by Glenn Carter
Terry starred at her.
‘Okay, here are the rules,’ she continued. ‘I will drive you to North Berwick, but I will not tolerate any mention of dinosaurs. Not a squeak! You hear me?’
‘Yes Jessie,’ said Terry, looking terrified.
Jessie continued, ‘Anyway, I am sure we can talk about something far more interesting. My boyfriend for instance.’
Terry sighed.
‘Joe is so gorgeous… anyone mind if I tell you a bit about him?’ Jessie simpered.
‘That’s fine,’ piped up Sharav.
‘Okay great. Well Joe is gorgeous. Have I said that already?’
As they approached a very large roundabout, Jessie said, ‘Oh this roundabout is a bit tricky.’ She turned right and started driving the wrong way around the roundabout. The three boys pushed themselves back into their seats and looked in terror out of the front window.
Terry started to scream, ‘Wrong way, wrong way. Abort, Abort, Abort.’
Jessie ignored him and continued to talk, ‘Anyway Joe is eighteen. He’s tall, handsome, strong, yet gentle. And soooo lush.’
‘Death is coming, all is lost!’ Terry shouted. He started hyperventilating. Sharav fell asleep.
It was only when Jessie saw two cars driving right at them and sounding their horns loudly that she took any notice, ‘Oh this is strange. What are they doing driving that way? Stupid drivers!’ She weaved one way and then the other, somehow managed to avoid them and took a sharp right leading onto the motorway.
‘Wrong way!’ shouted Terry again. ‘I am too young to die. Goodbye world!’ They were headed onto the motorway on the wrong side. Jessie was once again having to weave between the oncoming cars.
Jessie stuck to the left-hand lane, the way her instructor had taught her. However, they were on the wrong side of the motorway in the fast lane. Jessie was beginning to show signs of stress.
Terry was moving his head from left to right really quickly. ‘I leave my three computers to my friend Robert. My dinosaur wallpaper to Phil. I leave £400 to the Palaeontological Association to continue researching my beloved dinosaurs.’
Jessie snapped, ‘No Dinosaurs!’ and she punched Terry between the legs. Terry’s head flew forward, bashing off the dashboard.
Paul knew he had to do something. He undid his seat belt, climbed into the front and sat on Terry. Without saying a word, he grabbed the steering wheel with his right hand and the handbrake with his left. Waiting for a gap in the traffic he swung the steering wheel right while pulling the handbrake up hard. The car did a perfect 180-degree turn. He pulled the steering wheel left and shouted ‘brake!’. Jessie stepped hard on the brake and the car came to a standstill on the hard shoulder.
Paul climbed into the back seat again, smiling at the sleeping Sharav. Jessie rested her head on the steering wheel as Terry started mumbling something like, ‘The time has come for all good men to….’ His voice trailed off.
Fifteen minutes later they were driving to North Berwick on the correct side of the road. Paul had convinced the traumatised carload of passengers to continue on their journey. Sharav was awake and Terry was now tense and strangely subdued. He recovered as they arrived in North Berwick and opened up his laptop.
‘Where do you want to be dropped off?’ asked Jessie.
‘Not sure yet,’ was the reply from Terry. ‘Just drive for a while and I’ll give you directions.’
Five minutes later they found themselves on a one-way street headed up the Westgate.
‘Wait I’ve got something!’ exclaimed Terry. ‘Turn right up here.’ Paul leaned forward to look over Terry’s shoulder.
The car turned onto Westend Place and then onto Beach Road. To their left was a green space and then the North Sea. Terry smiled and turned round to speak to Sharav and Paul.
‘I’ve got it!’ He pointed at a house on their right. ‘Keep driving, Jessie. Please drop us off 200 metres up here.’
Jessie dropped the boys off, telling them how lucky they were that she had a friend who lived in North Berwick and that she would pick them up in a couple of hours. Terry pulled on a huge rucksack and the three of them walked towards the house. They decided to walk through the park, so as not to get too close to the house until they had a plan. As they passed the house, they could see that it was an old stone-built house with an extension on the side. It also had a glass balcony on the third floor. They sat down on a bench facing the sea and Terry pulled out his laptop again. They looked up the address on Google Maps to get an aerial view to help them decide how best to get into the building. The house was surrounded by high walls and looked highly secure.
Sharav asked, ‘So we are sure that Rachel’s phone is in that house?’
‘Yep,’ said Terry.
Paul felt his stomach churn with a mixture of excitement and worry. Could his Dad be here?
‘Okay well we have to get in there asap.’ said Paul.
‘Hmm, easier said than done, Captain,’ said a serious Terry. ‘We don’t know how many people are in there or what the security is like.’
‘Okay, well let’s set up some sort of diversion,’ said Paul.
‘Hold on. I’ve got another plan,’ said Terry as he pulled a small cardboard box out of his bag.
‘Oh, a dragon fly,’ said Sharav once the box was opened.
‘Yes! Sort of,’ said Terry proudly. ‘this is the latest micro MAV. I acquired it recently after doing a bit of work for someone.’
‘MAV?’ asked Sharav.
‘Micro Air Vehicle. I can control it from my phone. It has a camera, a microphone and some other surprises. We can use this to gain access to the house, check out what’s going on in there and hopefully locate the phone.’
Terry turned the MAV over and pressed a button. The dragonfly started flapping.
‘That’s amazing!’ exclaimed Sharav.
‘Okay let’s try this little fella out,’ said Terry. The dragonfly took off from their position and Terry piloted it towards the house. They could see everything from the dragonfly’s perspective. Terry made it hover over the back garden where they could see a huge pitbull dog chewing a bone. Terry found a ventilation shaft and flew the MAV into the house, through the kitchen and into the living room, which were both empty. The MAV travelled upstairs into a bedroom and then into another living space with a large television, two computers and a grand piano in the corner. On the piano was a large white, long haired cat. The cat raised its head as the dragonfly came closer.
‘Ugh, I hate cats!’ said Terry. Suddenly, without warning, the cat sprang from the piano and took a swipe at the flying object. The boys gasped as they saw the drone tumbling towards the floor. Terry was just about to see if it would fly again when the camera appeared to cut out.
‘The cat is eating the dragonfly!’ said Paul.
‘What? My precious robot!’ Terry dropped his phone and started running towards the house.
‘Wait Terry!’ Paul sprinted after him and had to rugby tackle him to the ground. ‘Terry we can’t go in there.’
‘But it’s worth thousands of pounds!’
‘Okay, let’s have a think about it, we need to come up with a plan,’ said Paul, as he led Terry back to the bench.
Terry activated the small light on the dragonfly and to their astonishment it turned on. All they could see was what looked like shiny ripples.
‘Are we inside the cat’s stomach?’ asked Sharav.
‘Looks like it,’ said Terry. ‘Right I need to get it out of there! I’m going to make it fly.’
‘In the cat’s stomach?’ exclaimed Sharav.
‘Yes,’ said Terry. ‘We need to try something.’ Terry got the wings flapping. This was followed by some loud rumbling noises. Then the dragonfly was tumbling and suddenly the camera was flooded with light.
Soon afterwards, they heard a couple of men’s voices entering the room. ‘Ugh, the stupid cat’s been sick again!’ said a man with an English accent. ‘It’s your turn to clean i
t up!’
The other man sighed and said, ‘okay then.’
Paul said to Terry. ‘We need to get that robot flying before they clean up the mess and find it.’
Terry frantically adjusted the settings on his phone and eventually, to their relief, they could see the MAV gain some height. Terry piloted it onto a bookshelf in the corner of the room with the camera pointing towards the door. They could see a large teenager with bad skin sitting on a chair, engrossed in his phone. After a couple of minutes, the other man entered the room. He was tall and had bright ginger hair. As he entered the room he said with a strong English accent, ‘Right where’s the sick?’
Both Paul and Sharav leaned closer to Terry’s phone and said in unison, ‘Is that Conor?’
26
Inside
‘Conor’s dead!’ said Sharav. ‘It can’t be him!’
‘Terry, can you zoom in on that ginger-haired man?’ said Paul.
Terry obliged.
‘It’s him. It’s definitely him,’ said Sharav. ‘I’m so glad he’s alive. I’m so glad. I thought I’d killed him.’
Terry looked at Sharav strangely.
‘Sorry,’ Sharav said to Terry, putting a hand on his shoulder, ‘We’ll explain later.’
Paul pulled Sharav away from Terry and spoke quietly, ‘How is he alive? I don’t believe it, and why is he in North Berwick?’
‘With an English accent!’ replied Sharav.
Paul stood stock still, ‘He must be a double agent working for the bad guys.’
Terry approached the two friends, interrupting them. ‘Gents, I hate to break up the confab, but we have a phone to locate. Are you ready to continue?’
The boys agreed and Terry flew the dragonfly out of the room and searched the whole house. Paul held his breath, expecting to see his father at any moment. His hopes were finally dashed as they dragonfly completed the search in the basement. ‘Where is he?’ Paul thought and felt his heart physically sink in his chest.
Terry directed the dragonfly back up to the top floor. The top floor had a couple of rooms. One looked like an office and the other was being used as a meeting room. In this room, which led onto a glass balcony, they found two men and a woman looking at papers that were strewn across a table. Terry landed the dragonfly on the windowsill so they could hear the conversation.
The heavily built, bald man spoke first, ‘After our last botch up, security will be tighter than ever. They will deploy a ring of steel around the Prime Minister, so we’ll need to use our man on the inside to get it done. We have to be clever about this and complete the mission without implicating Sabre. He’s our most important asset.’
Paul whispered, ‘He said Sabre! Terry can you record this?’
‘Hold on!’ said Terry. He handed his phone to Paul, picked up his laptop and put in a set of headphones. A minute late he smiled, ‘Right, the MAV doesn’t have a recording device but I turned on the recording app on Rachel’s phone. Her phone is in that room. And it’s now recording!’
The thin, blond woman chipped in, ‘I’ll be communicating with Sabre in a couple of hours, so we need to work out if we have anything new to tell him.’
The bald man said, ‘I think we continue with plan B as we discussed. He may have to get past a few more security officers this time. Once the target has been neutralised, Sabre is to meet us at the pickup zone, and we will help him disappear. Disappear to any country he wants, a much richer man. But it would be good to find out more about how the internal investigation is going and whether they have managed to pin the attempted murder on that wretched girl. She needs to be found guilty.’
Blondie smiled, ‘Okay I’ll ask him about it. Sabre is part of the investigation and I’m sure we will get the outcome we want.’
‘And if not, she’ll need to be neutralised as well. Got it?’
The other two nodded in agreement.
‘What about T2?’ asked an older teenager with spiky hair.
The bald man shook his head wearily. ‘He hasn’t talked. I don’t think he’s going to. The only way we were going to get him to talk was to capture one of his snotty kids. But that didn’t work, did it?’ The bald man stared at the teenager with fury. ‘Keep him alive as insurance until the mission is complete, then kill him.’
The teenager replied, ‘We moved T2 yesterday and designed an ingenious way to neutralise him without us even being in the room!’
Paul stood up, ‘They’re talking about Dad and Rachel! That cell is responsible for capturing my Dad and framing Rachel… and Conor is part of it. I can’t believe it.’
Sharav nodded, ‘Yep and they are planning to use this Sabre person to try and kill the Prime Minister again.’
‘Okay,’ said Paul. ‘We need to get in there. There must be information in the house about where Dad is. The easiest way to prove Rachel’s innocence and that they are conspiring to kill the PM is to get that phone. It has all the evidence we need.’
Just then, Terry drew their attention to the fact that the spiky teenager had been told to make some coffee and had left the room. ‘I have an idea!’ said Terry. The MAV followed Spike down to the ground floor and into the kitchen. ‘It might not work but I’ll give it a go.’
Ten minutes later Terry, Paul and Sharav were at the back gate looking through a gap in the fence at the enormous guard dog. Paul turned to Terry. ‘Listen, Terry, it’s probably time to tell you that this is actually a really serious situation. It isn’t a game. I’m sorry for telling you that it was. This is all real and if we get caught goodness knows what they will do to us.’
Terry laughed quietly, ‘Captain I know. I have been researching the security services for as long as I can remember, and I can tell the difference between a game and real life. I knew this was real when you first described the situation to me. Why do you think I was so excited?’
Paul and Sharav stared at Terry for a moment and then Paul said, ‘Wow, you are amazing. Okay Terry, you have to stay here. He handed Terry a radio device and gave Sharav an earpiece, before inserting his own. We need a code word in case back up is required. If we say the code word, then please call 999 and get help. What word should we use?’
Terry stroked his chin, looked at them with a glint in his eye and said, ‘How about, “boobie misadventure.”’
‘What? I’m not saying that!’ exclaimed Paul.
Terry folded his arms. ‘No boobie misadventure, no backup.’
Paul could see that he wasn’t going to win this one. ‘Fine,’ he said, as he pulled out his lock picks and started working on the lock of the back gate. It was a simple lock that opened quickly. Slowly they opened the gate and Paul poked a large stick through the gap, waving it at the dog. With bated breath they watched the dog look up and slowly walk towards the gate. As soon as the dog got to the gate, Paul opened the gate wide and flung the stick as far as he could into the green space. The dog bounded past the boys after the stick, and both Sharav and Paul snuck into the garden and closed the gate behind them.
‘Hey, are you going to leave me with that dog!’ said Terry with his back to the gate. But Sharav and Paul were already at the back door.
Paul touched his ear, ‘Terry, how long before we are safe to go in?’
Terry, who was trying to wrestle the stick from the dog sounded out of breath, ‘It only takes about ten minutes to take effect, so in sixty seconds you should be fine. Remember we only managed to get to four of the team. That leaves one of them fully functional.
Before reaching for the door handle, Paul turned to Sharav and whispered, ‘Remember, try to be as quiet as possible! We want to get in and out without being detected.’ Sharav nodded.
To Paul’s surprise the back door was unlocked. They opened the door and entered the kitchen. Slowly they tiptoed into the hall. The house was still, apart from the slight murmur of conversation a couple of floors up. They walked silently along the carpeted hall floor and turned to go up the first flight of stairs. They heard Terry’s voi
ce through the radio earpiece. ‘Okay me hearties, I’ll be your look out. Your buccaneer in the crow’s nest of your pirate ship. The three baddies are continuing their meeting on the top floor. They are happily drinking their coffee. They all seem strangely fine so far. Give me a minute and I’ll check the whereabouts of the other two.’
Paul and Sharav froze halfway up the stairs waiting for further guidance from their eccentric friend. Moments later Terry continued, ‘Okay so your double crosser, Conor, and the fat, spotty one are having a chat in the cat-sick room. The door is open but they won’t be able to see you as you pass. This is fun!’
Paul wasn’t finding it so much fun. He was terrified of being captured because of what it would mean for his sister and his Dad.
They continued up the stairs and sneaked past the living room door, continuing their way to the next flight of stairs. This flight of stairs had a number of pictures on the wall. Paul reached a mini landing with a small table and vase in the corner. He passed it and turned around to point out the obstacle to Sharav. But to his horror Sharav’s leg touched the table and it wobbled slightly. The vase moved one way and then the other. Paul tried to barge past Sharav to catch it, but it was too late. The large, expensive-looking vase bounced on the landing and started falling down the short flight of stairs to the bottom. It didn’t make a lot of noise until it got the bottom and smashed loudly against a bookshelf. Panic. Suddenly they were faced with two men from the upstairs room. Bald man shouted, ‘Oi, who are you?’. Paul turned around and pushed Sharav in the opposite direction. ‘Run,’ he shouted.
27
Thumb Screws
Paul and Sharav were bounding down the stairs two at a time. They were being pursued by the bald man and Spike the teenager. Just as they reached the living room on the first floor, the large spotty teenager jumped in front of them and they ran into his open arms. ‘Hello boys,’ he said as he grabbed them tightly. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ Bald and Spike caught up with them and they were bundled into the cat-sick room. And there was Conor.