Wolf drove the Transit back towards Northolt to drop off Brett. The yank faced a long flight to Nairobi, Kenya, where he would pick up his CIA modified Hummer and drive to the Outspan hotel at Nyere. Then all that both men could do was to sit and wait for the enemy’s next move.
* * *
Twip Twop stood on the gangplank that led from the pontoon to a sleek black boat. He was in direct contrast to the boat as he gleamed white in the bright sun; his starched sailor’s uniform merging with his skin to make him look like a bright white dummy motionless in a shop window. He twitched nervously as the children approached, so they noticed that in his right hand was a scanner, a metal detector like at airports. As each child walked on board, he checked them over silently. Roger was his only victim as the scanner bleeped furiously when located next to Roger’s right trouser pocket.
Twip Twop admired the mobile that had triggered the alarm. ‘Nice phone mister, an IPhone6, but there are no mobiles allowed where you are going so you won’t be having a girly chit chat with your mumsy.’
‘I can’t live without my IPhone,’ protested Roger as he stared with fascination into Twip Twop’s pink eyes. He realised this was the first albino he had ever met but then Roger dropped his gaze after a few seconds. The stare he had received from Twip Twop was too scary.
‘At least you have a mobile to be confiscated,’ murmured Kate. Grandma didn’t believe in mobiles, she had even resisted broadband for a year before caving in to her grand-daughter. The rest of the children settled on board the boat and listened attentively to a weird thin man with a mop of unkempt red hair who stood at the bow.
‘My name is Techno. The man in white is Twip Twop and we will be looking after you on the first stage of your adventure to meet Madam Musseine.’ He was surprised as no one seemed to be very excited. He built her up. ‘The MM, the greatest gamemaster in the whole wide world.’
‘Alright,’ came a couple of dull replies from the children. Techno gave up and turned away to start the engines. He waved at Twip Twop to cast off the warps they attached them to the wooden pontoon and then he slowly edged the boat away. After a few moments, it gathered speed in the outward flow of a slowly moving neap tide that was heading towards the sea at Southend.
Timmo was excited by the superb speedboat. As they sped down the river and under the arch of Tower Bridge he asked Roger a question. ‘It looks like a Sunseeker, what do you think splodger? About 25 metres?’
Roger was more interested in the bridge looming above them. ‘Did you know it was opened in 1894? The roadway opens upwards into two halves as it is a bascule and suspension bridge combined.’ Timmo looked back dimly. ‘Bascule of course means see saw in French.’
‘Whatever,’ came from Jack who was sat behind them.
Roger droned on. ‘To open the two 1000 ton bridges requires exceptional hydraulics you know.’ Timmo queried whether the drawbridge was powered by compressed air. ‘No dimmo, it’s water, that is what hydraulics means. Pneumatic is the word describing air powered machine, surely everyone knows that?’ No one did know it, which is why they all kept quiet. In fact, no one was interested except Roger himself, he was the intelligentsia of the gang and had the answer to most questions if they were ever stuck.
Then Jack asked Techno a question. He chose Techno as Twip Twop appeared distracted, even slightly demented. He was sat on the stern waving at the tourists on the bridge and shouting ‘God save The Queen, long may her corgis reign over us.’
‘Mr, Techno?’ He waited politely until Techno had glanced back at him. ‘Are we collecting anymore gamers sir?’
‘No more gamers George. The game was a global edition and you are the top five kids from the UK.’
Kate spoke up. ‘We are certainly not kids Mr Techno, we are children, not baby goats.
‘Nearly adults,’ added Jack.
Techno looked back at them in distaste and narrowly missed a Thames barge moored on the port side of the river. The boat had accelerated to nearly 80 kilometres per hour. ‘Nearly is a good word. Adults wouldn’t be able to comprehend the magnificence of “world domination”, the game that is so real, you would think it is real.’ Twip Twop was listening and burst into maniacal laughter at his fellow henchman’s joke.
As they followed the curve of The River Thames around Canary Wharf’s twin towers, it was Roger’s turn to pose a question to Techno. ‘I say old chap, isn’t it an 15 kph speed limit?’
Techno answered by thrusting the throttle forward and increasing their speed to 130 kilometres per hour as they forged past the giant O2 stadium. ‘So what PS?’ Splodger immediately realised they were his initials but the others sat confused waiting for some additional information as surely PS meant postscript?
Roger asked again. ‘So what about The Police, they’ll send a launch to stop you, won’t they?’
Techno didn’t bother to address PS directly. Instead he shouted into the wind, ‘let them try,’ and then he shoved the throttle lever forward a centimetre at a time with the palm of his scrawny hand. They noticed the missing little finger on the hand grasping the steering wheel as they were pushed back in their black vinyl seats by the force of the acceleration, with Twip Twop screaming uncontrollably with joy.
Timmo was wetting himself with excitement. As the engineering nut who loved Top Gear, this was fabtastic. He tugged at Techno’s arm, as the wind noise was now horrific and howled above their heads like a banshee.
‘Is this a Sunseeker with twin 200 horsepower petrol engines? I read it can do 80 kilometres per hour?’
Techno laughed. ‘Not this baby and not that slow. It has two hydrogen engines and can do 1200 kilometres per hour!’
‘That’s impossible, no boat can do that speed, we would break the speed of sound.’ Timmo was quietly confident in his statement but as the boat turned to starboard to head down The English Channel, Techno’s hand whizzed across the computer touch screen in front of him to adjust the engine settings. Underneath the boat, the high tech hydrofoils extended in a matter of seconds and lifted the hull out of the water.
He shouted to Timmo. ‘That reduces the hull’s drag coefficient by 95 per cent.’ Techno touched the screen again and from the sides of the boat leading up to the bow a carbon fibre cover extended across the whole hull shaping it like a torpedo. As the sky disappeared above them, the low level lighting automatically switched on beneath their feet. ‘And that little George reduces the drag coefficient of the decking by another 95 per cent. So did you say it was impossible?’ Techno rammed the throttle forward and sat back to watch his computer screen as the autopilot guided the boat towards its destination.
Above them and at the stern, two aerodynamic wings deployed as the computer tweaked the optimal settings and ensured it sent them skimming across the water. A sonic boom was heard by the crew on the 700,000 tonne oil tanker, off the Isle of Wight. The captain immediately radioed the Coastguard station at Southampton Water using channel 16, the emergency frequency as they thought they had seen a plane hit the water. It was all over in a flash and they couldn’t be sure, but The Coastguard assured them it must be nothing as there was nothing on their radar. They told the crew to keep a close watch on the situation and let them know if they heard or saw anything else but by then the super speedboat and Jack’s gang were 20 kilometres away and tucking into Doritos handed out by Twip Twop.
Timmo was still arguing with Techno. ‘It’s impossible to keep this speed up. You must run out of fuel soon!’
‘Untrue my little friend. MM has some of the best engineers and scientists in the world working for her at her base. We get our hydrogen from the seawater using micro fusion technology.’
‘But no one has managed to control fusion as a nuclear power, it is inherently unstable, like having a mini sun here on earth!’
‘Untrue again! Well the bit about the sun. The Japanese cracked the problem nearly six years ago but have been slower to understand that particle deceleration is easy under water rather th
an in a torus underground.’ Timmo sat quietly. The technology was bewildering. Jack motioned at him by making a hand gesture that sliced across the front of his own neck. It was telling Timmo to stop his questioning. Tim felt dim at that point and gulped in admiration of his new geek ‘friend’. He sat with the rest of the children and watched the large TV screen to the left of the steering wheel. This alternately showed views in front, to the sides and the rear. It flicked over to a different view every thirty seconds and so they could watch the day pass by at speed. Techno told them that the journey was nearly 8000 kilometres and it was easy for most of them to work out that an average speed of 1000 kilometres per hour, that would see them at MM’s headquarters for a late evening meal.
* * *
The trip down The Channel was nearly completed before the accident. Roger insisted on calling The Channel, “La Manche” as he had learned it in his French lessons at school but Kate told the others that it also meant sleeve in French, which was very apt because of the shape of the busiest sea lane in the world. They saw very few ships on their TV screen as they were moving at a colossal speed and deliberately navigating away from the two shipping lanes that are defined for use by ships travelling to the west or to the east. This was a simple way of separating traffic like on a motorway. As they headed south-westward on the fringes of the Bay of Biscay they were told to fasten their lap belts as even the smartest of the computers controlling the speedboat’s attitude could sometimes malfunction. Each time this happened they felt an almighty bump that shook their teeth. However, the bumps were few and far between and so the children remained relaxed and played on the Nintendo DS5’s handed out by Techno. The DS’s were linked by bluetooth which allowed the gang to play an exciting speedboat racing game, specially designed by their pilot. Therefore, nobody noticed Timmo as he unslipped his belt and moved to the stern of the boat so that he could examine the engines beneath the perspex hatch. There was an almighty shout as the speedboat hit another bump and Timmo flew 4 metres backwards across the cabin and then lay still. He had been knocked unconscious and lay with his lower left leg bent at an angle 20 degrees to normal. Techno immediately slowed the boat and pressed the computer screen to activate the emergency stabilising thrusters that spurted from four small holes in the hull.
Jack was the first to reach Timmo followed by Kit Kat.
She gently stroked his head. ‘Timmo, wake up Timmo, it’s Kate.’ She shook his shoulders and called him again but there was no reaction.
‘He’s out cold Kit Kat,’ said Jack, ‘but don’t move him anymore in case he has a head injury.’
‘That would be the worse thing but look at his leg,’ added Roger, ‘I’m so sorry but that is definitely broken.’
Techno bent alongside Timmo and quickly opened the first aid kit. Inside were smelling salts that he held in a tube underneath Timmo’s nose. Within a few seconds his eyes flickered open and unsteadily focussed on his friends.
‘What happened?’ He winced as he tried to move.
‘Don’t move bro,’ said Jack, ‘you got knocked off your feet mate.’ He kept his brother still whilst Techno examined the leg.
‘Can you feel any pain in your left leg?’ Techno was holding either side of the break.
‘Well no, not really. I just feel really woozy.’ It was lucky he had been knocked unconscious as the natural endorphins that killed pain had already kicked in before Timmo had woken up.
‘Well that makes it easier then,’ said Techno as he jerked the broken bone back into its correct position with a horrible grinding sound. Timmo screamed so loud, the others thought their eardrums would burst.
‘Why the hell did you do that weirdo?’ Timmo shouted. ‘Jesus wept, flipping hell.’ He was as white as a sheet with a cold sweat on his forehead. ‘My god but it hurts now you flipping mop head.’
‘I did it, because it needed setting as soon as possible,’ replied Techno, ‘and you said you were feeling no pain.’
‘Well it’s getting worse, for goodness sake.’ At that point Techno dug the hypodermic needle into Timmo’s thigh, just above the break. He held the leg still so all Timmo could do was weakly pummel the back of Techno’s shoulders. ‘What the…’ he swore badly.
‘Timmo, please.’ Kit Kat told him off. ‘Can you please stick with my god when you swear?’ But the anaesthetic was working quickly and within a minute Timmo had lost all feeling down his broken leg.
Roger marvelled at the result. ‘Did you know Timmo, that the term anaesthesia is derived from the Greek (an-aisthesis) meaning “without feeling”?’ Timmo inverted his fingers, he wasn’t in the mood for intelligent analysis. ‘I expect the injection contained an opiate like morphine, which is a form of heroin.’
‘Shut up Roger!’ Timmo was smiling now but no one understood why except Roger.
‘You see, opiates to kill the pain, dopamine makes you happy,’ he sighed, ‘isn’t science wonderful?’ Roger enjoyed being right about everything. Kit Kat took the opportunity to hurry over to her kitbag and dragged out two tennis rackets.
Marshall was shocked. ‘Tennis rackets? Why have you brought tennis rackets Kate?’
‘Because I thought we might all need a little recreation, some exercise when not playing on computers.’ Marshall sighed in despair, he decided that she was a typical girl who was already trying to emulate her mum, over compensating because of her death.
But Techno was pleased and pulled a semi-elasticated bandage from the first aid kit. ‘That is an excellent idea Kate, well done.’ He proceeded to take the rackets from her and positioning the handles either side of the break, he started to wrap the bandage tightly around them to make a temporary splint. ‘That will keep the bones in place and reduce any movement that would cause pain.’
‘Brilliant Kate, I always knew you would come up with an idea.’ Jack smiled at her and she smiled back before turning away to hide her bright red face. Techno and Jack lifted Timmo onto a bench seat at the rear of the boat and carefully packed the children’s kitbags and the boat’s cushions around him. After a drink of orange juice laced with the drug Tramadol, to ensure he experienced absolutely no pain, they felt they could continue. Techno adjusted the controls and gently accelerated back up to 300 kilometres per hour. Once clear of the rough seas in The Bay of Biscay, he accelerated back up to 1000 and they all settled into a reverie as they watched the coast of Portugal zoom past on the TV screen.
It was Roger who spotted Gibraltar, “The Rock” as it was known. They were off The Spanish coast as they headed into The Mediterranean and making excellent time.
‘Did you know…’ he started off.
‘No’ said Marshall.
‘Definitely not’ said Jack.
But Roger continued anyway, not the least bit upset that they weren’t bothered about hearing any history. He spouted on about it being a British territory but Spain kept asking for its return to them as it was unfairly obtained by war. He also told them about the apes, The Barbary Macaques that were the main torist attraction and its strategic importance for the British in World War ІІ. At this point, there were a few questions from the others about the apes as they were getting bored now, whereas the sleeping Twip Twop had woken up and proceeded to career around the cabin like an ape, scratching under his arms and behind his bum. No one was impressed by the lunatic albino but it passed a few more minutes of the journey.
Then Roger spotted Sicily at the very tip of Italy. Unfortunatley for the others, his mother and father had taken Roger there on holiday and steeped him in its history. It was also the home of the mafia and some of Twip Twop’s best friends.
‘Did you know?’ Asked splodger, ‘that Typhon was trapped under the volcano you can see called Mount Etna?’
‘No’ came a chorus of replies, ‘not interested.’
He continued unabashed. ‘Zeus, who is the god of the sky in Greek Mythology, trapped Typhon who was the largest and most fearsome of all creatures about 4000 years ago. His human upper half
reached as high as the stars and his hands reached from east to west.’
‘Whatever,’ said Jack.
‘Impossible’ said Marshall.
‘How fascinating’ said Kit Kat.
Roger clasped his hands on his chest and leaned backwards like a schoolteacher lecturing his form. ‘Instead of a human head, he had 100 dragon heads; some however, depict him as having a human head, with the dragon heads attached to his hands instead of fingers.’
‘That is fascinating’ said Kit Kat.
Roger lowered his tone. ‘He was feared even by the mighty gods. His bottom half consisted of gigantic viper coils that could reach the top of his head when stretched out and made a hissing noise. His whole body was covered in wings, and fire flashed from his eyes…’
Techno and Twip Twop threw back their heads and laughed loudly.
Twip Twop’s only comment was about the mountain. ‘Mount Etna is a paltry 3300 metres high, half the size of our volcano and our monster isn’t a myth like yours.’ He cackled loudly, as insane as they come, until Techno asked him to serve ham sandwiches to their guests. They were all starving but as Twip Twop came close to each one of them, they grimaced at his stinking breath and daren’t look him directly into his maniacal pink eyes.
* * *
As the children sped across the bright blue of the Mediterranean sea, Wolf was back at Somerset house and happy to sit behind a computer screen once again. The time with the children at Brecon had been a welcome relief to his usual daily grind in MI6. He had enjoyed their company and was pleased with their attitude towards the training and the future dangers. But one person had always been slightly outside the group, even when they had played the game each evening. It was Jack on the evening prior to departure who had mentioned Marshall’s lack of gaming skills and now Wolf had more time and access to his specialist programs. So the nagging doubt about Marshall and his background grew in Wolf’s mind and prompted him to use SPAM to investigate further.
The Black Hand Gang Page 12