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  Max Remy Superspy 08: Mission in Malta

  ePub ISBN 9781742745138

  Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Random House Australia in 2006

  Copyright © Deborah Abela 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Abela, Deborah.

  Mission in Malta.

  ISBN 978 1 74166 065 4.

  ISBN 1 74166 065 3.

  1. Spies – Juvenile fiction. 2. Malta – Juvenile fiction.

  I. Title. (Series: Max Remy super spy; 8).

  A823.4.

  Author photo by Todd Decker

  Cover and internal illustrations by Jobi Murphy

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Copyright

  Imprint Page

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Chapter 1: A Slippery Octopus and the Kiss of Death

  Chapter 2: Pancakes and a Flimsy Disguise for Something Bad

  Chapter 3: A Virtual Search Engine and a Quick Trip to Venice

  Chapter 4: The Call of Leeches and a Dangerous Close Encounter

  Chapter 5: Flea-Powered Shoes and Hyperactive Slugs

  Chapter 6: A Menacing Manta Ray and the Maltese Contact

  Chapter 7: A Leech Called Edgar and Life Saving Vomit

  Chapter 8: A Grand Ceremony and a Shadowy Threat

  Chapter 9: A Brush with Mr Happy and a Whispered Warning

  Chapter 10: The New Hidden Agent and a Wild Ride

  Chapter 11: A Cupcake Gun and an Embarrassing Confrontation

  Chapter 12: A Sneaky Discovery and a Lucky Escape

  Chapter 13: A Desperate Plea and a Terrible Plunge

  Chapter 14: A Frantic Search and a Deadly Discovery

  Chapter 15: A Dose of Poison and a Perfect View of a Kidnapping

  Chapter 16: An Underground Cavern and Some Unwelcome Visitors

  Chapter 17: A Sizzling Escape and a Boat Ride to Gozo

  Chapter 18: A Dinner Date with a Madman

  Chapter 19: The Jellyfish Pool

  Chapter 20: A Farewell Kiss

  About the Author

  Max Remy Series

  Jasper Zammit Series

  For Rachel Portelli and Chris Gruppetta –

  thanks for taking great care of us in Malta

  ‘Linden, he’s making his escape!’ Max Remy hissed into her transceiver. ‘Let’s get him.’

  The young superspy leapt from her hiding place behind an ice-cream kiosk and landed on a private pier moored with yachts, catamarans and luxury cruisers. She was on the Greek Island of Santorini in pursuit of the evil billionaire, Lex Lasros, whose over-white shoes propelled him and his wobbling stomach towards his speedboat, The Ice Maiden, which was ready with her muscled crew, purring engines and gangway laid out to receive her master.

  ‘You’re not getting away that easily, big guy!’

  Only metres behind Lasros’s billowing white trousers and jiggling buttocks, Max ran faster, gulping down clutches of hot summer air that scorched her throat and scraped into her lungs like sandpaper.

  Max and Linden worked for the elite intelligence agency, Spyforce, that had uncovered Lasros’s plan to create a high-pitched, ultrasonic boom that, when activated, was unnoticeable to humans but would send animals everywhere into a maddened rage. Pets would turn against their owners, horses against their riders, and budgies would become virtual killing machines.

  With his invention complete, Lasros found a buyer who had, only seconds before, handed him a suitcase full of money for his crazed creation. But what he didn’t know was that the buyer was an undercover agent and Max, crouched just metres away, had recorded the whole seedy deal on her Hypersensitive Digital Video Ring.

  Max lifted her lasso gun, ready to fire its carbon-fibre rope around the escaping Lasros, when the billionaire flicked a garbage bin in her path. It crashed into Max’s legs and sent her sprawling onto the pier while a lumbering Lasros scrambled aboard the boat with his cackling laugh flapping overhead like a crazed seagull. The crew pulled in the gangway and the boat sped off in a whitewashed arc out of the marina towards the open waters of the Aegean Sea, sending a wave of foaming ocean over a flattened and now soggy Max.

  A triumphant Lasros waved gleefully. Max spat out the salty seawater. ‘This isn’t over yet.’

  From behind a moored three-level cruiser, a small inflatable hovercraft swerved into view, pulling up beside Max.

  ‘What kept you?’ she asked.

  ‘Traffic.’ Linden smiled. ‘Have you finished resting?’

  Max pulled herself up, flicked a banana skin from her shirt and climbed onto the hovercraft. She held the safety ropes tightly as Linden jammed down on the accelerator, and the two spies sped across the water, soaring over the peaks and slamming into the troughs of waves left in The Ice

  Maiden’s wake.

  Lasros and his goons pointed and laughed at the size of Max and Linden’s small vessel.

  ‘They’ve obviously never seen a Spyforce hovercraft before,’ Max smirked.

  ‘Obviously not.’

  Linden pressed a large red button and instantly the hovercraft began to transform. The front section disengaged from the rear so it tripled in length while below them huge ski-shaped pontoons unfolded, lifting the hovercraft above the water like a hydrofoil.

  ‘Now we’ll get some speed up.’ Linden pushed on the power booster, and the boat plunged forward at a wind-howling rate, easily gaining on Lasros’s Maiden.

  ‘And now for the grand finale,’ Max cried into the wind. She lifted the transparent casing of a control panel and entered a three-digit number –364. ‘The fishing net.’

  She hit the discharge button and a huge metal net flew from the front of their vessel. It was attached to their boat with super-strength titanium chains and landed in front of the high-powered Maiden like an oversized, open-mouthed metallic crocodile.

  ‘Oh no,’ was all Lasros could say before his boat was ensnared by the net.

  Linden activated the reverse thrusters, pulling hard against the Maiden’s attempts to escape, before her propellers crunched to a reluctant stop in the unbreakable threads, and the engine wound down in an agonising, stalled whirr.

  Linden smiled at Lasros and his crew as they struggled like flies to escape from the net.

  ‘They can take over from here.’ Max nodded towards two police sea helicopters that swooped in above them and slowly came to land on their pontoons beside Lasros and his captured Maiden. />
  Linden disengaged the net from the hydrofoil and reversed its transformer capabilities so that within seconds their vessel once again looked like a harmless joy-riding hovercraft.

  ‘Just in time for lunch, I’d say.’ Linden gripped the wheel and sped into a perfect semicircle, drowning out the indignant cries of Lasros and his crew as he and Max headed back to the bay.

  After pulling in at the wharf, Max and Linden climbed a steep line of stone stairs carved into the ancient hillside that led to Poseidon’s Restaurant. They were shown to a table on the balcony overlooking the sea. Max hungrily looked over the menu. ‘After our tussle with Lasros, I think I could eat everything here.’

  Linden, who ordinarily dropped everything at the mention of food, wasn’t listening or looking. Instead, his menu lay unopened before him as he concentrated on twisting his serviette so hard that small pieces of white paper disintegrated and fell onto the table like a mini snowstorm.

  A waiter in white trousers, T-shirt and immaculately gelled black hair leant over and offered a tray of antipasto. ‘Compliments of the chef.’ He smiled as he laid a tray of ham, salami, grilled octopus, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and crusty bread before them.

  ‘I think you’ve just saved our lives.’ Max helped herself as Linden crumbled the last of his serviette.

  The sun was falling behind the far horizon of the sea. The white, domed buildings and winding paths on the hillsides were speckled with orange flecks from the setting sun.

  ‘Not a bad way to celebrate a hard day’s work, don’t you think?’

  Linden was distracted by the breeze gently playing in Max’s hair.

  ‘Are you okay, Linden? You look a little pale.’

  He snapped out of his staring. ‘Sure I’m okay. I’m always okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Max shrugged and started piling tomatoes onto her bread.

  Linden laughed a nervous, gasping laugh. Then stopped. ‘Max, I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time, but every time I try, something always gets in the way.’

  ‘What is it?’ Max lifted her bread and took a bite.

  ‘It’s, um, it’s not that easy, really. What I want to say is …’

  It was then Max realised Linden hadn’t eaten anything. Linden never sat in front of food without giving it his complete attention. He could be dangling over a pit of hungry crocodiles and he’d still find time to eat. A worried knot tied up in Max’s stomach. Maybe he’d decided to leave Spyforce. Maybe he’d been approached by another spy agency who’d asked him to work for them. Maybe he was sick of working with someone who was as clumsy as Max and wanted to partner with a different secret agent. She couldn’t blame him. In their spy missions together she’d fallen into vats of ice-cream and spaghetti, landed in pig troughs and garbage compactors, been slimed by chicken poo and worms and, once, even nearly got him killed.

  ‘What I’ve wanted to say is,’ Linden interrupted her thoughts, ‘I really like working with you. Not just working with you, being with you. It’s not like being with anyone else I know.’

  Max swallowed her bread along with the huge lump of fear that wedged in her throat. This is it, she thought, the big ‘BUT’ where he tells me it’s all over.

  ‘But …’

  I knew it, Max thought as she slumped onto the table. Her head pounded with what Linden might say next. ‘I like you, Max, BUT I don’t want to be your spy partner anymore,’ or ‘I like you, Max, BUT I’m embarrassed to be seen with you,’ or maybe, ‘I like you, Max, BUT I value my life too much to take on any more missions with you.’

  What would Max do without Linden? She remembered when she’d first met him at her Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Ben’s farm in Mindawarra and how she thought he was a wild-haired country boy, who couldn’t possibly talk about anything more interesting than pigs and manure.

  But she also remembered how it didn’t take long for her to realise he was the kindest, smartest, most interesting boy she’d ever met.

  And now it was all going to end.

  Linden shifted in his chair. ‘I really like you, Max. No, not like you. I think I … I …’ Small beads of sweat had formed on Linden’s forehead. ‘I love you.’

  ‘What?’ Max’s face puckered into a frown at what Linden had said and at the orchestra music that had started up around them.

  ‘I … love you.’ Linden looked at Max and hung on her every move. Every twitch. Every nudge of her facial muscles.

  Max did nothing except stop breathing.

  She felt herself about to pass out and straightened up suddenly, knocking into her orange juice so that it washed over Linden like a freak wave.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Max said, but when she reached for her serviette to help mop up, she accidentally grabbed the tablecloth and pulled the entire setting off in one crashing clatter. Knives, forks, vinegar bottles, bread baskets and octopus legs tumbled onto the balcony floor. Waiters with trays held high and white cloths draped over their arms looked up and scowled.

  Max wasn’t sure where to start first: Linden’s orange-stained shirt or the sea of table debris that floated around them like a shipwreck.

  ‘Max.’ Linden held out his hand. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  Max clutched a few soggy bread rolls to her chest and walked towards him. Linden took her hands in his and the rolls fell to the floor.

  He leaned in.

  Don’t do anything stupid, Max begged herself silently. Don’t do anything …

  And he kissed her.

  Max had seen enough kisses in movies, on TV, and between her aunt and uncle to know they looked wet and disgusting and wonder why anyone would ever want to do it, but this was different. It was soft and quiet and made her feel dizzy. She reached behind her, hoping to hold onto a table or wall for balance, only her hand landed on something squishy. Her fingers felt the wet, sloppy thing, until she realised what it was.

  ‘Aaah!’ Max whisked her hand away from the lump of raw octopus she’d been groping and watched as it sailed into the air. She turned just in time to see the eight slimy tentacles wrap themselves around a fellow diner’s face. It had been sitting on a tray of other sea creatures ready to be cooked by the waiters, who were now sneering at Max’s handling of the restaurant’s menu.

  Linden released the screaming woman from the clutches of the octopus and apologised.

  Max went to help, but her feet became tangled in the tablecloth. She stumbled forward, into the tray of fresh seafood, which crashed to the floor. She quickly tiptoed between clusters of scallops, prawns and calamari but couldn’t miss the giant tuna which transformed into her own personal fish skateboard.

  ‘Uh oh.’ Max closed her eyes and slid across the tiled floor, gaining speed as the balcony edge and the sea came closer and closer. She waited for final impact, the crash into the balcony, the tipping over the edge, the bone-crushing, death-inducing

  ‘Oooph!!

  Max woke up and wrestled with the cotton sheet that blanketed her head like a collapsed tent, until she finally managed to find a way out. She was lying on the floor of her bedroom surrounded by her MP3 player, headphones, a few novels, her notebook, some pens and the lamp from her bedside table.

  Plus one glass of water, now empty, due to the fact that it had spilled onto her head.

  ‘Good one, Max.’ She pushed her sopping fringe out of her eyes. ‘At least the wardrobe’s still standing.’

  As with all well-timed events in Max’s life, her mother chose that particular moment to fling open the bedroom door.

  ‘Sweetie, are you okay? What happened? We heard a cry and a great thud.’

  Caught in the wreckage of having fallen out of bed, Max heard everything her mother had said, but the one word she clung to was, ‘we’.

  What we? Max thought, but her question was soon answered by the man who appeared behind her mother. Only it wasn’t just any man – it was Georgio, the star of the latest TV show from the network where her mother worked. She’d been ra
ving about him all week: how he was the latest sensation on the screen, how he received thousands of fan letters each week, how he was going to be a huge international star.

  But nothing about how he’d be at their place early this morning.

  Typical, Max thought. I bet most people get to meet this guy while they are at least standing up. Why do I have to meet him spread-eagled on the floor with my hair mangled over my face? And, she looked down at herself in horror, my pyjama top scrunched up so my stomach’s on display to the whole world.

  Max yanked down her top and tried to calmly tame her soggy bed-hair. ‘I’m fine.’ She remembered Linden’s kiss and speeding towards the balcony and hoped her voice sounded calmer than she felt. ‘I had a wild dream, that’s all.’

  ‘With dreams that wild, you’ll have to watch they don’t kill you,’ Georgio answered with a smile full of perfectly straight and shiny teeth.

  He’s laughing at me, Max thought. He’s only known me for five seconds, and he already thinks I’m a complete loser. Max wanted to shrink under her doona and slip through the floorboards.

  And her mother laughed too. What was this, Max thought, the Max Remy Comedy Show?

  ‘You look all flushed, sweetie. Do you feel okay?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Really.’ And I’d be a lot better if I didn’t have an audience for my idiocy, Max added silently.

  ‘I want you to meet Georgio,’ her mother continued like this wasn’t the most embarrassing moment of Max’s life. ‘I’ve told you about him. Remember? He’s an actor from the network’s newest and brightest show, Young Cops. It’s going to be a big hit.’

  Her mother always said the latest show at the network was going to be a big hit. That was her job. She was the head of publicity and always said that until it flopped and was never mentioned again.