Spyforce Revealed (6 page)

Alex Crane looked out from her precarious position balanced on the tip of the mast of the sailing ship
Inferno
and knew that now help had arrived, her life, which was teetering on the edge of oblivion, would be saved.

‘Max! Thank heavens you're here,' she called through the panicked squall of wind and rain that lashed against them.

Max was new to the business, but even with little solid experience, she was proving to be one of the best spies Alex Crane had ever come across.

Brilliant. Clever. A natural.

‘We've only got minutes before this whole ship is blown into the sky and us with it,' Alex spoke into her lapel transceiver in her usual direct and unflappable manner.

Max knew she had to think, and fast. The wind buffeted against her like an overzealous bully as she dangled by a rope from the battered helicopter overhead. The aircraft swayed above them like a cancan dancer, its blades kicking out against the blue-black sky, lit by the angry flare of lightning.

She operated the helicopter by remote control, trying to manoeuvre herself closer to the mast and Alex before the lit fuse inside the vessel ignited the cargo of deadly explosives.

All she had to do was expertly guide the helicopter closer, making sure a sudden updraft didn't spin it out of control and send it spiralling into the sea. Just a little closer towards Alex and she would

‘Max?'

The voice behind her made her jump, sending her pen sliding across the page and her backside bouncing off the log she was perched on so she landed unglamorously on the ground. Legs splayed, head hurting and her fingers softly nestled in a warm cushion of chicken poo.

‘Sorry,' Eleanor apologised. ‘I didn't mean to scare you.'

‘That's okay.' Max glared at Geraldine who clucked loudly and pranced away like she'd just laid a golden egg.

‘I didn't hear you coming.' Max pulled herself back onto the log and looked for something to wipe her hand on. She never understood why she ended up on the ground more times than the average eleven year old did.

‘I just wanted to tell you that we're so happy to have you back.'

Max looked through her book to find a blank
page to clean her fingers with. Also to avoid further embarrassment because she could feel herself blushing at what Eleanor had said.

‘The place didn't feel the same when you left.'

Max looked up. Eleanor had this smile that was like a big, warm doona that made her want to crawl in and curl up inside.

‘How's Sydney?' Eleanor asked.

‘Good,' said Max. She'd been concentrating so much on Alex Crane that she'd totally forgotten about everything in Sydney. The farm had a way of doing that.

‘And your mum?' Eleanor was twisting a ring on her finger. Max's mum had one exactly the same that she kept locked away in a silver box. Max knew that because she'd take it out and wear it when her mother wasn't home. It had a red stone and was set in a gold bed of interlinked roses.

‘She's good.'

‘That's good.' But the way Eleanor looked away when she said this made Max think something wasn't quite right.

‘Where did you get the ring?'

Eleanor noticed she'd been playing with it and stopped.

‘Just before your gran died she gave identical
ones to me and your mother, asking us always to look out for each other.'

Eleanor sat quietly staring at the ring.

‘Why don't you and Mum get along?' Max asked.

‘Now there's a question.' Eleanor clasped her hands and looked at the horizon. ‘Even when we were little girls we weren't very close. It's just always been that way. I think that's why Gran gave us the rings. She hoped it would bring us closer together.'

She drew the colourful layers of her skirt around her knees so she looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope. Her face creased into a sad frown.

‘She has a boyfriend now,' Max informed her.

‘Really?' Eleanor was curious to know more and Max was happy to tell her, but she wasn't going to sugarcoat anything. She was going to tell it exactly like it was.

‘But he's a real jerk who spends a lot of money dressing like he hasn't got any, stays in the bathroom so long he might as well move in there and wears so much aftershave there should be a pollution warning put out whenever he leaves the house.'

‘So you're not a fan?' Eleanor asked in a serious tone, making Max think she may have overdone it a little.

‘Not much.' She looked at her fingers and wiped off the rest of the chicken poo. Max was disappointed. She was hoping Eleanor would be on her side.

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

‘Even though he does sound like a real jerk.' Eleanor smirked and tried to stop herself from laughing.

Max looked up from her fingers and smiled too. Then Eleanor started to laugh. So did Max. They laughed even harder until they were holding their stomachs and giggling so loudly that crows in the trees nearby swooped away in fright. They rocked back and forth with laughter until they toppled backwards and fell off the log straight into another fresh batch of chicken poo.

This time Max didn't care and didn't see Geraldine as she scratched in the dirt like she was doing a victory dance. They just kept laughing and lying on the ground.

‘Were you thinking about something funny I said earlier?' An upside-down Linden was staring at them from overhead.

‘Yep, that's exactly what happened,' Eleanor chuckled, catching her breath and sitting up before helping Max to her feet. ‘And now that we've got
that out of our systems, I better go and give Ben a hand with dinner.'

She laughed to herself as she walked away, the layers of her skirt creating a trail of dust behind her with each cheeky giggle.

‘What was that all about?' asked Linden.

‘I told Eleanor a joke and she thought it was the funniest one she'd ever heard.'

‘She doesn't get out much,' explained Linden.

Max smiled. Linden was good.

‘Let's go and eat. We've got an appointment to keep.'

After dinner, Max and Linden excused themselves and walked towards the paddock. It had been arranged that they'd stay at Linden's house for the night and would make their way back the next day, which gave them lots of time for their meeting. Except that when Ben and Eleanor said goodbye, there was something about the way they said it that felt a little more important than usual. Like they knew something. Max thought she was probably being paranoid and they headed off into the dusk.

‘Have you done your hair?' Wild strands of Linden's hair were ballooning into the air like towers on miniature jumping castles. ‘We
are
about
to go to a very important meeting after all.'

‘I even put on some of Dad's hair grease.' But the look on Max's face told him it didn't do much good. ‘Mum used to say I've got hair with a lot of personality, what can I do? And besides, you can't keep a good strand down.'

He giggled at his own joke. Max tried to ignore the joke and his hair and walked on.

‘Where should we wait?' asked Linden.

‘Not sure. I guess we should just go somewhere in the middle,' Max answered, starting to feel nervous about the whole thing and hoping she didn't mess up.

They walked a little further as Linden started to guess how they might get to London.

‘Maybe they're going to send some little green men in a super-advanced spaceship to take us away?' he suggested.

Max's nerves got worse. She pictured herself walking into Spyforce's plush secret headquarters and at the earliest possible chance, falling down in front of everyone.

‘Or maybe they're going to use a high-density matter scrambler to dismantle the atoms from our bodies, fling them through space at the speed of light and reassemble them in London.'

Linden was getting more excited at the possibility of what might happen. Max, on the other hand, wasn't. Her head jammed with images of disaster, like the one where she was being introduced to the head of Spyforce and accidentally knocked hot coffee from the table all over him. Or the one where she attempted to clip on her fingerprint-sensitive identity pass and accidentally flicked it across the room, breaking the invisible laser beam that set off a high security alert. She could see the chaos as she tried to apologise among the running feet and barked orders of Spyforce's top security agents.

Linden, oblivious of her panic, talked on.

‘Or maybe we'll be sucked into space at a million miles an hour in a giant straw-like transporter tunnel and spat out at Spyforce headquarters.'

Max had had enough of Linden's speculating.

‘Or maybe you should just keep quiet so they don't hear how much you talk and decide not to meet us at all.'

Linden stopped abruptly like an enormous cement wall had suddenly dropped in front of him. He thought it was fun trying to work out what might happen.

Max walked on until she found a place that looked like all the others and decided to stop.

‘I think here is a good spot,' she announced, and sat down and checked through her pack to see if she had everything.

Linden followed her wondering what it was about Max that made her so hard to understand. One minute she was fine, the next she wasn't. He sat down beside her, deciding it was best not to think too much about it.

‘What's that?'

Max flinched as a muffled ringing sound was heard from somewhere close by.

‘I brought the CTR just in case we need it,' Linden explained as he rummaged through his pocket.

‘Great,' said Max, not sounding at all like she thought it was great.

‘Hello?' Linden asked, followed by a quick and surprised, ‘Ella!' as if it could have been anybody else. ‘How are you?'

The CTR was a Communication Tracking and Recording device that Ella had given Linden on their last mission in London. Max knew it could come in handy, but refused to like anything about Ella so she wasn't about to admit it. She sat slightly
away from him as he blahed on and on with a lot of
really's
and
no way's
and
that's great's.

After a few minutes, Max couldn't stand it anymore. She snatched the device from Linden's hand, spied a large rock nearby and threw the CTR so hard it fireworked into the sky in a million pieces. She watched as it all happened in slow motion. First the throw, then the flying curve through the air and finally the impact, sending sparks and CTR bits everywhere in an impressive, airlifted shower.

‘Thanks for calling. I'll speak to you later.'

Max never snatched away the CTR and Linden finished his conversation oblivious of her imagined outburst.

‘That was Ella.'

Max didn't respond but looked towards the darkening horizon.

‘She said Blue has this new range of kid's foods that she and her mum are convinced can't be good.'

Max tried not to listen but couldn't help spark up at the mention of Blue's name. ‘They reckon if Blue is behind it there has to be something bad about it. Trouble is, the stuff tastes so good that once you've had some you can't get enough. You know, like those hamburger chains that sell you
burgers that make you feel queasy afterwards but you keep going back and buying more.'

Max was dying to ask about Blue's foods but refused to act interested.

‘Maybe that's why Spyforce want to see us,' Linden persisted.

‘Maybe.' Max shrugged, thinking he was probably right.

‘Oh, and she said to say hi.'

Max looked down at her watch and really pretended not to hear this one.

‘It's almost eight o'clock. I guess we just wait now.'

Linden sighed and put the CTR safely back in his pocket. He didn't understand why Max didn't like Ella, but knew she'd have to come round one day.

They sat in silence for ages. Nothing much happened apart from a few owl hootings and the odd rustling of grass nearby, which Max told herself was the innocent scrambling of lizards and not the sneaky slithering of deadly brown snakes.

There were certain things in the country Max still couldn't get used to.

‘What was that?' She jumped up in a panic as something fluttered quickly past her face.

‘Moth most likely,' said Linden calmly, watching her hands swish frantically around her like a human fan on high speed.

‘They can get as big as small birds out here. Can't hurt you, though. Any sign?'

Max stopped waving her hands, put them on her hips and looked around, trying to pretend she wasn't spooked.

‘Not yet.' She sat down and started to feel calmer. Linden had a way of doing that. When she felt nervous he would say things that made her feel okay again. Max relaxed for the first time in ages. ‘Little green men?' she asked.

‘Okay, so it's more likely we'll be collected in the transporter tunnel,' Linden said authoritatively.