‘Yes, she is,’ chorused Edith and Nettie, and Toby barked his approval. Even Tiny, stretched out on a nearby wall, looked up as if he wanted to hear her answer.
‘It’s up to my mum,’ Kat said. ‘If she says I can, I’d love to.’
Her mum laughed. ‘Looks as though you have the unanimous support of your fans. Who am I to stand in your way?’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘However, I may have to lay down a few ground rules.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as not risking life and limb. Mr Newbolt is adamant that he saw the Pocket Rocket racing across the firing range in the storm on Friday night.’
‘Mr Newbolt has a reputation for seeing things,’ said Kat.
Charming Outlaw chose that moment to whinny furiously. He’d enjoyed his afternoon out, but now he was bored.
‘What about taking him for a run on the beach?’ suggested Dr Wolfe.
Kat said eagerly: ‘Would that be OK?’
Her mum smiled. ‘Yes, darling, it would. It is your dream after all.’
‘Perfect beach for it too,’ said Edith. ‘That’s Man o’ War Bay. Man o’ War was one of the greatest racehorses of all time. Won the 1920 Belmont Stakes in New York by twenty lengths. He was a chestnut too.’
‘Don’t give her any ideas,’ said Dr Wolfe, but she’d been smiling as she helped her daughter into the saddle.
And that was how Kat Wolfe found herself galloping a chestnut racehorse along the edge of the shimmering waves, on a coast where dinosaurs once walked.
Outside Kittiwake Cottage, the mayor of Bluebell Bay cleared his throat. ‘Have you decided which of you is going to cut the ribbon?’ he asked.
‘We both are!’ said Kat and Harper.
As they snipped the purple ribbon, a banner unfurled across the front of the cottage: ‘THE ARMCHAIR ADVENTURERS’ CLUB’.
‘It’s an unusual name for a library,’ commented the mayor.
‘But entirely appropriate,’ Edith assured him as the gathered crowd applauded. ‘And could I just say that Kat and Harper, who inspired it, will be honorary lifetime members.’
Beyond the Armchair Adventurers’ Club, the bay was a dazzling blue. Between the kayaks and sailing boats, dolphins flashed silver. Summer was coming, Kat could almost taste it.
‘See you tomorrow?’ Harper asked her friend hopefully. ‘Same time, same place?’
Kat laughed. ‘I wouldn’t miss it.’
Author’s Note
If the idea of sleeper spies living undetected for decades in Dorset or Texas seems far-fetched to you, think again.
The novel in your hands might be fiction but the story behind it is real. I know that because one of the highest-ranking spies ever to defect to the United States told me so himself.
How did I end up chatting to Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa, who as head of Romania’s foreign intelligence agency, spent many years working with Russian illegal spies? Long story short, as Kat would say: I was doing an investigation for a newspaper.
First, though, some background.
Until I was thirteen, my dream was to become a veterinary surgeon (though I’d have settled for becoming an Olympic eventer). I wanted to be a vet so badly that by the time I was ten, I’d read every one of James Herriot’s hilarious books on life as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales. I also had a ‘vet kit’ – a wooden trunk packed with bandages, dressings, wound spray and antiseptic.
The reason it was so well-equipped, is that whenever the local vet visited our farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, Africa, I’d plead with him to donate anything he could spare – the last scrap of a tube of antibiotic ointment or, thrillingly, a brand-new bandage – to add to my collection.
My farmer father gave me bits and pieces too. We lived a long way from the nearest town, so dealt with most veterinary emergencies ourselves. Every chance I got, I helped out. If there was a lamb or calf to deliver, or a wild animal with a wound to patch up, I was there. One of my proudest childhood moments was saving a racehorse called HeMite from colic, using tips I’d read in an Enid Blyton novel. Maybe something you read in this story will help you one day!
Aged 17, I flew to England alone, hoping to become a pop singer! I’m relieved to tell you that didn’t work out, though I did briefly sing in a band. Instead, my best friend, Merina, and I spent an enjoyable year working as veterinary nurses. Within weeks of starting we were working as anaesthetists on operations, giving intravenous drips and injections, and coping with all kinds of emergencies.
But on a return visit to Africa, I was offered a chance to study journalism. Being a writer meant that I could help animals – and humans – in other ways. I could expose cruelty or injustice, or try to inspire people to care. It also meant that I could work towards a seemingly impossible dream: becoming a novelist.
Readers often ask authors where their ideas come from. Well, the detective part of Kat Wolfe Investigates is easy. Growing up, I was crazy about mystery novels. I read every one I could get my hands on, from the Famous Five and Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie.
I was obsessed with martial arts too, and have tried many over the years. I’m still learning, but I’ve done enough to know that in jiu-jitsu, Wing Chun, Krav Maga and my own (possibly fictional!) Way of the Mongoose, there are locks, throws and other techniques which, if practised regularly and correctly, can help a girl like Kat overcome a person many times their size.
Mongoose ‘Move 58’ was inspired by a technique I was taught many years ago. It’s quite amazing what a tug, a twist and a dropped knee can achieve! When the burly sensei demonstrated it, I flew over his head like an aircraft taking off. Moments later, I did the same to him! And one of my favourite jiu-jitsu moves is the one used in the Way of the Mongoose video Kat watches. Correctly applied, there is almost no way to guard against it.
The animal-training techniques used by Kat are genuine too. A lot of horses love playing with balls – both soccer balls and large gym balls. Horse ‘football’ relieves stress, helps combat boredom and improves communication between horse and rider. I learned ‘Join-up,’ a bonding method created by Monty Roberts, on a horse-whispering course with Kelly Marks, who runs Intelligent Horsemanship in the UK.
Kat’s cat, Tiny, was inspired by Felix, a part-African wildcat stray I adopted from Mozambique as a kitten. I had him for seventeen years and loved him more than I can possibly say. Like Tiny, he was so wild, big and strong, that his bad moods were slightly terrifying – sometimes even his playful moods. If my friends or relatives came to stay, his favourite game was ambushing them on the stairs. Some still bear the scars.
Yet as strange as it might seem, Felix’s good qualities were so wonderful that everyone adored him, me most of all. It helped that I grew up surrounded by wild animals – warthogs, monkeys and even a pet giraffe. Wild, or even partly wild creatures can’t help but express their wildness – that’s what makes them special. To attempt to crush their beautiful spirit would be a crime. Far better to cherish it, as Kat does, and accept that the occasional scratch is a small price to pay for sharing your life with a loving, intelligent, fiercely loyal cat.
Unfortunately, exotic cats such as Savannahs and Bengals, and wolf-like dogs such as huskies, have become very fashionable. Unscrupulous breeders charge huge prices and don’t always care who pays. Some import serval cats and other wild animal parents illegally to use in breeding, failing to inform those who buy their kittens that F1 Savannahs require a wild animal license. Not everyone understands these animals’ unique but challenging personalities. Consequently, rescue shelters are crammed with them.
My own Bengal, Max, is a rescue cat. The shelter where I found him had 56 other unwanted Bengals. I’ve had him for nine years and he’s my best friend, but then I wanted a challenging, highly athletic cat. Don’t get one unless you do. And always, always, consider adopting.
This is all very well, I can hear you thinking, but what does this have to do with ghost owl spies?
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br /> Well, back when I was a full-time journalist, there were few things I enjoyed more than investigations. It made me feel like a detective. A single paragraph in a second-hand book began a quest that led me first to Transylvania, to the home of a Count, only recently returned from exile. But I only really cracked the case when I started corresponding with Lt. General Pacepa, who until 1978 had headed up Romania’s espionage service, the DIE (Departamentul de Informatii Externe) of the Romanian Securitate.
It was he who told me about the recruitment and training of Soviet illegal spies in Romania, which he was authorised to oversee by the KGB chief. This training took up to eight years and was conducted in 150 safe houses around Romania. Western identities were created for each spy, but once they were embedded in the UK, Europe or the US they were on their own. They would spend years living as apparently ordinary neighbours and becoming good citizens. When they were truly trusted and accepted as locals, they’d use that trust to penetrate important government or industrial targets.
Lt. General Pacepa defected to the US in July 1978, helped by the American CIA. The information he provided destroyed the intelligence network of Romania. Decades later, the FBI uncovered a network of more than ten Russian illegals in the US.
One illegal couple, Vladimir and Lidia Guryev, who called themselves Richard and Cynthia Murphy, had daughters aged nine and eleven. Another couple had teenage sons who believed themselves to be Americans. They were stunned and heartbroken to discover that their parents were Russian agents.
It would be nice to believe that when those arrests were made in 2010, that that was the end of the era of sleeper spies. That the Russians were no longer spying on the Americans or anyone else, and that the rest of the world was no longer spying on them.
However, in 2013 the US diplomat Ryan Christopher Fogle was arrested in Moscow by Russian intelligence officers and accused of being an American spy. They had good reason to be suspicious. He had in his bag, two bad wigs, three pairs of sunglasses, a knife, a microphone, a map of Moscow and thousands of dollars in cash. He also had a letter from the US government offering $1m a year to a Russian agent he was hoping to persuade to spy for them.
There have been other arrests too. In December 2017, a Russian accused of spying for the US was charged with high treason by a Moscow court. Days later, a Russian who’d visited the British prime minister, Theresa May, was arrested in the Ukraine on suspicion of spying for Moscow.
In other words, the spies that feature in Kat Wolfe Investigates are not just operating in Bluebell Bay. They could be in your neighbourhood too!
Recently, I re-read my interview with Lt. General Pacepa. I’d asked him if any other country used illegals in quite the same way Russia does. His reply sent chills through me:
‘The concept of the illegal officer was and still is unique to Russian intelligence. It is Russia’s most secret weapon of the future.’
Whether you’re interested in spies, cats, horses, martial arts or mysteries or, like me, all five, I hope you enjoy reading Kat Wolfe Investigates as much as I’ve loved writing it.
Lauren St John
London 2018
HELP KAT & HARPER SAVE OUR SEAS
Kat Wolfe and Harper Lamb are lucky enough to live in an idyllic seaside town in Dorset, England. Kat loves racing Charming Outlaw along golden beaches or swimming in the waves, and Harper and her paleontologist father adore the nature and history of the Jurassic Coast.
If you’re as passionate as they are about dolphins, whales, turtles and other marine life, please help us stop the plastic tide from destroying our oceans. There are 1.8 trillion bits of plastic in the Pacific Garbage Patch alone. Be the change you want to see in the seas. Here are Kat’s top 10 tips for making a difference:
1. Say no to plastic straws before you order milkshakes or sodas at restaurant or cafés. In the US alone, 500 million plastic straws are used every day. Ask for paper straws or none at all.
2. Say no to plastic bottles. A single bottle can take 450 years to decompose. Take a flask or reusable water bottle everywhere you go and fill it with tap water
3. Say no to plastic bags. They take up to 1,000 years to decompose! During that millennium they’ll be choking whales and strangling turtles. A bull shark in India had 20 kilos of plastic removed from his stomach. Use tote bags or biodegradable bags
4. Say no to the cotton buds that kill marine life. Use cotton buds made with sustainable wood and other eco products.
5. Say no to glitter. It’s fun, pretty, sparkly and completely innocent, right? Wrong. Glitter is a microplastic and as harmful to oceans as any other plastic.
6. Say no to coffee cups. Think they’re easy to recycle? Think again. Carry a flask or reusable coffee cup if you’re commuting or travelling.
7. Say no to plastic forks, knives and spoons. Ask your school, café or bookshop to consider using biodegradable cutlery.
8. Say yes to picking up plastic litter on beaches or near rivers! If you’re fortunate enough to live near the water or go on holiday to the sea, consider taking time to organise a beach or river clean.
9. Say yes to sustainable fish. Check that your fish and chips or smoked salmon comes from a renewable source. Avoid tuna. Bluefin tuna are heading for extinction and Yellowfin tuna are near-threatened. Eating them harms dolphins, sharks and other marine species and takes food from the communities that depend on it.
10. Don’t buy a ticket to a dolphin show. Dolphins and orcas are highly intelligent creatures with rich, complex and loving families. They suffer horribly when they’re captured and condemned to a lifetime in a concrete pool, eating frozen fish while turning cartwheels for human entertainment. Show them you love them by helping keep them where they belong: in the wild.
BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE SEA
For more information, visit: www.Authors4Oceans.org
LAUREN ST JOHN grew up surrounded by horses, cats, dogs and a pet giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, Africa, the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe series. At 17, she spent a year working in the UK as a veterinary nurse before becoming a sports and music journalist. Dead Man’s Cove, the first in her Laura Marlin Mysteries series, won the 2011 Blue Peter Book of the Year Award. A passionate conservationist, Lauren is an ambassador for the Born Free Foundation. When not writing or rescuing leopards, she is a full-time valet to her not-in-the-least-demanding Bengal cat, Max.
Other books by Lauren St John
The Laura Marlin Mysteries
Dead Man’s Cove
Kidnap in the Caribbean
Kentucky Thriller
Rendezvous in Russia
The Secret of Supernatural Creek
The One Dollar Horse series (for older readers)
The One Dollar Horse
Race the Wind
Fire Storm
Stand-alone novels
The Glory
The Snow Angel
For Jean McLean,
one of my favourite armchair adventurers
First published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-7123-0
Text copyright © Lauren St John 2018
Illustrations copyright © Beidi Guo 2018
The right of Lauren St John and Beidi Guo to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.
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