Dancing Jax Page 16

  “I don’t know yet. I’ve not had a chance to search properly. They might be anywhere in the base by now, if they’re here at all.”

  “You mean… they could be dead as well?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I’ve a feeling this facility has been evacuated, so don’t think like that. We won’t give up hope until there’s no hope left. Now that’s the last buckle; you’re free.”

  Spencer flexed his fingers and stirred his stiff arms. Then he rubbed his throat and sat up gingerly.

  “Can you see my glasses?” he asked. “The doctor took them and put them down someplace.”

  After some minutes, Gerald found the spectacles on the counter and the boy received them gladly. But the first thing he saw through their lenses was Eun-mi framed in the doorway.

  Caught in the torchlight, the girl’s face was a snapshot of heartbreak and hatred. Her eyes were raw and her usually neat, scraped-back raven hair was hanging loose and untidy where she had wrenched and torn at it. She looked so distressed and dishevelled that Spencer almost didn’t notice the gun in her hand.

  “You!” she blurted in a voice curdled with emotion. “Look what you do. This your fault!”

  “Eun-mi,” Gerald said gently. “I’m very sorry about your father.”

  “He great man!” she snapped, pointing the pistol at him. “He most brave. He… he die hero, trying to save Republic.”

  “What happened here?” Gerald asked softly.

  The girl swallowed and took a deep breath, finding strength in her anger. “You foreigners, you happen,” she said. “You soft, weak, degenerate. Think only of self and pleasure. You bad people, you breed sickness. Eternal President Kim Il-sung was wise to keep his people safe from your kind. You corrupt all you touch. You bring this disease to base, you dirty. I kill you.”

  “Wait!” Gerald said. “You know that isn’t true now. You saw the skeleton earlier; that wasn’t part of any sickness.”

  Eun-mi’s arm drooped. “I… I do not believe in bones that walk,” she said. “But… kirin was here. I saw what it did. I saw it kill good soldiers of Korean People’s Army.”

  “Don’t you think there’s been enough killing here today? Put the gun down. Tell me, what about your sister? Where is Nabi?”

  “She read book over speaker,” the girl answered slowly, still feeling the shock of hearing that young voice blare from the tannoy. “Then everyone in base, they think they in fairy tale.”

  Gerald managed a faint smile. “But not you, eh?”

  “She’s one of us,” Spencer murmured. “She’s a reject!”

  “I not like you!” she denied sternly. “My blood pure. I not weak, I not soft!”

  “Er, you’re not a Jaxer either,” the boy said. “So we’ve got something in common.”

  A look of disgust appeared on her face.

  “What else happened?” Gerald asked.

  “Fat man come to take black-skin boy away.”

  “Where did they take Lee?” Spencer asked. “What about the others, the other refugees?”

  “Out of base. I hear fat man tell soldiers take them to helicopter.”

  “This fat man,” Gerald asked, “who was he?”

  “Same as you.”

  “A Westerner?”

  She nodded. “He look fool, in uniform of pale leather, too small for him.”

  “The Jockey,” Spencer breathed. “The Jockey’s been here – and he’s got our friends.”

  “He’s got Martin too,” Gerald added. “That’s why he was called away so abruptly earlier. What a mess.”

  “Also Nabi,” the girl told them sorrowfully. “My sister, she go with them.”

  “Did they say where they were flying to? Which country? China, South Korea – Japan?”

  Eun-mi thought back. When she had heard the Jockey’s jeep arrive, she had hidden behind the mirror and witnessed everything from there.

  “He say he was taking black boy to Ismus,” she said. “To the new castle, for special jingle day.”

  “They’re going to England,” Gerald declared. “To that replica of Mooncaster they’re building in Kent.”

  Eun-mi made a decision and returned her pistol to the holster. “I kill you later,” she promised. “First I must find sister. Save her from fairy tale. You will help. We go to UK.”

  “Go back home?” Spencer cried. “That’s crazy. You don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of finding her there and, even if you did, she wouldn’t go with you now she’s been turned. Besides, we won’t get that far, we’ll be stopped. We’re aberrants – they shoot us on sight – and England’s crawling with monsters from the book. Tell her, Gerald.”

  The old man didn’t answer straight away. He was trying to think, but his head was still throbbing and he felt frail and in need of a long rest. Finally he said, “Eun-mi’s right. We have to return to England. There’s no point staying here or running away any longer. She wants to find Nabi and we should try to save Martin and Maggie and the others from whatever foulness the Ismus has in store for them, or at least be with them. Even if there was somewhere else to run to, there’d be no point. We’re getting close to the end now, the last chapter of whatever he’s got planned, and, if I’m correct, we’ve only got five days left.”

  “Why five days?” Spencer asked.

  Gerald shone the torch beam on him. “Because that’s the ‘special jingle day’ Eun-mi heard the Jockey talking about,” he said gravely. “Christmas Day. Austerly Fellows isn’t going to let that slip by unmarked; it’d be irresistible for someone as sick and twisted as that devil. He’s going to give the world one huge and final evil gift.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but it’ll make Dancing Jax look like the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ in comparison.”

  “We go now,” Eun-mi instructed urgently.

  Gerald helped Spencer off the table. The boy gave a yelp.

  “You were right about those pins and needles!” he exclaimed, wincing as he walked. “Ow ow ow!”

  “No waste time,” Eun-mi scolded. “We hurry.”

  “Have you thought how we’re going to get to England?” Gerald asked her. “Your country is going to be in turmoil whilst the book takes over. There’ll be rioting and worse. No flights will be leaving. We don’t want to get caught up in that.”

  “We not fly from my country,” she told him. “First we use secret tunnel into China. We get plane from city nearest to border – Dandong.”

  “How far is that?”

  “Two day in jeep if road good.”

  “… And if we don’t get lost en route.”

  “Er… passports, ID, money?” Spencer put in. “We can’t go anywhere without those.”

  Gerald dipped into the pockets of his overcoat and brought out a pack of playing cards and some safety pins. He had intended to distribute them to the other refugees earlier.

  “This is the only ID we need,” he said. “We’ll bluff it out. China’s been under DJ’s influence long enough now. Nobody there is going to dare question Mooncaster royalty. Here, Spencer, you can be the Jack of Clubs; everyone loves him. Miss Chung, I reckon you’re a Jill of Spades. People will be wary of you and that’s even better. I’ll be the King of Diamonds. We’ll deal with our lack of funds when we have to.”

  “Now we go,” the girl insisted as soon as the cards had been pinned in place.

  “Wait a moment,” Gerald replied. “I want to see what lies behind the other doors in this section. There might be someone else hiding or trapped.”

  “This area forbidden,” she said crossly. “You not allowed – is place restricted.”

  Gerald almost laughed at her. “Please don’t tell me you’re being serious,” he said. “It’s all a bit too late for that, dear. Besides, we’re going to need to take a few things with us.”

  To her annoyance he swept past with the torch and crossed the corridor to another set of double doors. Beyond them was a large medical ward, filled with empty
beds stacked with pillows and rolled-up blankets. A wood-burning stove, much larger than the one in the refectory, stood in the centre.

  “And we were freezing in those poky cells,” Spencer muttered bitterly. “When there was all this.”

  “I knew the one medical room Lee had was never enough for a facility this size,” Gerald said. “Those beds look a lot more comfortable than the mean wooden bunks we’ve been wrecking our backs on.”

  After collecting some rolled blankets, they moved on to the door next to the lab. This was usually kept locked, but not any more. Inside was a second door, made of thick steel with a combination lock, like that of an old-fashioned safe. It too was open.

  Gerald directed the torch within, but didn’t enter. He didn’t trust Eun-mi. She might just close the door on him.

  The interior of the vault showed signs of violence. The top-secret files and documents that had lined the shelves were strewn on the floor, ripped up and trampled upon as though by a wild beast. Lying open, on the ground, was the long metal box that had contained Malinda’s wand.

  Spencer let out a great shout and dashed forward, stooping to snatch something from a dark corner, and emerged with his beloved Stetson clasped to his chest.

  Gerald smiled at him. “Welcome back, cowboy,” he said gently.

  Spencer was overwhelmed and practically in tears. The hat meant everything to him. It was like being reunited with his closest friend. Closing his eyes, he held his breath and placed the Stetson on his head. Eun-mi didn’t disguise her distaste.

  The other doors in the prohibited area led to equipment stores and finally Doctor Choe Soo-jin’s own living quarters. These two rooms were clinical in their precise neatness and intimate items like toothbrush, toothpaste and soap were arranged on the small sink with an almost mathematical balance. The absence of anything that provided more than basic comfort was countered by the abundance of medical textbooks. There were row upon row of them on four long shelves that reached from the small single bed in one corner to the kitchen area in the other.

  Spencer looked in the cupboard beneath the two-ring electric hob and was disappointed to find the doctor didn’t keep a well-stocked larder. There was a jar of kimchi, another of soybean paste and a bottle of sesame oil. Although he had never been keen on the pickled, fermented vegetables, he was so ravenous he tucked into the kimchi immediately. Neither Gerald nor Eun-mi wanted any; they couldn’t face food and Gerald wondered if the boy would be able to keep it down when they made their way through the carnage of the corridor.

  “We’ll need to find grub for the journey,” Spencer said as he ate noisily. “We’ll have to see what’s in the kitchens, if there’s no one about. You sure this base is deserted?”

  “Someone would have been to investigate this section by now if it wasn’t,” Gerald told him. “Or we’d have heard something. There’s only us and the wind in this mountain now.”

  “Bit like here then,” Spencer said, nodding at the practically bare room. “No photos, nothing. Didn’t the loony doctor have any family? Bit weird.”

  Gerald reflected that he had never bothered to ask those questions of her. She had always seemed too much of a machine to warrant enquiries in that direction. It was strange that there was no hint of her private self here though, nothing to say who this person had been. No trace of a real human life.

  A small desk stood by the bed. On it was a laptop, notepad and a leather-bound book, again set out with impeccable symmetry. While Spencer wolfed the last of the jar’s contents, Gerald flicked through the book. It looked like it was her personal journal, half filled with her tidy Korean writing. He was tempted to ask Eun-mi to translate, to see if it revealed a different side to the doctor. Did she write poetry in her spare time or were these merely the dry reiterations of her daily routine? Suddenly he felt like he was prying too far and closed the book. A square of paper fluttered out.

  It was a photograph, cut from a magazine, and, judging by the slight yellowing, some years ago. Gerald shone the torch down and studied it with interest. Why would the doctor keep this, but nothing of her own family? It was an old studio portrait from the beginning of the last century. The face of an unremarkable Western woman with greying, almost whiskery hair was staring over the photographer’s shoulder. There was a sadness about her eyes, as though she had sacrificed a great deal. Gerald didn’t recognise her. Turning the cutting over, he found that Doctor Choe had written the subject’s name in faint pencil: ‘Marie Curie’.

  Chancing upon this almost teenage expression of hero worship and aspiration, Gerald finally felt sorry for her.

  “There’s nothing more here,” he said quietly. “Where is this secret tunnel, Miss Chung?”

  The entrance to the tunnel was over on the far side of the base, in the munitions section. It had been constructed so that the Chinese leaders could enter North Korea in secret, back in the days when they were close allies. But Kim Il-sung had ensured it was wide enough to allow for an invasion force to pass through swiftly, should that special relationship ever deteriorate.

  Transport was of prime importance, so Gerald set about finding which of the four jeeps in the corridor would start, while Spencer retrieved the three torches from the other emergency kits. The boy tried not to look at the bodies around them and he wished he hadn’t been so greedy with the kimchi.

  Eun-mi desired some minutes alone with her father, for a final farewell. Bowing before the figure on Lee’s bed, she begged his forgiveness and swore she would bring Nabi home.

  “Do we have to bring her along?” Spencer muttered to Gerald as they pushed the hindmost jeep out of the way so they could drive past. “I mean the dislike is mutual and she’s ruddy scary.”

  Gerald started the next vehicle in line and reversed it out of the corridor, into the main passage.

  “I know; she’s never going to win a Miss Congeniality contest,” he said. “And she could make a bag of lemons seem like the sweeter option, but cut her some slack. She’s just lost her only parent and is upset and anxious about little Nabi. For the time being we’ve been thrown together so let’s try and make the best of it. What’s that film with John Wayne where the Red Indians have kidnapped his children and he has to go find them?”

  “Er, The Searchers, and they were his nieces, and you absolutely can’t call them Red Indians. They were Comanches – brilliant movie.”

  “Well, this will be our version of that.”

  “I hope not. Don’t you remember what happened? It’s mega bleak, which is great for a movie, but not real life.”

  Gerald shrugged. “The only cowboy film I remember the plot of is Calamity Jane.”

  “It’s so awesome you worked with the Duke. It really is the most mega thing ever. What was he like?”

  Gerald shook his head. “So long ago now. I only recall him making a fuss about his toupee not staying on. It kept sliding to one side. He was grateful to me because I had better wig tape than the make-up girl.”

  That wasn’t the type of anecdote Spencer had been expecting.

  “His hairpiece went up for auction a few years ago,” Gerald continued. “I almost bid for it, but Evelyn wouldn’t give it house room.”

  Irritated he had mentioned Evelyn again, the old man went to collect some rifles.

  “In any case,” he said on his return, “we need Eun-mi because she speaks Mandarin and we don’t. We’ll never find our way to Dandong and get a flight to England without her.”

  “And she won’t find her way to Kent without us when we get there.”

  “I’m not going to Kent,” Gerald said quietly. “Not straight away at any rate. There’s somewhere else I need to be first.”

  “But Maggie and Lee!”

  “Where I’m going might help them a whole lot more. Shh – don’t tell Miss Laffalot I said that. Here she is.”

  Eun-mi emerged from the gloom of the corridor. The girl did not look at them. Her stony mask was back in place. She had composed herself, scraped her ha
ir back into its usual tight bun, smoothed and straightened her tie, and the jacket of her uniform was buttoned up fully. A Kalashnikov was slung over her shoulder and under her arm she carried extra blankets. Putting them in the jeep, she climbed on board.

  “We go,” she said curtly, annoyed that the old man had taken it upon himself to get behind the wheel.

  “Whip crack away, whip crack away, whip crack away,” Gerald sang, driving off. Eun-mi glowered at him.

  Sitting in the front, Spencer had to hold one of the torches to show the way because the headlights were smashed. That small circle of trembling light pushed a meagre path through the pitch-darkness before them as the jeep crawled along.

  Spencer shuddered. The weight of the mountain pressed close on every side. He could almost feel it as an aggressive force, bearing down. In spite of the cold, his palms began to sweat. He was never gladder to be wearing his Stetson once again and he concentrated his mind on the bright memories of the Western movies he used to live for.

  The usually bustling thoroughfares of the military base were deathly quiet and empty. On the way to the main concourse, they stopped at the kitchens. The midday meals had been prepared, but were never distributed. They took as many as would fit in the jeep, in case the journey to Dandong took longer than anticipated.

  A winter gale was blasting in through the great doors of the main entrance and a wedge of bright moonlight reached deep inside. Loose papers were whirling around the cavern where the trucks, jeeps and bicycles were normally parked. The base personnel had piled into, and on to, every available vehicle and abandoned the mountain en masse, to go and spread the blessed words of Austerly Fellows to the rest of the country.

  But not quite everyone had managed to catch a lift. As Gerald drove on to the vast mosaic floor and the seven-metre-high statue of Kim Il-sung loomed into the moonlight, they saw five figures beneath it.

  They were soldiers of various ranks. Empty bottles of insamju, ginseng-infused vodka, were rolling along the ground propelled by the wind, and the men were loud and boisterous. They were laughing and singing a coarse Mooncaster May-ing song, in perfect English.

  “Bottom – oh, bottom, let’s drink to the bottom.