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I'd heard enough to bring down the whole division...the HEAD of MI6, Division 6, making plans to murder one, if not TWO, of his own agents, at the behest of party or parties unknown.
Sheer madness.
Yet, it wasn't enough.
I still needed information on the whereabouts of Wulfgar's ‘sibs' (if they were even still alive), and how it all tied in with the raid against Namagomi.
I could not yet visualise the connexion.
My estimation of those who lead our field fell to an all-time low.
Mr. Britt's secretary left, apparently to run some errands.
I was mentally running through the foulest of dockside epithets that I knew (taught me by Mr. Wood), when my secure cellphone blatted incontinently.
‘I wonder' I thought crossly, as I picked it up, ‘if William Shakespeare or Voltaire could have gotten any writing done if the wretched things had existed in their periods, so that every blasted idiot could interrupt them at any opportunity.'
"Who the Devil is it?!?" I demanded, quite a bit put out. The youthful voice that replied belonged to one of my Agent-Trainees, Veruca Salt.
"Ms. Phan, it's me, Veruca, colling frum the safe-house. Johnny-err, MR. WOOD is here..."
"YES?!?" I prodded...
"He's got cumpn'y wif ‘im-and someone has shot him..."
"And Mr. Wood brought him to the safe-house for protection. Very good-"
"No, Ma'm, you don't understand..."
I felt a chill descend into my bones, and an ogre's paw clutched around my heart.
"It's Mr. Wood-you'd best hurry-I've summoned Dr. Science and Beast-"
I don't remember how I drove my Aston-Martin across London without being killed.
The police officers who took it upon themselves to stop me turned a shade approximating that of Hamlet's Dad when I displayed my I.D.
When I came to my senses, I was at the safe-house in the country.
Intact.
It was a lovely old Reformation-Era house, with a delightful garden, and an orchard of native and imported fruit- and nut-trees, rolling green lawns that seemed to extend to Infinity.
Mr. Wood's Bentley was parked athwart the lawn, just atop the tea-roses. Bullet-holes marred the smooth lines of the automobile. The driver's side window was pierced twice, a crazy spider's webbing of cracks tracing from top to bottom...and it was supposed to be bullet-proof.
Just beyond it, the Division Six Emergency Medical Helicopter crouched, it's rotors sagging dejectedly.
A trail of dark blood led from the Bentley to the front door.
Veruca met me at the foyer; I very nearly bowled the poor girl over.
"Thank God you're here, Ma'm; he's been asking for you. Dr. Science has him in the ‘drawing- room'. He says that you may see him..."
Sweet Christ; that was Critical Care.
"As if he could bloody-well stop me. Where's Beast?"
"On his way, but he's had a puncture. You know how he manhandles that Jag of his."
"A likely story " I muttered under my breath, as I burst through the "Drawing-Room" doors.
All the emergency medical equipment that normally was rotated inside the walls was in use.
Dominating the room was a state-of-the-art recovery unit. There, looking pale and haggard, with a nasty-looking array of tubes and wire leads attached to him, lay Mr. Wood.
The sight literally struck me dumb. "Mr. Wood - John, I-"
One eye opened and focused upon me.
"Hullo, Phanny-me-lass; bit of a cock-up, I'm afraid. I must be losing my touch. *cough* One of the little shites caught me with my pants down, as if I were that drunken Irish lout O'toole. *cough* Fucking bastard" he spat " The cocksucking pisswallow put some holes in MY car..."
He fell into a fit of coughing, and a reddish froth gathered at his lips. Dr. Science, in surgeon's scrubs heavily stained with blood, moved to his side, clucking reprovingly.
" I did warn you, now, didn't I, Mr. Wood, that if you insist on agitating yourself, you stupid pigheaded old GIT, that you'll aggravate yourself right into a coffin now, won't you? You aren't doing that punctured lung the least bit of good."
A nurse appeared by his side, and wiped the bloody foam from Mr. Wood's lips.
"Now, then, dearie, that's all right then,isn't it?"
She attempthed to soothe him; she sounded familiar, but I couldn't place her.
"God-fuck-all, I feel like one kilo of shite forced into a half-kilo box. Oh, ballocks, where's that damned Mick bastard?"
I heard a surprisingly familiar voice behind me, from the corner to my left...
"Over here, John. I DO wish that you wouldn't call me a Mick Bastard, you Facist Limey Git. That has a tendency to make me cross as Hell."
As I turned to face him, Mr. Wood spoke up.
"Ken, this is Ms. Phan. Phanny, this is-"
"Kenneth Branagh..." I finished...
"Christ's Bowels, woman, you could at least let me finish the mucking introductions properly. YES, Kenneth Branagh."
He stood next to a bookcase, a first edition copy of Gray's Anatomy open to the pulmonary section, on a reading-table.
I started-"THIS is the-"
" 'Fat-faced, round-arsed Irishman', I'm afraid..." Mr. Branagh finished, apologetically.
"What happened?" I asked him; when Mr. Wood made as if to speak, I fixed uponhim with the most icy glare that I could muster.
"If you so much as say ONE WORD, agitate yourself in the tiniest bit, I shall disassemble you and feed you to the hounds. You've done yourself enough harm for one day, I rather imagine."
He glared back, then subsided with a smug grin (albeit one tinged with pain)on his lean, hawk- like countenance.
"My GOD, John" said Mr. Branagh, "you were right. As lovely as Aphrodite, yet fearsome as the Gorgon herself..."
"Mr. Branagh, I do believe that I posed a question..." I could not help but blush furiously.
"Hm? Oh, oh yes...please, call me Ken..."
"Very well, Ken, pray, continue before I lose what bit of girlish starry-eyed fannishness that I have left, and gut you..."
"Hm...yes. Well, we'd just had a spot of tea, at this lovely place-Clyde's, I think that it's called- and we'd just finished discussing -business-, and were walking down the alley to John's Bentley, when we were accosted by a couple of-I think that they were Americans."
"At first we thought them to be over-eager autograph collectors-"
"Canadian" said Mr. Wood.
" I thought that I told you to belt UP, you old horror..."
"Now, Phanny, if someone doesn't interject, the boy'll cock it all up. They were Canadians, with some local talent. I'm not certain who the leader was-"
"Yes, Ms. Phan, I was getting to that, if John will allow me; that one, he was a dead-faced prat, thinning hair, head shaped like it'd just come from a loaf-tin-"
"THAT sounds like Dick Stroker" I responded.
"Yes, well, quite. He shouted ‘DIE, you lousy cock-biting Limey turd-burglars!' and he opened fire, out in public and everything-What is this,America?- John managed to wing the bounder with his Webley, and we made it to the Bentley, which (He glared at Mr. Wood) John ASSURED me was ‘QUITE bullet-proof'; VERY proud of that, he was..."
"In any event, we tore out of the alley, confident and jolly, when the bastard proceeded to fill that car with holes-"
"Had to be Teflon-coated full metal jacket with spent uranium cores. That's the only thing short of an anti-tank weapon that could pierce the old girl's hide..."
"IF you don't stop interrupting, Old Man, I swear that I shall go quite mad. Please, do go on, Mr. Branagh..."
"Yes, well, we managed to elude the rotters, and just before he passed out, John contacted Miss Salt, and she gave me directions to the place. The good doctor here, was awaiting us by the time that I managed to pull in..."
He spread his hands wide "The rest you know..."
(To be continued...)
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