Blue's Revenge by Deborah Abela Page B

the fury of thrashing winds tearing at the craggy coastline of Cape Wrath. The wind circled around them like a pack of howling wolves, biting into them with each ice-filled blast. Sleek held the controls firm as he negotiated each gusting push and shove that slammed into the machine, until he finally landed on the damp, rock-strewn ground.
    Sleek took the goggles Harrison offered him and gave a sombre nod of farewell. A farewell, he knew, that may be their last. He adjusted his goggles before taking off into the sky, reaching his oscillation speed and disappearing seconds later.
    Harrison looked around him at the gloomy horizon and pulled his overcoat tighter across his chest. A white mist whipped up from the freezing waves of the Atlantic Ocean smacked into him, leaving him cold and stinging.
    â€˜So this is where you live?’ His lips moved slowly in the biting cold.
    From over the horizon a four-wheel drive vehicle with thick, all-terrain tyres drove into view. It bumped over the gnarled and stony landscape before coming to an abrupt stop.
    â€˜Kronch. Of course,’ Harrison murmured.
    It always amazed Harrison that Blue keptKronch on as one of his henchmen, especially considering his brain was rarely used for thinking.
    Kronch lifted his log-shaped legs and tennis racquet-sized shoes out of the vehicle with a concerted wheeze.
    â€˜Your lift awaits.’ He swung his arm out as if he was a doorman at an expensive hotel.
    Harrison climbed inside and strapped himself in, happy to be out of the gnawing wind. Kronch took a small device from his pocket and seemed to be taking a reading of the area.
    â€˜Well done. You’re here alone. It’s good to see you can follow orders when you want to,’ Kronch snivelled as he squeezed his jellied belly behind the wheel.
    Harrison knew it was a dig at his last days with Blue at Spyforce and the conflicting views of the two men when it came to running the agency. Harrison believed in a sense of honesty and fair play, whereas Blue couldn’t see the harm in bending a few rules to make money. Selling Spyforce inventions to known criminals, for example. Inventions such as the Doppelgänger.
    Harrison stared outside as the grey and brown landscape blurred past.
    There was something else he noticed. Kronchhadn’t blindfolded him. He thought meeting at Cape Wrath was to conceal the real location of Blue’s mansion, but here he was being driven there in murky daylight. It could mean Blue had a security system in place that Harrison could not hope to renegotiate if he returned. Or, and this second idea seemed more likely, Blue planned Harrison would never leave.
    Kronch wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left, sending the vehicle ricocheting off a large rock before hitting the ground with a bouncing thud. Harrison dug his heels into the floor and gripped the armrest even tighter, refusing to be thrown around by Kronch’s attempts to frighten him. He held firm and stared into the rear-view mirror, catching Kronch’s thick-witted grin. Blue and his pack of brainless thugs could try to scare him all they liked. Harrison had no intention of letting them get to him, and he became even more determined in his refusal to be afraid.
    The jolting ride continued up a slippery, mud-soaked hill, and it was only when they reached the top that the vision of Blue’s property appeared before them.
    Only his property turned out to be a castle.
    Flanked by eight round towers joined by stone curtained walls, the castle keep rose in the centre of the fortress, dominating not only the castle but also the windswept hill it rested on.
    â€˜This is it,’ Kronch yelled into the wind, bringing the vehicle to an abrupt, screeching halt.
    Harrison stepped out and watched as the car drove off in a shower of rocks and mud. He walked towards the entrance of the castle but stopped as he reached the deep, cold moat, snaking around the ancient building and licking its