Free The Unknown Spy by Eoin McNamee Page A

but if it had cost her her life, then it would have been a good day’s work. Besides, the man had plenty more darts. “Plenty more darts,” he said to himself in a voice that the Unknown Spy would have recognized. Then he turned and skipped lightly across the snow-covered roof.

AN OATH
    D anny knelt beside Vandra. She looked dreadful, her pale face gone gray, her chest barely rising and falling and spasms racking her every few minutes while she grimaced with pain.
    Dixie had gone to get Valant. They returned with two wheeled stretchers and lifted Vandra onto one. Daisy was able to get up onto the other by herself.
    “The poor dear,” Daisy said quietly, “she saved my life. I will not forget that.”
    Valant and Gabriel wheeled the stretchers quickly along the quiet corridors of Wilsons, then stopped in front of an ancient cage elevator. There was only room for the two of them and the stretchers.
    “I will take them to the apothecary,” Valant said. “You may visit the physick in the morning, not before. Sheneeds rest and whatever assistance she can be given there.”
    Danny watched as the elevator clanked upward into the gloom. He didn’t say anything to the others, but he was determined to find the person who had hurt Daisy and put his friend in danger.
    They met Les coming across the lawn.
    “What happened?” he demanded. As Dixie explained, she was interrupted by a quiet voice.
    “Probably the same person who attacked the Unknown Spy’s wife.” McGuinness was leaning against a tree beside them, his coat fading into the color of the trunk so that he was virtually invisible.
    “What makes you think that?” Danny said.
    “These kinds of incidents are rare in Wilsons, and both required a close knowledge of the layout of the school, which, as you know, can be complex. Speed and cunning have characterized both attacks. And they have both been successful, or would have been, if not for the physick. This is a professional at work, make no mistake about it. The question is why? Answering the why of a crime almost always leads you to the culprit.”
    “Lead me to him,” Les said angrily, “and he won’t bother anyone ever.”
    “She’ll get better, Les,” Dixie said, putting her hand on his arm.
    “You have to keep your eyes peeled,” McGuinness said, lowering his voice confidentially. “Until we know what motivates this person, everyone is in danger.”
    “Time for tea,” the school announcer Blackpitt said,his voice booming from a speaker hidden in the tree, making them jump.
    “It really is a wonderful day,” Blackpitt said.
    “What’s he so cheerful about?” Les growled.
    They went off to tea in a gloomy mood, not helped by the sniggering at the other end of the table from Smyck and the others, accompanied by warnings to each other to “watch the game pie” in case it was poisoned and the like.
    After tea Danny found himself wandering on his own in the woods. Without thinking about it he made his way toward the summerhouse. The summerhouse had not been used for many years. Its curtains hung in tatters, but its old planks retained a sense of sun-warmed days and balmy evenings, and sitting there always lifted his spirits.
    He’d brought a slice of cake from Ravensdale, and he wrapped himself in a blanket and sat on the window seat, watching the sun lower in the west, the bare black limbs of the trees silhouetted against it.
    He wondered about his parents. He hated to admit it, but he missed them. They had always been there, and now there was nobody. They were secret agents, but who were they working for? Why did he have to be guarded? Danny already knew that he was the Fifth, the link between the Cherbs and ordinary people, and that the Ring of Five sought him as their missing member. Was that the reason? Did some secret service want to keep him from joining the Ring?
    He sat in the summerhouse for an hour, his mind swirling. When he finally stood up, stiff and cold, it wasdark. He felt in