05.06: Danny and Noah (Joint Post)

DANNY & NOAH
Bobby Drake jammed down the brake pedal of a black Mercedes. Danny threw the back door open before it came to a full halt, then scooted across to the other side of the rear seat, allowing Noah to dive into the car.
Noah looked at Danny as Bobby accelerated away from the kerb. ‘How far did those guys chase you Danny?’
“Only two followed me through the fence,” Danny said. “I belted one over the head with a garden a gnome and the other one backed off.”
Noah smiled, rubbing streaks of sweat on to his cuff as he took his first breath of the chilled air inside the car.
“So what went wrong?” Bobby asked sharply.
Noah was worried how Bobby would react. Despite having the air of a laid-back guy with his baggy cargos, tongue stud and bleached hair, Bobby had a reputation of being a strict mission controller as Noah knew from experience.
'We set off an alarm, passing through a fire door leading out to the back of the gym,' Noah explained.
“You set it off,” Danny said, as he threw down his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt.
‘Ja,’ Noah said irritably, his accent thicker than usual as he wriggled out of his blazer. ‘But you went in that changing room to change your trousers, you looked out the window, you said we could go that way.'
The two boys exchanged scowls. Now the car was a couple of streets away from Montresor school, Bobby cooled down his driving to blend in with the ordinary
traffic.
“Fire doors are often linked to alarms,” Bobby said. “Didn't either of you remember that from your infiltration and surveillance training?”
'Actually, now you mention it ...' Noah said, nodding sheepishly.
“Ah,” Danny held a hand up, “I haven’t done that training yet. But I suppose it is mostly my fault, obvious really,” Danny admitted.
“We can play the blame game later,” Bobby said, as he took a sharp turn into a main road. “Right now I need to know exactly what happened and see if we've
got a mess that needs cleaning up. Did you get the bugs into position?”
Noah nodded. ‘Both of them; that bit of the plan worked fine.’
“Nobody saw you in Hodge's car or office?”
“No,” Danny said. He felt good and was on a real high having done his first operation. “We only got rumbled after we came upstairs from the car park.”
“And you didn't leave any equipment behind?”
Both boys shook their heads and said no.
“Good,” Bobby said. “So the bugs are in place and there's nothing linking you to Hodge.”
“But they still saw us,” Danny said.
“Use your loaf,” Bobby replied. “They saw two boys dressed in Montresor uniform. They'll assume you're a couple of local kids playing a prank, or trying to break
in and steal stuff.”
'They found us around the changing area,' Noah said.
“And there's a wallet in the back pocket of these trousers I nicked,” Danny added.
“Bonus,” Bobby nodded enthusiastically. “In that case they'll think you were thieves trying to rob the changing rooms.”
“What about us wearing Montresor uniforms though?” Danny asked.
Bobby shrugged. “Maybe you picked them up at a local jumble sale or something... Actually, I think we did buy them in a charity shop in town. Besides, a couple of kids breaking into a school are hardly headline news. The cops might dust for fingerprints and show a few mug-shots of the local bad boys to the people who saw you, but unless the school kicks up a huge stink they probably won't even bother with that.”
“So the mission was basically a success?” Danny asked.
Noah caught Bobby's wry smile in the driver's mirror. “Despite the misjudgment with the fire door, I guess you boys did OK.”
Noah was greatly relieved that Bobby wasn't going to go apeshit at them. He lifted his bum off the seat and pushed his bloody trousers down as far as his
Knees. 'Is there a first-aid kit around?' he asked.
Bobby nodded. “Under the front passenger seat.”
“Does it hurt?” Danny asked, as Noah grabbed the green plastic box from between his feet.
'Course,' Noah said, as he ripped open an antiseptic wipe and cleaned away the blood, revealing a small puncture wound that was already showing signs of
scabbing over.
“It's minute,” Danny said, looking at the injury with contempt.
'Yeah, but it's deep,' Noah said defensively. 'I think it almost went through to the bone.'
“Oh give it a rest,” Danny laughed. “I've seen way worse than that worse than that on the street.”
Noah agreed, as they had both been street kids they had, it was something that bonded them.