‘It’s no use looking for her here,’ Kurt screamed. ‘She’s gone. Get out there and find her!’
It didn’t take long for a woman officer to tell Kurt forcefully that he wasn’t helping matters and he would assist to find his daughter far better by explaining everything calmly and clearly at the police station. He was told he would be driven there while officers got on with enquiries at the kidnap scene by questioning all witnesses to the crime. Max watched Kurt being led to the police car and decided it was now up to him to act alone.
He ran out through the main doors and darted into the street beyond the car park. His head was racing with crazy ideas about where he should go. He looked over his shoulder and saw a bus coming so he sprinted ahead to a bus stop and jumped on. He bought a ticket to the other end of town, with no real idea of where to go. It was only as the bus pulled uphill past the library that he realised this was the way to Gran’s. She was now his only hope.
***
Gran was busy in the kitchen when Max threw himself through her back door.
‘Good grief, Max! Where did you come from? You’re always startling me. Is something the matter?’
Max could hardly speak from being so breathless. ‘It’s Miya. She’s been kidnapped. The police are questioning Kurt. She’s in danger. It’s the Silver Scorpion…’
‘Look dear, calm down. I haven’t got a clue what you’re prattling on about. Have a drink. I’m just making your birthday cake for Saturday.’
‘Gran, not now. This is urgent!’ Max was almost screaming. ‘I know he told me not to but I’m going to phone Child-Catcher at home. He’s got to do something.’ He grabbed the telephone directory and fanned through the pages frantically.
‘What was his real name? I can’t remember, apart from Delta. No, hold on, I think Dad called him Mr Nettles. As in stinging and “ouch”.’
He searched through the ‘N’s before slamming down the directory in sheer frustration. ‘Not there. Typical, he’s ex-directory. Gran, can you drive me somewhere?’
‘Where, dear?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sure Miya was trying to tell me in this text. Look. You’re good at crosswords. What does HOROBOD BAL mean to you?’
‘I don’t speak Welsh, love.’
‘I’m not sure about the BAL but I reckon the first bit is something to do with ROBIN HOOD. You see, there’s a ROB inside the word HOOD. That’s Rob in Hood. But where can that be?’
‘Sherwood Forest? I can’t drive that far in my old Morris Minor. I’ve got no idea what you’re jabbering on about.’
‘Gran, that horrible man snatched her.’
‘Child-Catcher? Is he really a child catcher?’
‘No, Potato-head. The one who nearly killed Jay. The one in the Volvo. The one who followed you that time…’
Her mood changed instantly. ‘Oh, him. That nasty piece of work in grubby old tennis shoes. A stalker. I’ll never go to Archers again.’
Max froze before he screamed, ‘Archers!’
Gran put her hands to her ears. ‘Max, I really think you ought to – ’
‘Listen, Gran. Robin Hood was an archer, right?’
‘So legend has it but I expect – ’
‘What’s at the back of Archers? The garden centre on the ring road. BAL is LAB backwards. Isn’t there some sort of laboratory behind Archers?’
‘Oh that place. Behind the high fence. It’s some sort of research station. Top secret.’
‘In that case…’ Max grabbed her handbag and keys from the hall. ‘Drive me there fast. I’ve got to get her out of there. Go for it.’
‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’
‘Not till we’ve got there and I’ve found out if its definitely the place. I don’t want to make things worse. I could be wrong – but let’s go for it, Gran.’
She shut the front door behind her. ‘How exciting, dear. What fun. I’ve always wanted to do a bit of white-knuckle driving. And I shall tell that nasty Potato-head stalker just what I think when I see him.’
Max had hardly jumped into the front seat of the pink Morris Minor convertible before it squealed from the drive, roared along the crescent and off towards the ring road.
‘Neither this car nor I are built for speed, but I’m discovering skills I didn’t know I had!’ Gran slammed down her foot and almost took the next roundabout on two wheels. ‘Make sure that tin of pink paint under the seat doesn’t fall over. It’s for my new shed. I do like pink.’
A lorry driver waved his fist, while car horns blasted all around them. The traffic lights ahead were on red and Gran screeched to a smoky halt.
‘Come on, come on!’ Max jumped up and down in his seat. As soon as the lights changed, the car leapt forward with a throaty jet of fumes. Gran pressed a button to open the roof.
‘Look!’ Max stood up to point ahead. ‘You need to turn up that track.’ The wind stung his eyes as the car clunked over a speed ramp, knocking him back in his seat. They sped along a grassy track, the spinning wheels throwing up clods of mud as the car chugged behind the garden centre towards trees where a sign in bold red letters was wired to a high fence:
RESEARCH STATION
PRIVATE
KEEP OUT
‘Round the back!’ Max shouted. ‘BAL is back to front. We must use the back as the front.’
Through the fence, almost hidden by bushes, they saw the Volvo parked beside the door of a single-storey windowless building. Gran switched off the engine and they listened. Silence. A security camera pointed at the heavy gates ahead, topped with razor wire.
‘Gran, you turn the car round and be ready for a quick getaway. I’m going in there.’
Max leapt from the car and pulled a branch out of the bushes. He took Gran’s car rug from the back seat, draped it on the end of the branch and crept towards the camera, making sure he kept out of sight of its lens. With a heave, he flipped the rug over the camera and smothered it. He reached for his pick-gun and tackled the padlock in front of the blinded camera. Soon the huge gate squeaked open and he sneaked through into the compound. He slid past the Volvo and listened at the closed door. Muffled voices came from inside but he could hear nothing more.
Perhaps there was another way to hear what was going on inside. It was a risk but he decided to try his phone. Maybe Miya could still use the phone she’d used before? He called the number on her last message.
No one answered. Eventually the ringing stopped. When Max heard a click and a buzz, he assumed it was just an answer message about to start. Instead, he heard a grunt followed by a crackle, then a clatter as if the person on the other end had dropped the phone. An image appeared on his screen. The picture was fuzzy at first but he could see tied hands and a close-up of green carpet tiles. It became clear that Miya was lying on the floor and trying to show a selfie. Behind her, Max could just make out the blurry outline of a man appearing in a doorway.
Their voices came through loud and clear.
‘What are you doing?’ Miya asked.
‘Be quiet. I shall be asking the questions after your injection. Then comes the poison, after which one of my staff will dispose of you. All very simple.’
Max had seen and heard enough. He picked the lock in seconds, gently opened the door and entered a workshop where a man in goggles was working at a bench full of plants: rows of small rose bushes under glass domes. A TV monitor above his head was dark, with only a faint tartan pattern flickering across the screen. Gran’s blanket was doing its job perfectly. Max crawled past him, hidden by a row of cupboards, and then darted down metal stairs into the basement.
A long corridor led to what looked like a kitchen at the far end. There were doors on both sides, all closed except for the end one. Max crept to it and went inside. It was a store room, with bottles of chemicals, powders and shelves of laboratory equipment. He heard a voice through the wall – Miya’s voice, which was also coming through his phone. Now he was sure she was inside the room next door.
�
��I don’t know,’ she said. ‘My dad didn’t tell me everything that he found out. He just knew about you, that’s all.’
‘And did he tell you the Silver Scorpion will become the most feared power of the twenty-first century? Telson will be so proud of me for getting rid of you interfering idiots. As for that kid Max Hunter, I hate the little brat. We’re going to finish him off after I’ve got rid of you. You’ll be the first to be eradicated. This injection will see to that…’
There was no time to lose, but Max had no idea what to do – he couldn’t just barge in. With that syringe in Nero’s hands and presumably a gun as well, the man was ruthless and deadly. The only thing Max had left was the small device hanging round his neck: the distress flare. It wasn’t meant for indoor use but he had nothing else.
He rushed into the corridor and to the door of the room where Miya was being held. He dropped to his knees, and punched the air triumphantly when he saw the wide gap under the door.
Snatching off his memory stick, Max pulled out the pin and gently pushed the flare under the door. It was the longest ten seconds of his life as he waited for it to go off. With his face to the floor he could just see Nero’s feet as the flare fizzed, spat and erupted in a ball of white light and belching red smoke.
Max saw Nero’s feet stamping on the flare. Sparks singed the bottom of his trousers, which he began slapping frantically in a mad attempt to extinguish them. Realising Nero had bent down, Max pushed the door open with the full force of his weight. It slammed into Nero’s head with a crack, and he fell back. Blood trickled from his eyebrow as he held his nose, spluttering and choking. Max dashed into the room and frantically pulled the rope from Miya’s feet. She stood up unsteadily, holding on to Max with her tied hands as they scrambled for the door. Nero was still on all fours, his nose gushing, but he staggered to his feet, grabbing the syringe and swearing.
Max ran into the corridor, pulling Miya along with him. They darted towards the steps at the end of the corridor, with Nero shouting behind them. A shot rang out with a deafening crack and the metal stairs clanged and sparked in front of them. As they clambered to the top, a man in a lab coat barred their way.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ he growled, waving a metal pipe.
‘Oh yes we do,’ Max shouted back, grabbing a test tube of liquid from a bench.
‘Don’t touch that acid, you fool!’
Max threw it down, swishing a spray that fizzed across the floor at the man’s feet, sizzling his shoes. He staggered backwards as they barged past him and out into daylight. They could hear Nero clanging up the stairs in his tennis shoes not far behind them, shouting obscenities.
As they reached the gates, more gunshots rang out. The fence crackled around them as bullets peppered the wires, pinging off the metal bars right beside them. Other people had emerged from the building, all with guns. Gran was revving the engine of her Morris Minor. Max glanced back as they reached her and saw Nero at the wheel of his Volvo, gun in one hand and syringe in the other.
Miya threw herself in the front seat next to Gran, who immediately stamped on the accelerator. Through a blast of blue exhaust, Max clambered over the boot of the already accelerating pink car and dived onto the back seat. Dust flew as they shot forwards with a rasping roar.
‘Get us out of here, Gran – he’s gaining on us!’
‘I knew I should have got my dodgy exhaust fixed,’ she shouted above the noise, while glancing at her wing mirror. ‘Just look at the smoke coming out the back. Max, I hope you don’t think I’ve done a terrible thing...but while I was waiting I was a bit naughty. I let his tyres down. I’m also a dab hand at loosening wheel nuts.’
The Volvo clattered through the gates with wobbling flat tyres and spun round on the track in a dust cloud. The wheels screamed until drowned by ear-splitting metallic clanking.
‘He’s still gaining on us, Gran!’
A bullet ripped through the back seat and smashed into the passenger’s door, just centimetres from Miya’s left shoulder. ‘Quick, Gran – he’s getting too close.’
‘That tin of pink gloss paint under the seat, Max. Feel free to chuck it at him.’
Max grabbed it and knelt up on the back seat to see the swerving Volvo heading straight at them. He saw Nero’s right hand stretch from the driver’s window, taking aim with his gun. Max hurled the tin and watched it slam onto the Volvo’s bonnet, splatting the entire windscreen in thick pink paint. Unable to see out, Nero poked his head through his window and accelerated at Gran’s rear bumper just a metre in front. He raised his right hand once more, aiming the gun at Gran’s head. Without thinking twice, Max wrenched the pin from the second flare round his neck, ripped it off and flung it at the Volvo about to slam into them.
The flare struck Nero’s neck and wedged in his collar before erupting in a blinding blaze. In an instant the Volvo veered off the track at terrifying speed. A rear wheel spun off and flew through the air as the front bumper smashed into a speed ramp. The car flipped upwards and twisted in mid air, crashing down with a roar and shattering of glass. Instantly the airbags inflated and within seconds the car crunched on its side before juddering to a halt, its remaining three wheels still spinning noisily. The flare’s spewing sparks and belching red smoke sputtered into feeble puffs drifting on the breeze.
The silence that followed was eerie…before Nero, spattered in pink paint, slumped through the open windscreen and rolled onto the mud. He gripped his gun with both hands, staggered drunkenly to his feet and aimed it directly at Max. But he didn’t pull the trigger. Instead he looked down with horror at the syringe sticking out of his leg. With nothing more than a whimper, he lurched across the grass like a zombie. He sank to his knees, dropping the gun, then crumpled face down in the mud. His arm twitched and he lay still in the lingering silence.
The long stillness was suddenly broken by a final sputter from the flare fizzing under the rear tyre, where a trickle of liquid slowly snaked from the ruptured fuel tank. With one last cough of sparks, the flare ignited the petrol dribbling across the grass. An angry roar ripped through the car, which instantly erupted in a massive ball of flame. The explosion echoed all around as thick black smoke rolled across the sky.
Miya looked at Max. ‘Wow! That was close. By the way, you could have got here sooner – what kept you?’ She grinned cheekily.
‘Your weird text clue!’
‘Then what do you make of this one?’ She took Max’s mobile and texted ENTURY.
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ But before she could tell him, he shouted his answer. They ended up chorusing: ‘Long time, no see!’
Gran turned to giggle at them, swerving the car across the track and slamming her foot down on the accelerator once more, and they roared towards town, coughing thick acrid smoke behind them. Right then their carbon footprint was the last thing on their minds.
Chapter 8
10 ISSUES
By the weekend, Max’s birthday party threatened to be an anticlimax after all the recent excitement. Police, newspaper reporters and TV crews at last drifted away to find other heroes to annoy. Kurt and Miya, having slept off their exhaustion, relief and endless writing of police statements, could at last get on with more pressing affairs, like helping Max’s dad with the birthday barbecue. Gran, as always, kept a close eye on the finer details by making sure each guest brought a brand new football. The lawn was soon littered with them, under a haze of wafting charcoal smoke.
Mum, just back from her travels, arrived with an exotic tan and an enormous trifle. Miya caused cheers by giving Max a Spy Kids DVD and a set of puzzle books, just before Jay arrived on his crutches, with a bright purple leg plaster and a beaming smile. The hugs and applause went on for some time until Max tapped a spoon on the picnic table and made a point of clearing his throat exaggeratedly. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say a few words of thanks. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…’
Everyone cheered and banged their cutlery.
&nbs
p; ‘Please – I would just ask you to keep the noise down. After all, we wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbour…’ At that point a football flew over the fence from next door and landed with a thud in a flower bed. More cheers. Gran chuckled and blurted in an unsubtle stage-whisper, ‘I told you Child Catcher wasn’t what he seemed. There’s more to him than we thought.’
Max laughed, ‘I think I may have to go round there and complain…’ But before he could continue his rehearsed speech, the doorbell rang.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll answer it.’ Dad left the barbecue, followed by Max after he’d given a quick bow to enthusiastic applause. He scurried into the kitchen to peer through to the front door, where a smartly dressed man in a pin-striped suit stood on the doorstep.
‘Good afternoon.’ He spoke in a crisp, no-nonsense tone. Max caught a glimpse of a shiny black Mercedes parked at the kerb behind him, with a chauffeur sitting in the driving seat.
‘I think it’s next door you want,’ his dad said.
The stranger smiled. ‘It’s this address I’ve come to visit, Mr Hunter. I would like to speak to Max. I’ve come from Downing Street where the Prime Minister asked me to call.’
‘Right. Blimey. You’d better come in. Max! Er…we’re just having a bit of a party.’
‘I promise I won’t keep Max long, Mr Hunter.’
Max was summoned to the sitting room as Delta from next door arrived. The two men spoke in hushed whispers at the door before joining Max, who was waiting patiently on the sofa. The stranger in the suit stepped forward to shake his hand. ‘I’m from MI6 and have just come from Downing Street where your recent escapades have been brought to the attention of the Prime Minister. I’ve come to pass on the Government’s thanks and congratulations for a job well done, Max.’
Before Max could say anything, Delta spoke – but with a more tetchy edge.
‘I’m afraid I have to apologise about a certain misunderstanding on our part. It seems our department failed to accept your assessment of Kurt. In short, they didn’t believe you the other day. A slight error, I’m afraid.’
Operation Code-Cracker Page 5
