Mission In Malta (12 page)

‘Please answer, Max.' Linden's voice echoed emptily around the harbour. It reverberated off the stone walls of the fort and foreshore. With his torch watch held before him and his flippers activated on his shoes, he quickly swam to the floating parachute.

‘Max?'

He'd seen no sight of his friend since the fall. Maybe telling her to activate the parachute was a mistake. Maybe it had smothered her underwater, making it impossible to breathe, impossible to find the surface, and now she was … she was …

‘Max!' Linden swam harder and faster until he reached the outskirts of the chute. He grabbed at the silky material, pulling it towards him, folding it up in his arms as his buoyancy vest kept him afloat. Finally he felt the strings of the chute. Driving one hand over the other, he pulled the strings towards him like a lifesaver pulling a swimmer from drowning waves. On the end, floating like a washed-up lifebuoy, was the limp body of Max.

‘Oh Max, please.'

He held his friend against him and blinked away the stinging in his eyes. With his free hand, he took out his pocketknife and cut away the
strings of the chute. ‘You'll be fine, Max,' he panted. ‘I promise.'

He swam with one arm wrapped around her and the other breaking through the water, tugging them both to safety.

Linden reached a metal ladder fixed to the stone wharf beneath the fort. He retracted the shoe's flippers and dragged Max out of the water, laying her carefully down on the ground.

‘Max,' he whispered and gently slapped her on the face. ‘Max?'

She didn't move.

‘I'm sorry, Max. I know you're going to hate this, but I have no choice.'

Linden positioned himself beside his spy partner. The wharf was eerily quiet apart from the gentle kissing sound of the harbour water and Linden's racing heart. He tilted her head back, pinched her nose between his fingers, slowly leant over and opened his mouth. His head moved closer and closer, moving straight for Max's opened lips. He felt a panicky, quivering jangle at his nerves. A large drop of water fell from his hair. With only millimetres between them, Max's lips got larger and larger. He opened his mouth wider, when …

‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘Giving you the “kiss of life”.' Linden pulled his head back.

‘If you come one millimetre closer, I'll give you the slap of death.'

Linden smiled. ‘You're back.'

‘Where else would I be? And move away, you're freaking me out.'

Linden straightened up. ‘Looks like you are going to be okay.'

‘Of course I'll be okay,' Max said gruffly. ‘Especially if you don't …'

Linden laughed and pushed his sodden hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall back again.

‘What's so funny. Why am I all wet?' Max rubbed her cheek. ‘And why does my face sting?'

Linden did nothing more but crouch beside her and smile. ‘Stop smiling at me, it's getting … my backpack,' she remembered. ‘My backpack failed, didn't it? But Quimby had them serviced. Someone's tampered with them. They're trying to stop us from solving this mission, and they're
not
going to win.'

Max sat up quickly and cradled her head in both hands. ‘And as soon as my head stops spinning, we'll get straight back to it.'

Linden was still quiet.

‘Don't you have anything to say?'

‘It's good to have you back,' he answered quietly.

Max squirmed in Linden's stare. ‘Right. I think my head's better now.'

The flashing light from the fort started again. Max and Linden watched as the same regular pulses of the plea for help were signalled.

‘It's coming from up there.' Max pointed to the top of the fort that sat high above the harbour.

Max and Linden hurried over to the point beneath the light.

‘It's a little higher than Straussmann's window,' Max breathed.

‘We can figure out another way in.'

‘No,' Max blurted. ‘There's no time.'

She flexed her feet before positioning them firmly apart. She looked one more time at the top of the fort and felt her head spin again. She looked quickly down and clamped her eyes tight.

‘Bend your knees when you land and the shoes will absorb most of the shock,' Linden reminded her.

Max felt his calmness float over to her on the breeze and smiled. ‘Let's go.'

The two agents bent their knees in preparation
and, with a single leap, began to ascend past the ancient layers of stone on Fort St Angelo. They flew over the towering walls before slowing and heading downwards to a courtyard in the fort's interior.

Linden landed with a cushioned bounce and a puff of dust rose around his feet. Max, however, landed with a plunging splash in an outdoor pool.

Linden turned on the torch in his watch and raced over. He held out his hand. ‘Quimby was right about finding ourselves in water during this mission.'

‘I don't see you in any water,' Max grumbled. She stepped out of the waist-high pool, which smelt as if it hadn't been cleaned since the time the fort had been built. ‘And of course it has to stink. What's a pool doing in a fort anyway?'

Linden looked at the stable-like building behind them. ‘Maybe it's where they washed the horses.'

‘Great,' Max sighed.

The fort was crumbled and rundown. Buildings around them were boarded up with planks of wood and wire mesh. There were danger signs nailed over windows and doors warning against entry and clusters of blackened and burnt out fire pits surrounded them like flattened moon craters.

‘Something tells me this place needs a spruce up.' Linden stepped over a half-burnt door lying in a cold fire pit.

‘Where do we look?' Max squinted into the darkness. ‘This place is huge.'

A pained groan sounded from the far edges of the fort.

‘Maybe over there.' Linden and Max moved carefully towards the groaning to find Straussmann crumpled against an outer wall, struggling for breath.

‘Straussmann? What is it? What's happened?' Max knelt beside the weak and wheezing man. A torch lay about a metre away, beyond his grasp.

‘I … I …' Straussmann stammered. ‘I know who it is,' he gasped.

‘Who it is, what?'

‘Who it is that's after Alfonzo,' he breathed and rocked forward, clasping his hands to his side.

‘So do we.' Max straightened. ‘You.'

Straussmann doubled over, holding his stomach in a teeth-gritting cry of pain. ‘It
was
for a while. I was offered money to kidnap Alfonzo, but even though he thinks he's so much better than everyone else with his fame and his fans and his
exclusive groups of scientists …' He took a few more gasping breaths. ‘I couldn't do it.'

‘Really?' Max's head fell in a disbelieving tilt. ‘You changed your mind?'

‘Yes.' Straussmann bent forward. ‘The people after him lied to me about what they wanted him for.'

‘It's such a shame when you can't trust criminals, isn't it?' Max sneered.

‘At first I enjoyed the idea of teaching Alfonzo a lesson and pocketing a huge sum of money I could use to continue my research, but when I discovered how far these people were prepared to go to get what they wanted, I couldn't allow myself to do it.'

‘So, what were you doing at the luncheon today?' Max accused. ‘When I thought you were aiming a cupcake gun at Alfonzo.'

‘It wasn't a cupcake gun,' Straussmann replied weakly. ‘It was a cupcake tranquilliser.'

‘So I was right. Sort of.' She frowned. ‘But Linden checked it.'

Straussmann smiled. ‘The one I gave Linden was a fake, the real tranquilliser cupcake was squashed in my jacket pocket.'

‘But why would you want to tranquillise Alfonzo in such a public place when you would
have had a million chances to do it somewhere more discreet?' Linden asked.

‘I wasn't after Alfonzo. I was after someone who … aaah.' Straussmann grabbed at his stomach.

‘Who?' Linden asked.

Straussmann grunted. His face creased in pain. ‘Someone who's after Alfonzo.'

‘And you expect us to believe you?' Max folded her arms across her chest as Straussmann opened his coat to reveal a small bloodstain across his shirt. Max's face turned the colour of an old sport sock.

‘I guess we have to,' Linden decided. ‘Who did this to you?'

‘The same person who is after Alfonzo.'

‘And who is that?' Max asked.

‘You must act quickly.' The last of his strength was fading fast. ‘They're coming for Alfonzo tomorrow.'

‘Who? Who's coming?' Max cried.

‘It's … it's …'

Straussmann's head collapsed backwards and fell to the side. His whitened face became grey, his body limp and unmoving.

‘Straussmann?' Max tried to shake him back to consciousness.

Linden put his ear against the collapsed man's chest. ‘His heart's really weak.'

‘It still doesn't mean he's innocent.'

‘No,' Linden opened Straussmann's shirt, ‘but maybe this does.'

Max leant in and saw a large, plump leech clinging to his stomach next to the wound. It wobbled sleepily for a few seconds before falling to the ground.

‘I think I may have to pass out too.'

Linden lifted his watch. ‘I'll call Stefan to come and get us.'

‘Tell him not to bring the horse.' Max slumped. ‘I don't think my stomach could handle it.'

Linden contacted Stefan, who answered immediately that he was on his way.

Max concentrated on taking deep breaths and not thinking about the leech. ‘So we're looking for someone else. Possibly another leech expert who was at the luncheon today.'

‘Seems like it,' Linden nodded.

Max shivered from the cool of the night air against her waterlogged body and the thought of what had happened to Straussmann.

And that there was someone else out there who was after Alfonzo.

‘Have we been wrong all this time?' Max's face moulded into a pool of disappointment.

‘We went after the man we thought was the culprit. Who was for a while,' Linden reasoned gently. ‘That's what we're supposed to do.'

‘But we're not supposed to get it wrong.'

Max remained slumped at the top of the fort, surrounded by the ruins of her speculations. She lifted her head towards the collapsed body of Straussmann. Her skin tightened with goose bumps.

‘But Alfonzo said one leech bite couldn't kill you.'

‘No,' Linden frowned, ‘ordinarily it can't.'

He took a hanky from his pocket and used it to carefully wrap up the leech. ‘Maybe this isn't your ordinary leech.'

‘He was poisoned.'

The doctor gently closed the door of her examination room and sat beside Max, Linden and Stefan.

‘Someone poisoned a leech?' Max's brow creased.

‘Not the leech. Mr Straussmann.'

When Stefan arrived after Linden's call, he had taken Max, Linden and Straussmann to a friend of his who was a doctor and was waiting for them at her surgery, not far from Fort St Angelo.

‘All his symptoms indicate he has been poisoned by the weever fish.'

‘The what fish?' Max sat forward.

‘The weever fish. I've yet to run tests but I am almost certain. It's very common in Mediterranean waters.'

‘Ow!' Stefan went to stand up but clasped a hand onto his back and groaned before sitting back down.

‘Are you okay, Stefan?' Dr Victoria pushed her long, thick hair over her shoulders.

‘A bit of back strain,' Stefan wheezed. ‘I think I got it when I picked up your patient, but don't worry about me, I'll be all right.'

‘Are you sure?' The doctor placed a gentle hand on Stefan's knee. ‘Because I could …'

‘But Straussmann wasn't in the sea when we found him,' Max interrupted. ‘He was in one of the courtyards of the fort.'

‘Yes, I know, but he didn't receive the poison from being in water. Near where the leech had attached itself to Mr Straussmann's body was a small dart, which seems to have been injected with concentrated poison from the weever fish. From the depth that the dart had penetrated the skin, my guess is that it was fired from quite a distance and would have put Mr Straussmann in immediate and severe pain.'

‘So what was the leech about?' Linden asked.

‘Perhaps he thought it could help to suck out the poison,' Dr Victoria guessed.

‘Okay, now I know he's really weird.' Max had on her sucked-lemon face. ‘He carries emergency leeches around with him.'

‘Dr Victoria,' Linden spoke quietly, ‘will Mr Straussmann be okay?'

‘It is rare to die from a weever fish sting. The pain must have been very bad when you found him and eventually caused him to lose consciousness. I've flushed out the wound and need to continually
wash it with hot water. The heat deactivates the poison,' she explained. ‘He'll need a few hours sleep, but he'll be okay. I'd better go back in and check on him.'

‘So we can't talk to him?' Max stood up, eager to hear the end of Straussmann's confession.

‘Not yet. I'll call you when he's regained consciousness and is able to speak.' She smiled. ‘He's very lucky you found him.'

‘Lucky?' Max blurted. ‘He's lucky I didn't –'

‘Thank you, Dr Victoria,' Linden cut Max off before she made any threats the doctor may not take kindly to.

‘You're welcome.' She walked back into the examination room.

‘So why would someone want to poison Straussmann, but not kill him?' Linden asked.

‘A warning maybe?' Max guessed. ‘Telling Straussmann that this time he's only in pain, but next time it'll be for real.'

‘Clever, very clever,' Stefan pointed animatedly at Linden. ‘I am really working with the best.' He flung his hands out before him and slipped into overacting mode. ‘Oh, are these yet two bright stars shining before me?'

‘Not sure about the shining bit,' Max muttered.
‘One of these stars is actually a little soggy,' she sniffed her sleeve, ‘and smelly, and she'd like to go back to the hotel and change.'

‘And if Straussmann is right and Alfonzo is to be kidnapped today,' Linden added, ‘we're going to have to be with him every second and make sure it doesn't happen.'

It was almost daybreak when Stefan delivered Max and Linden back to the hotel. The jostled journey through potholes, fast-cornered turns and the occasional jumping of roundabout humps threw its passengers from side to side in the back of Stefan's beaten-up car, keeping an exhausted Max wide-eyed and introducing her to a brand new taste of panic.

‘Did I say the car was better than the horse?' she gasped.

‘I tried to be as quick as I could.' Stefan turned round and smiled as if he'd just won the Grand Prix.

‘I noticed.' Max dragged her jellied legs out of the car as a hubcap fell from one of the wheels with a metallic clunk.

Stefan poked his head out his window. ‘Throw him in the back, I'll fix him later.'

Linden slipped the hubcap through the plastic
cover of the backdoor window and waved Stefan off. They wearily climbed the stairs of the hotel but, before going to their room, Max suggested that they check on Alfonzo.

After passing the usual security guards posted outside his door, Max and Linden entered Alfonzo's room and saw the leech expert, who was huddled on the lounge in a stoop of sadness.

‘Alfonzo?' Max moved closer.

There was a small sniff and a soft nose-blowing.

‘Are you okay? What's wrong?'

‘Edgar is gone.'

‘Gone?' Linden asked.

‘Someone has taken him.'

‘I don't mean to be nasty, Alfonzo, but why would someone want to kidnap a leech?' Max asked.

‘It isn't just Edgar. They're all gone. Every one of them.' This threw Alfonzo into renewed shuddering and sniffling.

‘What happened?' Max sat beside him.

‘There was no time to bring Edgar back to the hotel between my first lecture and the luncheon, so he stayed at the centre, watched over by several guards. But it seems the sprinkler system had been tampered with and was activated, releasing a
sleeping gas that knocked out the guards, allowing all my beautiful leeches to be … kidnapped.'

Linden watched another tear fall down Alfonzo's face and reached for a box of tissues. ‘I'm sorry, Alfonzo. I know you and Edgar were close.'

‘Thank you.' He blew. ‘Sometimes life is … sometimes we have to …' But he couldn't go on.

Alfonzo stood up and walked over to an open suitcase that was laid out on his bed, packed with folded clothes.

‘What are you doing?' Max asked.

‘I'm leaving,' he said quietly.

‘Leaving?' Max threw him an are-you-mad look. ‘But you can't just leave. We have to find out who kidnapped your leeches and get them back. Leeches are your life. You can't walk out on them now.'

Alfonzo stopped packing. ‘It's true, but I have to leave. I have urgent business. I've spoken to the conference organisers and they've been very understanding about my early departure.'

‘Where's your urgent business?' Max stood up and stepped closer.

‘In …' There was a slight pause. ‘In Brussels.' Alfonzo turned away from Max's unflinching gaze and finished packing. He closed his case, pressed
down hard on the locks and buckled the leather straps.

‘And after that, I have other urgent business I need to attend at home.'

‘That's a lot of urgent business.' Max crossed her arms.

‘Yes,' Alfonzo answered.

Max swapped a confused look with Linden.

Alfonzo picked up his case and rested it by the door. He turned and stood before them. A glint of early morning sun poked over Fort St. Angelo, filling the room.

‘So your mission is over.' Alfonzo smiled a difficult smile. ‘You no longer have to protect me, and with your aversion to my little wormy darlings, this should please you very much, Max.'

‘They didn't bother me.' Max shook her head slowly. ‘And after a while I may have even grown used to them.'

Linden redirected his confused stare to Max.

‘I would have.' She flicked her head defensively.

Alfonzo held out his hand. ‘Thank you. I'm sorry you had to make the long trip. I appreciate everything you have done for me, but I'll be safe now. You and Harrison have nothing to fear.'

This last word gained a harder edge, and Alfonzo's face snagged with a pained expression.

Max stared into his grey-blue eyes. ‘It was really nice to meet you, Alfonzo.' She moved slowly forward and slipped her arms around his waist. Linden pursed his lips and smiled. Max wasn't normally the hugging type.

Alfonzo hugged her briefly before pulling away. He walked to the door, picked up his bag and left.

‘He's a lousy liar,' Max shook her head.

‘I don't think I've seen anyone who's worse,' Linden frowned.

‘He knows more than he's saying.'

‘How long do we wait before we follow?'

Max took the Time and Space Machine from her belt. ‘As soon as I get a reading on where he is.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘I slipped the Tracer Bug into his pocket when I hugged him.'

‘When did you get hold of the Bug?'

‘While Alfonzo was packing. It was in the side pocket of my backpack for easy access.'

Linden flashed Max a toothy grin. ‘Good thinking, 99.'

‘Thank you.' Max turned back to the screen of
her machine but felt Linden's stare lingering on her. ‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

Linden's smile didn't go away and was freaking Max out.

‘Will you stop smiling at me?'

Linden didn't have much success trying to smother his smile. ‘Sorry, boss.'

‘And don't call me boss.'

Max looked at the screen of the Time and Space Machine. ‘I hope it still works after all the water I've been in lately.'

The image of the earth appeared before them. It quickly zoomed in on Europe, then Malta, then Valletta. And finally the place where they'd find Alfonzo.

‘Perfect. He's outside the hotel but moving away fast.' Max looked up. ‘Let's go.'

‘I think we should call Stefan.'

‘There's no time, Linden.' Max headed for the door.

‘What if something goes wrong? Like it did with your pack?'

‘What if we waste time and something happens to Alfonzo?'

Linden reluctantly agreed and the two spies
hurried out of the hotel. With the early morning church bells swooping around them, calling people to Mass, they ran into the street, winding their way down the steep incline of the city towards the sea. Max checked the Time and Space machine again.

‘He's close. Come on.'

When they reached the roadside above the rocky harbour shore called St Lazarus Curtain, Max and Linden hid behind a small stone wall.

The bright orange light from the sun tinged the rocky inlet. There were a few buildings huddled together, clinging to the incline; their verandas were perched high over the water and were scattered with chairs, offering a perfect view of the city's breakwater.

And a kidnapping.

‘There he is.' Linden pointed to Alfonzo. He was standing on sea-washed rocks, a speedboat with its engine idling moored beside him. Alfonzo almost slipped as he stepped away from a splashing wave. He regained his footing and pulled his suitcase close to his chest.

One man stood at the wheel of the boat. He yelled something into the air just as another man appeared from behind Alfonzo.

‘Does that man on the rocks seem familiar to you? The one next to Alfonzo?'

Linden looked closely. ‘I don't think so.'

‘I've seen him before. Here in Malta. I just can't work out where.'

He grabbed Alfonzo roughly by the arm and pushed him towards the boat. Alfonzo's feet and leather shoes struggled to manoeuvre over the wet rocks. The man in the boat began to wave his arms. His colleague on the rocks yelled back before grabbing Alfonzo's case and pushing him forward. Alfonzo flung his hands out and only just managed to grab hold of a ladder attached to the side of the heaving vessel. He climbed in unsteadily and, when he reached the top, fell forward and landed heavily on the floor of the boat. When he picked himself up, one of the lenses in his glasses was broken.

He ducked as his suitcase was hurled into the boat, and the second man climbed inside.

‘They're going to take him out of the country in a speed boat?' Max watched as the two men began arguing again. ‘But the next closest country is Sicily, and that's over a hundred kilometres away.'

‘It's a good way not to be spotted, I guess.'

Linden's mind trawled through their rescue options. ‘We need some way of following them.
There's a helicopter pad not far from here or we could get our hands on a boat or –'

Before Linden could say anything more, the spies were plunged into the darkness of two fish-smelling sacks.

‘Hey, what do you think you're doing?' Max's feet were swooped out from under her, and she thumped onto the hard pavement. ‘Ouch!'

She kicked at the canvas bag, making contact with the limbs of her captor, and smiled when she heard a pained groan. The last glimpse of light at her feet was extinguished as a drawstring was yanked tight. She was heaved onto a broad and muscled shoulder.

‘Put me down. Where are you taking us? Let me go, now!' She writhed and punched.

Max received no answer except the deep chuckles of their captors. She was jiggled painfully as her captor began to run.

‘Take it easy, will you? There's a human in here, remember?'

The jolting ended as Max landed heavily onto a hard, ribbed surface. She heard the thud of Linden as he fell beside her. The ground vibrated beneath them as an engine spluttered to life. Gears changed and Max and Linden were driven away.

The two bagged spies slid into each other as the vehicle sped into one sharp bend after another.

‘It's true. Everyone does drive badly in this country.' Max slammed into Linden again.

‘He must be related to Stefan. Ow!' Linden's head whacked into the side of the truck.

‘Are you okay?'

‘I've had smoother rides. I'll try and reach for my pocketknife and cut us free.'

Before Linden could carry out his plan, the truck came to a gear-crunching stop, sending the two spies into a squashed, not-so-cosy lump. Doors creaked open, and once again Max and Linden were hoisted onto muscled shoulders.