Alpha Force: Untouchable Part 11

'h.e.l.lo?' he said. His voice was rough, Glaswegian.

Li saw him peer into the gloom at her.

Then there was a faint patter of feet on metal; a rustle in the heather. Some nocturnal creature had been exploring the ATV. The gamekeeper walked over to the bike to investigate. Li breathed out a long, careful sigh.

Hex rolled into the heather and lay still. The gamekeeper flashed his torch over the bike, took a last drag on his cigarette, then dropped it. Its red glow disappeared under the toe of his boot. He pulled his mask back on, walked back to the trapdoor, climbed in and pulled it shut.

Li stood up and jogged on the spot, trying to warm up. She was freezing. She could see Hex's pale blue palmtop light like a will-o'-the-wisp. She ran gratefully over to him.

'Phew that was close. Did you get the position of the trapdoor?'

Hex nodded. 'Roughly. We'll have to come back and look in daylight. It's too dangerous to do more now.'

They jogged away, prepared to duck down again at any moment, but the trapdoor stayed closed. It was a relief to move after holding still for so long.

Li slowed to a walk. She felt mentally exhausted. 'I really thought that guy with the cigarette had seen me. Thank heavens for small nocturnal animals.'

'Or large ones,' said Hex. His eyes were twinkling in the torchlight. Li looked at him, puzzled, and he ran his fingers lightly up her arm like a scampering animal.

'It was you!' She rubbed him on the arm. 'You probably saved my bacon.'

Li shuddered. 'They're making a big pick-up sometime tomorrow night, but we don't know when.' Her hands were around a steaming mug of hot chocolate, but lying still for so long in wet clothes had chilled her to the bone.

She and Hex were in the kitchen, giving the others a resume of what they had seen on the moor. Tiff had finally drifted into a deep sleep and Amber felt it was safe to leave her.

Paulo stared into his mug of hot chocolate Amber had just got him and Alex out of their beds. 'That's got to be the factory,' said Paulo. He looked sleepy but his brain had grasped the facts swiftly.

'Is that enough to go to the police with?' said Amber.

'I think we need more,' said Alex. 'We could tell the police to ambush them, but they might only get the gamekeepers.'

Hex nodded. 'We've got to get a good look at the factory during the day when they're not around, find the trapdoor. If we can't find it, the police won't.'

Amber sighed. 'If only we'd given you and Li the video camera, you could have filmed what you saw and that would be enough.'

'There's more than just the factory,' said Hex. 'There's a big deal going through. If we could find out when they're making the handover, we could get the hooded guy too.'

Li nodded. 'He's not just a dealer, he's a mega-dealer. He was talking about major clients, a string of dealers. He's big time. If the gamekeepers get busted too early, he'll just walk away.'

Paulo yawned. 'If we're going to do something, we'd better move fast. The police will probably question the gamekeepers sometime later today about the "polystyrene". That will put them on alert.'

'There's no point trying to get more evidence now,' said Hex. 'They're busy at night. We'll just run into them again. We're better off leaving it until the morning.'

Amber sat back thoughtfully. 'OK, we have two objectives: to find physical evidence of the factory; and to find out when the deal's being done.'

'Three objectives,' yawned Paulo. 'Get some sleep.'

'Four,' said Alex. His voice was serious. 'Stay alive. My dad's mate was on a mission watching the IRA when he stumbled across a drugs factory in someone's back room. The next day three guys came and cut his head off with a chainsaw.' He looked at his four friends earnestly. 'We've stayed undercover until now. Let's keep it that way.'

16.

RACE A AGAINST T TIME.

At 7 a.m. Li opened her curtains. Four hours' sleep wasn't really enough. The sun was already starting to evaporate the dew into a light mist. It was a captivating sight it almost made her glad to be up.

Someone pounded on the door.

'Yeah, it's OK,' she called. 'I'm up.'

Paulo's voice answered her. 'Tiff's gone again.'

She threw on some clothes and pounded down the stairs.

In the hall Alex was already making plans. 'Li, you search the attics, Amber the bedrooms, Paulo the ground floor. Hex and I will take the outbuildings.'

Amber, a slice of bread in one hand, spoke between mouthfuls. She was a diabetic and had to make sure she ate regularly. 'Hex, couldn't you just look her up on your thingy?'

'I've done all that,' said Hex. 'I couldn't see her so I tried calling her. Her phone's in her room.'

Amber gulped down the rest of her breakfast as she climbed the stairs.

Amber had found nothing. She strode out of the front door. Li and Paulo were standing in the drive.

'Anything?'

They shook their heads.

The mist was lifting, making the valley glow. From the garage came the clunk of the Range Rover door, then Hex and Alex came out.

Alex saw the group and shook his head. 'Zilch. She's vanished into thin air.'

'Most of her stuff's still in her bedroom,' said Amber, 'so she hasn't gone to the airport or anything. But her walking boots have gone.'

'Typical,' sighed Hex. 'The only way that lazy trout would go for a walk is to annoy us.'

'All the safety equipment's still here,' said Alex. 'Ropes, helmets, etc.'

'Pur-leeze!' exclaimed Li. 'She's not going to go for an energetic climb.'

'I looked at her alarm clock in case she'd set it to go out early,' said Amber. 'No clues there. It wasn't even on.'

Alex looked up into the hills. A gentle breeze made the heather ripple. 'We'd better find her before she blunders into something she shouldn't.'

The Ordnance Survey map was spread out on the kitchen table.

'She can't have got far,' said Paulo. 'She's not very fit.'

'But we don't know what time she left,' said Li. 'We went to bed at three; she could have been gone for hours.'

Amber looked at the map. 'She hates hill walking. So she won't have gone up here.' She pointed to the contour lines that indicated the steep hill that rose at the back of the hostel.

'Most likely she went along the road,' said Hex.

Alex looked at the map, mentally dividing it up. He had learned a number of ways of searching for a lost person. You covered the area according to a set pattern, which meant you didn't miss anywhere. 'I think we should take two quad bikes; the rest of us can go in the Range Rover and search the roads.'

'I'll take a quad,' said Paulo.

'Me too,' said Amber. She looked at Hex. 'You coming?'

Hex snorted. 'Not if you're driving.'

'Actually, Hex,' said Alex, 'you'd better come in the Range Rover. You can monitor everyone on tracers. And we'd better have just one person on each quad so we've got something to bring her back on.'

'Wish we'd thought to put a tracer on her her,' muttered Li.

Paulo was looking at the map. 'There are a few farm buildings in the area. We might get lucky with some of those.'

'We just have to hope she didn't hitch a ride somewhere,' said Amber.

'I don't think she'd leave her luggage,' said Li.

Alex stood up. It was time to go. 'OK, guys, keep in contact, usual protocols. If you have to go into a mobile blind spot, tell someone first so we know where you are. Let's get her back before she gets herself killed.'

Scottish farmyards were so different from Argentinian ones, thought Paulo. His parents' ranch was full of wide open s.p.a.ces. This farm in Scotland was overlooked by brooding hills, as though somebody had taken a regular ranch and rumpled it up to fit into a much smaller s.p.a.ce. On an Argentinian ranch everything was wooden the fences, the buildings, the arch over the entrance. In Scotland the buildings had evolved out of a motley collection of scavenged materials a stone croft with a patched roof, a big barn made of breeze blocks and corrugated iron. And then there was the mud. Apart from the rain the day before, it had been dry most of the time they had been in Scotland. So why were all the farmyards he'd seen wet and muddy?

A man in grimy blue overalls was pouring diesel into his tractor. Paulo parked the bike and walked up to him. He asked the question he had asked at many farmyards already.

'I'm looking for a missing girl five foot two, blonde hair. Have you seen anyone around the place?'

The man sucked in his bottom lip as though giving the question careful consideration. 'No. But you're welcome to look around for yourself.'

Paulo walked off towards the breeze-block hay barn.

Amber had gone in the opposite direction, across the moor. She took it slowly, looking from left to right across the wide open s.p.a.ce. Already there were people about early morning walkers mostly. She pa.s.sed a burned area of heather, the branches twisted like black coral. The sound of a shot rang across the moor. Amber stopped and listened for the body falling but she must have been too far away to hear it. That was a hazard she hadn't thought of. There were people out here shooting. What if the silly girl had wandered into the path of a bullet?

To Amber's left the ground sloped away steeply. It made a sort of crescent shape, and down in the bowl was a small square ruined barn. Better check it. How much longer was it going to take to find her? Already it was ten o'clock. The morning was ticking away and they had work to do.

Amber turned the handlebars towards the slope. The bike began to run away with her. She braked hard. It was steeper than she thought. She turned away instead: overturning an ATV wasn't smart. They were heavy and could break your neck. She sighed. More delays. She looked for another way round.

Alex met Li and Hex back at the Range Rover. They were at the top of the main street of Tongue and had searched the village without success. They climbed into the vehicle wearily.

Li buckled her seat belt. 'We could try Glaickvullin.'

Alex started the engine and moved out into the traffic. 'I suppose so. But it would take her ages to walk there a good few hours. We might just have to report her to the police.'

'Don't they have to be missing for longer than a few hours?' asked Hex.

On the dashboard Alex's phone rang. Li looked at the display. 'It's a text from Paulo.' She brought up the message, then glanced at Alex. 'Am stalking a rare bird with pink plumage. Will try to bring her out without scaring her.'

Paulo was in another farm, in another barn. This at least smelled like home, a clean, heady smell, almost spicy. Newly made hay had been baled and stacked like a wall of giant building blocks. A steel ladder led to the top, nearly six metres up.

Paulo heard the movement again, like a rustle. He put his phone away and pattered up the ladder to the top.

A big pair of eyes looked back at him. He'd seen her from the ground: the fluorescent pink flashes on her Punkyfish leggings were a dead giveaway. Tiff looked forlorn, her eyes surrounded by dark shadows, hay falling out of her pale hair, her ponytail dishevelled.

Paulo took his time, as he had with the frightened pony. Tiff might still decide to run away. He sat down beside her. 'How's it going?'

Tiff sat up, pulling her knees into her chest. She looked at her feet. Paulo got the feeling it was easier than looking at him. Was she embarra.s.sed?

'You feeling a bit rough?' said Paulo.

'I needed to think,' she said to her Puma sneakers. 'Now you can take me back.'

She was embarra.s.sed, thought Paulo, but she's covering it up. He climbed down the ladder and held it for her. At least they'd found her safe and sound.

Alex and the others were locking up the Range Rover as Paulo b.u.mped down off the hillside onto the drive. As soon as he braked, Tiff climbed off.

'You can all go to h.e.l.l.' She stalked into the hostel and slammed the front door.

Li looked at Paulo. 'You must have had a pleasant journey.'

Alex let out his breath in along hiss. 'We've wasted several hours running around after her when we could have been doing other things. Are there any volunteers for nanny duty?'

Paulo cut the engine. 'I'll take her for a walk to clear her head. She wasn't too bad on the way back.'

Alex nodded. 'Let's make plans. Conference in the kitchen in ten minutes?'

In his room Hex set his palmtop recharging. It had been used a lot and he wanted to top up the batteries. Across the landing he could hear Tiff as she made a phone call in her room; he couldn't distinguish actual words, but the complaining tone was clear. No doubt she was filling in some friend on the injustices of the morning. He went back out onto the landing just as Tiff came out of her room. She was wearing a purple hoodie and dragging her suitcase along the corridor. She saw him and straightened up.

'I'm going. I'm too stressed. I've been telling my parents the things you've made me do and they've just told me they've booked me into a health spa. They've sent you a fax to confirm.'

Hex could hardly believe the troublemaking little minx had done anything so convenient. 'You're going right now?'

'My parents' PA is coming for me in a taxi. There's nothing you can do to stop me.'

Hex was tempted to beg her to stay for one last day of overwhelming fun. Instead he picked up her case. 'Better get this downstairs.' Tiff followed him down.

Outside in the drive he heard the crunch of tyres on the gravel and saw Paulo looking through the spy hole in the front door.

'It's a taxi,' said Paulo, and straightened up. The others relaxed visibly. Hex realized they must have been on the alert for trouble.

Tiff saw her audience. 'I'm going,' she said dramatically, 'and there's nothing you can do.'