Free The Trojan Boy by Ken McClure Page A

for signs of weakness when he returned upstairs. The fact that Nelligan, Kell's minder, was grinning suggested that they had been sharing a joke. That the grin stayed on Nelligan's face when he entered suggested that it might have been about him personally.
    'Did you do it?' asked Kell.
    'He's dead,' replied O'Neill.
    'A lesson for the learning,' said Kell.
    'What lesson did the other three down there learn?' asked O'Neill, unable to hide his anger. For a moment it seemed as though he had lit Kell's fuse but the cloud of anger that hovered on Kell's face disappeared to be replaced by a slight grin. 'We sometimes have to do unpleasant things in war, Martin,' he said in a voice that was ten below zero.
    Feeling that it would be pointless to provoke Kell further O'Neill changed the subject. 'Did you find the key to the safe?' he asked with his heart in his mouth.
    'No, we'll have to blow it.'
    I’ll have a look before I go,’ said O'Neill hoping that he sounded calm for his pulse was racing. This might be his only chance to get his hands on the envelope.
    Kell fixed him with a smile and eyes that seemed to see right through him. 'Why not?' he said.
    O'Neill felt as if he were standing on broken glass.
    O'Neill left the room and paused for a moment in the quiet of the corridor. He could hear his heart beating. He could never serve under Kell. The man hated him, not just dis liked, as he had always known, but hated. He could feel it in the air whenever he was near him, enveloping him like a malignant vapour.
    O'Neill walked quickly and quietly along the corridor to the little room that had been O'Donnell's. It was unchanged because The Bairn could not use it. A brick support pillar prevented the manoeuvring of his pram through the doorway. O'Neill was glad. It would not have been right to have the little psychopath in O'Donnell's room.
    He knew exactly where the safe key was because O'Donnell had told him before he died. He pulled one of the drawers right out of the desk and turned it around. There, taped to the back with red masking tape, was a small plastic card, the electronic key to the safe. He removed it and put the drawer back on its runners. Now for the safe itself.
    The safe was built into the end wall of a long narrow room known as the Council Room, which served as the place where sector commanders met to discuss strategy. It had an oval table and eight chairs in it but very little else. O'Neill tried the door. It was locked. He drew his lips back over his teeth in exasperation and released his grip on the handle slowly so as to avoid noise. What now, damn it? He would have to find the key.
    As O’Neill considered where it might be, he heard Nelligan's voice raised in laughter. Nelligan could always be relied upon to appreciate Kell's humourless wit. Big, dumb, faithful Nelligan. Kell's friends were his friends; Kell's enemies were his enemies. The body of an ox and the brain of a rabbit, and he had no love for O'Neill.
    As Nelligan's voice grew louder O'Neill realised that Kell's door was about to be opened and he had no wish to be discovered lurking near the Council Room. He moved swiftly away from the door and returned to O'Donnell's room to wait there with the light off and the door slightly ajar. He heard the squeak of the pram wheels going in the other direction and breathed a sigh of relief. In the darkness he wondered why Kell never had his wheels oiled but, in his heart, he thought that he already knew the answer. The Bairn wanted people to know when he was coming, wanted them to know . . . and be afraid.
    The voices faded and O'Neill knew that he would have to act quickly. The key to the Council Room must be somewhere in the room that Kell had just left. He glided silently along the corridor and slipped into it, closing the door behind him and clicking on the light. He looked around for inspiration.
    There, on the wall, was a wooden board with keys hanging on it. O'Neill gave silent thanks and went over to