H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part III
Created | Updated Jul 22, 2006
"So how come you know this Sreka character, Arthur?" X asked as they drove.
Arthur reminissed...
"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 cockatil 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 Amassador didn't have any direct control himself - he did have influence. and that was what the mobs were buying."
X sniffed in a morally dissaproving way.
"I was cleared to run a seperate 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 surveilance 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 lay-out of the mansion beneath me so I knew precisely where I was - above the staff corridor that lead down to the kitchens. I follows the outer wall along till I reached the otherside of the mansion took 3 steps in diagnonally and plied up a floorboard.
I was then above the Ambassadors private study. I secured a rope to a beam in the roof and lowered myself down. I'd just finished connecting up the surveelence 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 half way down and the rope stalled leaving me spinning in the middle 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 Ambassdor's fidelity either."
"What happend then?" X asked.
"Things got kind of complicated." Arthur said.
"A securty 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!" Sreak 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 a the first wave of the guards.
I was tackled to the ground, my fire-arm confiscated and I was held for the killing the security guard. Sreka escaped. but he had to abandon the disk he was downloading to. 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 know what we're in for when we get 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. Which was surprisingly easy since I had a minature poisoned dart kit inside a false tooth. So 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 officers 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 during these kinds of conversation, but mostly because the car had no suspension worth the name.
'So how did you do it?', enquired X.
'Well, I kind of accidently 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, and 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 blond haired 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 lept to shield her from the inevitable explosion from the car's ruptured fuel tank X, Arthur and the blonde 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 thought it had suffered a sort of internal susidence crossed with metal fatigue.
A hubcap detatched itself and rolled down the road as this was convention.
"Excuse me!" said the young blonde lady, a tad irrately.
"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's had been greying all day and it started to spit with rain.
"I'm sorry I didn't catch your name?" Arthur asked, reachign for some composure.
"That's because I didn't give it." said the woman, clearly in a mood to dish vengence 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 naivety.
"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 admited weakly as the lada wheezed an unhelpful death rattle from it's collapased radiator
"All I did was stick out my thumb trying to hitch a lift to Lauterbrunnen" - she pointed past to the horizon - and nestled betwen 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 push 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 on the suns rays illuminated the waterfalls that evaporated into cloud half-way 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....er...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, started walking down the hill into the valley.
After a few steps she looked back over her shoulder at Arthur - "of course you welcome to follow me." and smiled.
Arthur was floored.
"Very unprofessional" he muttered and set off after the mystery blonde.
X was very confused. He picked himself off of the road - gave a regretful look at the lada carcass laying on it's side and set off after his partner.
