The Shadow Project Read Online Free PDF

you get this, come straight home. Your Nan’s been taken bad.”
    And that was it. No details, nothing. Danny clicked the button and stared at his reflection in the window of the bus. He’d gone cold inside.

10
Opal, Lusakistan
    O pal dropped lightly behind the ridge like an eagle landing on a crag. Everybody kept telling her there was no way she could be seen, but she simply couldn’t shake the habit of caution. The problem was that she felt solid, as if she still had a physical body, and her head kept telling her it made no sense to take chances. In some ways it was like being in a dream. Nothing could really hurt you in a dream, but you still screamed and ran when the monster chased you.
    She started to walk. Everywhere was rocky and steep. In normal circumstances she would have found the terrain difficult, stumbled, maybe even fallen. But in her second body she could move without problems. She could have walked right through those rocks, right through the ridge itself, if she put her mind to it, but she found walking through things creepy and avoided doing it where possible.
    She reached the top of the ridge and peered over.
    She knew at once she’d gotten lucky. Stretched out across the valley below was a massive military camp, so massive it was almost a town. Opal crouched, thunderstruck. Temporary structures and tents mixed with permanent brick buildings, while on the far side of the valley several tracks and two well-made roads wound their way up to what had to be a warren of caves pushed deep into the mountain. The whole place looked like a garrison, swarming with armed men. Even as she watched, a convoy of trucks, armored cars, and a scattering of light tanks meandered along the valley floor. At one end, behind a heavily guarded stockade, soldiers were loading a helicopter with crates from a low building with a camouflage roof.
    She’d found the Skull!
    The moment the thought occurred, she dismissed it. Until she investigated further, she couldn’t even be sure this was a terrorist encampment. Lusakistan was still run by warlords. For all she knew, she could be looking at the headquarters of one of them. She needed to get closer.
    Opal glanced at her watch and found herself staring at an empty wrist. It was so irritating. Nothing could be brought on a mission except the clothes on your back, but looking at your watch was like hiding behind rocks—a habit that died hard. She focused on the mainroad through the camp. There was just the briefest pause—and then, with no sensation of movement, she was standing in the middle of the road itself. New smells assailed her nostrils.
    There was an armored car bearing down on her, but she ignored it. From a distance the roadway looked in better repair than it was close up. It was potholed and crumbling as if made in a hurry or subjected to a lot of wear and tear. Opal looked around. This might be a legitimate township despite the heavy military presence, but she doubted it. The whole location looked as if it had been chosen for secrecy. There was a single, narrow entrance to the valley. The place was invisible from the lowlands, invisible even immediately below until you stumbled onto it, and as Opal had discovered, it was almost impossible to see from the air until you were directly over it.
    The armored car drove through her, creating a moment of darkness and confusion. For an instant she felt disoriented, queasy; then she was back in the daylight. She began to walk toward what might have been a market square.
    The place had an unpleasant smell—the sweat of unwashed men, mixed with cordite and diesel fumes, with an occasional revolting burst of cheap cologne. Almost everyone was in some sort of military uniform,mostly dusty and tattered. Everyone was heavily armed.
    She hated moving through crowds, hated the way people passed through her like the armored car. There was no sensation, of course, but she found herself tensing each time it