The Dastardly Mr Winkle Meets His Match

by Rufus Offor

  “Hang on a minute, wouldn’t it be a lot more fun if we could see him wondering around these places?” she said.

  “Oh Jill!” said Mike cupping his hands over his mouth in realisation. He clearly knew what Jill was about to suggest.

  “We could use those little hover cameras we’ve got, you know, those tiny little ones that follow people around.” Said Jill.

  “Where the hell did you get something like that?” asked Ben.

  “Well,” said Jill coyly, “the Sphere is good for some things.”

  They all burst out laughing. Then, mid giggle, something occurred to Mike.

  “We could have, like, a weekly thing here, we’d, like, invite loads of people around man. We could have it in the big hall. We could get a big projection telly and watch the week’s mishaps! It’ll be so even cooler than the time we got those pictures of the pope picking his nose.”

  “Excellent,” enthused Ben, “We could have a big buffet, and maybe a disco afterwards. “

  “Oh I’m soooo into this man!” said Jill, the smile on her face almost touching the walls at either side of the immense study. “If we’re going to do this, we’ll have to move quickly. It won’t be long before Shoop and his men head off for Singapore, we’ll have to arrange some fake clues for him there.”

  “I’ll get some people onto it right away, I’ll get some guys to plant a few choice clues about the place, but, like, we’ll need to know where we’re sending him man.” Said Mike.

  “How about Australia.” Said Ben, “I hear he doesn’t like people who don’t like the Queen.”

  “Nice one!” said Jill. “I’ll start arranging the caterers and the disco stuff if you get going with the invitations Ben.”

  “No problem.”

  They all bounced on their way, happy that they’d managed to turn fear into fun without too much bother. Before Ben left the room Jill piped up.

  “Ben! You like squash don’t you, fancy a game later?”

  “Try and stop me!” Replied Ben enthusiastically.

  Jill gave a quiet little smile. She loved it when things sorted themselves out.

  Chapter 13

  Justin Pain

  Shoop ordered all of his independents to split up and make their way to Singapore by their own means. They would all leave at staggered intervals, not knowing the routes that the others were taking. If the Sphere Of Influence managed to grab one of them, they would be able to honestly deny the whereabouts of the others. When they reached Singapore they were to wait to hear from Shoop. Shoop had given each of them a tiny tracking device that was carefully injected under their skin.

  The challenge was to somehow make it to Singapore without rousing the Sphere’s suspicions, which was no easy task. The Sphere would be watching all exit points from the country. Slipping past them would be a bit like trying to squeeze an elephant through a sieve, difficult, but not impossible, you just needed to find a really big blender.

  Disguises were needed, fake papers, finger print covers, retinal alteration and even skin alteration to the bottoms of their feet. Even with all of these precautions, the task was a daunting one, but Shoop felt sure that if any group of people were able to foil The Boss, it was the independents.

  There was some discussion as to them making their way over land from mainland Europe, but the journey would’ve been far too treacherous and time consuming. They decided that flight was the only option given the distance, and the clock they were working against. They all made their way to various different airports.

  Two of the men went by boat to other countries: Yan rowed his way to the south of Ireland from the west coast of the Highlands, an enviable accomplishment by any human being but one that was quite routine for him, Carl stowed away on a freighter bound for Norway, Shoop posed as an old man in a wheel chair and booked himself onto the Hull to Rotterdam ferry, Dr Komodo hid in a van going through the channel tunnel, and Jim managed to get to Europe via a Spanish fishing boat that’d managed to get a bit lost and had landed in Cornwall.

  It all took more time than Shoop would’ve liked, but was all quite necessary.

  George stayed in the bunker and set about trying to decipher the second level of codes that wound their way through the map from Jeeves’ basement. He had a long hard job ahead of him.

  A week later, all of the independents were holed up in various hotels in Singapore wearing a myriad of different disguises when they received the summons from Shoop. Each of them were instructed to meet him in a bar called the Kazbar on Church Street at eleven pm on the day of receiving the message.

  The Kazbar was a Turkish themed bar, complete with shisha, beaded curtains and comfortable, plush, cushion stuffed alcoves that also had the added bonus of giving them a certain amount of privacy. Even with their disguises on they were an odd looking bunch and the cover of the alcoves would suit them perfectly. Sitting in an enclosed space with slight masking offered by a beaded curtain made Shoop feel considerably more comfortable.

  By the time everyone had turned up, Shoop’s blood to gin ratio was in a much more pleasant place.

  Jim was the last to arrive.

  “Sorry I’m late, I thought I had someone following me, I had to do a few manoeuvres to make sure.” He ordered a tiger beer from the waitress.

  “Right,” said Shoop, “now that everyone’s here and got a drink let’s get down to business.” we know that this Vessel thing that we are trying to get our hands on was here between fifteen eleven, and eighteen seventy five. I know that’s a fairly vast time span but it’s all we’ve got to go on for now. I’ve spoken to George and he hasn’t had too many breakthroughs with the map but he’ll let us know if he digs anything up that’ll help us narrow things down a bit.”

  “What we’re going to do is this. We’re going to start by spreading out all over the city to study buildings that appeared during that time.”

  Carl made a little grunting noise of disapproval. He didn’t like Singapore, and he didn’t like studying. He preferred blowing things up and shooting things. Shoop gave him sharp look and Carl sank back into his seat and sipped on a Jack Daniels.

  “If there are clues to the vessel,” continued Shoop, “George feels sure that they’ll be something to do with the masonry of the buildings or their geography, where the buildings are placed etc, due to the Prior’s close ties to the freemasons. It’ll all take a little longer than is really comfortable but I’ve made things a bit quicker by giving everyone their own areas of the city to look into.” Carl hadn’t quite finished with his grumbling and spoke up again.

  “Surely there’s a quicker way of doing this!”

  “You’ll do as you’re damn well told as long as I’m paying your wages you pillock!” hissed Shoop. He was on edge. He didn’t like the position he was in with the Sphere and liked the fact that they were vulnerable to detection even less. He knew that they’d had little choice but still hated the way things had turned out.

  “I’m a hired mercenary, not a bloody historian!” spat Carl under his breath.

  “Look!” Shoop’s voice snapped put viciously and put chills through everyone there. He was in absolutely no mood to be engaging in petty squabbles, “What we’re trying to do here is uncover something that has the potential to be one of the most important discoveries since the dawn of man! It could very well make sure that none of us has to do anything that we don’t want to for the rest of our lives. We will be citizens of the world and will be able to go anywhere and do anything we damn well please. I’m talking about complete uninterrupted freedom until the day we die.”

  He let the idea hang in the air for a moment before continuing, “Because this thing is so big, there happens to be a lot of danger. The stakes are high and the punishment for failing is even higher, which means that I will have absolutely no back-chat! If you want out of this then get up and leave now, but be warned, you are at this moment in the inner circle of one of the most powerful secrets of all time, which means that the only way that
you’ll stay alive is to stay exactly where you are.”

  “Are you threatening us?!” said Carl, visibly angry, but secretly terrified. He knew that if Shoop wanted him dead then it wouldn’t take much to make it so. He had to appear affronted, however, as he had a hard-arse image to keep up. It was a difficult balance to keep but a balance that every one of the independents was very good at.

  “I’m telling you how it is!” said Shoop, “If you leave now, the Sphere will find you eventually. I know you’re all highly trained, but the Bosses talons span the entire world, they have resources that you couldn’t begin to imagine, there will be nowhere on earth that you can hide, and when they catch you, they’ll get what they can out of you and then kill you, and don’t for a second think that you will be able to withstand their tortures, because I invented most of them and you won’t. You’ll talk. Then you’ll die.” He paused.

  The men may have been good at hiding their fear, but Shoop could smell it on them like cheap aftershave. They knew he was telling the truth.

  None of the men cared too much about dying, dying was always a big part of what they did, what they were truly unnerved by was the torture. They’d all known Shoop long enough to see how he got information out of people in the field and had heard tell of how he did it back in his base. He’d managed to get fully grown mountain trolls to cry like a boarding school children receiving their first anal crumpeting. They new what Shoop could do, and so, knew what the Sphere could do.

  “I am the only one on this planet that can keep you all alive and in one piece. IS THAT CLEAR?!”

  Carl looked sheepish. The electronic chip inside his skull was playing up and making him more tetchy than he usually was. He was clearly suffering from marijuana withdrawal.

  “And you!” snapped Shoop motioning to Carl, “for god’s sake find something that’ll keep that chip in your brain under control or things will get messy! Am I understood?” said Shoop.

  Carl hadn’t felt fear very often in his adult life and he didn’t like it, but Shoop’s tirade had hit home, he knew he had to keep a lid on his volatile urges.

  “Alright, alright,” said Carl, visibly agitated, “don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

  “Are we all absolutely clear on how important this is?” asked Shoop, scanning the rest of the group.

  Determined nods spread through the throng except for Yan who just made the word yes appear in Shoop’s mind.

  “Good! Dissention in the ranks will not be tolerated, that said, let’s get on with it.” Shoop started passing out envelopes from a bag that’d been resting against a table leg.

  “Each one of these has an untraceable phone in it, a map of your area and your sleeping arrangements. You’ll be staying in dodgy areas to protect your identities, if there’s one thing that the criminal class all over the world knows, its “don’t grass!”. People won’t come looking for you where I’ve put you but disguises still need to be used and they’d better be good. I want to be able to walk past you in the street and not know who you are, not like Amsterdam, I’m looking at you Komodo!”

  “What?” Dr Komodo looked affronted.

  “Transvestites draw attention! You blew that operation. I don’t care what you do in your own time but I’ll be buggered if I let a bloke in a dress spoil this one.” Said Shoop causing a few sniggers around the alcove.

  “I thought I’d be inconspicuous!”

  “All I’m saying,” replied Shoop “is that if you’re going to dress as a woman, wear something that’ll hide an erection!” There was open laughter from the others, apart from Yan, who made everyone believe that he was laughing without moving a muscle. He just sat there and perspired a bit.

  “HEY! I thought it was a woman dressed as a man!”

  “Komodo, A: You’re a sick pervert, and B: I don’t want to know, just be invisible, not a show girl!”

  The laughter continued for a while and then died out.

  “Right, get moving, one at a time and in different directions. I want five minute gaps between each departure.”

  Some time later they were all on their way. Yan was the last to leave and as Shoop’s eyes followed him out of the open fronted bar he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a man sitting on the patio outside. The man watched the last independent leave and then went back to reading his newspaper. Shoop didn’t know how many people sat reading papers on a Thursday night at half past midnight, but he was willing to bet large sums of money that it wasn’t too many. Still, to be sure, Shoop waited. He watched the man like a hawk. He suspected that, sooner or later, the man would turn around and casually glance in Shoop’s direction to see what he was doing.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, the man tried to nonchalantly swing his eyes around to where Shoop was sitting. Shoop glared at him. Seeing that he’d been compromised the man dropped the paper on the table and shot off like a dictator at the sight of American troops.

  Shoop was up and after him in a flash. He threw some money at the bar as he sprinted out of the building and pursued the man onto a busy street.

  Shoop was tall and despite his gangly appearance had unnatural power in his limbs but wasn’t so good at traversing crowds. The man he was chasing was considerably smaller than him and was having little problem weaving in and out of the throng. Shoop managed to keep pace with the darting man but knew that if the pursuit didn’t change to more suitable terrain, he would firstly loose him, and secondly draw far too much attention to himself. His rule of remaining supremely inconspicuous was in danger of being breached. He was a lofty lanky westerner pelting down a busy Singaporean street, trying desperately not to trip over its vertically challenged populace.

  Luckily, the man he was trying to catch was too dim to realise his advantage and ran up an empty side street where Shoop managed to gain on him. Unfortunately, however, there was a group of teenagers in the alley admiring each other’s mopeds. The man clubbed one of them and took off with his bike.

  Shoop had neglected to bring any poison darts with him, for which he cursed himself, and so couldn’t fell the man. He was too close to the busy street and didn’t want to use his guns. He stole another of the youth’s mopeds and gave chase.

  They turned into a busy street, Shoop hating how exposed he was and started darting in and out of the traffic. His long legs almost reached up to his chin on the two-wheeled hair dryer as he scurried around the thick traffic. He couldn’t let the man go though. There was too much at stake. The man could only be from the Sphere; Shoop couldn’t imagine that the P.O.S. were watching him. Shoop had to catch the man and find out how much the Sphere knew about his movements.

  They both had equally shoddy transport and it quickly became apparent to Shoop that the only hope he had was to depend on the man’s panic and stupidity, a tactic that seemed assured by the frantic look on the man’s face. Every now and then the man would flick his head back to see how close Shoop was. For a moment Shoop thought he recognised him, which added to his suspicions that he was from the Sphere.

  They meandered their way through the street trying not to bump into things and heading toward China-town. This was a good omen. China-town was full of little narrow streets and would turn the pursuit in Shoop’s favour.

  It seemed that the escapee was heading somewhere specific. He’d realised that Shoop wasn’t going to give up and, Shoop guessed, was heading somewhere that he could be sure of back-up. Through experience, Shoop had noticed that when someone is scared and on the run, and they didn’t have much of an escape plan, they tended to head toward territory that housed people that would stick up for them. Shoop was clearly not going to catch the man on the pitiful excuse for a motorised bicycle that he was perched on, and so mentally prepared himself for a confrontation with the man’s associates.

  They flew, or rather; they camply minced through the city on their ridiculous machines without either of them gaining an advantage. Shoop’s slight anxiety about being noticed began to dissipate as they ventured further
from the busier parts of the city and into abandoned streets.

  They passed the main entrance to China-town and continued their chase through a series of labyrinthine back streets, Shoop matching the man turn for turn, now more relaxed and sitting back, navigating his pitiful little machine with one hand while he sipped gin with the other, just waiting for them to stop and the foot chase to continue. The man appeared to be as good at evading people as horoscope enthusiasts are at grasping reality, which lead Shoop to believe that he would be depending greatly on the aptitude of his back-up to save his skin.

  They continued to spin around the back streets for a while until his quarry stopped his moped and jumped off, throwing it to the floor and sprinted through a doorway which had four very large, rippling mounds of muscled humanity standing outside it, presumably guarding it. They were alerted to Shoop before the man bolted inside and were, within seconds, snapped up to attention and glowering in Shoop’s direction.

  Shoop liked his chances.

  He was happily nestled in a back street and the four men seemed to be all that he had to contend with. As he glanced around and could see no snipers on rooftops, which lead him to believe that the building he wanted to go into was the only one that was inhabited by the gang.

  The Sphere of influence routinely engaged the services of local gangs all around the world. They approached them, trained them and brought them into the fold. It seemed that this had been happening with increasing regularity over the last few years. Shoop could tell that this was a recent acquisition, which meant that they weren’t too well trained. The problem was, though, that by simply appearing in this area of town, his presence in Singapore would almost certainly be fed back to the Sphere if he didn’t put this gang out of action.

  Shoop prepared himself. If the man got away, then Shoop may not be able to beat the Sphere to his goal. They would tighten the net around him and any hope of finding what he was after would be very slim. That meant that it would be up to George to find the Vessel from a bunker in Scotland, and that was a prospect that didn’t sit well with Shoop. He just couldn’t see it happening.