Spylark

by Danny Rurlander

  Maggie threw some belongings into Bobalong.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Tom.

  ‘We’re going after them.’

  ‘It’s too late.’ Tom didn’t look away from the tablet. ‘They’re long gone, and they’re in a fast boat.’

  ‘But they’ve got Archie!’

  ‘Well, we don’t know for sure yet. But—’

  ‘What will they do to him?’

  ‘They’ll probably just dump him somewhere and drive off. It’s the kind of thing they’d do. But—’

  ‘They’re worse than animals, those boys.’ Maggie was untying the painter.

  ‘Yeah, pretty much. But I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t matter, because I can find Snakey from here.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Look.’ They followed his gaze past the overhanging branches, where Skylark now appeared, a speck of black high in the greying sky, like a long-haul jet on its final descent from some distant land. The drone passed overhead, banked around and settled into a bumpy approach towards them. ‘This is Skylark.’

  ‘Spylark, more like!’ Maggie crouched on the pebbles and watched him guardedly.

  ‘Watch the screen.’

  Tom deactivated the autopilot and took control, sending the drone spiralling up to four hundred feet. Maggie and Joel bent their heads over the tablet. They could see the whole island, boats passing on either side, their wash spreading out far behind, treetops like lichen, and three people standing on the beach, with their heads bent over a screen.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a selfie!’ said Joel.

  ‘Come on!’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s follow them. I don’t suppose that thing has any weapons attached?’

  ‘Er . . . no,’ said Tom. Who does she think she is, he thought, James Bond?

  They watched the screen as Tom circled higher and Benson Isle came into view. At the southern end sat the grand round house, concealed from the lake by enormous Douglas firs and monkey puzzle trees. A path led away from the house over a neat lawn, past a tennis court, to a clearing where the helicopter was parked. The pilot was pacing about on the grass, smoking, but there was no one else around.

  ‘That’s weird,’ said Joel. ‘Can you circle round that chopper again, Tom?’

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Maggie. ‘We need to look for Archie.’

  ‘Look,’ said Joel. ‘It’s unregistered. No markings at all.’

  ‘I thought there was something odd about it.’

  ‘Very dodgy. Almost certainly some kind of criminals.’

  Maggie suddenly grabbed Tom’s elbow. ‘There they are! They’re landing on the other side.’

  Stingray, little more than a shadow in the grey light, was hugging the eastern shore of Benson Isle. They watched as the boat nosed on to a jetty, half-hidden by overhanging branches. One of the boys lifted Archie out of the boat and stood him on the planks. The dog watched the boat back away from the island, then headed into the trees and disappeared from sight.

  Maggie jumped into Bobalong and began to put the oars into the rowlocks.

  ‘I told you, Maggie, you can’t land there,’ said Tom.

  ‘Try and stop me!’ She dug the blades into the water, sending a curtain of water over his feet. Joel shoved the boat off the beach and climbed in at the bow, looking at Tom.

  He could see it was going to be useless to argue.

  ‘Wait!’ He stumbled into the water again, placed his stick on a bench and passed the tablet to Joel. ‘Take control while I get in. This is a mobile base station. I’ve set it to easy mode for you. You fly the drone by moving the tablet, like you would if you were playing a game on your phone. Tilt it left or right to rotate, front and back to go up and down. The throttle is that little slider. The flight controller – the computer inside the drone – will handle the wind, up to a point. I’ll explain as we go.’

  Tom gripped the side and hoisted his good leg over the gunwale, twisted himself round, and flopped on to the bench.

  ‘Explain what?’ said Maggie, leaning back into a stroke as Bobalong pulled away from the beach.

  Tom sat up and looked around. The wind, which had been strengthening all morning, began to gust from different directions, emptying spinnakers like burst balloons and chopping the water into white-tipped wavelets. A bank of clouds with charcoal-grey underbellies was billowing in from the south. He looked at Maggie, her dark eyes fixed in front of her as she frowned with the effort of each stroke, and at Joel, brain like a computer, head bent over the tablet, having instantly mastered the UAV. This was not how he liked to do things. But Jim Rothwell was right. He couldn’t do this on his own.

  ‘Explain what?’ Maggie said again.

  Tom sighed. ‘Everything.’ He could feel the cold seeping into the soles of his feet. ‘I think this island is being used by some kind of terrorists. And I think they’re planning something big.’

  Maggie stopped rowing and looked at Tom, blinking.

  Joel didn’t take his eyes from the screen. ‘Look at that man with the ponytail, in front of the house! Isn’t that our friendly ice cream man?’ He passed the tablet back to Tom. ‘You’d better take over. The wind’s picking up.’

  Tom took Skylark higher and banked into a wide circuit of the island. Although the overcast sky would mean the drone would be hard to spot from below, he couldn’t take any chances. He could feel it shuddering and buffeting in the wind.

  There was a bark from somewhere in the trees.

  ‘And what’s all this got to do with Archie and Snakey?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Tom. ‘Like I said, it’s just their idea of a stupid joke. They know the island’s private and we’d have a hard time getting Archie back. But it means that while that guy is on there, you’d have to be crazy to even try.’

  ‘Come on!’ Maggie said, looking over her shoulder. ‘One more stroke!’ They came level with the jetty and, before he could stop her, she was out and running along the planks.

  CHAPTER 15

  At the end of the jetty, Maggie turned back to the boat. ‘Make owl noises to tell me what’s going on.’

  Tom was looking at her like a stunned fish. ‘Maggie, don’t be so stupid. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Watch me from Skylark. Two hoots for danger, one for all-clear.’ She smelt the first drops of rain, as she headed into the wood.

  The island felt like another world. Under the trees the air was cool and still. She glanced back and saw the jetty framed by branches, already a long way behind. Ahead the path plunged into darkness. She took a few steps, calling for Archie softly, then paused to listen, but there was nothing. She followed the path until she came to a fork. A twig cracked somewhere in the shadows. She froze, but it was just a squirrel spiralling up a beech tree, startled by her approach.

  Then Maggie heard the owl call. Two hoots for danger! She dived into the trees, dropped to the ground and crouched behind a wizened hawthorn, ignoring the brambles clawing at her shins. There were voices and heavy footsteps coming from the direction of the house. Keeping herself pressed as low as she could, she peered through the bush and saw a red-haired woman and the ice cream man with the ponytail, both dressed in overalls, carrying a large metal box between them. A tall man wearing a straw hat, and carrying a briefcase, followed behind. It was hard to hear more than a few snatches of conversation, but they seemed to be discussing a special guest who was arriving on Wednesday. The guest sounded important, but Maggie didn’t recognize the name.

  When they had gone, she listened for the all-clear from the jetty, but there was only the sound of the breeze high up in the canopy. Then she realized that Tom and Joel wouldn’t be able to see what was happening. They’d spotted the people coming from the house, but once they were under the trees Skylark was as blind as she was.

  She decided to keep off the path and head through the trees to the other side of the island, where she’d seen Archie dropped off. Keeping low, she pushed her way through the tangle of under
growth. She heard a rustle of leaves behind her and stopped. Tom had mentioned guard dogs. She twisted her head around slowly and listened. All she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of. It was probably just a bird. She was on an island in the middle of the most popular lake in England. What was all this stuff about terrorists anyway? Maybe Tom had seen too many James Bond films or something. Or perhaps he was trying to scare Maggie and Joel away, just like Snakey had tried to. She grimaced as she brushed past a mass of waist-high nettles. Her job was to find Archie and she wasn’t going until she had.

  There was a glare of light ahead where the trees began to thin, and suddenly she was on the edge of a clearing. The blue helicopter they had seen from Ransome Holme was parked in the middle. Now she thought about it, it did look strange without any markings at all, parked silently in this woodland clearing, in the middle of a secluded island on a lake. Whatever these people were doing, they wanted to do it in secret.

  The man and woman in overalls were unloading some small steel crates from the helicopter into the box. Maggie couldn’t imagine what was inside those crates, but they were handling them as tenderly as newborn kittens. The pilot, a young, twitchy-looking guy with mirror sunglasses was talking to the man in the straw hat by the open door of the helicopter. Maggie couldn’t hear much, but it was obvious they were having an argument. The pilot was flapping his hands around, and talking loudly about a special delivery. The other man listened calmly, responding with the occasional nod or shake of the head. The briefcase lay open on the seat.

  There was something about the whole thing that gave Maggie a bad feeling, and she felt the urge to run back to the jetty. But she had to see it out and find Archie. And while she was here, maybe she could find out who these people were and what they were doing. If she could only see what was in the briefcase, perhaps she would know whether Tom was right. She felt sure it would be stuffed full of bundles of cash, as she’d seen in countless movies.

  She dropped on to her belly and wriggled her way forward, slow and quiet, as close as she could, until her head was just under a stubby holly bush, right on the edge of the clearing.

  It was raining steadily now and a stream of water was running from the leaves on to her hair and down her neck. She waited for her heart to calm down and strained her ears to listen to what they were saying.

  ‘These specialist warheads take a bit of getting hold of,’ the pilot was saying. ‘We can’t simply stockpile them before you have firm orders. We acquire to order. What more do you want, Mr C?’

  ‘What I want is some trust.’ The tall man in the straw hat spoke quietly, and pronounced every syllable crisply. He reminded Maggie of Mr Baker, the head teacher at her school. He never raised his voice, but everyone quaked when he spoke. ‘Surely you people must realize that this whole business is built on one person trusting another.’ He pulled something from the briefcase and offered it to the pilot. ‘You see, here’s your payment, on delivery, as promised.’ Maggie’s pulse raced for a moment, but it was just an ordinary brown envelope. ‘I already have orders being placed for this product, even ahead of the show. But if production is slowed down by an unreliable supplier . . . there will be repercussions.’

  The pilot took the envelope. ‘Understood, Mr C. And what shall I say to the chief?’

  ‘Tell your boss to watch the show from Astrum Seven, at 15.03. Then he’ll see for himself. It’s going to be spectacular.’

  ‘Where, Mr C?’

  ‘Routine. Victor. Hoped.’

  The pilot climbed into the cockpit and shut the door. Maggie watched the others step away from the aircraft, as the blades began to rotate. She pressed herself flat against the earth and hoped no one would look her way. Then, to her horror, Archie burst into the clearing. He’d come from the path that led to the house, and stood, panting, looking at the helicopter. Maggie watched, hardly breathing, wondering what to do. They hadn’t seen him, but as soon as they turned to go back to the house they would. Maggie dreaded to imagine what kind of repercussions there would be when they did.

  The rotors were singing through the air now, and Archie was rooted to the spot, sniffing the wind, like he would from a car window. She watched helplessly as the engine wound itself up to take-off speed. Up a tone, and up again. Twigs and leaves and dirt were blowing everywhere, and the whole island seemed to shake.

  She felt for a stick in the undergrowth, found one, and grabbed it. Then the helicopter lifted from the ground, and as the people in the clearing put their hands over their eyes to shield them from the dust, she threw the stick to Archie. He looked up as the stick landed at his feet, saw Maggie’s head under the bush, picked up the stick in his teeth and bolted to her, his tail wagging madly. She grabbed him by the collar, pulled herself, shaking, from the bushes and ran.

  CHAPTER 16

  While Tom and Joel had been hunched over the tablet trying to see what Maggie was doing, and taking photos of anything they could see on the island, Bobalong had drifted several boat-lengths away from the jetty. By the time they had seen the terrorists head back towards the house from the clearing, Maggie was pelting along the wooden boards, Archie at her heels. But now she had nowhere to go.

  Tom thought he’d be a quicker rower, so he handed the tablet back to Joel, and picked up the oars.

  He glanced over his shoulder, straining against the wind.

  Maggie was like a Brimstone missile, coming out of those trees. She charged along the jetty, and, without a single twitch, sprang off the end like an Olympic diver, arced through the air and hit the surface in front of the boat. Archie skidded along the jetty, and then plunged in after her. When Maggie reappeared, spluttering but alert, she had swum under the boat and was hidden from view from the island. To Tom’s relief no one appeared on the jetty. Somehow, Maggie had done the whole thing without being seen.

  Tom pulled hard on the oars for a few strokes, and once they were well away from Benson Isle again, Maggie heaved herself into the boat, and lay on the bottom, panting and laughing with relief.

  ‘Routine. Victor. Hoped,’ she said. ‘Routine. Victor. Hoped.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Tom.

  ‘Routine. Vic—’

  ‘Tom!’ Joel interrupted, scowling at the screen. ‘I’ve lost control of Skylark. I can just see water.’

  Tom felt a shadow passing overhead, and looked up. It was Skylark, dipping in the wind, a hundred feet over their heads.

  ‘Steady, Joel. Keep her facing into the wind. Try and land somewhere.’

  Tom looked over his shoulder as the drone lost height over the channel between the two islands. He watched it slow almost to a stall, as Joel tried to bring it down on the beach at Ransome Holme, but a sudden squall of wind flipped it on to its back and it plummeted down.

  Joel looked confused. ‘The picture’s gone black. I can’t see a thing.’

  When Skylark hit the water Tom found himself thinking it was almost graceful, like the silken splash of a cormorant when it dives.

  A few minutes later, he pulled Skylark from the lake and examined it, while it dripped into the boat like a freshly caught fish.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ said Joel. ‘Will it be ruined?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Tom. ‘It couldn’t be helped. The memory card should be fine, and that’s what matters. Those photos we just took are our only real evidence.’

  They went back to Ransome Holme to collect Maggot and tied the painter to Bobalong’s stern as a tow rope. They hoisted the sails and the steady breeze blowing up the lake pushed them homewards in a few long tacks, Maggot surfing the wash behind.

  ‘You’re dead right about those people, Tom,’ Maggie said, when she had caught her breath. ‘I don’t know what they’re up to, but it’s bad. Thanks to your owl call I hid behind some bushes, but I’m sure if I’d been a second later, I would have been captured. I could almost smell the evil on that island. It was like—’

  ‘Ma
ggie!’ Joel snapped his head round at his sister. ‘Just tell us the facts.’

  Maggie scowled at him. While Tom steered them home, the water creaming under the bow, she told them what she had seen and heard on the island.

  ‘“Watch the show from Astrum Seven”?’ Joel mused.

  ‘No idea what it means,’ said Maggie. ‘A TV channel, maybe?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Joel. ‘Or a satellite, perhaps? Interesting.’

  ‘Did you pick anything up about a VIP arriving?’

  ‘Now I think about it, I did hear them talking about a “special guest” who was arriving on Wednesday.’

  ‘Wednesday?’ Tom started, jerking the tiller, so Bobalong lost the wind and quivered and flapped for a few alarming moments. ‘Who, Maggie?’ he said, straightening the boat and tightening the sail. ‘Did they say who it was?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s no one really famous,’ said Maggie. She flicked her hair dismissively. Tom could tell she was disappointed. ‘It’s just some guy called the Duke of Lancaster.’

  Back at Cedar Holme, Maggie went to change into some dry clothes while Tom retrieved the memory card from Skylark, and they gathered around a table in the workshop for what Maggie insisted on calling a ‘council of war’. Aunt Emily, visibly thrilled to see them all together, brought in a tray of freshly baked cheese scones, along with a huge pan of pea and ham soup, butter, cheese, crisps, a tin of flapjack and a bottle of lemonade. As she set them on the table, she gave Tom an encouraging smile.

  Tom sat back on a fold-up chair and watched the two siblings as they set into the food gratefully, and went over the day’s events. Was it just the way they were wired, or did they find the whole thing amusing and exciting, like it was all some great adventure laid on for their holidays? And he began to wonder whether he was right to take them into his confidence, after all.