The Lethal Target(21)

‘Professor Lemski,’ murmured Jake.

‘That’s him,’ nodded Rona. ‘He calmed things down, and ordered the other one out of the room. He apologised to Mum and me for his behaviour, and said our services wouldn’t be needed as they would be looking after themselves. He was very nice about it, but there was something not quite right about him. Something . . .’

‘Sinister?’ suggested Lauren.

Rona nodded. ‘He seems the friendly one, but don’t get the wrong idea. He’s the really tough one. The one in charge.’

Robbie sighed heavily.

‘They’ll be taking the book back to Russia,’ he groaned.

‘Not immediately,’ said Jake. ‘Like you say, I get the impression that this Professor Lemski is the one in charge, and he’s not going to let it out of his hands. He’ll hold on to it until he’s ready to go. Which might give us a couple of days.’

‘To do what?’ asked Rona.

‘Get the book back from them,’ said Lauren.

‘And then what?’ asked Robbie sourly.

‘You hide it again, somewhere else on Mull.’

Rona and Robbie stared at Lauren, disbelieving.

‘You’re not serious!’ said Robbie.

‘Yes, she is,’ said Jake.

Robbie shook his head.

‘You’re mad,’ he snorted derisively. ‘If we hide it again, the Russians will know it was us who did it. They’ll just grab us and make us tell them where it is.’

‘How will they know it was you?’ asked Lauren.

‘Because if they know about the book, then they know about the Order of Malichea, which means they also know about the Watchers,’ said Robbie. ‘Which is why they killed Uncle Dougie. Which means they will have guessed that Rona and I are also Watchers. And if the book disappears, and they don’t know where it’s gone or who’s taken it, they’re bound to suspect us first. And they’ll torture us until we tell them where we’ve hidden it.’

He spoke slowly, but bitterly, as if he was explaining something very simple to a pair of idiots.

Which we are, thought Jake. What Robbie said made perfect sense. Unless . . .

‘Unless we fool them into thinking that someone else has got it,’ he said.

Robbie and Rona looked at him enquiringly.

‘How?’ asked Robbie challengingly.

‘MI5!’

‘MI5?’ Rona echoed.

Jake nodded.

‘MI5 want to keep the Malichea books secret as well. On the few occasions that one of the books has surfaced, MI5 have done their best to get hold of it and hide it away in a vault so that no one can get their hands on it.’

Robbie shook his head.

‘None of the books in the Highlands and islands have been found,’ he told them.

‘You don’t know that for sure,’ Lauren pointed out. ‘You only guard your own book. Who’s to say that a book somewhere else, maybe hidden on Barra, or Skye, or anywhere else hasn’t been found in the past. That’s certainly been the case with the books that were hidden from the library of Malichea at Glastonbury.’

Robbie and Rona fell silent, then Rona admitted awkwardly, ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

‘The point is, we’re sure that MI5 already know about what’s going on here. They’ll be desperate to get their hands on the book and get it away from the Russians.’

‘So why don’t they just do that?’ asked Robbie. ‘They’ve got the power.’

‘International politics,’ explained Lauren. ‘If MI5 snatched the book, it could cause a big political row with the Russians. And right now the country depends on the Russians for gas supplies. The last thing the government wants is the Russians cutting off our gas, or trebling the price we pay for it.’

‘But if we take it from the Russians and let them believe that MI5 have got it, you’ll be off the hook,’ said Jake.

‘But how do we persuade the Russians that MI5 have got the book?’ asked Rona.

‘We get hold of the book and tell MI5 we’ll give it to them if they agree to our demands,’ said Jake. ‘But instead of giving it to them, we make up a fake book. We arrange a high-profile handover, where we make sure the Russians see the book being handed over to MI5. In the meantime, we give you two the real book, and you hide it again. Somewhere here on Mull, where only you two know.

‘Once that’s done, the Russians will assume that MI5 have got the book, so it’s not worth looking for it any longer, and they’ll go home.’

‘It won’t work,’ said Rona. ‘Even if you get it off the Russians, MI5 will know it’s a fake. They’ll throw you both in jail.’