S*W*A*G*G 1, Spook Read online

  Gideon ran ahead, urging them forward. ‘Come on. I’ve seen this before. GM needs a full ventilation kit applied immediately, or she won’t fight the poison.’

  ‘Poison?’ squawked Matilda from behind the gurney, her face purple with exertion as the three of them steered G-Mamma’s trolley past door after door. ‘Is that what this is? Have you got any toadst—'

  Her words were drowned out by the pressurised blast of double doors opening automatically as they approached at full belt. Gideon ushered them into the room beyond, his dark eyes scanning the corridor.

  ‘It wasn’t toadstools, Tilly,’ he said as they took in their surroundings. He had led them to a neat, square operating theatre, complete with tables of surgical instruments, towers of bleeping equipment and a pair of flat beds covered with blue sheets. ‘It’s called curare. It causes paralysis and then slow death through respiratory problems – and all the while the person who is suffering knows everything about what’s happening.’

  ‘Oh, poor G-Mamma! You mean she’s been awake through all this?’ Janey shoved the gurney into position near the equipment. She wasn’t sure which apparatus would help G-Mamma breathe, but they had to get to it quickly – and even if she had to use it all at once, she’d find it.

  Fortunately, Gideon seemed to know what to do.

  ‘It’s won’t be very nice, but you’re going to have to insert that tube down G-Mamma’s throat and into her lungs,’ he told her. She clutched the edge of the table, feeling queasy. ‘Jack and Tilly, if you could attach –'

  ‘I’ll do it, Janey,’ said Jack quickly. ‘I do this kind of stuff all the time. It’s a bit like mummification.’

  ‘You can’t mummify G-Mamma!’ From the sudden blinking of G-Mamma’s eyelids, the SPI:KE obviously agreed.

  ‘No, this is so I won’t need to mummify her.’

  Janey spun around to Gideon. ‘Shouldn’t we try mouth-to-mouth or something before we go sticking tubes into her?’

  ‘She’s been poisoned. We can’t risk it being passed on to someone else. Suppose the curare was in her lipstick or something, so that she’d ingest it without knowing?’

  It was horrific to think of shoving tubes down G-Mamma’s throat. Janey had imagined they’d use the defibrillators or something, not something this invasive.

  But the alternative was even more horrific. If G-Mamma didn’t get help, she’d die.

  And soon.

  ‘Do it,’ she whispered to Jack; then she watched bravely, gripping G-Mamma’s arm and talking to her the whole time in case she could still hear what was going on, and waiting until Jack nodded to show he’d finished so that she could switch on the machine behind her.

  For a moment they all held their breath along with G-Mamma … and then finally the plastic pipe shifted slightly as air was forced down it and into the SPI:KE’s lungs. She was breathing again, her abdomen rising up and down as the machine took over her oxygen intake for a little while. Almost immediately, G-Mamma’s colour improved, and within a few moments she was able to open her eyes and give Janey a weak thumbs-up.

  As one, they laughed and huffed out a great sigh of relief.

  ‘So I suppose that was cool,’ said Tilly to Jack, rather reluctantly. ‘Though a bit alarming that you know how to mummify people.’

  Jack sniffed. ‘It’s not just people. I can mummify cats, too.’

  ‘Okay, it’s alarming that you know how to mummify FULL STOP.’

  ‘It’s a bit alarming that you know to hypnotise FULL STOP.’

  ‘I told you, it’s not hypnosis, your dogness. It’s magic.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is, Matilda Peppercorn, it’s freaky, and believe me, I know freaky when I see it.’

  G-Mamma’s suddenly reached out a finger and prodded Jack in the side with it. It was a definite sign that her breathing was improving – and her hearing.

  ‘I think she wants you to stop arguing,’ said Janey with a laugh.

  Jack’s eyebrows shot up in indignation. ‘She started it!’

  ‘All right, children,’ said Gideon in his low, calm voice. ‘Janey, while these two are sorting out their differences, I’d like to talk to you outside, if I may. I think GM’s on the road to recovery now.’

  The woman’s cheeks were almost back to their usual pink now, so Janey turned to follow him.

  ‘Make sure she’s okay, will you?’ Jack and Tilly both nodded, even though they were still throwing vicious glances at each other.

  Janey gestured to Gideon. ‘After you.’

  The doors swished open again as they stepped towards them, side by side, and then they were once more out in the corridor. Rather than going back towards the car park as she’d half-expected, however, Gideon turned the other way, passing a few more doors before drawing to a halt beside an office.

  It was labelled with a brass plaque bearing the title Chief Executive Officer above the name ‘Oscar Sullivan’. Janey remembered it from the newspaper article about the World Community Games.

  ‘Gideon, where are we?’ she said, suddenly as alarmed as she was confused. ‘What kind of offices have a complete surgery underneath them?’

  He stood back so that she could operate the door’s keypad with the number she’d memorised from earlier, thanks to her spy training – 0708 151 920 - and waved her in ahead of him.

  ‘Perhaps that will answer your question,’ he said, and he pointed to a photograph adorning the wall behind a large mahogany desk that gleamed as if it was shot through with flames, surrounded by several glowing LCD screens and a panel of knobs and buttons.

  Janey stared at the picture, instantly recognising the woman they’d met at the party the other night.

  ‘That’s Simone Varley,’ she said. ‘And I’ve seen those two before – Oscar Sullivan and someone whose name I can’t remember.’

  ‘Henry Wentworth.’ Gideon’s sombre eyes, always so full of the pain of his condition, swivelled to the other man.

  The figure was smaller than the other men, just about the same height as the woman. Unlike the others, he was looking off to the left rather than directly at the camera. He was the only one of them who wasn’t grinning broadly. In fact, thought Janey, he appeared to be rather uncomfortable.

  ‘That’s Trent Varley, Simone’s husband. Her dead husband,’ Gideon added drily.

  ‘She didn’t seem very sad the other night,’ Janey observed, ‘considering her husband had just died.’

  ‘Exactly what I was thinking.’

  Janey, meanwhile, was thinking about something else. ‘So hang on – we’re in the office of Oscar Sullivan, CEO, and there’s a picture with three other people on it, just like in that newspaper article. Is this … is this the head office for HOST?’

  For a second, Gideon’s eyes cleared, and he glanced at her with a touch of admiration. ‘Correct. And to answer your question about what kind of company has a surgery beneath its canteen – well, a dodgy one.’

  Janey frowned as Gideon circled the desk. His voice had grown hostile and hard, and she realised once more that she knew very little about their strange client. Was she in danger here?

  Her panic increased as she spotted what Gideon was advancing upon.

  It was a rifle.

  It looked pretty old, and it was mounted on the wall beneath an internal window in a sturdy Perspex case, so he wouldn’t be able to do anything to harm her without smashing its box first, but still …

  While his back was still turned, Janey quickly assessed the desk. There was nothing on it apart from a cable which would be attached to a laptop, a green desk lamp, a letter in a trembling hand-writing starting ‘Oscar, there’s something you need to—’ that looked as if it had been read quickly and thrust aside, and a jug of water with a paper cup beside it. Silently, she pulled the cable towards her. It was no use on its own, but if anything happened she could possibly drench Gideon Flynn with the jug of water and see if the cable would produce an electrical charge, or perhaps she could use it as a garrotte of som
e kind …

  To her surprise, though, Gideon just dropped down, squatting on his heels, and stared at the rifle with a reverential sigh. ‘There you are,’ he whispered to it. He almost seemed to have forgotten that Janey was there. ‘You shouldn’t be imprisoned in there.’

  ‘Gideon, are you okay?’

  He sat upright with a start. ‘Yes! Yes, quite all right, thank you.’

  ‘For a moment there I thought you were going to shoot me.’ Janey laughed, but she could see by Gideon’s expression that he knew she was serious.

  ‘Oh, Janey, I couldn’t …’ The pain in his eyes had returned. ‘I understand that you don’t know me very well, and I suppose I don’t really know you – any of you – other than what I’ve researched. But please know that I could never shoot you, or hurt you in any way. Not intentionally, anyway,’ he said with a sideways glance towards the door.

  Janey looked over her shoulder. He’d seen something behind her, she was sure of it.

  ‘Is there someone there?’

  Gideon frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I’ll check in a second. Before I do that, though,’ and he dropped his voice to such a tiny whisper that Janey had to lean in close to hear his words, ‘I wanted to tell you that this rifle is your next mission.’

  Had she heard him correctly? ‘My mission?’

  ‘The next heist. It was my great great … great … grandfather’s,’ he hissed. ‘It belongs with my family, not here in this … terrible place. And I can’t get it out of this case.’

  ‘Because of your … condition?’

  Gideon laughed under his breath. ‘No, actually. This time it’s not my hands that won’t work – it’s my brain. There’s some kind of code, or a clip to unlatch, or … something that I’m not able to work out. I need your spying abilities to liberate it.’

  ‘You think that I’m some kind of safe cracker?’ Janey shook her head, confused again. ‘You seem to have a strange idea about what I’ve done in the past as a spy.’

  Gideon’s eyes darted over her shoulder again, back towards the corridor. He stood slowly and leaned towards her ear.

  ‘I do know you’re not a thief, Jane Blonde,’ he whispered, the sound so tiny that she couldn’t even feel his breath on her skin. ‘But you have an excellent skillset, and more importantly, you know right from wrong. This rifle doesn’t belong here. It should be with my family, not with HOST. Please say you’ll try.’

  Janey’s stomach clenched, and it was only partly because she knew she was going to say yes – of course she was, because she couldn’t resist a challenge, a new spying mission, even one that felt a little peculiar.

  It was his closeness that really unnerved her, however, and those anxious glances towards the door. There was more going on here than Gideon was saying, and she desperately wanted to know what it was. To help him. To help the strangely quiet figure of Gideon Flynn.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered eventually, feeling the dark eyes upon her. ‘I’ll try.’

  Gideon nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you. I must go and see what that disturbance was. The offices are still open, after all – anybody could be out there. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  He whisked out of the door before she could say anything.

  She hesitated for an instant, wondering whether she should check on G-Mamma and the others, perhaps even ask one of them to help - but something stopped her. She wasn’t sure which member of this new team that she’d found herself in would be the most help to her, for a start – or which one would be a strong companion for G-Mamma when she came around fully.

  Beyond that, however, was a frisson of excitement that felt like old times. She was on her own again: Jane Blonde, on a secret mission, relying on her spying instincts, her carefully extracted skills and training. And this time it was to help Gideon Flynn, who, she guessed, hadn’t been helped in a long, long time …

  So without calling for back-up from the others, Janey dropped to her knees in front of the case containing the rifle.

  It was a simple enough box, with five sides fashioned from heavy plastic, and the wall into the next office forming its sixth side at the back. Each Perspex edge fitted tightly and seamlessly into a ridged metal strip, rather like double-glazing. The clumsy-looking rifle with a heavy wooden butt and long blackened rod for a muzzle appeared to be mounted directly onto the wall, though Janey couldn’t see any visible fixings. Of safe-cracking dials and cogs, there was no sign.

  But Janey knew this meant nothing. There were all sorts of tricks for disguising different types of openings. She’d seen many and could usually work out any that she hadn’t seen before.

  It was time to get to work, Janey thought with a shiver of anticipation. It had been a while, but she slipped into it as easily as the Wower had encased her in her spysuit …

  First of all she lay on the floor and inspected the box from beneath, and then from above. Next, she peered into the Perspex case from either end, searching for any notches or springs that she might be able to trigger to open the case. Nothing. She stared directly into the front of the box, and just to be sure that she hadn’t missed anything obvious, she grabbed the desk lamp, flicked it on and ran the light all over the plastic, looking for smudges, chips in the smooth panels, an eyelash … Anything that might indicate how the case opened. There was nothing.

  Remembering that she was still wearing what was usually a very useful gadget, Janey pressed every finger of her Girl Gauntlet in turn. If she could freeze and shatter the box, that would make life very simple. Unfortunately, though, it seemed that the Wower had been powered off before it could install all the Gauntlet’s functions. A nice duel-nibbed invisible ink pen shot out of her little finger like a pair of ears, and her thumb glowed with a strange light with intricate patterned whorls flashing across it – some kind of device to fake fingerprints, Janey guessed – but the three fingers across the middle didn’t so much as twitch, and Janey gave up when she realised that neither of the other two spy-buys in the glove were going to help. Instead, she unscrewed the bulb from the desk lamp, removing it along with the green glass shade before smashing the lampstand against the plastic box. It achieved nothing, apart from leaving a serious dent in the lamp’s brass base.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ she muttered, breathing onto the surface in case fingerprints emerged in the mist so that she could at least try to use her new magical thumb. They didn’t. There was no sign of a keypad, but she chose a suitable spot in the middle top panel of the case and entered the number they’d used on each of the door entry systems, first in a line as if it were on a computer screen or QWERTY keyboard, and then in the shape it would form on a phone’s keypad. Still nothing. When she’d exhausted all options and any other ideas had disappeared from her brain, Janey placed a hand on either end of the case, planted her feet on the wall beneath it, and pulled as hard as she could possibly pull without bursting an eyeball.

  The box didn’t even budge. It was as if it was moulded to the very wall itself.

  If it was, she would just have to tell Gideon she couldn’t retrieve the rifle without her spy-buys - possibly a Boy-Battler glove as she needed a sledgehammer to shatter the case or the wall around it. Just to be sure, however, Janey wanted to try one last thing.

  She turned to the desk which seemed to buzz beneath her fingers as she yanked open a drawer. Pens and pencils. They weren’t sharp enough. The second drawer yielded better results. Grabbing a long metal paper clip, Janey wrenched it apart with her fingertips to create a barb that could penetrate the angle between the case and the wall. If it really was moulded into the wall, then she wouldn’t be able to find a gap. If it wasn’t, then a spike might reveal something.

  She dragged the prong along the top of the case, directly next to the wall, trying to slice through the paintwork. The clip seemed to leap beneath her fingers, and she wondered for a second if she’d caught it on something – a hinge, perhaps.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried, and took hold of the extended paper clip for a
second assault … but then the strangest thing happened.

  The clip wrenched itself out of her grip, flew towards the case and attached itself resolutely to the metal bar which held the plastic in place.

  Janey stared at it for a second, then grabbed another paper clip from the drawer and tossed it towards the case. In exactly the same way, it snapped itself onto the metallic surface as soon as it came even close to being in contact with it.

  Janey looked around frantically. Sure enough, there was a noticeboard nearby with flyers and leaflets stuck onto it - not by pins, but by small, round enamel blobs. Grabbing one, Janey eased it close to the metallic strip and opened her palm. It jumped out of her hand, landing on the case edge with a satisfying smack.

  ‘It’s magnetised!’

  No wonder the rifle didn’t appear to be held up by anything. Magnetic forces were pinning it to the wall. If she could find the source of magnetic energy, she could divert it or even remove it, and then the metal framework of the case would simply fall apart.

  Janey thrust her ear to the wall. Even without her BATS hearing, she could just about make out an indistinct hum, so low that it was not so much a sound, but more like a vibration that she felt in her chest – and buzzed through the table. It was coming from the next office, and Janey suddenly made sense of the window in the wall above her head. It had appeared to go nowhere, but presumably it looked onto the next room, and the knobs and dials operated something within it.

  Dashing to the door, she checked for people in the corridor. Gideon was standing beyond the operating theatre with his back to her; behind him Jack was just emerging from the room, murmuring something to Gideon in a low voice. Just her own team-mates, having a chat – presumably about G-Mamma’s improved state.

  Well, that was fine. Without further hesitation, Janey raced in the other direction to the next door along the corridor.

  The door slid open obediently after she’d punched 0708 151 920 into the entry system, and she slipped into the room on high alert – it was always possible that someone might be in there, hiding.