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"Okay, okay," Dean says. "Settle down everyone. Now… Hailey—what the fuck has been going on here? For a start, who's the guy in the sleeping bag… and why is he in the sleeping bag? And how come Grace is with you? Why didn't you hide and wait for us, like we said?
Hailey smiles sweetly. "Which question do you want me to answer first?"
"Okay, okay. Just give me the summary. But make it snappy."
"Yeah," I say, "this I have to hear."
"Alright, well it's like this. You left me here as planned, and I made myself comfortable, because I knew it would take you a good forty-five minutes or so to work yourselves around the mine and into position. I kept my eye on the time by my cell phone, and sure enough, about fifty minutes or so after you left me, I heard a massive commotion—first a huge bang like a grenade going off or something?—"
"Our flashbang," interrupted Dean.
"Right, whatever. Then some shouting and bumping around. Then it went quiet again. So, I thought great, the boys must have succeeded. I got myself ready because I knew you'd be along any minute, but ten minutes went by, then another ten minutes, and then another ten minutes, and no sign of anyone coming down the track.”
"Yeah, we couldn't find Grace. We were searching the place. Pulling it apart looking for her." I explain.
"Right. Well of course I didn't know what had happened. But then, as I am beginning to wonder what I should do, I make outthe outline of someone coming down the track, and it's a man, and he's carrying a bundle that's exactly Grace's size, because… well because it is Grace."
"Yeah," says Grace smiling "It was me. He was carrying me. The bad man."
"What bad man?" I ask. But before Grace can answer, Hailey picks up the threads of her story again.
"Well, what happened was, I assumed it was one of you three, so I stepped out onto the track and said 'Hi'. But I must have scared the shi… I mean scared the living daylights out of the guy—to be fair he was probably already in a state of nervous shock after you three had finished your sound and lights show. So anyway, he cries out and kinda drops Grace, who promptly kicked him in the nu… in the groin?—"
"Yeah, right in the groin, Daddy, like you taught me."
I glance at Lennon, there's a hint of pride now in his face, and like me, he's grinning. What a story!
"Go on. So who's the man, and how come he's in a sleeping bag?"
"So I turn on my headtorch and of course I instantly see I was wrong—it wasn't any of you. It was Sinclair."
"Sinclair?" Dean almost shouts, glancing down at the packaged-up figure in the sleeping bag.
"Yep. So I gave it to him, full in the face with the bear spray."
"You did what?"
"I pepper-sprayed him. The whole lot. Right in the face. It was the full power version too—Sabre Frontiersman. The guy in the store said it would drop a grizzly at thirty-five feet. I don't know about that, but it certainly did the trick on Sinclair from two feet away."
By this time the three of us are staring at Hailey, flabbergasted. I can't help it, I burst out in fits of laughter.
"Seems like you didn't even need us," I choke out. "Seems we turned out to be just the diversion, guys. All the real action happened down here."
Even Lennon is smiling, though he hasn't put Grace down yet.
"So then what happened?" Dean asks.
"Well, you see, when we were back in my kitchen, I'd reasoned that if we caught up with Grace in the middle of the forest at night, she might be cold, so I'd grabbed my sleeping bag on the way out and shoved it into my rucksack." We nod to show we understand.
"Well, it's one of those camping ones—you know, a close-fitting bag with a zip up the side and a drawstring so only your nose peaks out. So anyway, whilst he was still barely able to breathe from the pepper spray, I sat on him, and Grace took off his boots and threw them somewhere…" She looks around vaguely as if to see if she can spot them.
"Who gives a shit where they got to? What happened after that?" Dean is impatient to hear the story, and I must admit, so am I. I don't think I've heard anything so funny in all my life. That bastard Sinclair, overpowered by a girl with bear spray, and then having his boots removed by a child? You couldn't make this shit up!
"Yeah, right. So then between us we bundled him into the sleeping bag, zipped it up tight, and tied a knot in the drawstring so he can't undo it. Not that he could anyway, because we used his belt to tie his wrists first?—"
"Yeah," shouted Grace gleefully. "So his pants fell down. And he wasn't wearing any under?—"
"Okay, Grace." Hailey interrupts her quickly, and now I can't contain myself any longer, I am doubled up in laughter. Shaking with mirth. Even Dean is smiling by now, and it takes a lot to make Dean smile, especially on an operation.