Once you got inside the Greenhouse, you noticed that the plants you could see from the outside were actually on a mezzanine; a suspended floor that was way up in the roof. On the ground, there were no trees or bags of compost as you would expect; the whole building was one big computer room, full of screens, desktops and servers. The hum and the heat from the electronics was the second thing you noticed, but Elliot was used to that. His desk was in the middle of an enormous communications station that was situated on a raised platform, known as the Hive.
As he weaved his way towards it, Elliot could see that the people he was due to meet were waiting. Bull, that horrible Russian idiot was there, playing with Elliot’s favourite stress ball. It was in the shape of a small sausage dog that was cocking its leg to take a wee and Bull was squeezing it between his fat, pink fingers. Elliot would have that out of his mitts as soon as he got up there. He could also see the back of a woman’s head; she was sitting in his seat, watching one of the immense TV screens on the wall. Her blonde hair looked wet against her large head as she sat perfectly still, like a crocodile patiently lying on the surface of a swamp. A bead of sweat slowly made its way down the middle of his back as he quickened his pace.
He walked up onto the Hive and she spun around in the chair. She didn’t speak, she simply fixed a set of penetrating green eyes on him and waited. Elliot couldn’t help it, he stared at the woman and gulped like a little boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He felt his eyes grow wider, so he snapped his gaze away and concentrated on Bull. ‘That’s my favourite stress ball.’
‘You are late,’ Bull almost spat the words at him.
‘I had an errand to run.’
Elliot decided it was probably best he didn’t tell them it was his mum’s fault – that might undermine his authority a little bit. He took the stress ball from Bull’s hand and put it back in its place on his desk. He tried to keep his eyes on Bull, but he could feel the woman’s stare burrowing into him. He risked a quick glance at her and noticed she had turned the corner of her mouth up into the smallest of smiles.
‘You were supposed to run errand for me, 20 minutes ago,’ Bull insisted, his accent thick and his tone angry.
‘Yes, well, I’m here now, so let’s get on with it.’
‘Apologise.’ It was the woman. She hadn’t moved a muscle and Elliot hadn’t seen her speak, but she had fired the word out in his direction.
‘Excuse me?’ Elliot replied, defensively.
‘Close,’ she said as she stood up. ‘And you are excused.’ She slowly extended her frame upwards. Elliot was surprised to find she was as tall as him and almost as wide but carried herself with a confidence that crackled out from her like an electric current. She picked up the stress ball from its place and squeezed it in her huge hand.
Elliot was not used to looking straight ahead and being able to make eye contact with many people, so this was all very new to him, as was the feeling of someone making his skin crawl. In her eyes, he saw a frightening unpredictability. Elliot didn’t know if she was going to laugh, order them a pizza or rip his head off. He quickly decided he would do whatever she wanted, as long as she left him alone as soon as possible.
‘Right. Yes. Sorry about being late,’ he spluttered.
‘Better.’ She continued to look him in the eye.
‘This is Hornet,’ Bull said, standing to the side of them both, his bullet-shaped head barely reaching their chest height.
Hornet. Elliot had heard that name before. He froze in stunned silence. The woman noticed.
‘You’ve heard of me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You were asked to trace someone for us last night and we’re here for the results.’
‘I was? Oh, right. Yes, I was!’ Elliot did his best impression of an enthusiastic, team-player. He turned and tapped out an unlock code on his keyboard, then scanned at the screen. ‘Nothing yet, Hornet. But don’t worry, when he does resurface, we will find him. I’ve got facial-recognition software running through the backdoor of MI5, so the minute he pops up on any major CCTV, we’ll be on his tail.’
‘Good.’ Hornet glanced at the desk, picked up Elliot’s travel mug and sat back down in chair. ‘Then we’ll wait.’
Hornet. Yes, he remembered now. Elliot recalled it had been his first-ever project for Lord Ravensbrook. It was ridiculously top-secret; only a few other people inside Lockmead had even heard of it. Hornet had been trusted with guarding Ravensbrook’s most prized asset and Elliot had to help create a fake identity for her. At the time, he had been tempted to investigate Hornet’s real past and see why she had been given such a massive responsibility. What he’d found had terrified him to the extent that he hadn’t slept that night thinking about the things this woman had done. Hornet wasn’t just one of Ravensbrook’s trusted aides, she was a ruthless and skilled assassin, and now she was sitting here, in his office, casually sipping his tea.
‘Spiced ginger, homemade. Very tasty,’ she said.
Battle Station
Boyd had arrived 30 minutes before he was due to meet his contact from FrakeNews. He had decided on the train ride up to Waterloo that he was going to position himself somewhere and watch, just like Fitz had suggested. Whoever had chased them on the beach the other night was still out there and whatever they wanted, they wouldn’t just give up. Maybe they didn’t have his dad – maybe Martin had got himself free and that meant there was a good chance they would be watching Boyd, following him in case he met up with his father. He also knew he couldn’t trust Aurora or Harry, so he had to try to stay one step ahead. He could barely believe it; last week he was at school, worrying about a maths exam, and now here he was, heading to a meeting with conspiracy theorists who tried to bring down governments and worrying about people trying to kill him.
Waterloo station was massive and, at this time of day, absolutely heaving with people.
Most of them came and went in a few minutes, making their way to a platform or heading underground; and they pretty much all kept their heads down and ignored each other. The platform entrances were all on one side, with shops, cafés and a ticket office on the other.
Boyd was new to this. He stood alone for a moment, feeling miniscule against the large crowd, all his confidence starting to slip from him as he realised that this wasn’t a situation he could control. Normally, if something was beyond his abilities, he would learn to master it; he would work at it and develop his skills. When he moved from boxing to Taekwondo, he had almost quit after his first week. His instructor, Mr Beeson, had asked him why he wanted to take up martial arts.
‘Because I want to be the best,’ Boyd had said, through gritted teeth.
Mr Beeson had laughed. ‘Why don’t you start by just being the best you can be?’ he had replied.
Mr Beeson had taught him to set goals, to be his own harshest critic and his own toughest competitor. Boyd had learnt to evaluate situations and to try to be better at the things he could control and not worry so much about the things he could not, which wasn’t something he was always good at. If he couldn’t do something, if his skills took too long to sharpen, then sometimes he would cave in and walk away. Often, he just needed some time to cool off and then he would come back again the next week with renewed determination. The problem he faced now was that he didn’t have a single clue what he was doing, he didn’t know how to act or how to control the mess he was in, but he couldn’t storm off like a stroppy kid – not this time. If he threw in the towel, he might never find his dad or know the truth behind all this, so he had to suck it up and learn fast.
He stood with his back to the coffee shop where he was supposed to be sitting and reading the magazine in 20 minutes. He looked up at the departures board as if he were just another passenger waiting for a platform to be announced. He kept his hood up and occasionally he would swing himself around and get a sense of his surroundings. He didn’t waste a single second; his eyes darted to every face. He decided he would
look at people’s faces, then their shoes, bags and coats to make sure he had as many ways as possible to identify anyone who spent too long hanging around him. The coffee shop was right next to an exit leading out to a street that was heaving with commuters, buses and taxis.
Boyd ran it through in his head: what would he do if he were the FrakeNews contact? Or what if the people who took his dad were here waiting for him? He doubted that any of them would come alone, so he was probably dealing with multiple watchers. So, if he were in their shoes, which spot would he pick to watch from? He closed his eyes for a second and pictured the station layout behind him. There was a food concourse upstairs – he would certainly make use of that; you could look out over the whole station from up there. Then, he would put another watcher in the coffee shop, sat with their back to the wall, looking out at the station concourse so they could see the face of everyone who approached. Yes, that’s how he would do it. Maybe this spy stuff wasn’t so tough after all.
He checked the time on the phone Fitz had given him and saw he still had ten minutes before he was due at the meeting. Buying the pasty and the magazine was obviously a way for him to make himself known, a way for them to force him to show himself. So he had bought both items as soon as he had arrived and had them in a carrier bag. Boyd looked up at the departures board again and pretended that he was waiting for someone. He took out the dummy iPhone again and made out like he was getting a phone call. He turned, glanced upwards at the food concourse, and scanned all around it. There didn’t seem to be anyone suspicious standing at the railings looking out over the station.
He looked inside the coffee shop and instantly locked eyes with someone. A man, sitting at the back, next to the door marked: ‘Staff Only’. He was dressed in a suit and hunched over a laptop but his eyes weren’t on the screen, they were looking out at the concourse. The man had been looking directly at him and then quickly broken his gaze when he’d turned around.
Boyd, still pretending to talk into the phone, walked over towards the stairs that led up to the concourse but instead of going up, he stopped at the bottom and helped a woman with a pushchair down the last few steps. She thanked him and Boyd went around the back of the staircase. He pocketed the phone, stopped at the bench underneath the stairs and sat down next to a homeless man who was trying to keep a low profile, just like Boyd. Now he was out of sight from anyone at the coffee shop and anyone who was upstairs on the concourse. If someone was watching him, they would have to follow to see where he had gone, they would have to show themselves. He was flushing them out.
Two minutes went by and then he saw the man from the coffee shop walk along in front of the departures and arrivals board, a phone clasped to his ear. His head was spinning around, moving side to side – he was looking for someone. Boyd turned his face to the left, away from the man, but he could still see his reflection in a shop window. The woman with the pushchair that Boyd had helped down the stairs was trying to exit WH Smith but a small gang of teenagers were in her way. Boyd could see in her face that she was ready to snap but held it in.
He glanced back over towards the man in the suit, who wasn’t even hiding it now, desperately searching the big crowd for someone. Boyd felt a churning in his stomach; was this the FrakeNews contact or someone more dangerous? How long could he stay here before they made a move on him? His heart was thumping. What if this guy worked with Harry? What if he was trying to get to Martin through Boyd? Boyd fought every urge he felt to run at the man and confront him; best to sit and wait, make him show his hand.
Then, he heard a shout from his left. He snapped his head around as the gang of teenagers burst outwards, running and pushing their way through the crowd. The woman with the baby shouted and Boyd saw why. One of the gang had her handbag. Dammit!
Boyd checked his watch, he only had five minutes until he was due at the meeting. Then he felt a twitch in his legs and before he could convince himself that this wasn’t his problem, he was on his feet and giving chase.
The thief was fast, probably around the same age as Boyd but he had a head start and had probably done this before and clearly knew where he was going. The thief ran along the outside of the shops, where the crowds were not as thick, but they had the risk of colliding with anyone stepping blindly out of a shop and onto the concourse.
Almost immediately, two men stepped out from Burger King and into Boyd’s path. ‘Move!’ Boyd shouted, bellowing over the noise of the crowd. One man turned his head but didn’t shift his body quickly enough. Boyd dropped his shoulder and smashed between the men, sending cups of coffee and a bag of breakfast baps up into the air.
Shouts followed both boys as they charged at speed across the busy station. The thief ducked right at the coffee shop and headed out towards the street. He glanced back and Boyd caught a look at his face. Boyd saw that the ‘he’ was a she and probably around two years younger than him. Her face had been calm and relaxed until she saw Boyd was quickly gaining on her.
As he rounded the corner and went past the coffee shop, he saw the thief turn right, out of the station. He continued to shout warnings and people parted as he gave chase. When he reached the covered section of street outside the station, he dropped his shoulder, turned right and just about managed to stop dead before he hit a crowd of frustrated commuters. Directly in Boyd’s path was a huge man carrying a briefcase, his suit jacket slung over his arm. The crowd was so thick, Boyd struggled to look through it and it didn’t help that he was the only one trying to walk against the flow. Boyd stood his ground against the big man and tried to push to get through the crowd.
‘Whoa! What’s your problem, mate?’ the man said.
Boyd ignored him. It was no use, he wasn’t getting through here, the road was blocked with two stationary buses, coughing thick black smoke out into the hot, London atmosphere.
‘I’m talking to you, son,’ the man said again.
Boyd glanced at the taxi rank to his left; a long line of black London cabs idled behind a roped-off area and stretched all the way down the access road next to the station. The big man grabbed Boyd’s collar and went to move him. Boyd looked up at the man for the first time. He was sweaty, red-faced, angry and spoiling for a fight.
‘I’m chasing a thief, I just need to…’
‘Right, ’course you are,’ the man interrupted.
Boyd didn’t have time for this. He swept the man’s hands away in a single, upward motion. The big man was momentarily stunned and that gave Boyd the split-second he needed. He turned his body left and cleared the rope barrier in a standing jump; he was now in the taxi rank. The long queue of waiting customers started to complain as Boyd placed a foot on the bumper of the first taxi, before launching himself up onto the bonnet, then the roof. As he scanned the road ahead, the crowd on the ground erupted in response; some hollered in protest, others were unsure what was unfolding and decided it was best to get as far away as possible.
Boyd heard someone shout for the police when he saw the thief, already on the other side of the crowd, confidently strolling behind one of the stationary buses. The driver of the taxi climbed out, shouted for Boyd to get down and swept his arm towards Boyd’s foot, missing it by a country mile.
A policeman appeared from the station and stopped. He had an irate crowd, people dangerously scattering all over the place and a teenager on the roof of a black cab. ‘Alright, down you get, sunshine!’ he called out and reached for his radio.
Boyd looked ahead and saw that the line of taxis formed a perfect escape route: a black, metallic pathway that led away from the baying crowd all the way back down the road towards the thief. His meeting with FrakeNews was going to have to wait. He took two steps on the taxi’s roof and leapt off over the bonnet of the next taxi in the queue and landed on its roof. He didn’t stop there. Letting the momentum sweep him forward, he did the same again, two steps before pushing hard, launching himself into the air and onto the next taxi. In just a few seconds he was on the roof of taxi number ni
ne, the last in the line, and he couldn’t stop himself – he came off the back of the cab and hit the floor with both feet, tumbled and rolled across the sticky, hot tarmac.
He sprung up on his feet in an instant, looking to where the thief had ducked behind the bus. She had grabbed a city bike and was disappearing around the corner. Boyd sprinted over to the bike rack just as a man was putting on his bicycle clips and taking his helmet from his bag. He couldn’t believe he was going to do this, but it was his only chance. He grabbed the bike from the man, pushed away down the road and leapt into the saddle. So now he was a thief chasing a thief!
‘I owe you one,’ Boyd shouted to the stricken man and powered after the other bike.
The thief was quite a way ahead of Boyd, but her route was straight enough that when he sat up in the saddle, he could keep her in sight. What was he even doing? He had no idea. But something Fitz had said to him popped into his head, about how Boyd had always stood by whilst other people were bullied, and maybe this was his way of rallying against that. Whatever was driving him, it felt good to be doing something right for a change, and anyway, there was no way he could go back to the station now. It had felt all wrong from the moment he’d arrived, like the meeting was a set-up and maybe the people from FrakeNews were in on it. Whatever was going on, he would decide where the next meeting would be and it would be on his terms.
Operation Hurricane: The Evan Boyd Adventures #1 Page 12
