S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. by Rob Stevens Page B

Armstrong.’
    Archie’s fingers were a blur on the keyboard. ‘The clue doesn’t say they meet each other,’ he pointed out. ‘It says they hang around with each
other.’
    ‘Same difference, isn’t it?’
    Without taking his eyes off the computer screen Archie shook his head. ‘I think Doom chose his words very carefully. What jumps out at me is that we’re not talking about actual
people, obviously, but we might be talking about pictures, or portraits. And where might you find paintings of, say, Batman and Neil Armstrong?’
    Realisation relaxed Barney’s frown. ‘ Hanging around a gallery?’
    ‘Exactly.’ Archie grinned and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘The Atomic Gallery in Hamburg, to be exact.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘Easy.’ Archie shrugged modestly. ‘I just Googled the words gallery exhibition Batman and Neil Armstrong and this came up.’
    Archie pointed about halfway down the screen of search results and Barney leaned forward to read the text.
    ATOMIC SALON GALLERY
    Glashuttenstrasse 19 HAMBURG
    . . . showing an exhibition of portraits of
    20th century icons including
    Marilyn Monroe, Batman , Muhammad Ali,
    James Bond and Neil Armstrong . . .
    ‘That’s awesome.’ Barney grinned. ‘You’d better let Gemma know you’ve done her job for her.’
    ‘I know,’ said Archie, grabbing his mobile. ‘We haven’t got much time.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Barney, a baffled frown creasing his face again.
    Archie pulled up Dr Doom’s blog and tapped the eight-digit sequence beneath his riddle.
    ‘Twelve, oh-seven, sixteen hundred,’ read Barney. ‘What is that, a telephone number or something?’
    Archie shook his head. ‘It’s a date and time,’ he explained, waiting for his call to be answered. ‘Twelve, oh-seven means the kidnap will take place on the twelfth of
July and sixteen hundred is the designated time for the snatch.’
    ‘Four o’clock today?’ Barney glanced at his watch. ‘But that means we only have . . .’
    He looked at Archie, his jaw slack with despair.
    ‘That’s right.’ Archie nodded grimly. ‘We’ve got less than two hours.’

‘So you’re saying it’s going to happen at sixteen hundred hours?’
    ‘Four o’clock, yes.’
    ‘And that’s this afternoon?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, that doesn’t give us much time, does it?’ Highwater’s statement almost sounded like an accusation.
    ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ Archie said, managing to stay calm. It had been a long phone call during which Highwater and Gemma had forced him to explain
each stage of his thought process. ‘I was thinking we should contact the German authorities and inform them that a crime is about to be committed. They could get a team of agents down to the
gallery and catch Doctor Doom in the act.’
    The next voice Archie heard was Holden Grey’s. ‘Yo, Yankee. A.S.I. Grey witcha.’
    ‘Er . . . hello, Mr Grey.’
    ‘Hear me now,’ Grey continued. ‘FIY, our Spooks ain’t tight enough with the Polizei Posse for us to drop a beat and expect them to boogie. Do you feel me?’
    ‘Let me make a phone call,’ Highwater said, coming back on the line. ‘I’ll call you back in five.’
    While Archie waited for Highwater to ring back he instructed Barney to find out the scheduled departure and arrival times of every commercial flight from the UK to Hamburg that afternoon. When
his ringtone sounded again he stepped out of his room on to the landing to answer it.
    ‘Yankee, this is I.C.’
    ‘What’s the score?’ asked Archie.
    ‘I’ve reported your theory to my immediate superior.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘He wants to give Cipher Branch some time to corroborate your findings before he calls in a foreign agency.’
    ‘Time?!’ Archie yelped. ‘We haven’t got any time. There’s an hour and fifty-one minutes before Doctor Doom kidnaps another innocent person and we need to do
something – now.’
    The reality was that