I saw something which made my heart beat out of my chest.
It was our bikes
And there were men examining it.
Without a moment's hesitation i ducked behind the wall of the building where the road turned in to the garage's street, with the other two following suit.
I panted silently, holding my hand to my heart, trying to grip on what I had just seen.
Men, but who were they working for? Were they just regular passersby?
No, they had to be in league with the people whom we stole the paper from. They had to be, it was a guarantee.
I looked back at the others and I could see they were worried. I was too. In fact, I felt like I could pass out at any second.
I assessed the situation quickly. What could we do? What should we do? Uh we couldn't run in and ask them for the bikes. We couldn't sneak around the back and get the bikes back stealthily either.
That left the one option I could think of: waiting.
"David, Charlie, we might have to wait a while to get our bikes" I whispered, taking great care not too talk even a little bit louder than I had to.
"God dang it" Charlie asked, "Do you suppose they caught up with us?"
"Seems like it" I mumbled, before a scary thought hit my head.
"Guys, we didn't happen to write our names on the bikes did we?"
I looked back at my two friends and their facial expressions told me everything.
"Damn it" I swore. "That makes things much worse for us. Much worse, especially if this is a professional operation which these people are running, which they are."
"W.what can we do now Ibrahim?" Charlie asked, but it was David who answered.
"We'll try to get as close to our bikes as possible without getting caught, and hope for the best. If we can't get our bikes back then we'll have to be even more careful with what we plan further" David replied, looking serious.
I nodded, David was right. We had made a very foolish mistake leaving our bikes there, literally handing it to enemy on a silver platter.
But we couldn't waste any more time thinking of how we should have done things, we had to focus on the now and play our cards right.
Hopefully Ronan and Ben were doing a better job than us.
Ben's point of view:
What Ronan had just done was stupid and not thought out! Did he not realize the risks of going alone to spy on dangerous men? It was plain foolishness!
And not to mention he left me to cover up for him when of course I didn't have experience with that field.
All I can say is, I was having none of this. If Ronan was going to spy and have all the fun, then I'd do a little spying of my own. It was only fair after all.
"Dad?" I said, gently nudging him.
"Yes Ben? What's the matter?" inquired my dad.
"Ronan's calling me over to look at a few things, is it okay if I go with him?" I asked, pointing to where I thought he had gone. I tried to sound as normal as I could while trying to deal with the guilt of making up that lie.
"Fine son, but don't wander off too much. I don't want you both to get lost" replied my dad, ruffling my hair and smiling.
"Yes dad, for sure" I smiled, giving him a quick hug before going off in the direction where Ronan had supposedly been calling me.
"Now Ronan, we'll see who is the better spy guy" I remarked to myself, trying to spot him.
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Ronan's point of view:
I can't say I was very proud of leaving Ben alone but I had to do what I had to. I had spotted the target and I couldn't let him get in the way of my super awesome spy mission.
At first I couldn't find the man, so I settled with looking around a bit. I took great care to not look like I was looking for someone though. I just acted as if I was a curious kid wandering through the market, hoping to find something of my interest.
And that's when I did find the something of interest, the something that was very much of interest indeed.
I focused on the big burly man that had fallen in to my field of vision.
I didn't know his features clearly, nor could I confirm this was our guy, but there was something about his attitude, and his body language, which gave it all away.
I pushed my way through the crowd of people, trying my hardest not to lose sight of the man. A couple of times I did too, but the man was so huge compared to the others that it didn't take me long to find him again.
I wondered why this strange man was here though. It's not like he was here to buy some vases for his house. Did he have to meet someone here? Did he have to get something?
I had to find out.
The man walked on for a while, before walking in to one of the decently sized cafes that were in the market.
I didn't tell myself to do anything otherwise: I went in.
It was a decent café, decent size, decent color scheme, and the place in itself was very clean, which was pretty nice admittedly. There was a pleasant aroma about the place too, one that radiated coffee and maybe a little hint of toast as well. I made a mental note to have breakfast here sometime.
My eyes darted left to right, trying to see where the man was, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Instantly my eyes caught sight of a flight of stairs, and no time was wasted in climbing them and ascending to the second floor. My guy had to be here.
And there indeed he was, seated in the far corner giving off a negative vibe which I could feel all the way from there. He was on the edge of his seat, hands on the table and his head bent down, so that his face was partially concealed. He looked as if he was slightly uneasy though, and the fact that he chose a table for two to sit at meant he was waiting on someone.
Now who was that someone? It was time to find out, via a little "hiding in plain sight"
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Charlie's point of view:
Every inch closer we got to them, I felt my hair stand even more on end. And every inch closer we got to the men, I became even more cautious. More cautious about my actions: where I stepped, and even how I was breathing.
I felt as if my accelerated heartbeat would cause detection by the men, and I put my hand over it, trying to ease it.
Crouched within the cover of the back wall of the house, we three were as alert and as silent as the prey of a predator who was trying to evade capture. It was a game of true stealth, not one error could be made, not one wrong move, no inaccuracy in anything we did.
David peaked around the corner of the wall, and raised his hand, signaling for us to follow him. And swiftly we jumped over the fence to mark the property's boundary and moved to the back of the next house. Then we repeated the whole process once more, before coming to a halt.
This was the last house in the lane, and just right of it was the garage, and our bikes.
There was a problem though, to get to the back of the garage from where we were, we had to get through the substantial gap between the two points with us being very much within the vision of these dangerous people. And that problem was only made worse by the fact there was little cover to duck behind.
But there was a little cover, and that was all we needed.
There lay a line of thick bushes which presented us a path to our objective undetected if we crawled right next to it. It was difficult but..it was a way.
God I hoped this worked.
I went first, getting down on my knees and then crawling slowly along the ground, daring not to make a sound. Ibrahim followed behind me silently but David stayed back, and I looked at him.
"I can't do this, it's too risky" he whispered, "You two are barely invisible behind these bushes and you two are super skinny as well. I wouldn't be camouflaged like you two, and I'd get us all caught."
I listened to David and pursed my lips, thinking about what course of action to take from here. David was obviously right, and we couldn't allow ourselves to get caught, not when we were on the edge of a possible adventure.
But then again, we couldn't leave David right where he was. If we got our bikes back, and the men came looking for us, they'd find and capture him.
We couldn't afford that.
And it seemed David understood that too, because he nodded and whispered, "I've got an idea though, you two go on, I'll catch up."
"Wait what is it?" I asked in a quiet voice.
"You'll see, now go on, we've wasted too much time" he replied, motioning for us to go on.
And that is what we did.
We inched our way forward, quickly but quietly, and with every passing second I kept hoping that we didn't get spotted.
I extended my right arm as far forward as I could, and clenched the ground with my fingers, pulling myself forward before repeating the process but with the opposite arm. It was an exhausting yet at the same time, exciting process, because every time I did it, I got closer and closer.
And not more than a minute later, I was there.
Hesitantly, I stood up behind the back wall of the garage, my legs wobbling a little from being in that awkward laying down position.
Behind me, Ibrahim got up silently and took the lead, going around the corner of the building silently and I followed.
And that's where I saw the one thing I hadn't expected to see, a door!
Or well, that's where a door should have been, in actuality there was only the opening, which we could go through.
No wait!
I pulled Ibrahim back just in time as I heard the voice of one of the men in the garage.
"So, we take the bikes with us?" he asked in a deep, sort of raspy voice.
"I don't really see the point though, doing all this. I say it was a mistake to go after the miscreants in the first place! We got them suspicious and now they could present a problem for us. And I did tell Gary the same thing, but of course no one listens to me!" a voice complained, this one higher pitched than the first one, probably signaling that the man was on the younger side..early 20's?
"Oh for god's sake stop whining Sam, geez you'd think we were talking to a 5 year old. Those kids are dumb. Just watch, they won't understand the co-ordinates, let alone be able to do anything about it. Not like they have a one way ticket to Norway anyway" spat another voice with a harsh tone in it.
"He's probably the leader of these three" I thought. "And well, at least we got the co-ordinates right. They do point to Norway, though there is truth in the man's words; we don't have a way to get there"
"Leave the bikes for now, but I want you both to keep a close eye on these individuals. They can't do anything on their own..but they can alert others. Stay on them 24/7, and always keep track of where they are, got it?" asked the mysterious man in a tone which eliminated any sort of daring to go against his words.
"Got it man, but gosh, stop acting like you're the boss when you're not" the man with a heavy voice, Gary said plainly.
"I'll get there soon enough, now go" the 'boss' commanded.
I heard the light sound of walking away from the garage and I slowly peaked around the door opening, only to get the living day lights scared out of me when I came up face to face with a man.
"And next time you try spying on somebody, be sure to do a better job at it" he spoke calmly, grabbing me by my shirt and lifting me off the ground easily as I kicked and struggled.
"You know, you brats aren't going to get in our way, but a little beating wouldn't hurt either. I don't want any more interferences from you" he said harshly, looking at me through his mask.
"Now, how many of you are there? Or was it just you spying on us?"