The Hollywood Mission (11 page)

‘Let's get out of here before Toby sees us.'

‘Sorry?'

‘I mean, so we can get to the edit room.'

‘Oh, yeah. Good idea.'

After grabbing their packs, Max and Linden made their way out of the studio and along the snaking corridors to the edit room.

‘Here goes,' she said as she stood in front of the door and knocked.

They heard nothing.

‘Do we just go in?'

‘I guess.' Max turned the handle and entered
the dimly lit room to see Raychik huddled over the edit suite. Her body tensed as she remembered seeing him after her fall at the snow and realised she could be looking at a man who was out to get her.

Linden stepped forward. ‘Raychik?'

The editor spun round on his chair and eyed the two kids warily. ‘What do you want?' he mumbled irritably, turning back to his controls.

‘We're interested in the editing process and were wondering if we could watch what you do?' Linden asked, hoping Raychik wouldn't throw them out.

Raychik grunted as he continued his work. ‘Whatever.'

Linden found a seat beside him. Max stealthily took out her camera and stuck it in the foliage of a sagging pot plant before sitting down and winking at Linden.

Raychik worked as if they weren't there. Linden had to somehow put his camera in front of the editor to get a different angle from Max's. He looked at her, signalling for her to create a distraction. Max took the cue and threw her arms back into a big stretch, knocking a pile of film canisters to the floor.

Raychik groaned.

‘Sorry. I didn't mean to …'

Linden took his chance to position his camera as Max and Raychik picked up the canisters and placed them back on the bench. But as Raychik turned back, he saw Linden sit down quickly. The editor paused. Seconds ground past like train wheels skidding on a metal track, eating into Max's and Linden's nerves.

Then he went back to work.

They were in the clear. Or so they thought.

‘I know what you're thinking.'

The sound of those few words made them stop breathing.

‘But watch out,' Raychik cautioned threateningly. ‘The film business can be a dangerous game.'

Max and Linden looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

‘Now you'd better get out of here before you're wanted on the set.'

They didn't need to be told again, but as Max and Linden hurried out of the edit room and down the corridor, Max felt her Danger Meter vibrate. Behind them, two men in suits moved quietly out of the shadows. They stopped and stared at the two disappearing spies before turning and entering the room.

Later that day, Ben and Eleanor called Max on her palm computer. Once the cameras were in place, it hadn't taken long for them to make an important discovery. Soon Max and Linden were on their way to the truck behind Studio 23 to find out what it was.

As they walked along the busy studio streets, dodging mini trains of can-can dancers, workmen pushing giant brooms and a tour of overweight businessmen, Linden guessed the reason for Max's mood. ‘It must be really stressful making a film. I bet that's what's up with your dad.'

‘Yeah, but I've never seen him like this before,' Max said miserably. ‘It doesn't feel like him.'

‘You haven't seen him for a long time.'

‘I know, but he wasn't like this at the snow.'

‘Maybe when he's working it gets a bit much sometimes.'

‘I know my dad, alright?' Max wasn't sure what was making her more angry, what Linden was saying or that her dad really had changed since she'd last seen him. She felt bad about snapping at Linden. She'd never let anyone say anything against her dad, but something more was upsetting her.

‘It just feels sometimes that neither of my parents wants me. Or has time for me.'

Linden started to say that wasn't true but Max cut in, ‘And Toby thinks I'm ugly.'

Linden frowned. ‘How do you know Toby thinks you're ugly?'

‘He said so before, in my room. You were there. You heard him.'

Linden struggled to remember. Max let out a sigh. ‘He said when I was born they couldn't tell whether I was a boy or a girl.'

Linden scrabbled through his brain for the part in that sentence where Toby said she was ugly. He decided to avoid what he didn't understand and go with what he knew. His mother always said it was best that way.

‘Max, I think you look good.'

‘You're just saying that because you're my friend. Toby thinks I'm ugly and he said it right out loud in front of everyone.'

‘In front of me,' Linden reminded her, wondering if they were talking about the same conversation.

‘I am ugly. Even my mum says I have a plain face.'

Linden thought about what to say next and worded it as carefully as he could.

‘Max, I think your mother and Toby are so far
wrong that they need to book in for emergency eye testing as soon as they can.'

Even though it was the last thing she felt like doing, Max laughed. Linden could do that. Things could be bleak and he'd say one thing and everything would be fine again.

‘And while they were there, I'd book them in for a personality installation as well.'

But then he could also say things that went too far. Linden's smile faltered as Max's face went so red it could have been used as a warning beacon in a blizzard. She tried to do something to make things less embarrassing. She looked at her hands, twisted the end of her hair, stared at the sky and still only seconds passed.

Finally, to Max's relief, they reached the truck.

After knocking, a hidden scanner above them discreetly revealed who they were to Ben and Eleanor, who opened the door and ushered them in with hugs and kisses.

‘Well done.' Eleanor beamed. ‘Those cameras are in excellent positions.'

‘Just doing our job.' Linden sighed importantly as they both sat down.

‘And we've finally had a chance to show Harrison the Transporter Mark II — via the palm
computer, of course, which does minimise the impact.' Ben pulled the device from a small leather bag next to him. ‘He thinks it's the most amazing invention he's ever seen.'

Max was impatient to get back to their mission. ‘What have you found out?'

Eleanor shot Ben a quick look before beginning. ‘An ultra-sensitive heat ray within our monitors has picked up an unusual device in the edit suite that appears to alter the film. It's the size of a small beetle and is markedly similar to Fartie's encoding device. We've sent the information to Quimby, who is almost certain it is one of Fartie's.'

‘So they
are
trying to hide messages in films?' Linden asked.

‘It seems,' Eleanor replied, but there was something in her voice that told Max she wasn't telling them everything.

‘What else did you find out?' Max asked guardedly.

Eleanor sighed as she rewound the tape. ‘Now Max, it might look bad but there's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.'

A knot tightened in Max's stomach as Ben pressed the play button to reveal Raychik sitting at his desk working. Two men dressed in suits walked
in and asked the editor if he'd done what he'd been told. Raychik calmly replied that he wouldn't at any price. It was then that Max's dad walked in and started yelling at the editor. He was screaming abuse and threats. Finally, he told Raychik he was fired.

The editor stared at him. ‘We've worked together for years. We've always been able to work out our differences.'

‘Well, maybe you're more trouble than you're worth and it's time I got rid of you.'

Max saw the pained expression on Raychik's face. ‘If that's what you want …'

‘Yeah, that's what I want,' Max's dad said coldly.

The editor stood up to leave. ‘I don't know you any more.'

‘Maybe you never did.'

Raychik put his hands in his pockets, gave one last look at Max's dad and left.

‘Maybe that's what Raychik meant when he said the film business could be dangerous,' Linden deduced. He turned to Max but realised she wasn't thinking about Raychik.

‘I'm sorry, Max.' Eleanor put her hand on Max's shoulder but she pulled away.

‘That doesn't prove anything against my dad,'
she said confidently. ‘Except that he doesn't want to work with a grumpy editor.'

Eleanor gave Ben a quick look before she turned to her computer. ‘We need to find out who is behind the encoding and which films have been tampered with. Hopefully, we'll find our answers before any highly sensitive material is dispersed.'

‘You've done well,' Ben said to Max and Linden. ‘I'm so proud I —'

‘We've got to get going.' Max cut him off.

‘Max,' Eleanor said, but Max ignored her and strode out of the truck. Linden gave Eleanor a clipped smile before quickly following.

‘They think Dad's involved. I know it,' she said when he'd caught up.

Linden was silent.

‘The footage showed nothing,' she fumed.

Linden was still quiet.

‘You saw that, didn't you?' She turned on her heels and faced Linden who looked away. Then she realised. ‘You believe it too, don't you? You think my dad's a criminal?'

‘But the footage …?'

‘My dad would never do anything like this.'

She ran off quickly, ducking into a narrow alley.

‘Max!' Linden shouted after her, but she
wouldn't listen as she flung away tears threatening to worm down her face. Her father was a good man. How could Linden think he was bad?

Just then a van pulled up and blocked the alley. ‘Hey, I'm trying to get past.'

Max's Danger Meter began vibrating but she was too upset to notice.

The van stayed where it was. She slammed her fists into the back windows as the doors were flung open and two men jumped out.

‘I said, you're in my way,' she seethed as her hands flew to her hips.

‘Max!' Linden entered the alley just as the guys were forcing Max into the van. He ran at the guys and tried to beat them off, but they were too strong, and within seconds he and Max were lying in the van, gagged and bound, unable to move or scream for help.

‘Drive at normal speed,' one of the goons ordered the driver. ‘We don't want no one getting suspicious.'

As the van pulled slowly out of the alley, a dishevelled figure emerged from the shadows and, keeping out of sight, followed the vehicle to its final destination.

‘Does the zoo know you've escaped, because I think you should tell them in case they get worried,' Max spat at her captors as she wriggled in the ropes that tied her to an upright wooden stretching rack. Her Danger Meter vibrated silently beneath her clothes.

The two goons had taken the young spies to a torture chamber lined with iron manacles, whips and cruel-looking devices for twisting and imprisoning. A stony balcony circled the top of the chamber, looking down on several rocky levels. The only door in the chamber was set into the wall of the balcony and led to a set of roughly chiselled stairs that descended to the bottom level. In the centre of this was a large, round pit.

Max's stretching rack was positioned on the balcony and from there she had a full view of the chamber and the pit. The goons stood rigidly by the door, as if they were awaiting further orders.

‘You know, I've had more interesting discussions with plants than with you.'

Max spied their backpacks lying on the lower level of the chamber. The goons had thrown them aside thinking they were normal packs.

Linden was imprisoned in a cruel-looking contraption on a platform above the pit. His wrists
and ankles were gripped by manacles that held him inside a coffin-shaped metal cage that had doors lined with spikes. Linden did all he could to stay still to avoid the sharpened points. He'd been quiet until now, but he could see Max's taunts were starting to get to the goons.

‘Ah, Max. Maybe getting these guys upset isn't such a good plan.' He felt the regular vibration of his Danger Meter under his shirt.

Max kept on at the goons. ‘What's wrong? Have you put your brain somewhere and you're trying to remember where?'

One of the men flinched and sent her a gnarled stare. Linden knew Max was upset about her dad but there was something reckless about the way she was acting. ‘Max?'

She looked down at him. ‘I haven't decided I ever want to speak to you again yet.'

She turned away.

Linden tried to make her understand. ‘I know you're angry with me, and I bet you're right about your dad. I bet he isn't involved in anything. I want to help you prove it.'

Max clenched her teeth, determined not to be talked out of her mood. Suddenly her Danger Meter vibrated even harder.

‘Linden, you're always playing the good guy, aren't you?'

Max and Linden looked towards the man who was walking down the stairs.

‘Dad! You're here! I knew you'd come. These guys kidnapped us and are working for someone who is using the studio to transmit top-secret information throughout the world.' Max was so happy to see him. Then she realised he wasn't rushing to free them.

‘Dad?' Her voice was small and unsure.

Linden's hair prickled on his head and stood even higher than usual. The way Max's dad was looking at them, setting them free wasn't what he had in mind.

‘So you've gotten yourself into a bit of trouble?' He reached the bottom of the stairs and walked towards Linden. He touched the sharpened end of one of the spikes. ‘Maybe it's because you were sticking your noses in where they didn't belong.'

‘But, Dad. I know you don't mean that,' Max said quietly from above.

‘Oh, I mean it. You think you know me but it's been a long time since you and I have lived together and quite a few things have changed.'

‘But you said that you and I will always be the same.' Max tried to reconcile her father of a few days ago with the one she was talking to now.

‘Did I?' He rubbed his hand across his chin in mock confusion.

Linden eyed Max's father carefully. He remembered Max telling him what her father had said. Why was he denying it now?

‘I must have forgotten. Come on, Max. You're a clever girl. You know sometimes we say things because they're the right things to say, not because we believe them.'

An aching wave shot through Max's chest.

‘I mean, really. It takes very special people to like each other for a long period of time, and I don't think you and I are that special.'

This hurt the most. This was one thing he'd always said to her — they were special, and nothing would ever change that. Max's eyes sank to stare at her shoes.

‘Are the distribution trucks in place?'

Max looked up, her eyes blurred with tears, and realised he was speaking to the goons. ‘Why are you talking to them? They're part of the plan to …'

Then her dad did something that snatched the breath from her lungs. He placed his hand under
his chin and, taking hold of the skin, tore a latex mask from his head.

‘Blue!'

The man below her slowly ran his hand through his blue-streaked hair. ‘Yes. Lovely, isn't it, that we're all together again?'

Max's mind unscrambled itself as she began to understand what had happened.

‘So you're behind this whole encoding business?' Linden accused him.

‘I rather like to describe myself as being a supporter of the arts.'

‘You're the silent producer!' Linden glared coldly.

‘Yes, but most people know me as Albert Power. Suits me, don't you think?'

Max shivered with anger. ‘What have you done with my father?'

‘Maxine, if I tell you everything now this is going to be a very quick visit, and I do so look forward to our meetings.'

She fixed Blue with a venomous gaze. ‘If you touch him or hurt him in any way, you'll regret this day for the rest of your life.'

Blue took her gaze and answered it with a syrupy smile dripping with victory. ‘Max, I'm quaking in my cowhide boots.'

Linden pushed against his manacles, furious at the way his friend was being treated. Blue was baiting her, and the mood Max was in she might just snap.

‘Anyway, with what's going to happen next I think you should be much more worried about your own future rather than that of a man you rarely see.'

‘You shut up about my father!'

Blue sighed. ‘Your loyalty to a man who hasn't bothered to visit you in over three years is astounding.'

‘He's been busy. Besides, he's done lots of things to let me know he cares.'

‘Like walking out on you?'

Linden flinched. The vibrations of his Danger Meter hammered against his chest. Blue was playing a very dangerous game.

‘He didn't walk out on me.' Max's voice was low and hard. ‘He left to work in America.'

‘And be with his new wife and child,' Blue added.

‘They don't have any children,' Max spat back but the way he smiled, she could tell Blue knew something she didn't.

‘They didn't tell you Mee Lin is going to have a baby?'

An invisible cold lump slammed into Max's chest.

‘I guess they didn't think you were important enough to tell. After all, once they have their own child, they won't be needing you any more.'

Max wanted Blue to stop talking. If her dad and Mee Lin were going to have a baby, he would have told her.

‘Max.' Linden looked up at her. ‘He's only trying to upset you.'

‘What would you know! You think my dad's a criminal, so don't pretend to defend him now, you hypocrite.'

Linden recoiled from Max's words as they echoed around the chamber, bouncing off the rocky walls. Max's heart jolted at his saddened face. She was angry at Linden for thinking her dad was a criminal, but mostly she was angry because it might be true. ‘Linden, I —' she began, but Blue interrupted.

‘Children, let's not fight.' He was enjoying every moment of their arguing. ‘I need to tell you how my chamber works.'

‘But this isn't real,' Linden reminded him. ‘We're in a film studio, remember?'

‘Linden, that's where you're wrong. I had this place especially designed for your visit. It's based on
an old torture chamber where spectators stood on the balcony eating roast goat and drinking brewed ale as they watched prisoners writhing in the pit below with snakes, spiders and centipedes as their squirming companions.'

Linden stared into the pit before him. ‘What are you going to do with the films?'

‘Ah, that is so exciting I can hardly contain myself. The films are encoded with top-secret information that the United Nations would hate to be made public, such as all sorts of facts about international security. The messages are digitally encoded onto the film's surface like a layer of invisible ink that will make me lots of money and won't interfere with the audience's viewing of the film.'

Blue's malevolent eyes were alive as he relished his role in the possible destabilising of the world.

‘The UN has got a hard enough job trying to bring peace to the world, and you're going to wreck that?'

‘Oh Linden, there you go on your goody-goody crusade again. The UN are a bunch of old fogies dominated by a few countries working for their own benefit. You're smart enough to know that. It's time I benefited as well.'

‘What's in it for you?' Linden asked with contempt.

‘Enough cash to furnish my rather expensive lifestyle and a bunch of other things, including a castle in Bavaria I have my eye on.'

‘Where's Fartie?'

Blue was starting to get annoyed at Linden's questions. ‘You know about Fartie? He's somewhere safe. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do.'

Blue summoned his goons and began quietly talking to them.

He had to be stopped. If the films were distributed as planned, Linden knew the destruction they'd unleash would be devastating. He felt the corner of his palm computer against the fingers of his manacled hands. He ran through the keys in his mind. If he could get a message to Ben and Eleanor, they could use the locators in their palm computers to find Max and Linden before it was too late. That is until what happened next.

‘You'll never be half the man my dad is, Blue,' Max said. ‘You're just a snivelling excuse for a man who wouldn't know the first thing about loyalty or elegance.'

There was something about the way Blue
looked up at her that made Linden's blood freeze. Please don't hurt her, he pleaded silently.

‘I've warned you before about pushing me too far.' There was a barbed-wire edge to Blue's voice as his reddened eyes glowered at Max, but it wasn't her he headed for. It was Linden. ‘And now you'll see why. Release him.'

One of the goons moved towards Linden. He pulled a lever that unlocked Linden's manacles and slowly tipped the iron cage towards the pit. Max stared in horror at what she was seeing, hoping it wasn't real, hoping it would stop. She breathed against the insistent pulsing of her Danger Meter. Linden didn't say a word as he gripped the cold metal of an opened manacle. His legs flayed the air as the goons sniggered like mangy hyenas. ‘Maybe next time you'll learn when to stay quiet,' Blue said maliciously, before turning and leaving the chamber.

Linden's grip slipped as the iron cage dangled him over the pit. One by one his fingers came away from the metal, until, silently, he fell through the air. In a soundless, desperate moment, he caught Max's eye before he fell into the pit with a sickening thud.

‘Linden?' Max stared at his crumpled body that lay askew on the floor.

She saw the look of dread on his face as he fell again and again. She wanted to catch him, wanted to make it stop, but she couldn't, and all that was left was the twisted sprawl of her best friend's body as he lay in the darkened pit below her.