Missing (8 page)

Overhead, there was a loud clap of thunder and the storm clouds burst, heavy rain drumming on the ground.

‘Boges?'

Nothing. The line was dead. I tried calling him again, and Winter's phone too, but nothing worked.

I looked at the time. This was my window to talk to BB. A huge crack of thunder right overhead made me nearly jump out of my skin. At the same time, a violent earth tremor unbalanced me, and I fell, whacking my head against a low branch.

I tried to find some cover from the rain, running doubled over towards the cemetery, where I found a little shelter beside a slanting headstone. But when I tried to call BB, there was nothing, not even static.

Defeated and dripping wet, I scurried back to the resort, hoping I wouldn't meet any staff on the way.

When everyone was asleep in the boys' dormitory, and the storm was well and truly over, I climbed out of bed and silently pulled the satellite phone out of my backpack. Even though it wasn't the right time, I felt I had to try again. Creeping to the door, I stepped out into the warm tropical night. The air was humid and oppressive and in the distance I could still hear thunder.

Keeping out of reach of the CCTV cameras, with the phone tucked safely inside my jacket, I quickly scaled the tall cyclone fence, dropping to the other side. I scuttled across to the shelter of the palm trees near the upturned kayaks.

I switched the phone on and dialled the number BB had organised. I was glad of the noise of the crashing surf nearby because there was
loud static on the channel. Turned out that was all I could get—static.

I felt bad that I'd failed to talk to BB again. It'd be good to tell him how the next stage of my mission was going. I would have to make another attempt tomorrow night.

I crept back inside the dormitory, slipping past a couple of counsellors who were huddled together having a late-night chat. I lay awake for a long time, trying to make sense of those identical wounds on the arms of the kids who'd disappeared, who'd somehow melted into the tropical jungle.

The next morning after breakfast, I searched around for Sophie with no luck. As I was looking for her, I'd noticed the small flag running up the flagpole—my call to training.

We trained and played particularly hard and I was red-faced and sweating, but satisfied with being on the winning team, by the time we finished. I was walking off the playing field when I heard someone approaching.

‘You're doing very well, Ryan,' said Ivan, the coach, catching up to me. ‘You're a natural. Have you done a lot of training before?'

‘Kind of,' I said, trying not to smile,
remembering how fit I'd become chasing the Ormond Riddle and Jewel halfway around the world.

‘How do you feel about going up to the next level? Some of the activities can be more dangerous and we focus more on individual games. Like abseiling, adventure racing and martial arts katas.'

I was being invited to join the elite of the elite. I could feel the smile getting away from me. I brought it under control. ‘I think I can handle it,' I said. ‘I always like a challenge.'

‘Good. I'll settle it with Damien and then you and I can talk.'

After lunch, I went looking for Sophie. I searched everywhere. I went over to the girls' dormitory and knocked on the door. It was opened by a friendly-looking woman whose name I knew from Sophie.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Clayton,' I asked, ‘I'm looking for Sophie Bellamy. Do you know where she might be?'

Mrs Clayton frowned. ‘I'm afraid she's left,' she said. ‘I think there was a problem at home. It's a real pity. She's a lovely girl, extremely smart. She was nice to have around.'

I stood there in stunned surprise. Sophie was gone? It was hard to believe. In fact, it was impossible to believe, I started to realise. Something else must have happened.

Mrs Clayton looked very sincere and I doubted she was lying to me. She was just passing on what she'd been told—probably by Damien.

‘I'm sure she would have said goodbye to you, if it hadn't been an emergency,' Mrs Clayton said.

I walked away from the girls' dormitory, my thoughts whirling as I tried to find answers. Sophie had vanished—like the other kids who disappeared. I didn't believe for a minute that she'd had an emergency at home. I wasn't so sure about calling BB that evening. How could I tell him that I'd found Sophie, his precious daughter, and now she was missing?

While everyone's attention was focused on a game of soccer, I slipped away to see Ryan. I squatted down beside him, in his vine-covered lair, and pulled out the food supplies. He was very glad to see me but his face soon dropped.

‘Sophie's gone missing,' I said. ‘We need to talk about what to do next. Mrs Clayton, the
woman who runs the girls' dormitory, told me some rubbish about an emergency at home. She seemed to believe that Sophie had left the island during the night because of it.'

‘But wouldn't BB have said something when you called last night?'

I shook my head. ‘I couldn't get through. But maybe it's just as well. If they think something's happened to Sophie, they might come charging over to the island and then we'll never find out what's going on here.'

‘But what if she's in danger?' Ryan asked, frowning.

‘I don't think she is in danger. I think she's been singled out to join whatever it is at the next level. My coach, Ivan, asked me how I felt about going to the next level too. My guess is that the kids who've disappeared join those ones we saw—the ones with the wounds and the tattoos on their arms.'

‘You think we should wait?' Ryan asked.

‘Just a little. Let me figure out if there's anything else we can do. If not, I'll have to contact BB.'

The next day, I gave myself a headache trying to come up with a plan for finding Sophie, but it seemed like there was no other choice but to call for back-up.

I jogged through the hot jungle on the now familiar path to Ryan's hide-out. Suddenly I heard a noise on the track behind me. I ducked behind some trees, crouching down just in time to hide from the girl in the red and blue shirt I'd seen disappear before. She sped past, oblivious to me. Silently, I got to my feet. I was
not
going to lose her this time.

It was easy to keep her in sight, following the flashes of her colourful shirt as she ran through the jungle. I recognised the path she was taking as the very same one I'd followed the trio along two days ago. A couple of times I saw her stop,
turn around and stand still listening. Had she heard my footsteps behind her? I ducked down, crouching, until I saw her slowly turn around again and continue on her way. Soon she had arrived at the spot near the rock face that Ryan wanted to climb. Again, I saw her take something out of her pocket and again I heard the whirring noises.

I blinked in disbelief as the rock face moved!

Before my astounded eyes, the rock wall trembled and lifted up to reveal an opening, like a small garage door, through which the girl swiftly disappeared. I snapped out of my shock and ran after her, just managing to slip through the fast-narrowing gap as the grinding rock door closed behind me.

I took a few steps and stood in wonder. Above me, water glistened on a rocky ceiling. I was in a huge cavern. In front of me were descending steps carved into the mountain, and I caught a glimpse of the girl jumping the last few steps and running across the wide space beneath me. I realised this must be an underground military bunker. BB mentioned the island had
been used during the Pacific War.

There, lit up by lights from powerful humming generators, a small squad of astonishingly precise teenagers were moving through their steps, each in perfect unison with their neighbours, so that they looked like a flash mob. I stood, breathless with admiration and surprise, watching them.

Carved in the rock wall behind them was a huge Z. As they all turned sideways, I saw the small, straight wound on the upper left arm of each one. So,
this
was where the disappeared kids ended up, deep in the heart of the mountain. I searched their faces but Sophie was not among them.
Where was she?

As I watched, I spotted the coach, Ivan, who dismissed the group. They fell out of their precise formations, dissolving into a bunch of kids moving in different directions, picking up towels and packs and heading for underground corridors, where I could no longer see them, talking and laughing together. Soon all was quiet. I turned back to the rock wall entrance but I had no idea how to get out. Maybe this was a one-way door—opening only from the outside, not from inside.

Suddenly, the lights went out and I was left in total darkness.

It took a little while for my eyes to adjust, but
there was some dim light from the corridors that gave on to the wide arena space. I dug out my mobile, and by its small beam, I cautiously made my way down the steps and onto the flat area, which I now realised was a natural cave of vast proportions. The sound of footsteps caused me to jump behind a craggy outcrop. I crouched down, listening.

‘Chloe said she thought she heard someone up there,' said a man's voice.

I peered around from my hiding place and saw someone I didn't recognise talking to Ivan.

‘Someone could have come in behind her,' he added. I froze as the lights suddenly came on. I shrank back as far as I could into the shadows. The footsteps came a little closer and then stopped. I held my breath.
Please don't come over here
.

‘Maybe she's just imagining things,' he said. ‘There's nobody here.'

‘OK, well, make sure Chloe understands that she has to be on her guard,' Ivan said. ‘You know how important it is that only the Zenith team know of this place.'

Zenith team!
That must be what the tattoo stood for. I waited, barely daring to breathe, hoping like crazy that he'd say more.

‘Especially now that everything's moving so
fast,' Ivan continued, ‘They've only got a couple more months to go.'

I heard them heading back towards the corridors, leaving me to exhale in relief, but feeling frustrated. What did Ivan mean? What were these kids doing in a couple of months' time?

As their footsteps faded, I was left with a bunch of questions and no answers.

I waited a while longer, wondering how on earth I was going to get out of the place. I couldn't go back the way I'd entered. If I wanted to get out of there, I would have to risk going down one of the corridors. I had no way of knowing if I'd be able to hide from people once in there and there'd be no bluffing my way out this time.

Missing evening rollcall was going to be the least of my problems.

With my body tense with anxiety, on red alert, I made my way to the first of the corridors. Echoing further down, I could hear voices and the sound of crockery and cutlery. The Zenith team were at dinner. Maybe, just maybe, that would keep them out of my way while I tried to find an escape route. I sidled along the corridor, cut out of the mountainous rock, and sure enough, as I came closer to a lit doorway, the sounds of people dining became louder. I jumped across the light thrown into the corridor, hoping
that nobody would look up and see me. I waited, tense, on the other side. But there was no outcry, no sound of rushing feet.

I kept going further and further down the sloping corridor, passing other doors as I went. A sudden rush of cooler air and the smell of salt hit me as I turned the corner. In front of me, the corridor widened out into another cavern, like a natural boatshed carved out of rock, leading out to a wide passage to the sea beyond.

The black water before me swirled around an amazing craft—sleek, streamlined and dolphin-shaped. Damien's submersible! With a windowed cabin at the front where the dolphin's ‘nose' would be, the slim silvery craft rose and fell on the slight swell. It was moored against a stone shelf of the cave which formed a natural wharf. But I didn't have time to admire the gleaming craft any further. I needed to get out of there—fast. I could hear voices moving down the corridor behind me.

I scrambled over the rocks on my right towards the low, wide archway that formed the entrance of the cave. I climbed awkwardly around until I had reached the opening to the sea.

I peered out, trying to get my bearings. Around a kilometre away, I could see the resort, further down the coastline. But to get back there,
I'd have to make my way over the sharp and slippery rocks.

A sound behind me caused me to hide behind a couple of boulders. Dean stepped into view, staggering under the weight of some cartons. I watched through a crack in the rocks and saw him loading a small outboard motorboat that I hadn't noticed before, bobbing alongside the submersible.
Where was he going?

For a minute, I thought he might have been making an escape from Shadow Island. But as I watched his careful movements while he loaded cartons into the motorboat, started the outboard and cast off, it was clear he wasn't in a hurry. It didn't take me long to work out where he
was
headed—it had to be the rocky outcrop, the very small island that lay just off Shadow Island!

I waited until Dean was out of sight then I set off, using both hands to steady myself. Sometimes I could only crawl on all fours, getting completely soaked in the process. All the time, my mind was churning crazily. Was there a prisoner on the rocky outcrop? I was determined to find out. Now I'd seen where the small outboard craft was kept, I could use it to cross the water myself and have a look around. There was no other choice now, I had to investigate.

It was now even more imperative to contact BB at the appointed time. I continued my slow and rocky climb back to the resort.

I'd made my excuses about missing rollcall, but had been told I'd need to explain myself to Damien in the morning. I kept a low profile after dinner and wandered innocently to the water's edge whilst the counsellors on duty were chatting together.

Fast as I could move while doubled over, I scrambled past the end of the beach, keeping out of the reach of the biggest waves. I climbed over the rocks but I could barely see, scraping my knees and hands painfully in my determination to get back to the secret cave. It seemed to take forever, and once a wave broke right over me and I had to cling on to jagged rocks in order not to be swept away. I was really scared that a big wave might carry a stinger with it and that would be the end of me.

Eventually, I got to the looming blackness which I knew was the mouth of the large cavern. I clambered up onto the rocky ledge, slowly making my way as my eyes adjusted. I wound
my way past the dolphin-shaped vessel to where the motorboat bobbed. I jumped in and steadied it as it rocked from side to side. The black water and the rocky cavernous ceiling reminded me of the huge underground lake over which Repro and I had rowed when I helped him shift his camp. I smiled to myself. Repro would have been in his element here.

I found the oars on the bottom of the boat and pushed them into the rollocks. I had to row—I didn't dare use the engine so close to the underground tunnels.

I pushed away from the wharf towards the open ocean, taking my time to settle into a good rhythm.

As I rowed across the water, easily negotiating a mild swell, I felt a heaviness lift from me. I realised that here in the boat, was the first time since I'd been on Shadow Island that I'd actually felt
free
. There were no counsellors to avoid, no CCTV cameras to keep away from, no rollcalls—just me, the sea, the sky and the stars overhead. I could almost imagine Dad in the boat with me. I remember Dad once doing a story about a prisoner of conscience, saying,
‘There's only one thing worse than having your life taken from you, and that's having your freedom taken away.'

Finally I was approaching the rocky outcrop and I could see a sloping stony beach. I manipulated the boat in the shallower water until I could jump out safely. I used a wave surge to push the boat up high away from the tideline. I heaved it once more to lodge it behind some rocks. I sure didn't want to be trapped here without a boat.

I clambered across the rocks to where I could see a building rising up from the flat, stony ground. As I came closer, I flashed my mobile light around. In its cold beam, I could make out a low cement bunker, almost rectangular in shape, the size of an average one-storey house. But this ‘house' had no windows, just narrow gun slits. The whole place reminded me of the old bunker system that Gabbi and I played in on Bare Island years ago. As I crunched around the perimeter of the square building, I came to one narrow, barred window, about three metres from the ground. Now I was
certain
this was a prison.

The rumours on Shadow Island were that someone was locked up here in this horribly desolate place. Was that true?

Scooping up a handful of small stones, I threw
them at the bars of the window. They rattled down to the ground. I was bending to gather another handful when the sound of a man's voice shocked me. It was coming from behind the bars. ‘Help me,' he groaned. ‘Help me!'

‘Who are you?' I called back.

There was a long silence. I repeated my question. Finally, after another long silence, the groaning voice spoke again, halting gaps between each word, ‘I—don't—know. Help me. Please.'

‘I will,' I said. At that moment, I had no idea how I could help this prisoner but I couldn't leave anyone in a place like this without trying. ‘What's your name?'

Again came the croaking voice, ‘I—don't—know!'

This time, I could hear the anguish and despair in his voice. He really didn't know.

Something made me turn around and I freaked out when I saw a strong light sweeping over the water as the sound of a boat penetrated the noise of wind and waves. Somebody else was heading this way! Desperate, I looked around me but there was nowhere to run. There was nowhere to hide. The chugging noise of the boat came closer and closer and the beam of light continued to sweep the ocean. I flattened myself against the cold cement of the bunker,
wondering if I could make it back to the rocks. As the craft approached, I could see it was the submersible, but riding high in the water, searching for the outboard motorboat—and me.

The light flashed over the rocky outcrop, sweeping the walls of the cement bunker. I dashed around the corner to avoid its probing beam. Then I ran to the next corner as the submersible searchlight flashed over the wall I had pressed against only seconds earlier. My heart was pounding in my ears. Any minute now they'd find me.

Amazingly, after covering the rocky outcrop with the powerful light, the submersible just continued on its way, heading north up the coast, searching the waters around Shadow Island. They hadn't seen me or the boat! I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I calculated I had enough time to get back by the time they had circumnavigated the whole island and come back to the cavern mooring. As I ran back to the boat, I paused at the wall. ‘I'm sorry, I have to go or they'll catch me!' I shouted up. ‘I promise I'll come back.' But there was silence from within. My heart sank to leave someone there, but I had to go or there would be no chance of escape for either of us.

I rowed back as fast as I could and breathed another sigh of relief as the cavern came into view. With aching arms, I rowed over to the wharf, roping the craft until I got out, then freed it and watched it drift towards the opening to the ocean. Hopefully they'd think it had drifted off its mooring.