Chapter 5
If Dan was pleased to see his friends, he didn't show it. He was clearly, at least in part, annoyed by their arrival. He glanced up as they approached but didn't greet them. He was examining the black tyre marks left on the road by the van speeding off.
"This is where they grabbed her," he said brusquely. "The tyre marks are from the van."
Tom crouched down next the marks opening out his spy-pod and taking a photo of them.
"I'll run a trace on them, see if we can find the vehicle they belong to," he said watching as a series of numbers and words flicked across the screen. "Urgh," he said when it had finished. "The tyres are a common brand. There's over a thousand matches, just in this area."
"Dan," Aneisha asked, "Did you manage to get the number plate?"
He frowned looking annoyed with himself. "No, it went off too quickly." He said.
"Well, anyway," Aneisha continued, "we'd better look around, see if they left anything behind."
Just then an old lady pushing a tartan trolley approached them. Tom and Aneisha looked up but Dan ignored her, focused on his search.
"Are you from the police?" the woman asked.
"Sorry?" Aneisha said, coming towards her.
"Oh, sorry dear, you're younger than I thought you were. I thought you might have been from the police following up my complaint."
"Complaint?" Aneisha asked.
"Ooh yes, dear. A ruddy great van speeding off along the road earlier this morning. Made one hell of a racket, almost gave me a heart attack! There's so many people like that these days," she sighed, "there's a motorbike that roars up here twice a day! And you know, the only way to stop it is to talk to the police. The council will do nothing about it unless people complain. So I phoned them up, spoke to a lovely young man, said they'd look into it. See I had their number plate so –"
"Number plate?" Dan cut in, suddenly interested.
"Yes, dear." The lady looked surprised. "From the van. The police can use it to find the owners, you see."
"Can you still remember it?" Tom asked hopefully.
"Of course, dear. You know my memory may not be too good for somethings but I've always had a memory for numbers. It was CP09 RJA."
Immediately Tom started entering the code into his spy-pod, brow furrowed as he searched the MI9 database for a match.
"Got it. Belongs to a company called Schumann's they've got a warehouse over at Bridgestock – not far from here."
Anneisha looked up sharply. "Isn't that one of Constantala's distributors?"
Tom looked back at her with alarm.
"Let's go." Dan said immediately, heading off down the road.
"Dan, wait!" Aneisha called after him but he didn't stop. She sighed, looking in exasperation and concern at Tom. Tom stuffed his spy-pod into his pocket and started after his friend.
Aneisha turned hurriedly to the elderly woman.
"Thank you," She said gratefully. "And… I hope they sort out the motorbikes soon." She too jogged after the boys, leaving the lady slightly bewildered.
"Dan!"
Tom was calling after him but Dan didn't stop. The sooner they got there, the sooner they could find Taya. It wasn't just that he wanted to see his new friend back safe and sound, but Dan felt guilty. He had been there, when she had been grabbed; he should have got to her sooner.
It was when he reached the end of the road that he realised he didn't exactly know where they were heading. Annoyed, he impatiently waited for Tom to catch up.
"Hurry up!" he called.
Tom caught up, breathing heavily and clutching his side. "Oh, I am so not made for this kind of thing," he muttered to himself.
"Tom!" Dan said urgently. "Which way?"
Aneisha caught up with them.
"Thanks for waiting," she said sarcastically, glaring at Dan.
"Look, the sooner we get there the better. So which way?"
"Wait," Aneisha said. "We should check in with Frank first. Let him know where we're going."
Dan scoffed. "What so he can stop us? Sack us, like he did Taya?"
Aneisha tutted. "Come on, Dan. We don't know for sure what happened but that wasn't Frank. If we can't trust him, we can't trust anyone."
"Maybe we can't."
"What?"
"Maybe we can't trust MI9." Dan said. "Okay, yeah, we don't know everything that happened with that mission but we know something's going on. They're not telling us the full story. And I'm not going to wait around and let them mess anything else up. Now are you coming or not?"
Tom and Aneisha exchanged a worried look but nodded.
"Okay," Tom said. "It's this way."
Taya sat, hunched up in a corner of the room she had been taken to, knees brought up close to her body. It was an old office or something; cleared out, mostly, with only the fixed furniture, the odd dead fly and a lot of dust left behind. There was no window and the door had been locked firmly behind her making escape impossible. There was also no way of telling what time it was, nor how long she had been trapped in there. The small space and lack of natural light made Taya feel claustrophobia rising.
Taya winced as she gently touched the lump that had formed on her forehead, where it had connected with the van. Lowering her hand she noticed it shaking. She stared at it for a couple of seconds. That was new. When had she started being so afraid? She remembered a time when she rarely got scared and when she did, she used that fear to help her. Her training and logic took precedence over anxiety and fear. Tears pricked her eyes and she clenched her hand into a tight fist, nails digging in to her palm. She turned her face away, resting her cheek on her arms. She was annoyed with herself: angry that she was so scared, but, at the same time, she couldn't help it. The helplessness and fear were just too strong. And she had no one with her to help; no Jessie or Nick by her side anymore. And she couldn't stop the memories flooding back, unwanted, into her mind.
"We'll get out of here."
That's what Jessie had said. It was what she always said. And never before had Taya any reason to doubt that. No matter how many tight corners they had got themselves into, or how many close calls they had missed, they had got out the other side. So there was no reason for this to be any different. They were a team: they stuck together and made it work.
Taya determinedly reminded herself of that as she fiddled with the wiring of a keypad on a security panel on the wall by one of the offices. Apparently, the lockdown sequence that had been set off had locked all the doors. Doors being a lose term that meant six-inch, solid steel blast doors in this case – because what more could you expect from an ex-SKULL base?
She'd left Jessie and Nick dealing with the guards that had jumped them just outside the office but her friends reappeared just as Taya had nearly hacked the system.
"What is it?" Taya asked, noticing the grave look on Nick's face as he let Jessie lean on his shoulder. The girl looked slightly pale and Taya noticed she wasn't putting her right foot down fully.
"You okay?" Taya asked, concerned.
Jessie looked pale but smiled "I'm fine. But we've got another problem –"
"Taya, it's not just the doors," Nick said, breathing heavily.
"We overheard on the guards' radios before they ran off – this place is going to blow," Jessie continued. "Self-destruct or something. They ran off. We've only got six minutes to get out."
The Schumann's warehouse sat on the very end of a string of about five or six warehouses on the edge of town. Compared to the others it looked much more dilapidated, as though it hadn't been in use for several years. A tall fence encirledencircled the perimetreperimeter, topped with barbed wire. Weeds sprung up around the walls and between cracks in the tarmac. If it wasn't for the new looking automatic gate and the vans parked outside, it would have been easy to assume it was long abandoned.
"This place looks pretty run down," Anneisha commented, frowning. "I thought this was one Constantala still used."
"Well, we're in the right place," Tom said focusing the binoculars on the number plate of one of the vans. "That's the van Dan saw them take Taya away in. Maybe the company that owns it doesn't use it anymore." Tom shrugged. "It would give Constantala the opportunity to use it for her nefarious plans."
The three spies were crouched on a ridge that separated the warehouses from the motorway, looking down on the complex. Dan had wanted to head straight in but the others had convinced him to wait and check it out, reasoning that rushing in and getting caught would not help Taya in the slightest.
"Can't see any patrol or guards or anything," Tom muttered, "but that security camera system looks new."
"Can you block them or something?" Aneisha asked.
"What do you think I am? Some sort of technical genius?" Tom glanced round, sounding annoyed.
"Well, yeah?"
"Exactly. That's what I am," Tom agreed, looking back through the binoculars. "Hmm… I might be able when we get closer, but I can't get signal from here."
"Good." Dan said. "Let's get closer then."
Despite its age, there was no way to get through the wire fencing without wire cutters, which the agents did not have. The fierce barbed wire on top prevented them climbing over and the long drop made it even less popular of an option. There was a camera fixed on the main gate, watching anyone approaching. Crouching just out of the camera's line of sight, the team waited whilst Tom opened up his spy-pod.
"There we go… I've tapped into the camera system and if I just… aha! There we go!"
"We good?" Dan asked.
"Yep, I've made the camera play the last 60 seconds on a loop, so they won't even know the cameras stopped working. Well, not until night fall. But if we're still here then, we've got other problems"
"Brilliant!" Aneisha exclaimed. Dan was less enthusiastic.
"Alright. Let's go," he said, moving closer to the gate, keeping his eyes on the doors in case someone came out.
The gate had a key pad on it, requesting a 9 digit number for entry.
"Great." Dan stared at it. "Tom?"
"Always here to help," he said, holding the spy-pod over the number buttons. "MI9 not so useless all the time then, eh?" he asked smugly. As the gadget scanned the keys, working out the code.
Dan didn't respond, waiting for Tom to punch in the correct sequence of numbers. The lock flashed green and with a buzz the gate sprang open.
His blue eyes met his friends' eyes, deadly serious.
"Ready?" He asked. They nodded. "Let's go.
"This place is going to blow," Jessie continued. "Self-destruct or something. We've only got six minutes to get out."
Taya paled. "Self-destruct? Who the hell puts a self-destruct system in their base?"
"The Grandmaster does, apparently," Nick said, grimly.
"Don't worry, we've got time – they said there's a timer - about six minutes left," Jessie said, "Just hurry."
Taya swallowed and turned back to the control pad. "Okay, if this place is going into shut down mode, it would explain why the doors aren't responding to their usual commands. If I had external access I could do something," she looked at Nick who seemed to read her mind.
"Can't," he said. "This place is a radio dead zone remember? No communication."
Taya swore under her breath.
"Well in that case, I can only open these doors but only for sixty seconds. We've got to make it through the last door in time." She looked up at her friends. "Look – you guys get a head start. If there's still a couple of minutes before this place goes up, I can give you a bit of time before opening it –"
"Taya," Nick interrupted, "No. We're all getting out of here,"
"He's right," Jessie said.
"Now quit wasting time, and get the doors open,"
Taya wished she had longer to think – to convince her friends or come up with a better plan but the seconds were counting ticking by and they didn't know how long they had left. She finished her job.
"They're open," she said, "We've got sixty seconds,"
"Let's move,"
They ran.
"Okay." Taya whispered to herself, dragging her sleeve across her eyes and standing up quickly. I am not going to stay in here, crying and helpless, she told herself resolutely. I'm going to get up and get out.
She looked around the room, looking for an escape. So. No window.
The door then. They had definitely locked it behind them but she tried the handle, just in case. It didn't move. Could she kick it down? Probably not: it was a big heavy door that opened in on the room and if she injured herself she wouldn't be able to get very far. Besides, if she started battering on the door, it wouldn't be long before someone heard and came to investigate. So how could she get out of her prison? And then what? How was she going to get out of this place – whatever, it was? Taya shook herself. Mind on the job, she thought. Focusing on one step at a time helped her keep down her anxiety.
Leaning in to get a better look, Taya examined the lock. It looked like a standard enough lock with a largish keyhole, like you'd find on any door, but she had nothing to pick it with. Taya cursed that she never wore hair pins or slides. Jessie had always seemed to have one at the ready, but then she'd always had perfect hair - neatly styled in a variety of ways - whereas sticking it in a pony-tail and leaving it to get messy before tying it back up again was more Taya's style. She had nothing in her pockets either, not even a pen. She made a silent promise to herself that, granted she got out of there, she would never go anywhere without a pin or else a proper lock-picking kit. She turned back to the roomed, scanning her eyes around in search of anything useful. Nothing. She went to the metal storage cabinet and pulled open the door. It was empty apart from a screwdriver and a couple of nails sitting on the top shelf. Evidently, efforts to pack the place up had been abandoned part way through.
Taya picked up the screwdriver and the nails and examined them thoughtfully. The screwdriver was much too big to fit into the lock but could one of the nails be any good? Well, it was worth a try.
Taya knelt in front of the door, bringing the lock to eye level. She tried poking one of the nails into the key-hole. It fit but only just. Taya took it out again, frowning. The nail hadn't gone in as far as she thought it would. She looked closer at the keyhole and realised that she couldn't see through it. There must be something blocking it. The key! They must have left it in there. Taya's mind whirled with a new plan. She looked around the room, yanking open draws and looking behind the cabinet, searching for some paper or card or anything thin and flat. There was nothing: the office had been cleared of things like that a long time ago. Growling in frustration, she slammed the desk draw and turned back to the door. That was when she noticed the metal framed emergency instructions that was stuck on the door at about head height. The frame itself was too firmly stuck to the door but the safety instructions were fitted behind a thin sheet of plastic: perfect for her plan. She smiled a little at the irony that the emergency escape instructions would, in fact, help her escape. She scrabbled at the plastic but there was no room for a hold. Grabbing the screwdriver, she used the end to prise up the metal frame on one side revealing the edge of the plastic and allowing her to rip it out.
Feeling elated, Taya knelt back down. Now came the tricky bit. She hoped to hell that there was no one outside the door, or if they were that they wouldn't notice what she was about to do. But she'd know pretty soon if anyone did spot her. Feeling her heart beating wildly, Taya took a deep breath. She slid the sheet of plastic under the door directly beneath the lock, making sure it went as far through as she could allow it to without losing the end of it on her side of the door. Then she picked up the nail again and poked it back into the keyhole, slowly pushing it in against the key, making the key slip out the other side. Just as the screw had gone nearly its full length into the key hole Taya heard a clink of the key falling on to the other side. She caught her breath. She listened for a second to make sure nobody had heard anything then, praying the key had landed on the plastic, and that it wouldn't be too thick to fit through the one centimetre gap between the door and the floor, she gently pulled the plastic through an inch at a time. When she thought the plastic was nearly all the way back the steel key finally appeared through the gap sat innocently the plastic.
Taya almost cried out in joy and relief but managed to rein it in. Still the win had given her a lift and for the first time in what seemed like a long time, she felt that buzz being on a mission always gave her: a flash of adrenaline and confidence in her own abilities.
Next task though, was to get out of this place - wherever she was. But she couldn't just do that. She had no idea of the scale of Constantala's plan, or how soon she was planning to put it into action. Taya couldn't leave here in good conscience if this might be the only chance to stop the ex-model's plan.
But first to leave her prison. Key in hand, Taya leant her ear against the door, listening. She heard footsteps, quiet voices. Whether or not they had been there before, someone was on the other side of the door. Were they moving on? Or were they there to stay? She couldn't tell. Better to be safe: she cast around for a weapon and her eyes fell on the broken chair. She smiled grimly to herself.
Once the spies were inside they barely saw any guards. Which was good for them, but it also probably meant they were nowhere close to wherever Taya, Constantala or the virus were.
"How are we supposed to find Taya in this place?" Aneisha asked, keeping her voice low for fear of unwanted listeners. "We don't even know for definite she is here."
"We'll search the entire place until we either find Taya or Constantala," Dan replied stubbornly as he led the way down the corridor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dan saw Tom and Aneisha exchange an uneasy look but he ignored them. Perhaps this wasn't the best way they could have approached the rescue mission, but it was what they had now.
Tom had slowed down, peering into one of the empty rooms.
"D'you think there's an office somewhere here? Where the security feed goes to et cetera? Maybe if we find that we can have a chance at working out where what is and how many guards there are around."
Dan considered this. It didn't sound a bad idea.
"You just don't feel right without a computer in front of you," Aneisha joked.
"What can I say? I'm a tech guy," Tom replied wiggling his fingers in imitation of typing.
"Well, why don't we split up? You go look for –" Dan started but Aneisha interrupted him.
"Hold on a second, I don't think we should start splitting up –"
"Shush!" Tom hissed suddenly. Aneisha turned to him, affronted at being told to shush but Tom looked serious. "I think there's someone in there," he said pointing to a door just ahead on their left.
They all went quiet, listening.
The door burst open, making them all jump back in surprise. Dan raised his fists ready to fight but stopped short as soon as he saw who came out.
"Taya!"
She, too, had raised her hands: she was holding what looked like a metal chair leg, but had stopped on recognition. Aneisha rushed forward and pulled the bewildered looking Taya into an embrace.
"Thank god!" Aneisha said.
Dan hadn't realised how tense he'd been, probably since Taya had first gone missing, until he felt a rush of relief race through him. He sort of wanted to give Taya a hug too but now felt awkward and hung back.
"Are you okay?" he asked as Aneisha let her go. Taya looked pale and still slightly dazed at the surprise reunion but nodded.
"Mostly."
"Right, then," Tom said, cheerfully, "Stage one of the rescue mission accomplished. Now, let's get out of here."
But Taya shook her head.
"We can't. We've got to stop Constantala."
Quickly she told them what the ex-model had told her, horror rising on the spies' faces as she explained.
"We've got to stop her!" Aneisha said.
"Agreed," Dan said firmly. He narrowed his eyes, thinking. "We'd better split up. Tom and Neish, you go that way." He locked eyes with Tom. "The cameras? See if you can find the control room. We'll go this way," he said to Taya, "get that virus".
The others nodded.
"Let's go," said Dan.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Its a bit longer (that may or may not be good I don't know) - that's just the way it worked out.
So, I always saw myself as the martial arts type person – like Dan or something but now I realise that Tom "again with the running" "please tell me you didn't forget the biscuits" Tupper is me ;)
Please review if you can as I really love to hear comments and feedback however long or short! (Thanks again to J.4.5.M.1.N.3 (Jasmine) for your reviews!)