Episode II - Pursuit
It has often said that that it is nice to be wanted.
Well that depends on who wants you and why.
Sometimes they want you because they want to give you something or do something for you
Sometimes people just want you to be there, so they have someone that will hold them, a kind of emotional support.
Sometimes they want you because you can do certain things for them.
Sometimes they want you, because you have money.
All sorts of reasons, why you may be wanted, some good and some not so good for the wanted person.
The Spirit of Fidelity has wanted me to be there for her, because she had no one else, which was fine, but someone wanted her, so badly that they have gone and got special branch to take her down with a Taser, after telling them she was a dangerous terrorist. A sixteen year old child? But some may say that in Israel younger children become suicide bombers. Israel Maybe, but a city in the North East of England?
But someone also wanted me, badly enough to send in Special Branch at 4:30 in the morning, and now someone wants me so badly that they have stuck a gun in my neck and demanded that I drive.
"Did you not hear me the first time" repeated the Irish sounding voice as the 9mm handgun was pressed into my neck.
There was nothing for it, but to comply. I started the car, and moved into the morning traffic. The voice with the gun remained silent, but continued to hold the gun to my neck.
"Look this car is second hand, and the laptop is quite old" I started, pretending that this was a run of the mill car-jacking
"I am not interested in your trinkets, just drive" he replied with a hint of irritation
"Where to?" I asked.
"The city heliport and step on it"
I weaved the car through the traffic, but the various one way systems did not help As we approached a round-about. A traffic light turned red.
"Ignore it" ordered the gun toting Irish voice in the back
I went to jump the lights as instructed, but a bus came from the side road. I braked hard, and the tyres screamed as we skidded to a stop. My passenger seemed to loose his footing as he fell behind the front seat, suddenly loosing his grip on the gun, it flew through the middle of the seats, bounced off the gear stick, landing in front of the passenger seat.
I stopped the car and tried to reach down for the gun, but there was a sudden whoosh and the abductor was in the front passenger seat, holding his 9mm in my direction. He was about three and a half feet tall, dressed in dark green with what looked like a green Santa"s hat. He was a leprechaun.
[img=200x300]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Leprechaun_ill_artlibre_jnl.png[/img]
"You"re letting them get away"he screamed as he waved the gun.
I restarted the car. By now the traffic light was green, and resumed driving towards the heliport, which was situated along the north bank of the river.
"Who are they?" I asked as we drove along
"Why, the humans who have taken The Spirit of Fidelity, you moron" the leprechaun replied.
I now twigged the urgency of the matter and stepped on the accelerator, "Why did you not say so before" I yelled.
The leprechaun took this change of pace to put his seat belt on. He was now no longer pointing a gun at me.
As we raced along to the road that would take us along to the river, I got curious as to who this leprechaun was, how he found me and how did he know about Fidelity, but as this was a new car, I found myself biding my tongue and trying to concentrate on the driving.
We finally made it to the road by the river, where the heliport was. I slowed the car down "we better not draw attention to ourselves" I told the leprechaun.
"Do they know you drive this horseless carriage" he asked.
"I don"t know, I only just got it yesterday" I answered, then suddenly I realised the leprechaun had a point, "but I do not know how fast the car dealer was in registering with the DVLA"
"Well we will just have to hope that this DEE-VEE-EL-AY of yours takes it"s time" the Leprechaun retorted
As we approached the side road to the heliport, in the distance I spotted a black van, almost identical to the ones that had turned up at my apartment earlier that morning. I motioned for the leprechaun to duck down as I turned into another side road before the turning into the heliport. As we were still going at 30mph, the tyres screeched as we made the turn in second gear. "Thank goodness it was dry" I thought, or the car would have gone out of control.
Slowly I drove the car round the block, looking out for more black vans, just to be on the safe side. Both of us were silent, hardly daring to breathe.
In the distance we could hear the whir of helicopter rota blades, from one, possibly two helicopters.
As we approached nearer the heliport entrance, we saw another two black vans. Outside of the vans were what looked like five may be seven police officers, each armed with what looked like assault rifles?
I stopped the car, just out of sight. There was no way we could get past them without being shot to pieces. Then suddenly I remembered my folk lore.
"Hey Leprechaun" I said to the "Leprechaun"
"Now that"s just a plain rude way off addressing me" The leprechaun snapped back, "I do have a name you know"
"Well you never told me it when you stuck that gun in my neck" I retorted
The Leprechaun, looked thoughtful for a moment, then hit his forehead with his right hand, "so I didn"t" he uttered, then added "It"s Crandal McTuckle of Dublin"
"Dublin?" I queried "I thought you all lived in the Mystical Realms"
"Well we don"t, and we don"t have time for this, and what did you want to say"
Then I remembered what I wanted to ask, "I thought Leprechauns could turn invisible"
"Normally yes" replied Crandal, "but these humans have found a way to detect invisible creatures, why what had you in mind"
I reached over the back and from my just-in-case bag I pulled the dimension jump orb. "I thought if you could sneak past the police officers you could perhaps find the Spirit of Fidelity and jump back to the Mystical Realms"
At the sight of the orb, Crandal went white. "Put that thing away, as soon as you fire those things up, the humans are onto us like a shot, that according to my brother was how Cousin Drack was captured, and he had just arrived in this city.
"So what had you", I began to ask wondering if he had a better plan, then a throw away remark he made suddenly registered, I paused then asked "This City?" I asked, suddenly realising that this calamity that had been brought on Fidelity and I, had been the work of leprechauns crossing over to this side.
Crandal refused to look sheepish and deployed that old standby, blame a stupid relative. "Drack is an idiot; it seems he found an orb in the Mystical Realms somewhere and it took him straight to a park in this city"
At this my blood almost turned to ice, that orb must have been the one the Spirit of Lust"s orc had used to open the dimension door, just after the Guardian of Mortal Struggle had been assassinated, to fire the arrow at me.
Crandal continued, "Almost immediately after arriving through the dimension door, and like I just said, he was captured. Somehow you mortals have figured a way to track these doors as they open, any how this lead the mortals to start sweeping the city for anyone with a connection to the Mystical Realms."
Crandal thought for a moment, then added, "I also suspect that Drack may have betrayed you both if he was tortured, after all he would have known of your existence, but I do not know if he knew of the Spirit of Fidelity"
"So they stumbled across Fidelity whilst looking for me" I asked, feeling guilty now that the extra trauma Fidelity must be suffering was somehow my fault.
"Possibly not, they may have got that from the doppelganger assassin they caught in London"
"But there were two of them?"
"Yes, there were, but the mortals killed one of them"
While we were talking, I noticed a red Vauxhall car drive up to the police officers. I noticed two people in it, a man and a woman. The woman had slight red hair and was driving. The man got out and showed the police officers some ID. I wound the window down, but I could still not quite hear what they were saying, but it did seem like the man that had got out of the Vauxhall was speaking in an American accent.
The lead police officer said something to him, but I could not hear what it was.
Suddenly two helicopters, in military livery took to the sky, a
Westland AW109 LUH
and a
Westland Super Lynx 300
One helicopter, the AW109 LUH was obviously for taking Fidelity, and me if Crandal had not warned me of the raid prior, but the Super Lynx 300 was virtually a gun ship. Why did they need that?
"Drat" Swore Crandal and smash his fist down on the dash board. Then, helpless to do anything, we watched the two helicopters depart
"They are probably taking her to your London town, to a place they call,
The Facility" Crandal added.
Then Crandal asked "Can this horseless carriage of yours take us down there?"
"Yes" I replied, "but we will need to stop for petrol some way along the journey"
"Whatever"
As there was nothing more we could do, I put the car into reverse and backed along the road, hoping we would not be noticed. As far as I could tell, we were successful, as I turned the car around in the road and head back to the main road. There was just that one black van at the entrance to the other road, but if we were heading south, we would not need to pass it.
I managed to get onto the main road, and driving in such away as not to attract attention, we made it across the Redheugh Bridge, along the A184 and onto the A1. This would be the road that would take us all the way down to London, from where we would look for The Facility. How I had no idea. I just hoped that those looking for me would waste time looking here in the north.
As we had time, I tried asking Crandal how he had found me, and how he had known of the raid, but he was evasive, not wanting to reveal all he knew. He just mentioned that the less I knew, the safer I would be. He was obviously hiding something and did not care if I knew or not. The truth was that now we needed each other.
We stopped for petrol at some services, just south of Darlington. I paid for the fuel with what cash I had on me, no sense it letting the banking system track us just yet. As I was coming back from paying, I noticed Crandal had been speaking to someone on a mobile telephone.
"Isn"t that a bit risky" I asked him
"That"s baloney" he replied, "I saw them disprove that myth about mobile phones and gas stations on a programme called
Mythbusters"
As I got in the car, my response was to mention about tracking people with mobile phones, he replied that it was a cheap pay as you go, unregistered and only switched on when he needed to make a call.
"OK" I conceded then suddenly I froze for a moment as a realisation hit me, I then removed from my pocket, my own mobile phone, I had left switched on. I switched it off immediately, but was it too late?
I tried asking him, who he was calling, but he was still being evasive
I pulled out back onto the A1, if they had been tracking us, we were stuck on this road as this was the only stretch between Darlington and Leeds I knew of.
We drove down the A1 in silence, I heard a police car siren sound coming from behind, but then the police car over took us and continue on it"s way, as if we were just one other car on the road that day.
I thought I had got away with that stupid error of leaving my mobile phone on, but then, just as we passed
south of Catterick, on a rural stretch of road, I had to do an emergency stop. Hovering in front of us at a height of about ten feet, was what appeared to be the Super Lynx 300 we had earlier seen escort the AW109 LUH with its main machine gun pod aimed right at us.
To be dragged on " sorry continued