by Mark Walden
Otto always kept a sharp eye out for the children at the orphanage who, like these two, had unique ‘talents’. In his experience people were far more willing to trust children, a belief that when properly exploited could prove extremely useful. Add in the fact that they were orphans and they’d soon have most sympathetic adults eating out of the palm of their hands. Otto discouraged the children from taking part in any overt criminal activity, as it was far too likely to attract the wrong kind of attention, but there was no problem with a little harmless dishonesty or mild trickery to get what you wanted.
Penny handed Tom the list, which he quickly scanned. ‘What do you need all this for?’ he asked, a slight frown on his face.
‘Oh, nothing important. Just a couple of experiments that I want to run.’ Otto had no intention of revealing the details of his plan to these two – they’d probably just think he’d gone quietly insane up here alone in the attic.
‘OK,’ Tom still didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the answer he’d been given, ‘but like Penny said, it could take a while.’
‘A couple of days should be fine,’ Otto replied, ‘just make sure that you don’t leave any tracks that can be followed back here.’ His plan would only work if it came as a complete surprise. He couldn’t afford any slip-ups. ‘And if you manage to get everything on that list, there’ll be a bonus in your allowances this week, a generous bonus.’
Tom and Penny both smiled at this.
‘That would be nice,’ Penny replied. ‘We could do with a new TV in the girls’ dormitory as well.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Otto smiled at her. ‘The quicker you get me everything on that list, the bigger the television. How’s that sound?’
Penny nodded at this, returning his smile. ‘Seems fair. Come on Tom, we’d better get cracking.’
As the pair of them headed off down the stairs Otto opened the paper again. There was the other headline that had caught his attention that morning:
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PM PREPARES FOR BRIGHTON PARTY CONFERENCE
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The article went on to describe how many commentators felt that this would be the Prime Minister’s toughest speech to the party yet. Otto stared at the accompanying photo of the PM looking stressed and tired as he left Number Ten.
‘You don’t know the meaning of tough yet, but you will . . . you will,’ Otto said to himself as he stared at the photo.
Within a few days Tom and Penny had been successful in their mission and returned with all of the supplies that Otto had requested. As usual they had been reluctant to discuss exactly how they had acquired some of the more exotic items on the list but Otto trusted that they would have been discreet. All he then had to do was actually start the process of assembling these components into the device that was central to his plan. He knew that the theory behind its design was sound, but he would still have to conduct some tests to ensure that it would work exactly as he intended. Despite all of this Otto felt strangely calm, as he always did when working on some new device or other.
Mrs McReedy, on the other hand, seemed to be going through the progressive stages of a nervous breakdown. Nothing that Otto said seemed to reassure her that the orphanage could be saved, and she seemed increasingly resigned to seeing the old place shut down. Otto guessed that she was just as nervous about auditors being brought in to analyse the orphanage’s accounts and the embarrassing evidence that they might find of her improper use of the funds earmarked for Otto’s private tuition.
The rumour mill had also been grinding away, and it seemed to Otto that one of his fellow orphans was stopping him in the corridor every five metres to see if there was any truth to the gossip that they’d been hearing. Otto knew better than to try and answer every one of these queries, knowing that if his scheme worked as planned none of them would have anything to worry about. Unfortunately his apparent indifference did little to calm the increasingly nervous atmosphere all around him.
Finally, with only a day to spare, Otto completed his work on the essential new device. He stood at a workbench in the attic busily packing a backpack with all of the supplies he’d need over the next couple of days.
There was a knock at the door and without looking up Otto shouted for the visitor to come in. Mrs McReedy entered.
‘You wanted to see me, Otto?’ She looked and sounded tired.
‘Yes, Mrs McReedy, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be away for a couple of days. I have pressing business that I must attend to.’ He continued packing his bag.
‘Oh, Otto, do you have to go? With all that’s going on at the moment I’m not sure that I can manage on my own.’ She looked as if she might burst into tears again at any moment. Otto stopped packing his bag and walked over to Mrs McReedy. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t you worry, Mrs McReedy. It’s only a couple of days and, if all goes according to plan, we won’t have to worry about them trying to shut this old place down any more.’ He gave her his most reassuring smile.
‘So where are you going?’ Mrs McReedy asked.
Otto grinned. ‘To the seaside, Mrs McReedy. I’m going into politics.’
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Chapter Six
The journey to the coast had proved uneventful. Otto had travelled down on the train and had checked into the hotel room that he had booked over the internet. It was a basic room but that hardly mattered given that he had no intention of spending the night there. He just needed somewhere private to set up his equipment for later in the day. Once he had set everything up and double checked that it was working properly, he set off down the seafront to reconnoitre the target.
Otto had found the conference centre with ease. The security was so tight that it would have been difficult to miss it. Otto had seen the commander of the security forces on the television a couple of days beforehand and he had boasted at great length about the ‘ring of steel’ that had been placed around the conference hall. He had claimed that it would be impossible for someone without the proper clearance to get anywhere near the conference and that he was entirely confident in the systems and procedures that they had put in place. This was, of course, like a red rag to a bull for Otto. He knew full well that the larger and more complicated the security operation the more likely it was that a tiny gap existed somewhere that he could exploit.
But Otto had no intention of actually trying to get into the building himself – he knew that would be next to impossible. No, he just needed to find a good place to leave the device and the rest should be easy. He strolled along the sea front, just outside the first ring of security checks, looking for the right spot. Then he saw it, a drain cover a couple of hundred yards from the conference centre that looked ideal. As he walked towards the drain he reached into his backpack and found the small pocket that contained the device. He pulled out a silver metallic sphere, about the size of a ping-pong ball, and smiled to himself. This was going to be too easy. He knelt down beside the drain cover, as if tying his shoe lace and, checking that no one was watching him, he dropped the ball down the drain. Slowly he retied the laces on his trainers, just in case anyone was watching. When he was satisfied that no one had seen what he’d done he stood up and headed back down the seafront, away from the conference venue. The Prime Minister’s speech would start in about an hour. That would give him plenty of time to get back to his hotel room and get ready – the fun was about to begin.
Otto checked there was nobody coming along the corridor of the hotel and then let himself into his room. He walked over and dumped his backpack on the bed, relieved to see that everything was exactly as he’d left it. He powered up his laptop computer which sat on the desk linked by a short length of cable to what looked like a tiny silver satellite dish. The machine started up and finally a window appeared with the two words AWAITING DEPLOYMENT flashing in its centre. Otto ran a couple of quick diagnostics and was pleased to see that the control interface to the device appeared to be working exactly as
intended. He helped himself to a Coke from the minibar and settled down in front of the computer. Otto keyed in a new command and the status window changed, a new message appearing: DEPLOYING AMBULATORY PROPULSION SYSTEM.
Half a mile away along the seafront, in the bottom of the drain that Otto had found earlier, the sphere appeared to split in half, a gap a few millimetres wide appearing around its circumference. Eight tiny jointed metal limbs then slid out of the gap, twisting and locking into position, turning the sphere into something that looked like a cross between a pinball and a spider.
Back in his room Otto couldn’t help but feel pleased with himself. The device was extremely complicated he’d had to cram an enormous amount of technology into a tiny object – and yet everything appeared to be functioning properly. He had conducted tests in the attic at St Sebastian’s, of course, but it was still a relief to see that the device was working as intended in the field. He issued a command and another window opened on his computer. This window showed a grainy picture of what the device could see, transmitted from a pinhole camera on its surface. Otto slowly rotated the device through all four points of the compass, trying to get a better idea of its immediate surroundings. He knew that the conference centre was a couple of hundred yards to the north-east of the drain, and he soon spotted a pipe that led away from the drain in that approximate direction. Pushing forward on the control stick attached to his computer, he sent the device scurrying down the pipe through the drains towards the conference centre, occasionally taking a pipe that branched off from the one that the device was currently in, trying to keep it on the correct course.
Otto spent several minutes manoeuvring the device carefully through the subterranean network of pipes and drains towards its destination. The layout of the system had seemed quite straightforward on the plans that Otto had acquired, but actually steering the right course through the murky maze of tunnels was proving to be slightly trickier than he had expected.
He was just starting to worry that he might have taken a wrong turn somewhere when he spotted his target. A faint light could be seen coming from a small opening up ahead, and Otto knew that this meant that he was in exactly the right place. He guided the device carefully through this new opening, the light getting stronger as it approached the gap at the far end of the path.
Otto pushed on the control stick again and the device started to climb the slippery walls of the pipe, heading up towards the opening.
‘Incey, wincey spider climbed the waterspout . . .’ Otto sang softly to himself as the device approached the top of the pipe. He pushed another key and the pinhole camera extended out from the body of the sphere on a long flexible rod. Otto rotated the camera around, peeking out over the top of what he could now see was the plughole in a white-tiled shower cubicle. Thankfully the cubicle appeared to be empty and, retracting the camera again, he eased the spider up out of the plughole. He looked at the printouts of the conference centre’s blueprints, which were spread out on the desk next to his computer. The plans had not been easy to get hold of, especially without arousing suspicion, and Otto suspected that they may even be slightly out of date but he hoped they would still serve his purposes adequately. Scanning the plans Otto realised that the device must have come up in the showers attached to the swimming pool changing rooms. The nearest access to the air conditioning system was in the changing room itself and so Otto sent the device scurrying across the shower cubicle floor, towards his target.
There were several men getting changed in the room and Otto tried hard not to look at their semi-naked, wobbly bodies as he steered the device through the shadows beneath the benches. He rotated the spider, using its camera to look around the walls for the vent cover that had to be there somewhere. He eventually spotted it high on the far wall – he would have to wait for the men in the room to finish getting changed. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a couple of minutes, the men finished getting dressed and left the room, finally giving Otto his opportunity. The device would be exposed as it climbed the wall in order to reach the vent, so he’d have to move quickly. Pushing the control stick as far forward as it would go he sent the device dashing across the floor and up the wall towards the vent.
Suddenly the microphone on the device picked up the sound of approaching voices. Someone was coming into the room! The tiny metallic spider still had a couple of feet to go before it reached the vent and it was climbing the smooth vertical surface of the wall as quickly as it could. Otto watched the vent getting larger and larger on his screen, willing the device to climb faster as it advanced inch by inch towards it. Otto rotated the camera to point back into the room and saw, to his horror, that two policemen had walked into the room, one of them holding a large dog on a leash that was sniffing the air in the room curiously. The microphone Otto had installed on the device picked up their conversation.
‘We only checked in here a couple of hours ago. I can’t believe he’s making us repeat the search already,’ one said to the other, looking fed up.
‘Oh, you know what the chief’s like,’ the other replied. ‘Everything by the book.’
Otto noticed that the dog was sniffing curiously around the door of the shower cubicle that the device had come up through. He couldn’t understand it. The device shouldn’t have any scent – it was just metal and plastic – so why should the dog be so interested in that particular cubicle? The dog turned, following the scent across the floor, tracking the precise trail that the device had followed. Suddenly it struck Otto. He was such an idiot, he told himself. The device itself might not smell of anything that the dog would be able to track, but he’d just sent it crawling several hundred yards through the drains and you could bet that would leave a scent trail that the animal would be able to trace.
The device had now reached the vent on the wall, and Otto very carefully manoeuvred its two front legs under the edge of the hinged grille, trying to lever open a space wide enough to squeeze itself through. He hoped that the hinge on the cover wouldn’t be too stiff for the tiny machine to lift, and so was relieved to see that the gap that was being forced open was increasing steadily. He swivelled the camera again and saw the dog still sniffing the floor, advancing between the benches towards the vent with its handler in tow.
‘Looks like Rex has got something here,’ the handler remarked, kneeling down beside the dog. ‘What you got, boy? Smell something? Go get it.’ He unclipped the dog from its lead and it padded across the room, getting closer and closer to the device, which had almost finished dragging itself through the narrow gap at the base of the grille. Otto nudged the device forward again, and it finally pulled itself fully into the vent, its last leg vanishing through the gap. It was now fully inside the shaft, which sloped gently downwards into the darkness. Unfortunately, this tiny movement caught the dog’s attention and it started to bark repeatedly, scraping at the wall with its front paws as it tried in vain to get closer to the vent by the ceiling.
The two policeman walked across the room towards the agitated dog, the man with the leash looked curiously at his canine companion.
‘Well, he can definitely smell something up there. We’d better check that vent.’
Otto’s blood ran cold. He edged the device away from the grille – if he could just get it a few more feet into the shaft he knew that the darkness would conceal it, but he only had a couple of seconds. Suddenly the face of one of the policemen appeared on the other side of the grille, peering curiously into the gloom within the shaft.
‘I can’t see much in there,’ he informed his unseen colleague.
‘You can open the grille. Look, it’s just on a hinge,’ replied the other policeman.
If he opened that grille, there was no way that he’d miss Otto’s device sitting there. Equally, if Otto tried to move the device quickly the policeman would undoubtedly hear it walking on the metal-lined surface of the ventilation shaft. Otto thought frantically. Of course! He hit a key on his keyboard and the status window c
hanged again, displaying DEVICE DEACTIVATED.
Within the air conditioning shaft the device’s legs immediately retracted back into its spherical body and gravity did the rest. The sphere rolled silently away from the grate down the gently sloping shaft into the darkness, just as the policeman swung the grille upwards. Otto could still hear their voices as they checked the shaft.
‘There’s nothing in here. I don’t know what Rex is getting so wound up about.’
‘He probably just smelled something coming through the air conditioning from the kitchens. You know what he’s like. Greedy old thing.’
The voices slowly faded away as the two policemen completed their search of the changing rooms and moved on. Back in his hotel room, Otto willed himself to relax, gradually feeling his heart rate slow. That had been too close, but he couldn’t afford to lose his nerve now. He had about thirty minutes to get the device to its target position, and an unfamiliar system of ventilation shafts to navigate. There was no time to lose.
The tiny mechanical spider skittered through the ventilation shafts on its spindly metal legs. Just round this corner, Otto thought to himself as he gently nudged the control stick, steering the device towards its target. The device rounded the corner and descended from the opening in the shaft into a small, dark space, just a couple of feet high. Otto knew that this area was actually directly beneath the stage from which the Prime Minister would be making his speech in approximately five minutes’ time. He rotated the device’s camera, scanning its surroundings carefully, looking for his target. There it was, a few yards away – a bundle of cables dropping through a hole in the floor of the stage into the cramped space below. He manoeuvred the device so that it sat right next to the cables, quickly identifying the one he wanted. He pressed another key on his laptop:
