Deadfall

Blurb for "Deadfall" (a thriller for 12- & 13-year-olds):

Twelve-year-old Ty Monterey is no hero – or so he thinks. He’s obsessed with computers, often in trouble at school and rude to his mother. Worst of all, he has a distinctly wimpish stutter.

One day a mysterious, coded e-mail arrives in his inbox and, Ty being Ty, he sets about decoding it. At first he is excited by what he discovers, but when he is menaced by a knife-wielding thug in his own garden he realises things have become serious.

Ty finds he has stumbled across a plot to launch the worst terrorist attack the world has known, with thousands of lives at risk on the London Underground.

Dismissed at every turn by the authorities, it soon becomes clear to Ty that only he and his gang, the Cyberhawks, can prevent the devastating attack planned by the group known as “Storm Troopers TZ9”.

Stand by for Operation Deadfall...

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Opening pages:

CHAPTER ONE

Tycho Monterey stared at the screen, a puzzled frown on his face. Tiny reflections jiggled in his hazel eyes as the AeroStat Express rattled along at nearly five hundred kilometres an hour. It shook the house, but he didn’t even glance towards the nearby tracks: the nonsense on his computer monitor was all that mattered. He knew the real content of the e-mail was being deliberately hidden – the message was in code. And I’m going to crack it, he thought.

Ty took a deep breath and held it to a count of three (his grandmother had taught him that trick to calm himself down). Letting it out slowly he read the message again, more slowly this time:

From :
To : tychon@digistorm.com
Subject : What a load of gibberish!
Date : 20th October 2074 at 07:32
AT269B FOXRB TIME276I IEST2G E2BUSH AT2THS
THER2I ACH2OR ING2EE HITTB AINS2B EN2TRI
VER2TG ASH2EH BE2CRS ST2TUI IGGER THE2BE
AUSE2B G2TO2CB GOINI G27ITSG STINH RT2TES
O2STAI OUT2TR AM2ABE N2ANDB ROJAB THE2TI
TING2G D2WRIH ISHES T2FINI E2JUSR RS26IVE
OOPEB RM2TRB L2STOI TO2ALG

The first thing he noticed was that the word “gibberish” was in bold type. Now why was that, he wondered? What was special about it? Or was it just a mistake by whoever had sent the e-mail? As Ty puzzled over it he let his gaze wander around his bedroom, roving over the posters from computer magazines and software companies; printouts from electronic newspapers about computer viruses, bugs in software and disasters caused by computer problems. He tugged at his hair in frustration. This is mega difficult.

“Ty, come and have your breakfast,” called a voice.

But Ty paid no attention; in fact he hardly noticed it. Ty sent the word “minimise” while looking at the thought-receiver on his computer. The e-mail program vanished, replaced by an envelope-shaped icon at the bottom of the screen. He looked at the other icons on the screen and thought the words “double-click Text Analyser”. He felt a brief, warm tingle as the black triangular thought-transmitter stuck on his forehead sent the command to the computer.

“Ty, get your snout down here this minute!” The voice sounded both louder and nearer than before.

However, Ty was in a world of his own, searching for any possible clue to help him decode the message. He leaned closer to the screen, the letters and numbers swimming in and out of focus, making him feel quite giddy.

He noticed the number “2” appeared a lot in the message – thirty-three times in forty groups of letters. That surely was too many times to be a coincidence. But what did it mean? Ty scratched his chin as he thought about it.

“Come on, Ty, come down for your breakfast before you die of starvation!”

Ty glanced across the room and saw his mother standing there, glaring at him. “In a m-m-minute, Mum.” He turned back to the computer, stomach rumbling like a pan of boiling water. You rockskull, he thought, maybe two means the end of a word or something.

The next thing he knew his screen went blank and the chair he was sitting on slid backwards. He snapped his head up, a scowl on his face. “Mum! You sh-sh-shouldn’t –”

“Just stop messing around with that machine for a minute and listen to me. You’re not going to have time for breakfast, Ty, if you don’t come down at once. I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes but you don’t take any notice.” She placed her hand on his right shoulder. “How else can I get your attention?” She smiled. “You’re virtually married to your computer.”

“You know you shouldn’t switch the PC off before I’ve saved my work.” He reached for the power-switch, but Isabel grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the chair.

She grunted with the effort. “You’re getting so big now – just shooting up and up. You must be having your growing spurt.”

“Just a couple more minutes, Mum. Please?” he whined like a six-year-old, looking straight at her.

“No. You spend too long at the computer as it is.” She squeezed his hand. “Come on, Prince of Darkness, it can wait. You must be famished.” She led the protesting boy past the heap of pants, socks and shirts near his bed and out of the room. “And how about occasionally giving me your dirty clothes to wash?”

CHAPTER TWO

The street light a couple of metres from Ty’s front gate spluttered out just as he walked under it. At once the shadows multiplied and deepened. The boy’s heart skipped a beat, then speeded up to something like a horse’s trot. He stared into the shadows, trying to see if anything lurked there. A dog barked nearby and he jumped the way you do when someone creeps up behind and shouts “Boo!” What’s the matter with you, you baby? You’re like a little kid creeping through a graveyard, hoping the ghosts won’t notice you.

Ever since Ty had left his school’s grounds and stepped onto the streets of Richmond, an inexplicable dread had descended on him. He wasn’t in the best of moods (who would be if they had just spent an hour in detention for not doing their geography homework?), but that didn’t even begin to explain it.

Maybe the business of the strange e-mail was preying on his mind more than he realised. Perhaps, but it still didn’t explain the steadily growing feeling that something was going to happen. Something unpleasant. Detention might make him feel down, but this was a completely different feeling: it was an instinctive fear, one he couldn’t even express in words. But of who or what he had no idea.

Something rustled underfoot and he looked down, moving his left foot back. There in front of it was an empty packet of bacon-flavoured Walker crisps. He frowned in dismay. It was strange since this wasn’t a busy street and every hour council robots cleaned the streets, as they did in all the other London boroughs, removing all rubbish. Therefore somebody must have walked past a few minutes ago. So what? Yet he felt a shiver run down his spine.

Ty glanced at his watch and saw that it was six oh-one. Much too early to be scared, he joked to himself in a vain attempt to keep his spirits up. He realised he’d slowed down so much that he was meandering along like someone out for a stroll after a heavy Christmas lunch.

It was quite ridiculous, he decided, someone of his age frightened of the dark – or was it something else? – and taking his time to walk home so that he didn’t have to face ... what? What could possibly be waiting for him? Still he wished that Isabel would be home from work.

He turned into the gateway in front of his house and hesitated, staring at the grey paving stones in disbelief. Lying there was an identical crisp packet to the one he’d just seen. Of course, someone could have walked along the street, eaten two packets of crisps and just happened to fling one of them at his front gate; or they could have gone in to ring the doorbell. It didn’t mean they were still there – and even if they were, it surely didn’t matter. Nevertheless, the hairs on the back of his neck were prickling as if ants were swarming all over them.

Ty looked up and down the street, hoping to see someone walking towards him, even a policeman. But there was no one. Apart from himself the street was deserted. He sighed and was shocked at how shaky his breath sounded. Come on, scaredy cat, get on with it.

He took another breath, deep and long, then let it out slowly (it sounded a little less shaky than the other and that encouraged him a little). He slid the handle to the right, pushed open the gate and stepped through.

Someone grabbed his right arm from behind; simultaneously their other hand covered his mouth as he gave vent to a gasp of terror.

“Shut up, you little snotnose,” whispered his unseen assailant. “Just do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt.”

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Available for the Kindle at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deadfall-ebook/dp/B00AB4FVAY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&..., list price £0.77.

Paperback now available from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1466463821/ref=tag_dpp_yt_edpp_rt?_en..., recommended price £4.99