A short time later, Clover was standing on the station platform, keeping an eye out for Daphne. The train had arrived just a few minutes ago, but the wave of passengers coming on and off made it difficult for Clover to spot her sister anywhere.
"Oh come on, Daph, where are you?" muttered Clover, who was beginning to think that Jerry had woohped her to the wrong station.
Suddenly, a pair of hands covered her eyes, making her jump a little and a familiar voice cheekily said, "You called, madam?"
Clover spun around to see Daphne standing behind her with a wide grin like a Cheshire cat.
"Sis, what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?" laughed Clover.
Daphne chuckled and pulled her sister into a big hug. "Hey Clove, long time no see, huh?"
"Way too long, Daph," smiled Clover. "It's been simply ages since I last saw you."
"Oh, tell me about it," said Daphne. "I've been meaning to come down for months, but what with so many photo shoots to attend and making sure Trev stays out of mischief, arranging to get some time off has been a total nightmare!"
Daphne brushed a strand of her long, strawberry blonde hair out of her face. Despite the fact that there was an age difference of five years between the two sisters, with Clover being the youngest, nowadays Daphne and Clover looked virtually identical to each other. The most obvious difference between them was that Daphne had her hair styled differently to her mum and sister's coif looks, preferring to go instead for a more shoulder-length style.
"I was so thrilled when the agency said they could book me for the fashion show down here," Daphne continued. "I've been dying to come down here to see you and meet your roomies. It's kinda weird that I haven't gotten acquainted with them before now."
"Yeah, I'm sorry they couldn't be here to meet you," said Clover. "They, err, got some last-minute extra-credit work that they wanted to get out of the way first."
"Boy, that's tough," said Daphne. "Never mind, I guess this means we can have a bit of quality sister time first, before we meet up with them. After being cooped up in that clammy train for the last three hours, you know what I want to do most now?"
"I think I can guess," grinned Clover, before they both exclaimed:
"Shopping!"
"Ouch! Alex, watch where you're putting your heels!" groused Sam as she rubbed her aching side.
"Sorry Sam, I was just trying to shift around to get a bit more legroom," said Alex apologetically as she moved about a bit in the small wooden crate that the two spies had concealed themselves in.
Through a slot opening in the side of the crate, the two spies had a good view of the interior of the ACME warehouse, which was crammed full of other crates and boxes. In the centre of the room stood Kate Maloney, who was currently holding a briefcase that contained the ransom money for the release of Jon Baker. Maloney looked at her watch as a bead of sweat appeared on her nervous brow. She had been fully briefed on the plan, which was to carry out the exchange as arranged, whereupon the spies would leap out and nab the bad guys before they had a chance to escape. Nevertheless, she was worried about what would happen to her client should the plan fail to work.
"Maybe it's just as well Clover couldn't make it," grumbled Alex. "The three of us would never be able to fit in this small crate!"
"Shh! Keep your voice down, Alex!" whispered Sam urgently. "The kidnappers are arriving."
Through the peephole, Sam could see the metal warehouse door slide open, whereupon an aristocratic-looking black Rolls Royce drove in and pulled over near to Ms Maloney. The drivers' door opened and a well-dressed man wearing a black suit and bowler hat stepped out, the top half of his face hidden by a black eye mask to conceal his identity.
"Good evening, Ms Maloney," said the man as he doffed his hat to her. "I do hope you will forgive these over the top theatrics, but one can never be too careful, you know. I trust you have the money all prepared for the completion of the transaction?"
"Of course," said Maloney frostily, as she opened the briefcase and held it up for the man to see. The disguised man came over and spent a few minutes examining the money inside, making sure that it was all quite genuine inside.
"Splendid," said the man, satisfied that there was no counterfeit money included in the ransom. "I'm glad you've decided to uphold your end of the bargain, just as we will."
As he took the case from Ms Maloney, another masked man, similarly dressed in a suit and bowler hat, got out of the car along with a blindfolded Jon Baker, who did not look any the worse for his ordeal.
"Hey, is this it then?" asked Baker. "I'm free now?"
"Indeed you are sir," said the second masked man, as he removed Baker's blindfold. "Now if you and the young lady would care to leave as quickly as possible, it's just that we do have other clients to attend to."
Surprisingly, Baker seemed disappointed by being released. "Oh, okay guys. Thanks for the caviar and everything."
"Our pleasure, sir. Good luck with the filming for your new film," said the first man as Maloney grabbed Baker's hand and bundled him out as quickly as possible through the front door and to the limo that was waiting to take him back to his mansion.
"My word, Perkins, Lord Ransom will be quite pleased with this payment," said the first man. "No fuss, no shenanigans."
"Indeed Jarvis," said the second man with a hint of pride in his voice. "Though I was certain that Ms Maloney would try to lay a trap for us."
"And you were right!" called out a voice from behind them. The two men whirled around in time to see Sam and Alex leap out of the crate they were hiding in and move into a fighting stance.
"Okay fellas, your celeb snatching days are officially over!" said Sam defiantly.
"By Jove, you were correct, Perkins! Most fortunate we took all those self-defence classes during our lunch breaks!" exclaimed Jarvis as he and Perkins moved into a combat stance of their own. The two men charged at the girls, delivering various kicks and punches that the girls easily avoided.
"Hey, didn't anyone teach you it's not nice to hit a lady!" cried Alex as she deflected a blow by Perkins with her arm.
"Terribly sorry Miss, but all's fair in love and war!" said Perkins, as he suddenly swung his foot out and tripped Alex over onto the floor. Perkins then leapt up into the air to deliver a knee drop attack, but Alex quickly rolled out of the way and Perkins' knees instead impacted with hard concrete ground instead!
"Yeow! Most painful!" cried Perkins as he rubbed his bruised kneecaps. Before he even had a chance to recover, Alex grabbed him and threw him into a pile of crates, leaving him utterly dazed!
Jarvis, meanwhile, had pinned Sam against the warehouse wall, but she quickly managed to duck under his feet, grab his leg and toss him right on top of Perkins, tearing off a piece of his jacket in the process.
"Nice try, mister! But you should have just surrendered while you had the chance!" said Sam.
"I say, this is a bit of a predicament!" exclaimed Jarvis as he fiddled with his cuffs. "Just as well I have these gas bomb cufflinks with me!"
Before the spies could stop him, Jarvis pulled off his cufflinks and threw them at the girls' feet. There was a loud bang and smoke suddenly billowed out, engulfing the whole room!
"Hey, no fair!" complained Alex.
"Alex, quick! Grab them before they make a break for it!" yelled Sam.
The two spies leapt forward and landed on top of the broken pile of crates that the two kidnappers had crashed into. But the smoke was now really thick and near impossible to see through.
"Ah, got you!" cried Alex as she spotted a figure through the smoke, before tackling them to the ground!
"Ow! Alex, stop! It's me you're attacking!" snapped Sam irately.
"Oops! Sorry, Sammy," said Alex sheepishly. As the girls got hastily to their feet, they heard the sound of the Rolls Royce engine starting up. A pair of bright headlights abruptly lit up through the thick smoke and suddenly started to veer right towards them!
"Alex, look out!" yelled Sam as she flung herself at her friend and knocked her out of the path of the car that almost ran them both down! As they tried to gather their wits, they could hear the car speeding through the still-open garage door and away down the streets.
"Oh man, what a bust! While we were tackling each other, they made off with the ransom money," moaned Alex as she and Sam got to their feet and tried to find their way through the slowly clearing smoke to the exit.
"Yeah, I can't believe we let them get the drop on us like that," groused Sam in agreement, before spotting the torn-off piece of jacket that had fallen to the floor during the fight.
"Still, we did manage to get this expensive-looking piece of fabric and we also heard what their names were," she continued, trying to focus on the positive side of things. "Maybe Jerry can help track them down for us."
She opened her compowder and Jerry's face appeared on the holographic display before her.
"Ah, how's the mission going, girls?" he asked.
"Not so well, Jerr," admitted Alex awkwardly. "Jon Baker was released okay, but the kidnappers used some smoke bombs to make a quick getaway when we tried to catch them."
"We did manage to get their names though, Jerry," added Sam, "and we also got a piece of the jacket that one of them was wearing. Could you get the fabric analysed and then cross-reference with the names Jarvis and Perkins?"
"Well, it's not much to go on girls," said Jerry, "but I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, you two better get back to campus."
"Thanks, Jerry," said Sam before she closed the compowder. "Okay Alex, time to head home and meet up with Clover and her sister."
"Good gracious, that sounded quite a close call," remarked Lord Ransom's voice over the car radio as Jarvis finished briefing his employer about what had happened. "Still, you two did manage to get the better of those two law enforcement agents and secure our payment. Well done! I'm proud of you both."
"Thank you, your lordship," replied Jarvis in his customary well-spoken voice, keeping his eyes firmly on the road as he continued driving. "Do you require us to return to the manor now?"
"Not just yet, Jarvis," came Ransom's voice over the speaker. "There's a potential new client that's just arrived in Malibu. I want you to pick her up first before heading back. She is none other than the famous fashion model Daphne Starr."