The Hunt for the Yeti Skull: Nepal (9 page)

ZAP!

A bolt of light hit Storm too, sending him spinning into the air and knocking him out.

Marko started cackling. ‘You showed them!' he said. ‘Way to go!'

‘Settle down,' said the man. ‘A bit of self-control will serve you well in this job.'

Another voice came from behind Marko: ‘I'll say,' it said.

Marko and the two men whipped round. Standing above them on the top of the boulder was none other than Jack. Quickly, he lifted his Lava Laser and fired it at the Russian's weapon. The GPF's Lava Laser made the metal so hot that it burned the man's hand.

‘YOOOWWW!'

The man instantly dropped the weapon and plunged his hands into the snow to cool them down. Shocked, Marko didn't know what to do. Jack took out his Net Tosser and threw it out over the crooks. The net covered the two adults, but Marko had managed to avoid it.

Jack abseiled down the boulder and unhooked himself from the safety rope. He went as quickly as he could, but Marko had already crossed the crevasse using the ladder. Holding his hands up, Marko showed the ice stakes that had once secured the ladder to the ground. With a push, he shoved the ladder down into the crevasse. It pinged off the walls and fell into the void.

Separating the boys was now a thirty- foot-wide hole in the ice.

‘Let's see you get across that,' said Marko. ‘You can arrest us,' he screamed, ‘but you'll never get the skull!'

Just then, Jack heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. He breathed a sigh of relief. Reinforcements were arriving, and not a moment too soon.

Hanging from the belly of the chopper was a basket tied to a rope. When Marko opened his backpack and took out something wrapped in cloth, Jack suddenly realized that this was no rescue – this was the ‘pick-up': the mastermind behind the theft was collecting his prize.

Now Jack had to stop Marko and bring down a chopper.

But he couldn't do it until he'd crossed the crevasse. He didn't have a ladder like Scarlet and there wasn't enough slope for his Klimbing Kit. It was risky, but Jack had no choice but to use a gadget that had never been tested on mountains. It was the GPF's Flyboard, and it lay in his Book Bag.

The GPF's Flyboard was like a skateboard, with two small hydrogen-powered engines at the back. It could skate on ice, roll on tarmac or fly over land at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour. Here on Everest, however, Jack wasn't sure whether it would work at all.

After snapping his Flyboard together, Jack stepped onto it. As soon as he did so, he tested the ‘air' feature. The Flyboard struggled and coughed. It managed to raise itself two feet off the ground. Usually it flew at three times that height. However, Jack was so desperate, he decided to take the risk.

Pulling his Klimbing Kit out of his bag, he quickly tied the end of a rope to a spike and shot it into the upper wall of the crevasse. He then tied the other end of the rope to his harness.

Jack and the Flyboard travelled slowly over the empty void. But as soon as he reached the middle, the machine's hydrogen engines spluttered to a stop. Instantly, Jack and the Flyboard tumbled down into the hole.

‘AHHH!'

As he fell, Jack felt as if he was in some sort of icy cold dream. Then his body was jolted to a stop. He looked up at the spike on the side of the wall that had stopped him from falling any further. He secretly thanked the GPF for it, and climbed the rope until he reached the lip of the crevasse. As he pulled himself up and over, he muttered, ‘I'll need to write a memo on that: Never trust the Flyboard to work at high altitudes.'

When Marko saw Jack climb out of the hole, he was shocked. Immediately he dropped the skull into the basket. The helicopter lifted off again. Jack moved towards the rope and, before Marko knew what was happening, sliced it in two with his Laser Burst. The basket and its contents dropped at least ten feet before crash-landing in the soft snow.

‘Hey!' yelled Marko. ‘What are you doing?'

A man's face popped out through the open door of the chopper. He scowled at Jack and yelled at him in Russian, threatening him with his shaking fist.

‘I'm doing what you should have done,' said Jack, putting the package in his Book Bag. ‘I'm returning the skull to the scientists.'

‘But scientists don't pay you a million dollars!' said Marko. He pointed to the man angrily hanging out of the helicopter. ‘Give it to him,' he went on, ‘and you and I can split the money.'

‘No way,' said Jack.

Seeing that Jack wasn't about to switch sides, Marko made a run for it. He jumped for the severed rope, but unless the pilot lowered the chopper, there was no way he was going to reach it. The man issued one last threat, then the helicopter started to fly off.

‘Hey!' Marko shouted. ‘Where are you going?'

‘You should never trust a crook,' Jack told him.

Tapping a few commands into his Watch Phone, Jack initiated the GPF Scrambling Device. The device could interfere with the controls of airplanes and helicopters so that they were unable to fly properly. Before Jack and Marko knew it, the crippled helicopter was on its way back down to the Western Cwm.

As soon as it landed, Jack climbed inside and placed the GPF's Handy Cuffs on the man and his pilot. The cuffs were strips of pliable plastic that hardened tight when the ends were joined.

When Jack got a better look at the mastermind, he realized it was none other than Alik Fedorov, the famous collector of bizarre pieces of history. His collection included a 600-million-year-old dinosaur egg, and teeth from one of the first cavemen. Jack had no doubt that he was after the skull because he wanted to add it to his collection.

Jack left the helicopter to search for Marko. He found him walking in circles and talking to himself, looking very worried.

‘What should I do?' he was saying. ‘Where should I go?'

Jack grabbed his wrists and wrapped a Handy Cuff around them too. ‘I know just the place,' he said with a smile.