There was volcanic applause as Max reached the bathroom door, but before she entered, she saw that Straussmann’s seat was empty. She searched the rooftop, eyeing off tables filled with captivated leech fans and waiters silently handing out the last of the lampuki pies, all against the backdrop of a warm breeze, a clear sky and the blue waters of the harbour.
And Straussmann.
He was leaning against a stone column, not far from the podium. His head lowered, eyes searing into Alfonzo’s every move.
Max slowly made her way towards Straussmann, crouching behind trays of fresh bread rolls, layers of Maltese pudding and glass cabinets of date and honey cakes.
When she was in position behind a giant palm, Max saw Straussmann sneering at Alfonzo as if he was a pestering mosquito that he intended to shoo away.
Or kill.
And in his hand was a cupcake.
The crowd laughed at Alfonzo’s leech-sucking-you-in joke. He was right. It worked every time, but it had the effect of twisting Straussmann’s face into a mangled picture of fury. He raised the cake to his face, but instead of biting into it, he held it up to his eye, aiming it directly at Alfonzo.’ Max lifted her watch to her lips. ‘Linden. Straussmann’s about to make a move.’
‘During Alfonzo’s speech?’ Linden radioed back. ‘That’s not very discreet.’
‘Maybe he’s not aiming to be discreet.’
Linden moved along the edge of the restaurant closer to Max. ‘I’m coming over. What is he doing?’
‘He’s aiming a cupcake at him.’
‘A cupcake?’ Linden’s confusion could be heard in his voice. ‘Max, I don’t think …’
‘Can you see him yet? He’s holding the cake to his eye.’
Linden could only just make out Straussmann through the crowded room. ‘Max, the only thing that’s suspicious is that he is staring at the cake and not eating it.’
‘Because maybe it’s not a cake,’ Max whispered into her watch. ‘I think there’s a gun in that cupcake.’
‘A gun in the cupcake?’ Linden asked.
‘Yeah. Like Spyforce’s Exploding Cupcake, only this is a cupcake gun or maybe a cupcake tranquilliser?’
With the cake held before his eye, Straussmann lowered his head on an angle and began to raise his other hand, slowly, carefully.
‘I’m moving in.’ Max crept even closer to Straussmann. His broad back squarely faced her as he focussed on Alfonzo.
‘Max, it’s not what you think. It’s …’
Max turned off her watch radio so that Straussmann wouldn’t hear her approach.
‘Think you can just shoot innocent leech experts and get away with it, eh?’ She whispered to herself and stepped carefully forward until she almost smelt the sugary sweetness of the weapon. ‘Not while I’m around.’
Max leapt forward. She sailed through the air, arms outstretched, ready to save Alfonzo.
‘Oooph!’ Straussmann hit the floor with a pained thud as Max crash-tackled him in front of the luncheon crowd. She sat on his back as security guards surrounded them.
‘This man has a weapon,’ Max announced to the stone-faced, gun-wielding guards, ‘and he was about to use it on Mr Martina.’
A swarm of gasps dominoed around the restaurant as Alfonzo poked his head out from behind a wall of dark-suited men with sunglasses.
‘Get her off me,’ Straussmann mumbled into the floor.
‘I won’t get off you until you hand over the cake,’ Max demanded.
Straussmann lifted his fist and handed over the squashed sweet. ‘Here.’
Max pushed her hands into Straussmann’s back and nodded to Linden. ‘Check that, will you?’
Linden broke apart the cake with his fingers. ‘It’s a cupcake, Max.’
‘No it isn’t. I saw it. He had a miniature gun concealed inside.’
‘You saw it?’ A burly guard stood over the young spies with a chest that looked like it had been stuffed with overfluffed pillows.
‘Well,’ Max faltered, ‘I didn’t exactly see it, but it was there. Maybe that one’s a decoy and the real weapon is hidden in his jacket.’
‘We’ll take over from here,’ the guard said.
Max climbed off Straussmann’s back as the big-chested man nodded at two other guards who helped him from the floor.
‘Mr Straussmann, we’re going to have to search you if that’s okay.’
‘You don’t have to worry about being polite,’ Max crossed her arms against her not-so-pillow-stuffed chest. ‘He’s a criminal, and in a few seconds he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.’
The luncheon crowd gathered closer as the guards patted Straussmann down.
Max gave Linden a ‘watch this’ nod, which changed the moment one of the guards said, ‘He’s clean.’
‘Clean?’ Max spluttered. ‘He can’t be clean.’
‘Sorry for the disturbance, Mr Straussmann.’
‘Is this the kind of company you keep, Alfonzo?’ Straussmann yelled. ‘Two delinquent children pouncing on innocent members of the public? Maybe you should choose differently next time.’
‘What would you like us to do with them?’ Mr Big Chest asked.
‘Throw them out!’ Straussmann declared with a delighted grin. ‘Both of them. We’re trying to have a civilised luncheon here, and these two brats and doing their best to make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘But Alfonzo?’ Max protested.
Alfonzo’s eyes cast downwards. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to do what he says.’
‘But he –’ Max was cut off by the strong fingers of two guards latching themselves onto her arms. They led her to the door of the restaurant.
‘I’m not leaving until we get our bags.’ Max flicked back her fishy hair and nodded. ‘They’re under that table.’
The two guards looked at each other before one of them shrugged and made his way back into the room.
As they were handed their backpacks and were led outside, Max turned in time to see the slippery grin of Straussmann as he raised his hand in salute and bit into a fresh, icing-covered cupcake.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Linden panted behind Max as she hurried with determined steps through the backstreets of Valletta.
‘Absolutely.’ Max picked off a stray piece of fish pie that was stuck to her skirt. She flicked it into the air where it was pounced on by a skinny cat. ‘I know Straussmann acted all innocent back there, and maybe the cupcake was just a cupcake, but he was up to something. While he’s still at the luncheon, I’m going to find out what.’
They ran past tall stone buildings that stood cobbled together, with square window-boxed verandas jutting out every few metres. Pigeons cooed on rooftops and telephone wires, adding designer poo stripes at regular intervals to the centuries-old houses and shops. Washing lines crisscrossed narrow streets and alleys that were tucked away with rose-coloured domes of churches and steeples of cathedrals filled with gold and precious art.
Max consulted the Time and Space Machine with its virtual search engine and turned down a steep, stepped street. ‘This way.’
‘How do you know where he’s staying?’
‘You know when we were dragged out of the luncheon just now?’ Max leapt over a kid’s bicycle.
‘Yes, but I’m not counting it as one of my finer moments.’
‘Do you remember how I stopped at the door of the restaurant and asked for my bag?’
‘Yes.’ Linden stepped faster to keep up.
‘That’s where the registration table was, with a book listing all the guests at the luncheon …’
Linden stopped. ‘And their contact details.’ He smiled widely. ‘Including where they are staying. Very clever, Max Remy.’
‘Thank you, but you can compliment me more later.’ Max stopped and looked up. ‘We’re here.’
The building was tall and skinny and made of stone like all its neighbours.
‘Most of the conference delegates are s
taying at our hotel. Why would Straussmann stay somewhere else?’
‘Because he has something to hide,’ Max explained. ‘And we’re going to find out what.’
‘How are we going to get in?’
Above was a pale blue curtain blowing through an upper window.
‘Easy. Watch.’ Max put the Time and Space Machine in her belt and tightened the straps on her backpack so it fit snugly to her body. She looked up again, her face suddenly smeared with apprehension. ‘You sure these shoes work okay?’
Linden’s eyes flung upwards, then back at Max. ‘You can do it in a cinch. Just stand firm and jump as if you’re going to hop across a puddle.’
Max looked up to the window, which was plastered against a blue, cloudless sky. She felt her temples pound and a wave of heat trickle over her body.
‘It’s a long way up,’ Linden said as if he’d read her mind. ‘Do you want me to go first?’
‘No.’ Max flicked her hair from her eyes. ‘I can do it.’
She wriggled her toes in her shoes. Her palms began to sweat. Her chest caught a quick snatch of air.
You’ve already mucked one thing up today, she silently warned herself. Don’t let this be the second.
Max took a final deep breath, bent her knees and jumped.
‘Aaaah!’ The air tunnelled past Max as her shoes catapulted her higher and higher, arms and legs thrashing and flapping like a baby bird learning to fly.
‘Aaaah!’ She saw the window ledge pass her by as her body sailed up to the top of the building, giving her a view across the entire harbour.
‘Oh boy.’ Her body weakened, a tingling sensation caterpillared all over, before she slowed and began to fall.
‘Aaaah!’
‘Max!’ Linden called from below. ‘The window.’
Linden’s voice slapped Max out of her fear of heights just in time to fling her hands out and catch hold of a window ledge with a jarring stop.
‘Oooph!’ Her fingers clung desperately while beneath her, carved in relief in the stone, was a date. 1589. She rested one foot on the protruding numbers, gaining a foothold.
Linden’s body relaxed through a husky chuckle. ‘Well done,’ he muttered as he watched his spy partner hoist her legs through the window and scramble into the apartment. After a few seconds she poked her head back out and spoke quietly into her watch. ‘Well, come on. What are you waiting for? An invitation?’
Linden smiled and checked that the street was clear. He bent his knees and vaulted himself upwards. The Flea-Powered Shoes lifted him into the air, through the warm afternoon. When he passed the window, he squared his feet, so that when he came down, he landed firmly on Straussmann’s window ledge before sliding quickly into the room.
There were suitcases opened and half unpacked on the floor, burger wrappers and empty drink bottles on bedside tables and a desk, and clothes and damp towels thrown everywhere.
‘He’s neat.’ Linden stepped over a soggy, leftover plate of chips and gravy.
‘And a little guilty.’ Max was staring at a wall plastered with articles and photos of Alfonzo.
Linden moved over to Max and skimmed the jumbled display before them. ‘Either that or he has a huge crush on him.’
‘Trouble is, it still doesn’t prove anything. We’ve got to find something that nails him as our man.’ Max used an umbrella to pick up a wet towel thrown across a chair. ‘If we can sift through all this mess.’
She shuffled though a crooked pile of papers and conference notes on Straussmann’s desk while Linden checked the bedside table. He searched inside and underneath the drawers and tabletop to see if anything was stuck to the bottom. He ran his fingers along the top of the wardrobe and looked beneath the bulky mattress and floor rugs, but it wasn’t until he picked up a jacket hanging on the end of a chair that he found more.
‘There’s this.’ Linden picked up a business card that had fallen from the jacket pocket. “Greenfield Incorporated. Tomorrow’s Scientific Solutions, Today.” There are offices in Belgium, London, New York and Paris.’
‘Take down the details.’ Max dumped a pile of papers back on the cluttered desk. ‘It may just lead to the brains behind this operation,’ she stepped over a dirty pair of socks and a tomato sauce-smudged comic, ‘because it certainly isn’t this guy.’
Linden used his watch to take a picture of the card when Max found something else. Hidden in a small leather sports bag beside the desk, tucked into a side pocket, was a gun. Max pulled her sleeve over her hand and picked up the weapon.
‘Linden?’
Linden put the card back in the jacket pocket and turned to face Max. ‘What do you think he plans to do with that?’
‘What do people usually do with guns?’
‘It isn’t to kill Alfonzo. He could have done that by now.’
From downstairs, they heard a noise. Max carefully slipped the gun back into the bag. She crept over to the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, and listened. She heard a key turn in a lock and a creaking door open. It slammed shut and the sound of keys thrown on a table echoed up the stairs. Someone was singing, badly, to the rhythmic sound of approaching footsteps.
‘Straussmann,’ Max realised. ‘Quick, in here.’
She and Linden hastily climbed into the wardrobe and Max pulled the slatted door shut behind them.
The steps got closer. So did the singing.
‘He’s not about to win any talent contests,’ Linden whispered.
A mound of papers sild from the overflowing desk and spilled onto the floor. Max made a move to get them, but Linden held her back. Straussmann entered the room.
Max peaked through the slats of the wardrobe door and saw the pool of papers. She watched as Straussmann lifted a conference badge from around his neck and threw it on the bed. He loosened his tie and moved around the room, pacing. Something was different about him. He sank heavily onto the end of his bed and massaged his eyes and face with both hands. Linden threw a confused frown at Max. She shrugged.
Straussmann sighed, dropped his hands to his lap and closed his eyes, but when he opened them, they landed squarely on the floor beside the desk.
Max’s breathing grew shallow.
Straussmann sat dead still. Staring at the disturbed papers. His eyes scuttled around in their sockets, climbing the walls and scooting across the floor. His head flicked about in small, irritated turns. Max flinched when Straussmann dropped to the floor with a reverberating thud and checked beneath the bed. He stood, a murderous sneer wiped across his face. He leapt at the bathroom door and threw it open, slamming it against the tiled wall in an echoing clang. He backed into the room and his eyes landed on the wardrobe.
Max and Linden moved back, forced into the rear of their hiding place by Straussmann’s eyes reaching in through the wood. He sunk slowly to the floor, lowered his hand into the sports bag and took out the gun. Max’s face burned in a panicked rush of nerves as he stepped silently towards them, his face a chiselled portrait of anger – ready to lash out. Ready to kill, Max thought.
Straussmann stopped and flung his head towards the sound of a door being pounded on downstairs. He slipped the gun into his bag as a loud crack echoed from below, followed by two sets of footsteps thudding their way upstairs.
The bedroom door was obscured from Max and Linden’s view, but the words they heard were clear: ‘You’re coming with us.’
‘I told you. It’s all going to be taken care of,’ Straussmann spat in anger. ‘If you don’t trust me then …’
‘I said, now.’ The command was quietly spoken but carried a threat as loud as a thundercrack.
Straussmann stood still for a few seconds before one of the men grabbed his arms and forced him out of the room. His voice receded down the stairs, ‘Get your hands off me, you overgrown baboon. I can walk by myself. Who do you think you –’ Straussmann’s protests were swallowed into silence as they left the house.
Max slumped. ‘That was a little close.’
‘Lucky for both of us you didn’t.’ Max pushed open the wardrobe door. ‘Let’s go; we need to get back to the hotel and ask Steinberger to do a check on Greenfield Incorporated. My guess is it will lead us a lot closer to the real reason Alfonzo is being targeted.’
‘We’ve done a preliminary check on Greenfield Incorporated.’ Steinberger spoke from the screen of Max’s palm computer when he contacted them later that evening. ‘They provide technology and software for companies hoping to operate more efficiently, from banks and security firms to steel works and irrigation plants, but as for anything suspicious, we’ve found nothing so far.’
‘Do you know who heads the company?’ Max spoke from beneath the Shush Zone in her hotel room.
‘Yes, a person called Louie Syphon. Very clever, it seems. Used to be a kind of child genius. He had a brush with fame when he was younger, but he has been very quiet ever since.’
‘A brush with fame?’ Linden asked.
‘He created a machine that could unleash vast amounts of energy from a single handful of sand. He’d been working on it for years, predicting it would revolutionise the production of energy for the entire world. As you can imagine, governments and large companies from every continent were very excited. But when it came to demonstrating his invention in front of computer linkups, via podcasts, TV screens and a live audience of some of the world’s most important and respected leaders and scientists, it failed. The machine blew up in a spectacular and very expensive manner. Several people were hurt and Syphon’s humiliation sent him underground.’
‘My volcano project blew up in front of my School of the Air classmates once. I felt bad, but humiliation in front of the entire world? That’s got to hurt,’ Linden sympathised.
‘It seems it did,’ Steinberger agreed. ‘We’ll continue to dig for more information but for now I must go. Harrison needs me to drop round a screwdriver and a blowtorch.’
Mission In Malta Page 9
