H2G2 Storytime III: From Prussia with Love. Part XLIX
Created | Updated Mar 11, 2007
"Daltmooreby and Von Trapp are in place," Vanderveer informed Mary who was busy nursing a livid red welt across her palm from the whiplash.
"Excellent," Mary said wincing slightly as she wrapped some gauze around her hand. Flexing it experimentally she then held up a century old worn parchment. The train track was elegantly drawn on it in ink, cursive writing showing the points of interest or, inevitably, necessity.
The nun scanned the paper with her finger, silently calculating. "It's time to end this pathetic game..."
X craned his head. "What was that?"
"What?" asked Arthur sitting near his partner.
"That," said X, jumping to his knees.
"I still don't--" There was a quiet 'whump!' followed by a metallic sigh. "Okay I heard that."
X got up and tested the door Mary had locked.
"What's going on?" asked Ody when he and Jamila slid open the door from where they had been talking in the rear compartment.
"I think," mused X, feeling the doorframe. "The nun has decided we needed a ticket after all." Another metallic creak
Arthur suddenly realised and helped his fellow Agent. "She's going to crash the train..." X nodded as the two drove their shoulders into the door.
"That's insane!" Ody cried, "They'd die too!"
"That's right, we're going too fast for anyone to jump for it." Agreed Jamila.
Arthur looked over his shoulder. "They know, otherwise we could have left hours ago by the back door."
"So much for letting them take us in," mumbled X.
"I don't get it, so what are they planning?!" Ody looked at Jamila.
There was another 'whump!' and a creak. "Well that," said X with inappropriate cheeriness "Was the sound of our breaks being killed. Stand back."
Arthur moved away as X charged the door. It shattered on the impact and the Agents stepped through and found the door to the next carriage also locked. The track whizzed beneath them.
"Together?!" Shouted Arthur over the wind and train. X nodded. Together the two Agents kicked down the door and moved the large away with their feet. Jamila and Ody following closely.
The third carriage's path was narrow. For whatever reason the seating had been kept, thought clearly not used; a thin layer of viable dust covered most opf the seats. The arrangement forcing the four to march in single file till they reach the next door. When it easily opened, Arthur and X stood ready. Stepping over the couplings and balancing carefully X gingerly slid the next door open and Arthur hopped through. X followed waved Ody and Jamila through.
As the furnace hissed inprotest at the Moriarty being forced to speed up, face eeireely still, Mary looked from her diagram to a pocket watch. Then she glanced at Sreka, hanging out the train poised ready.
Arthur froze. There at the far end of the carriage facing away from them was Daltmooreby. The carriage was the same as the last excluding the occasional crate occupying a chair.
"YOU!" Ody caught sight of his father and shoved the others aside, snarling as he pounded along the floor.
"No, wait!" hissed Arthur.
The aging Daltmooreby turned, his hands lifted as if examining his watch. Ignoring his son's charge, his eyes raised to the Agents.
"Goodbye. Arthur Robinson." His fingers closed on his watch making a quick succession of beeps and he nimbly hopped out backwards through the door over the couplings and safely into Von Trapp's arms.
A half second later there was a
bamf! and the couplings broke apart in a small explosion.Ody's hand shot out and clasped just short of Daltmooreby's face as the carriages separated. He lowered his hand and his parent smiled, though the emotion behind it was unreadable.
Briefly they locked eyes before Daltmooreby spun and walked away. Too far to jump, Ody was pulled back by Arthur and X before he even consider it. The shape of Daltmooreby in the doorway rapidly getting smaller.
Sreka tensed his face in concentration. He swung his arm and the crowbar in his palm clanged over the rusty lever as it rushed by. The clunk confirmed the tracks had changed as he waved the painful shaking from his arm.
The orphaned carriages roared around a corner as the Moriarty sped straight on and away, whistling as if in a mocking tone. The four protagonists stumbled when the carriages rushed around the arc. The shudder revealing that they had temporarily lifted from the ground.
Pulling himself up X looked at one of the falling crates.
"Back into the other carriage!" He yelled. The four made their way quickly but warily back over the steel bridge from which they'd came. "Pick a seat, duck and cover and hope for the best!"
He looked at Arthur who patted him on the shoulder, silently wishing him good luck.
Making herself as small as possible, Jamila held her head beneath her hands. "What's happen--"
The explosion flickered in Mary's eyes as her fiery hair waved in front of her as she leaned out to see the fireworks, fingers clasping the Moriaty's side like claws. Bits of the tunnels ceiling fell down around her from the impact. And for the first time a smile of awe grew on her lips. "How pretty..." she cooed, safe in the knowledge the elements would finish off the stubborn.
The Schwarzer Brei (or the Black Pudding) as he was known to the underworld of Switzerland, surveyed his current situation. And smirked.
Reto Vanderveer looked at his watch. The time was very fast approaching. The others were still pre-occuppied with having rid themselves of the agents that they wouldn't see this coming. He signalled to Sreak to come closer.
"Andrei, you and I are much alike. All either of us ask for is a little respect. Watch the nun closely, she has no respect for you or me - she demands only that we follow her."
"She shot me in the leg." Sreka said woundedly.
"and it won't be long I fear before she shoots me." Vandeveer nodded. "I am not blind to what her and Von Trapp have been planning."
"The others are distracted - now is the stime to strike. Follow my lead." and he clapped his hand twice of Sreaks lapel and stepped past him to go find Mary, further up the train.
She was stood with her back to him as he approached, Vandeveer turned looked out of what was now the rear carriage of the train.
"That Arthur Robinson is resourceful don't you think? Shouldn't we have made more certain that he had met his end?", mused Vanderveer.
"Nothing can survive out there, Vanderveer.", said Mary. "But if you persist in questioning my methods Reto - I'll have Andrei throw you out and you can join them on the tracks, if that is what you would prefer. "Now help me prepare some of this equipment."
Vanderveer nodded, and glanced at sreka who had overheard everything
Vanderveer nodded to Sreka.
Sreka walked up the carriage, tore an ornate iron rail from the carriage luggage ruck and hefted it into his balled fist.
Daltmooreby was looking out of the back window musing at all the past that he had left behind him down the line. Arthur Robinson, his son. He sighed.
Suddenly there was an almighty crack as Sreka bent the iron bar over Von Trapps back, clubbing him unconscious with two more thudding shots from the pipe.
"What was that", yelled Mary, but she was muffled by Vanderveer who had already injected her with enough fluids to knock her out within seconds.
"We'll need you", nodded Vanderveer to himself as Mary salumped into his arms. He lay her down gently onto the floor.
Daltmooreby swung round, and ducked just in time, as Sreka collided with the door frame, swinging the iron bar like a baseball bat, it broke the glass.
"Sreka!", yelled a shocked Daltmooreby, as he dived behind cover.
"It's nothing personal, Daltmooreby", Sreka said mournfully over the wind that was now audible through the train.
Daltmooreby aimed a kick at Sreka busted knee and he howled and stggered backwards. Daltmooreby reahed to his waistband and produced a gun.
Vandeveer took time lining up the shot and when he fired, the gun in Daltmooreby's hand flew put and Daltmooreby cluthced at his wrist that was painfully vibrating.
"Its the end of the train ride Daltmooreby" Vanderveer, who advanced on the fallen former agent. Vandeveer planted a boot in Daltmooreby chest who staggered backwards into the rear door breaking it open where it began to flapp back and forth. He just about managed to hang on.
"Why Sreka?", cried Daltmooreby.
Sreka silently advanced
Just then Von Trapp, having come to and with blood streming down his face, leapt at Sreka, screaming "I've alvays hated Russians!", and clambered on his back and started to claw at the Russian's eyes.
Sreka, in a judo-like manouvere, leaned forward and tipped Von Trapp over where he colided with Daltmooreby. With a scream Von Trapp slid out of the door, past Daltmooreby and bounded out onto the track flying fast beneath them.
The train started to round a sharp bend and began to slow down to approach the corner.
Daltmooreby witnessed Von Trapp's exit and looked back up at Sreka who was standing over him. Daltmooreby was just holding on by one hand now.
"I owe a lot to Mr Vanderveer. It really is nothing personal", Sreka said, finally answering Daltmooreby's question, and then he slowly, methodically lifted up each of Daltmooreby's fingers so he finally lost his grip on the doorframe and fell out onto the tracks.
With the rest of the group disposed of, Reto Vanderveer moved up to the front of the train, where Mary lay unconscious and looked down regarding the unconcious body of Mary.
"Bring her." he said.
A limping Sreka picked her up and threw him over his shoulder.
"We are in the end game Andrei. This is it," grinned Vanderveer.
A light bulb, which had miraculously surived the crash, throbbed dimly in the wreckage of the end carriage spending the last energy from the tangled remains of the dynamo.
An over-head fitting gave way to inertia and fell to the floor crashing over the backs of the seats with a heavy clunk sending up a cloud of debris.
Sparks were falling freely from a severed eletrical wiring, illuminating the destruction in the rear.
There were small fires burning all around the carrige casting a yellow flicking light about.
"Urrrgh" Arthur rolled over and out into the concourse.
The eletrical wiring gave another fit of sparks that roused him some more.
"x?" he managed weakly and crawled unsteadily to where his partner lay.
X was draped over a chair back like decorative cushions and wasn't moving.
"X?"
Silence followed.
Arthur reached down to his shoe and pressed a small compartment in the heel which popped open. He retrieved the small vile inside and snapped it open.
The pungent fumes forced X to jerk awake with a snort and he sat back in surprise.
"It's alright." Arthur said hoarsely. "X its okay."
"The others?" X asked coughing up some dust in a fit.
"I don't see them."
"Wait." X said. looking momentarily confused "I smell.....sausages.
"Oh no." Arthur said his face flooking ashen.
"and tomatos." X gave another sniff.
"are you sure I don't"
but then he did. A tingle in his nose with a suggestion of crispy bacon and a hint of frying eggs.
Jamila appeared at the doorway, sillhouetted against the light of a fire outside.
"Grubs up." You two have been asleep for ages."
"?" said Arthur.
"Hurry or Ody will eat all the bacon." and she left.
"Nice to know they're okay." said X rubbing the back of his head.
"Did she say bacon?"
"Yes she did."
A look of unconscious agreement passed between the two agents as they both simultaneously scurried for the exit and breakfast.
