‘Ah,’ Leon said with a smile, ‘the little one of the two. Weakest first?’
‘I’m not weak,’ Slink said, defiant.
‘We shall see.’
There was a knock on the trailer door.
‘Check it out.’ Leon motioned for the bodyguard to answer it and pulled a pistol from his belt.
The bodyguard opened the door and stepped outside. He looked left and right. ‘No one there.’
Suddenly a loop of rope dropped over his shoulders and pulled tight, pinning his arms against his body and yanking him backwards. The man’s head slammed against the side of the trailer and he slumped.
A millisecond later, the side window of the trailer burst open as Lux erupted through it on the other end of the rope.
Glasses and mugs went flying in all directions, smashing against the walls.
Leon turned and Lux hit him square in the chest with both feet. As he stumbled backwards, Jack and Slink seized their chance and sprang forward, grabbing him.
Jack forced Leon’s arm down, aiming the gun at the floor.
Lux grabbed a shard of broken glass and pressed it to the man’s neck. ‘Drop it.’
Leon snarled. ‘Or what?’
Lux pushed the tip of the glass into his neck. ‘I said drop it.’
Leon snorted his annoyance and the gun clattered to the floor.
Jack and Slink let go of him and stepped back.
‘Lie down,’ Lux breathed into Leon’s ear.
Jack picked up a lamp, yanked the power cable from the wall and used it to tie Leon’s hands together.
When he was sure Leon wasn’t going anywhere for a while, he straightened up and looked at Lux. ‘Well, that was pretty amazing.’
She winked. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re like a ninja,’ Slink said. ‘A cross between a ninja and’ – he nodded at the shard of glass in her hand – ‘a psychopathic stunt woman.’
‘I think a ninja would be more stealthy than me, but I’ll take it as a compliment.’
The bodyguard groaned.
Slink grabbed the rope and with Jack’s help heaved the man on to the floor of the trailer.
As he tried to get up, Slink put a foot on his back and forced him to the floor. ‘Stay still, sweetheart.’
Jack scooped up the laptop. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They hurried from the trailer and ran between two sound studios.
At the end, they took a right and stopped outside a door.
Lux pulled a phone from her pocket and looked at it.
‘Well?’ Jack asked.
Before she spoke, Charlie stuck her head around the door. ‘You’re ten minutes late.’ She stepped aside.
Jack tucked the laptop into his belt and covered it with his shirt before following Slink and Lux through.
‘Sorry,’ he said to Charlie. ‘We ran into trouble. Did the tour guide notice we were gone?’
Charlie shook her head. ‘No, thanks to Wren.’
They jogged along a corridor, then took a left and strode casually into the studio museum.
It was the last stop on the tour – a giant room filled with costumes and props from famous movies.
But Jack wasn’t interested in them right now. He adjusted the laptop under his shirt and glanced around. ‘Where’s Wren? Is she OK?’
‘She’s fine.’ Charlie pointed to the corner of the museum.
Wren was chatting away to the tour guide, but it was all one-sided. The poor guy looked exhausted.
Jack smiled.
They’d got away with it.
That wasn’t a mission he’d forget any time soon.
• • •
Ten minutes later, Jack, Charlie, Slink, Wren and Lux met Drake and the SUV at the pre-arranged spot.
A screech of tyres made Jack glance towards the studio. A silver Mercedes erupted from a side road.
Jack spun back to the SUV. ‘Let’s go!’ he shouted.
Everyone jumped in and Drake pulled away from the kerb.
The Mercedes accelerated after them in hot pursuit.
Drake shot across a main road and turned sharply down another side street. At the end, he took a left, then an immediate right, all the time with his foot hard to the floor, accelerating.
Jack glanced through the rear windscreen – the silver Mercedes was still following.
The SUV lurched as Drake turned left again.
The Mercedes pulled out of the side street, veered across the main road and swerved just in time to avoid an oncoming bus.
Ahead, cars queued at a set of traffic lights.
‘Hold on.’ Drake yanked the steering wheel hard over.
The SUV spun sideways, squeezed between two cars and bumped on to the kerb, taking out a metal bin and a lamp post.
‘There goes the insurance excess.’ Drake rammed his foot hard on the pedal, cutting across a coffee shop forecourt and a plaza. He leant on the horn and pedestrians jumped out of the way, diving in all directions.
The Mercedes tried the same manoeuvre, but side-swiped an oncoming car.
For a moment, Jack thought this would end the chase, but somehow the silver car kept coming – it too drove up on to the kerb and across the plaza after them.
Drake followed a wide pavement in front of the shops. More startled pedestrians leapt out of their path. One woman coming out of a clothes store, her arms laden with shopping bags, screamed and fell backwards through the entrance.
Slink laughed.
Drake zigzagged left and right, weaving between pedestrians. When he nearly hit an old man in a wheelchair, he said, ‘I think it’s time to get off here.’ He squeezed between two trees and managed to get the car back on to the correct side of the road.
Jack glanced through the rear window. By some miracle, the Mercedes was still on their tail.
Drake shook his head. ‘What’s on that laptop that they want so badly?’
Jack tensed. ‘No idea.’
They shot across an intersection.
Wheels screeched and horns sounded.
Suddenly, there was a huge smashing sound.
The Mercedes had driven straight into the side of a pickup truck, slamming it into a van.
Two more cars smashed into the van, and Jack winced.
People started climbing out of their vehicles and waving their fists at the occupants of the silver car.
Jack looked forward again.
Drake reduced the car to a normal speed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was fun.’
Wren leant forward between the seats with a look of awe and said to Drake, ‘Will you adopt me?’
Jack let out a slow breath. Now they could get back to New York and . . . what? he thought. Go home? They’d heard nothing from Obi, which meant there was still no sign of Hector.
Wren laughed.
Jack turned in his seat to see Slink pulling out two of the inflatable people from under his hoodie. ‘Slink.’
‘What?’ Slink said. ‘They were being thrown out.’
Jack shook his head and looked at the laptop in his hands. They might have won this mission, but it seemed they had lost the main one – to stop Hector.
• • •
The Urban Outlaws had just got back to Serene’s loft in New York when there was a beeping sound.
All heads turned to the office. The computer screen was flashing red.
‘No way,’ Obi breathed.
‘What?’ Jack said.
‘The camera at Hector’s apartment – it’s detected movement.’
They all rushed into the office and gathered around Obi as he brought up an image of the apartment.
Obi was right – standing inside and just closing the door was Cloud, the slim woman who worked for Hector.
Jack spun to Drake. ‘Can you get us there fast?’
‘Give me a few minutes.’ Drake hurried down the spiral staircase.
Charlie ran to the gadget room and returned seconds later with a few items.
&nb
sp; She handed Jack a leather wallet, thirty centimetres square and five thick. He undid the clasps and opened the flap. Inside was a rugged tablet PC.
‘Obi,’ Charlie said, ‘would you please link the camera to the tablet?’
Obi did as she instructed and an image of the apartment appeared on the screen in Jack’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
Now he could watch what Cloud was doing as they made their way back there.
Charlie then handed Jack and Slink a mobile phone, headset and a micro-camera each. ‘You can fit these cameras under your clothes and Obi will be able to see everything.’
Slink reached under his hoodie and pressed the camera to it. It made a small hole in the fabric and an image of the room appeared on the monitor.
‘I want you and Wren to wait here with Obi,’ Jack said, fitting his own camera and headset.
‘Are you sure?’ Charlie said.
‘Too many of us will draw attention. We’re just going to follow Cloud for now. See where she goes. Hopefully she’ll lead us straight to Hector.’
‘What about me?’ Lux said.
‘You know the area – we could use you.’
Jack, Slink and Lux marched to the spiral staircase and rushed down it.
Outside the shop, Drake pulled to the kerb in a pizza delivery van.
‘Don’t ask,’ he said as they hopped in. ‘It’s all I could get at such short notice.’
Slink laughed.
• • •
As they drove out of Chinatown towards Central Park, Jack sat in the passenger seat and looked at the screen in his lap. The view of the apartment was clear and he could see Cloud kneeling by the front door beside an open cupboard, picking up items and putting them into a duffel bag.
Jack clenched his teeth and looked up from the screen. ‘How long until we’re there?’
‘About ten minutes,’ Drake said, turning down a side road and weaving between two parked trucks.
‘We’re not going to get there in time.’ Jack looked at the screen again.
Cloud finished putting the objects in her bag, then closed the door to the cupboard and straightened up. To Jack’s relief, rather than leaving the apartment straight away, she started walking slowly around, checking under furniture and inside drawers and cupboards.
Good, he thought. That bought them some more time.
Cloud was obviously making sure there were no signs that they’d been there and that they’d left nothing lying around.
Jack kept his eyes glued to the screen and the next five minutes passed in anxious silence.
On the screen he watched Cloud find the origami chewing gum wrapper under the bedside table and shove it into her duffel bag. She then glanced around each room one more time and finally left the apartment.
Jack closed the screen and slid it under the seat. ‘We won’t be needing that any more.’ They were still at least five minutes away.
Slink said, ‘What are we going to do?’
Jack ran a quick scenario through his head – Cloud waiting for a lift, getting in, going down to the lobby.
‘We’re not giving up yet,’ Drake said, beeping the horn, putting his foot to the floor and overtaking two cars.
Jack had a flashback of the car chase in Hollywood, but at this speed they might actually make it to the apartment in time.
The following minutes dragged like hours.
He kept looking at the clock on the van’s dashboard. Its second light seemed to be blinking on and off way too slowly.
Finally Drake turned on to Fifth Avenue and Jack leant forward in his seat. Up ahead, he could see the apartment building. He pointed through the windscreen. ‘There she is.’
Cloud came out of the front doors and got into a waiting yellow taxi.
‘Is that her?’ Lux said. ‘In that cab?’
‘Yes.’
Drake jammed his foot hard to the floor. The van’s engine revved and he overtook another taxi. The driver beeped his horn and made a rude gesture through the windscreen.
Drake focused on the taxi ahead, and when they were a couple of cars back he slowed, keeping a safe distance so as not to be spotted.
Jack could make out the back of Cloud’s head in the rear seat.
The taxi turned right and then, a few roads down, right again.
‘She must be going somewhere in Lower Manhattan,’ Lux said.
‘What’s there?’ Jack asked.
Lux’s eyebrows rose and she glanced at him. ‘Everything. Wall Street – the main business district. She could be going anywhere.’
Jack just wanted to get to Hector and stop him before he did even more damage, before he set up more hackers and stole secrets.
Every traffic light and junction seemed to be against them. Several times, Slink offered to get out of the car, run over to the taxi, drag Cloud from it and demand answers.
Jack assured him that this wasn’t the best idea because they didn’t want to draw the attention of the police, or of Hector. Noble would be in danger if he suspected that they were hot on his heels.
Eventually the taxi stopped. Set some way back from the road was a large square red-brick building, thirteen storeys high.
Slink leant forward in his seat. ‘What is this place?’
Jack pointed at a sign that read, ‘Welcome to Police Headquarters.’
‘This is One Police Plaza,’ Lux said. ‘What’s she doing here?’
They watched as Cloud got out, said something to the driver and then strode up the path.
‘Well,’ Drake said, ‘there’s no way we can follow her. There have to be a thousand cops in there.’
Jack stared at Cloud as she headed towards the building. ‘Don’t be so sure,’ he said quietly, his mind racing.
Slink grinned at Drake.
Jack scooped the tablet PC from under the seat, switched it on and pressed a finger to his ear. ‘Obi?’
‘Here.’
‘Are you still picking up our body cameras?’
‘Yeah, I can see.’
‘Good. In that case, could you patch me directly into Serene’s computer?’ Jack turned to face Slink. ‘Take this and follow her.’ He leant over, picked up an empty pizza box from the seat next to Slink and shoved it into his hands. ‘Go. Quick.’
Slink pulled the Yankees baseball cap low over his eyes and opened the door.
Serene’s desktop appeared on the tablet in front of Jack. He now had remote access. He opened a dialog box and set to work.
‘What are you doing?’ Lux said.
Jack glanced at Slink hurrying after Cloud, then looked back at the tablet screen. ‘Trying to get into their system.’
‘Whose system?’
Jack kept his eyes on the screen and nodded at the red-brick building to their left.
Lux gasped. ‘Wait – you’re hacking into the police headquarters?’
‘Yep.’ Jack’s fingers worked fast, moving in a blur as he typed. First of all he located the main servers. The next task was to get into them.
Serene had some useful built-in hacking tools, but none of them was up to the job.
Jack took a calming breath.
This was down to him.
‘Obi,’ he said into his headset, ‘can you help me out and make sure our track is well hidden? I can’t do it all at once.’
The police’s network security was among the best he’d ever seen, but not good enough. Jack spotted a way to circumvent it.
The challenge was not to get caught.
‘Anyone noticed yet?’ he asked.
‘We’ve just checked,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re clear. No one’s tracing you.’
Obi brought up a small window on Jack’s screen – it showed the view from Slink’s hidden camera.
He was now walking through the visitor’s entrance to One Police Plaza.
Up ahead, Cloud showed her ID and passed through the metal detectors.
Slink slowed his pace. ‘Jack?’
‘I’m working on i
t,’ Jack said. ‘Stall. I need more time.’
Slink knelt and pretended to tie his shoelaces.
‘Jack,’ Obi said in his ear, ‘someone’s realised you’re trying to hack into the system and they’ve started a trace.’
‘How long?’ Jack said, typing faster than ever. So far he’d worked out half of the code.
‘A minute,’ Obi said, ‘maybe less.’
Jack’s eyes flitted to Slink’s camera view.
At the other end of the lobby, beyond a set of security barriers, Cloud was standing with five or six other people, waiting for a lift.
A guard stepped into view and looked directly at Slink and beckoned him forward. ‘Who’s the pizza for, kid?’
Slink walked towards him, slowly. ‘Erm . . .’
‘I’m working on it,’ Jack muttered. Three-quarters of the code was done. His mind and fingers now worked in fluid harmony.
‘They’re nearly on to you,’ Obi said. ‘Ten seconds at the most.’
A screen flashed up and Jack was into the police computers. ‘Yes!’ He quickly navigated to the personnel section.
The guard frowned at Slink. ‘Well, what’s the name?’
‘Erm . . .’
‘Five seconds, Jack,’ Obi said.
Jack opened the first file and scanned down a list of names, but none of them seemed to work in the building itself.
‘Four . . .’
The guard took a step towards Slink. ‘Kid?’
‘Three . . .’
‘Come on,’ Jack muttered, his eyes continuing down the list of names. Most of them were traffic cops.
‘Two . . .’
The guard touched the radio at his hip.
Jack finally found a name of someone who worked inside the building. ‘Lieutenant Fredericks,’ he said into the microphone. ‘Kenny Fredericks.’ He quickly closed the connection.
‘Kenny Fredericks,’ Slink blurted out.
The guard stared at him a moment. ‘OK. Come on.’
Slink let out an audible breath.
‘Traced?’ Jack asked Obi.
‘No. It was close though.’
Slink walked through the metal detector and it beeped.
Jack tensed.
The guard grabbed a wand from the side and waved it over the pizza box, then over Slink.
It beeped too.
The screen in Jack’s lap went dark.
CHAPTER NINE
Lockdown Page 10