Chapter One
By: Winston deLeon
Chip shuffled slowly into the kitchen, having just woken up. Looking around as he finished pulling on his jacket, he noticed with a bit of surprise that everyone else was already up and most of the way through breakfast. Was everyone up early, or... nope, he was just up later than normal, he realized as he looked at the clock.
"What happened, sleepyhead?" Dale asked. "You're always the first one up."
"Nothing." Chip said. "Just up too late last night." He yawned and made his way to the cabinet where all the breakfast foods were stored.
"Oh... Yep, I know all about that." Dale commented, then fell silent as he concentrated once more on a bowl of cereal. Heaped with sugar, of course, Chip noted silently with a slight roll of his eyes.
As Chip got himself breakfast, he made a mental note for the future not to let himself get so wrapped up in a mystery novel that he ended up staying awake until 3 AM because he couldn't bring himself to set it down. No one seemed to have much to discuss yet today, the kitchen was mostly silent as Chip finished getting his breakfast ready and sat at the table to start eating it. Chip briefly considered getting some coffee, since Monty and Gadget always seemed to find it quite useful in fighting sleepiness, but decided against it as he also remembered how Gadget had once mentioned that you could get withdrawal jitters if you drink too much and then decide to suddenly stop. One or two cups wouldn't do that, Chip was sure, but he was also just as glad not to bother with the stuff unless he really urgently needed to be wide awake for some reason - and right now, there wasn't one. Chip hoped it would stay that way for once.
After Chip had taken a few bites of his breakfast, the room's silence was broken. "Crikey, now there's an impressive rock." Monty mumbled quietly from behind the morning newspaper as he worked his way through it over his usual morning coffee.
"What is, Monty?" Gadget asked.
Monterey looked up from his paper in surprise, as if unaware that he'd said anything out loud. "Oh... just talkin' to meself about this here diamond, luv. The Devil's Eye." Monty explained. "Says here it's coming to San Francisco as it's next stop on tour."
Chip quickly glanced up from his breakfast, looking at Monty. "What? The Devil's Eye is coming here?" he said in surprise. "Can I see that a second?"
"Sure mate, I was just finished with that page anyway." Monty pulled a page of the rodent-size newspaper out from the rest and handed it to Chip, who scanned briefly down the page until he found the article in question:
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GIANT DIAMOND COMES TO SAN FRANCISCO
One of the largest known diamonds in
the world, the Devil's Eye, will be on display at the San Francisco Museum for
one week as it continues it's nationwide tour. The diamond will be displayed
in the recently constructed Clutchcoin Memorial Wing of the museum, under extreme
high security. The human administrators of the museum have been making extensive
preparations, including hiring a well-known private security firm who specializes
in high profile events to ensure absolutely airtight around the clock protection.
The diamond, recovered in 1977 by two RAS agents working to rescue an orphan from kidnappers, has a long and strange history. Discovered long ago in India, it was a treasured possesion of a long line of rulers before a European owner got hold of it under circumstances that are still not clearly understood. It changed hands quickly in several different European nations, until one of it's owners attempted to bring it with him to the new world. En route, however, his ship was raided by pirates, who took the diamond. It soon vanished without a trace, believed by most experts to have been cut into several smaller gems, until it was discovered in the bottom of a cave by two RAS agents and a human child and given to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., where it has remained until now. The diamond's nationwide tour began two months ago and is scheduled to last another five weeks once it leaves San Francisco. It will be on display in San Francisco from May 18th to 25th.
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Chip could hardly believe his eyes as he saw the last line of the article. Now he didn't need coffee to feel wide awake. "The 18th?" Chip blurted out in surprise. "But... that's tomorrow!"
"Aww, don't get so worked up. Or at least wait until we're done with breakfast, if you're gonna." Dale said, apparently sensing Chip's rising concern.
"Whatdya mean, 'don't get worked up'?!" Chip said indignantly. "It's one of the biggest diamonds in the WORLD! It's gotta be worth... I can't even guess how much. Who do we know who'd love to get their hands on a treasure like that?"
Dale thought for a second. "Oh... I guess we've got to worry about Fat Cat, for one. Probably Nimnul, too, and maybe that Rat Capone guy... if he's still in town. I thought he left a while ago, though. And maybe others, too."
"Exactly." Chip said. "And with a lure this tempting, I'd be willing to bet on it that all of them are coming up with plans as we speak." Chip started to feel a touch worried at just the thought of who out there could already have some ingenious plot in the works to lay hands on such a priceless gem. It could be any of the usual troublemakers... or someone they'd never yet encountered before... A big enough prize could draw the usually timid out of the woodwork at times.
"Ah, now, I wouldn't worry much about it, Chippa." Monty said calmly. "They'll have the place under a security blanket so tight a greased earthworm couldn't wriggle past it."
Merely assuming that, however, couldn't quell Chip's concerns. "Yeah... and no one realized that Jell-O was the key to getting into the world's largest gold reserve, either." He commented.
"Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a look at the museum," Gadget suggested. "To see exactly how their security is arranged."
Chip decided that he couldn't agree more.
After everyone finished breakfast, the Rangers took the rangerwing to the museum, landing it in the grass off to the side of the building. As the Rangers got out, the first thing they noticed were the large banners that advertised that the Devil's Eye diamond would be going on display for a week. Their presence was a mild bit irksome to Chip, as he wondered just how they'd completely missed hearing about this event sooner. Had no one been paying attention? How were they supposed to stay on top of things if no one bothered taking notice of the unusual? He didn't really have much time to dwell on it, however. Soon, the Rangers found a pair of rodent security guards, both muscular and larger than average mice, patrolling the grounds of the museum. Chip walked up and introduced himself and rest of the Rangers, and asked to speak to whoever was the head of security.
"Hmm, you'll want to talk to the captain." One of the guards said. "I'll get him, if you'll just give me a few moments."
One of the guards waited with the Rangers while the other went to get the head of security, returning a minute later followed by an older mouse who introduced himself as captain Leitman, chief of the museum's rodent security force.
"Pleased to meet you." Chip said, shaking his hand. "We're the Rescue Rangers, you might have heard of us?"
"Yes, I've heard some very good things about your group. You recovered that moonrock for us when it was stolen, if I remember correctly... But what brings you here now?" The captain asked curiously. "Nothing's been stolen from here in quite a long time."
"Well," Chip began, "that's how we'd like to keep it, with the Devil's Eye diamond coming here soon. With such a valuable item coming on display, we just thought we'd check up on the situation. It's been our experience that there's always someone out to make trouble at events like these."
"I think you're worried over nothing this time." The captain said. "Both human and rodent security here is going to be absolutely undefeatable." he continued confidently. "We've got everything covered. The human security force has both normal and infrared cameras, and we've got hidden feeds tapped into both systems. We can see everything that goes on in that room." The captain of the rodent security team at the museum assured Chip. "Nothing gets in or out without being caught on film, we tape record every camera 24 hours a day."
"What about floor personnel?" Chip asked.
"Four guards at every entrance and exit." The captain said with pride. "In addition to random plainclothes personnel who'll be walking in the crowd when it comes time to open to the public."
"Sounds good." Chip agreed. "If I might make just one suggestion..." He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope full of photographs. The photos were pictures of all the members of Fat Cat and Rat Capone's gangs, in addition to a photo of Norton Nimnul. "Tell all your guards to keep an eye open for any of the people in these photos. They're all known criminals that we've had trouble with in the past." Chip advised.
"I'll get these duplicated and distributed as soon as I can." The captain promised as he took the envelope. He thought for a moment, then turned to the Rangers again. "You know, I really shouldn't do this, but if you'd like, I suppose I can show you the display room itself." The captain offered.
"Thanks. Lead the way." Chip said.
The security captain led them around to the side of the building, to a small hole in one wall situated well out of sight behind a bush. Despite being so hidden, it was actually the main entrance for rodents. The practical problems of avoiding human interferance made it necessary to have a high level of concealment. The entrance led into a hollow wall of the museum, with several holes in the inner wall leading into the museum itself. The captain looked around carefully, watching for humans in the area, then led the Rangers across the museum floor to one of the interior walls, where he pushed open a small doorway, again hidden to conceal it from humans. He led them around inside the walls once again for a long distance, and after several turns, he pushed open another door. It opened to reveal a small chamber within a wall, adapted from a section of floor-level airducting. There was a metal grill that formed a window into a small room. The grill was made to look as if it were fixed to the wall, but inside, there were concealed hinges that allowed it to swing open if necessary. The room that the grill opened into was small and completely enclosed except for human-sized doors on either side. Velvet ropes formed a path from one door to the other across the room, obviously intended to keep people from wandering around too freely.
At the far end of room from the Rangers, on the other side of the ropes, there was a large square black marble pedestal with a clear cube shaped display box made from extremely thick glass atop it. The box was empty at the moment, but Chip could fairly easily imagine how the diamond would look sitting inside it. It would be a dazzling sight, especially since there was a small high intensity spotlight suspended from the ceiling over the pedestal that would be shining down on it. Other than the pedestal and the glass box, the room was completely devoid of any other displays.
"That's the display room. As you can see, the diamond will be in a box made from bulletproof glass." The captain said. "It's even got a special coating on it to resist hydroflouric acid, so it can't be eaten through by chemicals, either."
"It looks like the room's been emptied out just for the occasion. What goes on display here normally?" Gadget asked.
"Normally, this room houses a collection of smaller gemstones, but they've been moved for the week in order to accommodate the security needed for this event." Captain Leitman explained. "They'll be back once the Devil's Eye moves on."
"I see." Gadget said, glancing up at the security the captain had just mentioned. Chip followed her gaze and noticed the cameras covering the display box from each of the four corners of the room. They were trained on the display box, and left just a small section of unobserved area in the room, which was fortunately big enough to allow rodents observing the diamond from behind the metal grill to go unnoticed. In the middle of the ceiling, Chip noticed that in addition to the usual metal mesh filters, heavy steel bars had been bolted firmly over the larger airvents, preventing a thief from entering by that route. It seemed like nothing had been left unthought of.
"It really does look pretty thoroughly secured." Chip commented, not seeing any weaknesses. He took one last look around. "Well, I guess it's about time for us to get going." He said at last. "Thanks for showing us around, captain. You certainly have things under control."
"No trouble at all." The captain said politely as he led them back out of the museum.
The Rangerwing pulled onto the landing pad and slowly dropped down into a gentle landing, and Gadget shut the motors off.
"See? Nothin' ta worry about." Monty said confidently as everyone clambered out. "They've got it locked up tighter than a pearl inside an oyster."
"You can say that again." Gadget commented. "Golly, you couldn't get a speck of dust into that room without it getting noticed."
Chip found himself feeling extremely confident that the diamond would remain safe for the duration of it's week in San Francisco as the group walked from the landing pad to the front door of the tree. A weight felt as if it had been lifted off his shoulders. He knew it was silly to feel so anxious in the first place, because security was bound to be incredibly tight, but he could never relax in a situation like this until he had seen for himself. Now that he had, he felt like he could safely let his concerns drop. Chip, in the lead of the group, pulled out his key, unlocked the front door, and opened it.
To Chip's great surprise, there was a scrap of paper, a news clipping, lying in the exact middle of the first dominoe at the top of the small staircase leading into the living room. Chip bent down to get a better look at it, and he saw that it was the same article he'd read earlier that day about the Devil's Eye diamond, cut from the same rodent-size newspaper. "Huh? How'd that get here?" Chip mumbled to himself in surprise. There was absolutely no reason he could think of for any of the other Rangers to have cut out the article, much less leave it on the floor. He reached down and picked it up. As everyone gathered around to see what Chip was looking at, he noticed that there was another small sheet of paper directly underneath the newspaper clipping. It was folded in half several times, and had no identifying marks on it. Chip set aside the article, then picked up the folded paper and slowly opened it, mystified as to what it could be. The paper opened easily, revealing a note written within in black ink. It's contents left him in utter confusion as he read it swiftly. Indeed, Chip still had trouble believing his eyes the second time through as he read the note out loud to the other Rangers:
Dear Rescue Rangers:
No doubt you're well aware that the Devil's Eye diamond will be going on display soon. This message is a friendly notification that I will be taking the diamond into my possession at approximately 8 PM on May 18th. The event should prove most exciting. I invite you to challenge yourselves by seeing if you can stop me. Have a nice day.
"What is this?" Chip asked himself, bewildered and starting to feel a bit angry as the anxiety he thought was lifted crept back over him. His first assumption was that the note had been slipped under the door, but as he tried to envision someone doing so, he came to the realization that they couldn't have gotten the two sheets of paper into the house that way, because it would be impossible to get the article resting directly atop the folded note, especially at the distance it had been from the edge of the door. Someone had to be inside the house to place the note and then set the article deliberately on top of it. He strained his brain trying to figure out who could have written it and gotten it into the house, and the first possibility to jump to mind didn't amuse him much. He turned to Dale and said with great annoyance, "Dale, if this is one of your jokes..."
"Huh? No, I didn't write that." Dale said, sounding just as surprised as Chip was feeling right now.
"Well, if you didn't write it, then who? It had to be someone who's able to get into the house and..." At that thought, it dawned on Chip that a note might not be the only concern at the moment. "Okay, everyone out!" Chip said with a touch of panic. "Now!" He tried to push everyone out the still-open front door all at once, and everyone stared at him as if he were crazy, until Gadget suddenly comprehended the reason behind his odd behavior.
"Golly!" She exclaimed as she headed out the door, joining Chip in trying to pull the others out, "Come on, you guys! Chip's right, it might not be safe in here! If someone's gotten in, we don't know what they might have left waiting." At that explanation, everyone was more eager to vacate. Chip was the last one out, quickly closing the door behind himself and then running away with the others.
They regrouped at the fountain in the park, thoroughly confused. Chip was still clutching the note he'd found on the floor. When he realized he was still holding it, he glanced at it again, noticing that the paper seemed to be plain white printer paper cut neatly from a larger sheet. That was of little signifigance, that sort of paper was so common there was no way of tracing where it had come from. The ink was probably of no help in determining it's origin, either, it appeared to be your average ballpoint pen.
Chip's examination of the note was soon interrupted. "So, how do we figure out what kinda nasty surprises might be in store?" Monty wondered as he stared back across the field at the oak tree that the Rangers called home.
"Only one way I can think of." Gadget said. "We'll just have to go through the house room by room and make sure there's nothing lying in wait."
"Agreed." Chip said. "But we'd better come up with some way of doing it without having to find out the hard way."
"I've already got an idea." Gadget said. "I'll need to make a trip to the dump, though, since obviously I can't get any spare parts from in the house."
After half an hour at the dump scrounging for parts and discarding various failed
efforts, Gadget pronounced that her idea was as close to done as it was going
to get without more specialized tools and better materials. It consisted of
a large shield made from a rectangular piece of sheetmetal big enough to completely
protect one person, and a thin metal pole a good ten inches long, scavanged
from the antenna of an old radio, with a small hook attached to the end. "I'd
prefer to put some sort of decent gripping mechanism on the end, but there's
no suitable parts here." Gadget shrugged.
"That's it?" Monty asked. "A shield and a long stick?"
"I wish I could do better," Gadget admitted, "But as crude as it is, this is better protection than nothing at all, especially if there's any kind of explosive trap. We'll just have to do this... carefully." She set off with determination back in the direction of the treehouse.
A few minutes later, everyone was standing outside hesitantly at the entrance to the house. "Well, at least we know the front door's not rigged." Gadget said as she pushed it open again, then looked around carefully inside. "And everything seems to be exactly the way we left it." When Chip thought about it he realized that if someone actually wanted to hurt them, boobytrapping the front door would have been the obvious choice to catch them without warning. If whoever the culprit was hadn't done that, then it wasn't likely that anything was actually waiting for them, but then again, it also wasn't worth taking unnecessary risks...
It was a long, tense process to search every part of the house that something unpleasant could possibly be hidden in. Gadget worked her way slowly through each room, carefully pushing open doors and cabinets with the long metal pole, hiding behind her shield the whole time. The rest of the Rangers watched from a safe distance, ready to render assistance if necessary and hoping it wouldn't be.
Several times, Chip and Dale both offered to take over for her, but she declined, explaining that if something was rigged, she might as well be the one to discover it, because she would probably be the only one able to disarm it. At last, after an hour and a half, she finally set down the improvised blastshield. "I've checked everything." She said, "And nothing's been touched. I think we're safe."
"This is so strange." Chip said in confusion. "We know that whoever left the note got inside the house, so they must have picked the lock. But when we got back, the door was still locked, like it had never been opened. Why would someone pick the lock and then relock the door again afterwards from the outside?"
"If they knew how to pick the lock to open the door, it wouldn't be very hard for them to use the same process to relock it again from the outside, if they really wanted to." Gadget offered. "But you're right, I can't think of any good reason why they would. It seems like it would only take more time without anything really being gained."
"What I wanna know," Monty ventured, "is why on earth anyone would leave a note in the first place. It kinda looks like a red herring to me, pally."
"A very good point, Monterey." Chip said, thinking carefully about the possibility. "I suppose whoever did this might not be after the diamond at all."
"Makes sense. Maybe they want our attention on it so that they can steal something else while we're not looking." Gadget pondered. "But then again, maybe they're counting on us coming to that conclusion, to draw us away from the diamond, and then they'll try to steal it while we're distracted with a wild goose chase... or maybe they really want us to think that they're going to steal the diamond by trying to make us think that they're not going to steal it after saying that they are, then once they trick us into thinking they're going for the diamond, they'll really go and steal something else after all - "
"Luv, I think you're overthinking it a bit." Monty interrupted. "Ya could go in circles like that forever that way and not really get anywhere."
"Oh... Golly, I guess you're right." Gadget admitted. "I do seem to do that sometimes..."
"Hmm... there's really only two possibilities, when you get down to it." Chip concluded. "Either they want our attention on the diamond, or they want our attention elsewhere."
"How are we gonna figure out which one it really is?" Dale asked.
Chip found himself unable to answer, because there was simply no way of knowing based on nothing but this note. It felt like a game of chess being played defensively. There was an obvious attack coming, but if the opponent was fairly clever, that obvious attack was just a distraction to open the way for a sneaky attack. Then again, against someone truly skilled, that sneak attack might indeed be the distraction, and when it seemed to be repelled, only then would obvious attack resurge from another angle and the real threat would show itself... and at that point, the game was usually lost. However, if the right defense was played, there was still a decent chance for victory. The frustrating part (and the reason Chip usually hated the defensive game) was trying to figure out exactly what to try and defend. Too often it boiled down to guessing, and Chip didn't consider guessing to be the way a real detective would work. He wanted something to back up his decisions, something solid to build a conclusion on. There was nothing. One guess was as good as another, so it seemed.
But maybe that's not really true, Chip thought, looking at it from another point of view. The diamond was the most valuable object in the city, much as the king was the most valuable chesspiece. Besides that, it was the only specific target there was. If the real target was something else, then they had no idea what it was and no way to protect it anyway. Logically, the only real thing to do was to protect that which was known to be under threat. If something else got stolen, that would have to be dealt with after the fact either way, whether their attention was on the diamond or not. Really, it came down to either protecting the diamond knowing it might be the wrong choice, or protecting nothing at all, which was guaranteed to be the wrong choice. Hmm, possible failure or guaranteed failure? Not really such a hard decision after all, he told himself. Besides, even if this thief wasn't really after the diamond, there might be others who were, which was another reason to defend it...
"The diamond is the only thing we've got to work with, so that's where we're going to put our efforts." Chip announced.
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Disclaimer:
The charactors of Chip, Dale, Gadget, Monterey Jack, Zipper, Tammy, Foxglove
and any other charactor originally appearing the animated series "Chip
and Dale's Rescue Rangers" are all © Disney and are used here without
permission. Any other charactors appearing herein that are not © Disney
are my own creations. This story may be freely copied, transmitted, printed,
distributed, used as bird cage liner, or whatever, I only ask that it is not
modified from it's original form and it is not used for profit in any way. I
believe that that concludes the legal mumbo-jumbo for now... On to the story!
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