Chapter 3
Nagawa Family Palace, 7:00 pm.
The sun had surrendered it place in the sky to the half crescent moon a little over an hour ago. The silver moon cast its glow across the landscape, turning it blue-grey and a pleasant cool breeze swept across the plains. Atop a small hill, concealed by a small thicket lay the three prone forms of Clover, Alex and Sam; through binoculars, they observed the natural night-time colours broken by the yellow glow of lights from the majestic Nagawa Family Palace a kilometre away.
The Palace was impressive. It towered at one hundred and twenty meters high, and the side the three super-spies could see was four hundred meters long. Even at night, one could see that it was bright white marble with a massive glass dome that served as a roof for some part of the Palace. A number of balconies protruded from the side of the Palace wall, most likely coming from private bed chambers or some other room that had the privilege of the added aesthetic it got from it occupants being able to walk outside to see an incredible view.
The golden lights that came from inside the Palace poured through the countless windows and onto the massive courtyard outside. The main feature outside the Palace was a large water fountain that hosted a number of life-sized recreations of native wildlife, carved out of Jade; an outside observer would believe the recreations were uniformly placed at random places inside the fountain- in fact they were placed according to the four winds North, South, East and West, and according to where the largest concentration of those particular animals could be found.
A few hundred meters from the Palace itself was the ten-meter tall fence that kept intruders from passing; and patrolling the perimeter were a number of guards- their silhouettes hard to make out despite the light from the Palace and the moon.
Sam panned across the fence until she centred on the Main Gate, noting a small cluster of people gathered outside it.
"I think we might just have a way inside." She said as she zoomed in closer on the people near the gate. It was a group of reporters; most from local news stations, but there was a couple from international news groups.
Clover and Alex took note of the reporters too. "This might be easier than I thought." Said Clover.
The three spies stood up and Sam pulled out her X-Powder. With the press of a button, the screen displayed a menu of various disguises that the three often found invaluable. The next button pressed selected the reporters outfit that was displayed, and in moments a wide beam of light flooded over Sam, Clover and Alex and covered their green, red and yellow spy outfits in their new disguises.
Clover was pleased with her white blouse and light-red blazer and knee-length skirt, also very much pleased with the CNN logo on the silver pen in her blazer's chest pocket, and identification badge also pinned to the blazer; the only impractical item on her person was the lightly blue-tinted sun-glasses she wore (completely useless in the night-time)- but who honestly thought that style had to be practical.
Sam and Alex found themselves attired in charcoal trousers; Sam in a light-green long-sleeved shirt; Alex in a pale yellow short-sleeved shirt with matching vest. The identification badges they wore placed them as reporters for Sky News.
With a nod to each other, the three of them started toward the group of reporters.
7:14 pm.
For a nation that was at war, security procedures at the main gate had been surprisingly lax. The guards at the gate had simply gathered all the reporters into a group and escorted them through the courtyard over a gravel footpath, past the Jade water-fountain and straight into the Palace. Apparently there was to be an interview with King Nagawa tonight, thus explaining the presence of the international media, which suited the three super-spies just fine as it made their job easier. But not by much.
The reporters along with the disguised super-spies were escorted throughout the Palace until they finally came to a large elegant hall. The floor was blue sapphire and the walls held their white marble and were arrayed with portraits of the past Kings. And a hundred meters above them was the large glass dome that could be seen from outside; the stars above twinkled delicately. The glass dome did not cover the entire ceiling of the hall; it instead only covered the majority of the centre, leaving more white marble to complete the ceiling. Arrayed around the large dome- so as not to obstruct the outside view, were four chandeliers that provided light to the hall during the night.
The reporters milled about the hall; it would appear that the interview was to take place in this hall shortly.
Alex, Clover and Sam moved to one corner of the hall, pretending to look at one of the portraits; the three were awed by what they saw in the hall, but were also a little disgusted by the overwhelming display of wealth at the same time.
"We're going to have to find a way to ditch these guys." Sam said.
"Good luck with that," Alex said lightly nodding in the direction of a guard that was slowly making his way towards them. "These guards aren't letting anyone out of their sights."
"Well we better, because I don't think we're going to get back in here again so easily." Clover added.
The trio stopped talking as the approaching guard pointed at them and indicated that they should return to the centre of the hall.
A dark-skinned man dressed in blue and red garb entered the hall. He quickly spoke to the local news reporters in their native tongue; when he finished, those reporters began to make their way to exit the hall. The man approached and addressed the remaining reporters in English.
"His excellency King Nagawa will be unable to attend tonight's interview as he has been unavoidably detained."
"What are ya talkin' aboot?!" Shouted a burly journalist next to Clover. "Yuv had us 'ere all night n' now yer tellin' us he's suddenly 'onuvayluble'; where's ya-" The Scotsman's thinkly accented voice filled the entire hall, but was suddenly cut off as two guards suddenly approached, unslinging their rifles as they came. The man took the not-so-subtle hint and began calmly heading back the way everyone had just come.
Their window of opportunity was vanishing with every step they took down the hallway to the main doors of the Palace, and Sam, Clover and Alex each knew it. Desperately, their minds tried to find a way to sneak away from the escorts, but there wasn't any possibility of that happening. But all that changed with the commotion that suddenly burst a little ahead of them.
"What are ya dooin! Ach, yor gonna 'av ta pay for that!" The Scottish journalist shouted. He had concealed a small camcorder and had been recording the interior of the Palace until one of the guards had spotted it and smashed it after snatching it from him. His resulting outburst served only to draw the attention of the remaining guards.
"It's now or never." Sam whispered. And the three quickly darted down a corridor they were passing, and turned left into another hallway to keep from sight.
The guards forced the journalist down the hallway along with the rest of the reporters, completely unaware that they were now shy three reporters.
7:40 pm.
"Ouch, careful Alex."
"Sorry, Clover."
"Quiet you two." Came the muffled whispers of the three spies.
Sam, Clover and Alex had continued down the hallway they had used to evade their escort with the reporters; they had searched each room on their way and had found nothing to help them in their investigations. They had found a staircase that took them up another level and failing to find anything on that level, they had continued onto the third floor. Which is where they found security was much tighter.
The three spies were now crawling through the air-conditioning ducts so as to avoid the many guards that patrolled the floor.
There was a faint light ahead. The trio crawled through the cold, dark confined space, headed towards that light. It was a vent; actually, more of a light-vent combination built into the air-conditioning duct.
Sam lifted it up a crack, enough to peek into what was below. It appeared to be a cleaner's closet. She lifted the light-vent out and dropped into the closet, followed by Alex and then Clover.
Sam peered through the keyhole in the door, but seeing only wall on the other side she took out her X-Powder, held it to the keyhole and pressed a button. A small tendril like piece of metal wormed its way out of the X-Powder and into the keyhole. Barely noticeable on the other side of the keyhole- in the hallway outside the door; the end of that metal piece peeked through and twisted this way and that, taking in what was in the hallway. On the X-Powder screen, Sam, Clover and Alex could see outside their cramped closet and into the hallway beyond.
At the far end of the hallway to their left was nothing, but to their right at the far end, there were four armed guards standing outside a room with a heavy wooden door.
"That's a lot of muscle to guard one room." Alex observed.
"Must be important. Might be worth a look." Clover said.
Alex and Sam nodded their agreement.
At that moment, a white-clad servant exited the room and began walking down the hallway. As the servant got closer, Sam hit another button on the X-Powder; the devise scanned the servant as they passed the closet. Another press of a button and the wide beam of light washed over the three spies clothing and made them identical into those of the servant's.
"Eww, Sam, why are we in these tacky robes?" Complained Clover.
"We might be able to pass ourselves off as servants to get into that room." Sam explained.
Quickly but quietly, the three of them stepped out of the closet and into the hallway. There was no reaction from the guards outside the room; they were positioned two to each wall of the hallway with no way to see all the way down the hallway so they were too far away to see the spies in their peripheral vision.
Sam, Clover and Alex approached the room cautiously, keeping their eyes cast towards the ground as they had seen the servant do. The guards eyed Clover and Sam suspiciously, but made no move to stop them; the robes they wore identified them as the king's personal servants.
Once they had entered the room and shut the heavy wooden doors behind them, Sam, Clover and Alex breathed a sigh of relief. Their luck so far seemed to be holding.
"All those guards for a bedroom?" Said a surprised Alex.
"I'm betting that this is not just any bedroom." Replied Sam.
"You're telling me. Look at this place; it's like my fantasy room come to life- only without the wide screen T.V., closet- oh the view." Said Clover, as she darted around the room and loving every bit of it- especially the view from the balcony.
"This is probably the king's room; that would explain the guards. Lets search for clues." Sam said.
"What kind of clues?" Asked Alex.
"I don't know; documents, a computer, anything that might let us know what could be going on here." Replied Sam.
They each knew that an office would be a better place to find such things, but so far they had had no such luck in finding anything like that.
Alex and Sam were moving towards a door in the grand bedroom which they figured would be an extension of the room, Clover was near the main entry door when there was a faint groaning sound. Someone was coming into the room.
Alex and Sam quickly hid in the room the room they were about to search, shutting the door behind them; Clover was left hiding behind the main door as it opened. There was no doubt that she was about to be caught. But then an idea came to her that might just help her out of any serious danger. While still hidden behind those large wooden doors, she activated her own X-Powder's disguise program and selected the reporter's disguise.