Blue's Revenge (6 page)

The lounge room filled with a blue flickering glow as the video played again. Always the same beginning and, no matter how many times Max watched, always the same end. The wedding, the laughter, the smiles, followed by the helicopter, the thick wall of smoke and her mother's disappearance.

She scanned the screen for any clue that would tell her who did it. The sight of a face, the calling out of a name. There had to be something, anything that would help her find her mum.

Max came to the part where her mother joined Aidan at the altar. She looked so happy and confident. Like she was untouchable. That was the thing about her mother. She was so brave and outspoken that Max had thought those things would always keep her safe. Even after her parents' divorce when her mother was so sad, she still looked strong. It never seemed possible that anything bad could ever happen to her.

Max heard the first sounds of the helicopter as it approached the church, followed soon after by the chaos of screaming and scrambling guests. Finally the image tilted as the camera was dropped and, lying face up, recorded the glass-cutter doing its job. Feet jumped over the camera and knocked into it as the plumes of smoke filled
the room, until one sharp kick sent the image black.

Again the same ending, and again her mother had disappeared.

Max flinched as a gentle knock landed on the lounge room door.

Ben entered carrying a tray with cheese on toast, two cups and a pot of tea.

Max wiped her pyjama sleeves against her reddened eyes and tried to smile but it came out more as a grimace.

‘Whenever things go wrong at the farm, Eleanor and I have this rule that we sit down and have a cup of tea and cheese on toast before we do anything. Not sure what it is, but afterwards even the really bad stuff feels better. Just between you and me, I think it's the sitting with Eleanor that does it.'

Ben hadn't been able to talk to Max all afternoon and she knew his effort to be cheerful now was all for her.

‘Thanks, but I don't think I can eat anything.'

Ben looked down at the toast and steaming tea. ‘You know what? Neither can I.' He pushed the tray across the coffee table. ‘Maybe we'll just do the sitting part.'

Neither of them knew what to say next, but
after seconds had passed in silence, Max couldn't stand it. ‘When are we going to hear from Steinberger and Harrison? It's been ages and we haven't heard anything.'

‘They'll contact us as soon as they can.' Ben smiled. ‘They're Spyforce, remember? They're the best.'

‘But what if something's happening to her? What if she's being hurt? What if …'

Max stopped, afraid of what the real answers might be. She'd been finding it hard to stop her brain from imagining all sorts of terrible situations for her mother.

‘Max,' Ben said sadly, his hands squeezed in front of him, ‘I'm so sorry about today. I've been going over and over what happened and I should have saved your mum. I was standing right there and I …'

Ben pressed his lips together tightly. Max had never seen him so sad.

‘It's all my fault, Max.' His words were like sharp spikes digging into him.

‘Uncle Ben.' Max stared into his eyes. ‘That's not true.'

‘But I should have –'

Max interrupted. ‘I've watched this video again
and again and as much as I don't want to admit it, you and I couldn't have done anything. Not with the way it happened. But the thing is, it doesn't make me feel any better. I just want her back.'

Ben's strong arms pulled Max into a warm hug. ‘Me too.'

Max held onto her uncle like she was falling and holding onto him was the only thing stopping her from crashing to the ground.

Linden and Eleanor poked their heads in from the hallway.

‘Can we come in?'

‘Yes,' Max snuffled. ‘I'd like that.'

Linden noticed the tray. ‘Don't blame you for not wanting that. When it comes to cheese on toast, Ben needs a few lessons.'

‘I didn't know it was such an art.' Ben raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, it is.' Linden replied importantly. ‘And only a few of us ever really master it.'

Ben slugged Linden with a pillow and Max smiled as it landed on his head. Linden was about to retaliate when they heard a small beeping noise come from Eleanor's pocket. She pulled out her palm computer and switched it on.

‘It's Steinberger.'

The now-familiar feeling of panic barged its way into Max's chest.

‘Hello, all. How are you?' Steinberger's face appeared on a direct link from Spyforce HQ in London.

‘Better,' Eleanor replied for them. ‘We're eager to hear what you've learnt.'

‘Yes, of course you are. We are very close to discovering the identities of the kidnappers, but I'm afraid until we have conclusive proof we can't say any more.' He saw Max's face fall. ‘Sorry, Max, but we do have something else.'

Steinberger's face was replaced by the image of a newsreader. She sat beside a background picture of Mr Blue with a caption beneath that said, ‘Tragic Death'.

Eleanor turned up the volume as the others huddled around the computer.

‘… Prison wardens say they aren't sure how the fire started, but a full investigation into the tragedy will be launched immediately. This report from Jack Keenan.'

A suited and windswept journalist appeared on the screen. ‘This is Blacksea Penitentiary, where a little after noon today a fire broke out in the cafeteria as the prisoners were sitting down to lunch.
Wardens immediately began fire drill procedures, rounding up the men and quickly escorting them to assembly areas. But it was the heroism of one man that attracted the attention of the guards.'

A prison guard with his shirt and tie undone and his face and hair wiped through with soot spoke next.

‘It has to be the bravest thing I've ever seen. He kept going back into the burning building and carrying men out over his shoulders.' The guard wiped his eyes. ‘The last time he went in, he never came out. I'll never forget it as long as I live.'

Linden watched the screen, as mystified as the others about Blue's supposed heroics. ‘What's going on? Blue wouldn't save his own grandmother from a fire.'

The reporter then went on to describe Blue's achievements and successes. Ben sniffed at the mention of Blue's great work at the Department of Science and New Technologies.

Max listened to the tributes and awards as well as praise for his work with charities and animal conservation.

‘I guess they're not going to mention the bit about why he was in prison,' Linden scoffed.

The report finished with mourners placing
flowers outside a white, nondescript Georgian flat in London, supposedly Blue's house, which was fringed with brightly coloured window boxes and had the appearance of no megalomaniac ever having lived there.

Linden spoke up as Steinberger reappeared on the screen. ‘Is he really dead?'

‘It does appear so.' He seemed as perplexed as they were.

‘I'm not sure about you, Steinby, but there's something about this brave death I don't buy,' Ben snarled.

‘We've been in contact with the Blacksea wardens, who have told us the fire happened exactly as the news reported. They've confirmed that Blue died and his body is lying in their morgue.'

Ben, Eleanor, Max and Linden all knew what they'd seen and heard but they also knew that when it came to how Blue operated, what you saw was rarely what you got, and they weren't quite ready to believe the story just yet.

Max slowly pulled the blanket higher under her chin and sank lower into the soft cushions of the lounge. As the news of Blue's death circled in her head, she could think of only one thing.

‘If Blue is dead, who kidnapped my mother?'

As the burnt orange light of sunset faded and the street lights flickered into life, Quimby turned her small red hatchback into her quiet leafy street and sighed. It had been a long day. She loved her work as Spyforce inventor but this was the part of the day she loved most. Driving home and seeing Millie, her cat, parading along the windowsill like she was a model on a Paris catwalk.

‘You scamp,' Quimby whispered affectionately as she pulled up in front of her house.

She walked up the stairs and tapped on the window beside the door. ‘Hello there. Doing a bit of styling for me then?'

Millie mewed and rubbed her body into the white curtains so her fur became a ruffled mess.

Quimby pushed her dark, tumbling hair out of her eyes, trying to tuck it under her bright red scarf with one hand, while fumbling through her bag for her keys with the other. ‘I've got a surprise for you,' she said excitedly to Millie. ‘One that's going to make you love me even more.'

She found her keys beneath a muddle of papers, mints, Plantorium lip balm and various wires, diodes and transistors, but as she put her key in the door, a bullet splintered into the wooden frame near her hand.

Millie leapt from the windowsill out of view as Quimby stopped still, the smell of burning wood and hot metal itching her nose. She gulped short sharp breaths as her hand sat frozen on the key. She tried to make it move so she could get inside as another shot was fired and whistled towards her. Quimby ducked as a bullet drove a hole all the way through her front door.

This time her hand worked quickly. Turning the key, she opened the door and slipped into the hallway, crouching down just before another bullet shot past and lodged firmly in the wood of her fourth stair.

Keeping low, Quimby kicked the door shut and crawled into the lounge room beneath the window. She rose slowly upwards, hiding behind the curtain, inching her way into a position where she could just see the street.

It was then she saw him. A man in black leather sitting on a motorbike. He was staring straight at her. He revved the bike twice before it screamed into life and tore down the street in a black blur.

Quimby slid back to the floor, her heart beating so hard it hurt. She flinched when she felt Millie's fur against her limp hand.

‘Millie, darling,' she breathed in relief.

She lifted the frightened cat into her arms. Millie mewed again and snuggled into Quimby's embrace.

‘It's okay,' she said in a quivering whisper as she stroked Millie's head. ‘It's over now.'

 

Professor Plomb, the Spyforce explosions expert who had a terrible fear of loud noises, adjusted his ear muffs and walked into the supermarket carpark, weaving carefully through the aisles of cars. Two kids behind him pointed and laughed at his unusual ear-wear, but he didn't hear any of it.

As he approached his car, he deactivated the alarm with a wheep wheep he also didn't hear. Fumbling with his keys, he dropped them into a small puddle.

‘Oh, blast.'

He picked them up and shook them out, before spotting his car parked a few spaces away. He smiled. He was almost there. But as he started walking towards it, the car exploded into a fiery ball, sending pieces of metal, leather and plastic high into the air.

Plomb dropped to the ground, clutching his bag of shopping. Screaming parents covered their
children and scuttled them back towards the supermarket or into cars before driving quickly away. Security guards seemed to emerge from nowhere to direct shoppers away from the explosion site, speaking hurriedly into their two-way radios as hundreds of car alarms went off at once.

Plomb lay where he was, moving each limb slightly to check he was okay. He looked up to see his wrecked car scattered throughout the carpark in broken, melting pieces, on bonnets and roofs of cars and on the blackened asphalt all around him.

Apart from a bump to the forehead and a painful elbow which had taken the brunt of his fall, he was okay. Plomb quietly stood up, tucked his squashed shopping beneath his arm and hurriedly walked away from the scene of the explosive attack.

 

Steinberger climbed the stairs to the entrance of his apartment building. He stopped in front of the double layer of letterboxes and, taking out a small gold key, opened the padlock and collected his mail. There were flyers for plumbing and carpet cleaning companies and several bills, but one letter looked interesting. It was addressed to Mr R.L. Steinberger, Esquire. He liked that.
‘Esquire.' It made him sound important, perhaps even a little noble. It was an embossed envelope with a sweeping royal blue script.

He tucked the envelopes and fliers under his arm and climbed the rest of the stairs to his humble sixth-floor apartment. The twinkling lights of the evening filled his bay window and, after switching on the light and tossing the mail on a sideboard, he walked over to his two potted plants by the window.

‘Hello, my lovelies.'

He leant down and, like every other night, read the tag attached to one of the pots.

 

Some of the Plantorium's finest especially for you, Love Frond

 

Steinberger's pulse quickened and he sighed happily, before moving to the kitchen to put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

He then grabbed his mail and sank into his lounge beside the plants. He opened the few bills and skimmed the flyers, leaving the embossed letter until last. When he opened it, he found a disk and a letter with one simple line:

 

Look out your window

 

Steinberger winced through a half-smile, trying to guess the meaning of the few words.

Kneeling on the lounge and craning his head out the window in puzzlement, he saw a man in a motorcycle helmet and black leather outfit standing beneath a street lamp. The man lifted a gun as if in slow motion. Steinberger frowned, trying to understand what was happening.

And then he did.

He dived into the lounge just as a piercing blast exploded above him, followed by a spray of glass and splinters of wood. He pulled a cushion over his head and jammed his face into the soft seat. The sound of shattering glass seemed to last whole minutes, as outside he heard the growling of a motorbike.

Steinberger carefully rolled off the lounge, scuttled to a different window and peeked out from behind the frame.

It was as if the man on the bike was waiting for just this moment. He gave one last roaring rev of his engine before slamming shut his helmet's visor and letting the bike loose in a screeching exit down the street.

Steinberger flinched as he blinked away a trickle of blood from his gashed forehead. He took a hanky from his jacket pocket and dabbed at his bloodied brow. It was numb, but from the amount of blood absorbed by the hanky, he'd need stitches.

He stared around his dust-and glass-sprayed room that had moments earlier been filled with the quiet of a late London evening. He stood in confusion, not knowing what to do or think, trying to work out who did this and why.

Then his mind stilled and his heart fell at what he saw next.

The fallen potted palms that lay spilled and uprooted at his feet.