H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part LIX
Created | Updated May 14, 2007
Jamila was led by the elbow into a grimy cage with dark stone walls. The gaoler shoved Ody inside with a contemptuous push to the shoulder.
The Cage door was snapped close with a solid-sounding, metallic clang.
The Gaoler twirled the keys on his finger and cackled merrily as he left to attend to other duties.
Ody turned to Jamila with a face of calm resignation.
"Do you still have it?" he asked cryptically.
"I never go anywhere without it," Jamila replied, both hands going automatically up to her hair that was kept in a tight bob, and she carefully extracted a long, but bent, and somewhat hobbled pin.
Ody shuffled out of the way exposing the wrought iron door, bars and crucially, the lock.
"Do you still think you've got the knack?" He asked.
"Don't doubt it it for a second." Jamila said boastfully. Granted it's been a while since we snuck into the Smitsonian Institute to get those magical Thugee stones.
"I know I said I'd put them back - I never foresaw the business with the alligators," Ody said contriving to sound like a emotionally wounded 12 year old boy in trouble for breaking his mother's windows.
"Yes - well - the - less - said - of - that - the - better." Her words spoken in a staccato fashion through the intense concentration of trying to visualise the chambers and barrls inside the lock, sliding the pin into each and turning experimentally.
A clunk signalled succeess. "Still got it." Jamila said beaming.and gave the door an experimental push were it swung idly open.
Suddenly, the door through with the gaoler had only moments ago left burst open, as if kicked from the other side.
"Close it!" hissed Ody agitatedly.
Mary, Daltmooreby and Sreka stode in looking triumphant and a damp, half-frozen and bedraggled Arthur and X were tossed shivering into the centre of the room. With their backs turned to them, and amidst the general hubub, no-one seemed to have noticed that Ody and Jamila's cage was open.
Cautiously, Jamila reached out and perched on her knees, grabbed at the bars of the door and gently pulling the door to as silently as possible, letting it rest on the catch.
The gaoler reappeared with a phalanx of generic gaurds and Ody watched as Sreka herded X and a dejected-looking Arthur into a cage opposite. The door was slammed home with the same soul-destroying iron clang and the key in the lock snapped closed.
The cult left laughing. Daltmooreby seemed in particularly high spirits at seeing Arthur brought so low.
When they had left, and the noise of their celebration had quietened, Jamila became aware of Arthur's plaintive voice.
"We failed X." Arthur moped. "I failed. Anna. The Agency. The Whole World, The Cult are going to win. It's hopeless."
"Erm. Ahoy!" Ody waved with an uncharacteristic cheerfulness.
"Now isn't really a good" - X started to say as Jamila touched lightly on her cell door that swung easily open - "time." he finished the shock draining the impetus of his sentence.
Jamilla and Ody walked out into the bare room and approached the opposite cage. X gripped onto the bars like a badly behaved ape at a zoo.
Jamila bent down and spoke through the bars. Behind her, Ody stepped out of the way of a duct in the ceiling through which warm and vaguely sulphurous air was being pumped.
"How?" X asked.
"I picked the lock with this." Jamila said holding up two ends of the pin, which had finally broken in two.
"Damn." X said.
"Look we'll find another way out and come and get you.
"We didn't abandon you you know." X said trying to muster an apology. "We radio base, at elast arthur did - we were captured soon afterwards, I don't know what happened to the radio."
"I know." Jamila said.
"Listen, we can't stay here," Ody said distantly.
"He's right." X said, sitting back down on his haunches. "Get as far away as you can. The Cult have the upper hand and that Shuttle will be launched soon - and then, well; if they are planning what I think they are planning..."
During all of this, Ody hadn't moved much, X noticed this and followed his eyes which were gazing intently at Arthur. X pondered the young man's intentions.
"Let's go." Ody said, taking Jamilla by the arm.
"We'll be right back" Jamila said as the pair turned to leave and in a curious reversal of fortunes they escaped from the gaol, leaving Arthur and X to their fate.
Ody opened the door and peered out, the corridor was deserted, not sure which way to go: they headed left.
Mary, Sreka and Daltmooreby were in high spirits.
"Did you see Robinson?" Daltmooreby breyed.
Sreka was about to reply when something caught his eye and he stopped suddenly. It was Annabell Smittington: The Grand Master of The Cult of The Dying Pilchard.
"So The Agents are in custody then, Cossak?"
"Er Yes. Yes Grand Master."
"Excellent." and then she slapped him across the jowl with a thunderous crack.
Mary and Daltmooreby winced.
Sreka turned back to her slowly.
"That was for letting the Agency come this close to disrupting The Cult's plans."
Sreka, slowly rubbing his jaw with one huge hand, the short stubbly bristles on his chin making a light krriitch sound, said nothing
"You were supposed to guard the door." The Grand Master said icly.
She turned to look straight on at Daltmooreby. "And you must be the traitorous spy - am I correct?"
"Indeed you are, Madam." Daltmooreby replied with a polite yet cautious lowering of his head.
"And do you have the Turqoise Moon?"
I have caried it with me since I left Egypt. It has not left my possession once."
From under his jacket, he prduce a small leather satchel and inside wrapped in linseed cloth was a large roundish object approximately the size of a small watermelon.
Daltmooreby lifted it gingerly out of the bag and held it outstretched in his palm of his hand, and using his free hand, reverentially removed the cloth from around the diamond; he held it up to the light for them all to see.
In the corridor the four of them were bathed in a soft, bluish light,
Mary was quite lost for words. "It's..... it's so..."
Annabel regained her compsure first. "Daltmooreby - "
The spy returned the diamond orb to the satchel and turned to face The Grand Master
"Your clan is one of the most venerated amongst our number. Take the Turqoise Moon to The Launch Pad."
Daltmooreby smiled thinly and took a step forward past Annabell.
Annabell halted him, clearly ruminating over some decision, and after a moment's thought added, "Take the Cossak with you."
Sreka drew level with her.
"Don't screw up this time."
Daltmooreby carried on down the corridor, Sreka twisted his head to one side and his neck gave an unhealthy snap. With a sneer he took after the Englishman and said. "I won't"
