Grk Undercover (14 page)

Natascha nodded. “Go on,” she said. “Go to the police. Or the British Embassy. Tell someone what happened.”

“Okay,” said Tim.

“And look after Grk,” said Natascha. “Will you do that for me?”

“Of course I will,” said Tim.

“Come on,” snapped the soldier. He was getting impatient. “No time for talking. Get out! Or I might change my mind and take you too.”

Tim clambered out of the car. He tugged Grk’s leash.

Grk leaped down from the car and stood on the pavement beside him. They stared into the car at Max and Natascha, who stared forlornly back again.

Grk’s tail was down between his legs. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he knew he didn’t like it.

The soldier slammed the door, locking Max and Natascha inside the car. Tim couldn’t see them now. They were hidden behind the darkened windows.

“Goodbye,” said the soldier, and marched round the car.

Tim said, “Where am I?”

“Paris,” said the soldier. He opened the door and got inside.

Tim said, “What am I meant to do?”

“You can do what you like,” said the soldier. “You are free.”

“Why have you let me go?”

“You are British citizen,” said the soldier. “We cannot take you out of France. But these two …” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the car, pointing at Max and Natascha. “They are citizens of Stanislavia. They are our people. With them, we can do whatever we want.”

Before Tim could ask another question, the soldier slammed the door. The engine roared. The car eased forward. The other two cars followed it. They rejoined the traffic and drove away.

Tim and Grk didn’t move. They just stared at the three big black cars as they accelerated down the road.

Inside the car, no one said a word.

Max looked at Natascha.

Natascha looked at Max.

And then both Max and Natascha turned their heads and looked out of the back window. They could see Tim and Grk standing on the pavement.

Getting smaller and smaller as the car drove down the street.

Then the car turned a corner and they were gone.

Max and Natascha glanced at one another once more. Each of them would have liked to say something. But both of them knew that whatever they said would be overheard by the soldiers in the car. And neither of them wanted that to happen. So they faced forward and kept quiet.

The car drove quickly through the streets of Paris.

Tim was alone.

No, not completely alone.

He looked at Grk and said, “What are we going to do now?”

Grk looked back at him with a mournful expression. Grk didn’t understand what was happening. Why had Max and Natascha gone away? Where were they going? And when was he going to see them again?

Tim didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. He lifted his head and looked around, wondering where he was and what he should do next.

It was dark, cold and wet. There were a few people wandering through the streets. Some of them gave Tim a curious glance, wondering what a boy was doing out at this time of the morning, but most of them were occupied by their own thoughts. It was too early to worry about other people.

Tim thought through his options. He could stop a policeman and ask for help. He could try to find the British Embassy. Or he could ring his parents. He wondered what they were doing at the moment. He hadn’t thought about them for hours. They must have found his note by
now. Would they be worrying about him? Would they have followed him from London to Paris? Perhaps they weren’t very far away.

He dug his hands into his pockets and pulled out the envelope of money. He looked inside. He had eight Métro tickets and a handful of euros.

Eighty-six euros. That’s how much he had. He remembered counting them in the flat.

What was he going to do with eighty-six euros?

He could buy himself breakfast. He could get the Métro and go to the British Embassy. Or he could just stop a taxi and tell the driver to take him to the nearest police station.

A taxi, thought Tim.

He suddenly knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wasn’t interested in breakfast. He didn’t care about finding the police or the British Embassy. He jumped off the pavement, lurched into the middle of the street and stuck out his hand.

He had seen a car driving toward him. It was a silver Mercedes with a small sign on the roof that said TAXI.

The taxi stopped.

Tim opened the door, climbed into the front seat, put Grk at his feet and said, “Follow that car.”

The driver said,
“Pardon, monsieur?”

“Follow that car,” repeated Tim.

“You wish for me to follow a car?” said the driver, speaking English with a strong French accent.

“Yes!” said Tim. “I’ve told you twice already!”

“But,
monsieur
, there is one important question. Which car do you want me to follow?”

Tim looked at the road ahead. There were ten or fifteen cars to be seen, but none of them was a big black Toyota Land Cruiser belonging to the Stanislavian Secret Service. “Go down there and turn right. You’ll soon see the car. I’ll point it out as soon as I can.”

The driver shrugged his shoulders and started driving. He said, “You are English?”

“Yes,” said Tim.

“You are a detective, perhaps?”

“No,” said Tim.

“Then why do you want to follow this car?”

“My friends are inside. They’ve been kidnapped.”

The driver raised his eyebrows. “Really? This is true?”

“Yes, it is,” said Tim. “It’s all true, I promise.”

“Then we must find them,” said the driver. “Hold tight.”

The driver rammed his foot on the accelerator. The car sprang forward and shot down the street. Grk was thrown backward. Tim held on to his seat with both hands. He was glad to be wearing a seat belt. If they crashed, he didn’t want to go through the windscreen.

The driver grinned. He didn’t often have an opportunity to drive like this. He usually took drunks home from a bar or delivered old women to the hairdresser. He had always wanted to be involved in something as exciting as a car chase in a movie. And this was his big chance.

With a squeal of tires, the taxi turned the corner. There were several cars ahead. The driver glanced at Tim, who shook his head.

“No problem,” said the driver. “We will catch them.”

He accelerated through the traffic, careering down the road at full speed.

Without taking his eyes from the road and leaving his left hand on the steering wheel, the driver offered his right hand to Tim. “My name is Yusef,” he said.

“My name is Tim,” said Tim, taking Yusef’s hand and shaking it very quickly. Yusef was a good driver, but even the best drivers can hardly shake hands and drive at the same time.

“Nice to meet you, Tim,” said Yusef. “Welcome to Paris.”

To Tim’s relief, Yusef put both hands on the steering wheel and concentrated all his attention on driving.

They drove in and out of the traffic. Horns blared and angry drivers waved their fists, but Yusef didn’t care. He was having too much fun.

Little streets went off to the right and left, but Yusef stayed on the main road, heading out of Paris. It was a risk—the Stanislavian Secret Service might have driven on a different route—but it seemed a risk worth taking. They drove for a few minutes, overtaking other cars, and then Tim shouted, “There! That’s them!”

Yusef peered through the windscreen at the line of traffic ahead. “That one? The Toyota?”

“There are three of them,” said Tim. “Can you see?”

“Ah, yes,” said Yusef. “I see them now. Come on, let’s catch them.” He urged his taxi forward, weaving through the traffic, coming closer and closer to the convoy of three big black cars.

Yusef had never followed a car through the streets of Paris before, but he knew exactly what to do. He had seen lots of chases in movies. He stayed close enough that he could always see the three big black cars, but he never went too close, not wanting them realize that they were being followed.

When they had been driving for a few minutes, Yusef turned to Tim and said, “You must tell me one thing,
mon ami
. Who is driving in the car? Why is it so important for you to follow them?”

Tim wondered whether he should invent some story, then decided that there was no point. Why not just tell the truth? So he told Yusef everything. He explained how Max and Natascha had been thrown in prison with their parents, and how the Raffifis had been murdered by Colonel Zinfandel, and how he had met Grk in the street, and how he and Grk had got from London to Stanislavia. He described how Max and Natascha had come to live with him and his parents in London. And then he explained what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago, when he had been lying in his own warm, comfortable bed, dreaming about this and that, when Natascha woke him up and told him that Max had
disappeared, leaving nothing but a mysterious letter and no clues except a few words scrawled on a screwed-up piece of paper.

When Tim had described the events of the last twenty-four hours, Yusef nodded. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “These people—we will catch them. And we will get your friends. And you will be able to go home safely. Okay?”

“Thank you,” said Tim.
“Merci beaucoup.”

“Ah,” said Yusef. “You speak French?”

“No. I can say
merci beaucoup
and
où est Notre Dame
and
fromage
and
pomme
, but not much else.”

“Then I will teach you,” said Yusef. “Speak after me and you will learn very good French. And when you are speaking good French, you can teach me to speak good English. Okay?”

“Sure,” said Tim. “It’s a deal.”

That was how Tim and Yusef spent the next hour as they drove through the outskirts of Paris and plunged into the countryside, following the three big black cars. Yusef said French phrases aloud and Tim repeated them again and again until he could say them correctly.

Tim had learnt a little French at school, but he always forgot a word as soon as he heard it. For some reason, learning a new language
from a taxi driver was much easier than learning in a class packed with other students. Tim could soon ask for a drink, say his name and explain where he had been born, all in fluent French.

They drove through the countryside. The rain rattled on the windscreen. The road twisted and turned. There were no other cars to be seen. Tim hoped that the Stanislavian Secret Service wouldn’t notice that they were being followed by a silver Parisian taxi.

He wondered where they were going. What if they were driving all the way back to Stanislavia? How far would Yusef take him? And if Yusef got tired or bored and decided to drop him and Grk by the side of the road, what would they do next?

He worried about money. He had eighty-six euros in an envelope. How would he pay Yusef for driving him so far? When Yusef discovered that he wasn’t going to get paid enough, how would he react? Wouldn’t he be angry? Would he turn round and drive back to Paris and deliver Tim to the police?

Tim soon discovered the answers to all his questions. The three cars didn’t drive all the way from Paris to Stanislavia. They drove
through the countryside, taking small roads, and soon reached their destination.

There was a tall fence on their right. Tim could see lights and big buildings on the other side of the fence.

“I know this place,” said Yusef. “It is a private airport. I have been here to collect a passenger and bring him back to Paris.”

The convoy stopped at the entrance to the airfield, but Yusef kept going. If they stopped too, they would be spotted immediately and their presence would be questioned.

When they were out of sight, Yusef parked his car by the side of the road and looked at Tim. He said, “I can take you back to Paris. Or we can wait here and see what happens. What do you want to do?”

Tim thought for a moment. He went through the possible options in his mind. Then he told Yusef exactly what he wanted to do.

Yusef smiled. “You are a very brave boy.”

“No, I’m not,” said Tim. “I don’t want to be here. I didn’t even want to get out of bed yesterday. But now I’m here, I have to help my friends.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out the white envelope and handed it to Yusef. “That’s all my money,” Tim said. “It’s only eighty-six euros. I know it’s not enough to pay you for driving me all the way
out here. But I’ve written my address and my phone number on the envelope. If you ring my parents, they’ll pay you the rest.”

“Don’t worry about the money,” said Yusef. “Just go and get the bad guys.”

The taxi drove along the road and parked beside the gate that led into the airfield.

It was raining hard and Yusef hunched over as he ran from his car to the hut. He peered through the window. The guard was inside, sitting on a wooden chair, staring at television screens that showed the entire airfield. Yusef called out to him.
“Mon ami! Mon ami!”

The guard pushed back his chair and came to the window.
“Oui?”

They talked briefly. Yusef said he was looking for a passenger who had rung him, asking to be picked up from the gate.

The guard checked his schedule and shook his head. He said that there wouldn’t be any passengers at the airport until later in the day.

While they were talking, the guard never bothered turning his head to look at his television screens, so he didn’t see that the cameras had captured two intruders entering the airfield. Nor did he notice two
shadowy shapes darting through the undergrowth and ducking under the barrier.

When Yusef was sure that Tim and Grk were safely inside the airfield, he thanked the guard, apologized for wasting his time and said he must have been mistaken about his passenger.

Yusef hurried through the rain to his car and jumped inside.

He drove back to Paris with a smile on his face.

Tim and Grk ran across the tarmac.

Tim kept expecting someone to shout at him, ordering him to stop and put his hands in the air, but he didn’t hear anything except the whistling wind and the rattle of the rain.