Location: Bermuda Triangle
The Ekat base at the Bermuda Triangle is considered one of the most advanced bases in the world, with its state-of-the art labs and radar jamming systems. Its halls buzzed with Ekat agents clasping documents and experimental space-age gizmos. Its control room was akin to one you would see in sci-fi movies with sprawling screens, indicator lights and switches which monitored every Cahill hotspot in the world. The control room was currently monitoring the progress of the two K-2000s sent to intercept the flight path of flight SH 4372. All eyes were glued to the large screen with two dots signifying the K-2000Bs and the black dots signifying the Madrigal B-2s.
Suddenly a distress call came over the intercom.
"We were destroyed by Madrigal B-2s," said the voice of one of the Ekat pilots.
"We're bailing out in the Atlantic," said the other pilot.
Ekat leader Bae Oh slammed his hand down on his desk, breaking his computer mouse. "Now, would you tell me why we could still lose despite our superior technology!" shouted Bae Oh.
"The pilots were outnumbered six to two, sir," said an Ekat agent as he worked multiple knobs and dials on his control panel. "Even superior technology cannot avoid the capabilities of such a large disadvantage in terms of numbers."
"But we must get that clue," said Bae Oh. "To crush the spirit of the Tomas, our main rival. Send another Ekat team to Volgograd immediately! Someone please volunteer!"
"Okay," said Ekat agent Victor Wood. "I will volunteer to go to Volgograd."
Victor Wood was a rising star in the Ekat branch whose fame began when he was caught conducting top-secret Ekat experiments in his college lab however, instead of being punished by Bae Oh, he was rewarded and recognised for his enthusiasm. Bae Oh had instructed him to lay of his college studies for three weeks to help in the Volgograd effort.
"Assemble a team of four immediately," said Bae Oh. "Victor, you're in charge of this mission. This is your first serious mission. You are free to use any item in the Bermuda Triangle inventory. I want your team to be in Volgograd and ready for action in fifteen hours."
"Copy, Ekat leader," said Victor.
He immediately began jotting down on a notepad his team members and inventory needed. Behind him, Bae smiled, happy at this young agent's enthusiasm and loyalty for the Ekat branch. Of course his thoughts soon turned to Alistair, what he thought as a wasted potential.
'He would make a much better Ekat leader than my useless nephew Alistair," he thought. 'If it weren't for the Ekat custom of choosing Ekat leader successors from bloodline I would have appointed Victor instead of Alistair as my successor.'
There was still a chance for the Ekats.
Location: Volgograd
The Madrigal taxi reached its destination – a shop with a huge sign that read Madeleine's Electronics. There was no mistaking the name Madeleine, fifth child of Olivia Cahill and founder of the Madrigal branch that would soon become the mother of various peacekeeping organisations. The window displays were filled with cell phones, TVs and other electronic gadgets.
I stepped in and headed towards a door at the back with the Madrigal emblem emblazoned on it. Surely there should be a fingerprint scanner of some sort? I then saw a small phone duct-taped to the door with its back facing out. I pressed my index finger over the phone's camera. A green light flashed from the LEDs above the door. I pulled open the door and entered, with Amelia trooping in after me.
"I'm happy to say that our B-2s managed to intercept and decommission the Ekat planes without harming the pilots," said Clare Trine just as we walked in.
Clare was a senior Madrigal agent who had faithfully served the Madrigals in the spycatcher/molecatcher department since her late teens. Now, 83 years of age, she was still an active clue hunter and peacekeeper and held a high rank in the Madrigal leadership.
"Anyway, how did you get this place set up in just three months?" I asked.
"Let's just say that we have contacts in Russia," she said. "That made this job five times easier."
We were in the brightly lit main office. There were a couple of desks with laptops and documents in the middle of the room. There were also several doors lining the walls on our sides marked "offices", "security room", "lab", "meeting room" and "lavatory".
"Wow, but I don't see any security measures," said Amelia. "Except the fingerprint scanner on the door outside.
"There's more than meets the eye," said Clare. "The phone duct taped to the entrance is rigged to emit disruptive radio waves to foil any Cahill sensors. However, a drawback is that we can't use Bluetooth. And there's more."
Clare smirked as she pressed a tiny button under one desk. Heavy metal bars came sliding down. Ceiling boards slid open to reveal traps. A floorboard flipped open to reveal the entrance to a secret underground bunker. I suddenly noticed a desktop monitor showing the feed from 20 CCTV cameras inside and outside the shop house/Madrigal stronghold.
"Wow. This. Is. Cool," I said.
Clare pressed the button again and all the metal bars retracted. The ceiling boards slid back and the floorboard flipped shut.
"We'd better get down to why we're here," she said, lowering her voice. "As you know, a vital lost clue is sealed up somewhere in Volgograd. The Tomas themselves are not even sure where it is. The only clue they have is a postcard from 1970s in mint condition. The owner was the last person alive who knew of the lost Clue. It is a myth that the person buried a Clue in the wording of the postcard."
"Wait, I took a picture of the postcard. The Holts were analysing it on the plane," I explained.
I took out the Multipurpose Cluehunter Device. I hooked it up to the laptop sitting on Clare's desk. I clicked on File Explorer and clicked USB Drive: G. I then clicked on the folder labelled as "images" and clicked on IMG4. The image of the postcard filled the screen of the Dell laptop.
The trip to Paris will cost $400, AT MOST. I'm currently at Vichy and will depart for Paris Tomorrow. My friend Mr. CLOVE will bring me to the airport. The INN I stayed in in Vichy was nice. I hope my dog EDOG is doing well under your care. The porch must have STANK when you cleaned it.
To:
56 Penstreet Lot 241C
63450 Reykjavík
Iceland
"Wow, that's really bad grammar. Must have STANK?" said Amelia.
"And does Penstreet even exist? What kind of postcard is this?" I said.
"Do you have any shots of the back?" asked Clare.
I minimised the image of the postcard and clicked on IMG5. A picture of the Eiffel Tower showed up but the top of the tower was not in the picture. There was a message. "P.S. Subtract one TONES from the pile if it's too heavy." The word "subtract" was circled.
"I get that whoever wrote this has really bad English," said Amelia who pride herself on having impeccable English. "What pile is this person talking about and it should be TON, not TONNES which isn't even spelt correctly!"
Suddenly a massive brainwave hit me. What if the lead was in the capitalised words? I grabbed a piece of paper and listed them down.
AT MOST
CLOVE
INN
DOG
STANK
TONES
Nope. There was no correlation between the letters. They did not seem to be scrambled. Wait, what if we subtracted TONES from the words? There were five words and TONES had five letters. We could subtract one word with one letter respectively.
AT MOST – T = ATMOST = TOMAS
CLOVE – O = CLUE
INN – N = IN
EDOG – E= DOG
STANK – S= TANK
"Tomas Clue in Dog Tank!" I said excitedly. "That's where we have to go!"
"The Dog Tank monument isn't very far from here," said Clare. "You can walk there in fifteen minutes. Although you are already lightly armed with the Electra, it would blow your cover to use that in public."
She held up a small cardboard box.
"You'll need disguises."
Fifteen minutes later, Amelia and I were decked out in a wig, contact lenses and lightly protected with a coat sporting a thin layer of Kevlar underneath. Referring to a map, we began to navigate my way to the Dog Tank monument while secretly looking around every twenty seconds to see if we were being tailed.
Just as we were almost at our destination, Amelia noticed that we kept seeing a family in purple jackets behind us everywhere we went. It was definitely the Holts as they were the only ones who wore matching purple outfits all the time, as if they did not know that this would give them away.
Just then, I had a flash of inspiration. There was one exercise that Madrigal agents always practised during counter surveillance training which involved losing our tail by employing a swift, zig zag path across random alleys and behind buildings.
I looked around and sighted a complicated mess of buildings on my right roughly 100 metres away, built close to one another. Perfect. I whispered "split up" to Amelia, and made a dash towards the buildings. I went into the mess of buildings while Amelia turned left and ducked into a shopping mall, losing herself in the crowd of shoppers who thronged the mall during the lunch hour. The Holts were forced to split up with Reagan and Hamilton Holt tailing her and Mary Todd, Eisenhower and Madison Holt tailing me.
I raced into a dark alleyway with the Holts right on my tail. My instincts told me to get out of the alleyway and disappear into a building before the Holts even made it out of the alleyway. That way, I could quickly "disappear", regroup with Amelia, find whatever Clue or lead or whatsoever it was in the Dog Tank monument, get back to the stronghold and deliver the news to Grace Cahill in Massachusetts via a secure communication line.
I burst out of the alleyway and hurtled into an abandoned construction site. I hid in a metal container, pulled out my cell phone. A text from Amelia read:
IM buying a CAP at the pasTURE. Dylan, please FIND the CLOUD in green 37o54'31" N 36o52'46" W.
It did not take me long to crack the code. It read "IM CAPTURED FIND CLUE."
This was terrible. Amelia was captured and was probably dead by now. On top of that, I still hadn't found the Clue and Volgograd was full of Cluehunters from other family branches.
Not good.
I sent an encrypted message to Clare using the Multipurpose Cluehunting Device. I took a deep breath and peeked out of the container. Nothing. Nobody. Slowly, I inched out, looking around. Then I spotted something so ... bewildering. I stared, paralysed in terror and shock.
***
Victor Wood guided his plane down with practised ease. He had taken a basic flying course a few months ago in the Bermuda Triangle stronghold and the skills he had learned were proving to be incredibly useful. Although the K-32b supersonic jet he was flying was advanced enough to fly on autopilot, it still needed human help to carry out specific manoeuvres such as trying to land with only 100 metres of flat ground.
Victor's eyes narrowed with concentration as he eased the plane onto the piddling stretch of flat ground in a forest. He fiddled with a few controls and tightened his grip on the control column. The plane gracefully descended and touched the ground with a soft thump. Suddenly, the plane started skidding to starboard. Victor jerked the control column to port, getting the plane back on track. He then applied brakes and thrust reversers on maximum power. The plane slowed down, but there was only 40 metres of flat ground left. Victor and his teammates braced, awaiting the inevitable. Incredibly, instead of crashing into the boulders ahead, the plane skidded to a stop just 5 metres in front of the boulders.
Victor released a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding.
"Okay, I know this may sound crazy but let's hide our plane by covering it with turf and leaves," he said wiping sweat from his brow.
He opened the door and climbed out of the pilots' seat and stepped onto the hard ground. His two teammates in this mission, Nelson Alley and Michael Fish stepped out.
"Seriously?" asked Michael. "You sure it would work?"
"It's the best we've got," said Victor.
The trio immediately began pulling vines, twigs and turf from the ground and covered the plane with it.
"And after that," said Victor. "We'll head over to Museum Pamyat. The other Cluehunters are currently following another trail which we don't know of but legend has it that there is another hint or lead to the Tomas Clue hidden in Museum Pamyat.