With a whirr of rotor blades and a humming of a familiar engine, Purbeck 1 took to the skies once more with its passengers onboard and secured safely in the passenger hold. They gradually gained elevation as they flew along.
"Good afternoon, everybody," Thunder said over the radio. "This is your captain speaking. Thank you for joining us onboard this flight, operated by Dorset Airways. As I speak, we are currently climbing to our cruising altitude. For all further safety information, please consult the information boards over the doors. I must apologise in advance for the failure of the in flight entertainment system, but this is not anticipated to be a long flight. Finally, I must request you keep your seatbelts and harnesses on in the event we encounter any rough air. Once again, I would like to welcome you onboard this Dorset Airways flight, and hope you have a pleasant journey."
The radio line closed as they buzzed along well above the treetops. Pipp looked out, surprisingly in her element. "It's a bit loud in here!" she shouted.
"It's a helicopter!" Zipp replied. "They're loud! Not exactly designed for luxury or comfort! Especially when you consider this one's a former military example!"
The chopper continued to thump along the river with the passengers looking out and commenting on the view. "I think I can see something in the air over there," said Lord Haven, pointing.
"I can't," Lady Haven replied. "There's a lot of mist over there. Could there be an island out there that's unknown?"
"Why would there be an island out here that's unknown?" Lord Haven asked. "This is South America, not Antarctica!"
"What if it was always covered in mist?"
"That would certainly be, shall we say, 'misterious'." There was a brief bit of laughter at the joke, even though it wasn't hugely funny. The chopper continued to rattle along, the familiar thud of the rotors soon becoming background music.
Suddenly, another chopper roared past, althogether far too close. Zoom glanced over. "What was that?" she asked.
Thunder glanced down at his RADAR screen. "Object detected behind us," he said. "Checking IFF signal." He flicked a switch and looked closely at the monitor. "No response. They must have a damaged IFF system."
"Or it's been turned off," Zoom suggested. Suddenly from behind there was the roar of a chaingun.
"We've been bounced!" Zoom shouted. "Get us out of here!"
Thunder adjusted the radio. "Taking evasive action. You might want to hold onto something, everybody!"
Thunder kicked the pedals and pulled the stick over. Purbeck 1 pulled off a barrel roll to the side which got it out of the line of fire. He then checked the radio to spot the pursuing chopper was pulling off the same move. "Unidintified target, please respond, over."
"Inform me of where you're going and I might spare your life," the pilot replied.
"Wait? That's the guy we heard the sound recording of," Thunder said.
"P. T. Boomeer," Zoom replied. "Keep moving. Hopefully we can shake this guy."
Suddenly, the cockpit lit up with lock tones. "DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!" Thunder shouted, and started a dive towards the river level as the chasing chopper did the same. The change in altitude confused the missiles at first, but they soon got a new lock tone.
"Dumping flares!" Zoom shouted, flicking a switch.
Thunder got on the radio. "Dear passengers, we apologise for the rough air. We'll hopefully have the bandit off our tale in a few moments."
Just then, the mountain loomed above them. Thunder decided to try something risky. He pulled up and began to climb rapidly whilst pushing the engines as far as he could. The engines roared and whined as the chopper gained height rapidly, with the chasing chopper struggling to maintain the same angle of ascent.
More rockets continued to fly, which some precision flying saw off. "Bad news!" Zoom said. "We're out of flares!"
Warning lights were coming on throughout the dashboard. "I've got an engine temperature warning," Thunder added. "Slowing her down."
The chopper levelled off and slowed down as the chasing chopper overshot and flew higher, before dropping down to their level.
"Give it up," said Boomer. "Or else I may blow you to bits."
"Seen these evasive moves?" Thunder replied. "I can keep this up all day."
Suddenly, the other chopper exploded, the machine going into an uncontrolled spin. Moments later, a jet fighter roared overhead before climbing out of the area.
Zoom saw somebody jumping out of the burning chopper. "Looks like Boomer ejected," she said.
They suddenly got a radio call. "Purbeck 1, I overheard the commotion," said the voice, revealing them to be an American. Presumably the jet was an American one as well. "Good hunting. God Save the Queen and all that."
Thunder switched the radio to reply. "Thanks for the help. By the way, we have a King right now."
"Muscle memory."
At the top of the mountain was a small plateau, which allowed Purbeck 1 to land on top of the mountain. On landing, Zipp and Pipp hoipped out to proceed to a small mound of earth marked with a rock. "Should we try digging there?" Pipp asked.
"Yes," Zipp replied. "Shovel, please."
Moments later she had her shovel, and they began digging through the ground to reach the target at the bottom. Sure enough, at the bottom of the hole was a big box, which the pair pulled out.
Well, when I say the pair pulled out, Zipp did most of the heavy lifting. Her sister wheezed at the strain of trying to move the object upwards out of the ground. "Why... are boxes... so... heavy?" she asked.
Zipp snorted. "Easy load. Perhaps you should try working out more."
Once the box was back onboard the chopper, they flew away to the train. "Once we get back onboard," Lord Haven said, "we must transmit the information to Argyle as quickly as possible. After that, we need to begin the return trip to the docks."
"And I could do with a shower," Pipp added.
Meanwhile, it was well into the night on the train to London. The service from Interlarken had departed late and was about half an hour behind schedule thanks to a slow goods in front. Argyle had stayed up in order to try and make sense of the fragments, but it was proving hard with the low light and his tiredness.
"Just one more try," he said to himself, as he heard the train stop. They must have halted somewhere for an engine change. He brought up the data one last time, noticing that Goldie and Sunny were already asleep in their bunks. He couldn't afford to join them. Not just yet.
Suddenly, he got a ping on his email, and checked it. "Who's this?" he asked. "RubySparkly01@Gmail.Com?"
Just then he got a clarifying message. Apologies. I accidentally sent the email from Pipp's account; she'd logged in to check her social media. This is the fragment recovered from the Mountain in South America. I look forward to seeing you again, wherever we may meet again.
Robert.
"Finally," Argyle thought. "Time to mix it up and put it all together." He looked closely at the scan, and then noticed something interesting with the way the numbers were written on it. "Those spacings look a little bit strange," he noted to himself. "Perhaps if I were to move them a little bit, or maybe overlay them with one another..."
He brought up the other two scans and began to move them about on the screen, trying to find a pattern with the figures and numbers so he could try and understand what was going on with this set of displays and messages.
It was then he had a bright idea. "Stoke the magic that lies beneath the mountain." Next to him was a box of Toblerone, which he picked up and held to the light. The light beams flowed down onto his screen, revealing something that lay on the back.
"The numbers produce coordinates," he realised, and when he had that he knew how to fit them together. This worked! It denoted a place!
The coordinates read 52°31'11.0"N 2°04'34.8"W. Argyle punched this into Google maps and found where this was. He penned a new email to both the Havens and the Moonbows.
Good news. I have figured out the hidden message on the fragments we've recovered. The coordinates given are 52°31'11.0"N 2°04'34.8"W, which is close to Dudley in the West Midlands. We should rednezvous there and try to find the object.
He then sent the message before closing down his laptop. There is always an immense sense of satisfaction to solving a puzzle, and this was what Argyle was feeling. As the engine change was completed, he could finally get ready for bed and relax a bit. He did so, clambered into his bunk, and fell asleep, ready for whatever challenges might come their way in the search for the Lost Engine.