The Case of the Stolen Film (11 page)

Dirk knew that if he was in Sorrentino's line of business he certainly wouldn't want to make it easy for people to find him. Figuring there was a back door to the building, he decided to catch up with him at the meeting point.

Dirk checked there was no one looking up then sprang from the roof, flying across the road, along the top of a market place and up to a department store. In the middle of the shopping centre was a fountain sending out spurts of water in time with music which was being piped out of speakers. Shopping-laden humans were milling around. None of them noticed Dirk flying over their heads, somersaulting in mid-air and landing softly in a crouching position behind a large rubbish bin in the other corner of the highest level of the car park.

It was empty. Dirk heard a car engine approaching. A yellow VW van drove up the ramp and did a circuit of the level before stopping in front of the lift doors.

The car stopped and two men with long hair and flared trousers stepped out.

‘You there, Sorrentino?' said one of the men.

A bright flashlight was switched on from the shadow beside the lift. The two men shielded their eyes. ‘What's with the interrogation lights, man?' said the other.

‘That's far enough,' said Sorrentino, from behind the light. ‘Let's see the money.'

The man with the under-chin beard pulled out an envelope and made to walk forward.

‘Throw it,' said Sorrentino.

The man threw the envelope into the shadow. After a moment's pause a suitcase slid out into the light.

‘This better be worth the money,' said the man.

‘If you're not satisfied, you've got my number,' said Sorrentino.

‘Well, it was a pleasure doing business with you, man,' said the man with the goatee beard and both of them got back into the van and left.

With no reason to follow the van, Dirk waited for Mr Sorrentino to show himself, wondering again whether he was going to match the image he had built up in his head. The flashlight went off. Dirk saw a movement in the shadow by the lift. Then Sorrentino stepped into the light, revealing his face. He had a long nose, yellow eyes, and his grey skin was covered in thin white spikes.

‘So Sorrentino's a Desert Dragon,' muttered Dirk to himself.

Dirk watched the Desert Dragon emerge from the shadows and peer over the edge of the car park.

‘Pretty view,' said Dirk, stepping out from behind the bin.

Sorrentino spun around. ‘Who are you?' he demanded.

‘The name's Dirk Dilly,' Dirk replied. ‘And I didn't catch your first name.'

‘My name's Mo. Mo Sorrentino. What's it to you, Mountain Dragon?'

‘Mo? You're the dragon Kitelsky and Putz mentioned,' said Dirk, approaching on all fours, with his head lowered.

‘How do know Kitelsky and Putz?' snarled Sorrentino, sidestepping in the same way Dirk had seen the other Desert Dragons do.

‘Don't you ever worry about all those human lives you ruin?' said Dirk.

‘Listen, I make some people happy, I make some people sad. What business is it of yours, anyway?' Sorrentino said, flicking out his claws threateningly.

‘None at all,' said Dirk, ‘but films of dragons make it my business.'

‘Ah, so that's what this is about,' said Sorrentino.

‘What's your involvement, Sorrentino?' said Dirk, thick clouds of smoke gushing from his nose.

‘Your fire don't scare me, Mountain Dragon,' said Sorrentino, moving so he was within spitting distance of Dirk's face.

Dirk could hear a bubbling noise coming from his throat.

‘I know what you're thinking,' said Sorrentino. ‘Is he loaded with his day's poison? And to tell you the truth, I've kind of forgotten myself, but being as Desert Dragon poison is the most deadly in the world, you've got to ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you? Do you, Dirk?'

‘You watch too many movies, Mo,' replied Dirk. ‘If
you killed me here, you'd have to dispose of the body and I'm guessing you could do without that kind of hassle. Where's the film?'

‘Ah, who cares? I got paid already,' replied the Desert Dragon. ‘I sold it, so what?'

‘Sold it? What do you think you're playing at, Sorrentino? Do you want to start a war?'

‘A war?' sneered Sorrentino. ‘Come on, if you knew humans like I do you'd know they've caught weirder things on tape.' He laughed. ‘This isn't the Middle Ages. People don't believe in us any more. One little film ain't gonna change that.'

‘Who did you sell it to?' said Dirk.

‘You just watched them drive away. They paid well too, more than I was expectin' to get. Go ahead and get it back if you want, but I'd hurry, if I were you.'

Dirk snarled. He ran to the edge of the car park and looked down. The yellow van had left the car park and was waiting at the lights.

‘This isn't the last you've seen of me,' he said to Sorrentino.

‘Do me a favour, call my receptionist and make an appointment next time,' replied the Desert Dragon.

Dirk sent an angry burst of fire at Sorrentino and flew down to a nearby building.

Jumping over roofs, he followed the van across town. It was making slow progress with the rush-hour traffic, but after a while, the van turned off the main road, took a right, then a left, turning up a winding private road, which had a sign that said ‘Sands Mansion' – with a logo that Dirk recognised at once as belonging to Brant Buchanan's company, Global Sands.

‘Super-rich rats,' Dirk swore.

A row of security cameras lined the top of the gate. Dirk could go no further.

Had Dirk been able to follow the van into the grounds of Sands Mansion he would have seen Brant Buchanan lead Hunter and Frank into a cylindrical building surrounded by scaffolding.

‘Nice library, man,' said Frank. ‘You having work done?

‘I'm having some extra security measures put in,' replied Buchanan, striding across the room and reaching for a book on a high shelf with a red spine and a tiny speck of white at the bottom.

‘Hey, I recognise that spine,' said Hunter, pulling out his own copy from his jacket pocket. ‘It's
Dragonlore
by Ivor Klingerflim.'

‘Indeed,' said Brant Buchanan, tilting the book. ‘Except that this is just the cover.'

Four shelves of books on the other side of the wall flickered and disappeared. What had looked like a row of book spines revealed itself to be a projection on a TV screen. The screen went blank.

‘Man, that's neat,' said Frank.

Weaver stepped into the room and handed Mr Buchanan a disk from his pocket. ‘I've transferred the tape,' he said.

Buchanan reached down and found a book spine by an author called David Player. He pressed a hidden button on it and a drawer slid open. He inserted the disk, the drawer closed and all the letters lit up on the author's name except for the a and i in David.

‘Hey, DVD player. That's clever, man,' said Hunter.

‘One of Weaver's little jokes,' said Buchanan. ‘Now let's see what we've got, shall we?'

A desert appeared on the screen. The sound of whistling wind filled the room. The shot panned across a desolate landscape dotted with strange trees with thick twisted branches. ‘
That's nice. Hold that
,' said a voice on the tape and the camera stopped moving. ‘
Go in a little
,' said the voice. The camera zoomed in. Something moved in the shot. It was as though two of
the strange trees were shifting in the distance. ‘
What's that?
' said the voice. The camera zoomed in again. The picture fell out of focus for a moment and then refocused on the hazy horizon, where two cactus-like creatures were fighting.

‘What do you think?' asked Hunter excitedly.

‘Yeah, what do you think, man?' said Frank enthusiastically.

As usual, Brant Buchanan chose his words carefully. ‘It's a bit blurry, isn't it?' he said.

‘Blurry?' exclaimed Frank, leaping in front of the screen. ‘We bring you never-seen-before footage of two Desert Dragons filmed yesterday and you call it blurry?'

‘Calm down, man,' said Hunter, anxious not to upset the billionaire.

‘I am calm. I just think he should appreciate what we've got here. This is solid-gold proof, man.'

Buchanan laughed. ‘Gentlemen,' he said, ‘I thought I made it perfectly clear when I employed you that I have no doubt of the existence of dragons. None whatsoever. Please don't get me wrong. This footage will serve its purpose but, you see, I do not need further proof.'

He swapped the DVD with another from his pocket
and the desert footage disappeared and was replaced by a map of the world.

‘From Ivor Klingerflim's book we know that there are dragons in every corner of the earth. Varieties of the Desert Dragons you showed me exist not only in California, but in the Sahara, the Arabian, the Gobi … In fact, they reside in every great desert of the world.'

As he spoke, the map lit up the world's deserts.

‘There are Mountain Dragons wherever there are mountains.'

This time mountains of the world lit up.

‘The oceans are full of Sea Dragons and other even more fantastic beasts. The forests and jungles are alive with as many varieties of Tree Dragon as there are varieties of trees. The Arctic and Antarctic are rich with Snow Dragons. The sky itself is littered with sublimated Sky Dragons hiding amongst the clouds.'

By the time he had finished speaking the entire map was lit up. It was so bright that Hunter and Frank had to shield their eyes.

The screen went blank.

‘There are even a few urban-based dragons,' said Buchanan.

The screen showed a dragon creeping around an office.

‘Woo, man,' said Frank.

‘You got an extreme close-up,' said Hunter, running his fingers through his greasy hair.

‘But if you got stuff this good, why do you need us?' said Frank.

‘I have employed you because I need more information.
Dragonlore
is not enough. I want to know everything there is to know about dragons,' said Buchanan.

‘OK, but can I ask why, man?' said Hunter.

‘Because, shortly, I intend to catch one,' replied the billionaire.

As a thank you for the long day of filming, World Studios had given all the extras from the school concert scene free VIP passes to the movie theme park next door.

Mr Bigsby and his wife had dropped Holly and Archie at the gates and gone shopping, saying they would pick them up in time for dinner at Brant Buchanan's mansion in the evening.

The theme park was brilliant. All of the rides were based on films. There was loads to do and it was all free. Even better, the VIP tickets meant that wherever there was a long queue, Holly and Archie could jump it and whenever they fancied a snack
they didn't have to pay.

‘This is the best holiday ever,' Holly said as they entered an open-air walk-through jungle full of moving models of dinosaurs called Dinoworld.

‘I'm here in the jungle with the lesser-spotted Holly Bigsby,' said Archie, using the ice cream he was eating as a microphone. ‘Holly, tell me what it's like being a VIP.'

‘I think it's very V to be a VIP,' said Holly.

‘So you're saying that it's V V to be a VIP?'

‘If not V V V,' replied Holly, laughing.

‘This model represents a dimetrodon,' said a young American boy with an extremely large head and an annoyingly loud voice, pointing at a plastic lizard beneath a plant. The lizard scuttled unconvincingly across the rock. ‘Interestingly, although it looks like a dinosaur it is actually an ancestor of the mammals,' continued the boy with a self-satisfied smile.

Holly and Archie moved quickly to the next section, but the boy followed them. ‘We're now entering the Triassic period, in which dinosaurs first appeared,' he said.

A long-necked dinosaur loomed over them, its neck moving mechanically and a strange roaring coming from a speaker by its side.