by Graham Marks
“I think we must try to at least see if they are in the Russians’ house.” Ahmet rubbed his chin as he thought everything over. “And if we find them, we can make another plan to get them out.”
“Do I need to tell him?” Evren nodded sideways at Arthur.
“He is clever,” mused Ahmet.
“And he is English, from a rich family,” said Neyla. “If we get into trouble, he could pay to get us out of it.”
Ahmet’s face broke into a wide grin and he snorted with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Arthur frowned. “What have you been talking about?”
“Just discuss,” said Evren. “We will meet you, where we are now, at two hours in the night-time – is that good, Ahmet?”
Ahmet nodded.
“I’ll be here.” Arthur gathered his papers together. “Two o’clock on the dot!”
“Why for you do this?”
Arthur’s hand stopped halfway to the car door and frowned at Evren. “What d’you mean?”
“You are not such big friends with Trey, I think.”
“We like him,” said Christina. “At least I do.”
“That’s not really the point... Look, when a chap’s in trouble, well, you have to do the right thing, don’t you?” Arthur got out of the car, then turned back round and poked his head back inside. “And of course, it’ll also be a beezer wheeze!”
21 UPS AND DOWNS
Scraping layers of paint off parts of a sash window – even a relatively small sash window – turned out to be no easy job, especially when all you had to do it with was a fairly blunt knife, and a fork. But, Trey reminded himself as he quietly chipped away flake after flake, a fairly blunt knife (and a fork) was so much better than having nothing at all to do the job with.
It was now completely dark outside – and inside the room, as there was no light – and all he could do was mentally keep his fingers crossed that the blond man would not come back upstairs to take away his plate, instead leaving the job till morning. By when, if his luck held, he’d be miles away.
Think positive!
Trey had been hard at work for well over an hour and his hands were aching, fingers getting raw and tender, but at least he was getting results for all his efforts: the fork had proved to be a pretty useless tool, but he was now able to get the knife blade in down both sides of the window and almost all the way along the top edge. Once he’d managed to clear that there would only be the bottom to go.
Which was when the blade got stuck, and broke as he tried to get it out...
He stood, staring at the handle (which now sported an inch and a bit of snapped metal where a moment before there had been five inches of stainless steel) and wanted to kick something good and hard. What the triple darn was he going to do now? And then Trey noticed, as the moonlight glinted off it, that the broken edge was in fact much sharper than the original blade had probably ever been. Just as his gramps liked to say: it was a heck of an ill wind that didn’t blow someone some good!
A few more minutes of feverish activity and the paint was hacked and scraped off on all four sides of the sash window. Trey took a deep breath and shoved upwards.
Nothing.
He shoved again, harder this time, but all that happened was that the window moved a fraction of an inch and the broken part of the blade got dislodged, making something of a racket as it fell onto the outside ledge below. Trey waited to see if the noise had alerted anyone to what he was up to, but as the seconds ticked by he reckoned he’d gotten away with it. He was, though, still left facing the fact that the window stubbornly continued refusing to budge. What he needed now was a can of 3-in-One oil, which again, like the penknife, he had...except it was in the utility room in Chicago, up on the shelf above his trusty bike.
And then a light bulb clicked on in his head.
Trey went over and got the plate, which still had what was left over from his meal on it: the rather oily gravy that he hadn’t even bothered to wipe up with his bread because it was so disgustingly greasy. He looked at the small pool of brownish liquid and shrugged...it was all he had, and he was grateful for it, but if this didn’t work he was going to be up a gum tree, and no mistake about it.
Picking up the plate he took it over to the window and, as carefully as he could, dripped vaguely equal amounts of the gravy onto each side of the window. Working what was left over into any crack he could find, Trey then wiped his hands as clean as he could on the bed sheet. This was going to be it. Now or never.
Cracking his knuckles, Trey squared his shoulders and went back to the window. Taking a deep breath he shoved upwards as hard as he could, and to his utter amazement (and no little relief), little by little the sash began to move. Four or so inches up it stuck, but he didn’t panic or lose hope. He could see that this was quite enough space for him to get his arm through and use his shoulder to heave and strain, which he did. He pushed and pushed and pushed until the gap was about a foot wide. And then he stopped, his shoulder hurting like billy-o and sweat pouring off him like he’d been out in the rain.
Right, he thought to himself, let’s get out of here!
Trey stood for a moment, getting his breath back, then he poked his head through the gap and for the first time took in quite how steep the pitch of the roof was. Added to which the attic was three storeys up from the water’s edge – he’d made a point of counting how many landings there were as he’d been none too gently pushed up the stairs to the room he was now in.
Back inside the room, it didn’t take long for him to figure out that there were but two options available to him. He could try and slide down to the edge of the roof, find a drainpipe (did they even have drainpipes on houses in this neck of the woods?) and attempt to get down without falling or being heard. Or...and here Trey’s palms got all sweaty...or he could dive off the roof into the water below. Or jump. Would jumping be better?
In the end it was the fact that hitting the water would be far less likely to do him permanent damage than hitting solid ground that decided matters. He would dive. And, as it was midnight, he should get his skates on and make his move.
Preparations did not take long. Trey recalled a story called The Dangerous Miss Daniels in a recent issue of Black Ace where the gumshoe hero had escaped certain death by diving from a small boat about to go over a waterfall and into the pool some hundred and fifty feet below. All he’d done was take his socks and size 10 brown shoes off and tie them to his belt, also tying his jacket round his waist, the theory being that this would make swimming easier. Whether the writer had actually tried this out before putting the idea in his story, Trey hadn’t a clue, but all he could do was hope and pray that he hadn’t simply made it up to get him – and his hero – out of a tight spot.
Just as he was about to climb out of the window, shoes and jacket attached as per the story, something occurred to Trey...to buy himself a bit more time, he should make some kind of shape in the bed so if the man did come and collect the tray he might assume that his captive was asleep and all was well with the world. Grabbing the spare pillow and blanket he knew from his previous search were in the wardrobe, Trey quickly constructed a rough “body” shape on the mattress and covered it; standing back to admire his handiwork the muffled sound of footsteps on uncarpeted wooden stairs brought him back down to earth with a bang – he was going to be well and truly caught red-handed if the man came to get the tray now!
He was still frozen to the spot when he heard a door somewhere below open and close. No more footsteps. Letting out a huge sigh, and wondering just how much more of this his nerves could take, Trey went back to the window and eased his way out onto the ledge, pulling the curtains across and then pushing the sash down behind him, as leaving them open would be a real giveaway.
Trey’s hands and bare feet sought and found purchase on the rough wooden shingles and he gingerly left the comparative safety of the window ledge, inching his way forward. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Trying not to make any noise th
at would sound like someone attempting to get down a roof, the ten or twelve feet took Trey what seemed like hours; the clammy sweat he was working up dried in the cool night air, making him shiver, until finally he was at the jump-off-or-dive point.
It was a long, long way down.
Could he do it?
He had to.
There was no going back.
Except...what if the water did turn out to be too shallow?
It wouldn’t be too shallow, it would be fine.
It just would be...
Trey gingerly leaned forward, trying desperately to keep his balance. He was only going to have one chance to do this, no second go-round if he didn’t quite get it right first time. A cloud scudded across the three-quarter moon, and in the darker dark he could see that there were no other lights from the house shining on the water: hopefully that meant everyone was asleep. For the first time he looked left and right, but found there was nothing to see.
He glanced at his watch: twenty-five to one...his watch! It was not going to survive this experience, but there was nothing he could do about it. As long as he did, that was all that counted – which was maybe what he should start doing. He should count himself down to the dive. It might help.
One...he sat back on his heels.
Two...he took a deep breath.
Three...he checked his shoes and jacket were tied tight.
Trey sat down again, shaking his head and hating himself for being such a wimp. If he carried on like this, this is where they’d find him, come morning, and he would have failed. If he was going to have any chance of finding his father he had to get off this roof, and sitting, loafing about on it was not going to help matters one iota, jot or tittle, as Gramps liked to say.
It was the realization of what his gramps would think if he knew how he was carrying on that did it. No more countdowns, no more deep breaths and last-minute checks! He had a job to do! Mr. Charles Lindbergh would never have made it solo across the Atlantic if he’d thought about it too much, and Major Bernardi wouldn’t have won the Schneider Trophy if he’d had to keep on taking deep breaths!
Trey stood up, put his hands out in front of him, braced his legs and, like Trent Gripp, he went for it...
22 INS AND OUTS
Evren peeked out of the shadows to look up and down the street. Empty, except for a couple of cats marking their territory, which was exactly how it should have been at sometime after two o’clock in the morning. He disappeared back out of sight.
“Well?” enquired Arthur slightly nervously. This was not only far and away the latest he’d ever been up, it was also the most exciting thing he’d ever done! He glanced at Neyla, face smeared with dirt like him and Evren, and thought about Christina, back at the house and tucked up fast asleep; how different the two girls were. He could not imagine his sister hiding in a back alley and about to embark on some serious espionage, reconnaissance and undercover work. She would have stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, not to mention that she didn’t even own a pair of dark long trousers!
“Is fine. We can go.” Evren glanced at Neyla and winked.
Arthur readied himself to go. “What about Mr. Ahmet, what’s he going to be doing?”
“He sleep.”
“Sleep?”
“Yes.” Evren indicated back down the street with his thumb. “In his taxi car, where he stay for us. This not a job for him. He is good at waiting and driving, not climbing walls and running.”
“Running? You mean as in being chased?”
“It could maybe happen.”
“Oh...right...” Arthur was very glad to know that, if there should be any chasing, there was at least a car they could jump in for a quick getaway. “By the way, who’s paying Mr. Ahmet for all the waiting and driving?”
“Mr. Macktire,” said Evren, doing a final check of the two sacks he and Neyla had with them, one of which squeaked disconcertingly when he touched it.
“Trey’s father – how?”
“He pay Ahmet for a whole week of days, and as he has not driven too much, he say he can do some of the night, too.”
“Decent of him.”
Evren didn’t answer, instead he stood and picked up the squeaking sack. “You go with Neyla,” he said, then slid away.
“Come.” Neyla beckoned, picking up the other, smaller sack and making off in the opposite direction.
“Right-oh!” said Arthur, following her.
Arthur was a dead shot with a catapult. Years of practice dispatching tin cans and bottles at the bottom of the garden meant that firing stones at something as large as a window was like falling off a log. And his latest catty, which was undoubtedly the very best he’d ever made, was a demon. He pulled the elastic back as far as he could and let rip, sending a conker-sized stone right to the centre of his target. The ground floor window in the house Ahmet had pinpointed as the one he’d seen the Russian going into smashed into smithereens quite impressively. Now he was sure of his range, Arthur’s next three shots all hit their targets as well, as did Neyla’s rather less elegantly thrown missiles.
If you’d been watching you might have noticed a shadowy figure appear outside one of the broken windows and shove something through the jagged hole before disappearing. Neyla and Arthur, who were watching, almost missed Evren playing his part in their plan to find Trey and his father – which was to release a sackful of rats inside the house.
Abandoning their small sack of rocks and stones, Arthur and Neyla ran across the street to join Evren, and waited. What was supposed to happen next was that the surprise “attack” and subsequent rat invasion would create enough panic to allow them to sneak into the house and, in the turmoil and uproar, take a look around. And it had, not so long ago in the back of Ahmet’s taxi, seemed like a terrific idea.
Which, but for two quite unforeseen things, it was.
As the expected confusion broke out, instead of the occupants stumbling round in total darkness, there was a blaze of light from inside the house, as it turned out to be – just their luck – one of the few houses in Constantinople with electricity. And then the shouts of panic, anger and surprise were joined by gunfire as random pistol shots rang out.
“We can’t go in there!” Arthur grabbed Evren’s arm. “We should get back to the car, now!”
“We could maybe see what happens,” Evren said, “from across the street?”
Before Arthur could stop him, Evren, followed by Neyla, was sprinting back across the road and there was nothing else he could do but follow them. The curtains weren’t drawn in the downstairs rooms and peering round the corner of a house opposite they watched the mayhem as the rats, which Evren had personally collected, continued to create havoc. They saw a couple of irate men in pyjamas jumping around waving pistols (and another running here and there wielding a broom), attempting to clear the house of its sudden, inexplicable infestation of rocks and vermin. Lights were on in the upstairs rooms as well, a man poking his head out of one of the windows, probably trying to see who might have been responsible for the stone throwing.
But, as far as any of them could see, there was no sign of Trey or his father; although this was obviously quite a disappointment, something about the scene reminded Arthur of the high jinks in a Christmas panto he and Christina had been taken to back in London. Even though the men in the house were actually firing real bullets – and, if they’d gone inside, would no doubt have been firing at them – he couldn’t stop himself from giggling.
“This was not so good idea,” muttered Evren, not at all amused by what had happened.
“It seemed like a good idea, old chap; on paper, at least...” Arthur said, a noise behind him making him glance over his shoulder as he spoke; he saw that windows were being opened and people looking out to see what all the palaver and commotion was about. This did seem as if it would be an opportune moment to make good their escape. “Time to go!” he whispered hoarsely into Evren’s ear, and took off down the street.
&nbs
p; The wrong way.
Arthur only realized his mistake when he heard his name being called and turned to see Neyla beckoning for him to follow her, and then high-tailing it after Evren in the opposite direction. As he ran Arthur heard voices shouting and footsteps clattering – he’d been seen! They were going to try and catch him!
Imagining he was on the sports field at school and taking part in the most important 440 yard race of his entire life, Arthur powered forward. Sprinting as if his life depended on it (because, if he was caught, and his father ever found out what he’d been up to, his life would not be worth living) he ran like he’d never run before, quickly catching up with Neyla and then easily overtaking both her and Evren. Slowing a bit as he skidded round a corner, arms flailing wildly in an effort to keep his balance, Arthur picked up speed again and almost ran straight past Ahmet’s taxi. Sliding to a halt he grabbed a handle, yanked a door open and tumbled onto the floor at the back of the car, nearly giving Ahmet, who was still fast asleep, a heart attack.
“Step on the gas!” Arthur yelled breathlessly as he got up, only to be knocked down again by Neyla diving into the back with him.
“What?” spluttered Ahmet. “What happen?”
Evren rattled off something in Turkish, Ahmet slapped his forehead with his palm and immediately turned the engine over. The starter motor wheezed like a creature about to die.
“I say, chaps...” said Arthur, who had risked a quick look out of the back window and seen someone – someone who looked like they could be carrying a pistol – running their way. “Could we get a move on?”
At that moment the engine caught and rumbled into life with a loud backfire. As Ahmet engaged first gear and accelerated away there was an answering couple of bangs as the man who had been following them, thinking he was under attack, returned fire at the car.
