In Pursuit p
He started to run and switched on his headset, his fingers fumbling nervously at the knobs...
"Kali? Over?!Kali! Answer me!"
A stream of static met him in reply, as his mind raced frantically as if unable to accept there was no voice at the other end. Someone was purposefully blocking the frequency! Of course! Carmen had monitored his every move upon entering the museum, she had probably seen to it that his planned route of retreat was blocked as well. A slow, burning agitation filled his senses as her intent to have him caught from the start became all too clear. It was obvious that she didn't trust him, perhaps with good reason. He stumbled down the steps of the second floor only to be greeted by the sudden blinding glare from the flashlight of one of the approaching security team. He paused suddenly and raised his arm against the light as he heard one of them exclaim in French,
"There is one of them! Hurry before he escapes!"
Jida quickly turned the opposite direction and his thoughts raced to analyse the situation. Where had Carmen gone? His mind strained to recall her retreat. He pulled a smoke bomb from beneath his jacket and lit the end, tossing it into the darkness. He could hear the clamor of confusion in the smoke as he took those few precious seconds to think. Suddenly, it dawned upon him, and he ran straight in the direction the master thief had taken. He continued down the dark corridor and stopped abruptly, bumping into a marble tiled wall.
"Damn..." he thought privately, his eyes watering from the smoke which filled the hallway, "...she did that on purpose..."His coppery eyes gazed up and he saw that she had escaped through a small retangular vent. Jida spied a set of conduit piping along side the opening and aimed the device on his arm upward. He had fashioned the device after the same one Carmen used for her various methods...only tonight he had wished he had planned things a bit further. Oh well, impromptu would have to do...
As he drew closer to the opening, he realized that it was smaller than he had originally estimated. He stopped suddenly, suspended in mid-air as the footsteps of the security guards grew closer. He let out a deep breath and stopped the raging emotions in his mind.
It wasn't like Carmen to use this method to get away...usually she employed a more stylish means of escape.
She had done this on purpose because she had anticipated his actons? Yes, this really was a test...wasn't it? He looked around and his gaze fell upon a larger vent, unopened but accessible to anyone hanging from the ceiling.
Oh sure, he thought to himself, how often has that scenario come up? A few dusty cobwebs danced in the slight chill of the vent, taunting him with the choice between escape and defeat.
And perhaps, six feet farther than where Jida was hanging from...
He came closer to the conduit and let out a deep sigh as he grabbed a hold of the pipes and crossed the ankles of the black boots he was wearing over the opposite end to support his weight. The conduit complained in return with a metallic twang, too loud to go unnoticed. Despite the fact the air was cold, a sudden sweat broke across his brow.
"There he is, up there!" The lights danced around him as he edged closer to the vent and focused on the route of his only getaway.
"Send a team to the roof, he's going to try to crawl out! Send the rest of the team to the edge of the Western perimeter!..." Jida held onto the piping with one hand and hit his palm against the bar holding the metal grating closed, when it came loose, it hit the side of his head as it fell to the floor below, scattering the few guards below. The blow knocked him off balance and he hung preariously by only his feet, slightly disoriented and absolutely stunned. The urgency of his situation crept back into his mind as he made a supreme effort and reached back up and grabbed the pipe and began to crawl out of the vent.
His grasp caught the surface of the rooftop and he sneezed violently at the dust he had disturbed which had settled since the installation of the vent and piping in the museum. Once he had gained his footing on solid ground, his exhausted gaze caught sight of the police coming toward him from the stairwell.
"Wonderful..."he gasped breathlessly before trying to catch his staggered breath. The instinct of being pursued told him to run. But to where? He had to get back on ground level. He stopped at the edge of building and eyed the concrete below.
This wasn't going to work.
One of the guards came close and Jida jumped upon the edge of the roof and pointed toward the ground and stated in his best Parisan dialect,
"Step back !I will jump! Don't come any closer!"
He held his hands up to show that he was unarmed and a bead of sweat ran down from his forehead, his black hair clinging to the wet flesh around his face. For a moment, everyone could hear the sound of his panting as all eyes fell on him and speculation over whether he would jump to the concrete below quickly became a concern. They could not readily force an unarmed suicidal man into custody. It was a known fact that some criminals would do anything to avoid being captured alive. Several agents radioed for more back up while another came closer, no weapon in hand with a serious calm on his face as he gently pleaded,
"It doesn't have to end like this. You can get a good lawyer, or we can talk this out peacefully. We can work something out, if you are willing to tell us who was involved in this. "
Jida shook his head negatively and calmly said,
"You will never catch me. That much I promise you."
He edged closer to the corner of the building and without warning, stepped over the edge. A sudden fear struck the captive crowd until one of them dared to peer over the corner and saw the top of a tree that loomed merely ten feet below.
The violet and black villian was nowhere to be seen.
"He's on the ground! Search the area!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kalista watched as she saw Jida run toward the last means of thier escape. He jumped into the modified vehicle and caught his breath, motioning in a panic for her to leave immediately. She took the moment to comment,
"You are one lucky son of a b..."
"Not now! Drive!"
That was all the motivation Kali needed to squeal the widened tires into a cloud of black smoke and add distance between them and the crime scene. In an instant, a computerised panel of instruments appeared and she switched on a radio interference device with a heightened comprehension of the outbursts of sudden radio traffic in the area. "Do you mind telling me what happened back there?" "No." Kali listened intently for a moment and then looked with a knowing look to Jida, who seemed eerily calm for just escaping capture. The authorities were not following them, it seemed Carmen Sandiego was the main source of interest...
Once Jida had interpreted the sudden exclamations he sighed and then let out an amused laugh. He had done it. She had set him up, and he had escaped, only for his reluctant teacher to be caught in the same tangled web of deception she had woven for him! Oh, what irony! He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and leaned back with a sudden hit of the same adrenalin rush he knew they both shared...
Kali had also taken the extra precaution of cloaking whatever movements thier vehicle made through radar and laser detection. Her heart still pounded with paranoia in her ears, in her opinion, they had not truly escaped until she fell asleep safely that night in her own bed, the sirens far behind her. He sensed she was nervous, as he hands shook slightly as she switched the controls before her. He placed a steady hand on her shoulder and she smiled weakly.
How had he managed without her?
Although Kali's French was weak at best, she seemed to readily comprehend what the bursts of radio transmissions hailed.
"They're really after her, aren't they? They don't give a damn whether or not we escape."
"That's right, my clever accomplice. Welcome to the life of crime..."
Kali seemed to huff in disgust and snapped,
"I'm well aware of where I am, thank you. Yet it doesn't seem right, we lured her here, after all. Doesn't that take the risk out of what we're doing?" She never allowed her eyes to stray from her current course of escape, however, her mind seemed to preoccupy itself with their adversary. Jida appreciated this conscious state of guilt that Kali readily betrayed, it showed that beneath everything she still expected the good in everyone and had the ability to easily forgive. A priceless gem in the heart of the true manipulator...
Despite her lack of fluent French, Kali instinctively picked up on a three lettered acronym in the array of foriegn vernacular. Jida picked up on it as well and showed a sudden concern at his partner's tense response. "E-M-P...what the..."
Electromagnetic pulse. It seems that someone was lucky enough to shoot a tracer device to her vehicle. They are going to use it to try and stop Carmen! But that's impossible! Don't they know the dangers of stopping an engine going at speeds over ninety-five?..."
Jida eyes seemed to pierce the whirl of scenery racing before his eyes before he stated in a sullen tension,
"Turn around..." At first, the words didn't sink in completely, and Kali failed to react immediately.
"I said to turn back! NOW!" She eased on the brake and brought the vehicle to a sudden stop. Then in an instant the impossibilities tempted her mind as to what he had said, the weight of her translated actions set into an initiated directive.As the altered automobile reversed direction, she sighed.
"I hope you know what you're doing for once." Within the span of thirty seconds the consequence of her decision became the right one. An abrupt shrill signal of counterblast hit the control panels of the modified black 550 Maranello and Kali pulled the car into a remote alleyway and turned the engine off.
"What are you DOING? Have you lost your MIND?"
She shook her head and glared back in reply,
"Just trust me on this one..." She sat still for a moment, and spoke aloud, more to herself than to him, but he listened closely to her rambling.
"Must wait just a few seconds, just a few seconds, not too long from now, just another more..."
At that moment, everything went black, and as Kali restarted the engine, Jida was slightly shaken at her strange intuition. He decided not to ask, but once again rejoiced in his choice of business associates. Time seemed to move slower than it really was, and it was only when the intrument panel came back that he introspectively understood that it had been mere minutes since his escape from the museum.
Time seemed to stand still for him, and the power that one moment held for him was undeniably pleasurable.
The shocked sounds of the onlooking authorites sounded less appealing. From the fragmented flashes of information coming across the transmitter there had been an accident, a medical unit had been alerted and the sounds of sirens pierced the air with admonitions. Tires screeched to a halt and Kali stepped from the driver's side as quickly as she had stopped, and he blindly copied her reactions as they both gazed upon the scene.
All that seemed to capture their attention was the twisted metal frame of what had to be Carmen's vehicle. A few of the units that had given chase had stopped and seemed too shocked at this apparent outcome of thier actions to react. They had arrived mere seconds before the vehicle had spun out of control, halting it's takeoff launch into flight and careening the hapless mechanism into a nearby building. Kali knew such a time was not one for standing still.
She reached into her jacket and pulled out a smoke grenade and pulled out the pin with her teeth before hurling it at the rear tire of the wreck. The jolted reactions of those who had surrounded the scene was to flee in fear, not knowing that the smoke would be accompanied by nothing worse. There were screams and curses in French that made no difference as she threw another grenade into the confusion of sirens and Jida saw his cue to react.
This was a similiar scenario they had played out in Berlin in the midst of the German polizei, only the objective had changed. It gave him just enough of an opportunity to throw the situation into his control and he wasted no time as he rushed toward the smoking wreckage. The vehicle door would not budge at first, and required a violent motion to pry open. Inside, his eyes were greeted by an unwelcome site, the figuire of a red clad woman didn't move, didn't respond to his presence. He leaned over her momentarily and felt for a pulse and assessed the situation with a terrified shakiness.
No, she was still alive. The five point harness around her body had more than probably saved her life. But a nasty gash ran into her hairline and had begun to bleed profusely. With a quickness preluding to panic hepulled a knife from his side and cut the harness away and sighed in relief as a barely audible unconscious moan escaped from her lips. Without a second thought, he lifted her body from the remains of the damaged vehicle and carefully hoisted her over his left shoulder. As he turned to retreat from the scene he pulled another smoke grenade from his side and hurled it towards the oncoming authorities.
Kali could see little in the blinding white and grey smoke, but she recognised Jida's voice as he cried out in the midst of the confusion. "I've got her, let's go!"
He started to run and switched on his headset, his fingers fumbling nervously at the knobs...
"Kali? Over?!Kali! Answer me!"
A stream of static met him in reply, as his mind raced frantically as if unable to accept there was no voice at the other end. Someone was purposefully blocking the frequency! Of course! Carmen had monitored his every move upon entering the museum, she had probably seen to it that his planned route of retreat was blocked as well. A slow, burning agitation filled his senses as her intent to have him caught from the start became all too clear. It was obvious that she didn't trust him, perhaps with good reason. He stumbled down the steps of the second floor only to be greeted by the sudden blinding glare from the flashlight of one of the approaching security team. He paused suddenly and raised his arm against the light as he heard one of them exclaim in French,
"There is one of them! Hurry before he escapes!"
Jida quickly turned the opposite direction and his thoughts raced to analyse the situation. Where had Carmen gone? His mind strained to recall her retreat. He pulled a smoke bomb from beneath his jacket and lit the end, tossing it into the darkness. He could hear the clamor of confusion in the smoke as he took those few precious seconds to think. Suddenly, it dawned upon him, and he ran straight in the direction the master thief had taken. He continued down the dark corridor and stopped abruptly, bumping into a marble tiled wall.
"Damn..." he thought privately, his eyes watering from the smoke which filled the hallway, "...she did that on purpose..."His coppery eyes gazed up and he saw that she had escaped through a small retangular vent. Jida spied a set of conduit piping along side the opening and aimed the device on his arm upward. He had fashioned the device after the same one Carmen used for her various methods...only tonight he had wished he had planned things a bit further. Oh well, impromptu would have to do...
As he drew closer to the opening, he realized that it was smaller than he had originally estimated. He stopped suddenly, suspended in mid-air as the footsteps of the security guards grew closer. He let out a deep breath and stopped the raging emotions in his mind.
It wasn't like Carmen to use this method to get away...usually she employed a more stylish means of escape.
She had done this on purpose because she had anticipated his actons? Yes, this really was a test...wasn't it? He looked around and his gaze fell upon a larger vent, unopened but accessible to anyone hanging from the ceiling.
Oh sure, he thought to himself, how often has that scenario come up? A few dusty cobwebs danced in the slight chill of the vent, taunting him with the choice between escape and defeat.
And perhaps, six feet farther than where Jida was hanging from...
He came closer to the conduit and let out a deep sigh as he grabbed a hold of the pipes and crossed the ankles of the black boots he was wearing over the opposite end to support his weight. The conduit complained in return with a metallic twang, too loud to go unnoticed. Despite the fact the air was cold, a sudden sweat broke across his brow.
"There he is, up there!" The lights danced around him as he edged closer to the vent and focused on the route of his only getaway.
"Send a team to the roof, he's going to try to crawl out! Send the rest of the team to the edge of the Western perimeter!..." Jida held onto the piping with one hand and hit his palm against the bar holding the metal grating closed, when it came loose, it hit the side of his head as it fell to the floor below, scattering the few guards below. The blow knocked him off balance and he hung preariously by only his feet, slightly disoriented and absolutely stunned. The urgency of his situation crept back into his mind as he made a supreme effort and reached back up and grabbed the pipe and began to crawl out of the vent.
His grasp caught the surface of the rooftop and he sneezed violently at the dust he had disturbed which had settled since the installation of the vent and piping in the museum. Once he had gained his footing on solid ground, his exhausted gaze caught sight of the police coming toward him from the stairwell.
"Wonderful..."he gasped breathlessly before trying to catch his staggered breath. The instinct of being pursued told him to run. But to where? He had to get back on ground level. He stopped at the edge of building and eyed the concrete below.
This wasn't going to work.
One of the guards came close and Jida jumped upon the edge of the roof and pointed toward the ground and stated in his best Parisan dialect,
"Step back !I will jump! Don't come any closer!"
He held his hands up to show that he was unarmed and a bead of sweat ran down from his forehead, his black hair clinging to the wet flesh around his face. For a moment, everyone could hear the sound of his panting as all eyes fell on him and speculation over whether he would jump to the concrete below quickly became a concern. They could not readily force an unarmed suicidal man into custody. It was a known fact that some criminals would do anything to avoid being captured alive. Several agents radioed for more back up while another came closer, no weapon in hand with a serious calm on his face as he gently pleaded,
"It doesn't have to end like this. You can get a good lawyer, or we can talk this out peacefully. We can work something out, if you are willing to tell us who was involved in this. "
Jida shook his head negatively and calmly said,
"You will never catch me. That much I promise you."
He edged closer to the corner of the building and without warning, stepped over the edge. A sudden fear struck the captive crowd until one of them dared to peer over the corner and saw the top of a tree that loomed merely ten feet below.
The violet and black villian was nowhere to be seen.
"He's on the ground! Search the area!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kalista watched as she saw Jida run toward the last means of thier escape. He jumped into the modified vehicle and caught his breath, motioning in a panic for her to leave immediately. She took the moment to comment,
"You are one lucky son of a b..."
"Not now! Drive!"
That was all the motivation Kali needed to squeal the widened tires into a cloud of black smoke and add distance between them and the crime scene. In an instant, a computerised panel of instruments appeared and she switched on a radio interference device with a heightened comprehension of the outbursts of sudden radio traffic in the area. "Do you mind telling me what happened back there?" "No." Kali listened intently for a moment and then looked with a knowing look to Jida, who seemed eerily calm for just escaping capture. The authorities were not following them, it seemed Carmen Sandiego was the main source of interest...
Once Jida had interpreted the sudden exclamations he sighed and then let out an amused laugh. He had done it. She had set him up, and he had escaped, only for his reluctant teacher to be caught in the same tangled web of deception she had woven for him! Oh, what irony! He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and leaned back with a sudden hit of the same adrenalin rush he knew they both shared...
Kali had also taken the extra precaution of cloaking whatever movements thier vehicle made through radar and laser detection. Her heart still pounded with paranoia in her ears, in her opinion, they had not truly escaped until she fell asleep safely that night in her own bed, the sirens far behind her. He sensed she was nervous, as he hands shook slightly as she switched the controls before her. He placed a steady hand on her shoulder and she smiled weakly.
How had he managed without her?
Although Kali's French was weak at best, she seemed to readily comprehend what the bursts of radio transmissions hailed.
"They're really after her, aren't they? They don't give a damn whether or not we escape."
"That's right, my clever accomplice. Welcome to the life of crime..."
Kali seemed to huff in disgust and snapped,
"I'm well aware of where I am, thank you. Yet it doesn't seem right, we lured her here, after all. Doesn't that take the risk out of what we're doing?" She never allowed her eyes to stray from her current course of escape, however, her mind seemed to preoccupy itself with their adversary. Jida appreciated this conscious state of guilt that Kali readily betrayed, it showed that beneath everything she still expected the good in everyone and had the ability to easily forgive. A priceless gem in the heart of the true manipulator...
Despite her lack of fluent French, Kali instinctively picked up on a three lettered acronym in the array of foriegn vernacular. Jida picked up on it as well and showed a sudden concern at his partner's tense response. "E-M-P...what the..."
Electromagnetic pulse. It seems that someone was lucky enough to shoot a tracer device to her vehicle. They are going to use it to try and stop Carmen! But that's impossible! Don't they know the dangers of stopping an engine going at speeds over ninety-five?..."
Jida eyes seemed to pierce the whirl of scenery racing before his eyes before he stated in a sullen tension,
"Turn around..." At first, the words didn't sink in completely, and Kali failed to react immediately.
"I said to turn back! NOW!" She eased on the brake and brought the vehicle to a sudden stop. Then in an instant the impossibilities tempted her mind as to what he had said, the weight of her translated actions set into an initiated directive.As the altered automobile reversed direction, she sighed.
"I hope you know what you're doing for once." Within the span of thirty seconds the consequence of her decision became the right one. An abrupt shrill signal of counterblast hit the control panels of the modified black 550 Maranello and Kali pulled the car into a remote alleyway and turned the engine off.
"What are you DOING? Have you lost your MIND?"
She shook her head and glared back in reply,
"Just trust me on this one..." She sat still for a moment, and spoke aloud, more to herself than to him, but he listened closely to her rambling.
"Must wait just a few seconds, just a few seconds, not too long from now, just another more..."
At that moment, everything went black, and as Kali restarted the engine, Jida was slightly shaken at her strange intuition. He decided not to ask, but once again rejoiced in his choice of business associates. Time seemed to move slower than it really was, and it was only when the intrument panel came back that he introspectively understood that it had been mere minutes since his escape from the museum.
Time seemed to stand still for him, and the power that one moment held for him was undeniably pleasurable.
The shocked sounds of the onlooking authorites sounded less appealing. From the fragmented flashes of information coming across the transmitter there had been an accident, a medical unit had been alerted and the sounds of sirens pierced the air with admonitions. Tires screeched to a halt and Kali stepped from the driver's side as quickly as she had stopped, and he blindly copied her reactions as they both gazed upon the scene.
All that seemed to capture their attention was the twisted metal frame of what had to be Carmen's vehicle. A few of the units that had given chase had stopped and seemed too shocked at this apparent outcome of thier actions to react. They had arrived mere seconds before the vehicle had spun out of control, halting it's takeoff launch into flight and careening the hapless mechanism into a nearby building. Kali knew such a time was not one for standing still.
She reached into her jacket and pulled out a smoke grenade and pulled out the pin with her teeth before hurling it at the rear tire of the wreck. The jolted reactions of those who had surrounded the scene was to flee in fear, not knowing that the smoke would be accompanied by nothing worse. There were screams and curses in French that made no difference as she threw another grenade into the confusion of sirens and Jida saw his cue to react.
This was a similiar scenario they had played out in Berlin in the midst of the German polizei, only the objective had changed. It gave him just enough of an opportunity to throw the situation into his control and he wasted no time as he rushed toward the smoking wreckage. The vehicle door would not budge at first, and required a violent motion to pry open. Inside, his eyes were greeted by an unwelcome site, the figuire of a red clad woman didn't move, didn't respond to his presence. He leaned over her momentarily and felt for a pulse and assessed the situation with a terrified shakiness.
No, she was still alive. The five point harness around her body had more than probably saved her life. But a nasty gash ran into her hairline and had begun to bleed profusely. With a quickness preluding to panic hepulled a knife from his side and cut the harness away and sighed in relief as a barely audible unconscious moan escaped from her lips. Without a second thought, he lifted her body from the remains of the damaged vehicle and carefully hoisted her over his left shoulder. As he turned to retreat from the scene he pulled another smoke grenade from his side and hurled it towards the oncoming authorities.
Kali could see little in the blinding white and grey smoke, but she recognised Jida's voice as he cried out in the midst of the confusion. "I've got her, let's go!"
