One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing

by David Forrest

  Ulysses was also being watched by Pierre, the French agent. He watched Ulysses, Susanne, and the Chinese agent. The French agent was disguised--as a British agent. He liked to think this subterfuge caused confusion. It would have done, but the Frenchman always blew his own cover. He couldn’t resist patting, petting or pinching every girl’s bottom. No Englishman would behave so indiscriminately. He was commonly known to Hooligan’s mob as the French Tickler. They always knew how to find him. They just listened for the sound of a face being slapped. The French Tickler’s complexion always seems to glow with rude health.

  The German agent wasn’t even there. He was in hospital. On the previous day, he’d been ordered to make contact with his boss in the middle of a public swimming pool. With true Prussian phlegm he’d plunged into the ten feet deep water to make the rendezvous. He hadn’t heard a word of his briefing. He’d spent the entire interview underwater, drowning. Adolf Krautbukket couldn’t swim.

  Krautbukket wasn’t worried. For, the next day, he’d just bribe one of the others to fill him in on the latest details.

  Hettie was being watched by Huw. And Huw, in turn, by a freelance Italian who worked on spec for the Japanese. The Italian had a personal vendetta with the Russian agent and was wearing a bullet-proof vest. It weighed twenty-seven pounds. His face was puffy and mottled. He was wondering if he were about to get heat stroke. He was praying that he wouldn’t have to move.

  “A clean pair of heels,” Emily waved her knitting, on her needles, like a psychedelic banner. “That’s what they’ve shown them. I told you they would. Nothing to worry about. It’s finished. Just the packaging and posting to do.”

  Emily noticed the military-looking man with the ginger hair. He looked like a retired officer. He was sitting on one of the seats a few yards away, reading the business section of the New York Times. Boots McGraw had punched a pinhole in it, and watched Emily with infinite attention and a squint. On the base of the Alice Memorial opposite sat a Greek. He watched McGraw. Boots knew he was there, even without looking. The Greek was always there. Boots McGraw and the Greek had an understanding. They weren’t sure what the understanding was, but it had been that way ever since the Greek had sent McGraw a bottle of Ouzo on St Valentine’s Day. Boots’d had it analysed. He’d felt cheated to find that it wasn’t poisoned. It made the Greek spy seem unprofessional.

  It was six in the evening, and Jumbo Hooligan was angry. He wasn’t in the park. He was in his office bathroom. Until today he’d believed that this was the only room in his suite where he could find privacy. Now, he was removing a small bugging device from the lavatory pan.

  “That bloody French Tickler,” he growled. “It must be. Nobody else would bug the john.”

  He thought of the bugging attempts of the past few years. The English had probably been the most gentlemanly. They’d inserted a transmitter into the spine of a book of etiquette, and in turn slipped the book, beside the hundred or so other training manuals, on Hooligan’s bookshelves. Jumbo had been insulted at the time. Not so much by the bugging device, more by the unsubtle hint

  The Italians had blundered. A new agent made the mistake of bugging Hooligan’s wastepaper bin. The next day, three of the Italian spy team were sent home, suffering from perforated eardrums.

  The Cuban attempt was artistic--and very nearly a success. They had Hooligan’s office portrait of a nude repainted on a copper printed circuit. Miniature batteries were hidden in the picture frame. Unfortunately, their artist used plastic paints, and the gentle warmth of the printed circuit caused the picture’s breasts to droop and grow in length. As the picture was the first thing Jumbo Hooligan’s team looked at when they entered his office, it was soon spotted.

  Petrov, the Russian, had bugged one of the small knobs on the television receiver. Hooligan found it at once. With sadistic glee, he’s spent a joyful afternoon playing back, through the device, the confessions of a Soviet defector.

  The team of Chinese spies had been the most annoying. They’d bugged everything. It had taken Jumbo and his team two days to clear the office of a hundred and thirty-five transmitters. They were in everything.

  Jumbo had been furious and hadn’t spoken to the Chinese since.

  Jumbo Hooligan knelt in front of the lavatory pan, trying to ease the small cartridge out of the lip of the porcelain. A voice boomed close to his ear. He jumped.

  “Hey, boss.” It was Willie Halfinch. “Gee, oh, gosh. Er, you want a help out, Mr. Hooligan? Hey, fellas, come and give a hand. Mr. Hooligan, he’s fell down the pan.”

  “Get out,” screamed Hooligan. “Get out while I’m working. Wait in the office. And damn well knock in future.” He pulled his fist out of the pan, shook it free of water, and stuck it under the tap on the washbasin.

  “Now you’ve done it, Willie. He’ll be mad as hell for hours.” Huw Schwartz drew his finger across his throat. “He’ll have your head. One thing about Jumbo ... he don’t like to be disturbed in the john.”

  Hooligan stamped into the room, rolling down his shirtsleeve.

  “Right . . who got anything?”

  Huw looked tired. He shook his head.

  “Nothing?” blazed Hooligan.

  Huw was silent.

  “But they must have done something!”

  “We picked up the four whose names we’ve got as they left home this morning. They led us to the Alice Memorial. They met the fifth one there, a young blonde chick, called Susanne. That’s all that happened.”

  “All?”

  “Sure. Just the normal nurse-type behavior. They sat on a bench. Took the kids to the playground, came back and sat again. Went to their apartments at lunchtime, and returned to the same park bench afterwards. Scolded the kids a bit, played a few games with them, went to their apartments again at around five o’clock.”

  “They didn’t speak to each other while they were in the park?” asked Hooligan.

  “Yeah, they chatted,” replied Huw. “But we couldn’t close in on them. Those dames have got hawk eyes. You should see how quickly they notice when their small fry get out of line.”

  “Okay,” said Jumbo Hooligan. “Now we know some of their routine, let’s try again. This time we’ll use a directional microphone. Not everybody. Just you, Willie. You try one. Get one fitted into your cane--ask the technical boys.”

  New Yorkers wanting to make a telephone call from the three phone boxes outside the Plaza had been avoiding the centre booth for several days. It stank. Complaints to the telephone company brought the usual quick action. They cleansed, disinfected and fumigated--to no avail. It still smelt like a charnel house. The manager of the Plaza even considered having his hotel jacked up and rolled a few yards further away.

  In the Tse Eih Aei headquarters below, the stench was even worse.

  “Another one,” panted Nicky Po, staggering in from the sewer tunnel and hurling a limp, three-foot alligator on to the floor. Fat Choy sighed through his surgical mask. He reached over, grabbed the dead reptile by the tail and dunked it in a bucket of salt water. Then he expertly skinned it. “We’ve got enough meat to last us two months,” he said, tossing the carcass back into the sewer. He hung the new skin alongside the others on the damp wall.

  “Here’s the alum.” Sam Ling tossed him a round container. Fat Choy caught it, and rubbed the powder into the hide. “How many’s that?”

  “Forty-seven, Comrade Ling,” answered Fat Choy, tears from his smarting eyes soaking the gauze of the mask.

  “And when will the skins be sufficiently cured?” asked Pi Wun Tim.

  “By November,” said Fat Choy, balefully.

  “Then we’ll have them all ready for the Capitalist mid-winter gift-giving festival?” said Chou-Tan.

  Sam Ling sighed. It would take a lot of time to replace the money lost in the fire engine incident. He didn’t think Lui Ho’s scheme to manufacture hundreds of wallets for Christmas out of the alligator skins was the quickest way.

  The door of the sewer headqua
rters was pushed open, and Lui Ho walked into the room. He held his nose and waited as the steam condensed on his glasses. He wiped them dry, then turned to the wall photograph of Mao Tse-tung, and saluted.

  “Where id de fake dragon?” he demanded, nasally.

  “We tailed the nanny-ladies all day,” Sam Ling told him. “They didn’t go to the resting place of the fake dragon. What is even stranger, they didn’t even mention the hiding place.”

  “Den we will capture one, brig her here, and extract the idforbation. Todight!” snarled Lui Ho. “You, Fat Choy, you will brig id one ob de naddy-ladies, de youg one.” Lui Ho smirked and took a new hold on his nostrils. “Her figger dails are do doubt of adbirable legth to be gripped by a pair of pidcers. And,” he added by way of encouragement to his team. “We shall find out afterwards if what dey say about Occidental women id correct.”

  “Hooligan,” said Sam Ling, quietly.

  Lui Ho’s face bleached to a paler shade of yellow as his hand dropped from his nose. “Hooligan?”

  “Hooligan,” repeated Sam Ling, “he knows. The park was crawling with those running dogs of his.”

  “He is protecting the nanny-ladies?” asked Lui Ho.

  “Watching them.”

  “Watching them? Then it would seem there may be things happening between the British and the Americans that we do not know about,” said Lui Ho. “Possibly the Western powers are in great disagreement. It may even be possible that the British and the Americans are planning to declare war on each other.”

  “I will volunteer at once, in such an eventuality,” said Pi Wun Tun. “I will join the British Grenadiers as a general.”

  “Most admirable sentiments,” said Lui Ho, thoughtfully. “But, much as I enjoy such enthusiasm for war against the American capitalist society, the point now is that our present work is made more difficult by Hooligan’s interest in it.”

  “Not so, Comrade Leader,” said Sam Ling. “As the Americans say, every cloud has a silver lining. None of us doubts our ability to succeed in this venture. So, when we triumph, so much greater will be the discredit and humiliation falling on that dog’s head Hooligan. His revealed inefficiency will earn him execution. And our future work will be easier.”

  The spies smiled. Lui Ho nodded agreement. “So!”

  Sam Ling continued. “We carry on as before, to your original plan, Comrade Leader. We wait for the right opportunity. Then we will employ a cunning stratagem to distract Hooligan and his pig-pack long enough for us to get the fake bones away, back to our glorious Motherland.”

  “Magnificent,” hissed Lui Ho. “Such ignominy for Hooligan! Such disgrace! We will carry on, then, just as though he does not exist.”

  “A great shame,” whispered Chou-Tan, quietly. “The interesting conundrum concerning Occidental women must, for the moment, remain unanswered.” He sighed deeply.

  “I think Her Majesty will like this,” smiled Emily, in the park the next morning. She examined a crumpled sheet of wrapping paper, printed with miniature Father Christmases’. It rustled in the breeze. “I’ve brought plenty with me.”

  Hettie leaned forward and peered inside Emily’s carrier bag. “It’s all Christmas paper,” she said.

  “Yes, I save it. It’s so cheerful. I never throw any away.”

  “We cannae wrap the Sassenach bones in that. It’s most improper. Remember, they’re going to Her Majesty.”

  “Tish, tosh and rubbish,” said Emily. “I never mind getting presents in used wrapping paper. It’s a sensible economy.” She pulled out another piece of paper and smoothed it flat. “Look at this bit--fairies and gnomes. And it’s got tinsel stuck to it.”

  “We’ll buy a few rolls of brown paper,” Hettie said. Her old friend looked hurt. “Och, all right, lassie. We’ll use your paper on some of the smaller pieces.”

  Further along the bench the three other nannies sat quietly.

  “The park seems crowded again today,” remarked Melissa.

  “Must be a mid-week festival. Garibaldi Day, or something,” said Emily. “Americans are always holding them. I saw one last week. D’you know, they were actually commemorating the invention of the prepacked loaf!”

  Una sniffed. Her eyes were watering. “Something that nobody has noticed. All the people. They’re men.” Hettie looked at her in surprise, then stared round, suspiciously. She recognized a Haitian-looking man who seemed to spend a lot of time standing in the undergrowth, close behind the tall park-keeper. The park-keeper was collecting paper again, but today he seemed to be having trouble with his cane. He kept lifting it and looking at the end. Many of the other men were also somehow familiar. Hettie noticed that none of them looked directly at the nannies. This, in itself, was suspicious--men usually looked at Melissa.

  Hettie decided to try an experiment. She collected her belongings and whispered to Emily, “Back in a minute.” Then she loosened the brake on her baby carriage and slowly wheeled it down the path. From the comer of her eye, she watched two of the men begin to move with her. She wheeled the carriage farther. The men followed. There was no doubt about it. The first man to move took great care she shouldn’t notice he was following her. It was the second man who attracted her attention. He was very obviously following the first man. She did a circuit of the lake and wheeled the carriage back to the others.

  “Dinnae look up,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth to Emily. “Those men are all watching us. They must be policemen. Pass the word along to the others to follow us, and not to talk.” Hettie wheeled her carriage away again, trailed this time by the other nannies. Emily caught up with her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just come along, lassie. We’ll explain in a moment,” said Hettie.

  She led the way until they arrived at a spot near the open air theatre, then she stopped.

  “Right, set the prams in a circle round us,” she ordered. The nannies arranged them like covered wagons awaiting an Indian attack. Then they sat together in the centre of the ring. The men slowly wandered into view, but didn’t approach too closely.

  “Now,” said Hettie. She reached into Emily’s carriage and shook the baby, sharply. There was an immediate noisy protest from the enraged Lindon. The other perambulators provided a descant. The nannies were surrounded by a wailing wall.

  “What on earth?” protested Una.

  “Let them cry. It does them no harm. And we need the noise. Those men, they’re definitely following us. And that park-keeper has got a microphone or something in his stick. We’ve read about them. He’s pointed it at us several times.”

  “Who are they?” asked Susanne, worried.

  “They must be police,” replied Hettie. “We thought we’d got away with it. Somehow they’re on to us.”

  “Why don’t they arrest us?” asked Una.

  “Obviously they cannae be certain.”

  “They’re pretty persistent, these New York police,” said Melissa. “They’ll keep on until they get what they want. They’ll find out.”

  “Och, they won’t find out,” said Hettie. “If they knew for certain they’d have arrested us. They’re just trying to force us to make a move. We’ve got to keep our nerve. We left no clues in the dinosaur hall. We cleaned up everything. They’re probably following everybody in New York at the moment. We dinnae have to worry. Remember Miss Emily’s advice: just act perfectly normally. If the men talk to you, talk back. Dinnae be frightened. And if anyone questions you, about the business, just deny any connection with it. If we all stick together, they willnae be able to prove a thing. What we’ve got to do now is fix our alibis.”

  It took them fifteen minutes to perfect their cover- stories. At last, they were satisfied.

  “Whatever happens, dinnae alter them,” warned Hettie. “Stick it out to the bitter end.”

  “And the bitter end it’s quaite likely to be, too,” said Una. “If we’re caught, they’ll throw us into jail and then deport us. It’ll be in every English newspaper
-- the News of the World, The People

  Emily brandished her knitting, like a small flag. “We won’t be caught. Nanny Hettie’s quite correct. But if we are--” she gave the knitting flag another waggle-- “remember one thing--we did it for Great Britain and Her Majesty, God bless her.” She looked at them, fiercely. “I’d gladly go to prison for my country.” She puffed out her chest, until Susanne thought the starched pinafore would crack.

  “As the 25th Earl himself would have said, ‘Hear, hear,’ “ added Hettie.

  Jumbo Hooligan was whittling. It was intricate work. He held a new pipe-stem on his blotting pad and shaved a sliver of wood from it with a razor blade. His team sat in their armchairs and watched him. He fitted the new stem into the corncob bowl and grunted approval, then he tapped it home firmly on the side of his desk.

  “Right,” he said, wedging the repaired pipe into the comer of his mouth. “Adam’s come up with something hot. The Limey who died on the museum steps was a British Intelligence agent. He was playing mailman with a pickup from Hawaii.” He removed the pipe and scratched the side of his throat with the mouthpiece. “Now for some real bad news. The information he was carrying has international classification of Red-Stripe-Red. And it’s missing.”

  “Jesus, boss,” said Boots.

  “Yup . .. Jesus,” repeated Jumbo. “And that’s what the guys at the top said when they heard.”

  “What’s Red-Stripe-Red, huh?” Willie whispered to Huw, sitting next to him.

  “Any information that could involve the West in war,” said Huw, quietly.

  “Jesus, boss,” said Willie. Jumbo Hooligan glowered at him.

  “The Limey agent was the Earl of Hastings. Sort of royalty, almost. He was supposed to make his handover inside the museum. But he died before making it. The British Embassy say there was nothing on his body when they checked it. And he was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” queried Ivor.