On The Ball (6 page)

EJ, KM, CC and Blackie were in the camp office with A1, BRK9 and IQ400. IQ400 had been looking at Blackie's collar.

‘It's clever, very clever,' she said. ‘This may look like our standard-issue dog-tag, but it's anything but standard. Behind the
SHINE
logo, Caterina has hidden a device that can not only receive and process light flashes as Morse code, it can also then convert that Morse code into simple voice commands. The same simple voice commands that Blackie has been trained to obey. Listen.' IQ400
pushed a button inside the tag.

‘Blackie, Fetch Box'. It was Caterina's voice again.

EJ shuddered. ‘I thought Caterina was in
SHINE
prison, A1?'

‘She was until a month ago,' explained A1. ‘She managed to escape and then she disappeared. We couldn't find her anywhere.'

‘But how did she find the
SHINE
camp?' asked CC. ‘You said you moved location every month.'

‘I think I know the answer to that,' said EJ. ‘The huskies we rescued from Caterina's polar plant have microchips. I bet Caterina also implanted homing devices within the chips. So when Caterina escaped, the first thing she did was locate the dogs. If she could find the dogs, she could find
SHINE.
'

‘I'd say you're right, EJ12,' said A1.

‘But what I don't understand,' said EJ, ‘is why Caterina didn't use her huskies. Why did she use Blackie?'

‘I can help there, A1,' said BRK9. ‘The huskies might be too obvious, who would suspect puppies?
As you know, we found the puppies outside the camp a month ago. We thought they had been abandoned but now I don't think that's the case. I think Caterina had already trained them and then left them for us to find.'

EJ was angry. ‘She just left the puppies? What if we hadn't found them? They would have starved.'

‘But we did find them,' said A1. ‘Unfortunately, by taking them in we also let Caterina into the camp. But one thing still puzzles me: we know that Caterina goes to the tree house but how does she call Blackie?'

EJ remembered what had happened that morning. ‘She whistles three times. That's Blackie's instruction to come first to the hole in the dog yard and then to the hole in the camp fence.'

‘How do you know that, EJ?' asked A1.

‘Because when I blew my whistle three times by mistake, Blackie went straight to the fence.'

‘Well done again, EJ,' said A1 approvingly.

‘And once Blackie is there,' continued CC, ‘Caterina uses a torch to flash the message. The
special dog-tag converts the flashes into commands for Blackie.'

‘And the command is FETCH BOX,' said EJ. ‘That must mean the charm box.'

‘Yes!' cried KM. ‘And then Blackie brings the charm box to Caterina.'

‘And last night she took the TD1000 charm box,' said A1. ‘Well done, girls.'

‘But where did she go?' asked EJ. ‘Where is Caterina now? She knows where we are but how will we find out where she is?'

‘I wonder...' said A1.

‘I'll get those fences fixed,' said IQ400.

‘No,' said A1 suddenly, ‘don't fix anything. I have a better idea. I think we will lay a little trap for Caterina.'

A trap? EJ, CC and KM suddenly brightened. They were going to set a trap for Caterina.

‘This will be an extremely difficult mission,' continued A1. ‘I wonder if we can get one of the older divisions back in time?'

‘No!' EJ cried.

‘You can't!' cried CC.

‘We can!' cried KM.

‘I beg your pardon?' said A1, clearly taken aback.

‘Sorry, A1,' said EJ. ‘I mean, we mean, we can do this. After all I've stopped Caterina once before and we did discover what she is up to. We can stop her too.'

A1 looked at her three youngest agents and smiled. ‘Well, the other agents are a long way away...'

‘Please, A1,' said EJ. ‘We can do this.'

‘Yes,' said A1, ‘I think you can. Okay then, listen carefully. Here's the plan.'

It was early the next evening. Everyone was in position. Waiting. That was the plan. They would wait for Caterina to call Blackie again. There were two charms left and she was sure to come for them. When she did,
SHINE
would be ready for her.

EJ, CC and KM would be able to follow Blackie to Caterina. EJ was just outside the dog yard. She would watch Blackie go to the fence and then decode the Morse message. They expected the same FETCH BOX command but needed to make sure. CC was on lookout near the dining hall to watch
Blackie take the charm and KM was positioned at the camp gate ready to take the lead in following Blackie. Both EJ and CC would follow behind KM. A1, BRK9 and IQ400 were in a hastily assembled mission command in the kitchen.

The girls had been fitted out with night-mission gear. Dressed in black with night goggles and head torches, they would also be able to talk to each other via spy-talkers, special ear and mouthpieces that fitted around their heads. Once activated, you simply talked as usual. The spy-talkers also had a homing device so that A1 and IQ400 could track the girls and follow them on IQ400's laptop. The girls weren't the only ones with a homing device: IQ400 had also put one into Blackie's tag. By the time Caterina realised it was there, it would be too late. EJ also had a
SHINE
special-issue, night-light pen, a pen with a torch, just what she would need for night-time code cracking. Everything was ready.

The girls were nervous. This was no longer a drill. It was real—no more teddy bears on rock ledges but Caterina Hill in a tree house, and Caterina Hill
was certainly no cute teddy bear. She would let nothing—and no one—stand in her way.

But then EJ remembered that someone had stood in Caterina's way and had stopped her evil scheme. She had.

I've beaten her before,
EJ told herself,
and I will again.
All the same, the waiting in the dark made her a bit jumpy. It would be good to get going. EJ checked her equipment: her spy-talker was in place and her whistle charm was secure in the other ear. She turned her head torch off and waited. She was ready.

Then they heard it. Three sharp whistles coming from the direction of the tree house. It was Caterina. It was time.

‘Good luck, KM and CC, ‘ whispered EJ into her spy-talker. ‘We can do this.'

‘You too,' came KM's voice. ‘Of course we can do this. Here come the under-twelves.'

EJ watched, her pen and notepad ready. Within seconds Blackie had slipped through the hole in the dog yard and padded over to the camp fence. A few
seconds later, there was a light from high in the trees outside the camp fence. The light began flashing. EJ worked quickly writing the message down. As she wrote, she could tell it wasn't the same command as last time.

‘Guys, we may have a problem,' EJ whispered into her spy-talker. ‘There is something different about this message.'

‘What?' whispered KM back.

‘Well,' said EJ, ‘it starts with YOU, not BLACKIE and then...'

‘EJ?' whispered CC, ‘what then?'

EJ had stopped talking while she worked out the next word. ‘And then the next word is C-A-N-T, which means CAN'T. The first two words are YOU CAN'T.'

‘You can't? Who can't?' said CC. ‘What does that mean? It doesn't sound like a dog command.'

‘Quick EJ,' said KM, ‘we need the rest of the code.'

EJ worked furiously, quicker than she had ever decoded a message before, but as she did, she started to feel sick. It was almost as if CC and KM could feel something was wrong.

‘EJ, what is it?' said KM.

‘Guys,' broke in CC, ‘something's wrong. Blackie's not moving. I don't think she understands the command.'

‘Oh no,' cried EJ. ‘Blackie might not but I do.' She had just cracked the code.

‘What is it, EJ?' said KM.

‘It's not good,' said EJ, looking down at what she had written.

‘It says, YOU CAN'T CATCH ME EJ ZERO. Caterina knows we're trying to trap her. Our plan won't work!'

‘But she might still be in the tree house,' cried KM. ‘Quick, if we run we can still catch her!'

The three girls ran headlong out the gate and along the track towards the tree house. KM, who had been on lookout at the camp gate, had a good head start.

‘I'm nearly at the tree,' she panted into the
spy-talker. ‘About another hundred metres.'

‘We're right behind you,' cried EJ as she ran. Her legs were hurting but there was no way she was stopping now. She switched to speed boost on her trainers and shot along the track. CC came up beside her.

‘Let's go, EJ. One more speed-boost and we will be at the tree.'

‘I'm here,' KM's voice came over the spy-talker.

A1's voice came through on the spy-talkers. ‘Do not approach Caterina by yourself. Wait until you are all there.'

EJ and CC hit the speed boost and in seconds they were at the bottom of the tree with KM. They switched to jump mode and all jumped together. Up towards the tree house and Caterina Hill.

BOING!

They landed on the platform. But there was no one there. Caterina had gone. There was however a note pinned to the tree, a note written in sharp, pointy handwriting.

‘We're too late,' said KM glumly. ‘Caterina's escaped. She even had time to leave a note.'

‘But how? Where?' said EJ. ‘We would have seen her running away, wouldn't we? Where could she have gone?'

‘This way,' said CC, who had been looking around the other side of the tree. ‘We must have missed this last time.'

CC had found a flying fox, a strong steel cable leading steeply down from the tree to—to where? They couldn't see, but the cable was definitely connected to something at the other end.

‘What are we waiting for?' cried KM. ‘Let's follow it!'

‘But we don't know where it goes,' said EJ.

‘There's only one way to find out,' said CC. ‘But Caterina will have the grip at the other end. How will we travel on it?'

‘Activate our rope charms,' said EJ. ‘We can use the rope as a grip. Here, I'll show you.' EJ took her rope charm and twisted it. As the rope began to glow, EJ looped it over the flying fox.

‘Will the cable hold us?' asked CC.

‘It held Caterina,' said EJ. ‘Let's go.'

EJ went first. She held onto her rope, pushed off the platform and, whoosh, the rope glided along the steel, speeding EJ down rope and through the trees. She felt the flying fox straighten up and as it did, it began to slow down. EJ was approaching another tree and another platform. Had Caterina built a network of tree houses?

EJ let go of the rope and jumped, landing with a thump on the platform. Seconds later, KM and CC landed as well. The girls looked around. This platform was much bigger than the first and had a roof and walls, almost like a little room. And in the
middle of the floor was a chair, a large, white, egg-like swivel chair with its back to the girls. EJ gasped. She remembered that chair. She knew who would be sitting on it.

‘Thanks for dropping in yet again, EJ12. I've been expecting you and your little friends.'

The chair spun around. It was Caterina Hill. She was just as EJ remembered her: tall with straight, almost white-blonde hair pulled back from her long narrow face. A cold, mean-looking face with black eyes and eyebrows arched in two thin black lines. Caterina was wearing a tight black sweater over camouflage combat pants, and at the end of her long fingers were long almost claw-like nails painted dark green. Little Blackie was sitting in her lap. The puppy moved to go to EJ but Caterina yanked her back. Blackie yelped.