Get in,” Thierry told him.
He shook his head. “I can’t. I have to go on and try to stop this thing. Whatever it is. Look after her, Corentin. If you hadn’t been here they’d have killed her. Thanks.”
Max pulled his backpack from the car.
Corentin was behind the wheel and Thierry cradled the unconscious Sophie on the backseat. They had done their job. Max Gordon was not their problem, but Corentin admired the boy.
“And you? What thing? Where are you going?”
It was suddenly all too big a problem. As if someone had told him to climb a sheer wall of ice dragging a Land Rover behind him. “Somewhere called the Citadel. I’ll find it.”
“Other end of the lake,” Thierry told him. “Mountain ranges. You can’t go there-you don’t have the gear. Come with us.”
Max looked at Corentin. They both knew he wouldn’t.
The stubble-faced man pushed a folded map through the window. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
Max nodded his thanks. “Corentin, if you know anyone in the French security services, cops, anyone, talk to them. Any contacts you might have.”
“And tell them what?”
“Check back with Laurent Fauvre. He’ll explain.” He snatched the folded drawings and notes from his backpack and shoved them at Corentin. “There’s a triangle. It pointed to CERN, the nuclear research center. Here! Geneva! I was wrong. I got it wrong. The line crossed those mountains, same direction, different location. You tell them there’s going to be something huge, in these mountains. It’s critical. Tell them!” Max pulled the pack onto his shoulders and was already running as Corentin eased the Audi away.
Sirens announced that the police were on the way. Max looked at Sophie’s cell phone. Why was she trying to reach it?
She wanted him to have it. Why? He pressed the buttons, found the text messages and his heart almost thudded to a halt.
Man who takes the animals has Adrien. Bring monk’s pendant and Max to Parc La Grange, Geneva 7. Sayid is with me. I can help.
Your friend, Peaches
Sophie had realized her friend was a liar and had betrayed them all. There was no Adrien. He did not exist. Peaches could not have known that.
But they had captured Sayid.
Today was the seventh. Zabala predicted catastrophe for the morning of the eighth. Max had been wrong about Sophie. She had tried to save Sayid. Abdullah’s words now made sense. She had fought for Max. Now it was up to him to fight for Sayid. He had to get to the mountains to save his friend.
And stop the madness.
25
Panic spiked him. Clawing anxiety was taking hold. He had to get on the lakeside road or back to the train station. Either way it would eat precious time. Slow down and think about it. Taking the road south of Geneva would cross the border into France before he could curve north towards the end of the lake and the mountain kingdom that held Sayid. That route posed the risk that he’d be spotted by the police. And he couldn’t chance being held in custody. Go on the north road around the lake, staying in Switzerland, and he’d sit in traffic. The couple of hours’ journey might take twice as long as that. The lake was seventy-odd kilometers long, and then there was the trek into the mountains-how much time did he have?
Max looked at the rows of fancy yachts and motor cruisers moored at their pontoons in the marina opposite the park. His eyes sought out a boat, any boat, he could take. Steal was the word, he reminded himself. He was going to have to break in and get it started. Then he heard the soft spluttering of powerful engines. A boat snuggled stern-in to the pontoon, where a woman was about to tie the boat’s lines. White leather seats contrasted with the midnight blue hull, which shone like glass. A man had walked to the bow of the speedboat to check that fenders protected the shiny hull. The woman was a few meters away on the quay, trying to slip the rope around a cleat, when Max stepped aboard unseen. The engine idled in neutral. Gripping the walnut steering wheel, he braced his legs and shoved the throttle’s four levers forward. Angry-sounding triple diesel engines, frustrated at having their power curtailed, churned water, the stern drives eager to thrust the scalpel-sharp hull through the calm surface. The man tumbled overboard; the woman screamed, but her voice was already muted by the roaring engines. Like Aladfar! The wind pushed across the raked windshield. The boat surged to thirty knots and the speedometer showed it could reach fifty.
The power scared him. He’d handled speedboats before with his dad, but this was like going from a bicycle to a Formula 1 racing car. He curved away from the shoreline. Visibility was good, but darkening clouds approached the mountains. Bad weather was going to be his companion in the hours ahead. The police would come after him, but this was what Max wanted. To lead them to the Citadel. This boat was worth a million, so stealing it should get someone’s attention. Max would hopefully have the law at his back when he got there. He pushed the throttle levers forward and the boat nearly leapt out of the water. Max laughed away his fears as the surge gave him flight and he raced the wind.
Relief and disappointment mingled as he realized, forty minutes later, that no one was in pursuit-perhaps bureaucracy was to blame, as the border between France and Switzerland cut the lake horizontally. Odds were no one could decide who should be chasing him, and by the time he calmed the throbbing engines and eased the sleek craft into the empty beach, he was still on his own. Against the soaring mountains he felt isolated and vulnerable. But energies other than fear drove him on. Like the engines’ shuddering power, Max felt a gathering storm of anger. Sayid. Was he injured? Was he still alive? They must have taken him at the airport in Biarritz. All this time and Max had had no idea his friend had been captured. The dull ache he felt at the base of his heart was guilt. He should have taken better care of Sayid. Well, he’d make up for that now.