‘Hitch, this isn’t what we do; this isn’t part of Spectrum’s remit. I’m sorry for the Redforts, I’m sorry for the kid, but these people are not part of our work here. The Twinford air-sea rescue squad will deal with the situation; they’re professionals when it comes to general civilian safety.’
‘You know these folks don’t stand a chance if we don’t step in; they’re more than likely dead already.’
‘Yes, my point exactly, they’re most likely dead already. So why would we rally our agents, and in so doing possibly blow our cover by making such an obvious and overblown search of the area? I respect your desire to make things right for the kid, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. Sometimes we have to take it on the chin and move on.’
Hitch knew she was right. No one in Spectrum could afford to get sentimental; you start getting mushy and it was time to hang up your agent-issue watch.
‘I hear you,’ said Hitch. ‘But listen – how do we know this doesn’t have something to do with Agent Trilby? How do we know the pirates who threw the Redforts overboard aren’t the same people who are causing all this marine disturbance?’
Silence from LB. Then: ‘Go on,’ she said slowly.
‘How about if I get Zuko to go in?’ said Hitch. ‘Undercover I mean, as relief air-sea rescue – he knows what he’s doing and can fly one of our helicopters dressed up like it’s air rescue, and he can search with the best equipment. No one need know and it’s just one agent.’
LB was quiet for a moment and then said, ‘OK. That could work. The fine detail is your business. Keep it covert and keep it untraceable, no link to Spectrum. Anything goes wrong, it’s your head not mine.’
‘I appreciate it LB.’ He hung up, got back in his vehicle, locked the doors and mirror-glassed the windows, then he pressed a button on the dashboard. The dash front slid up to reveal high-tech Spectrum equipment. He fed in Agent Zuko’s code name and badge number and was instantly given his co-ordinates.
Zuko was not on mission; instead he was relaxing upstate, on standby and awaiting orders. Hitch buzzed him and not ten seconds later Agent Zuko’s image appeared on the miniature screen. He was wearing a blue check shirt and looked like he might be fishing. Zuko was an old buddy of Hitch’s – they had been through some tough times, gotten each other out of plenty of scrapes, rescued each other from certain death on numerous occasions, and there wasn’t a favour too big to ask of one another.
Hitch told him the deal and in just a few minutes it was all arranged and agreed. Zuko would conduct the most thorough search of the Sibling waters; he had twenty-four hours, that was all.
With a heavy heart, the Redfort ‘house manager’ drove back to Cedarwood Drive and to Mrs Digby.
Now for the hard part, he thought.
Mrs Digby took the news stoically. She didn’t interrupt, she didn’t let out a cry nor did she move a muscle. She just stood there in the middle of the kitchen, her feet planted firmly on the floor. She didn’t breathe a word until Hitch had said everything he was going to say.
‘They’ll be right as rain,’ she said. ‘Mr R doesn’t give up so easily and Mrs R doesn’t give up at all. Most tenacious woman I ever met. Besides, they met while diving in Italy. They know how to swim. I’m not a water person myself, can’t abide swimming about in the ocean. If God wanted us in the ocean, he wouldn’t have made the land.’ She was burbling on while she busied herself like nothing was amiss. ‘Those two, they could swim in treacle.’
Hitch didn’t contradict her, but he wasn’t feeling so confident. There had been shots into the water, a whole lot of bullets. It wasn’t the swimming he was worrying about. If they were swimming, then that meant they had survived the pirates and that seemed unlikely. Pirates were not nice people, never had been. All those books you read about them, all those films that made them out to be funny and romantic, they weren’t true. Pirates were cold-blooded killers only interested in what they could steal.
He got up from the kitchen bar stool and reached for his keys.
‘I better get down to the school – pick up Ruby. I don’t want her hearing about this from anyone else.’
Mrs Digby nodded. ‘I’ll be here,’ was all she said.
WHEN RUBY TRAILED OUT OF TWINFORD JUNIOR HIGH, Hitch was waiting there to meet her. She spotted him across the schoolyard, standing by the car, and quickly called goodbye to Red as she hurried towards him.
‘So something happening at Spectrum? We gotta get somewhere? ’Cause you know I was hoping to see Del later. I said I’d play her at table tennis to make up for swim practice, promised I’d destroy her, but I guess that ain’t gonna be on the cards. Boy, was she ever mad at me, didn’t believe the whole thing about the bump on my head, said I was gonna have to…’
Ruby slowly stopped talking.
‘You OK Hitch? You look like someone just ran over your goldfish.’
Hitch didn’t know what to say – how do you tell a kid her parents are missing, presumed dead? He struggled to find the right words, but there were no right words so he just said it.
She looked at him. Her face belied her thoughts. How could this have happened? One minute the girl who had it all, the next the girl who had lost the two most precious things in her life.
Hitch put his arm round her and said, ‘They’re just missing kid, no one’s saying more than that.’
But what Ruby heard was the little voice in her head. She knew that things were not looking good for her parents’ safe return, didn’t matter what ‘no one was saying’.
Ruby didn’t need to ask where their boat had been at the time; she was pretty sure it would be somewhere not so far from the Sibling Islands in those dangerous waters with the tricky currents, with the undertow every sailor feared.
‘Look, I spoke to LB,’ Hitch said. ‘She has authorised a Spectrum agent, using Spectrum equipment, to scan the Sibling waters for your parents. If they can be found we’ll find them – you can be certain of that kid.’
Ruby just nodded. They got in the car and drove back in silence.
Mrs Digby opened the door before Ruby was halfway up the steps.
‘Don’t you torture yourself up with worry Ruby; they’ll be back before you know it. I can feel it in my bones and my bones ain’t never wrong.’
Hitch made his excuses to Mrs Digby and headed back out. He couldn’t sit around – he had to do something, even if it was just taking the Spectrum dinghy out and scouting the waters. The chances of finding anything were remote, but at least it was something to keep his mind from believing the worst.
The old housekeeper and Ruby ate supper accompanied only by the noise of the ticking clock and the intermittent
ringing of the phone. Ruby barely touched her food. When she was done trying, she climbed the stairs to her room and flicked on the TV.
The story of the pirates and the survivors of the Humberts’ yacht was headline news. There was an interview with Ambassador Crew, his arm in a fresh black sling and a patch over one eye, ironically making him look distinctly pirate-like.
The conch shell in Ruby’s bathroom rang, and she picked it up at once.
‘Ruby, my dad told me everything.’
‘Hello Clancy.’ She sounded like every drop of energy had drained out of her.
‘This is awful Rube, just awful.’
‘Yeah,’