Grk Undercover (16 page)

The door opened. Colonel Zinfandel emerged. He was carrying a pistol in his right hand. He looked left, then right, then left again, but he couldn’t see any sign of the boy. He yelled at his guards, alerting them that there was an intruder on the plane.

Men jumped to their feet. Some shouted orders. Others sprinted forward, drawing their weapons. They covered every exit.

Colonel Zinfandel had spent a lot of money on his private jet, buying one of the best models on the market, but it was still a small, confined space. There was an office, a TV room, a bathroom and a
kitchen. And that was all. On such a small plane, there was nowhere to hide.

So where was the boy?

Following Colonel Zinfandel’s orders, the soldiers spread out and searched the plane from end to end.

Down at the far end of the plane, Max and Natascha looked at one another with wild excitement in their eyes.

Natascha said, “Do you hear what they said?”

“There’s a boy on the plane,” said Max.

“You know who that must be!”

Max nodded. “Tim’s here.”

“How did he get here?” said Natascha.

“That’s not important,” whispered Max. “Only one thing matters. How can we help him?”

Tim and Grk were crammed inside the cupboard.

It felt familiar. They had hidden here before.

But it felt different too. They could hear shouts and footsteps. The plane was full of activity. People were running around, searching for them. In a minute or two, someone would look inside the cupboard. And then what would happen?

Tim had prepared himself for that moment. His arms were pressed against the side of the cupboard. His legs were tensed.

He was ready.

There were six soldiers on the plane.

Two went forward to the cockpit and guarded the pilot. They didn’t want anyone coming into the cabin and trying to disrupt the flight.

The other four soldiers went through the entire aircraft, checking every room, looking for the intruder. One of them searched under the seats in the cabin. Another went through the overhead lockers. A third checked the toilet. The fourth went into the kitchen.

He opened the fridge, but there was nothing inside except bottles of wine and cartons of orange juice.

He opened the next cupboard and found forty glasses.

He opened another cupboard—and a shoe caught him between the eyes.

“Arrgghh!” cried the soldier, and staggered backward.

Another shoe smacked him in the chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. And then several small sharp white teeth bit into his ankle.

The shoes belonged to Tim. He had been waiting in the cupboard, his legs tensed, preparing himself to kick the first person who opened the door. The teeth belonged to Grk. As soon as he saw the soldier, he leaped forward and took a big bite out of his ankle. The soldier writhed on the floor.

Tim and Grk jumped over him and ran into the corridor. They looked both ways, then dodged back again. But they weren’t quick enough. They had been seen already.

A shout went up. Then another. Soldiers came running.

Tim darted through a doorway. Grk ran alongside him. They charged into Colonel Zinfandel’s private office. And then they stopped.

They were facing the barrel of a gun.

Colonel Zinfandel was standing right in front of them. He was wearing a black suit and pointing a pistol at Tim’s forehead.

“Timothy Malt,” he said with a smile. “What an unexpected pleasure. Would you mind putting your hands in the air?”

Tim did exactly what he was told. He raised his hands into the air. He knew that there was no point disobeying a man with a pistol. Not unless you wanted a bullet in your head.

Colonel Zinfandel stared at Tim and smiled.

Tim stared back. He didn’t smile. He just tried not to look scared.

Down at his feet, Grk growled. It was a deep, low growl that could hardly be heard above the noise of the engines.

“You are very stupid,” said Colonel Zinfandel. “You should have taken your chance when I gave it to you. I told my men to let you go. They dropped you in the street. Why didn’t you stay there? Why have you followed me?”

“I didn’t follow you,” said Tim. “I followed Max and Natascha.”

“And why have you done that?”

“Because I wanted to help them,” said Tim.

“You haven’t helped them,” said Colonel Zinfandel. “And you haven’t helped yourself either. Now all three of you are going to die.”

“You can’t kill us.”

“Of course I can,” said Colonel Zinfandel. “This is my plane. I can do whatever I want. If I want to kill you, I will kill you. In fact, I’m going to do it right now.”

Colonel Zinfandel’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Tim stared at the black mouth of the pistol.

A white shape flashed across the room.

Colonel Zinfandel cried out and staggered backward.

Grk had recognized the smell of Colonel Zinfandel. He knew he hated him. And he wanted to do something about it.

So he clamped his jaws around Colonel Zinfandel’s ankle.

Colonel Zinfandel looked down at the dog attached to his ankle. He twisted his arm and pointed the pistol at the ground.

He fired.

A loud bang echoed through the room.

A hole appeared in the floor. Colonel Zinfandel had missed. It was difficult to shoot Grk without hitting his own foot. He aimed again.

But before he could shoot a second time, Tim hurled himself across the room and grabbed his arm.

They struggled desperately over the gun.

Colonel Zinfandel was a strong man. A dog was biting his ankle and a boy was wrestling his arm, but he could cope with both of them. He gritted his teeth, looped his left arm around Tim’s neck and pointed the gun. Then he pulled the trigger again.

BANG!

A hole appeared in one of the windows. The bullet had smashed straight through the glass.

WHOOOOSHH!

Air was sucked out of the cabin.

Papers whirled off the desk. Paintings lifted from the walls. Clothes and crockery went flying.

Tim, Grk and Colonel Zinfandel rolled across the floor in a frenzy of feet and fists and teeth. Each of them was fighting for survival. Whoever won would live. Whoever lost would die.

Grk bit down with all the strength in his jaws.

Tim struggled till his muscles felt like stones.

Colonel Zinfandel kicked and punched and twisted round. He couldn’t see where the gun was pointed. But he pulled the trigger anyway.

There was a scream and a yell and a bark and a growl and a loud explosion—all at the same time.

“Arrrrgh!” cried a voice.

And the three of them rolled apart.

Tim was lying on the floor. There was a terrible noise. Like rushing wind. As if he was trapped inside a storm.

He could feel all kinds of awful pains in his arms and his legs. And he could feel something else too, something even worse.

Something wet.

He touched the wetness, then lifted his hand to see what he had touched.

His fingers were coated with red liquid. He knew immediately what it was. Of course he did.

He was bleeding. His belly was soaked with blood.

He was dying.

But …

It was very strange.…

He didn’t feel as if he was dying.

His arms hurt. His legs hurt too. His head hurt. Even his feet hurt. All of them were battered and bruised. But he didn’t feel as if he was dying.

Maybe I’m in shock, thought Tim. Maybe my body doesn’t know it’s dying. Maybe this is how people always feel when they’re just about to die.

Or maybe …

He sat up and looked around.

The room was chaotic. Papers and clothes and cups and spoons had flown through the air, pulled toward the shattered window by the change in pressure. Some of them had been sucked outside. Others had been plastered to the window, blocking the hole in the glass.

Grk was lying on the floor, licking his paws.

There was another body on the floor too. A man in a black suit. His white shirt was covered with blood. His open eyes were staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t moving or breathing.

Colonel Zinfandel was dead.

Tim touched the blood on his own belly. Now he understood what had happened.

The blood wasn’t his. It was Colonel Zinfandel’s.

When Colonel Zinfandel fired his gun, he had shot himself.

The soldiers raised their guns.

They were Colonel Zinfandel’s special bodyguards. They had served him faithfully for many years.

And now he was dead.

They looked at the boy who had killed him.

Tim stared back.

He knew he couldn’t fight them.

He could have grabbed Colonel Zinfandel’s gun, but even a gun wasn’t much use against an army of highly trained, highly armed bodyguards. Especially if you didn’t really know how to use it.

He put his hands into the air.

Grk stared at the soldiers too. He was ready to carry on fighting. He was even ready to die if he had to. He opened his mouth, showing his sharp, white teeth, promising to take a big bite of anyone who came close.

One of the soldiers stepped forward. Grk growled softly and the bristles stood up on the back of his neck, but the soldier took no notice. He walked to Tim, raised his right hand and said, “Thank you.”

“For what?” said Tim.

“You have done a great thing,” said the soldier. “You have killed the worst leader we ever had.”

Tim looked at the soldier’s hand. Then he took it in his own and shook it.

One by one, the other soldiers walked forward and shook Tim’s hand. They shook hands with Max and Natascha too. Some of them knelt on the floor and tickled Grk’s ears.

“Thank you,” said the soldiers in English and Stanislavian. “Thank you for saving our country.”

News traveled fast.

The pilot radioed ahead to tell air-traffic control what had happened. The traffic controllers rang their wives and husbands. People ran out of their houses and told their neighbors.

All across Stanislavia, phones rang and emails arrived, delivering the good news.

Within minutes, half the people in the country had been told that Colonel Zinfandel was dead. But none of them knew whether to believe the news. Was it true? Or was it just a cruel rumor?

Thousands of people flocked to the airport, driving cars and bicycles, desperate to discover the truth. All of them wanted to ask the same questions. What had happened? Was Colonel Zinfandel dead? Was their country free of him?

People stood on the runway and stared at the sky, searching for the first sign of the president’s plane.

“There!” shouted someone.

“Yes! There! Look!”

Shouts went up around the crowd. People pointed at the sky. A small dot was getting larger. The plane was coming closer.

The presidential plane landed on the runway and taxied toward the main building.

The plane stopped. A gangway came down to the ground. A door opened. A boy stepped out and stared at the huge crowd that had gathered.

Another boy emerged from the plane and stood beside him. Then a girl. And a small dog.

They blinked at the intense sunlight.

People stared back at them. No one knew what to do. They didn’t recognize the boys, the girl or the dog. Who were they? Why had they emerged from the president’s plane? And what had happened to him?

Max Raffifi was the first to speak. He opened his mouth and shouted at the top of his voice: “Colonel Zinfandel is dead! Long live Stanislavia!”

For a moment, no one reacted. And then the crowd erupted in cheers and applause. Their country had suffered enough under the brutal dictatorship of Colonel Zinfandel. Now, at last, they were free.

At four o’clock that afternoon, the Stanislavian State Television Service broadcast a special program.

The whole country watched.

In bars and cafés, homes and offices, people stopped whatever they were doing and turned on the television. Everyone wanted to see the interview with the boy who had liberated their country.

The screen showed the most famous reporter in Stanislavia. She was a blond woman with fierce blue eyes and a strong chin. She looked directly into the camera and spoke in a serious tone, explaining that she was conducting the first interview with the three people who were responsible for the death of Colonel Zinfandel.

The camera showed Tim, Max and Natascha sitting together on a red sofa. They all looked nervous.

Grk was lying on the carpet at their feet. He wasn’t nervous. He didn’t care about the cameras, the journalists, the bright lights or the millions of people who would be watching the interview. He just closed his eyes, stretched out his legs and went to sleep.

The interviewer quizzed Max first. She asked a few questions about himself, his parents and his life. Then she invited him to describe what had happened earlier that day on the presidential plane.

Max spoke slowly, picking his words with care. He described how he and Natascha had been driven out of Paris and taken aboard the plane. He explained how Tim and Grk had followed them in a taxi, smuggled themselves aboard the plane and hidden in a cupboard for most of the flight. Then he described how Colonel Zinfandel had died.

The interviewer thanked Max for talking to her and turned to Natascha. “You were born in Stanislavia,” she said. “You couldn’t come back here while Colonel Zinfandel was president. What are you going to do now? Are you going to stay here in Stanislavia? Or are you going to go back to London?”

“London is our home now,” said Natascha. “We’re going to go back there and finish school. And then, maybe, we’ll come back to Stanislavia.”

The interviewer smiled and said, “I hope you will.”

Finally the interviewer turned her attention to Tim. Speaking in English, she said, “How about you, Tim? Are you planning to stay in Stanislavia?”

“No, thanks,” said Tim. “I want to go home.”

“I’m sure you’ll get exactly what you want,” said the interviewer.