'So how do you come to know this Sreka character, Arthur?' X asked as they drove.

Arthur reminisced... 'I was in Prague... it was let's see... fourteen... fifteen years ago now. It was a covert survey job at the ambassador's reception... you know the sort: all leggy blondes in cocktail dresses and pearls, the men in dinner-jackets, sashes — and that little tray of chocolates being passed round...'

X nodded; he knew the sort.

'Actually, although we were there to provide security, Boutros also suspected the Ambassador had been lining his pockets with gold bullion negotiated from the Mafia in return for a, shall we say, lax police policy against smuggling. Now while the ambassador didn't have any direct control himself, he did have influence, and that was what the mobs were buying.'

X sniffed in a morally disapproving way.

'I was cleared to run a separate mission to break into the mansion, pose as one of the guests and plant a bug on his computer that would allow the tech boys back at the agency to track his financial dealings. I made sure everything was set up with the surveillance group on the roof and then I made my way down the fire-escape, deactivated the security system and broke open the lock. Inside, I was in the attic part of the mansion... I'd memorised the layout of the mansion beneath me so I knew precisely where I was: above the staff corridor that lead down to the kitchens. I followed the outer wall along until I reached the other side of the mansion, took three steps in diagonally and plied up a floorboard. I was then above the ambassador's private study. I secured a rope to a beam in the roof and lowered myself down. I'd just finished connecting the surveillance bug when the door opened and Andrei Sreka walked in.'

'God! What did you do?'

'I didn't have time to pull myself up. Got halfway down and the rope stalled, leaving me spinning in the middle of the room. Sreka walked right under me and to the computer. Then he whipped out a disk and started hacking into the system himself. It seems the Mob weren't satisfied with the ambassador's fidelity either.'

'What happened then?' X asked.

'Things got kind of complicated,' Arthur said. 'A security patrol came into the study, found Sreka over the desk and me suspended from a line in the roof. Sreka was startled and shot him. I was shocked and found myself shouting "No!" Sreka then pointed the gun at me. We both knew the first gunshot was about to bring all kinds of hell in our direction. Sreka saw no sense in further caution, so he fired a second shot that severed the rope that I was suspended from; I dropped and rolled into the study. I pulled my own gun and followed Sreka out into the corridor. I was met by the first wave of the guards. I was tackled to the ground, my firearm confiscated and I was held for the killing of the security guard. Sreka escaped. However, he had to abandon the disk he was downloading onto. I imagine that cost him dearly.'

The car backfired, which caused Arthur and X jump forwards in their seats. When the car seemed to be behaving itself again, Arthur continued.

'Anyway, after several hours of police interrogation, I realised I'd been cut loose. There was no way the Agency could vouch for me. You and I both know what we're in for when we are caught, but you don't realise what that actually means until it happens for real. I was on my own.'

X looked straight ahead, ignoring the uncomfortable subject of the fate of Spies Left Out in the Cold.

'Well, the first thing I had to do was escape. This was surprisingly easy, since I had a miniature poisoned-dart kit inside a false tooth. Therefore, I knocked out the guards when they came to move me to another cell. After that, I got out of the building wearing the police officer's uniform. Then I had to clear my name, so I went after Sreka.'

X now was beginning to feel like a nodding dog — partly because of the requirement to constantly nod his head during these kinds of conversations, but mostly because the car had no suspension worth the name. 'So how did you do it?' enquired X.

'Well, I kind of accidentally drove a truck through the front door of his casino.'

'Impressive,' X said, glancing at Arthur with a smile.

'That was the hub of Andrei's money=laundering operation, which was responsible for bankrolling the Mob. By the time Andrei had recovered in hospital, he was under arrest and I was welcomed back in to the secret service with open arms.'

'A clear record?'

'Officially, ye — WATCH OUT!'

X swerved to avoid a young, blonde woman in the middle of the road and the car crashed in to a small ditch at the side of the road. As per usual in any narrative scenario, the car's bonnet set alight. Arthur and X escaped the car and ran in the direction of the young woman. Both leapt to shield her from the inevitable explosion from the car's ruptured fuel tank. X, Arthur and the blonde-haired woman careered backwards into the road's opposing ditch with a muddy splat.

After a few moments, the two spies' heads appeared to watch the explosion that refused to materialise. Instead, the front of the car hissed steam, then the whole body collapsed as though it had suffered a sort of internal subsidence crossed with metal fatigue.

A hubcap detached itself and rolled down the road, as this was convention.

'Excuse me!' said the blonde woman, a tad irately.

'Oh, I'm sorry!' said X, trying to extract her from the ditch as the mud made a determined effort to relieve him of his left shoe.

As X clambered out of the hole, Arthur surveyed the landscape — he hadn't really been paying attention to what direction they'd been travelling in — and X's navigational skills were... well... 'dismal' just didn't do it justice. Behind the ditch, a small, bedraggled tree leaned over them mournfully. The sky had been greying all day and it started to spit with rain.

'I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?' Arthur asked, reaching for some composure.

'That's because I didn't give it,' said the woman, clearly in a mood to dish vengeance out on somebody — and to Arthur's great relief, she chose X.

'What did you have to go and do that for?'

'Do what?' X replied with disarming naïveté.

'You tried to kill me!' she bristled.

X was agog. 'I assure you, we did no such thing.'

'Then why did you go and drag me into that ditch?'

'To save you from the impending explosion....'

'What explosion?'

'It's still impending,' X admitted weakly as the Lada wheezed an unhelpful death rattle from its collapsed radiator.

'All I did was stick out my thumb, trying to hitch a lift to Lauterbrunnen' — she pointed to the horizon, and nestled between two sheer cliffs of forest-topped stone, lights were beginning to shine out in the sodden twilight of a rain-soaked dusk. 'You slowed down like you were going to stop and then you swerved and then you pushed me into this ditch — I think I broke a heel!'

While this berating roared on in the background, Arthur was lost in contemplation, staring as the last of the sun's rays illuminated the waterfalls that evaporated into cloud halfway up the mountain's edge. 'We'll take you,' he heard himself say before realising he had.

'I mean: we'll take you,' he repeated more forcefully.

'We will?' X asked, surprised. 'I mean: We will, yes... err... eh? We will?' scratching the back of his head and looking at Arthur, utterly mystified.

Having finished savaging X, the lady turned to Arthur. 'That's very kind of you,' said the young lady, who still hadn't introduced herself and knew it, '... but I'll make my own way.' And, pulling her shawl around her, she started walking down the hill into the valley. After a few steps, she looked back over her shoulder at Arthur. 'Of course, you're welcome to follow me.' She smiled. Arthur was floored.

'Very unprofessional,' he muttered, and set off after the mystery blonde.

X was very confused. He picked himself off the road, gave a regretful look at the Lada carcass laying on its side and set off after his partner.

The h2g2 Storytime III Archive

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