---

Verse One.

The penguins were coming again. I thought I had lost them in the giant mushroom forest but that was clearly not the case. I could hear the slip slap of a thousand flipper feet growing closer as I knelt on the soft grass at the edge of the forest. My chest heaving from the exertion of my frantic escape from the ice fields. My breath came in ragged gasps and my lungs burned. Warm beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and my clothes were soaked through with perspiration. The muscles in my legs and torso screamed their agony at my central nervous system. An opera of pain and fatigue played to the audience of my senses.

Why were they so persistent? Why were they pursuing me so doggedly? Or penguinly. Or both. What had I done to offend them? Had I accidentally desecrated some holy place perhaps? Had I caused outrage to their olfactory bulbs with my subtle, strangely lingering scent of pepperoni pizza and cheap lager? I couldn’t remember anything out of the ordinary during my journey across the pack ice.

I was hiking along, minding my own business, counting clouds. As I had been for many days. I had just come across a spectacular stratocumulus formation in the shape of Donald Trump being beaten with a golf club by Fidel Castro. I think it was a 3 Wood. The shades of orange in Trump’s skin was a sight to behold. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Then I tripped over something. Something long, cylindrical and meaty. I landed in a heap on the cold, hard ice, sliding along on my face for longer than was really fair. I slowly squeaked to a halt and untangled myself from my equipment, which had attempted to both decapitate and disembowel me in the fall. My face frozen by the ice and red raw with pain, I looked behind me to see what had caused my flight, possibly considering beating the culprit to almost death.

I was surprised to see a surprisingly small, hairy and really smelly walrus. He apologised and introduced himself as Kevin, Lord of the Bergs.

He was about to say something else when there was a bloodcurdling sound from the east and what looked like a million fighting penguins appeared from a crack in the ice and began to charge straight towards me. As they drew nearer I saw every single one of them had an expression of pure hate on their faces. Or whatever the faces of penguins are called.

I glanced towards the Lord of the Bergs, hoping he would assure me everything was fine and this was just this particular penguin tribes’ method of meeting newcomers. Obviously, this was not the case.

Kevin looked at me with sadness in his eyes. His expression relaying a surprising amount of information to me in just a few seconds.

Kevin had just escaped from a very destructive relationship with an albatross. There was enough love there, but they both wanted different things. The albatross, Alice, was a high flier who loved to travel and Kevin, well, Kevin was a fat, smelly, elderly walrus. It was never going to work.

Kevin had recently had new cabinets fitted in his kitchen and he really didn’t like them. They looked far better in the showroom and Kevin was beginning to suspect he had been fleeced and that the cabinets the workmen had fitted were not the ones he had paid for but were, in fact, inferior copies.

Kevin had a deep seated fear of tables.

He also had a deep tabled fear of seats and a penchant for bad puns and terrible wordplay.

He had eaten a burrito for his breakfast which was playing merry hell with his digestive system and his left, lower tusk had never been the same since he tried to bite that kayak.

His expression expressed, Kevin, Lord of the Bergs snorted, causing his blubbery lips to flap and drench me in drool.

“Better leg it kid,” he said, “They’re after you alright.”

Then he farted. A low rumble with a high pitched finish. The smell of half-digested guacamole and fish hit me a millisecond after I heard the sound. I gagged and gave the walrus a quizzical look, my mind a whirl of confusion and my nasal passages a war zone.

I thought of asking questions but there was not enough time. The penguin army were too close. I could already smell the fish.

I ran as fast I could, stealing a quick glance behind me in hope that the penguins had descended en masse on Kevin. Being completely distracted by their eagerness to eat the nutritious walrus, leaving me free to make my escape. This was obviously not the case either. The penguin horde turned to follow me, skittering and swearing. They were fighting among their ranks to be the head of the chasing pack and, presumably, fighting for the honour of being the first to eat me. I felt honoured and a little special. And pant wettingly terrified of course.

Several penguins fell amongst the throng. Their bodies flippered to death on the indifferent glacier. I ran up a small rise in the terrain and risked another look back. I could see the fallen penguins lying stricken on the ice behind the horde. Some of the other penguins had abandoned the pursuit and were jumping up and down on the bodies of their luckless comrades. The sound of the flapping of furious flip flop feet fatally fracturing former friends’ femurs flowed forwards towards me, the sickening noise audible even over the sound of the horde.

I kept moving, trying to shake those images from my mind and concentrate on the immediate problem.

Luckily for me, penguins only have little legs. I was faster, as long as I didn’t go down any hills and allow the penguins to use their special stomach sledging ability, I could keep ahead of them.

But I tired, unfortunately very quickly due to my doughnut based diet and my severe allergy to exercise, and the penguins didn’t. They seemed to have limitless reserves of energy. They just kept coming and coming, never resting, ceaseless. They would catch me sooner or later, it was just a matter of time. I would eventually succumb to exhaustion, in like ten minutes, and I would face a fate worse than death. Or worse.

I don’t know how long or how far I ran. It felt like an eternity. I slipped into icy crevasses and stumbled up jagged slopes. The ice began to give way to alpine forest and I gained some energy from the thought of being able to lose my pursuers in the forest. I plunged headlong into the treeline, dodging around trees and weaving left and right in order to lead a more complex trail.

The forest wasn’t even half as thick as I had hoped it was but, judging from the softer sounds of pursuit, I had still managed to put a fair amount of distance between myself and the penguins. They would be having trouble through the foliage with their stupid little legs!

The trees began to thin out again, giving way to thick alpine grass. I decided that I had enough of a lead to take a rest. My body had informed me that it was going to happen, whether my brain liked it or not, and it was going to happen right now. I collapsed to my knees and took a drink from my flask. 21 year old, single malt whisky. A very reviving beverage.

I tried to catch my breath. It was easy to breathe now that my throat didn’t feel like it was coated with sandpaper. I knelt there, breathing as regularly and deeply as I could, my eyes closed and counting silently to myself. I had made a deal with myself that I could rest until I reached 30 and then I would run some more. The only problem with this is that I am very good of convincing myself of things. Usually bad ideas that get me in a lot of trouble, but here it was that I could rest until 40. Or 50. Maybe sixty. 100 and that’s it, no more. Okay 120.

I urged my weary legs to raise me once more. A few minutes of rest and I had managed to catch my breath but my muscles were about to retire. The gold watch had already been placed in a gift box and everyone had signed the ‘we’ll miss you’ card. I couldn’t run for much longer. I had to find somewhere to hide from the vicious black and white bastards.

A sudden rise in volume of the sound of the approaching horde, blue battle-armour clanking and brutal beaks snapping, spurred me to move once more. I paused for a moment to pinpoint the source of the sound and headed off in the opposite direction.

I was looking for some kind of shelter, somewhere to rest and hide, somewhere to make a stand if it came to that. Some kind of wall to my back so they couldn’t attack me from every direction. Somewhere to hide while the aquatic assholes passed me by sounded a better option than a last ditch fight against an army of armoured penguins, so I was hoping for that.

I ran, keeping a watchful eye out for potential sanctuary. I ran as hard as I could, hoping to put as much distance between them and me as possible while I still had some reserves of energy, however small.

I jumped over exposed roots, gnarled and ancient, skipped through marshes and leapt streams and gullies. I began to wonder if penguins had a sense of smell. If I hid, could they sniff me out? Do birds have noses? Do fish have hooters? Which one of those gangs is the penguin in anyway? I cursed my teenage decision to smoke, drink and have fun instead of studying and obtaining lettered grades in something called ‘egg-zams’.

Having said that, would the nasal system of penguins be on the curriculum of any country’s education system outside Narnia?

Nose or not, hiding was going to be my best option. I had no other ideas.

My prayers were answered when I literally stumbled into a huge rotten elm tree. I was crossing through a small copse of trees in another attempt to throw the penguins off my trail and tripped on a root. I became airborne immediately and flew, headfirst, towards the largest tree in the copse. It sat right in the centre of the small forest. Short and fat. Covered in ugly moss and lichen. The various knots, burrs and wrinkles in the bark conspired with each other to almost, but not quite, look like an evil face. A hideous, horrendous, murderous, gloating buttock of a face.

I crashed through the rotten bark a few feet up from the base of the trunk. The old bark, moss, dead leaves and other debris, fell in behind me, obscuring the hole my head had punched through the festering trunk.

I landed in the hollow centre of the tree, landing with an extremely forceful impact. Pain engulfed the parts of me that had hit the ground first; my face (again!), then my shoulder, my hip and my knees. I felt several of my ribs crack. I rolled over onto my back, gasping for air. The tree was completely hollow, all the way up to the small ring of sunlight, glistening and twinkling, at the highest point.

I slipped under the dark, velvety curtain of unconsciousness.

When I awoke, it was cold and dark. Small shafts of moonlight pierced the gloom from previously unnoticed holes in the tree trunk. I was calm at first. Then I realised where I was and why I was there and began to panic.

Then I heard a voice full of darkness and crypts and murder by machines just for fun. The sort of voice you really do not want to hear. After landing in the hollow trunk of an evil looking elm while being chased by a vicious horde of bloodthirsty penguins intent of dismembering you slowly and carefully, making ornaments out of your smaller internal organs and booties from your skin, you would think that would be the worst of your day. But no, hearing that voice was worse.

“It’s alright fleshy one, the flipper things have gone.” Said the voice.

“What?” I squeaked, shitting my pants.

“Those who chased you. They passed by without seeing you. Then they came back looking very angry. Then they wandered aimlessly for a long time, a long time. Then they seemed to lose faith in what they were doing and left the way they had first come.”

I listened closely. I couldn’t hear several thousand pairs of weird, mutated, webbed chicken feet flapping on the debris of the forest floor. I heard nothing but the sounds of an alpine forest at night. An owl. The chattering of insects. The wails of bald, fat, middle aged, men who were looking for a reason to live after their wives had left them for a younger, fitter man with all his own hair and she had taken the dog with her. Nothing unusual.

I decided to trust that I had escaped the penguin menace. I was slightly annoyed that I had escaped them by simply falling over and knocking myself out. I had been playing a game of cat and mouse mixed with a little hare and turtle for what seemed like days. Who could tell this far north? The sun never sets in summer. If I had known all I had to do to get away was trip, fall and knock myself out I would have done it much earlier and saved myself the effort of running away for so long.

At least I had survived. Now to investigate whatever fresh horror this evil voice was.

“Err.” I said, “Who am I talking to please?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” said the mystery voice, rather camply. “Cower in fear fleshy one, you have met your doom in me.”

I sat on the floor inside the tree and wondered how my life had come to this.

“Yeah. I assumed there was some kind of ‘my doom’ element going to be in play here, but who are you?”

“The mighty tree you are trapped inside, foolish bug.”

“Oh. You mean you are the short, fat, warty elm tree? You’re a sentient tree?”

“No! How dare you!” there was a pause, “Well…. Okay, yes.”

“Okay.”

“Are you not terrified? Do your internal excrement pipes not quiver and yearn for release? Does the front part of your cloth leg tubes not grow moist with foul smelling, yellow liquid?”

“Not really. I’ve had one of those days.”

“Huh, tell me about it. Seems there’s a lot more of those days than the other days these days.”

“I hear you. Do you ever wonder why we even bother? Just living, I mean. What’s the point of it all?”

“All the time, all the time.”

“Like, why do good things happen to bad people, you know.”

“Yeah. And if there’s a greater power at work?”

“Yeah. And if its’ motives are benign.”

“It all seems so pointless sometimes. A constant struggle against an indifferent, hostile universe.”

“I get a lot of time to sit and think you know, being an evil, sentient tree. Sitting and thinking takes up most of my time. Sitting here thinking and waiting for something to fall into my trunk trap so I can goad them for a bit, for a laugh, before releasing my sulphuric acid, dissolving their bodies and drinking the resulting soup. I get a lot of time to think about things.”

“Wait. Which one of us is talking right now?”

“What? Wait…erm.” I said, “You’re the evil tree?”

“Right. You’re my lunch.” Said the evil tree.

“Correct.” I agreed.

“So….?”

“What?”

“What were you saying just now?”

“What?” I scanned back a bit and read what I had just said, “Oh. I see what you mean. I’m sorry. Erm….could you just…?”

“Amateur.”

“I’m sorry.”

The evil tree cleared its’ throat. Or whatever it had that was its version of a throat.

“Ahem…It’s so unprofessional you know.” It sighed, “Right…I get a lot of time to sit and think you know, being an evil, sentient tree. Sitting and thinking takes up most of my time. Sitting here thinking and waiting for something to fall into my trunk trap so I can goad them for a bit before releasing my sulphuric acid, dissolving their bodies and drinking the resulting soup. I get a lot of time to think about things.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, “Wait. What did we say about sulphuric acid?”

“That’s how I am going to eat you cackle, cackle, cackle.” Cackled the evil tree.

I was distracted by a soft sound at ground level and looked down to see hissing, smoking liquid bubbling out of the ground! The tree started to fill fast. The acid reached me almost instantly and quickly ate through my fluffy seal trousers as I sat on the floor. Both my buttocks and my right testicle were scorched by the acid and I shot into the air with a grace and agility that surprised both the tree and me. I ran. I just ran, intending to crash through the tree bark as I had before.

I woke up while flying through the air once more, having tripped on the footboard of my bed in my haste to escape the acid stomached elm tree from hell. I hit the opposite wall with a thud and once again slipped into unconsciousness.

---

Verse Two.

After coming to a few hours later, checking the house for penguins and having a shower, I sat at my kitchen table and ate some breakfast trying to get over yet another terrifying, penguin related nightmare.

I rubbed the lumps on my head. Why was I plagued by these terrifying visions? Why were my dreams always nightmares and my nightmares always about swarms of murderous penguins? Why was this happening to me?

Upstairs in my bedroom. The large poster of Fingers McGraw, the penguin from the second Wallace and Gromit short, winked and smiled.

A healthy, hearty meal of cold pizza and pancakes later, with continued absence of any kind of flightless bird, I felt better and began to think about the day to come.

I had stopped thinking about how there were two lumps on my head, given that one of the times I was knocked out I was asleep and dreaming. I had tried to figure it out but couldn’t so I just stopped thinking about it. It seemed easier.

There was also lots of interesting things to think about right now. I was about to go on a trip! My bags were packed and my transport was booked. The train left in a few short hours so I couldn’t really sit here contemplating how injuries sustained in a dream had physically manifested themselves. What exactly did that mean for me? Was Freddy Krueger back? Again? I hoped not. Freddy was a real dick and I hated him with a venom. I really did not relish having to track that bastard to his hideout and setting fire to him again. It’s just so tedious.

There was nothing I could do about it and my mind once more slipped back to my trip. It promised to be a lot of fun. I had been looking forward to it for many months. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was about to embark on what was to become the weirdest week of my life.

Ignoring the nocturnal visions of homicidal penguins, everything was normal.

The pigeons were roosting in the trees, the mumurations of starlings were rampaging around the neighbourhood in a never ending quest for food as they always were. Looking more like an inner city gang than a creation of benevolent nature. The kids playing football on the park and the steady stream of traffic on the road. All normal, nothing peculiar.

My neighbour, Derek, was out on his driveway tinkering with his car as usual. The guy had five small children and a crazy dog and much preferred the company of his carburettors to the chaos that usually ensued indoors. His wife always seemed to have one child on her hip while dragging another around by an ear, with the crazy dog nipping and yapping at her heels. I felt sorry for her as she never really looked happy. Maybe she would have more life in her if her loving husband took his head out from under the bonnet of his car occasionally, but you can’t tell other people how to live their lives I guess.

I gave him a friendly wave as I walked past.

“Hey Derek.” I said, gesturing towards the car “Is it giving you problems again?”

“Oh alright Mike.” He said, “Yeah. You wouldn’t believe it, the fuel pump has seized up again and there are particulates in the sump.”

It’s all Greek to me but I pulled a face that tried to convey that I knew what the hell he was talking about and show sympathy at the same time. I must have looked like a maniac.

“Right, well. Good luck sorting that one mate.” I said, and walked on.

“It’s just one thing after another.” He moaned, and I couldn’t help thinking of his poor wife in the house, drowning under an avalanche of domestic drudgery, dog shit and children.

Within a few minutes’ walk I was out of sight of my house, ‘Dirty Digits Derek’ and his vehicular woes and my thoughts turned to the future. I was off to visit my old hometown; a stinky old mining town called Bolsover. The place had been forgotten by time and progress, or at least that was how it appeared in my memory. Whenever I thought of it, it always seemed to be in monochrome and it was always 1984.

Bolsover was at the heart of the national miners’ strike in the mid-eighties and the streets were full of men with bad haircuts, sideburns and flares form the 70’s, marching for this, that or the other. The feel of the town never seemed to get away from the depression that fell afterwards. A feeling of being cheated by the management. The working man held down by the hob nailed boot of union leaders who acquiesced to the government at the first opportunity of advancement for themselves. There was always a sense of being deceived and people had a dour and jaded attitude to life.

Maybe it had changed. It had been a long time.

Probably not though.

I wasn’t looking forward to visiting Bolsover. Far from it. I really couldn’t give a shit about the place. I was interested to see how much it had changed since I was last there almost fifteen years ago, but that was more of a general archaeological and cultural interest than any pining for days gone by.

What I was looking forward to was seeing certain people again. Two in particular.

My twin sister; Sarah, and my oldest friend; Dave Chambers.

Despite living so far away, Dave and I lived at opposite ends of the country, I had stayed in touch with him, albeit intermittently. You know how these things happen. You say you’ll stay in touch and really mean to, but things happen, life gets in the way at both ends of the relationship. Before you know it you haven’t spoken for a year. The good thing about old friends though is that this can happen with no animosity on either side and, when you get in touch again, you just carry on where you left off.

When viewed as an average, Dave and I had stayed in relatively close contact. Chatting on the phone occasionally and talking bullshit on social media for hours (we were always good at that). I had even gone on holiday with him a few times over the years. I don’t remember anything that happened on those holidays, neither did Dave. Alcohol and, possibly, certain herbal cigarettes, were involved on every occasion. We are both positive we went on holiday and we both accept that it happened, there were receipts, boarding passes and ticket stubs to prove it. It’s just, we are not entirely in agreement on the particulars. We both have a few vague memories. We both have a few memories of events we are absolutely certain did transpire. The only problem is that those memories are always different memories that directly contradict each other.

We also both have in our respective homes, a box containing all the weird objects that have turned up of which we have no memory. Including, but not limited to, a small sculpture of a pig, a signed photograph of Shakin’ Stevens, a box of matches from a casino in Las Vegas (neither of us has ever been to Las Vegas), a monkey’s paw with only one finger still outstretched, a jar with some luminous liquid in it that moves around if you go near it and whines every year on Halloween, a disembodied finger in a zip lock bag, an identification badge for a security guard in Area 51, 13 pairs of ladies’ knickers, 19 pairs of white Y-fronts, a traffic cone (it wasn’t space efficient to keep all 67 traffic cones – we just kept one which symbolises the others), what may or may not be the genuine Magna Carta, a red, glowing, reindeer nose, a blood speckled collar with a tag reading ‘Rudolph’, a similarly blood stained piece of paper with a hand written message reading: “they’re coming, beware the orange man!”, a test tube containing a baby dinosaur in some embryotic fluid, various hats from various police services, three glass eyes, two artificial left hands, four prosthetic left legs and one false buttock, possibly the left one.

I have no proof of this but I suspect that Dave has some kind of sinister plan to construct a cyborg with only left limbs. Being a left hander himself, he has witnessed first-hand (which would be the left one in this case, obviously) the unfairness of the world regarding left handed people. He has long been a proponent of equality of handedness and regularly attends marches in the capital to protest the discrimination he, and other of his kind, are subjected to every day.

There’s Dave, Jelly Legs Faustino and Alan the Knee. When they get to London and meet up with their comrades, there’s almost, but not quite, tens of them. It’s a phenomenal sight!

Recently, I had been in contact with Dave quite a lot. We had both been spending a lot of time online chatting with each other and some other old friends. Dave and I found ourselves saying that we should get together again soon. Have a laugh, get drunk and talk about old times. When we found ourselves mentioning it more often we decided we would actually do it. Plans were soon planned.

My sister Sarah? It’s a sad story. I hadn’t actually laid eyes on Sarah for nearly fifteen years!

When Sarah was eighteen years old, she met the man who she thought, incorrectly as it turned out, was the love of her life. They married and emigrated to Australia. They had two children and seemed to be living the dream. I hadn’t physically seen her since she boarded the plane.

Obviously we stayed in touch. The time difference made it more difficult but we did our best. There were always promises of one of us visiting the other but they never materialised. There was always a problem for one of us. We still considered ourselves close despite the distance between us.

When Sarah’s marriage broke down last year, she returned home to Bolsover. Both my niece and nephew were already at an expensive private school here in the UK so it seemed the obvious choice for her to return to this sceptered isle too. We were suddenly able to talk more as we were living the same day at the same time rather than her night being my day and vice versa. That and the fact that she, just as suddenly, had a lot of free time on her hands. When I told her I had already planned to visit Dave, she was ecstatic.

I was seriously looking forward to a week of catching up with my oldest mate and my estranged sister and so, apparently, were they.

Sarah and I spent a lot of time chatting online while the date of my departure sluggishly approached. We talked about a lot of things. Well, okay, maybe I did most of the talking. I have always had a talent for talking (or writing in this case) for hours about pointless things. If you want someone to type a million words about some nonsense, I am most definitely your man.

And Sarah, bless her heart, always had a talent for listening to me go on and that had not changed. I am sure she compartmentalises her mind so she can both listen to me talk rubbish while also thinking about something else entirely. But she never once told me to shut the fuck up, as many others would have, and I love her for that.

Now, after a particularly disturbing penguin nightmare, the day had finally arrived for me to head back to my home town.

So here I was. Early on a Saturday morning in June, heading to the station to catch a train south. I was looking forward to seeing Sarah and Dave once more. There was a small part of me looking forward to seeing the streets where I grew up again. A very small part. The size of my left, little toe. The place was a bit of a shithole after all. The excitement was simply one of visiting places which were influential in my formative years. I was not, however, looking forward to the journey.

I had done it many, many times in the past, visiting friends and family, and there was always some kind of issue along the way.

As I boarded the first of three different trains I wondered if I may actually beat my record on this occasion. This currently stood at thirteen hours, for a journey that should have taken six! It is a constant source of confusion to me how I have managed to fly to Spain, including getting to the airport and all that tedious hanging around, checking in and waiting for luggage at the other end, in less time than it takes to get from Scotland to England on a train.

The first train arrived at its destination, Edinburgh, without a problem, as it usually did. I easily made the connection to the Edinburgh to London train. This was usually the bitch. On one occasion the train simply stopped in the middle of nowhere and a voice came over the speaker and said “All passengers disembark, this train has been cancelled!”

That was an interesting evening, I can tell you

As usual I had booked ahead of time and reserved a seat and, as usual, the speaker voice said “All reservations have been cancelled.” shortly after the doors closed. Still, at least it made me forget about the argument I was about to have with a skinhead who was sitting in my ‘reserved’ seat.

“Nothing mate.” I smiled, “Carry on.”

The train was actually quite empty and there were a few seats available. I found one with a table and settled in for the journey. I assumed my usual defensive position to avoid some weirdo sitting next to me: big bag on the chair, feet up on that and a foul, grimacing countenance. It worked more often than it failed.

A guy sat on the chair opposite me and began to talk into his lapel. My first thought was that he was a member of the intelligence agency come to take me in for crimes against the state and the experiment I was conducting in my garage, but I quickly discounted that for two main reasons:

1. No one knew about the experiment.
2. The man was around 110, dressed like a hobo and he appeared to have shit himself.

So, your common or garden, run-of-the-mill, homeless nutjob then. Time to move.

I found another empty seat in the next carriage and settled down once more.

After only six hours we had arrived in York. I was asleep and almost missed it. I had indeed broken a record for the journey – only two hours longer than advertised! Magic!

Of course I still had to run around York station like a madman trying to find a replacement for the train connection that had long since departed, but I was used to that and knew the tricks.

Never ask any member of staff for help, they know nothing and really resent being asked stupid questions, especially anything concerning trains. Never, ever, under any circumstances go anywhere near the toilets and the train you want will ALWAYS be as far away from the train you just got off as physically possible, so just head that way.

I found a train that looked like it might be heading in roughly the right direction, but who can really tell, and took the gamble.

My gamble paid off! Goddamn I was good at train roulette!

I stood in the doorway of the train for the next three hours with twenty six other people. Again, normal for this particular journey. Happily none of them seemed to be crazy, just incredibly annoying.

A heavy set man near me was enjoying himself trampling my toes into a paste and a young mother with three screaming kids was doing her best to cease to exist. This meant the kids were running around under and between people’s legs and generally causing havoc. This I actually found quite amusing to watch. There were too many bodies crammed in there to see what the little brats were doing or even where they currently were, but you could trace their movements by random people jumping and yelping as a snot covered child darted underneath them. I was safe as I was crammed into a corner. Being the experienced train passenger I am, I know all too well the value of a wall to lean against, especially if you are not too keen on some bearded, myopic Frenchman fondling your buttocks ‘accidentally’ for three hours.

I tried, I really did try to be a nice guy when a middle aged woman on the far side of the small space removed a sandwich from somewhere on her person and went to take bite. I wanted to tell her not to attempt it. I wanted to warn her of the impending doom.

But I am not a nice guy so I kept quiet and just watched with an evil little smile on my face.

It happened in slow motion. The sandwich slowly moving towards the open mouth. A businessman three people away from Sandwich Eater suddenly jumped and said “What the?” before looking angrily down into the throng of legs and bags.

Then the old lady standing right next to Sandwich Eater let out a weird cry which in itself was worth the admission fee.

“OOoooooeeeeeeeeerrrmmpphh!”

The sandwich moved ever closer to Sandwich Eater’s mouth, it was almost within biting distance now. A rogue piece of lettuce was already touching the woman’s bottom lip.

Then everything happened at speed.

There was a small shriek from down below and the sound of running feet. The Sandwich Eater disappeared downwards as a child, or perhaps two, collided with her legs, making her knees buckle. There was a muffled “Oooooo.”

Then the woman rose back up like a cork bobbing in the water. She had a surprised, shocked expression and quite a lot of the contents of her sandwich on her face. The journey down had jolted her elbow and forced her to miss her mouth, jamming the ham, lettuce and mayo into her own eye socket. She looked around as if for assistance with a great smear of mayonnaise running from her eye to her jawline, little bits of ham and lettuce here and there and a slice of cucumber resting nonchalantly on her chin. The sandwich itself had gone.

The sight she was greeted with was that of twenty six people suddenly finding something more interesting to look at. For some the view from the window gained a certain beauty, while for others, intense examination of the no smoking sign became an extremely worthwhile pursuit.

Shoulders were bouncing up and down as guffaws were desperately held in. Tongues were bitten. People were practising almost Tibetan Master levels of self-control. One young guy somewhere in the middle couldn’t help himself. He let out one single, extremely loud, belly laugh before clamping his hand over his mouth and finding something on the floor merited his immediate attention.

The not-eating-a-sandwich-anymore woman wiped herself down with a handkerchief and muttered under her breath.

There was a sound like pigs eating at a trough from floor level as the ankle biting horrors below fought over the remains of the sandwich like a shoal of angry piranha. One mucus and dirt covered child skittered up the aisle of the carriage, gibbering and laughing, holding a gherkin aloft like the spoils of war.

With that diversion over, things went back to monotony. Except the young belly laugher must have been re-running the incident in his mind because, a good twenty minutes later, he simply burst into laughter. Shaking his head with tears rolling down his face.

Such is the experience of a long distance train journey.

After far too long the train pulled into Chesterfield train station. The doors opened and bodies exploded outwards like streamers from a party popper. As the people walked away in their various personal directions, every one of them, to a man, turned and cast a dirty look at the train, as if the machine itself had caused the last few hours of discomfort and not inept and invisible management.

I stood on the platform for a while trying to massage some life back into my trampled toes.

Once my feet had received enough tender loving care so they actually resembled feet again and not flat disks of pounded flesh, I set off on the last leg. The relatively simple affair of a bus.

Having not been to this town for fifteen years, I walked to the street where the buses usually congregated, assuming they would still be there.

That place where the air was filled with the acrid stench of exhaust smoke. Piles of old vomit and discarded fast food wrappers from the previous evening. Broken glass and lost teeth. The place where mighty double deckers fought epic battles with each other for the right to mate with the best looking city hoppers. Juvenile single deckers fought for their place in the hierarchy. Waiting for that sacred day when they too would become double deckers and they could enter into the fray for their chance to procreate and spread their genes.

It was deserted.

“Great!” said I, to myself, “They moved the bus stops.”

A man walking past must have overheard my utterance and decided to help me out.

“They up dan nar wagga wgaa.” He said, before moving briskly off. At least that is what it sounded like.

Damn! I still had my accent translator set to ‘Scots’.

I know, phone Dave, he will know. I removed my phone from my pocket and hit the speed dial for ‘El Baldy.’

“Ey up,” quoth he, ”You ‘ere yet?”

“Yeah, I’m in town, where the fuck are the buses now?”

Dave proceeded to try and direct me to the bus station by telling me it was near to lots of other places I didn’t know the location of.

“Fuck it.” He said, giving up. “Stay where you are and I will come and pick you up.”

I sat on a nearby bench, lit a cigarette and practiced my Bozarian accent.

Moving to another country means you have to change your accent substantially. There is nothing funnier or more confusing than a Scotsman and a man from Derbyshire, trying to have a conversation in their native accents. As a result of this I had toned down my accent in an effort to be understood and I could happily watch episodes of ‘Rab C. Nesbitt’ and understand every word. Well, maybe not ‘happily’, but you get the point. But in Bolsover, or as it is referred to in the native tongue, Boza, my accent was wrong.

Twenty minutes later and Dave tore around the corner. He spotted me sitting forlornly on the bench and attempted a handbrake turn, which given his dilapidated jalopy of a car, basically just meant he gradually slowed down and gently came to a halt. I am sure it looked good in his mind.

He jumped out of the car and ran over to me. Much handshaking and hugging followed, of a manly type, you understand. Then we both got in his car and he set off for Bolsover. I wish I could say he mashed the accelerator, gunned the engine and we tore off amidst squealing tyres, smoke and the low, angry rumble of a highly tuned V8. That would be exciting.

In reality he mashed the accelerator, nothing happened for a few seconds, then the puny little engine wheezed and coughed. There was a great deal of shuddering and we slowly moved away with Dave rocking backwards and forwards in his seat saying: “Comeonyoulittleshitcomeonyoulittleshit.”

This was not Hollywood. This was Bolsover.

There really are no words to describe the pallid, drab grey of a Bolsover sky. People say the Scottish weather is bad and, for the most part, they are right. It is cold, very windy and can’t really make its mind up. But sometimes, just sometimes. The sun shines and the sky is actually a deep, skin tingling azure. It can be very pleasant.

Of course, ten minutes later a thick fog has descended, there are icicles forming on the tip of your nose and you are left shivering in shorts and T-shirt thinking “What the Wee Jimmy Krankie happened there?”

But those halcyon memories of a few minutes of blue sky and warmth remain. In Bolsover it is just grey. Dull grey, dark grey, light grey, grey grey, slightly less greyish grey. There was a book on the subject: ‘Two Hundred & Seventy Six Shades of Grey’. People sometimes mistake it for another, similarly titled book and are very puzzled, to say the least, when they open the cover. The publishers of the Bolsover book are somewhat to blame as they removed the subtitle: ‘Shitty Weather in Bolsover or Why My Dog Shits Bricks’ from the latest print run in order to take advantage of this confusion and make some extra cash.

I would also imagine there are a lot of people out there who settle down with a glass of wine and a raunchy book about BDSM, only to find out more than they ever cared to know about the pollutants in the sky over mining towns affecting light refraction.

I can imagine many frustrated housewives retuning books to Waterstones and uttering the phrase.

“I have no idea what all the fuss is about, I didn’t find it the least bit sexy. However, I do now understand why Yorkshiremen are so grumpy all the time.” to a confused sales assistant.

Dave drove on along the worn tarmac roads and said little. I amused myself by looking out of the window and seeing how much had changed.

“Where you staying?” said Dave, out of nowhere.

“B&B on Shucky Road.” I replied.

“Want me to drop you there?”

“Please bud.”

A few minutes later he pulled up outside the aforementioned B&B.

“Giz a ring later mate and we’ll go out and get pissed.” He shouted through the window as he attempted, but did not actually perform, a wheel spin as he drove off. Instead he just sort of pulled away slowly amidst a cloud of black smoke and some odd whirring noises.

I could hear him muttering his mantra as he disappeared from view.

“Comeonyoulittleshitcomeonyoulittleshitcomeonyoulittleshit…….”

I shook my head and stood there on the pavement for a while, grinning to myself. Then I remembered what I was doing and turned to enter the B&B.

I walked into the bar area and was met by a giant woman with enormous breasts. She seemed to float towards me without moving her legs, like a giant airship. Her breasts bobbing and colliding before her like barrage balloons.

“You that bloke from Scotland who booked a room.” She said, pointing at me.

“Er…yes, hi.” I managed, being almost put into a trance by the movements of her pendulous bosom. They were hypnotic. They didn’t seem to conform to any of the laws of physics. I had to mentally stop myself from reaching out to touch them to see if there were some kind of invisible strings or possibly a gravitational field around them.

“Right. Follow me.” said Boob Lady.

She turned on her heels and her breasts followed a few seconds later. For a moment they hovered in the air in front of me as if they were checking to see what I was going to do before finally following their owner.

I followed her similarly enormous and physics defying buttocks around the back of the bar and up to my room. She showed me in, pointed a few things out and read me some rules, all pretty standard.

I collapsed on the bed and immediately jumped straight back up again as something squeaked in pain. Bending down and looking under the bed I saw a dead mouse, still twitching.

Right, Bolsover.

I picked it up gingerly by the tail and threw it out of the nearby window. (Later, the mouse’s family had a small ceremony as the unfortunate critter was buried by a local fox undertaker. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t invited.) I went to wash my hands in the small bathroom and did a little shudder dance. You know, the one you do when you have just had to do something seriously icky.

I stripped the bed down and checked for other surprises. It was relatively clean. I flipped the mattress to the side with the smallest blood stain and re-made the bed.

I collapsed on the bed again and tried to get a little sleep but the noises from the bar below prohibited it. It was early evening and the revelries of Saturday night were already underway.

I gave up. I tried to shower without touching anything in the dingy little cubicle and got dressed in fresh clothes, then gave Dave a ring.

“Y’aright buddy?” I said.

“Yar.” He replied.

“What’s happening?”

“Keys, half an hour.”

“Gotcha.”

That detailed and vocabulary testing conversation done with, I hit the speed dial for Sarah.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hey Sarah, it’s Mike.”

“Mike! Are you here?”

“Yeah, mainly in one piece.”

“Are you coming to see me then?”

“I’m meeting Dave in the keys, do you want to meet us there?”

“Okay, when?”

“Half an hour or so, just turn up when you want, we will wait for you there.”

“Okay, I will see you in a bit.”

She hung up.

I left the B&B, skilfully avoiding Boob Lady, and walked along the street to the pub. Dave was already there along with a bunch of other familiar faces.

“Mike!!” they all cheered when I walked in and there followed more hand shaking and hugging, of a manly type, you understand.

Drinks were bought and drank and more drinks were bought. We talked about old times and memories. Then we talked rubbish and nonsense for a bit.

Sarah turned up around an hour later, fashionably late as usual. We hugged, in a non-manly way, you understand, and then we hugged again.

Then Dave hugged Sarah.

Dave looked at me and I at him and then I hugged him. Everyone stood up and hugged each other. Strangers were hugged and those strangers hugged other strangers. Merriment ensued.

Drinks were bought and drank and more drinks were bought.

We all sat down and began to chat and catch up; pleasantries and questions about life: What have you been up to? How’s life? What happened to your leg? How long have you had that giant, hairy goitre? You know, the usual stuff.

We sat for many hours, drinking and talking, talking and drinking. It was like old times.

---

Verse Three.

Darkness.

My consciousness floated around in it for a while.

I was in that strange limbo of nothingness between asleep and awake.

I knew I was not asleep anymore as the naked ladies covered in honey, the enormous Guinness fountain and the skateboarding penguin had all disappeared. Penguins. Always bloody penguins. At least this one wasn’t trying to eat me.

My consciousness was annoyed. It had been enjoying the dream I was having moments ago. I decided that it was preferable to the current blackness and tried to go back there. ‘Where’s that fucking penguin?”

No luck. My consciousness had begun to receive information from my senses of the world outside and now it was curious.

There was a large drum being banged somewhere. Whoever was doing it was really going to town. I decided that I should find them and kill them. I tried to open my eyes and went into a mild state of panic when nothing happened.

“We’ve gone blind!” screamed my brain.

I realised that I was not blind, I was just not trying hard enough. I had the impression my sub-conscious was sabotaging my attempts because it really did not want to handle the real world at this point in time. Especially as that world seemed to contain lots of people banging drums.

I eventually won the battle of wills. Score one for Mike, fuck you Freud. Ego versus id, my left warty bollock!

My eyelids creaked open like a rusty barn door. I instantly slammed them shut again as I appeared to be on the surface of the Sun! I decided to take stock of the situation before I tried anything else stupid. I performed the mental check of anatomical completeness. Everything seemed to be where it should be. At least it felt like it. I would have to do a more thorough, physical check later when my eyes were working again.

I started to run through the problematic and often worrying checklist that accompanies a night on the lash.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

“Am I in immediate danger?”

“I don’t think so. Apart from whatever asshole is banging that drum, things seem quite serene.”

“Are we in a prison cell?”

“No.”

 “What happened last night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anyone else here who can help us?”

“Unknown. I would have to be conscious to find out and I’m not ready for that yet.”

“Are all limbs and body parts present?”

“As far as I can tell based on the limited information currently available to me.”

“Physical checks are required at first available opportunity.”

“Roger.”

“Who is Roger?”

“I don’t know.”

“Checklist complete, you are going to have to face consciousness to ascertain exact situation.”

“Oh no.”

“Do it, you pussy.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

My eyelids creaked open again. This time I was wise to the coronal mass ejection previously experienced and opened them slowly, a little bit at a time, until my terrified pupils could respond to the light.

Once I had managed to restore vision to the equation, I set about trying to find out what had transpired.

I appeared to be in a hotel room, lying on the floor. There was a lot of empty bottles and cans strewn around. There was a traffic cone standing three feet away from my head with a policeman’s helmet on top of it. That, at least, was reassuringly normal.

I looked to my right. On a raised platform was a huge king sized bed. There was a lump on the bed, covered by a sheet or blanket. I had no idea what that was. It could have been a person, it could be something altogether stranger. I decided to leave that one alone until I had no other options to explore.

I turned my head to the right. There was a large open space, more empty drinks vessels and the back of a large, black, leather sofa,

At the lower corner of the sofa were some feet. I felt it safe to assume the feet were attached to a body.

I attempted to say something but all the sound that came out was a parched, crackle. Like someone crushing dead leaves. I tried to generate some saliva and swallowed. I tried again.

“Oy!”

Success!

Growing in confidence, I attempted to make more meaningful contact.

“Oy. Feet.”

Better, but still a little Neanderthal.

“Oy. Whoever owns those feet? Who’s that?”

The feet twitched slightly.

“Eh. Wassat?” said a disembodied voice. I hoped it came from the person who owned the feet. I couldn’t deal with talking feet right now. Not again.

“What the fuck?” said the voice.

I was greatly relieved. It sounded like Dave. At least it sounded like Dave if he had been gargling marbles for six hours, but that familiar Bozarian twang was unmistakable.

“Dave. It’s me, Mike.”

“Mike?” said the voice, “Is that you banging that fucking drum?”

“No mate. I think that’s in your head. We seem to have drank a bit too much last night.”

I had already come to the conclusion that the drum was actually the sound of my own heartbeat in my head. The first thing I did upon regaining the power of sight was check for percussionists. There were none to be seen. A sudden thought struck me.

“Dave, don’t open your…..”

“Arrghhh!”

“…eyes.”

“Turn the fucking lights off.”

“I can’t, it’s daylight.”

“Oh, right.”

“Mike?”

“What?”

“Where are we?”

“I have no idea.”

“Mike?”

“What?”

“I think I might be dead!”

“You’re not dead. Do the checklist.”

“Right.”

He went silent.

Having mastered both the power of sight and speech I tried to move. It was not a good idea. I sat bolt upright in one fluid motion and immediately wished I hadn’t. My head span and I collapsed back down into a heap on the floor. The tiles were very cool and refreshing and I seriously considered just living out the rest of my life down there.

After the flashing lights had subsided and the whooshing of my blood in my ears had calmed down a bit, I tried once more. The big bass drum in my head settled into a snare. Having sat up and gained a more upright perspective, I looked around again.

The thing on the bed was definitely a person. I could make out human looking shapes beneath the thin, cotton sheet. My eyes alighted on an upright can of lager within reach and my throat screamed for refreshment. Anything will do, it said, just something liquid.

I reached out and grasped the can. It still contained what I hoped was lager. I took a deep drink and nearly vomited. The can did indeed contain lager. It also contained many cigarette butts. I spat it out, that hadn’t helped at all.

“Mike?” said Dave, from behind the couch.

“Yes?”

“It seems I am not dead.”

“Good.”

“I wish I was dead Mike.”

“I know. What did we do last night?”

“You’re asking me? I have only just figured out I am still alive. One thing at a time.”

“Okay. There seems to be someone asleep on the bed. I will poke it and quiz it for answers.”

“You do that. I am just going to lie here for a while if that’s okay.”

“Mike?”

“What?”

“I seem to be wearing a dress!”

“Add it to the list of things we don’t know.”

“Right. It’s very comfortable though.”

“At least there’s that.”

I struggled to my feet and staggered across the room to the bed like an extra from a zombie movie. Once there I sat down heavily on the corner and prodded the sleeping lump.

“Hey.” I said.

Prod.

“Hey, you.”

Prod.

“Helloooo.”

Hard prod.

“Oy!”

Very hard prod.

The dozing form moved with dizzying speed. The sheet was pulled away from under me and a foot kicked me in the back, sending me back down to the floor.

“Who’s that?”

A face appeared over the edge of the bed.

“Mike?” said the face, “What the fuck are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Ouch.” was all I had to say on the matter.

Sarah looked around and realised this was not her bedroom.

“Dave, it’s Sarah.” I called out.

“What?” said Dave.

“It’s Sarah Dave, everything is gonna be okay, Sarah’s here and she’ll save us.”

“Oh thank Christ.” said Dave. “Tell her I may be dead though.”

“We’ve been through that, you’re not dead.”

“I am not making a firm decision until I know more.” said Dave.

“Mike?” said Sarah,”What are you doing on the floor? Where are we? Why does Dave think he’s dead?”

“Hi Sarah.” I said, still lying on my back. “I am on the floor ‘cos you just kicked me off the bed. I have no idea where we are and Dave needs a little to adjust to the current reality of his situation…And he is wearing a dress”

She mentally processed this for a few seconds, then gracefully leapt from the bed. There was a small kitchen near the raised bedroom area and Sarah had already spotted a fridge and stalked towards it. She opened the door and found it full of various fluids, amongst which, bottled water.

I was clawing my way up the side of the bed in an attempt to become bipedal once more when Sarah threw a bottle of water in my direction. As soon as it left her hand she knew what she had done.

I heard her say “Ooops!” before a bottle of water slammed into the side of my head and knocked me once more to floor.

“Fuck it, I am staying down here.” I groaned.

The water bottle was spinning around on the floor next to me. I grabbed it, ripped the cap off and drank deeply. Oh, nectar of the Gods, oh life blood of all living things. Beauteous bounty of Mother Nature. Water! I finished off two thirds of the bottle without drawing breath.

Another bottle crashed into my ribs.

“Sorry.” said Sarah, “Give that to Dave.”

I gave her a dirty look than turned to calculate how best to distribute the water to my crippled friend. Getting up again and walking over there was not an option. I had learned my lesson there. I threw the bottle in a high, lofty arc, attempting to have it land on the sofa seat above him.

My aim was good and my arm was true, the bottle landed exactly where I wanted it to. Then it started rolling gently towards the edge of the sofa. I winced as it fell off.

“Owww!” said Dave. “Ooooh, water.”

I heard the sounds of a thirst being purged.

Sarah was still standing by the fridge. She seemed to be wearing clothing not entirely suited to the Bolsover pub scene.

“Why are you wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hot Tuna T-shirt Sarah?” I asked, before looking down and seeing that I too, was clothed in a similar fashion. Huh. At least I wasn’t wearing a dress. I shrugged.

“And how the hell are you so spry?” I asked, “I feel like death warmed up and Dave thinks he’s dead. You’re bouncing around like a kid on Christmas morning. What gives?”

She shrugged.

“What the hell did we do last night?” she said, opening her second bottle of water.

Meanwhile, rejuvenated by the life giving water, Dave had managed to get to his feet. He was standing by the window in a lovely summer dress, (which really accentuated his hips and brought out the colour of his eyes) looking outside with a shocked expression on his face.

“Guys.” He said, “Come and look at this. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

---

Verse Four.

A man and a woman in badly fitting beach wear and a hairy knuckled, bald man in a dress stood at the floor to ceiling window with open mouths and blank expressions.

What we saw defied logic.

We were on the six or seventh floor of a large building, a hotel presumably. Hotel rooms are usually located inside hotels so that was a fair assumption. Directly outside was a busy, four lane road packed with tourists. On the other side of the road was a wide stretch of sandy beach and then the glittering, gently undulating ocean. Small, fluffy breakers rolled gently up the beach, lapping refreshingly at the feet of people walking along in the heat. The ocean was an almost indigo shade at the shore, the colour gradually fading to a hazy blue further out, until it merged with the sky making it seem like there was no horizon. It appeared as if the sea curved back on itself and became the sky above us.

The sky itself was completely cloudless. The sun was high and very, very hot. There were numerous people lying on the beach; on towels on the sand, on loungers and deck chairs. They were marinating their bodies with oils and lotions and gently cooking in the sunlight. There were people walking to and fro wearing enormous straw hats and there was the common occurrence of tightly packed groups of Asian tourists photographing everything in sight. There were also palm trees everywhere.

Weirdly, there was a small yacht lying on its keel high up on the beach, listing to one side. Small wisps of black smoke were drifting upwards from it in various places and it seemed to be covered in small holes as if it had been used for target practice by the army. There was a large furrow carved up the beach from the water, it had obviously been driven ashore at great speed. It looked strangely familiar and I felt I knew why it was there somehow.

I ignored it and got back to the matter at hand. This was no time for idle speculation about mysterious abandoned boats.

“I don’t think this is Bolsover.” said Dave in a very helpful way. Sarah and I shot him a quizzical sideways glance.

“Just sayin’.” he added and went back to adjusting his décolletage.

I returned to examining the scene from the window, trying to locate some kind of clue to help me fill in some of the many blanks that were pressing on my mind.

Most of the vehicles travelling up and down the road seemed to be classic 50’s Americana; huge, lumbering Caddys, Bel Airs, Studebakers, Hornets. All shiny chrome and massive fins. This seemed very odd. I briefly considered some kind of time travel experiment gone wrong, especially given what I had been working on in my garage for the last few months, but I spied mobile phones and digital cameras among the tourists so discarded that as a reasonable hypothesis.

There seemed to be only one logical conclusion left. Sandy beaches, tropical sun, palm trees and 50’s Cadillacs.

“Guys,“ I said, “I think we’re in Cuba!”

Dave and Sarah turned to look at me with the familiar expression of ‘guppy at feeding time’.

“How the fuck are we in Cuba?” said Dave, furrowing his brow, “We can’t be in Cuba, that’s….that’s about…..well, it’s a long way away. It’s just not possible.”

“Well, if you have a better explanation for all this…” I motioned towards the view, “…go right ahead.”

He looked out of the window again and looked puzzled for a moment.

“Blackpool?” he said.

“Do you see trash floating in the water, piles of broken glass, overturned, burning cars and blood soaked bodies in the streets?” said Sarah.

“Err…no.” said Dave, his brow furrowing once more. “But how could we have gotten to Cuba? Overnight? Pissed as newts?”

It was a very good question.

“Right, we need to find out what is going on. Everyone look in their pockets, then we search the room. There has to be something that can help us figure this out.” I said.

“Hello.” said Dave, grabbing the side of his skirts and waving them around, “I don’t have any pockets.”

“You look around the room then Miss Boza.” said Sarah, slapping Dave on the arse as he walked away. She turned to me and whispered conspiratorially:

“Is it just me or does that dress kinda suit him?”

I looked at him ransacking the room and a shudder went through my body. Some bile tried to escape my oesophagus.

“No… Just….no… Bad Sarah.”

She smiled and started looking through her pockets.

“I have a mobile!” she said, and held it up victoriously. “It’s not mine but….it does have service.”

“What’s the network?”

“Hold on…FidelFone?”

“We are definitely in Cuba.”

“My pockets are also stuffed with wads of cash.” said Sarah, holding up handfuls of crumpled notes.

I checked my own pockets and found a similar stash.

“So are mine.” I said.

“Mine aren’t.” said Dave, “Why aren’t my pockets full of wads of cash? It’s not fair. Oh wait, no pockets. So where are my wads?”

I checked some of the notes. Banco De Cuba, Republico De Cuba and a certain freedom fighter in a beret were emblazoned across them all. That settles it, Cuba. But as Dave had pointed out, Cuba was many miles away over the Atlantic, how did we manage to get here overnight. It didn’t seemed possible.

“Check out Che.” I said to Dave, handing him one of the notes, “Fucking Cuba.”

“Doesn’t he work on the tills in Tesco on Sundays?” he asked, taking the note and examining it, “Oh, I see what you mean. Fuck me running.”

“So is this like a lot of money or not?” asked Sarah, getting to the nub of the matter. “It says they are ‘pesos’.”

“Pesos are worth shit Sarah.” said Dave, “We’re still broke.”

“You’re thinking of pesetas Dave, I think pesos are equivalent to dollars.” I said, “You’ve got a phone Sarah, Google it. Other search engines are available, obviously.”

“I already tried, it says ‘network blocked’.”

“Bloody communist state.” said Dave, throwing cushions around, “Where’s the bog? I need a slash.”

He wandered off and started opening doors looking for a bathroom.

“So you think pesos are worth a dollar?” asked Sarah.

“I could be wrong but yeah, three quarters of a quid or thereabouts I reckon.”

“But Mike, these are all 500 peso notes, and there’s loads of them!”

I checked through my cash, they were all high denominations too. There were even a few 1000 peso notes amongst them.

“So all these notes are like £350 each? Jesus!” she said, “Where did we get this kind of cash?”

“A-ha!” exclaimed a happy voice from beyond a door.

It was certainly a lot of money. I did a bit of quick mental calculation and came up with the figure of…lots.

Lots and lots. Really lots.

There was a sound like a small but powerful waterfall from the other end of the room, accompanied by sighs and gasps of relief. An urgent physical need which had been creeping around in the back of my mind began to overwhelm my senses.

“Well this goes some way to explaining how we got to Cuba doesn’t it Mike?” said Sarah, “Mike? Mike, what are you doing?”

I had gone cross-eyed and was hopping from one foot to the other. I ran off suddenly in the direction of the relieved sighs. If Dave hadn’t finished in there by now he was getting an elbow in his ribs and we were sharing. As it turned out he was just exiting the bathroom with a relieved smile on his face when I almost knocked him over in my haste.

“That’s a lot easier in a dress Sarah, why didn’t you ever say?” I heard Dave say before all sound was drowned out by blessed bladder evacuation.

As I stood there with what seemed like several million gallons of liquid draining from my body, I looked around the small bathroom. It was pretty bare and there was nothing to allude to inhabitation and nothing that yielded any useful information. Then my gaze fell on a large black suitcase sitting in the bath.

With my own brow now furrowed I finished at the toilet and washed my hands. I filled the basin to the brim with cold water and dunked my head in there for a minute for good measure. Dripping and panting from the ice cold dunking, I took the suitcase from the bath and went back to the main living area.

Dave and Sarah were deep in quiet conversation and I was shocked and really quite sickened by the fact that the conversation seemed to be about Dave’s change in wardrobe. He was curtseying, twirling and acting coquettishly and Sarah was watching him with one hand on her chin, nodding appreciatively.

As they caught sight of me re-entering the room Sarah turned and smiled and Dave cleared his throat and stood up straight.

“Yo bro.” he said in a deep, manly voice, “What the fuck have you found there you big shitter?”

I gave him a funny look and carried the suitcase to the sofa. I laid it down and went to open it. It was locked. It had some kind of combination padlock, a fancy digital one.

“Found it in the bath.” I said by way of explanation, “Anyone recognise it? Perhaps remember the combination to this lock?”

They both walked across the room and all three of us stood there looking at the suitcase with dumb looks on our faces.

“Nope.” said Dave, punching me in the shoulder, “Wanna fight about it?”

“Dave, there is nothing wrong with a unique taste in clothing.” said Sarah, “Be yourself, there is nothing to be ashamed about.”

“What are you talking about.” said Dave, squaring his shoulders, “I’m all man me. I can’t wait to get out of this stupid girlie dress.”

As he said this, he ran his hand down his hip and became very quiet. A faint smile came to his lips as he felt the soft, smooth, silken material. He started to rotate his pelvis gently, making the skirt of his dress whirl and sway and watched it with a faraway look in his eyes.

He looked up to see me and Sarah looking at him with blank expressions, the smile still on his lips and a twinkle in his eye. The smile dropped away suddenly and he stood upright again, puffing out his chest.

“Fuck you, you dick!” he growled, and punched me again, before walking off and staring out of the window. I am sure I heard him muttering under his breath:

“What does it matter if I like the pretty things? It doesn’t make me any less of a man does it?”

Sarah and I looked at each other for a moment, the look transferring a thousand words between us, most of them along the lines of ‘crazy’ and ‘lunatic’. We both shook our heads and turned our attention back to the suitcase.

“So, how do we get in it?” she asked.

There was a blood curdling scream and a sudden flurry of movement to one side. The base of a wrought iron standard lamp arced through my field of vision in a blur, hitting the padlock head on. There was a loud crash and a cloud of sparks as metal contacted metal at great velocity. Pieces of smashed padlock and splinters of wrought iron flew all around us. Sarah instinctively pulled me in front of her and used my body as a human shield. I screamed in pain as razor sharp bits of metal hit me in the face and neck. The remaining bulk of the padlock fell to the floor with a clunk.

I looked up, little trails of blood running down my face from the metal splinters, to see Dave standing victoriously with the remains of the lamp in his hands.

“Told you I weren’t no girl.” He said. “You’re welcome.”

He threw the smashed lamp to the floor, turned on his heels and walked back to the window, wiggling his bottom like a catwalk model.

“Mother Fucker!” I said.

Sarah put a restraining hand on my arm.

“Leave it!” she said.

She helped me pick the splinters of metal out of my face. It was just superficial and no real harm was done. Once the bleeding had been stemmed by the liberal application of little squares of toilet paper, we once again turned our attention to the suitcase.

“Right, guess we should see what’s in there now the lock is no longer a problem thanks to Dave.” I said, staring daggers at him. He smiled and nodded his head with great pride.

I reached out to open the case.

“Wait.” said Sarah, suddenly grabbing my wrist. “Do we really want to open it?”

“What? Why not?” I asked.

“Well, what if it is something we really don’t want to see?” she said, suddenly concerned.

“What do you mean?” asked Dave.

“Well think about it.”

“Have thought about it, I need to know what’s in there, it’s like Christmas.” said Dave, “I cannot not know now.”

“I am very impressed you managed to say that without tripping over your own teeth, even if it was a double negative.” I said, giving Dave an appreciative nod.

He smiled and nodded back.

“I am very impressed with myself for even managing to think it.” he said.

“Okay, you two fools, have you finished?” said Sarah. She slapped me around the back of the head.

“Ow!”

“I mean,” she continued, “Look at our current situation. We appear to be in Cuba, we have piles of money, we are in a posh hotel room, wearing strange clothes, (Dave, let your light shine), and we have no idea how any of these things came to be. What if there’s something….untoward….in that case?”

Dave and I looked at each other and then at the case. Then we looked at each other again, and then back to the case, then we looked at each other again, and then back to the case, then we.…

’SLAP!’

“Ow!” I screamed.

“Stop it!” Sarah rubbed her hand and grimaced. “Concentrate for Christ’s sake.”

Dave’s face had dropped into a rictus of fear and worry.

“What do you think might be in there Sarah?” he said. “A severed head? Dead babies? What?”

Sarah narrowed her eyes and gave Dave a look which even those oblivious to reading expressions could see meant ‘don’t be such a twat’.

“No, idiot. I was thinking more along the lines of stolen property, drugs, naughty stuff.” she sighed. It was hard work dealing with a pair of overgrown children with ADHD and…oh look, a bee!

“MIKE!” yelled Sarah.

“What? Sorry, what were we doing?” I said. “Oh yeah, the case.”

“Do we open it or not?” asked Dave.

“It might help us figure out what the fuck is going on.” I offered.

“Or it might contain dead babies. Little cherubim corpses. Tiny tortured toddlers. I can’t handle that dude.” said Dave.

“What is it with you and dead babies?” I asked.

“Well I…I once…there was this…no, nothing… Just don’t like ‘em.” said Dave.

I filed that away as a subject to return to later and concentrated once more on the affairs at hand.

“We have to open it Sarah.” I said, “Even if it is something sinister, opening it won’t make much difference at this point. The case is already in our possession.”

“Your right I suppose.” She said with a sigh.

I reached out to open the case once more.

Sarah grabbed my wrist again.

“Just be careful.” She said.

I tried to figure out how I would go about opening a suitcase carefully and what the hell Sarah thought might be in there to give that warning. My confidence was dented further by the sight in my peripheral vision of both Sarah and Dave slowly backing away.

I closed my eyes and flipped the catches open. Nothing happened. I flung open the case lid.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed.

“Oh fuckfuckfuck.” said Dave.

“Nononononononono.” said Sarah.

I turned to see them hugging each other with their eyes tightly closed.

“What the hell?” I said.

They both opened one eye and squinted at me. Upon realising nothing had happened they embarrassingly disengaged from their hug and smoothed their clothing out. They both looked at each other.

“Pussy!” they said in synchronicity.

“What is it?” asked Sarah, walking back towards the case. There was a sharp intake of breath as she saw the contents.

“Money, and lots of it” I said, “Cash. Wonga. Moolah. Greenbacks. Bread. Wedge……”

“Alright.” said Sarah.

“…folding stuff. Paper. Gravy. Coinage. Bones. Scratch….”

“Enough!”

“…kerch. Frogskins. Dough…….”

‘SLAP!’

“Ow!”

“Sorry. There is lots of money and what appears to be a chrome plated Beratta M9 Semi-Automatic 92FS handgun with a custom, low recoil slide and an extended stock in a Bianchi M12 holster, along with two extra high capacity magazines and a box of 9x19mm parabellum rounds.”

I turned to see both Sarah and Dave looking at me with worried expressions. I went back to looking at the case.

“What?” I asked with an innocent expression.

“Oh no. You’re right.” I said, “Sorry, my mistake. It’s the M9A1 update with the single slot picatinny rail and the physical vapour deposition coating.” I turned to look at them again with a smile on my face, “They just look so similar don’t they? It’s easy to mix them up.”

We all stood there for a moment looking at each other. They with their worried expressions and me smiling. I blinked and stopped smiling.

“Ahem, I mean there is lots of money and some kind of hand gun.” I said, clearing my throat.

“This is bad Mike!” said Sarah.

“What?! Where?” I looked around wildly, “I thought he was dead! Oh, I see what you mean.” I said.

“Why the fuck would we have a gun?” said Dave.

“Where did we get all this money?” said Sarah. “We did something bad didn’t we? We got totally pissed and did something really bad then ran off to Cuba. Oh fuck.”

“Calm down, calm down.” I said, trying to calm everybody down, obviously, “It is not necessarily something bad. There are loads of viable, law abiding explanations for this.”

“Oh right genius.” Yelled Sarah, “Well give me one good explanation for having a suitcase full of cash, a gun, the three of us being in a different country on the other side of the world and Dave wearing a dress when the last thing any of us remember is going to the local in Bolsover for a quick drink?”

“Okay. This is bad. Please don’t slap me again.”

Dave started running around the room waving his hands about in little circles and shouting that he was too pretty to go to jail.

Sarah stood staring at me, fuming.

“What?” I said defensively, “I am as much in the dark as you are. Besides, you’re the brains of this operation.”

“WHAT!” she shouted, “No I’m not! I just get swept along with you two and your idiotic schemes.”

Dave stopped mid panic.

“Well, I am definitely not the mastermind of this little group.” He said.

Then he went back to panicking.

I was shocked to my very core.

“What?” I said, “Do you mean to tell me that all this time, everything we’ve been through together when we were younger, all the things we’ve done, all the things we’ve seen, that we have all thought someone else was driving this bus and in reality none of us knew what the fuck we were doing?”

“It seems that way, yes.” she said.

Dave once more stopped mid-panic.

“Kinda makes sense if you think about it dude.” He said and returned once more to running around like a madman.

I did think about it. It did make sense. Lots of sense. It explained quite a lot actually.

“Oh.” I said.

---

Verse Five.

We all sat around in the hotel room in silence for a while. Dave had ceased his panic dance mainly because he had literally stumbled upon half a bottle of vodka. Once he had picked himself up off the floor he had decided more drinking was the best course of action until a better alternative was presented.

Sarah sat on the sofa with her head in her hands occasionally cursing. I was staring out of the window trying desperately to remember something, anything, about the previous night.

I looked at my watch. 4.23 In the afternoon. Or at least that was the time in the UK. I had no idea what time it was in Cuba. I sat staring at the liquid crystal numbers trying to work out time zones when I noticed the date.

“I think I have solved the mystery of how we managed to travel to Cuba in one night.” I said. “We didn’t.”

“What do you mean we didn’t” said Dave, “Have your brains melted? We’re here. We can’t be here without having got here in the first place can we?”

He was a lot calmer now. The only difference that really made was that he made less noise.

“We didn’t travel here overnight.” I continued, “It’s Wednesday. We have lost three whole days!”

Sarah removed her phone from her pocket and checked the date. The phone agreed with my watch.

“Jesus, he’s right.” she said, “It is Wednesday. What the hell were we drinking?”

“If we drink more of it will all this go away?” asked Dave, holding a now empty bottle up and squinting inside it.

“We have to do something. We can’t just sit here feeling sorry for ourselves.” said Sarah, standing up. “I have a family I need to get back to, they will be worried sick about me.”

“Phone them.” said Dave.

“Yeah, thanks, I hadn’t thought of that.” said Sarah, pulling a face. “The phone says incoming calls only.”

“Well let’s go and find a landline.” I said.

We got ourselves together and prepared to leave the hotel room. Dave had managed to locate some shorts and a shirt and was now dressed more appropriately to his sex, although he did seem pretty annoyed about it.

“Bloody shorts!” he moaned, “They are too tackle tight, they are rubbing me to pieces and very restrictive.”

We secreted the suitcase full of cash in the hotel room’s safe. We didn’t want the maid or room service tripping over it, but we had taken with us a bunch of the loose cash we had found in our pockets. The key to the hotel room was in the lock so we locked the door behind us and headed out into the corridor.

People were going to and fro, doing holiday things. No one gave us a second glance. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It seemed everyone in the hotel saw us as just three more tourists. We took the elevator to the ground floor and entered the hotel lobby.

I asked the man at the reception desk using my impeccable language skills if there was a phone we could use. This involved the thumb and little finger of my hand placed to the side of my head and the word ‘telephono’ repeated in a louder and louder voice. His look told me I was a moron but he directed us to a rank of little cubicles along the far wall. The ones with telephones hanging in each one and a giant picture of a telephone on the wall above them. Sarah headed into one while Dave and I waited outside.

“What do you think dude?” he said in a low voice.

“About what?” I said.

“All of it, this shit?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think we robbed a bank or something?”

“Would we do that? I know we were drunk, but it still seems out of character.”

“Speak for yourself, I have simply never had the balls to do it. Always wanted to.”

“But would we have, really?”

“Probably not.”

“Especially when we were pissed. If we had, we would surely have cocked it up and been arrested?”

“Yeah, but what then?”

“Drugs. This is Cuba.”

“I don’t know which of those two options is worse. At least the rozzers don’t shoot you on sight.”

“They do in Cuba mate.”

“Fuck!”

Sarah emerged from the cubicle. She didn’t look happy.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Can’t remember the bloody number!” she said with exasperation.

“What?”

“All my numbers are in my phone. When I phone anyone I hit a hot key or select a name from a list. I can’t remember any of the actual numbers.”

Dave and I both thought about this for a second and realised we were in exactly the same position. Modern technology had made calling someone easier and less memory intensive but only worked when that very technology was at hand.

“I tried the operator but I don’t speak Cuban or whatever.” She continued.

Another dead end. We headed out into the sunshine. There was a little gift shop in the hotel foyer and we all bought large hats and sunglasses in order to disguise ourselves a little. And, well, it was Cuba in summertime and bloody bright out.

“We’ve done it now!” said Dave.

“What do you mean?” asked Sarah.

“We’ve spent some of the stolen money, there’s no going back now.”

“Dave, you spent the equivalent of four quid on a cheap hat and some fake Ray-Bans, chill.” I said.

We had no idea where we were going, indeed we had no idea where we were so that was no surprise. However, stomachs were growling and hangovers need killing with sausages. We agreed to find somewhere we could acquire sustenance. Preferably something greasy with a cup of tea, a fried slice and bread and butter. Was that likely in Cuba? Judging by all the people in England football shirts and Burberry baseball caps walking around looking they had been recently been involved in some kind of horrific napalm accident, probably.

We selected one of the cleanest establishments from the vast number of greasy spoon ‘English’ cafes we came across and headed into the welcoming shade within. This particular eatery was owned and run by an ex-pat called Gary who happened to be from Sheffield and was ecstatic to meet three people with roughly the same accent. Extra sausages were placed on all our plates on the house in respect of this. He even put fresh tea bags on our table. He winked at us and told us he recycled old tea bags by drying them out on a window ledge for what he called ‘them filthy frogs and jerries’.

Nice guy, that Gary.

Sarah, confirming once again she was the brains of the group despite what she said, seized the opportunity and asked Gary if he could help her reach home on the phone. He said it wouldn’t be a problem and yelled into the dark recesses of the kitchen for his son.

“My boy ’as grew up ‘ere.” He said, “’Ee knows this forrin lingo.”

Gary’s son, who was clearly not Gary’s son but more likely the result of an extra-marital affair between Gary’s wife and a young, bronzed, Cuban life guard, was given instruction and picked up the phone.

There was a fast exchange of ‘forrin’, and Gary Junior put down the phone.

“She says sorry, circuits are down to the mainland. No connections off the island. And there are no numbers listed for the names you gave me” He said, then ran off.

“What the actual fuck?” said Sarah, “Is some weird force working against us?”

“No, but if we could contact anyone at home, they would be able to give us information and that would blow the narrative and spoil the story.” said Dave, “These sausages are fucking magic!”

“What?” Sarah and I asked in unison.

“I said these sausages are magic. Do you not think?”

“No, what did you say before that?” said Sarah.

“I didn’t say anything, just extolling the virtues of a good sausage.” said Dave between chewings, “Ere, is that egg going spare?”

“Help yourself. “ I said, and he did. “You said something about blowing the narrative?”

“Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I would say, what’s got into you two?”

We gave up. We sat in satisfied silence for a while, slurping mugs of hot, sweet tea. The meal had restored us form shambling wrecks to almost human. Dave finally finished eating his meal, half of mine and most of Sarah’s. He leant back in his seat, let out a deafening belch, said “Better out than in” and rubbed his stomach with something akin to pride.

“Better?” I asked him.

“Too right!”

He belched again and a piece of half chewed sausage was ejected from his gullet by the force of the escaping gas.

It shot across the table accompanied by a foul stench that made the varnish on the table blister and my eyes water, even at three feet distant. It narrowly missed my right ear and followed a parabolic trajectory over my shoulder, landing with a small ‘plip’ in a cup of tea a man behind me was just lifting to his lips.

I gagged as the man failed to notice and took a big gulp from his cup. I looked at Dave who was sitting there with a manic grin on his face as if he had just performed an amazing feat of skill. He winked at me.

“Bloody marvellous.” He said.

Gary had watched this from behind the counter and gave Dave a round of applause before miming a Nazi salute complete with finger moustache and pointed to the tea-drinking man.

Dave bowed slightly and saluted to Gary who disappeared into his kitchen laughing.

“So what now?” asked Sarah, oblivious to the disgusting events that had just taken place.

Glad to get back to some form of sanity, I turned my attention to her.

“Fucked if I know.” I said with a shrug.

Well, that was helpful.

I taxed my insufficient mind to the limit to try to think of a solution, a next step, anything.

“I am going to go back to bed.” I said.

I got up and dumped some money on the table, then headed out of the door. A few minutes later, Sarah and Dave followed, running to catch up.

“What do you mean you’re going back to bed Mike?” said Sarah, “We have to figure out what is happening.”

“Yeah.” Added Dave.

“I know.” I said.

“Well, how does going back to bed solve anything?” said Sarah.

“Yeah.” Added Dave.

“It doesn’t.” I said.

“What the hell is wrong with you Mike?” said Sarah.

“Yeah.” Added Dave.

“You mean, apart from the situation we are in?” I said.

Sarah grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me walking away, spinning me around to face her.

“Mike.” She said, “I need you to help me here. I have to get back to my family.”

“Yeah.” Added Dave.

“I intend to Sarah.” I said, “But I am very hungover. I have just eaten, and I have no idea what to do. I intend to come up with some kind of plan, idea, anything but I am going to do it lying on my back in the sun on one of those hammocks over there, with a very large drink in my hand containing a huge amount of ice, and I mean a HUGE amount of ice.”

“But that is not going to achieve anything Mike!” said Sarah.

“Yeah.” Added Dave, “Wait, what?”

“Does anyone have any better ideas right now?” I asked.

“Lying on my back in the sun with a long, cold drink in my hand seems like a good idea to me Sarah.” said Dave.

Sarah looked at me for a moment as if she was going to say something else, then shook her head and looked at the floor. I felt bad for snapping at her but I also felt like I was about to fall over. I needed to rest and the hammocks looked very inviting.

Dave and I turned and walked towards the hammocks lined across the beach.

After a few seconds, Sarah shrugged and followed us.

All three of us lay in the hammocks in silence for quite a while. Drinks were ordered with massive quantities of ice. The sun was warm, the sky clear and endless. We were far enough away from the road for the noise of the traffic and tourists to be nothing more than a distant hum.

I thought about our predicament. To my mind the idea of being stuck in a tropical paradise with shit loads of cash seemed a step up in life. I had no real ties back home, nothing to get back to that I really gave a shit about. But Sarah really needed to get back to her family.

There was also the troubling question of the money. Where had it come from? It had to be stolen. That was really the only explanation.  And it didn’t really matter who it was stolen from. That amount of cash does not just disappear without someone looking for it with great determination.

So we would either be arrested or we would be gunned down by drug runners. Neither of those options seemed particularly appealing to me.

“So the money must be stolen.” I said.

“Most likely.” said Sarah.

Dave had already fallen asleep and simply made a repetitive grunting noise.

“Which means someone is looking for it.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“We could just go and get on a plane right now and go home. But we don’t know if we would be arrested as soon as we touched down in blighty.”

“I can’t go to jail Mike.”

“I know. So we need to figure out where the money came from before we do anything else.”

“Right.”

“Let’s relocate to a bar.”

“What, now you want to go and get pissed again?”

“No, find an English bar with a TV and scan the news, see if anything comes up.”

“That’s actually quite a good idea.”

“Told you I would think of something.”

At that moment a small, skinny man sidled up to us. Dressed in cargo shorts, sandals and a Tommy Bahama shirt five sizes too big for him, he reminded me of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, only with a better tan.

“Heeeeyyyyyyy!” he exclaimed loudly as he reached us.

Dave woke up with a start at the noise and spilled his drink down the front of his shorts.

“What the…oh Christ, that’s cold.” He said, jumping from his hammock and dancing around. Ice cubes flew everywhere.

“Bradders, Taggers, Pop!” said the man, unfazed by Dave’s ice cube dance. “I have been looking for you everywhere.”

“Wait, do you know us?” said Sarah.

“Do I know you? I’m hurt Taggers.” said the man, “We’re old friends.”

I punched Sarah playfully on the shoulder.

“Told you I would think of something.” I said.

She gave me a dirty look which promised much pain later before addressing the man again.

“Well, you sort of know our names, except Pop, who’s Pop?”

“Pop?” said the man, “This is Pop here with the soggy groin, although this is the first time I have seen him in men’s clothes.”

“Pop!” said Dave, “Pop! Why’re you calling me Pop? Do you think I am a tellytubby or something?”

“That’s what you said your name was.” explained the man, backing away slightly.

“Oh.” said Dave, “Well, I guess that’s okay then. Good point.”

“So who are you?” I asked.

“Man, how hard did you guys hit it last night?” he said.

“Pretty hard, apparently. “ I said, “So….”

“The name’s Crackel.” He said. “Crackel by name, Crackel by nature.”

“I really have no desire to know what he means by that.” said Dave.

“I will change my name to Snap and we’ll be famous.” I said.

I ducked my head and avoided the slap I knew was coming. I looked at Sarah and laughed.

“Ha ha.” I knew you were gonna…..arrrrgghhh!”

She kicked me in the shins.

“Look Crackel.” She said, “We drank quite a lot last night and we don’t really remember much, can you help us fill in some blanks.”

“It’s more likely it was all the drugs you were taking. I never seen anybody take that many drugs without dying in very unpleasant ways” said Crackel, “That’s probably why your minds are blank. I told you it would end this way.”

“What sort of drugs and do you know why?” I said, rubbing my shins.

“All sorts and I don’t know why.” said Crackel, “Ask Pop, he was passing them out to everybody.”

Sarah and I looked at Dave.

“What? I have no idea what he’s talking about, honestly.” He said.

“Dave, you know as well as I do, if drugs are involved, it was probably your idea.” I said.

“Not necessarily.” He said with an innocent expression.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember Aviemore? Remember Alyth? Remember Blackpool? Remember fucking Ibiza?” I said.

“None of those were my fault Mike.”

“Yeah, you come in with bags of pills, say ‘Look what I got’, talk me into taking them or in the case of Ibiza, slipping me a mickey, and all hell breaks loose.”

“It was a laugh though.” said Dave.

“Yeah. The truncheons, the gangs, that poor horse, the fights, the villagers rioting, the pitchforks, the flames, the army, that tank – A FUCKING TANK FOR GODS SAKE – laugh a fucking minute mate.” I said.

“I still feel bad for the horse. We had some fun though, remember the guy with the wig?”

“Oh yeah. Hur hur hur, the guy with the wig, I forgot that one haha. HE WAS THE ONE WHO CALLED IN THE ARMY YOU DAFT CUNT!” I screamed.

“Okay, okay.“ said Dave, holding up his hands, “Mistakes were made, it’s all in the past now isn’t it? Let’s forget about it?”

“We can’t Dave. Because it seems you have done it again. It’s happening again. Right now!”

I tried to calm myself down. Thinking about kittens helped. Thinking about kittens in top hats and dinner jackets helped even more. I took a few deep breaths.

“So, that explains why we can’t remember a thing Sarah.” I said. “Jim fucking Morrison here filled us with drugs.”

Sarah wasn’t really surprised. She knew Dave as well as I did.

Crackel was watching all this with mild interest.

“You guys are crazy!” he said.

“So, we will be honest with you Crackel.” I said, “We all woke up a few hours ago with no idea of how we got here or what has happened over the last three days. Can you help us?”

“I am not really surprised guys.” said Crackel, “The last time I saw you, you were not making much sense and looked totally wasted, that was yesterday morning.”

“So be a dear and just tell us what you know.” said Sarah, with a look on her face that clearly illustrated that his only other option was a broken face.

Crackel’s bony knees knocked together audibly.

“No problem my friends.” He said and began his story.

We had apparently arrived on the island on Sunday evening, completely pissed. So much so that Dave and I were physically thrown off the plane for doing something untoward with peanuts. Crackel didn’t know exactly what. At first he was quite attracted to the one in the dress. He thought the bald head and goatee beard was a unique look but really appreciated women who stood out from the crowd and dared to be a little different. Then when Dave hit the floor face first, his dress rose up over his head, exposing his naked arse and gentleman’s area to the world and Crackel was sick.

Sarah was frogmarched off the plane shortly afterwards followed by a man in uniform who was rubbing his shins and grimacing. The uniform ordered her off the plane and Sarah walked on to the runway tarmac waving her hands in supplication. She then kicked me in the head and, as Dave was lying face down with his naked buttocks in the air, gave him a swift boot in the plums. She was yelling something, Crackel was too far away to hear what.

“You cow!” interrupted Dave, I wondered why one of them had swollen up to the size of a grapefruit!”

“You probably deserved it Dave.” Said Sarah.

Dave thought for a minute and then nodded.

“You’re probably right.”

Crackel continued:

Crackel was a fixer. A self-employed man, he worked in the field of helping people get what they wanted. He would offer his services to tourists and visitors arriving on the island. When he saw us he thought he had hit the mother lode. He immediately introduced himself.

He helped us retrieve our property from the plane, the airport security had impounded it for searches but Crackel’s contacts in the airport and a wedge of cash helped them accidentally misplace it.

When we heard of Crackel’s status of a wide boy fixer, we apparently employed his services and gave him a list of things to do and things to find. He told us it might take a while to get some of the items on the list and we said we had a few days to kill anyway. He showed us to a hotel and we attended a huge pool party there and got even drunker.

At some point in the early hours, the party still raging, Dave (or ‘Pop’ as Crackel was still calling him) sent Crackel off with another list and a huge pile of cash.

Some hours later, Crackel returned with a large selection of narcotics and things stepped up a gear.

We were all at this point beginning to tire so it didn’t take much for Dave to convince us that we needed some ‘uppers’ to keep going. Crackel was aware we thought it was incredibly important not to fall asleep but had no idea why.

We apparently disappeared somewhere early on Monday morning and Crackel didn’t catch up with us again until that evening. We were still off our heads and making less and less sense. We just wanted to have some more fun so Crackel took us to a big party which was taking place on various yachts anchored just offshore. We apparently got into some trouble there and we disappeared again. Crackel found us on the beach the next morning playing poker with half a deck of cards.

I yelled at him to get the stuff we had asked for and he scuttled off to do it. He hadn’t seen us since until he noticed us lying on the hammocks five minutes ago.

We all stood and listened to him, he had filled in some of the blanks but the larger mysteries were still unknown.

“What about the mmmmmppphh?” asked Sarah.

I put my hand over her mouth before she finished the question. I dragged her and Dave a few feet away and we formed up into a huddle.

“What the hell Mike?” she said.

“Look, I just had a thought.” I whispered, “I know we want to find out where the money came from, amongst other things, but we don’t know who knows we have it, who may be looking for it or who may want to hurt us to take it from us.”

“Fair point Trace.” said Dave.

“Yes, but then how the hell do we find out?” she said.

“We’ll just have to be sneaky.”

We all turned back to face Crackel who was craning his neck trying to hear what we were saying. When he noticed us turn, he quickly stopped and smiled at us.

“Crackel?” I said.

“Yes Bradders.”

“Did you happen to notice what luggage we brought with us from the airport?”

“Yeah, one of the first things I helped you with, getting that big, black case from the airport security guys.”

“Do you, by any chance, happen to know what was in it?”

“Oh very sneaky Mike, you should’ve been a spy!” said Sarah, giving me a withering look.

“No, no idea.” said Crackel, “Must be something important though, right. Something valuable? Something worth a lot of money perhaps? You were very keen on getting it back.”

“Nope.” said Dave, “Just my collection of old spanners. Been in the family for years. Great sentimental value to me, but not worth shit.”

Dave looked at me and winked. “That put him off the trail eh?” he whispered, covering his mouth with his hand.

“Fucking bulletproof mate.” I said.

“So do you want this stuff or not?” said Crackel, “I do have other clients you know.”

“What stuff?” said Sarah.

“The stuff you asked me to get.”

“What stuff?” I said.

“The car and…” he looked around and lowered his voice, “…the other stuff.”

“What car?” said Dave.

We really were getting nowhere here.

“Christ!” said Crackel, “Look, you asked me to get you some items, you paid me, and I got them.” He threw some keys at us. “The car is in front of the hotel, the….other stuff…is in the car. Have fun, let me know if you need anything else.”

He looked at Dave and winked.

“Bye Pop. Give me a call later maybe?” He said, with a cheeky smile.

Then he walked briskly away.

Dave looked at me and Sarah.

“What the fuck do you think he meant by that?” he asked, slightly concerned.

“I think Crackel has a thing for Pop.” I said, “I have changed my mind about changing my name to ‘Snap’ now. Dress or no dress, I don’t want in on your crazy sex games buddy.”

Dave looked down at himself forlornly.

“I miss my dress.” He said.

“Right, so, at least we know we brought the money here from somewhere else.” said Sarah. “So we can be reasonably sure we didn’t steal it from anyone on the island.”

“Fair assumption.” I agreed.

“Let’s go and find this car.” She said and marched off back towards the hotel.

“It was so pretty.” said Dave.

---

Verse Six.

We arrived back at the hotel hot, sweaty and still considerably confused with our situation. Dave had taken the reasonable course of action, given the circumstances, of getting drunk again. He had gone into a shop and bought a large bottle of Tequila and had already drank a quarter of it.

“If we asked Crackel to get us a car, how are we going to recognise it?” asked Sarah.

It was really quite easy.

Sitting right outside the hotel entrance was a 1968 Ford Mustang GT500 Fastback, with a Shelby racing paint job. My favourite car of all time, ever. It was very big and very shiny.

“If I was very drunk and had lots of money, that’s the car I would have asked for.” I said.

I tried the key in the passenger door, it turned easily. I opened the door, got in and started looking through the glove box and door pockets for any clues or…’other things’. Dave ran around to the other side giggling like a schoolboy and I unlocked the driver’s door for him to get in. He sat rubbing the steering wheel. Sarah appeared at the door and slapped him around the back of the head.

“Oy, pisshead, in the back.” She said.

“Ouch!”

Dave crawled into the back seat muttering, while Sarah got in and closed the door behind her. She looked in the little storage compartments dotted around her side of the car. We both came up with nothing.

“Guys, there’s a big box back here.” said Dave, swigging from his bottle.

We both turned to see.

“What’s in it?” I asked.

Dave opened the wooden crate and we all gasped.

“More guns!” he said. “Big ‘uns too.”

They both looked at me.

“What? I don’t know what they are.”

Four eyebrows were raised.

“Okay, okay, they are Type 4A/B gas operated Kalashnikov 7.62x39mm assault rifles. Satisfied?”

“AK’s?” said Dave, “Cool!”

“DON’T touch them!” said Sarah.

Dave closed the lid of the crate, muttering once more. He did more drinkings from his bottle.

“Okay, one handgun. Bad. Really bad, but I could possibly see why we thought we would need one.” said Sarah, “A crate of assault rifles? Not so much. This is getting worse!”

“I agree.” I agreed.

“We now have a stupidly huge car and a big box of guns. What now?” she said.

“Erm…” said Dave from the back seat.

“It’s not a stupid car. It’s lovely.” I said,

“Erm…” said Dave.

“I didn’t say it was a stupid car, I said it was stupidly big, but now you come to mention it, it is a stupid car.” Said Sarah.

“Erm…”

“How can you say it’s stupid? Look at it. It’s a classic.” I said.

“Erm…”

“I am looking at it, there’s enough of it to look at. It’s classic pile of junk. I can’t even see the end of the bonnet. It’s stupid.”

“Erm…”

“What the fuck do you keep ‘erm’ ing for Dave?” I shouted.

“Erm…bad guys!” he said.

“What?”

“Right, so a big black car pulled up and a load of guys in black suits and shades got out. They talked amongst themselves while pointing at the hotel.”

“So?” I said.

“So, I have seen enough TV to know they are bad guys. This was confirmed when they noticed me looking at them and pointed at me.”

“Shit!”

We all looked out of the rear window and saw four men in suits walking slowly towards our car. I kept my eyes on them and slowly handed the car keys to Sarah.

“Start the car Sarah.” I said.

“I can’t drive this thing, it’s as big as a house!” she said.

“No time, start the car.”

The men were getting closer and closer. They were definitely bad guys. Or were they the good guys and were we the bad guys? I didn’t care, they didn’t look friendly and that was enough for me.

Sarah put the keys in the ignition and the car rumbled into life. She put on her seatbelt and looked around to familiarise herself with the controls. At the sound of the engine starting the men all started to reach their hands into their jackets.

“Fuck! They’ve got guns. They’re gonna fucking kill us!” screamed Dave, throwing himself down on the rear seat.

I noticed he did not drop his bottle nor spill a single drop of Tequila. That man has strange priorities.

Sarah put the car in gear, mashed the accelerator, gunned the engine and we tore off amidst squealing tyres, smoke and the low, angry rumble of a highly tuned V8.

Hollywood.

The four men pulled handguns from their jackets and opened fire at the car. Most of the bullets missed because the car was weaving madly from side to side as we tore away, the rear wheels spinning and leaving oily, black marks on the road behind us.

There was a ‘kerchink’ a ‘pet-ting’ and a ‘plunk’ as several bullets hit the car. The rear window exploded in a kaleidoscope of spinning glass fragments. I glanced down at Dave to see if he had sustained any damage. He was curled up with his arm over his head, covered in glass. He was well enough to still be drinking from his bottle so I assumed he was okay.

We put some distance between us and the suited men. I could see them in the distance running back to their car.

“They’re coming after us?” I said.

“Where the fuck do we go?” said Sarah.

“I don’t fucking care!” yelled Dave, “Just away!”

The car flew along the crowded street. Terrified tourists screamed and jumped out of the way. Sarah clipped a small ice cream cart and sent it flying up into the air. Ice lollies and ice creams scattered everywhere and an army of little children came from nowhere to gather up the free goodies. The cart landed in a twisted heap in the middle of the road. I sniggered as the bad guys swerved to avoid it and span off the road.

“Yes!” I yelled over the roar of the engine, “That was amazing Sarah.”

She glanced at me, then back at the road and then back at me.

“What was?” she said.

Sarah had got the measure of the car now and was throwing it around like a Finnish rally driver. We left the town behind and emerged onto a winding coastal road. There were thick trees to one side and a large and perilous drop down to jagged rocks on the other. The road started to climb up and the cliff got higher and higher.

I looked out of the rear window, hoping that we had given our pursuers the slip. Unlikely given that there was only one road, but I could hope. The road behind was empty and I gave a sigh of relief. Then a small black dot tore around a corner in the distance.

“Shit!” I said, “They are still there.”

We barrelled along the road, the Mustang giving all she had. It may have been fast in a straight line but it drove like a truck on the bendy stuff. Sarah was having to slow down substantially on every corner just to keep it on the road. The black car was much more nimble and started to catch up.

It was like a vehicular game of cat and mouse. When we were on a straight bit of road we would pull away, but then we hit some corners and the bad guys would catch up again.

Then we came onto a bit of road with no straights anymore. The bad guys pulled right up behind us. The guys in the back seats wound down their windows and I saw an arm holding a gun emerge on each side.

“Watch out!” I yelled.

There were more interesting little noises as bullets ricocheted off the cars bodywork. Something hit the headrest of my seat with a scary sounding ‘woomph’.

Luckily the bad guys were finding it hard to get off clean shots as the corners and generally bad road surface was throwing them around too much. After a volley of gunfire they stopped to reload. I scrambled over the seat into the back, landing on top of Dave.

“Oy, watch it!” he squealed.

I ripped open the wooden crate and pulled a rifle out, checked the magazine, primed the bolt and passed it to Dave.

“What do you want me to do with that?” he said.

“Shoot the bad guys, numbnuts.” I screamed.

“Fuck that, I am staying down here!”

“Dave, they’re gonna fucking kill us! Fire the damn gun!”

He scrambled out from underneath me, took the gun and kneeled on the back seat with the gun pointing out of the rear window. I grabbed a weapon for myself and joined him.

“Nothing’s fucking happening!” screamed Dave.

I reached over and clicked the safety to off.

There was a deafening burst of gunfire. Dave flew backwards through the air, landing in the foot well on his back. The fire from his gun cut an ugly slice in the roof of our car. I looked down at him, smoke drifting slowly from the barrel of his AK.

“Fuck me!” was all he said.

I grabbed his extended hand and helped pull him from the foot well. We both opened fire on the pursuing vehicle. The driver of the bad guy’s car saw two assault rifles being levelled squarely at him and backed off slightly, weaving from left to right to avoid the fire. This and the fact our car was careering madly as Sarah flung it around a multitude of corners meant the only damage we did was to the trees along the side of the road. But it kept the bad guys from shooting back at us.

The ground on our right had levelled out and begun to drop. We seemed to be on a road which traversed the ridge of a small mountain. There were drops on both sides of the road now. Happily the road also straightened out slightly so we were able to gain some speed.

I showed Dave how to reload his weapon and we waited for the bad guys to come into range again. When they did we would fire a burst and they would weave away.

It worked but we couldn’t keep it up forever. There was only so much ammunition in the crate.

Dave scored a lucky hit and the bad guy’s windscreen exploded. Their car slowed down and we took the opportunity to reload.

The driver bad guy must have seen us do this and took his own opportunity. He pulled up close and his friends raised their weapons and opened fire. More bullets flew around us. This couldn’t go on. No one had been hit yet but it was just a matter of time.

A bullet hit the window frame right beside Dave’s head and he jumped instinctively. His knee hit the half bottle of Tequila he had propped on the seat beside him, knocking it over and spilling the contents.

“MOTHER FUCKERSSS!!” he screamed.

He levelled his gun at the bad guy’s car and nothing happened, it had overheated and jammed. He screamed again, picked up the now empty bottle and went to throw it out of the window towards the bad guys.

The world went into slow motion again.

I glanced towards the front of the car to check on Sarah. She was wrestling with the wheel, her face locked in a grimace of fear and concentration. Her jaw clenched and the muscles in her cheeks tensed.

I looked back at Dave. He was staring out of the window, screaming like a medieval warrior about to go into battle. Little flecks of spit flying out of his mouth. Clouds of paint dust and sparks erupting around him as bullets missed him by inches.

His arm span around and the bottle left his grasp, spinning through the air. It covered the distance between the cars in an arrow straight line. I followed its progress. As it got closer and closer to its target, I saw the driver of the car behind notice its trajectory. His mouth formed a perfect circle as he realised it was going to hit him. He tried to move out of the way but he was too late. The bottle hit him square in the face, shattering into a million pieces and neatly breaking his sunglasses in two along the bridge. The two pieces fell away to each side and I saw blood gush from his nose. He put his hands to his face and the car veered sharply off to the side.

It almost overtook us and launched over the edge of the cliff to our left. It hit a lip of small, white painted stones running along the edge and flew into the air before arcing downwards towards the sea below. The driver was still holding his face, blood oozing between his fingers. One of the men in the back seat was holding on to the seat in front of him, his mouth wide open in a scream. The other must have been more devoted to the cause because even in the face of doom he pointed his gun straight at us and fired off three shots before the car disappeared from sight below the cliff edge.

One of the bullets came in the side window, grazed my right shoulder and shot out of the window on the other side. One of them hit the rear wheel arch and ricocheted up into the rear of the cabin, hitting Dave in the groin. The final bullet hit the left rear tyre.

The world sped up again. There was a huge bang as the tyre exploded. Little bits of supersonic, smoking rubber flew everywhere, some of them hit the wheel arch with such force they punched through the thin metal and pummelled me and Dave like a hundred angry bees.

The car lurched violently to one side and then back to the other as Sarah tried desperately to correct for the over steer. Sparks flew as the wheel rim hit the concrete of the road. Sarah slammed on the brakes and tried to slow us down but it was already too late. The car made one last sickening lurch to the side and we careered off the road.

I briefly thanked the gods that we had spun off to the land side of the road and not plummeted into the sea like the bad guys, but then I saw nothing but sky through the windscreen and decided not to count any chickens just yet.

We were airborne for what seemed like an age but then we crashed down to earth again with the noise of tortured metal and destroyed shock absorbers. Dave flew backwards again, through the gap in the front seats, ending up sitting backwards in the front passenger seat with his legs in the air. The front of his shorts covered in blood.

I was thrown up into the air, hit the roof and came down with a thud in the foot well. A large crate full of heavy guns landed on top of me.

Sarah, being the smart one among us and choosing to fasten her seatbelt before setting off, stayed strapped securely in her seat.

We started gathering speed down a wooded hillside, smashing through the undergrowth and destroying trees on the way. The noise was awful.

Sarah put her hands back on the wheel and tried to control our descent. She pumped the brakes but all that did was lock the wheels up and take away any small amount of control she had. The car did a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn, all three of us screaming like we were on a roller coaster before Sarah released the brakes and the wheels caught some traction and continued rolling us down the hill in a straight line.

I scrambled up from the foot well and peered over the seats. Dave was looking straight at me. He didn’t seem to have noticed he had been shot. There was a loud bang from the left rear of the car. Dave and I both looked out of the window on that side only to see a mangled and bent wheel overtaking us.

We both looked back at each other and screamed.

Sarah was performing miracles keeping the car in a straight line. She was even managing to steer it, avoiding the bigger trees and driving diagonally down the hill to try and slow us down. Then I saw her mouth fall open. I followed her line of sight and saw what she saw. The ground in front of us just disappeared. It must have been a cliff.

I decided that from the distance of the land we could see beyond that it was a big drop. It just had that look of being very far away.

“We have to jump!” I yelled.

They both looked at me like I was a tap dancing elephant.

“Get out and jump now, or we are going to die!”

Sarah didn’t take much persuasion. She had seen the drop ahead. She opened the car door and threw herself out. Now no one was steering the car and we began to spin out of control again.

I threw myself back into the front compartment of the car and once again landed on Dave.

“For fucks sake!” he screamed, “Stop doing that!”

I opened the passenger door and grabbed a handful of his shirt, dragging him with me. At that moment the car span lazily to the right and hit a huge tree. The impact ejected Dave and I from the car and we landed in a heap on the ground, rolling and bouncing down the hill in a confusing tangle of limbs.

There were lots of ‘ouches’, ‘oofs’ ‘arrghhs’ and a high pitched ‘fucksocks’ as I rolled directly into a sapling with my bollocks. It snapped off and followed us down along with half a smashed wooden crate, a solitary AK47 with a bent barrel, hundreds of rocks and stones and various other debris.

We had managed to stop rolling over and over now and were simply sliding down a greasy, muddy hillside on our back sides, holding on to each other and screaming.

There was a really horrible noise behind us. Screeching metal and breaking glass. We both looked around to see what it was. It was the car. It was sliding along on its roof behind us, all the windows had gone and it was seriously dented and broken. I remember thinking that it had definitely lost all its resale value now and then thinking that was a really odd thought to have at this point in my life.

We were fast coming up on the drop we had jumped out of the car to avoid and now it looked like we would be going over anyway.

We both held on tight to each other as we flew off the edge.

The drop was about ten feet.

We somersaulted through the air over a small ditch and landed on our backs facing back up the hill. We both looked at each other, surprised we had survived and started laughing.

Then there was a really, really horrible noise.

We looked back up the hill to see a, once cherry, 1968 Ford Mustang GT500 Fastback with Shelby racing paint job clip a small tree on the lip of the drop and spin, nose over tail, towards us.

We grabbed each other like scared children and screamed our lungs out.

Killed by my favourite car. Typical. Squashed to death by something I loved.

As the car span towards us, its great bulk forced it to take a shorter arc than the two men from Bolsover who had recently taken the same journey. The bonnet clipped the ground, the impact removing all velocity, and the car dug a furrow in the loose earth as it slowly came to a stop.

It finally halted about a foot away from us. The boot of the car hovering directly above us.

There was a small clicking noise and the boot fell open. We were suddenly hit by an impossible number of red M&Ms, a fully inflated inflatable sex doll, a stuffed badger and several hundred copies of ‘Jagged Little Pill’ by Alanis Morrissette on CD.

Ah, the ‘other things’ Crackel had spoken of.

A few minutes later Sarah walked towards us and found a giggling mountain of red M&Ms.

“Jesus! Are you two okay?” she said, digging among the sweet mountain.

We were both filthy, covered head to toe in mud and leaves. We had cuts and bruises all over our bodies and twigs in our hair. Well, I had twigs in my hair. Dave had some smaller twigs in his beard.

I looked up at Sarah. She didn’t have a mark on her. She had a small patch of mud on her left cheek but apart from that she looked like she had just stepped out of the shower.

“I think we’re fine Sarah.” I said, gingerly getting to my feet and brushing off the M&Ms. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“Do what?” she said.

“Not get a mark on you?”

She shrugged.

I remembered seeing Dave get shot.

“Fuck! Dave, are you alright?” I said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He said, still lying on the floor, casually throwing M&M’s into his mouth.

“I saw you get shot!”

“You did what now?”

“In the car, I saw a bullet hit you in the…in the…somewhere painful.”

“What!” he looked down and saw the blood on his shorts.

“Oh mammy!” he said. “Oh they shot me knackers off!”

“Holy shit!” said Sarah, putting her hands to her mouth in shock.

“Oh Jesus and his little lambs, I’ve been castrated!”

He was thrashing around and making very odd noises.

“Let me look!” I said.

“Get fucked you poof!” he screamed, “I’ve been shot in the tezzies and your first thought is getting a gawp at me mangled man parts. You’re a sick man Mike.”

“No you twat!” I said, “Let me see how bad it is, we have to stop the bleeding.”

“Oh, okay then.” He said.

I pulled his shorts down and examined the damage. Sarah turned away.

“Oh fuck dude!” I said, “It’s disgusting!”

“Oh god, it’s all been blended hasn’t it. Nothing left but chopped meat. I’m nothing but an action man doll!”

“Get up you fool, you’re fine.” I said, “It just grazed your thigh.”

“What?” he said with relief, “I’m not a eunuch?!

“No, you’re not, see for yourself.”

He checked himself out and smiled.

“Thank god for that.” He said, pulling his shorts back up, “I am still a man!”

“Yes, a man who likes wearing dresses.”

“Who cares? Not me, I am making a new start. I feel born again. God has given me a chance and I intend to take it. From now on I am a changed person!”

“Don’t forget about the bad guys who are chasing us with guns Dave.” said Sarah.

“Oh shit!” said Dave, “Fuck you God, you’re a massive tit!”

---

Verse Seven.

We trudged through fields and farmlands. We had no idea where we were or where we were going. However, that was nothing out of the ordinary lately. We had decided to get as far away from the smoking, twisted wreckage of the car as possible. We didn’t know if anyone else was looking for us and the smouldering vehicle and the scar it had created in the landscape on its way down the hill was easy to spot.

Dave was obsessed with the small hole that had been punched through the crotch of his shorts. He kept looking at it and remarking how lucky he was. He had forgotten how unlucky it was to be in a position where four armed men are shooting at you in the first place, but such is the human mind.

“One thing is really bothering me.” said Sarah as we shuffled along. “Did we just kill four people?”

“I am erring on the side of they killed themselves.” I said. “They drove off the road.”

“Yes. But only because Dave sconed the driver with a Tequila bottle!” she said.

“Don’t put this on me, Mike was shooting at them!” said Dave.

“Would you rather they be still chasing us?” I asked.

A chorus of ‘no’s.

“They were bad guys, they probably deserved it.” I said, “Anyway, isn’t it in a henchman’s job description that they might die in the line of duty?”

“Who were they?” asked Sarah.

“The Mafia.” said Dave.

“The Mafia?” I asked.

“Yeah. You never seen ‘The Sopranos’? ‘Goodfellas’? ‘The Godfather’? Evil guys in suits and shades, it’s always the Mafia.”

“But the Mafia? In Cuba? Aren’t they Italian or American?” said Sarah.

“Okay then, the Russian Mafia.” said Dave.

“That actually makes sense Dave.” I said, “The Russians have lots of ties in Cuba.”

“Yeah, that whole ‘Bane of Twigs’ thing in the 30’s” he said, triumphantly.

“Bay of Pigs in the 60’s, but close enough, did they look Russian to you guys?” I said.

“They were not Cuban.” said Sarah, “Or if they are they have spent an awful lot of time indoors.”

“Pale European skin, blonde hair, buzz cuts.” said Dave, “As Russian as you can get if you ask me.”

“Great, so we have managed to piss off the Russian Mafia!” said Sarah.

“But if we had the money when we arrived here, how are the Russians here pissed at us?” I asked.

“Maybe we went to Russia first?” said Dave, “We have lost three days.”

“But Crackel said we arrived Sunday night, that’s not enough time to go to Russia and then get here.” said Sarah.

“Either way, I think now we can assume we didn’t rob a bank or something.” I said.

“How do you figure?” asked Dave.

“Well, I can’t see the Russians helping the authorities track down bank robbers. Chances are we ripped off the Russians or something, I don’t know how or why, but that makes more sense. Plus, if we robbed a bank and fled here, why is all the money Cuban? I can’t see us stopping off at a travel agents and getting a million quid converted into pesos with the cops chasing us.”

“Good thinking mate!” said Dave.

“Sometimes my brain works.” I said, smiling.

“I think you may be right Mike.” said Sarah, “I’ve been thinking about this. Remember a few months ago when we chatting online about life being boring and generally shit?”

“Yes. I thought about that too.” I said.

“What?” asked Dave, “What were you talking about? Did it involve me? Why wasn’t I included? What was it?”

“Nothing really, we were just dreaming.” said Sarah.

“Tell me!” said Dave looking hurt, “Is it a secret? Why won’t you tell me?”

“It’s not a secret you goit!” said Sarah, cuffing Dave around the back of the head once more.

“Ouch!”

I decided if Dave and I were ever hospitalised with brain damage, Sarah was being sent the medical bills.

“We were just talking about how great it would be to just fuck off and live on a beach somewhere.” She said.

“And I joked we should go to South America, knock off a drugs cartel and steal all their stuff, then live a millionaire lifestyle on the ill-gotten gains.” I added. “I particularly enjoyed the image of Sarah being the sexy, female head of the organisation, lounging around in silk lingerie in a huge mansion, sleeping with all the young henchmen and then having them shot for her pleasure!”

“Hrrrrrr!” said Dave, rubbing himself a little while leering at Sarah, “That’s an interesting image!”

We both received a slap around the back of the head for those comments. I’m telling you, all these slaps mount up. Boxers have been hit in the head less!

“Shut up!” said Sarah, “But what if we got really drunk, started talking about that again and decided to do it for real?”

“That’s my fear.”  I said. “Would we really do that?”

“Suppose it depends how drunk we were.” said Dave, “I would have been easy to convince I know that.”

“But you’re easily convinced to do pretty much anything.” I said.

“True.” He said, “I really should take some time and reflect upon my life one day. Analyse my decision making processes and try to understand why I am so happy to escape from my daily existence.”

Sarah and I looked at him.

“That was pretty deep Dave.” She said.

“What? What was?” he said, “I need a drink. Can we find a town or something?”

We shook our heads and smiled. Dave was a simple man with simple goals.

“So, all that said, maybe we just go and get on a plane and go home?” I said, “Take the chance the police aren’t looking for us. Sort it all out when we get back to Blighty? At least we’ll be on home turf.”

“I don’t like that.” said Dave, “What if the Russians are waiting for us. They can shoot us in Boza just as easily as here!”

“Better ideas?” I asked.

A chorus of ‘no’s.

“So, airport, plane, home?” I said.

“Can’t think of a better plan, so yes.” said Dave.

“I need to get home.” said Sarah.

“What about the money?” asked Dave.

“We have enough with us to buy tickets home.” I said, “Leave the rest where it is. Maybe the Russians will find it and this will all sort itself out.”

They both nodded and we walked on.

It was dark when we reached civilisation. We had walked through the fields for hours and we were exhausted. When we stumbled into the small village we managed to find a taxi and mimed the international code for airport; running around in circles with outstretched arms making ‘eeeeeeeeeeoooaarrrrrr’ noises.

The Cuban taxi driver looked bewildered for a moment. I think I would have been the same if two blokes covered from head to toe in mud and foliage, with more than a few bloodstains, suddenly stumbled out of the bushes and started twirling around like madmen doing aeroplane impressions in the middle of the road.

He smiled and nodded when Sarah simply said: “Airport.”

“It’s the same word pretty much everywhere you morons.” She said.

We piled into the taxi and headed off into the darkness, bound for a flight and the green, green grass of home.

It took about seven minutes to get there. We could easily have walked. We shrugged our collective shoulders and paid the driver. We entered the airport, receiving odd glances from all we saw. We purchased three first class tickets to London from the desk and headed to the lounge to await embarkation.

Dave and I took the opportunity to clean up. We purchased clothes from the duty free store, more beach wear sadly, and headed to the bathroom. I had a difficult job persuading Dave that we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves so he shouldn’t purchase a dress.

We walked back to the lounge. I was trying to ignore Dave’s constant complaints about it being every man’s right to dress how he saw fit and that it was actually sexist for society to cast judgement on men who just liked a little fresh air and freedom in their lower halves.

As we walked down a narrow corridor towards the lounge, we both noticed that it was devoid of Tracys. It was Tracyless.

We slowed our movement a little, feeling a tinge of concern. Dave fell back and hid behind me, walking along in a semi-crouch, peering worriedly over my shoulder.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

“She’s probably just gone to the bathroom Dave.”

“Yeah maybe.”

We passed a door leading to a small area full of luggage lockers. Two arms shot out of the doorway and dragged us both inside.

“Oh shit biscuits we’re gonna die!” screamed Dave.

Dave fell backwards and landed on his arse on the floor. I span around to face our attackers and tried to look scary.

It was Sarah. She put her finger to her lips.

“Sshhh!” she said, because we hadn’t got that from the finger on the lips thing. She pulled the door closed leaving just a sliver she could spy through.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

She pointed through the crack in the door. I peered out and saw a man in a dark suit and shades standing quietly in the embarkation lounge, looking around. There was another man in black standing a few feet behind him, and another patrolling back and forth.

The first man in back lifted his hand to his mouth and spoke into his sleeve.

“Let me see.” said Dave, yanking me out of the way and planting his eyeball to the crack.

“Russians!” he exclaimed, “With sleeve mounted, miniature kill bots!”

“What?” I said pulling him back from the door, “Where do you get these ideas? It’s a radio you fool.”

“I have a very active imagination.” He said, “It’s a good thing. I’m special”

“You’re not wrong there.” said Sarah. “What the fuck do we do now? They’re on to us!”

“We’re obviously not getting on the plane.” I said, “Let’s get out of here!”

We quietly opened the door and crept out. Tip toeing down the hall. We thought we had made it until we heard a voice shout: “There they are!” followed by the sound of running footsteps.

“Leg it!” shouted Dave, and leg it we did.

We ran down the corridor and around a corner. We began to realise that we had no idea where we were going and within minutes we were lost in the labyrinthine network of corridors in the airport.

Dave opened a random door and shouted “In here!”

We piled through the door into a small room. There was a huge, naked man bending over, his hands flat against a wall. Another man was looking up his arse with a small torch, holding up a large flap of back fat with a pencil. Both of the men turned in shock and looked at us. The expressions on both of their faces was almost identical. They said “I hate my life right now.”

“Not in here!” shouted Dave, and we all turned and ran away.

We continued to clatter along the corridors. Dave started making odd noises and rubbing his eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t unsee that. I feel sick.” He said.

From the sound of the footsteps behind us there seemed to be three men chasing us. Happily there hadn’t been the now familiar but no less scary sound of gunfire. As we ran around a corner there we came across a stack of those trolleys they wheel down the aisles on planes. Sarah stopped and overturned two of them in the middle of the corridor. We ran off again. As we turned the corner at the other end of the corridor, we heard an almighty crash and a bloodcurdling scream.

Sarah looked at me with a massive grin on her face and winked. Now there seemed to be only two men chasing us.

I turned to look at Sarah.

“Any more genius ideas?” I asked.

“I’m working on it.” She said.

And she was.

At the next corner she wrenched a fire extinguisher off a wall mount and stood with her back to the wall near the corner. Dave and I skidded to a halt and stood watching in awe, panting and shaking. The footsteps got closer and closer. Sarah seemed to be counting under her breath. Then she hefted the fire extinguisher to head height and swung it into the open space of the corridor behind us.

A man in black’s head connected with the extinguisher with great force and a very amusing noise.

“Toooonnnnnnnggggggg”

He was lifted clear off his feet, landing on his back with a crack. Dave and I stood open mouthed as Sarah swung the extinguisher up. I noticed when the extinguisher reached the apex of the swing, the perfect indentation of a face. Then she swung the extinguisher down again and hit the man on the floor in the stomach. He clutched at his abdomen, his upper body and head rising while he made a noise like a large life raft deflating. Sarah swung her weapon again, hitting him in the head and he went back down to the floor, out cold or possibly dead.

“Fuck that was cold!” I said.

“What?” said Sarah, casually dropping the extinguisher on the unconscious man’s head.

“Doingg!” it went.

She took off again and ran past us as more footsteps approached. Dave and I followed her. Now it sounded like there was only one man chasing us.

“Remind me never to get on the wrong side of you!” I said to Sarah as we noisily crashed through another door.

Now we seemed to be in the luggage transfer area. Massive conveyor belts were ferrying bags all over to various chutes in the walls. It was very noisy and very confusing.

“I have an idea.” I said, “Before you kill again Sarah, let me have a go!”

“Whatever.” She said with a shrug.

A few seconds later the last man in black opened the door and cautiously entered the room. He had obviously seen what had happened to his two friends and was treating his quarry with a little more respect. He held out a handgun in front of him and was nervously pointing it at every slight movement and noise. As everything in the room was moving and making noise, he was doing a passable impersonation of John Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever’.

Dave was hiding in the network of machinery and support struts above him. As the man walked directly underneath, Dave dropped a heavy suitcase on to his hand, knocking the gun from his grasp. It rattled off across the floor. The man yelled and span around and Dave let fly with another heavy case which hit the man on the head. I then crept out from my hiding place in the shadows and threw myself full length at the man’s midriff, rugby tackling him into a pile of lost property. We landed in an explosion of bikini bottoms and inflatable rubber rings. The man struggled to get up but I had him pinned to the ground. I punched him hard in the face and his head flew back and bounced off the hard concrete floor with a ‘clunk’. He was out cold.

Sarah retrieved the man’s gun while Dave dropped nimbly down from above. The three of us dragged the unconscious man in black into what we assumed was some kind of maintenance cupboard.

We tied him to an old chair with duct tape and waited for him to come around.

---

Verse Eight.

When the evil man in black slowly regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was the barrel of his own gun pointed right between his peepers. He focused past the gun to see Sarah holding it with narrowed eyes and an unfriendly expression.

“You guys are really beginning to piss me off now.” She said with a growl, “Better start talking if you know what’s good for you.”

“You forgot to tell him to apologise to your mule, Blondie.” said Dave.

“What?” said Sarah.

“Nothing.”

“So what do you think Russian scum?” she continued, “Spill the beans or spill the blood? Your choice”

I looked at Dave.

“God damn she’s good!”  I said.

“I know, it’s amazing!” said Dave, looking back at me and grinning.

“It’s seriously like watching an action movie or something!”

“I can’t wait to see how this turns out.”

“I am just glad I am not that guy!”

“I know, I would already be through the third paragraph.”

“If she pistol whips him I am afraid I will have to start applauding!”

“FOR FUCKS SAKE WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP!” yelled Sarah.

“What do you think you are doing?” said the man in black with an impeccable English accent.

“Oooh, I didn’t see that one coming.” said Dave.

“I know.” I agreed, “A little twist to the story eh?”

“Well it makes a change from all the swearing and stupid jokes.” said Dave.

“GUYS!” shouted Sarah, “ENOUGH!”

“Untie me this instant.” said the man in black who we thought was Russian but does in fact seem to be English.

“No.” said Sarah, pistol whipping the man. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Ow.” said the man.

‘Clap, clap, clap, clap’ went Dave’s hands.

“Agent Smith, MI5.” said the man, wincing.

“What?” said Dave and I in unison.

“You’re lying.” said Sarah.

“Yeah, Agent Smith, pull the other one for it hath bells upon it. Should we follow the white rabbit or take a blue pill?” said Dave.

“It’s a code name you idiot.” said possibly Agent Smith, MI5.

“And you’re British Intelligence?” said Sarah.

“Yes, I am.” He said.

“And we are just expected to believe you are we?” she continued, “Untie you and just let you go yes?”

“Yeah.” said Dave, “Why should we believe you.”

“Well, there is the fact that I am clearly English and not Russian.”

Dave looked at me and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s pretty good isn’t it?” he said.

“Then if you would care to reach inside my jacket, you will find my ID.” said possibly Smith.

Sarah went to retrieve the man’s identification.

“Careful Trace, it could be a trap!” shouted Dave.

“How?” she asked.

“Well, he could have, I dunno, a bomb in there or something.”

Sarah sighed and closed her eyes. I could see her lips moving as she silently counted to ten.

She reached into his jacket and pulled out a leather wallet. She opened it and examined the contents before turning and throwing the wallet to me.

I caught it and opened it.

An ID badge reading ‘Agent Smith MI5, on her majesty’s secret service’ and all that bumpf. It looked very official. I showed it to Dave.

We all stood in confusion for a while, not quite knowing what to do.

“So why are you chasing us?” said Sarah.

“Because you have clearly gone off mission.” said now more likely to be Agent Smith, MI5.

“Did you idiots fall asleep?” he added.

We were now all very confused indeed.

“You don’t remember do you? I knew this was a mistake.” said Smith. “Look, if you have fallen asleep in the last three days, you will not remember me, or anything else about your mission. Did you fall asleep?”

We all looked at each other sheepishly. We may have just made a huge mistake. Sarah especially began to look incredibly guilty. She was probably remembering braining that bloke with the fire extinguisher.

“Well?” said Smith.

“Yes we fell asleep.” said Dave, “We woke up this morning with no idea what the hell is going on!”

“I told you. I warned you. Do not go to sleep.” said Smith, shaking his head. “Well at least that explains why you have been rampaging around the island causing chaos.”

“Look.” said Sarah, “I don’t really give a shit who you are or what we were supposed to do or any of that crap. I have had a tough day. I have been shot at, rolled down a cliff, chased through an airport and I am in a really bad mood. The only thing I care about is getting back to my family. I have a gun pointed to your head and I am at the point where I truly believe I have nothing to lose by just shooting you. So start talking!”

Dave and I didn’t realise we were holding our breath and had backed right up into the corner. We were holding each other’s hand. A bead of sweat ran down Smith’s forehead and there was a curious rattling sound as his hands shook slightly against the chair legs they were tied to.

“Fuck me!” said Dave, his voice quavering.

“I’m scared mate.” I said.

“Right, ahem…yes.” said Smith, breathing quite heavily for a man sitting down who had just had a nice nap. “I suppose I owe you that.”

“First of all Sarah, I can assure you your family is absolutely fine. They think you won a competition in a pub quiz and are currently enjoying a week’s dream holiday in Majorca with these two reprobates.” Smith nodded towards me and Dave. “Additionally, MI5 has stationed a police unit nearby to keep a watchful eye over them.”

Sarah relaxed a little and a faint smile crossed her lips momentarily before her stern demeanour returned.

“What’s a reprobate?” asked Dave.

“You are all here, against my better judgement I might add, on a mission for MI5. I am the one who recruited you.”

“Whaaaat?” said three baffled Bozarians.

“Let me start at the beginning….” said Smith.

---

Verse Nine.

I will just tell you what he told us. It’s a lot easier and saves a lot of wear and tear on my speech marks key and having to have Dave butt in with clever witticisms every five minutes to break the monologue up.

The three of us had gotten drunk on that Saturday night. Very drunk. Very, very drunk. We had somehow ended up in London in the early hours of the morning. Something which, even to this day, remains a mystery. When Smith first saw us we were standing on a dockside on the banks of the Thames arguing about whose fault it was that we were standing on a dockside on the banks of the Thames.

Smith and his fellow agents were at that time staking out that particular dockside for a high level meeting between a group of known mercenaries and Russian drug dealers.

They had been working on bringing the international Russian drug cartel to justice for the last seven months and had been struggling to make any progress. This evening they had finally found a way to make headway.

The gang of mercenaries were well known to the intelligence community but had so far avoided making any mistakes that would lead to their arrest. However, an informant had told Smith that the Russians were looking to hire the mercenaries for a big job and that the two parties were going to meet on this very dockside, on this very night.

The mercenaries were apprehended on their way to the meeting and held for ‘questioning’, while a highly trained group of agents took their place. The plan was to get the undercover agents inside the organisation to dig up enough evidence to take down the cartel once and for all.

The mercenaries were successfully caught but the car carrying the three undercover agents was involved in a traffic accident and didn’t make it to the rendezvous.

However, three drunken idiots from Bolsover did turn up, at the exact time and place of the meeting. Smith tried to get us out of the way but before he could move us on, the Russians arrived.

The Russians did not know what the mercenaries looked like. Nobody really did. Secrecy was paramount to safety in their line of work. All they knew of them was by reputation:

Three siblings; two brothers and a sister. English. Close knit with a very odd sense of humour. They were known to drink heavily. The mercenaries also had a reputation of looking like they didn’t know what they were doing, but were regarded as the best in the business. It was legend among the criminal underclass that the mercenaries kept up a permanent act of stupidity in order to allay any suspicion. How could three bumbling, drunken fools be successful, international criminals? It was a risky strategy but it seemed to work for them.

The Russians asked if we were ‘them’ to which Dave apparently replied “Yes, we’re them, who else would we be, knobface?”

We were bundled into a car and driven away.

MI5 followed the small convoy of cars to a warehouse just down the road and watched as we were led inside. Smith employed a parabolic microphone to hear what was being said inside.

There were many scuffling noises and a bout of coughing before an unnamed Russian voice apparently said:

“Boss, the mercs are here.”

“Ah my friends.” said the Boss, (apparently) “I am glad to finally meet you.”

“Who the fuck are you then?” said Dave (apparently).

“Nedved, your future employer, perhaps you have heard of me?” said the Boss (apparently)

“Didn’t you used to play for Juventus?” I asked. (apparently)

“I have already got a job mate.” said Dave (apparent…..you get the picture)

“I am prepared to pay you an awful lot of money for your services.” said Nedved.

A pause.

“Define ‘a lot’” said Sarah.

“Ten million, for one job.”

“Huh!” said Dave.

“That’s a lot of dosh.” I said.

“Why?” asked Sarah.

“What?” said Nedved.

“Why do you want to pay us ten million quid?” said Sarah.

“That’s the going rate is it not?” said Nedved.

“Well, that depends.” I said.

“Ah you drive a hard bargain my friends.” said Nedved, “I read between the lines yes? Fifteen million.”

“Keep asking questions Mike, maybe he will keep going up.” said Dave.

“That is my final offer.” said Nedved.

“Damn.” said Dave.

“What exactly do you want us to do Ned?” said Sarah, “If it involves ‘servicing’ billionaires, doing weird sexual things with animals for your pleasure or anything of a similar nature, I am not interested.” said Sarah.

“For fifteen million, I am.” said Dave.

“Me too. Show me to the donkey enclosure.” I said.

“What are you talking about…but wait, ah!” said Nedved, “Your famous sense of humour. I was warned about that. Yes. Very amusing. Ha ha ha.”

“Ha ha ha.” said several Russian voices belonging to unknown people who have not previously been mentioned and probably won’t be again.

“Ha ha ha?” said Mike, Dave and Sarah.

At this point Smith had his head in his hands and was weeping. He was already mentally preparing himself to fill out three official looking forms which would contain the words ‘murdered by Russian Mafia and their lifeless, bullet ridden corpses dumped in the Thames’.

But Nedved appeared to appreciate our sense of humour and didn’t have us immediately shot.

“Ah I like you and your wacky, English sense of humour.” said Nedved, “So I will refrain from having you immediately shot.”

See. Told you.

“Thanks very much Nedster.” I said, “So what do you want us to do for fifteen million?”

“I wish to take advantage of your, uh, very particular set of skills.” said Nedved.

“If he says something about looking for someone, finding them and killing them, I am gonna piss myself.” said Dave.

Outside, Agent Smith facepalmed.

“Look Neddy Baby,” said Sarah, “We are very drunk and I need a wee. Can you just tell us what you want?”

“I AM THE HEAD OF A MULTI BILLION ROUBLE EMPIRE! I AM FEARED THROUGOUT THE WORLD! DO NOT CALL ME ‘NEDDY BABY’!” roared Nedved.

There was a snigger with a Russian twang to it.

“WHO WAS THAT?” screamed Nedved, “WHICH ONE OF YOU IDIOTS THOUGHT THAT WAS FUNNY?”

There was silence for quite a while.

“This meeting will not continue until I find out who sniggered.” said Nedved in a calmer voice.

More silence.

“Come on, own up. It’s your own time you’re wasting.” said Nedved.

“I think it was that guy there.” said Sarah.

There was the sound of further scuffling and a Russian man screaming.

“Sarah?” I said.

“What? I really need a wee!” said Sarah.

“Thank you my dear.” said Nedved, “Now we can continue if no one else has any further comments.”

“No boss.” said a handful of Russian voices who did in fact end up getting mentioned again. Except there was one less voice now.

Smith told us he later found a Russian gangster’s body upside down in a rubbish bin in an alleyway behind the warehouse.

The words ‘not so funny now’ had been carved into the skin of his forehead.

“I just require you to visit some friends of mine in Cuba and pick up a package, then return it to me here, can you do that?”

“You want us to go to Cuba?” I said.

“Yes.” said Nedved.

“Where’s that?” said Dave, “Up north somewhere?”

“And pick up a present?” I said.

“A package. Yes.” said Nedved.

“And bring it to you?” I said.

“Yes.”

“And for doing this you will give us fifteen million pounds?” I said.

“Yes.”

“No problem, we’re the men for the job.” I said, “Oh sorry Sarah, The men and woman.”

“Wonderful my friends.” said Nedved. “And you are confident in your success on this quest?”

“Go to Cuba, get a present….”

“A Package.”

“A package, right, and bring it back. Piece of cake.” I said.

“Ooh yes please. I’d love a piece.” said Dave.

“And how do we get to Cuba?” said Sarah.

“There are three first class tickets booked for you waiting at the airport on the next available flight. One of my men will drive you there.” said Nedved.

“O-kay.” said Sarah.

“Here is the payment for the exchange. Ten million Cuban pesos. You will be contacted by my associate as soon as you arrive in Havana.”

“Fuck that’s heavy.” I said. “Traveller’s cheques would have been a lot easier.”

“Ha ha ha, very amusing.” said Nedved.

“Here is a further million pesos as a down payment and to pay for any miscellaneous expenses you may encounter.” said Nedved.

“Shit! Is that real money?” said Sarah.

“Who’s got the cake?” said Dave.

“Now if there are no further questions, I bid you good luck.” said Nedved.

“One more question.” said Sarah.

“What.” Said Nedved.

“Is there a loo here, I really, really need a wee.”

“Yeah and what about the cake?” said Dave.

“My men will see to your requirements and I will leave you, I have pressing business elsewhere.” said Nedved, “Know this my friends, if you cross me or fail me, I will hunt you down and feed you your own feet and hands before flaying you alive!”

“Jesus! That’s a bit harsh isn’t it?” I said, “I thought we were getting on.”

“What about the bloody cake?” said Dave.

“Farewell my amusing English friends.” said Nedved.

Several minutes later and Agent Smith saw us being escorted to a car outside. I was carrying a large, black case and Dave was eating what appeared to be a Victoria Sponge.

The black BMW sped off and Agent Smith and his entourage followed it at a distance.

The car arrived at the airport and the three of us got out before the car sped off again. We all headed inside.

Several minutes later, Agent Smith and his team surrounded us in the embarkation lounge. All the other civilians were evacuated and an armed guard was placed at every entrance. Sarah and I were listening intently to Dave telling us how to make the perfect sponge cake and didn’t immediately notice.

Copious amounts of coffee were brought it in an attempt to sober us up enough to understand the danger of our predicament. Dave said he knew he had said the sponge was a bit dry, but fifteen cups of espresso was a little bit overkill.

When the coffee failed to have any effect besides making Sarah need a wee again. Smith broke out some highly experimental pharmaceuticals. A potent mix of various legal and illegal drugs, they were designed to sober up agents who had been drugged.

Panic ensued as we instantly became sober and realised what was happening. Once we had all stopped running around and screaming, Agent Smith explained the situation to us in more detail.

He told us that because the Russians already thought we were the mercenaries, he had no option but to incorporate us into his plan. We would go to Cuba and complete the exchange and when the time was right, his agents would swoop in and extract us then make the necessary arrests.

We all said we would do no such thing and demanded to be released immediately.

Smith reminded us that a very scary Russian gang boss had just given away ten million pesos and the last people he knew were in possession of it, was us. He then asked what we thought would happen when no package turned up at the warehouse in a few days and the money disappeared.

We said we would take the money back and explain there had been a mistake. Smith told us he currently had possession of the money and would not give it us back unless we agreed to follow his plan. He added that he already had enough dirt on us to put us away for a very long time.

When asked what, he quoted a long list of crimes, the principal one being having possession of ten million pesos of drug money but he also mentioned something about a horse in Blackpool and an illegal time travel experiment utilising prohibited substances in Scotland.

We grudgingly agreed to his proposal but explained that we were just three idiots from Bolsover and that we would probably screw it up, jeopardising the investigation and most likely getting killed in the process.

Smith explained it was a simple exchange and three trained monkeys could do it.

We asked why he didn’t go and get three trained monkeys then.

Then we asked why the Russians needed the mercenaries to do it in the first place if it was so simple. Smith explained that the Russians were aware their every movement was being tracked by MI5 and were being very cautious. They needed outside help to get their goods out of Cuba. An added incentive for the Russians was that the mercenaries would be the ones who got pinched in place of the Russians if anything went wrong. This was why the price was so high. The mercenaries were taking a big risk, but that was the only risk. Smith assured us that we had nothing to fear. Nedved’s associates would contact us, arrange a meeting and hand over the goods.

The only risk was possible apprehension by the authorities and as we were working for the authorities, there was therefore no risk to us at all.

He also said he would give us some help.

He went on to explain that the pharmaceutical division had also developed a drug for use in the field by agents. It heightened the senses, focussed the mind and increased intelligence and physical attributes. The only side effect was memory loss when the drug left the system.

He explained to us that, as long as we stayed conscious, the drug would continue to work but if we fell asleep we would wake up with no memory of the previous few days. He also gave us government produced, high strength amphetamine pills to help keep us awake and alert for as long as possible.

He gave us the case and the drugs and made sure we got on the plane and that was the last he saw of us.

Back to the small maintenance cupboard in the airport on the lovely island of Cuba, remember that? It was a long time ago.

Agent Smith is still tied to a chair. Sarah is holding a gun to his head and Dave and I are hiding in a corner as Sarah had come over all ‘Dirty Harry’.

“So what the hell went wrong with the deal?” said Sarah.

“Nedved’s associate failed to contact you.” said Smith. “As far as I can tell you then went on a drug and alcohol fuelled binge in order to keep yourselves conscious.”

Sarah stopped pointing the gun at Smith’s head. Dave and I relaxed and breathed again. We let go of each other’s hand and Dave once more punched me in the arm and called me a ‘poof’.

Sarah untied Smith who remained seated, trying to massage some blood flow back into his hands. He took the gun gratefully when Sarah handed it over, reinserting it in the holster under his jacket.

“Did we kill four agents on the road?” she said, rubbing her forehead.

“No.” said Smith, “They were Russians. Miraculously they all survived the fall. They were picked up by my team and are currently in custody. We are questioning them to find out what they know.”

“Well it’s obvious what happened isn’t it?” I said, “Nedved blew the lid off your stupid plan and the Russians came after us to get back the cash and take us out.”

“At first glance that would seem to be the case yes. “ said Smith, “But the four Russians we dragged from the sea do not seem to be affiliated with Nedved or his organisation.”

“So we pissed off a completely different group of Russian criminals?” asked Dave.

“It would appear so.” said Smith.

“Christ! We’re good at this spy thing aren’t we?” said Dave.

“So what do we do now?” said Sarah, “If everything’s gone tits up, can we go home?”

“I am afraid not.“ said Smith, “Nedved is still expecting his goods, if you go home empty handed he will kill you.”

“Shit!” said Dave.

“We are trying to find out what happened to Nedved’s associate here in Cuba. My advice is to lay low in your hotel and wait for me to contact you. Do you still have the phone I gave you?”

“So that’s where we got that. Yes, right here.” said Sarah, waving the phone in Smith’s face. “By the way, sorry about um…you know…threatening to kill you and stuff.”

“Yeah, and punching you in the face.” I said.

“And dropping that case on your head.” said Dave.

“That’s okay, I would have done the same in your position.” said Smith. He gave us all a dirty look which said it wasn’t really okay, but he was remaining professional and until the mission was complete he would let the physical assault slide. It was a very complex look.

“Wait!” I said, “What about the other Russians who are trying to kill us. They know which hotel we were staying at.”

“Until the four men we have in custody talk, we don’t even know who they are.” said Smith. “Just find somewhere to hide out then. Where’s the money?”

Three people in the maintenance cupboard facepalmed.

“Now you know how I feel.” said Smith.

“It’s back at the fucking hotel.” I said.

“You have to retrieve it.” said Smith. “I will send some men to protect you but they will have to stay out of sight.”

“Why?” said Sarah.

“Because we do not know who else is watching you.” said Smith, “Nedved’s associates would probably not appreciate you being escorted around by MI5’s finest.”

“If the two guys from earlier are examples of your ‘finest’, I would hate to meet the lacklustre ones!” said Sarah, “I took two of them out with a fire extinguisher and a food trolley!”

“Indeed.” said Smith, “And believe me, when all this is over, if you are still alive, MI5 would like to discuss with you the possibility of a position in the agency.”

“Fuck me!” said Dave.

“Oooh, Sarah’s gonna be a spy!” I said, “That’s gotta be better than working in the bookies hasn’t it?”

Guess what happened next.

‘SLAP’.

“Ow!”

Smith escorted us back out of the airport. As we navigated the corridors we passed two men in black receiving medical treatment by a team of paramedics. There was blood all over the floor and a mangled and bent fire extinguisher propped against the wall in a plastic bag marked ‘evidence’. The one with two broken legs jumped as he saw Sarah approach and tried to crawl away. The bone sticking through the ripped trousers of his left leg made horrible scraping noises on the ground. The medics tried to restrain him.

The other one was crying and begging someone to call his Mum and a Priest. His nose was swollen up to twice the size of a normal nose and his eyes were already a deep purple. As he noticed us approach he went into convulsions and started shaking madly.

“Oh my god!” he screamed. “She’s back, she’s come to finish me off. Oh someone help me, please!”

Smith tried to reassure the men.

“It’s okay Agents, it was a misunderstanding. They are with us.”

Sarah, feeling a little guilty, approached the nose man and tried to apologise for breaking his face.

“I am sorry about that.” She said, taking his hand. “I thought you were trying to kill us.”

The man relaxed and smiled at her. Sarah dropped his hand and jumped back as she noticed most of his teeth were missing or broken. Blood covered the inside of his mouth.

“Holy shit Sarah!” I said, “You are a very dangerous woman and you are probably going to hell!”

She went to slap me again and as she raised her hand the two injured men in black whimpered and cowered. She looked at them and stopped, relaxing her arm again.

“It’s okay, sorry. Sorry. So sorry.” She said.

We walked on, turning a corner and passing out of sight of the carnage. We passed the twisted mass that used to be two food carts. There was a ripped piece of gory flesh hanging from the sharp edge of a corner. Little drips of blood falling from it into a congealing puddle on the floor

Dave gagged.

‘SLAP’

“Ow!” I said.

“Shut up!” said Sarah.

“I didn’t say anything!” I protested.

“You were thinking it.” She said.

How did she know?

We rendezvoused with a group of other men in black in the airport check in area. Smith gave two of them some orders and they motioned us to follow them. They put us in the back of yet another black car and drove us back to Havana.

The men in black dropped us on the side of the road around a mile from the hotel and told us they would be watching us. They said they were top marksmen and would protect us if we should run into trouble.

Not having too much confidence in their ability to save us from a mile away, we realised we did not have a choice other than to proceed and walked slowly back to the hotel. We had to retrieve the money.

“Well, you have to admit this is a good thing.” I said.

“How is this a good thing Mike?” said Sarah, “We are still in terrible danger, people are trying to kill us and we are involved in a multimillion pound international drug deal.”

“You know your family are okay, and if we get out of this alive we can go home.” I said.

“That’s a really big ‘if’ Mike.” said Sarah.

“We know how we got here now, and why.” said Dave.

“Exactly.” I agreed.

“You have found out that you’re a lethal, merciless killing machine!” I said.

“I already knew that.” said Sarah.

“You might have a job as a spy?” said Dave, He paused and a frown appeared on his face. He turned to me, “Wait, what if she’s already a spy Mike?”

That thought scared me more than a little.

“It would explain the maiming skills, and how she can go on a massive three day drink and drugs bender and wake up fresh as a daisy!” I said.

“And how she can drive like a stuntman, even down a mountain with no brakes and three wheels!” said Dave.

“And how she can jump from a car rolling down a mountain with no brakes and three wheels and not get a scratch on her while you and I end up looking like we have spent three hours in a Zanussi with half a tree and a collection of sharp objects on a high speed spin dry cycle!” I added.

We had all stopped in the street and Dave and I were staring at Sarah with a dual purpose look on our faces of awe and fear.

“Are you a spy Sarah?” I asked gingerly.

She smiled and shook her head.

“Of course I’m not.” She said, “What exactly would I be spying on? Betting habits of Bolsover residents. How two morons like you have managed to stay alive all these years?”

We relaxed. We had both known Sarah for many years and it made no sense at all.

“Okay, you must be just, just, I don’t know, very cool.” I said.

Dave and I walked on.

Behind us Sarah rolled her eyes and looked relieved.

“Phew!” she said quietly. She turned and followed us, running a little to catch up.

“Okay, let’s get the case and get the hell out of here as fast as we can.” She said.

---

Verse Ten.

We snuck into the hotel and made our way up to the seventh floor via the stairs. We didn’t want to be trapped in an elevator and really didn’t want the doors to open on our floor only to be faced by a scary bunch of angry Russians with nowhere to run to.

I opened the stairwell door once we reached the relevant floor and peered down the corridor. It was deserted, so we tiptoed to our room door and slid the key in the lock as quietly as we could. I opened the door a crack to check if there was anyone waiting for us. The room was empty. The mess we had left was still covering the floor.

We entered the room and locked the door behind us, all three of us breathing a sigh of relief.

“Get the case and let’s book.” Said Dave. He noticed his dress lying on the back of the sofa where he had discarded it earlier and a wistful look came into his eyes.

“No.” I said, giving him a stern look like one would give a puppy who was thinking about peeing on the carpet.

He sulked and pouted, while I went to the wardrobe to retrieve the case from the hidden safe. Dave and Sarah sat on the bed and took a well-earned rest.

“Wait.” I said, “Did you hear…”

The bathroom door suddenly exploded outward in a shower of splinters. A bent hinge flew across the room and hit Dave on the forehead.

“Fuck me!” he said as a small ribbon of blood rolled down his face.

Three men in black with weapons drawn emerged from the bathroom. Were they MI5 or Russians? We’ll have to wait and see.

“Vere is ete?” said one of the men in black.

Russians then.

“It’s in the safe, don’t kill us.” said Dave with blisteringly quick mental processing. “Mike, give the nice man his case.”

“Don’t play zee game vith me.” Said the Russian.

“What?” I said.

“Zee device, vere have you hidden ete?”

“What device?” said Sarah, “You don’t want the money?”

“Stankovich cares not for monies, vere is device? Tell me or she dies!” he walked to Sarah and put the gun up to her temple.

She closed one eye and pulled a face.

“Who the fuck is Stankovich? Didn’t he used to play for Lazio?” said Dave, “Sorry…Sorry.”

Another of the Russians put his gun in Dave’s face.

“You have until I count to ten.” said the Russian.

“Are you sure you can get that far?” said Dave, “Sorry…Sorry. Ow!”

The second Russian pistol whipped Dave around the head.

“Von…two…three…” said the Russian.

“Look we have no idea what you are talking about!” I screamed.

Tears were rolling down Sarah’s face, her eyes scrunched tightly closed. I tried to come up with some kind of plan but it was fruitless. The third Russian had his gun trained on me and even if I managed to cover the distance between me and the bed, it would already be too late to do anything.

“four…five…” said the Russian.

“Just stop, and we’ll talk about it.” I begged, “We will do whatever you say, just stop.”

“six…seven…”

I thought ‘fuck it, I’m gonna go for it anyway’. I crouched down a little to get a good jump off. I took a deep breath, knowing I was about to die, but the alternative was to watch my friends die first and then die anyway. What did I have to lose?

“WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT ANY FUCKING DEVICE!” screamed Dave, “LEAVE HER THE FUCK ALONE!”

The Russian closest to him pistol whipped him again and he crumpled to the floor holding his head, blood running through his fingers.

Sarah screamed and all three Russians were momentarily surprised. I saw the opportunity.

I threw myself into the air, aiming to fall in front of Sarah and push her out of harm’s way. I had no idea what I was going to do after that but it was a tense situation and I didn’t have much time for planning a more tactical solution.

None of the Russians were expecting this development and they were completely surprised. The Russian closest to me fired and missed by inches. The two men with their guns trained on Sarah and Dave span them around to take shots at the crazy man diving across the room screaming like a lunatic.

There was a sound like splintering glass very far away and then a noise that sounded like ‘pfffmmppttt’. The forehead of the Russian who had done all the counting erupted in a red mist of brain matter, bits of shattered bone and blood. He fell slowly forward and hit the floor face first.

I hit Sarah from the side and grabbed hold, the momentum of my dive carried us both off the end of the bed and onto the floor where we skidded along, Sarah on her back and me lying on top of her. We came to a halt and I put my hands over my head and did my best to shield her from the hail of bullets I knew were coming.

All hell broke loose. The windows fractured into a million razor sharp shards and the whole room reverberated to the sound of bullets flying everywhere. The noise was terrifying as it seemed every breakable object in the room had instantly exploded. Amongst the crashing and splintering noises I detected a number of soft, wet, thudding noises which seemed very out of place until I came to the horrifying conclusion that it must have been bullets hitting human bodies as Dave and I were torn to shreds by the merciless gunfire.

I began to think of all those war stories I had read about people being shot and not feeling it until the adrenalin wore off because I didn’t feel a thing.

The noise subsided. There were small tinkling noises of tiny pieces of glass falling from the window frames, but nothing else.

I opened my eyes and raised myself up. I looked down at Sarah who was looking back at me with a very puzzled expression.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“I think so, are you?”

We lay there for a while wearing our confused faces. Then I felt a buzzing feeling at waist level.

For a moment I thought I was having a stroke until I heard a noise.

“Briiing briiing!”

Sarah tried to retrieve the phone.

“That’s my pocket!” I said.

“Oh, sorry.” She said, and searched elsewhere.

She pressed a button on the phone and held it up to her ears.

“Hello?” she said.

“Are you alright?” said Agent Smith.

“I think so. What the hell just happened?” said Sarah.

“My snipers were watching from a rooftop along the road. We had a clean shot on the first man but we had to wait until you all took cover before we opened fire. Well done by the way. Now get the case and get out of there!”

She took the phone away from her ear and turned to look at it. She gave the phone a confused look and looked back at me.

“It was Smith, he said his men took out the Russians.”

I got to my feet, shaking broken glass off my back, and checked for holes. None seemed to be apparent. Apart from some cuts and scratches from flying glass I had come out unscathed.

I helped Sarah to her feet and started to frisk her, looking for injuries.

“Stop it, stop it!” she said, “I’m fine!”

“Just checking.” I said, innocently.

We looked around. The room was a mess. There were bullet holes everywhere. The bed had been shredded.

The far wall was covered in dead Russians.

The counting Russian was still lying face down on the floor near the bed where he had fell. The other two took the brunt of the gunfire. They had been propelled across the room by the repeated impacts and were both lying at the bottom of vivid, red blood stains at the foot of the wall. Their bodies now nothing but really disgusting heaps of mangled flesh, completely destroyed by the gunfire. Various organs and bits of icky internal stuff was leaking and dripping from the multitude of holes in their stomachs and chests.

I fought back the urge to vomit profusely. I could hear Sarah behind me gagging too. Then I remembered Dave was amongst all this.

“Dave!” I shouted, running around the bed.

He was slowly sitting up, holding his head and groaning.

“Dave? Are you okay?” I said, bending down to help him.

“Oh my head.” He said, “What happened?”

He looked around, saw the remains of the two Russians and immediately threw up. Most of it landed on me.

“What the fuck happened to those two?” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “They look like they’ve been through a shredder.”

The smell of Dave’s second hand tequila laced vomit proved the last straw in my battle of wills with the contents of my stomach. I promptly repaid the favour to Dave, and threw up all over him.

“Fuck me!” he said.

This was also too much for Sarah and she vomited too. It was like a scene from a Monty Python movie.

I half expected John Cleese to walk in and ask if anyone wanted a ‘waffer thin mint’.

We all stood there for a moment, vomit everywhere, bits of it dripping from me and Dave. Everyone looked at everyone else. We were all trying to find a reason to blame the other for what had just happened. None could be found so we broke the tension of the situation by laughing our heads off and pointing at each other.

A few minutes later, Dave and I had cleaned ourselves off in the bathroom. Dave, being the worst covered as he was sitting on the floor, had now put his dress back on and was smiling as if he had just won the lottery. Sarah had yet again managed to stay clean somehow and I still had sick stains down my t-shirt and shorts. I smelled really quite bad.

We grabbed the black suitcase and headed out of the door at maximum speed. On the way through the foyer I stopped at the gift shop and purchased my third set of garishly coloured beach shorts and surfing orientated t-shirt. I also picked up a map of the island.

“Where now?” asked Dave.

We left the hotel and heard the sounds of many sirens coming closer.

“The opposite direction to that.” I said and we moved off at a decent walking pace.

We managed to hail a taxi after several unsuccessful attempts. Success was eventually achieved by Dave lifting his skirt and showing a bit of leg to the driver who screeched to a halt and beckoned us to get in, leering at Dave the whole time.

I decided I did not want to explore further the fascination Cuban males had with hairy arsed, bald Englishmen in dresses.

I directed the driver to take us back to the airport and changed my clothes in the back seat, elbowing Dave ‘accidentally’ in the face several times. Sweet revenge for the metal splinters in my face earlier.

“Why the airport? We just came from there.” said Sarah.

“Because we need transport, you left our last car in a very rough neighbourhood, remember.” I said.

“You’re thinking we can rent a car?” said Dave, “No chance, we have no passports or anything.”

“I know, but we might find Crackel there.”

---

Verse Eleven.

We did indeed find Crackel at the airport. He was busy trying to convince some American’s that Cuban pesos had a conversion rate of three to one with American dollars.

“Crackel!” I said, “The very man we wanted to find.”

“Bradders, Taggers, Pop!” he said, “Great to see you again. Especially you Pop, now you are properly clothed.” He winked at Dave again.

“Leave it Dave.” Muttered Sarah as Dave’s brow furrowed angrily.

“We need another car Crackel, can you help?” I said.

“What did you do with the last one?” he said, “You’ve only had it six hours!”

“It was involved in an unfortunate accident.” said Sarah.

“Well it will take me a while to find another Mustang.” said Crackel.

“We need a car right now, doesn’t matter what it is.” said Dave.

“Oh, easy then. I’ll be right back.”

He scuttled off and we decided to take on some nourishment. Especially as we had all recently emptied the contents of our stomachs. Amazingly, despite the poor relations between the Cuban and American governments, there was a McDonald’s in the airport. I guess even the Castro family are reluctant to let political friction get between them and a Big Mac.

We sat and ate while keeping an eye out for the return of Crackel.

He arrived around half an hour later and we waved him over. He sat down next to Dave and put his hand on Dave’s knee. Dave growled at him. Crackel removed his hand and smiled.

“So?” asked Sarah.

“I told you, no problem.” said Crackel, holding up some keys. “It’s just a little, old Fiat but it will get you around. Anything else I can help you with?”

We thanked him and said no and he wandered off again to fleece Americans. As he left he turned and blew a kiss towards Dave.

“I swear I may kill that man!” said Dave.

“Dave, you are wearing a dress, what signal does that give out exactly.” I asked.

“That I like cool nadgers?” said Dave.

I shook my head. That was another in a long line of pointless conversations that go nowhere and only serve to frustrate me. I decided not to continue it. It had already been a very long day.

“He’s an asshole!” I said.

“Too right!” said Dave.

We wandered back out of the airport and stood around on the street clicking the little button on the key fob Crackel had given us.

Eventually something went ‘plup-pleep’ and we followed the noise to our transportation.

“Holy shit!” said Dave.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s my car!” he said, “Well it’s not my car but it’s my car if you know what I mean. Same make, same model, same year. It’s even the same colour!”

Sarah got in the driver’s seat while Dave helped me put the case of money in the boot. Then Dave got in the passenger side and I jumped in the back, unfolding the map I had bought.

Sarah started the engine, or at least attempted to. On the third try Dave leaned over and banged the gearstick sharply to the left. The engine spluttered into life.

“It’s even got the same little foibles!” he shouted over the squealing noise from the engine as it got up to idling speed. “Listen at that, purring like a pussycat.”

Sarah attempted to drive away but found it impossible. The little car’s engine revved up but absolutely refused to move forward.

“You’re going to have to let me drive!” said Dave, “Don’t worry I’m perfectly shober now.”

“You’re what?” she said.

“Sober, I’m perfectly sober.”

“You just said ‘shober’!”

“No I didn’t. Get out. Come on.”

She shrugged and the pair changed seats. Dave put the car in gear using some kind of telepathy. He twiddled lots of dials and knobs in a completely pointless and seemingly random way and the car juddered and moved off, hopping around like a kangaroo.

“See Trace, you just have to know how to treat these classics.” He explained, choking a little on the black smoke coming into the car through the air conditioning grills. “For example, in order to put the car into second gear, you have to tune the radio to Terry Wogan.”

“But Terry Wogan is dead Dave!” I said.

“And we’re in Cuba.” Added Sarah.

“Ah, but the car doesn’t know that does it?” he said with a conspiratorial wink as if he was explaining some dark and mystical knowledge to us.

“Ah, look.” He said, “Another example. Third gear, alter the lumbar support on the driver’s seat down two clicks.” He said, doing the same. “But you must never, ever forget.” he looked at Sarah with a very serious face, “Never EVER forget to put it back two clicks before changing into fourth. If you don’t the back of the seat collapses and you get thrown into the back upside down. It’s all common sense really.”

He seemed to be speaking from experience and from the look on his face it was not a pleasant memory. He drove on cheerfully, fiddling with switches that had no physical connection with the engine at all but somehow seemed to control how it responded.

Slightly adjusting the rear view mirror to change down a gear. Opening the ashtray turned the left indicator on. It was baffling. What was more baffling was how this car could have the same bizarre personality to the one currently parked outside Dave’s house thousands of miles away! Did they come off the production line like that?

Sarah slowly turned to me and gave me a look of mild fear.

“Where to guys?” Dave asked, scratching the top of the cigarette lighter to turn on the lights.

I had studied the map and decided that the best thing we could do is get as far away from civilisation as possible. The less people around, the less chance we had of being spotted and killed.

We found a supermarket on the way and bought supplies and then headed off to the other side of the island to a remote beach some distance away from any town or village. Dave drove us there with considerable skill given the car. He was randomly putting his hand out of the window and adjusting the wing mirror, flicking the sun visor up and down, leaning over and opening the glove box. At one point he removed the head rest from his own seat and swapped it with the one on Sarah’s.

“Ah, that’s better.” He said, “I thought she was feeling a little sluggish.”

He turned and laughed at Sarah.

“Which idiot thought that was a good idea eh Trace?” he laughed, shaking his head.

It made my head hurt so I stopped thinking about it. We arrived at the secluded beach an hour or so later, amazingly, in one piece. Dave stopped the car and Sarah and I got out, dragging our supplies and the big, black case with us. Dave stayed in the car.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“I have to stop the engine!” he said, as if that explained everything.

He drove off back up the road and we watched him turn the car around a few hundred yards away. He drove back towards us. As he got close he slowed to a crawl, opened the door and jumped out leaving the car continuing on its way alone.

After fifty yards more, the engine gave a great cough, soot came out of the exhaust, actual soot, and all four wheels locked up. The car skidded to a halt and the engine died.

“She’ll be right.” said Dave, gently caressing the car’s bonnet.

The car’s engine started up again, gave another sooty cough, then shut down once more.

“She’ll do that for ten minutes or so, it’s normal.” said Dave as if all we had witnessed in the last hour or so was not the effects of a haunted car but run of the mill, simple everyday quirks of classic car ownership.

Sarah and I walked backwards for a while, keeping a watchful eye on the car just in case it did anything else weird.

We found a likely spot on the deserted beach and sat down. The sand was still warm from the heat of the day and we buried our bare feet in it. I gathered up some driftwood and lit a small fire as the sun started to go down on the horizon. We broke out our supplies, which was mainly lager and liquor, and began to relax for the first time in as long as we could remember, which was admittedly only about eighteen hours, but seemed a hell of a lot longer.

We were in the middle of nowhere and literally no one on the planet knew where. We drank and smoked fat, Cuban cigars, blowing huge smoke rings up into the darkening tropical sky. They gently drifted away in the still air, up and up until we lost sight of them. We let ourselves forget the problems we faced, just for now, just for tonight.

The sun set over the glittering ocean, illuminating the small breakers heading into shore like lines of jewels woven into blue silk. The sky faded to a deep, almost tangible orange, then a blood red, before finally the heavens were cloaked in rich purple. Fine, wispy clouds drifted slowly here and there, looking like pink candyfloss as they were illuminated by the dying sunlight.

As the final, blinding fragment of Great Helios disappeared beneath the waves, a green flash shot into the air for the briefest of seconds. We sat watching in a semi-circle amongst the dunes, laughing and applauding this spectacular light show. Our fire burning low, the flames tinged with salt from the driftwood casting an eerie blue light on our smiling faces.

Then began the second act. With the sun gone the sky was an inky black void. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness the stars began to appear. My mind conjured up fragments of Holst in accompaniment. The brightest came first: the evening star, Venus, was low on the horizon, then Sirius, Canopus, Vega and Capella. The belt of Orion and Polaris. Jupiter made an appearance and I swore I could even make out the faint pin-pricks of the Galilean moons. Before long the sky was filled with stars. The soft, almost imperceptible outline of the Milky Way itself, the galactic plane with a million billion stars and a million billion more planets swirling around them. Locked in a timeless gravitational dance that will only end in the heat death of the universe or a giant, cataclysmic collision with Andromeda.

The sky turned slowly above us as we lay on our backs in the warm sand, blind to everything but the majesty of the galaxy. It seemed to be laid out just for us. A sight we alone could see. A reward for our endeavours.

As the logs of the fire spat and crackled, collapsing down into themselves, silver-grey and ashen, we all gradually drifted off into nothingness and the welcoming embrace of Morpheus.

---

Verse Twelve.

I awoke just after dawn. I didn’t have much of a choice as the sun was attempting to melt my face as I lay exposed on the beach. A stiff breeze was blowing in from the sea bringing a briny scent with it. My senses began to return and I became aware of my surroundings. I jumped as I noticed the wheel of a car three inches from my head.

“What the fuck!” I screamed and my outburst woke Dave and Sarah.

I jumped to my feet and kicked sand into Dave’s face accidentally.

“Mmmp ME!” he yelled.

“What is it?” asked Sarah, looking around and expecting to see men in suits advancing on us.

“That fucking car!” I screamed, pointing at the offending vehicle, “Dave, did you move the car onto the beach?”

He spat sand out. “No, I left it parked up on the road….well, would you look at that! She must have got cold in the night and came for a warm by the fire.”

“What?” I said, “You’re not surprised by this?”

“Nope.” He said, “My car moves all the time. Sometimes takes me ages to find it.”

“Seriously, that’s not right mate!” I said.

“No, that’s fucking freaky!” agreed Sarah.

“It’s fine, no harm done.”

“It was nearly on my head!”

“She would be after the body heat then. She likes you!”

“The last thing I need, what with all the weird and frankly terrifying shit currently happening,” I said, “is self-driving cars trying to give me a cuddle in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, well the last thing I need is a face full of sand first thing in the morning but you don’t hear me complaining do you?” screamed Dave.

The screaming and shouting went on for a while, it’s an early morning thing. We all calmed down eventually and sat down to eat some breakfast. A nourishing meal of tortilla chips, salsa and warm, disgusting, Cuban sparkling water. Mmmmmmm.

Sarah and I sat with our backs to the ocean, watching the car from hell intently. Dave was casually leaning against the front wheel.

Sarah’s phone suddenly sprang into life and she hurriedly answered it. After a brief conversation she advised us of the developments.

Concentrate now, this is important plot stuff.

According to Smith, Nedved had been given some information regarding Smith’s plan of replacing the group of mercenaries with undercover agents and had advised his associates that the exchange in Cuba would be a trap.

Some of Nedved’s men had since located the undercover agents in hospital, recovering from their car accident, and at that point Nedved assumed that we, the ‘real’ mercenaries, had uncovered the undercover agents and put them there.

Nedved was of the opinion that we couldn’t possibly be undercover British Intelligence as no one is that good at portraying drunken lunatics.

Nedved, now once again operating under the assumption that we were the real mercenaries, advised his associates in Cuba to find us and set up another meeting. Smith said that a known Nedved associate had been spotted at the hotel last night. Upon finding the place covered in blood and riddled with bullet holes he had fled.

The only option now was to try and contact Nedved ourselves to inform him of what had happened and to rearrange the exchange.

Smith had supplied Sarah with the web address of an online message board known to be a covert means of communication between Nedved and his various lieutenants around the world. He advised us to find a computer and log on to this message board, attempt to decipher the code being used and inform Nedved of a new time and location for the exchange to pass on to his men in Cuba.

Simple as that.

“Well MI5 are a lot of bleedin’ help aren’t they?” said Dave. “They haven’t got a clue so they expect us to figure it out. Oh yeah. Piece of piss. The collective resources of the British Secret Service have drawn a blank but don’t worry, three hungover idiots from Boza are on the case!”

“We just have to go along with this as best we can, we have no other choice.” I said.

“Where are we going to find a computer?” asked Sarah.

“I dunno.” I said, “Buy a smart phone? Find a library or an internet café or something? What about your phone?”

“It is still saying ‘network blocked’” she said. “It must be only accessible by MI5 or something. So we didn’t do anything stupid.”

“That would make sense.” I agreed,

“Right then, let’s go and find us a computer.” said Dave.

He opened the car door and climbed in. Sarah and I started backing away slowly. He started the engine with its usual cavalcade of whirrings, clonks, clangs and pings.

He looked at us through the windscreen and silently mouthed ‘what?’ holding his hands in the air in a way which corresponded to and complimented his silent mouthings.

Sarah and I backed away further.

Dave got out of the car and walked towards us, leaving the haunted engine running.

“What’re you doing?” he said, “Come on, get in.”

The car coughed a gargantuan cloud of soot and rattled from side to side ominously behind him.

“No way!” I said, “There is no way I am getting in that…that…that THING ever again.” I said, pointing at it accusingly.

“Me either.” Said Sarah.

We kept backing away and Dave followed.

“What’s the problem?” he said, “It’s fine. It just has personality.”

“Personality?” said Sarah, “It’s fucking possessed!”

“It’s the spawn of Satan’s very own tadger!” I added.

“No it’s not. Don’t be daft.” said Dave. “Come on.”

He beckoned us towards him. For a brief moment I thought he was going to start saying ‘join us, join us’, but thankfully he didn’t.

Sarah and I backed away some more. Dave followed us some more. The car coughed and rattled some more.

“So what are we gonna do then?” asked Dave, “Walk?”

“I’d rather walk then get in that widow-maker again!” I said.

“But we’re miles away from anywhere.” said Dave.

“I don’t care.” said Sarah.

‘”Cough, rattle, clang, wheeeeee.” said the car.

“Okay, I admit, on the face of it, it’s a little weird.” said Dave, “But she’s a fine vehicle and means us no harm.”

At that moment the car simply exploded.

A great fireball rose up into the air. Each wheel shot off in a different direction at massive speeds. Two of them ended up in the ocean, spinning and skipping across the surface like stones before finally plunging into the murky depths below.

The fireball turned into a mushroom cloud of evil looking black smoke and continued to rise. Sarah and I were surprised by the explosion and fell over backwards, landing on our arses in the sand.

Dave simply hunched his shoulders and pulled a funny face as if he had also experienced this event before. He looked down at us with a gormless smile on his face.

There was a sudden ‘whooshing’ noise, like something moving very fast through the air. A big, blackened piece of the cars roof, all jagged edges and scary pointy bits, shot down from above and impaled itself deeply in the sand an inch from Dave’s toes. It shook in the sand like a ruler being twanged on a desk for a moment and then began to make little ‘pink pink’ noises as the hot metal slowly began to cool.

“Fuck me!” said Dave.

“Not that it wasn’t going to happen anyway, but that makes it all academic, we’re walking.” I said climbing back to my feet. “And I am saying nothing about what just happened apart from telling you that once we get home, you need to sell your car.”

“I fancy trading up for a Volvo or something anyway.” said Dave, stepping around the huge, metal shard and eyeing it suspiciously.

We walked along the beach for hours, occasionally scrambling around rocky outcrops and wading through rivers and streams.

Dave had started drinking again and was insensible. He was muttering about all the times his car had almost killed him. He had been blind to it, believing in his heart that his car was his ally, but now his eyes had been opened.

We had decided to stick to the beach as there was no chance that a passing car full of angry Russians would come across us. The map I had bought said we were now only a few miles from a small village. We hoped there would be computers there, or at the very least a way to get to one of the larger towns.

As we rounded a piece of rocky headland jutting out into the ocean, I began to get the impression that I had been here before. The coastline seemed familiar. There was a small, automated lighthouse on the hillside above us, to warn ships and boats of the rocks and it definitely rang a bell in my head somewhere.

I discarded the thought. Even if I was recollecting a hazy memory from those we had lost, it was unlikely that we had ever set foot on this deserted coastline miles from Havana. The road had disappeared a few miles inland so we would have to have been on foot and I could think of no logical reason for that.

The coastline curved inwards to a small secluded bay. My mind went bananas, doing the mental equivalent of jumping up and down and pointing, as I saw a derelict wooden boathouse and a rickety old pier with a big, shiny boat moored to it.

“I’ve been here before.” I said, stopping dead in my tracks.

“What?” said Sarah, “How could you have been here before?”

“I don’t know but I recognise this bay, that boathouse, that pier and most definitely, that boat.”

“Maybe we were here in the ‘lost days’.” said Dave.

“Maybe, but why?” I said. “I thought we were in Havana the whole time.”

“Wait!” said Sarah, slapping me on the back. “Remember what Crackel said?”

“Ow. No, what?”

“He said he took us to a party on some boats and then we disappeared, he found us on the beach the next morning.” She said.

“Yeah. We got in some kind of trouble.” I said.

“Doesn’t sound like us.” said Dave.

“Was the trouble we got into nicking a boat?” said Sarah, “Like that one there which is moored up in the absolute arse end of nowhere for no logical reason whatsoever?”

It made sense. It was not as if the last four or five days had been full of good behaviour and hearty family fun for us.

We snuck quietly up to the boat, fearful it may be full of angry Russians or worse, cannibalistic Cuban fishermen! That was a bit of a long shot but you never know.

The whole bay was deserted. We climbed up the ladders on to the boat and wandered around the wheelhouse and sun deck. The only things we found were a few empty Champagne bottles and some broken glasses of the flute variety.

Dave wandered off below decks while Sarah and I stood in the wheelhouse contemplating our most recent discovery.

“Can you drive this thing Mike?” she asked.

“I think so. I guess one of must be able to if we stole it and drove it here.”

“Good. At the very least we don’t have to walk anymore in this heat.” She said.

“Yeah, I am kinda sick of lugging this fucking case around now.” I said.

“Well, fire her up and let’s go.”

“Wait, how do we get off?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I am fairly confident I can get this moving, but I have no idea if I could get it lined up with a pier when we get wherever we are going, if there is even a pier to moor to. We can’t really just crash it up a beach, people would notice!”

“Do I have to think of everything?”

“What?”

“Drive to where we are going, get close to shore and jump off and swim. Easy.”

“You’re a genius!”

Dave appeared from down below.

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

“Err…yes.” He said. His face was white. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

“What?” said Sarah.

The now familiar sensation of dread began to roll over me once more. He was about to tell us something horrible.

“Just let me check something.” He said, “So you know there is a certain symbol right, it’s a yellow background and then black shapes on it, and the black shapes make what look like three fan blades with a big dot in the middle, does that sound familiar.”

We puzzled over this for a moment.

“Sounds like the nuclear symbol to me.” I said, “What’s that got to do with the price of sliced bread?”

“It’s not the CND symbol then?”

“No, that’s more like the Mercedes emblem.”

“Ah, I see. I thought as much.” said Dave. He sighed. “You had better come and see.”

We followed him down the ladder into the bottom of the boat. It was one huge hollow area as opposed to the various small sleeping and living compartments I had expected to see. It had obviously been designed or adapted specifically to accommodate something large.

When my eyes had adjusted to the relative gloom, I saw what this large thing was.

“What do you think that is?” said Dave, pointing at the object.

“I…g…I…g…I…g…” I said.

“That was my first reaction too.” said Dave, mournfully.

“What is it?” said Sarah, who didn’t watch nearly as much TV as me and Dave did.

“IT’S A MOTHER FUCKING NUCLEAR BOMB!” I managed finally.

---

Verse Thirteen.

We stood on the sun deck of the boat, happy to not be able to see the scary looking thing in the hold anymore.

“Are you seriously telling me that’s a nuclear bomb?” said Sarah, aghast.

“If the movies and TV are even slightly accurate, yes.” I said, “And it is covered with radiation warning stickers. And seriously, given the way our luck has run lately, what else could it be?”

“It some kind of massive bomb, even if it’s not nuclear.” said Dave. “We’re in fucking Cuba! It’s hardly going to be a snow machine or a very large jukebox is it?”

“Good point!” I said.

“So, we are embroiled in an international drug deal with a multimillion pound figure on it, we are working undercover for MI5 against our will, we are stuck in Cuba with no way of getting home and there are an unknown number of Russian hitmen chasing us around trying to kill us – and now there’s a nuclear bomb involved?” said Sarah, shaking her head. “I should’ve stayed in and watched the telly.”

“Yeah.” said Dave, “You would think some seriously disturbed, sick individual somewhere is making all this up wouldn’t you? But you know…”

“Dave, please don’t say anything even remotely similar to ‘What else could go wrong?” I interrupted.

“I wasn’t going to.” He said.

“Good.” I said.

“But what else could go wrong?” he said, smiling evilly.

We all stood in silence waiting for the next thing to go wrong that inevitably happens immediately following someone saying ‘what else can go wrong’.

High overhead a small shape suddenly rolled out of a level glide path and embarked on a death dive towards us. It came closer and closer, picking up speed as it went. It was moving on an unerring path directly towards the boat.

We were all completely oblivious to its presence. Our attention was on possible land or sea based attacks and we had not even considered looking up. If we had, we would easily have spotted the small shape. We would have noticed the fast moving object as it dove out of the sun. Its silhouette resembling some winged beast from the fires of hell, come to end us all.

Maybe we could have taken cover if we had thought of airbourne dangers. Maybe we would have had time to jump into the ocean before it hit us. We’ll never know now.

We all jumped slightly as the seagull in cardiac arrest hit the side of the boat, broke its own neck in the impact and fell into the sea.

“Waaaaaaaak-mmphh-aaaaaaaaahkk!” it said.

“That was weird.” said Dave.

“So, do you think this is the ‘device’ those Russian fellas wanted?” I said.

“Russian guys in Cuba prepared to kill us for a device and we have a stolen nuclear bomb in a boat?” said Sarah, “Hmmm. Let me think about that for a moment. Course it is you idiot.”

“So let me get this straight.” I said, summarising for all those who have lost the plot slightly. I don’t blame you, this stuff is seriously contrived and unnecessarily complicated. “At some point over the last few days, a time we have no memory off because of a brilliant but highly unlikely sounding drug that gives us spy-skills but causes memory loss when you fall asleep, we attended a party held on a flotilla of boats anchored just off shore in Havana bay. We somehow stumbled across this nuclear device in the bottom of a specially adapted beach craft. For some reason we decided to steal the boat containing the nuclear device and brought it here, somehow.  Then we moored the boat up and headed back to Havana where we were then seen playing poker on the beach with half a deck of cards. Meanwhile, some Russians led by a guy named Stankovich, who presumably were the ones throwing the boat party, have since then been chasing us around trying to kill us and recover the device?”

“Yep.” said Sarah.

“Sounds about right to me.” said Dave.

“Right.” I said, “This is all very confusing.”

“It’s all just a clichéd collection of unfeasible events invented in order to explain the three of us in a strange place, with no memories, being chased by bad guys while the writer lazily strings together a bunch of childish jokes, colloquial swear words and shitty running gags if you ask me.” said Dave. “Oh look! A bee!”

“What?” I said.

“A bee! Look!” said Dave.

“No, what was all that other stuff about running gags and stuff?” asked Sarah.

“Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I would say.” said Dave, and ran off with a giggle to chase the bee along the deck.

I looked at Sarah with an exasperated expression on my face.

“I really wish he would stop doing that.” I said.

“I know, breaking the fourth wall is so 1990.” She said.

“What?”

“What?”

“You’re doing it now!”

“Doing what?”

Dave came skipping back towards us. He had a large, red, throbbing lump on the end of his nose. It looked very painful.

“Bastard bee!” he said, pointing at the lump, “Last time I try and be friendly to one of those little, buzzy twats. So what now?”

“I don’t know, we still have to get a message to Nedved and do this drug deal I suppose.”

“Should we just give the Russians their boat back? It might get them off our backs!” said Dave.

“The question arises: what are they going to do with a nuclear bomb?” said Sarah.

“I wouldn’t have thought anything good.” said Dave.

“So what? Leave it here?” I said.

“We’ll tell Smith about it.” said Sarah, “Let them deal with it.”

“What about those Russians.” said Dave.

“We’ve given them the slip so far, maybe our luck will hold. Do this deal and get the fuck out of Dodge.” I said. “Let MI5 deal with the fallout. Literally.”

“No.” said Dave, pointing to the west, “I mean THOSE Russians!”

Sarah and I span on our heels. Two boats overflowing with unfriendly looking men in black were bouncing over the surf towards us.

“Just run, they only want the bomb!” said Dave.

“No, we can’t let them have it!” I said, beginning to untie the mooring ropes, “Do you know how many lives that thing could end?”

“No, how many?” said Dave.

“I dunno, lots.” I said, “Get the stern line.”

“The what?”

“The rope at the back you dollop!”

Dave ran to the back of the boat and untied the knot. I turned the key in the ignition and the boat’s mighty engine roared into life.

“That’s what an engine should sound like Dave.” I shouted, “Not all ‘woooooo’s and ‘eeeeeeee’s like a cheesy ghost train!”

“Leave it.” He said, looking hurt.

I throttled the engine up in reverse and the boat pulled back away from the ramshackle pier, then flung the throttle lever into full forward and span the wheel hard to starboard. The front of the boat lifted out of the water as the power of the propellers churned the water to a foam. The boat slew around and we shot off like a rat up a drainpipe.

Dave and Sarah somersaulted backwards along the deck, caught off guard by the brutal acceleration. They landed in a tangled heap against the transom. I looked back, winced and gave what I hoped was an apologetic look. I resigned myself to receiving another ding around the head at some point for that little miscalculation.

We got up to speed and the boat began to leap from the top of one wave to the next, each time coming back down with a bone shaking impact. There was a worrying breaking noise from below and I began to pray to my own personal gods that I hadn’t just inadvertently set off a nuclear bomb.

“Slow down, slow down!” shouted Dave, “I’m gonna be sick!”

I turned and pointed to the sea behind us and the two boats stuffed with bad guys that were pursuing us.

“Speed up, speed up!” shouted Dave, “I’m gonna die! Bleeeeuuurrrrghhhh”

For the second time today, Dave blew chunks. At least it was actual solids this time and not just Tequila and bile. Thankfully most of it went over the side into the sea.

“Good God.” He said, wiping his mouth, “Tortillas and salsa actually tastes better coming up than they did going down, who knew?”

Sarah and Dave held on to the rails in grim determination. They were being thrown upwards into the air then landing with a crash, only to be thrown upwards again.

I could see the sea in front so I was able to anticipate the movement of the boat, riding it like a bucking bronco, but it was playing merry hell with my knees.

The sea was rough, which meant the Russians were being chucked around as much as we were. We heard gunshots but they were obviously missing us by a good distance. Occasionally there was a little ‘pfafff’ nearby as a bullet hit the water, but so far, none had even come close.

I had no idea where I was going and just resorted to following the coastline until a plan of some sort presented itself.

I waited.

I waited a bit more.

Nothing was happening.

Meanwhile, Dave was being sick again and this time it was just Tequila and bile. The big, black case he was holding on to slipped his grasp just as we rose up to the crest of a giant wave and launched into the air. The boat came back down with a crunch. The black case, following the rules of old Isaac’s First Law of Motion, continued upwards into the air. It landed in the sea several feet behind us.

“THE CASE!” shouted Dave. He reached over the transom to try and recover it. A bullet ‘pfafffed’ into the water a few inches from his face.

“Do you wanna go back for it?” I said.

“Fuck it, keep going. Live for now, maybe get killed later. It’s the living now bit I like.” He said, ducking down on the deck.

I looked down at the dials on the steering console and cursed.

“We can’t keep going like this forever.” Yelled Sarah over the noise and spray of the sea.

“I know.” I said, “We’re almost out of fuel!”

Then suddenly a plan presented itself. It was a very dangerous and stupid plan but plans were thin on the ground right now so I would take whatever I could.

We were moving across the mouth of a wide, sweeping bay, moving parallel with a thin, sandy strip of beach. A small town nestled on the hillside above it. The beach and the shallows were packed with tourists. Surfers, bathers, kids throwing beach balls, mothers and their children and men standing still wearing odd expressions of concentration that clearly illustrated they were currently peeing. Becoming one with the ocean, the ultimate goal of every man on holiday.

All eyes were looking out to sea as a boat containing three badly sunburnt, screaming Europeans tore past, closely followed by two other boats packed with men in black suits all hanging on for dear life like an episode of the Keystone Cops, firing their guns wildly in every direction.

At the far end of the beach was a small promontory. A thin spit of rocky land extending out into the sea. Halfway along it, facing the bay and the beach was a small lifeboat station. It was one of those with a little hut at the top and a long ramp leading down to the water for launching the lifeboat as quickly as possible.

I turned the wheel and aimed straight for it.

“NICK!” screamed Sarah, realising what I was doing, “NO, DON’T!”

“YOUR’E NOT FUCKING JAMES BOND!” screamed Dave.

“HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!” I yelled.

I turned around to check that they had heeded my warning. They were sitting on the deck in each other’s arms. I did a double take and shot them a funny look.

“NO!” I shouted, “HOLD ON TO SOMETHING ELSE!”

They scattered towards the rails along the transom. Dave put his arm underneath it, grabbed hold of Sarah and put his other arm around her, then locked his hands together around them both. Sarah went into a huddle and grabbed the rail with both hands.

“THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA DUDE!”  shouted Dave.

“I KNOW!” I shouted back.

We hit the ramp with a bang. The boat shot up it, sparks flying on all sides. As we reached the apex we launched into the air and cleaved through the roof of the little hut in a maelstrom of splintered wood and shingles.

I happened to glance down at the now roofless hut as we sailed overhead. A man with a greasy rag in one hand and a spanner in the other was standing open mouthed among the falling debris. He was looking straight up at me with a bewildered expression. Then a small bhuoy on the end of a trailing rope we had been dragging along with us hit him in the side of the head with an amusing ‘bloink’ noise, sending him flying out of the door on the other side of the hut.

Even in this time of impending death I failed to stifle a titter. Now the people on the beach were watching a boat wearing half a wooden hut flying through the air with a man at the helm laughing his head off.

We soared through the air and landed with no grace whatsoever in the sheltered waters of the smaller bay beyond the promontory.

As I had hoped, the Russian boat closest to us were so intent on catching us that they weren’t paying much attention to where they were going. As our boat hit the ramp and ascended skywards, the Russian driver realised he was heading the same way. He panicked and tried to steer away but there was not enough time and even less room. The boat hit the pointy rocks and exploded.

We looked back just in time to see the rising fireball and then our attention was drawn to a Cuban man holding a spanner, flying backwards through the air towards us, screaming.

“Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhh-mmmmmmpphhh” he said as he hit the water behind us.

“Fuck me!” he said as he surfaced.

A greasy rag fluttered down and settled on his bald head.

The boat had stalled so I restarted the engine, revved it up and we were on the move again. The second Russian boat had managed to avoid the same fate as the first and was rounding the promontory and coming towards us once more. I aimed the boat directly at them on a collision course.

They fired their weapons at our boat but the acceleration had lifted the bow out of the water again and all they achieved was putting a few small holes in the prow. The Russian driver chickened out and speared off to the side. We rushed past them and they were soaked by our bow wave as we passed.

A burly Russian with tattoos all over his face and neck threw his gun in the air and shrieked like a girl as a puzzled squid was ejected from the sea by the wave, landing on his head and slowly sliding down his neck.

The Russian boat slid around in a large circle and took up pursuit again.

“I really can’t believe that worked.” said Dave.

“I can’t believe we’re still alive!” said Sarah.

“One down one to go!” said Dave, “Any more bright ideas Mike?”

“In actual fact, yes, I think we can……..” I began.

‘Cough…cough…splutter…splutter.” said the engine before dying completely.

“Oh.” I said, as the boat slowed to a halt. “Never mind.”

The Russian boat pulled up alongside us and several burly but soggy men jumped aboard. There were three thudding noises as three heads were hit very hard with the butts of three handguns.

Then blackness.

---

 Verse Fourteen.

I awoke with a headache. Again.

I was tied to a chair in an abandoned building of some kind. Sarah and Dave were tied to similar chairs next to me. Sarah was already awake and staring daggers at a man standing over us with a gun. Dave was still unconscious. Little strings of drool were hanging from his mouth.

“That’s another one awake Boss.” said the man.

He took a step to his left and aimed a vicious kick at Dave’s shins. Dave awoke with a start.

“MY POTATOES!” he screamed.

He looked around and took in his predicament.

“Fuck me!” he said.

“They’re all awake now Boss.” Said Shin Kicker.

“Good, good.” said a voice from behind Shin Kicker.

Shin Kicker moved away to reveal a man sitting on a raised platform on what looked suspiciously like a throne.

“Nedved!” I said. For it was he.

“Hello again my crazy English friends.” said Nedved.

“Not him again.” said Dave.

“I see you are not quite so intoxicated as in our first encounter.” said Nedved.

“Give me a bottle and that can easily be remedied.” said Dave.

“Ha ha ha!” said Nedved, nodding to one of his lackeys.

The lackey disappeared and came back moments later with a bottle of vodka. He walked towards Dave who began to smile. The man put the bottle down on the floor in front of Dave and walked away.”

“Help yourself my friend. Ha ha ha!” said Nedved, although I thought the laugh was a bit forced.

Dave went to reach for the bottle and nearly pulled a muscle before he remembered he was tied to a chair.

“MOTHER FUCKER!” he said.

“Oooh. That’s low that is.” I said.

“So, I expect you are surprised to see me?” said Nedved.

“Indeed I am.” I said.

“Nope.” said Dave.

“Not in the least.” said Sarah.

“What?” said Nedved.

“Well it’s obvious.” said Sarah, “You and Stankovich are the same person. The drug deal was just a distraction meant to throw the feds off the trail of the real crime which was to take a nuclear bomb from Cuba to the US and either detonate it or use it as blackmail for a big payoff. Seem about right to you guys?”

“Yeppers. Even I saw that coming.” said Dave.

“What?” I said.

“What do you think the target is Dave? Washington?”

“Sounds the most likely place, yeah.” said Dave.

“Eh?” I said.

“So you didn’t care who was hired to complete the drug deal, it never mattered. Which is why you happily employed three drunken idiots from Bolsover.” Continued Sarah.

“You seem to have all the answers.” said Nedved, barely disguising his surprise. “It is no matter, I shall kill you and proceed with my plan. It is a shame you managed to lose my money but it is a mere fraction of the sum I will gain from this venture. This has at least spared me from having to explain my plans to you for no apparent reason like a hackneyed crime boss in a bad story.”

“Is everyone allowed to do that except me?” I asked. “And what the bloody hell is going on?”

“SILENCE!” shouted Nedved. “You die now.”

Seven black clad Russians advanced towards us drawing their guns.

“NO!” shouted Nedved, “That is much too easy for these thorns in my side. Use the blades.”

The men put their guns away and approached a large wooden crate positioned against a wall. They opened it and began to remove lots of very scary and very sharp implements. Knives and swords of various shapes and sizes and oddly, a spiked medieval mace. There was a brief argument in Russian about who would get the mace which was ended by the biggest man among them punching another one in the temple and taking it for himself.

Sufficiently armed the men started walking towards us once more with many a threatening gesture and evil sneer. The big man banged the spiked mace on his hand to intimidate us and winced as the spikes dug into the flesh of his palm. He did a very good job of pretending he had meant to do it and it didn’t hurt a bit, but a small tear ran out of the corner of his left eye and he gritted his teeth.

“Eeep!” he said quietly.

I didn’t like the way this was going. Sarah was struggling against the ropes holding her hands and Dave was still trying to get to the bottle of vodka and hadn’t really noticed what was happening.

The men got closer and closer. They were almost in range when there was a snapping noise from beside me. I turned to see that Sarah had somehow managed to escape her bonds.

She stood up and kicked the closest Russian hard in the plums. He went down with a cry in Russian which could possibly be translated as ‘Oh mammy’ by those so inclined.

She half turned and grabbed the backrest of the chair she had been tied to, then swung it over her shoulder and brought it crashing down on the next Russian’s head. The man went down and landed on his fallen comrade who was lying in the foetal position and whimpering. The chair disintegrated in Sarah’s hands from the force of the impact leaving her holding two sharp splinters of plastic.

She dropped into some kind of martial arts pose, her legs bent, slightly crouched with her hands held out in front of her.

“Aiiiiiiieeeeee.” She said.

She jumped up into the air, performed a somersault and landed like a cat near the next Russian. He screamed as she landed simultaneously on both of his feet, driving her heels down as hard as she could. The Russian looked at her with a surprised expression and then screamed again as she smiled at him and plunged the two plastic shards into his shoulders. As he turned away and began to fall she kicked him hard up the arse, sending him sprawling across the room. He hit the far wall with a hollow thump and fell motionless to the floor.

The remaining four Russians had halted their approach and were now looking at each other uncertainly, clearly apprehensive of this miniature assassin.

I was sitting watching this with a gormless look on my face, my mouth hanging open, in total disbelief at the scene unfolding before me.

Sarah faced the four remaining men and growled. Dave had looked up, taken in the situation and now somehow he had escaped his confinement! He reached down and picked up the vodka bottle, ripped off the cap, took a very long swig and threw the bottle at the Russians. It hit one of them in the face and shattered, forcing the remaining three to duck and cover their faces as they were covered with a spray of vodka and glass shards.

Seeing the opportunity, Dave moved forward and punched one of the men in the stomach. The man bent double with a sound like a whoopee cushion deflating and Dave brought his knee up hard into the man’s face. The Russian did a complete backwards somersault and hit the floor face first. He moved no more.

Sarah jumped, spinning, into the air, bringing one leg around in a roundhouse kick. It connected with the temple of a Russian and knocked him sideways. His head slammed into the head of the man who Dave had hit with the vodka bottle, his face covered in little splinters of glass, his nose broken. The two men’s heads smashed together with a sound that reminded me of snooker and they both collapsed to the floor, ending up sitting back to back leaning on each other. I swear I could hear the sound of little birds flying around their heads.

All that was left was Shin Kicker. He screamed and did some martial arts type intimidation thing. You know the kind, waving his arms around and screaming and acting all brave and skilful. Sarah and Dave stood shoulder to shoulder facing him, balled their fists and simply stared.

Shin Kicker turned and ran away.

Nedved had obviously made his escape during the commotion as he was nowhere to be seen. The sound of a large engine could be heard from outside which got quieter and quieter and eventually vanished.

Dave came towards me and untied me from the chair, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked.

“We kicked their arses dude!” said Dave, beaming.

“But how?”

“Maybe I can answer that question.” said a voice from the shadows,

It was Agent Smith.

“Have you been there the whole time?” I said.

“Yes.” said Smith.

“Well, thanks for the help, these dicks were gonna kill us!” I said.

“I had to see what Nedved would say. I was just about to take action when you solved the problem yourselves.”

“So, you weren’t just, for example, going to sit in the shadows, do nothing, take any information you could and leave us to die?” I asked.

“Of course not.” said Smith who had actually been sitting in the shadows thinking that he was outnumbered and convincing himself that no one would really miss three idiots from Bolsover.

“So how come these two just turned into Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee?” I said.

“I had an agent amongst Nedved’s men. While you were unconscious and being transported here, he injected you with the performance enhancing drug.”

“Why didn’t he just help us escape?” asked Sarah.

“He couldn’t blow his cover.” Agent Smith looked around, “Ah There he is. Are you alright Agent Jones?”

We followed Smith’s line of sight. Jones was apparently the man Sarah had just impaled with broken pieces of chair.

“Uuhhhhrrrr-arrrrgghh!” said Jones.

“He doesn’t look alright.” I said.

“No, he doesn’t.” said Smith, “A team will be arriving shortly to take care of him and these other miscreants.”

“What’s a miscreant?” asked Dave.

“So does that mean I could have busted free and kicked some ass too?” I asked.

“Indeed. I have no idea why you sat there and did nothing.” said Smith.

“Yeah. Thanks for the help Mike.” said Dave.

“I didn’t know I was on ninja drugs.” I said. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.” said Dave, “I was just really pissed off about Nedved’s vodka gag.”

Smith was looking at Sarah with admiration in his eyes.

“What?” she said.

“Very impressive.” He said.

“Look, if you are coming over all pervy, I’ll do the same thing to you as I did to him.” she said, pointing at Agent Jones.

“Arrgrghhuuuuughhhhhh.” moaned Agent Jones.

“No, no.” said Smith, “Nothing of the sort. I am just impressed by your skills.”

“What about my skills?” said Dave, “I twatted some of them Ruskies too you know.”

“Yes, but you are under the influence of performance enhancing drugs. She isn’t.”

“What?” said Sarah.

“Jones only had two shots of the drug on his person. He gave them to you two.” said Smith, indicating myself and Dave.

Three people looked at Sarah, one with something akin to love and two with utter confusion.

“What can I say?” she said, “I used to work in a pub and throwing out time sometimes got rough.”

“We will be having that conversation I promised.” said Smith, “We could use someone like you in MI5.”

“Hey, I just want to get home and get on with my life.” said Sarah, “I have no inclination to risk my life for Queen and country every damn day!”

“We’ll talk.” said Smith, smiling.

“Fine, so what’s going on exactly? Again. Why do we never know what’s going on?” said Sarah.

“Yeah, how come you’re here Smith?” I asked.

“We were following you, using the transmitter in the phone I gave you.” He said, “We were hoping you would lead us to the bomb.”

“You know about that?” said Dave.

“Of course we know about that!” said Smith, “We’re MI5 not a bunch of morons.”

“So you knew the drug deal was a cover?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” said Sarah, “That would have been very useful information to have been aware of.”

“We needed you to carry on with the plan, not acting with fear when you were made aware you had stepped in to help avert World War Three.”

“You knew we had stolen the boat?” I said.

“Yes, we were keeping tabs on you. And we needed you to take us to it. We thought you might subconsciously remember where you had hidden it and unknowingly lead us there.”

“Why didn’t you just track us with the phone thingy when we stole it?” said Dave.

“Because you didn’t all steal the boat. Mr. Bradley here took it by himself and hid it. You two stole a different boat and led the pursuing Russians on a wild goose chase around the island before jumping ship and disappearing. Mr. Wilson here had the phone in his pocket at the time so we could only track him. Did you not see the abandoned boat on the beach in Havana? That was you two.”

“That’s awfully convenient, plot wise.” said Sarah.

“Indeed it is.” said Smith.

“Was that the boat described back in Verse Three?” said Dave, “The mysterious abandoned one that seemed familiar?”

“That’s the one, yes.” said Smith.

“Can everyone just please stop doing that?” I said.

“So Mike took the bomb boat, hid it and we met up on the beach later?” said Dave.

“Yes, I assume you had prearranged it as a rendezvous point.” said Smith.

“Well would you believe it?” said Dave, “We have been thinking we were drunkenly stumbling around and doing weird things like sitting on a beach playing poker with half  deck of cards and in reality we were running about like Jason bloody Bourne, stealing bombs from Russians, averting World War Three, participating in boat chases and having fancy rendezvous points!”

“Right.” I said, “I suppose we are all going to have to go through this again. What do we do now?”

“I know, I am really sick of asking that question.” said Sarah.

“I am really sick I broke that bottle of vodka.” said Dave.

Verse Fifteen.

At least things had become a whole lot simpler now. This was offset by the stakes being higher but I am happy when I can concentrate on just one thing, even if that thing is stopping nuclear Armageddon.

Our course was now clear. No more wandering around looking for a computer to send a dodgy e-mail. No more not knowing which people would kill us and which would help us. No more super spy undercover stuff confusing the hell out of me. The whole thing was out of the bag now. Nedved knew who we really were, we knew his plan and the MI5 could now openly help us. Having had that thought, a further thought occurred to me. We no longer had any reason to even be involved. Why should we do anything? We should let MI5 handle it, it’s what they are trained to do.

“No, I’m sorry.” said Smith, “That won’t work.”

“What?” I said, “How did you….”

“You were thinking that you should just let MI5 handle this now as there is no longer any reason for you to be involved.” said Smith.

“Well, yes. But, how…” I said.

Damn. Confused again. Just when I thought I had finally managed to figure something out. Oh well. It’s nothing new. I decided to just let the current take me where it will.

“So, why is that not the case?” said Sarah.

“Nedved may know who you are now.” said Smith, “But he still doesn’t know MI5 are aware of his true plan. If he does become aware the whole of British Intelligence are about to fall on him, he will simply disappear. If he doesn’t already think you three are dead, he doesn’t consider you a threat, so he will continue with his plan. That’s the only chance we have to stop him. If he goes underground we will lose him.”

“Right. That figures.” I said, sighing. “I knew that was too good to be true.”

“It’ll be right Mike.” said Dave, oddly confident. “Me and thee are hopped up on super spy ninja drugs and Sarah…well, Sarah is just naturally gifted.”

“I don’t feel like I am hopped up on super spy ninja drugs Dave.”

“It’ll come to you.” He assured me.

“So use your new abilities to find Nedved and his base of operations. We will track the phone and when you give the signal, we will strike and take him down.” said Smith.

“What’s the signal?” asked Sarah.

“Dial 999 on the phone, it’s an emergency code.” said Smith.

After some arguments regarding the activation of my super spy ninja skills and when I would feel the effects, we reluctantly agreed and set about trying to find Nedved.

Smith once more disappeared to wherever it is he kept disappearing to. He tried to quell the guilt he was feeling about the fact that there was no Agent Jones and none of us had been injected with super spy ninja drugs.

We stood on the dock outside the building and tried to think of a way to locate Nedved.

“The bombs on a boat, so it has to be on the coast.” I said.

“Unless the bomb was brought here on a boat and he intends to transfer it to a small plane or something.” said Sarah.

“But that boat had been adapted to carry the bomb.” said Dave.

“As I said, it could have been brought here from somewhere else on the boat, doesn’t necessarily mean that is the delivery method.”

“You’re right.” I said.

“Plus don’t forget Mike,” she continued, “You basically fucked that boat up in our merry little flying boat adventure earlier.”

She was right again. The boat we had stolen was a little worse for wear when we last saw it. It was full of broken bits of lifeboat hut and half flooded. Running the diesel engine so hard for so long and emptying the fuel tank wouldn’t do much good and the tears torn in the bottom from the launch up the ramp and a multitude of bullet holes were probably going to seriously affect its seaworthiness.

“So, we have successfully narrowed the search area down to…somewhere in Cuba?” I said.

“I have an idea.” said Dave, “We still have loads of cash right? Let’s go and hire a little plane or something and just fly around and hope we see something. Maybe we will get lucky.”

“That’s not a bad idea Dave.” I said, “An aerial view might help and it beats standing here scratching our arses.”

We made our way to the main road and Dave utilised his taxi hailing skills. Once again, a Cuban taxi driver skidded to a halt in front of us, his eyes out on stalks at the sight of Dave’s hairy leg waving seductively.

It boggles the mind.

We headed back to the airport in the hope of once again locating our Cuban fixer, Crackel.

When we arrived at the airport it seemed happily free from Russian death squads. Dave had somehow got it into his head that the super spy ninja drug made him bulletproof and invincible no matter how many times we tried to explain it didn’t work that way.  While Sarah and I kept to the shadows and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, Dave was walking around as bold as brass. Occasionally he would hold his arms in the air and shout:

“Here Rusky Rusky Ruskies, here I am! Come and get me.”

After a while, Sarah and I realised that hiding was pointless as he was blowing our cover, so we stopped. Nothing untoward happened. We reasoned that Nedved and his bad guy club were all otherwise occupied. The money was not an issue, the drugs didn’t exist and they already had the bomb so why would they exert too much effort looking for three sunburnt English people?

We hung around at the arrivals gate where we were most confident of finding Crackel and sure enough, there he was. This time he was trying to convince some Germans that there was a reparation payment to be made by all Germans arriving in Cuba for the losses suffered in World War Two.

The Germans were trying to explain in broken English that their government had already made reparation payments to Cuba and everyone else but they were losing the fight. Crackel caught sight of us approaching and smiled. He turned back to the Germans.

“I will waive the charge for you because I like you and I absolve you for your sins against the Cuban people in the name of the Che, the Fidel and the Holy Goat.”

He performed the sign of the cross and kissed each German twice on the cheek before skipping towards us.

“If it isn’t my favourite three Europeans!” he said, “Do you need another car? What happened to the last one?”

“It was haunted and then exploded.” I said.

“Oh.” He said, looking crestfallen, “No refunds!”

“We don’t need a car this time Crackel, we need a plane.”

“Well, there are many around here, this is an airport. An air-port, for aero-planes.” He said, looking confused. “You can buy a ticket over there. Here in Cuba you can fly to almost anywhere, we’re very advanced.”

“Yes we know that you dolt.” said Sarah, “We need to hire a private plane.”

“Oh, that’s makes more sense.” He said, “I know a man with a small plane, I will draw a map for you.”

“Not this time Crackel.” I said, “This time you are coming with us.”

“Oh no.” he said, backing away, “I have my ear to the ground. There have been car chases, flying boats, gunfights, minced Russians in hotel rooms and there is a story of a man in hospital, right now, who was kicked in his wedding department so hard that his testicles are now in his stomach! And the one thing connecting all these things is you three! I am happy to provide you with transport, directions and stuff like that, but I have no desire to participate in whatever crazy and, above all, dangerous capers you are involved in.”

“It’s all been misunderstandings Crackel.” said Sarah, “We need your help.”

“No no no no.” said Crackel, “Life expectancy around you guys is like five minutes!”

I held out a big pile of notes. He looked at them for a second or two and made a few mental calculations before reaching out and taking them.

“But I could hardly leave three of my friends out in the cold when they need my help could I?” he said with a smile.

Crackel led us to his car, unsurprisingly a huge ’58 Chevy, and we climbed in. We drove off towards the far end of the island where Crackel ‘knew a guy’.

On the way Crackel gave us a very interesting and informative running commentary on the sights of Cuba.

“So, you see that ruined windmill? That’s where a man once successfully made a horse fly.”

“That field there was where the famed Voodoo priest, Corazon De Blanco, raised an army of Zombies. They would have taken over the island if it had not have been for a brave young boy armed only with a melon.”

“Che Guevara once sat on that big rock there to pick his nose. The thing he picked out of it is held in the museum in Havana. If you ever have the chance to see it, please do, it’s breath-taking.”

And so on.

We eventually arrived at a tiny little dirt airstrip in the middle of nowhere. There was a large rusted hangar and a small wooden hut. The only other thing to see was a long washing line strung from the hut to the wall of the hangar. The reason I mention it is that it was entirely covered by knee length frilly bloomers in a variety of polka dot and gingham designs and I thought that was a bit…odd.

Crackel approached the hut and banged loudly on the door. There were sounds of a commotion from inside and a strange grunting noise like an animal in distress. A gruff male voice, which made the frilly bloomers seem even odder, called out.

“Espere, espere, ya voy.”

Crackel turned to us and gave us a thumbs up, grinning manically.

There was a little more commotion and the door was wrenched open from the inside to reveal an overweight man who was fastening up his trousers. I was shocked to see a large pig in the hut behind him, it was actually sitting in a threadbare armchair and looking straight at me with a fierce intelligence in its eyes.

I looked at the bloomers on the washing line and tried to mentally gauge if they were the right size for the pig or the man.

“Crackel.” Said the man with great enthusiasm, “Como estas?”

Crackel and the man shook hands vigorously. At the upturn of every shake, Crackel was lifted slightly off the ground.

“Guys, this is Enri.” said Crackel, “He’s a pilot.”

We all said ‘hi’ and waved.

Crackel explained to Enri what we wanted. It seemed to take several attempts but Crackel eventually managed to get his message across. Enri didn’t look too enthusiastic until Sarah showed him a bunch of notes and he immediately perked up.

Enri muttered something in Spanish to Crackel who turned and told us he would be a minute or two and we should wait.

“Is he okay with flying low Crackel?” asked Dave.

“He says, for that kind of money, he’ll fly up Castro’s own asshole.” said Crackel.

A few minutes later and Enri emerged from the little hut wearing a flying jacket. He stomped off towards the hangar and pulled open the massive sliding doors. A few minutes later we heard the sound of engines coughing into life. They sounded sick. They actually sounded like they had bubonic plague. My confidence in this idea began to dissipate.

My confidence in this idea fell to zero as the plane began to inch out of the hangar and we got to see it in all its glory.

“Jesus Christ!” I said, shocked, “It’s a DC-3!”

“What’s a DC-3?” asked Sarah.

“A plane.” I said.

“Obviously, twatface.” She said, “Why did you mention it like that?”

“Well, put it this way, when the last one of those was made, a certain Austrian was marching across Europe!”

“Who’s that then?” said Dave.

I gave him a confused look.

“Hitler!” I said.

“Who’s that then?” said Dave.

“Look, it’s a very old plane, that’s all.” I said.

“You could have just said that rather than shouting out random letters, numbers and names!” said Dave.

“Fuck me!” I said, holding my head in my hands.

“Hey!” said Dave, “That’s my thing, I say that, not you!”

“Fine.” I said, “I am just trying to illustrate my reluctance in flying in a plane that is nearly eighty years old and by the looks of all the holes and duct tape, doesn’t seem to be very well maintained.”

“Enri says it is solid as a rock Bradders.” said Crackel, patting me on the shoulder, “I trust him, I’ve known him for years. Besides, he has only just got this plane, last week I think. It’s brand new.”

“Just because he only just got it, doesn’t mean it is new.” I said.

“What did he fly before then, a biplane?” asked Sarah.

“Oh he’s had loads of planes over the years.” said Crackel, oblivious to the sarcasm “Doesn’t tend to keep them long.”

“Why not?” asked Dave.

“He keeps crashing them.” said Crackel.

“Jesus Christ we’re going to die.” I said.

“It’s okay Bradders, Enri says he has never crashed twice in one month.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is Crackel.” I screamed.

“Look, I wouldn’t put my precious Pop in any danger, would I?” said Crackel, shooting Dave a meaningful look.

“If he starts that again, I’m staying here.” said Dave.

“Let’s just get in the damn plane.” said Sarah, “If he has crashed that many times and is still alive, he must be good at it.”

Dave and I thought about this for a second or two and it did seem to make some kind of sense. It shouldn’t and we had no idea why it did, but it was enough to convince us to move. Later we may realise our mistake but for now we were satisfied.

Enri had stopped the plane on the end of the runway and was hanging out of the window beckoning us aboard.

We ran to the plane, opened the side door and climbed in. The view from inside was scarier than from outside. There were gaping holes in the floor. Some of them looked like bullet holes. There were no seats and the whole of one wall was covered in a dark stain that could only be blood.

Crackel spoke to Enri and then turned back to us.

“Enri says he bought the plane from a government auction. It was seized from some drug runner who encountered problems with the military while trying to fly drugs into the US. He says we are just waiting on the co-pilot.”

A co-pilot? Perhaps I had misread Enri. He seemed to be taking this seriously.

Enri, turned to face us and said something in Spanish.

“He says here she comes now.” said Crackel.

We all looked out of the window to see the co-pilot.

All our jaws dropped when we saw who it was.

The pig came sauntering out of the hut. It was wearing a leather jacket, a leather flying cap and flying goggles. It walked nonchalantly up to the aircraft and jumped up through the open door. It walked up the fuselage towards the cockpit giving each of us a friendly look as it passed, then climbed into the co-pilots seat.

“Hrrrrnnnggggg-squeeeeeee.” It said, looking directly at Enri.

Enri nodded at the pig and turned to us, once again saying something in Spanish.

“Close the door, we can go.” said Crackel.

“Did you just translate Enri or the pig?” asked Dave while I closed the hatch and locked it shut.

“Both.” said Crackel.

We sat in silence. The engines throttled up and we began to move down the bumpy runway. We gathered speed and the plane began to bounce around, shuddering violently.

“Okay, is no one going to say anything about the fact that our co-pilot is a pig?” I said.

“Her name’s Gail.” said Crackel, as if that made everything okay.

“Seems perfectly reasonable to me, given recent events.” said Dave.

“I’m more concerned about what it says about Enri.” said Sarah.

“I’m getting off.” I said, making for the door.

At that point the pig, sorry, Gail, span around in her seat and stared at me.

“Eeeeeee-hnnngg-occkkk-weeeeee.” She said.

I slowly backed away from the door and sat down again, smiling innocently. The plane lurched into the air, the engines whining under the stress, and started to climb.

“I think I trust Gail more than Enri.” said Dave, “She seems to know what she’s doing.”

“Well you would.” I said, ready to snap.

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” said Dave.

“You’re fucking crazy!” I said.

“What?” he said, “How am I crazy?”

“Well for one you are prepared to put your trust in a porcine pilot rather than a human being!”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“She doesn’t even have opposable fucking thumbs Dave! She doesn’t have thumbs at all!”

“So?”

“So in the event she has to take control of the plane?”

“I’ve seen a dog drive a car on the internet!”

“See! That’s what I mean!”

“What?”

“You’ve seen a dog drive a car on the internet so obviously a pig can fly a plane! It’s fucking nuts.”

“Okay, I admit, that’s a little odd.”

“A little?”

“Give me one other example of my supposed craziness. Just one. Go on.”

I thought for a few minutes about the millions and millions of examples of Dave being crazy, trying to think of the best one.

“Okay, what about the time you were on that reality TV show?”

“Little Brother’s Dancing in Holes?”

“That’s the one.”

“What of it?”

“You beat all the other contestants unconscious by hitting them around the head repeatedly with a shoe! With a fucking shoe!”

“So? My only regret is that they didn’t have bigger heads.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“What?”

“Not only that you knocked twelve people out with a shoe on live TV, but you also think it wasn’t crazy and you explain it away as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do!”

“They were all being dicks!”

“Shut it both of you, now.” said Sarah, “We don’t have time for your bickering.”

“Squeeee-heeeeee-honnnnkkk!” said Gail.

Dave and I gave each other a dirty look and stopped arguing. We both stared at our feet and muttered under our breath for a while.

“Crackel, please tell Enri to circle the island, start with the least populated areas.” said Sarah.

“Sure thing Taggers.” He said and tapped Enri on the shoulder to pass on the instruction.

“You two, stop moping and start looking out the windows for Nedved.” She said to Dave and me.

We did what we were asked, still muttering.

“Found him!” said Dave.

“You what?” said Sarah and I in unison.

“Yeah, there he is there.” said Dave.

“Forget everything I just said Dave!” I said, clapping him on the back, “You sir, are a fucking genius.”

“Ah, don’t worry mate, I know you don’t really think I’m crazy.” He said, “It’s just the stress of the situation.”

We got a little emotional and shook hands. Then we hugged, in a manly way, you understand.

“Kill me now.” said Sarah, “Remind me again why I hang out with you two oddballs.”

“’Cos we’re brilliant Trace,” said Dave, “And you love us.”

She smiled a little, then slapped us both.

“Ouch!”

“Ow!”

“Where’s Nedved?” she said.

Dave pointed out of the window and we all leant over him to look.

Sure enough, there was a large compound down there, with a runway off to one side. On the runway was a much newer, much shinier plane than the death trap we were currently in. There was a group of six men carrying the nuke to the plane, struggling and sweating under the weight. Nedved himself was walking along behind them.

“Is it me or is Nedved doing a little dance of some kind?” said Dave.

“It actually looks like he’s skipping.” I said.

“I would say that’s more of a frolic than a skip.” said Sarah.

We looked again.

“Yeah, that’s a frolic.” Dave and I agreed in unison.

“Whatever he is doing, we found him.” said Dave.

“Yeah. What an incredible piece of luck!” I said.

“You can say that again.” said Sarah.

“What an incredi…..” I began.

“NO!” said Sarah. “Even this rubbish story is better than that kind of stupid gag.”

“Oh yeah,” said Dave, “What about the ‘piece of cake’ thing? That was pretty fucking stupid. Although I did get a lovely, jammy snack out of it so it wasn’t all bad.”

“I know, but ‘you can say that again’ jokes? Come on.” said Sarah.

“You’re doing it again!” I said, “Stop fucking doing that.”

“What, we were just agreeing that immediately finding Nedved was an incredible piece of luck.” said Sarah, all innocence.

“Yeah.” Added Dave, “It’s almost as if whoever is making all this shit up has got bored of coming up with reasonable explanations for massively unlikely events and is now not even bothering to try and hide them!”

“Like they are desperate to get to the final, climatic battle between us, the good guys, and Nedved, the bad guy.” said Sarah.

“Stop it with this shit, you’re driving me crazy!” I screamed.

They both looked at me as if I was the crazy one.

“All we need now,” said Sarah, “Is something exciting happening to stop you from pursuing this line of questioning and getting us quickly down to that final battle at the same time.”

“How the hell do you guys know…” I began.

At that moment the entire plane lurched and shook. There was the now familiar sound of automatic weapons fired from the ground. Nedved had spotted the plane and was taking no chances. Bullets were ricocheting everywhere.

Enri and Gail were trying to avoid the barrage and gain altitude but the ancient plane was struggling. There was a horrible noise and we looked down to see a perfectly straight line of bullet holes appear inches from our feet. The fuselage was being perforated.

A loud explosion occurred on the left side of the plane and a piece of bent propeller scythed through the fuselage at great speed. It came in one side and flew straight out of the other, cutting through the aluminium like a high velocity, steel propeller through aluminium. We looked out of the window to the left wing and saw the engine, or what was left of it, was on fire. The propeller blades had all gone. I had no idea where the other two ended up.

A few miles away on the ground, a Cuban farmer taking his wares to market on a cart decided it was not a good idea to give up on his faith when a red hot, spinning propeller blade shot out of the sky and neatly sliced his donkey in two from nose to tail.

A few miles from that, a Voodoo high priest named Corazon De Blanco Jr, was thwarted in his attempts to raise an army of the undead when a completely different red hot, spinning propeller blade, flew down from above, bounced off the brass cauldron he was using to cook his lunch and decapitated him.

Looks like I did know what happened to the other two! How the hell did I know that?

Enri screamed something in Spanish at the top of his voice. We looked at Crackel for an explanation. He was holding on tight and screaming his head off. When he saw us looking at him he stopped screaming.

“He says we can still fly with just one engine!” he said.

Then he went back to screaming again.

The other engine was hit by gunfire and exploded. The plane shook and we were all thrown around. Enri screamed something again.

“He says ‘now we’re fucked’!” said Crackel.

Gail the pig jumped into the rear section from the cockpit and began squealing at us. I have no idea how, but it did seem to convey the message that we should all calm down. We all decided to ignore the pig and scream and panic. Gail shook her head in frustration.

We had actually managed to get far enough away for the bullets to have little effect. There was just the odd little ‘pe-ting’ noise as they bounced off the plane’s skin. Their destructive force tamed by the distance.

Dave looked out of a window back at the compound.

“Ha!” he screamed above the chaos, “They’ve given up shooting at us!”

Enri did some Spanish again.

“He says he can glide her down.” said Crackel.

We all stopped screaming and started cheering. Gail gave me a look which said ‘that’s what I was trying to tell you’. I began to wonder how I could speak pig.

“Oh fuck!” screamed Dave, “They’ve got an RPG!”

There was distant, muffled thump and then a hissing noise which got louder and louder.

“Hold on, here it comes!” yelled Dave.

The screaming started again.

The cockpit erupted into flames and flying bits of Enri.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” screamed Gail.

The plane began to dive down towards the ground, totally out of control. We all held on tight as we were spun around and around. Dave was sick again. The centrifugal forces at work in the wildly spinning plane caused the puddle of vomit to sit almost stationary in the air.

Sarah and I were pinned against one wall while Crackel, Dave and Gail were pinned against the other. We all watched the spinning ball of vomit. None of us wanted the last thing we saw before the darkness to be the contents of Dave’s stomach hitting us in the face.

It seemed to be toying with us. As the plane span it moved towards one of us, then moved back, then towards another. Finally it made its decision as the plane seemed to level out slightly, hitting Crackel right in the face.

I laughed. I have always had this ability to laugh at the worst possible times.

The plane had started to glide on a flat trajectory now. As the air thickened at the lower altitude, the wings must have caught some lift. We were still going down but at a leisurely pace instead of a terrifying, whirling, spinning, vertical plummet. The centrifugal forces eased and we all fell to the floor with a thud. One of us fell accompanied by the splat of rapidly congealing vomit.

“Euurrgghh!” said Crackel, “What did you eat, Pop?”

Gail started jumping up and down and pointing her snout at a small compartment in the rear of the plane like the worlds weirdest gun dog.

I rushed to it and ripped open the little door.

“Parachutes!” I said.

The cheering started again.

“Ah!” I said, “Three parachutes.”

The cheering stopped.

“Fuck you all.” Screamed Crackel, snatching one and hurriedly putting it on. He kicked the door emergency release handle and the door disappeared off into the void.

“I’ll see you all in hell!” he yelled, and jumped out.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice.” said Dave, “And I thought he loved me!”

I started to strap a parachute to Sarah’s back.

“What are you doing?” she said, “What about you two?”

“Don’t worry about that, we’ll deal with it.” I said looking at Dave. He nodded back at me. “You have a family so you get this ‘chute. When you get clear of the plane, pull this, and bend your knees when you land, try to roll with the impact.”

She had tears in her eyes and hugged us both.

“But….”

“No time.” I said and pushed her out of the door. I stuck my head out of the door and was relieved to see her parachute open successfully and her drifting gently ground ward. I ducked back into the plane to see Dave standing with an odd look on his face.

“Mike. We’ve discussed it.” said Dave calmly, exchanging a look with Gail who nodded. “You take the ‘chute.”

“No way dude. We have to draw straws or something.”

“You have to take the ‘chute, you’re the one telling the story!” he said. “If I go, no one will know how the story ends, it will just stop, at least for me, Sarah and everyone else.”

“What?”

“If you stay there will be a brief paragraph explaining how you tried to control the plane but failed and then it will just stop when you are inevitably killed, no one will ever know what happened.” He said, “I really hate that. It drives me mad when films do that kind of thing. We’ve come too far to let it happen to us.”

“But…”

“But me no butts mate.” He said, “Plus, its causality or something, you have to survive. Otherwise how the hell are you telling this story in the first place? You must have taken the ‘chute and survived.”

I thought about this and it did make some kind of bizarre sense.

“Dave?” I said.

“What?”

“Is it me or has this plane been crashing for ages now?”

“Don’t think about it my dear confused compadre. Just go.”

I reluctantly strapped the final parachute to my back. With tears in my eyes I hugged my oldest friend, certain that barring some massively unlikely escape at the last minute, this was going to be the last time I saw him.

Gail was crying into her trotter at the sheer emotion of the situation.

I walked to the door, almost in disbelief of what was happening and prepared to jump.

“Mike?” said Dave.

“Yes mate.”

“Tell my Mum I love her.”

“I will.”

“Mike?”

“What is it my friend?”

“Light a candle and have a drink for your old pal on my birthday.”

“I will, every year.”

“Mike?”

“What?”

“Tell Sarah I’m sorry I never gave her back that tenner I borrowed.”

“No problem.”

“And Mike?”

“What?”

“Live a good life, and don’t mourn for your old mate.”

“I’ll live well in your honour.”

“Mike?”

“Oh shut up!”

I jumped. The last thing I saw as the plane receded away was Dave falling to his knees and embracing Gail. I pulled the cord on my ‘chute and the canopy opened above me. As I glided slowly down to the ground I saw the plane clipping the tops of trees in the distance. It disappeared out of sight for a few seconds and then there was a loud explosion and a fireball rose slowly up into the air.

“Aaaarrrrrgrgggghhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. Someone was going to pay for this and I knew exactly who that someone was.

I saw the canopy of a parachute hanging on some trees close by and steered my own ‘chute towards it. I was relieved to see Sarah on her feet waving at me as I came closer.

I performed a perfect landing.

Okay, I hit the floor hard, fell over and was dragged along on my face by the ‘chute for several hundred yards. I was stopped by quite a severe impact with a palm tree. As I lay groaning, a coconut fell from the tree and hit me on the head, then the parachute floated slowly down and covered me completely. I spent a few minutes writhing and rolling around on the floor, unable to free myself from the silken canopy and ropes.

A perfect landing for someone from Bolsover.

Finally, friendly hands stopped me in my gyrations and helped to free me. I looked up into the relieved face of Sarah.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes. You?”

“Yes.” I said, rubbing the various parts of my body which were in excruciating agony.

“I saw the plane….” said Sarah.

“I know.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I hugged her as she started to cry. My chin started to twitch up and down and I blubbered like a new born.

As we both stood there crying, snot and gunge falling freely from our faces, there was the noise of a small twig cracking as someone stood on it.

We disengaged from our hug to see one of Nedved’s goons standing in front of us with a rifle aimed squarely at us.

“Ha ha ha,” said the goon, “I have you now, Mr. Stankovich will be very pleased.”

I took a deep breath.

“So is this guy’s name, like Nedved Stankovich or is one of those names an alias?” I said.

“That’s his full name. Well actually his full name is Nedved Deirdrearrrrrggggggghhhhhh.”

I threw myself at him like a whirling dervish, knocking his gun to one side. He let off two shots which hit the trees harmlessly to the side of us.

“Blluurrrrkkk!” said an unlucky jackdaw. Maybe not totally harmlessly.

I wrestled the goon to the ground and pounded at his face with my right fist while wrenching the gun from him with my left. Eventually he lay still, his face a bloody pulp of broken bone and flesh.

“Holy shit Mike!” said Sarah.

I went through the goons webbing and pockets and took all his ammunition and a 9mm handgun. I made sure the handgun was loaded and switched the safety to ‘fucking dangerous mode’.

“Those shots will have given away our location. “ I said, “More will be coming!”

I gave her the handgun.

“Stay behind me and kill everything that isn’t me.” I said. “These assholes killed my best mate and now I am proper pissed off.”

“I can see.” She said. “Be careful.”

The red mist had descended. I took the rifle I had taken from the goon, slid a bullet into the chamber and took off through the trees at speed.

Goons were approaching from every direction. I lost all control and was operating solely by instinct and fuelled by pure anger. I killed them all. Heads exploded in red eruptions of brain and bone. Chest cavities were punctured by multiple shots. Kneecaps where blown apart. Guts were ripped open and entrails flew everywhere. It was a bloodbath.

I don’t really have an accurate memory of what happened but Sarah later said I was screaming at the top of my voice and shooting people before they even had a chance to aim their weapons. At one point my rifle ran out of bullets so I started running straight at goons and beating them to death, swinging the gun like a baseball bat.

We moved closer and closer to the compound. My only thought was getting to Nedved and ripping his face off with my bare hands.

Eventually the goons stopped coming. I fell to my knees, exhausted and covered in blood.

Sarah caught up and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I will be.” I said, panting and gasping.

“I shot a few of them.” She said proudly.

“Good. Did it make you feel better?”

“No. You.”

“Not in the least.” I struggled to my feet, “Come on, let’s end this.”

We could see the tops of buildings through the trees and knew the runway couldn’t be far away. We crept through the trees, finally reaching a small clearing. The runway was directly in front of it. A hundred yards or so away was the cause of all this; Nedved. He was standing behind the plane barking orders at two henchmen. One of them was the unmistakable form of Shin Kicker. I owed him on behalf of my late friend’s shins.

My blood and gore spattered rifle was empty. It was also quite bent and broken and bits were falling off it from all the bashing.

“You got any bullets left Sarah?” I asked.

She handed me the weapon. Two in the magazine and one in the chamber. Three shots. Three people to kill. It was almost poetic. The only problem was the two goons were armed with semi-automatic machine guns. Without any kind of cover they would cut me down as soon as I stepped out of the undergrowth. I had no choice but to try and take them out from where I was. I had better not miss.

I took aim at the closest goon and fired.

I missed.

Sarah slapped me around the head.

“Ow! Now? Really? You’re slapping me now?” I said.

She gave me a dirty look and pointed to the men by the plane. They were looking around wildly. Luckily they couldn’t figure out where the first shot had originated from.

I took aim again and fired, this time popping the coconut of Shin Kicker’s friend. My next shot was also true and Shin Kicker’s head exploded like an over boiled egg.

“Playing all that Call of Duty doesn’t seem like wasted time now!” I said to Sarah.

She smiled and we stepped out of the trees. I had put the handguns slide back from its ‘I’m empty’ position. Nedved didn’t need to know we had no bullets left. We walked slowly towards him, the gun held out pointed straight at his head. He put his hands in the air.

“I have no idea how you fools have managed to survive.” He said, “But bravo.”

“Can it shitheel!” I shouted, “You have killed my best friend and put me and my other best friend through a hell of a lot of unpleasant shit.”

“Wait, wait.” He said, “There is no need for this, I am sure I can recompense you for your inconvenience. Maybe you can work for me, you have proven you are more than capable and to be honest my normal goons are really quite shit.”

He kicked Shin Kicker’s lifeless corpse. I had to at least agree with him on that.

We had reached the plane and I placed the cold, hard steel of the gun barrel on his forehead.

“No deal fuckface.” I said, “No amount of money could make up for Dave. No doubt you have much other innocent blood on your hands too.”

“No one is innocent.” He said with a sneer. This guy really was an asshole.

“Say whatever you want, you are still going to die. Right here, right now.”

Sarah stepped forward and kicked him incredibly hard in the testicles.

“Ooooooooooooohh!” he said, but to his credit he stayed on his feet.

“That’s for Dave. So the last thing you feel is the crushing of your bollocks!” she said.

Nedved put his hands up in supplication.

“Please no.” he whimpered.

Sarah booted him again, even harder than the first time. A tear came to my eye and I groaned a little.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” said Nedved, crumpling up and hitting the floor.

I bent over and put the gun to his temple.

“This is it, this is the end for you.”

He pissed himself.

A dark stain began to bloom in the front of his grey trousers. I was quite pleased to notice there was more than a little blood mixed in with the urine.

I pulled the trigger. Nedved squeezed his eyes tightly closed. The only sound was a dull click.

“Ha ha ha!” I said, “Made you piss yourself!”

“Huh!” he said. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“No. I am going to kill you. Just thought I would fuck with you a little first.”

Sarah laughed.

“I’m going to kill you by stoving your head into a mush with the butt of my gun.” I span the gun in my hand and raised it up high. “You, know, so it lasts a bit longer.”

There was a low rumble which began getting louder. I stopped mid bash and looked at Sarah. She shrugged and looked around.

“Ha, I think not.” said Nedved, and with surprising agility for a man of his age with obliterated testicles he jumped to his feet. “It is you who will now die.”

He grinned and ran off in the direction of the buildings.

“Mother fucker!” I shouted and threw the empty gun at his departing form, I was just about to run after him when Sarah put a hand on my arm.

“Mike.” She said calmly, pointing down the runway “We’ve got trouble.”

I looked.

An army was approaching.

Armoured personnel carriers, Humvees, small tanks and at least a hundred and fifty men on foot, all armed to the teeth, coming straight towards us.

“Christ, where does this asshole get all these henchmen from?” I said, “Has he got a machine somewhere just stamping them out like action figures?”

---

Verse Sixteen.

We took cover behind the plane. The army rumbled closer and closer.

“I don’t think they’re stupid enough to shoot at a plane containing a nuke!” said Sarah.

They weren’t. They were also smart enough to realise we could just run back into the trees behind us and disappear. The treeline erupted in a hail of bullets. There were a few ‘woomph’ noises and two massive explosions occurred in the trees, showering us with leaves and debris.

“What now?” I said, “We have nowhere to run and as soon as they get close enough, we’re dead.”

“Wait, I’ll send the signal.”

Of course. The emergency signal. Smith and MI5 will save us. Sarah took the phone from her pocket and dialled ‘999’. She waited. She waited a bit more. I could hear a tinny voice answer but couldn’t quite make out what it said. Sarah nodded and hung up the phone. Then she screamed and threw it into the trees. As it span through the air it exploded.

“At least one of those guys is a very good shot!” I said, “What did it say?”

“It said ‘this emergency number is not applicable in your country of residence, please call your local emergency service number’!”

“That piece of shit fucked us again!” I screamed.

“I have an idea.” Said Sarah, “They won’t shoot at the plane because of the bomb right?”

“Seems that way.”

“Let’s fly the plane out of here.”

“Can you fly?”

“No. Can you?”

“No.”

“Well that’s that then.”

“We could get it moving and just sort of drive away?” I offered.

“Do you know how to do that?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Keep going, we might come up with something we can actually do eventually.” I said, hopefully.

Sarah walked inside the plane and began looking around for anything that might be useful, I didn’t think there would be an aircraft carrier and a fighter jet strike force hidden away in an overhead locker but decided to help anyway.

Then I noticed the little red numbers on the nuclear bomb. They were on a small electrical panel and they were counting down.

“Sarah,” I said, “We have a problem.”

“Really?” she said, throwing things around, “Do you think I haven’t noticed?”

“No, I mean a further problem to the problem we already know about.”

“What?”

“The timer on this bomb is counting down!” I said, “It’s gonna blow in eleven minutes and forty three seconds!”

“Oh come on!” she said. “For fucks sake! This is getting ridiculous! Car chases? Okay. Boat chases? Accepted. Hand to hand combat while under the effects of performance enhancing drugs? Unlikely but possible. Taking out an army of well-armed henchmen singlehandedly because you happened to have played a lot of war games on the Playstation and was a bit pissed off? That was really pushing it, but I let it slide. Now we have to somehow defuse a nuclear bomb while a mechanised infantry slowly closes in on us? That’s it. We’re dead! There is no way we are going to get out of this one!”

“It’s stopped!” I said.

“What?”

“While you were ranting, I pissed on the panel! It shorted out and went off.”

“You’ve just stopped a nuclear device detonating by pissing on it?” said Sarah.

“Seems that way yes.”

“I give up. I really do. There is no common sense to anything we do. We should all have been dead ages ago but we keep surviving.”

“Yes.” I said with a huge grin and a wink, “It’s almost as if we’re the heroes of this story”

She gave me a horrible look.

“It doesn’t work like that Mike.”

“Awww!” I groaned.

“Look, maybe my pee was acidic or something.” I said, “It was fluorescent yellow and kinda foamy. I have drank a lot of alcohol lately and haven’t exactly been hydrating as I should.”

“I am just not questioning it anymore.” She said with a sigh, “Now what do we do about this army?”

“Ooh. I had forgotten about them!”

The army was almost on us now. I could hear people shouting and barking orders. I didn’t dare take a peek at what they were doing because someone out there could shoot a flying mobile phone out of the air from a thousand yards. I didn’t fancy the same thing happening to my head. Whatever they were doing it didn’t bode well for us.

“I can’t believe Smith has hung us out to dry like this.” said Sarah.

“I know.” I agreed, “You would think he would at least want the bomb.”

There was a distant rumble from the other side of the runway, over the trees behind us, and a noise like a hundred fireworks being set off simultaneously. A multitude of missiles flew overhead, skimming the treetops.

There was a series of massive explosions as Nedved’s army was obliterated. Three helicopter gunships hove into view and flew past us. They fired more missiles and .50 calibre machine guns rattled their death screams.

Sarah and I crouched down in the rear of the plane. All around us were the screams of the dead and dying as the gunships circled and performed the function they were designed for: killing things. The air was full of heat, smoke and concrete dust. Bits of debris were cartwheeling around. The henchman army, what was left of them, tried to fight back but they didn’t stand a chance. The first strike from the gunships was devastating, eliminating the tanks and armoured units in one swift assault. The ground troops had no cover and no support and they were just massacred.

The sound ceased. The gunships headed back the way they came. Sarah and I crept from our place of relative safety and examined our surroundings. Things looked very different to how they did a few minutes ago.

Most of the runway close to us had simply gone. All that was left was a variety of different sized craters. Some had burning wreckage in them, some contained what could only be described as a human stew. Where there was still some concrete left, it was riddled with large bullet holes and there was an interesting selection of body parts just lying around. A few feet away there was an arm, a whole arm, still holding a weapon. I kicked it away with a shudder.

There was no living being amongst the carnage.

“Well, that was lucky.” I said.

A black, Huey helicopter flew in over the trees, followed by a massive Chinook. They came in to land just beyond the shattered piece of runway. A door opened on the black Huey and out stepped Agent Smith himself. Ducking his head against the down draught of the propeller wash, he ran over to us.

“Well done.” He said. “The bomb is safe.”

“Yeah.“ I said, “Thanks for the help. We thought we were dead. What was with the phone thing though, we thought you had hung us out to dry?”

“What?” said Smith, “Did you think someone would answer and say ‘MI5 helpline, how can I direct your call’? We just get a signal.”

“Right, you could have told us that.” said Sarah.

“Yeah. I nearly pissed my pants!” I said. “If I had any left in me, I think I would have.”

“So is that it then? Can we go home?” asked Sarah.

“Well you can try.” said Smith with a smirk I really didn’t like the look of, “The only problem is that if you go anywhere near an airport or border crossing, you will be immediately arrested.”

“What the fuck?” I said.

“You see. “ said Smith, still smirking “I have an impeccable service record and I don’t want this cluster fuck to ruin that. I hope to retire when I get home and I wish to retire a hero. I can’t have my superiors thinking three bumbling fools from the midlands are responsible for stopping World War Three while I stood idly by can I?”

“You dirty, double crossing mother fucking asshole!” I shouted, taking a step towards him.

He pulled his weapon and pointed it straight at us. I stopped in my tracks.

“Where is the crazy one by the way?” he said.

“He’s dead you shite!” said Sarah.

“Oh I am sorry.” said Smith, “Oh well, no great loss to the gene pool I guess.”

“Damn you!” I said.

A handful of men in black tactical gear began unloading the nuke and taking It to the Chinook. As they carried it past us there was whiff of something terrible. Burning electricals and second hand tequila.

“Good god, what is that awful stench?” said Smith, holding his nose and turning away.

As the nuke went by I noticed that the timer had come back on and was counting down again. The thing about wet electronics is they dry out, and sometimes no lasting damage is caused by becoming wet in the first place, just a temporary halt in the flow of electrons.

“Err…Smith…” I said.

“Shut up you scumbag.” He shouted “God, I can’t stand you people! The dregs of society. Constantly moaning how it is not fair while the real reason for your woes is your own stupidity and laziness.”

“But Smith…” I said.

“No more.” He waved the gun threateningly, “I could shoot the both of you right now and no one would care! But I am a nice guy so I will let you live. I will however be placing you on every most wanted list I can think of once I get back to base, including here in Cuba. Every police force will be looking for you and will shoot on sight. I will be at home, sipping a nice single malt with my feet up in front of a roaring fire in, what? Twelve hours? By which time you will probably already be rotting in a disgusting Cuban prison cell.”

“Smith I….”

“Just shut the fuck up!” he shouted. “I really can’t believe how a bunch of idiots like you have managed to pull this off. But mark my words, no one will know of your role here. The heroic Agent Smith will be praised for courageously saving the world and you will never be heard from again.”

He looked at Sarah as if he was looking at something he had just scraped off his shoe.

“You will never see your family again, you little bitch!” he sneered.

‘That was a mistake’ I thought. Things were going to get very ugly now. I saw Sarah’s fists clench out of the corner of my eye. Smith looked at me with a very smug expression on his face and started to snigger.

“Oh dear!” I said to him and winked.

Smith’s face turned to one of confusion. He thought we should be devastated but for some reason we were smiling at him.

Sarah’s leg moved so fast I barely saw it. Smith didn’t see it at all. Her foot connected with his groin with a sickening noise. The kick was so hard that Smith was actually lifted from the ground by the force of it.

When he came back down to earth he dropped to his knees, dropping the gun which slid across the floor and stopped at my left foot. I hurriedly snatched it up and pointed it at Smith.

Smith opened his mouth as if to scream but no sound emerged, at least none we could hear. Out in the distance some dogs started barking and flocks of birds scrambled skywards from the trees.

I looked at Sarah. She was smiling.

“Nice.” I said.

Smith held his shattered plums and promptly threw up.

“What were you saying?” I asked him, putting the gun to his head.

There was the sound of several weapons being cocked. Five of Smith’s men stood behind him aiming their guns at us.

Smith finally managed to draw breath and speak, his voice was several octaves higher than it had been previously.

“My men will cut you down before you fire a shot!” he squeaked.

“Shall we shoot them sir?” said one of Smith’s men.

“No,” said Smith, “Shootings too good for them, let them live the life of a hunted criminal.”

Two of the men helped Smith to his feet and they all turned and began to walk back to the choppers. The nuke had been loaded onto the chinook and the black clothed men loaded Smith on to the Huey.

“Wait, Smith I…..” I said.

But it was too late, the door had closed.

The two helicopters wound up their engines and took off, they gained altitude and headed out over the ocean. I checked my watch.

“That’s guy is such a dick.” said Sarah. She fell to her knees and started to cry. “I’m never going to see my family again Mike.”

The helicopters were already black dots in the distance.

“Don’t worry Sarah, it’s not going to happen.”

“What?” she said, looking up at me with tears streaming down her face. “What do you mean? Smith is going to flag us as murderers or something. I can never go home.”

“You’re wrong.” I said smiling and helping her to her feet, “Smith is the one who is never going home.”

“Eh?”

“The timer on the bomb restarted. None of them noticed.”

“Is that what you were trying to tell him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know really. I’m a nice guy?” I said, “The point is, I tried to warn him and he didn’t listen, so I am absolved of all guilt.”

“I suppose so. When?”

“In about three and a half minutes.”

“But that’s a nuke, we’ll die too!” she said.

“It’s only a small one and they are already miles away over the ocean, the only people who are going to feel it is them!”

We stood and waited for three and a half minutes or so.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe a bit longer?” I said.

“Fuck, they stopped the count…..”

The sky exploded. The world turned into nothing but bright, white light. We ducked and shielded our faces from the glare. It passed momentarily and we once more risked opening our eyes.

Out over the ocean there was a circle of fire and smoke, rapidly increasing in size. We watched it as it spread slowly outwards with smiles on our faces. After a few minutes a hot wind blew in from the sea.

“That’s them fucked!” I said.

Sarah smiled.

“Now do we go home?” she said.

“Just one more thing.” I said and walked off towards the buildings in the compound.

“Nedved.” she said, and followed me.

The compound was like a small village. It reminded me of that village in ‘The Prisoner’. All classic architecture and pillars.

“Looks like he actually lives here.” I said.

“Where is he going to be though, this place is huge.”

I looked around and my eyes stopped on the biggest of the buildings. It was grander and far more elaborately decorated than the rest. I guessed if I was a multi billionaire drug dealer who had his own village, my house would be the biggest one there.

“I would guess that one.” I said, pointing.

“How do you know?” said Sarah.

“It’s the biggest.” I said, “Plus there is a little wooden plaque above the door that says ‘Nedved’s Rest’.”

“Oh yeah.” said Sarah, “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” I said, holding her arm, “You stay here.”

“Why?”

“I’ve got a gun, I am assuming he will have one too.”

“So?” She said, “How many times have I been shot at today?”

“Good point but the same thing applies here as it did on the plane.” I said, “You have a family.”

She nodded and stayed where she was while I headed to the door of the mansion.

“Mike?”

“I’ll be careful.” I said.

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Oh.”

“I was going to say; make it really, really painful for him.” She smiled.

I smiled back and headed inside.

I crept quietly from room to room. The place was empty. I walked down a short hallway and entered what looked like a large office. As I walked through the open door he was there. Nedved. He was hurriedly packing things into a large case with his back to me.

I thought about simply putting a bullet in his brain pan right there and then but I really, really wanted to cause him severe pain and discomfort first. Maybe do a little gloating.

I crept a little way into the room and levelled my gun at him.

“Hi there dickhead!” I said.

He span on his heels to face me, the stain on the front of his trousers darkened a little as he pissed himself again.

“How are the plums?” I asked.

“Pulverised.” He said, sadly. “How do you keep surviving? I saw World War Three happening out there!”

“Just lucky I guess.” I said. “Now, which kneecap do we start with?”

“Please don’t.” he begged.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t?” I said.

“Maybe…this!” he yelled, throwing the case at me.

It flew through the air scattering its contents as it went. My sight of him was obscured and I ducked to dodge the flying detritus. When I looked back up, all I saw was his bony ass disappearing through a side door. I fired a shot but it missed and struck the door frame in a shower of splinters.

“Damn!” I said and took off after him.

He knew the house better than I did so he managed to gain a sizeable lead. I had to keep stopping to check doorways and rooms.

I managed to keep on his trail by the sound of his ridiculous dress shoes flapping stupidly on the hardwood floors. Still, I thought, I had no need to point fingers and judge, having done all this in a pair of flip flops!

I turned a corner. The only other exit was into a large bedroom. I crept silently through the doorway. An umbrella came down on my outstretched arm knocking the gun from my grasp, then it spun around and connected with the back of my head, sending me sprawling across the floor. I rolled and ended up sitting with my back against the wall on the far side of the room.

Nedved laughed. He had retrieved the gun and stood in front of me with his back to the door, his evil silhouette back lit by the light streaming through the doorway.

“Ha ha ha.” he said, “Now you die. You have ruined my plans and killed god knows how many of my men. At least I will leave this place knowing that I have got rid of you once and for all. May your last thought be that I will rebuild and I will succeed and that your efforts have merely delayed the inevitable. Ha ha ha ha ha!”

He laughed like a drain for a bit. A proper maniacal laugh. At least he was sticking to the role. All criminal masterminds need a big, maniacal laugh.

He pulled the hammer on the gun back with an evil look in his eyes, still laughing like an idiot.

I closed my eyes and waited for death. This was it. The end. I remembered what Dave said on the plane about causality. A wave of confusion passed over me. How the hell did I write this story if I died right now. Great, dead and confused!

There was a loud bang as the gun fired. Nedved stopped laughing and I waited for the darkness to come.

It didn’t come.

I opened one eye and looked at Nedved.

He was standing very still with an odd expression on his face, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly like he was trying to say something. No words came out. The gun dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor, chipping a large splinter out of the wooden floorboard.

I opened the other eye and stared at him.

A small dark patch started to spread in the centre of his chest. It was dark red. It slowly grew and spread outwards. Finally he fell forwards and hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. His face smushed by the impact.

I stared at him for a moment, thanking whatever gods that were listening not only for this miraculous event but also for the fact that I had recently had a massive piss on a nuke so I had once again avoided soiling myself.

I looked up at the doorway. Stepping out of the shadows, grinning like a fool and accompanied by a pig in goggles was Dave! He was dirty and covered in cuts and bruises but he was alive! His dress was ripped in several places and he had tied a piece of it around his head ‘Rambo’ style. He nonchalantly pointed the gun he was carrying up to the ceiling like they do in all the movies and struck a heroic pose.

The music changed from tense drama and suspense to a rising, uplifting fanfare as the fallen hero returned. Surely he had something profound to say. A witty one liner perhaps?

“Alrate mate!” he said.

“Dave!” I screamed.

I scrambled to my feet and threw my arms around him.

“I thought you were dead!” I said.

He hugged me back and we both started crying.

“So did I.” he said through blubs and snot bubbles, “We flew low over a lake at the last minute and Gail pushed me to safety before jumping out herself.”

“But you can’t swim!” I said.

“Gail saved me there too.” He said, “She is some pig!”

He looked down and gave Gail an appreciative look. Gail winked at him.

“That was all massively fortuitous and more than a little unlikely.” I said with a huge grin.

“I know! Who would have foretold that bizarre sequence of events?” he said, grinning back.

“But how did you know I was here?” I asked.

“I ran into Sarah outside and after a bit of hugging, she told me you had run in here after Nedved. I wandered around a bit and then heard that dickhead laughing like a twat and ran straight here.”

We hugged some more and cried some more and hugged some more. Sarah appeared at the end of the hall.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

Dave and I stopped hugging and looked at each other.

“Poof!” we both said, bursting into laughter.

“He is dead as a dead thing Trace.” said Dave, pointing at the now ex-Nedved.

Sarah walked up to the body and kicked it hard in the testicles. Nothing happened. She kicked again. There was a disgusting, wet, popping sort of noise. She kicked once more and the horrible noise was repeated. Sarah smiled.

“Just making sure.” She said.

We all looked at each other and smiled as we realised it was all over.

“I’m fucking starving!” said Dave, “Let’s find something to eat.”

We wandered around the house for a while and eventually found a kitchen. It was fully stocked so we made a round of massive sandwiches and gratefully sat down. Bottles of Cuban lager were opened and we toasted our success and survival.

“So what happened to the nuke?” said Dave between mouthfuls of ham and cheese on rye.

“Quick version? We found the nuke, it started counting down, Mike pissed on it and it stopped. Then Smith arrived and took the nuke but left us behind to take all the credit, saying he would make us globally wanted criminals to get us out of the way.” Said Sarah, finishing her beer and opening a second.

“So we’re still fucked then? Shame!” said Dave.

“Nope.” I smiled, “Because shortly after Smith and his crew took off in their choppers, the nuke went off and they are now nothing but a fine mist over the Atlantic somewhere.”

“Oh. I saw that explosion. Wondered what it was. All’s well that ends well then.” said Dave.

“Looks that way.” I said.

“I think everyone involved in this whole ridiculous thing is dead.” said Sarah. “I still have pocketfuls of cash to get home too.”

She smiled. Dave and I smiled. We raised another toast.

“We’re all alive and got away with it scot free!” I said. “I am going to look for something a bit stronger than this piss lager, do a proper toast.”

I stood up and started rifling through cupboards for liquor.

“What happened to Crackel?” said Dave.

“Don’t know.” said Sarah, “Haven’t seen him since he jumped from the plane. He probably scurried off home.”

I opened a large door which led into an even larger cupboard. Inside there were rows and rows of big, black cases. I began opening them and smiled. Each and every one was full to the brim with neatly bound stacks of cash.

“Guys.” I said, “I think you should come and look at this!”

Sarah and Dave joined me in the cupboard and stared open mouthed at the loot.

“Fuck me!” said Dave.

---

Epilogue.

A day later, on Havana beach, Crackel sat wistfully gazing out to sea. He was holding a gold ring in his hands, turning it over and over in his fingers and sighing.

“We could have had a beautiful life together Pop.” He said to himself. “I was going to ask you to marry me, but now you’re dead.”

He looked out at the slowly rising sun. It was going to be another hot day on the beautiful island of Cuba. In the distance, Crackel could see the shimmering silver bodies of airliners approaching the airport.

“Life goes on.” He sighed.

He stood up and cast the ring out to the waves. As he watched it arc gently into the surf he noticed a shape in the shallows.

Curious, he walked into the warm tropical water to see what the shape was. It was tossed by a wave and slid up the beach, coming to a gentle rest in the moist sand beside him.

It was a big, black suitcase. It was covered in seaweed and barnacles but he recognised it from somewhere.

He flipped open the latches and opened it. His eyes lit up and he smiled his winning smile. He closed the case again and started to dance around with his arms in the air.

He skipped, no wait, he was definitely frolicking, up the beach with the case in one hand and jumped in his car. The wheels span up and he disappeared in a cloud of tyre smoke.

“Whooooooooo-hoooooooooo!” he said.

---

Another Epilogue.

Darkness.

My consciousness floated around in it for a while.

I was in that strange limbo of nothingness between asleep and awake.

I knew I was not asleep anymore as the penguins covered in honey, the enormous whisky fountain and the skateboarding naked ladies had all disappeared.

My consciousness was annoyed. It had been enjoying the dream I was having moments ago. I decided that it was preferable to the current blackness and tried to go back there. ‘Where’s those fucking penguins?”

No luck. My consciousness had begun to receive information from my senses of the world outside and now it was curious.

There was a large drum being banged somewhere. Whoever was doing it was really going to town. I decided that I should find them and kill them. I tried to open my eyes and went into a mild state of panic when nothing happened.

“We’ve gone blind!” screamed my brain.

I realised that I was not blind I was just not trying hard enough. I had the impression my sub-conscious was sabotaging my attempts because it really did not want to handle the real world at this point in time. Especially as that world seemed to contain lots of people banging drums.

My eyelids creaked open like a rusty barn door. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the brightness. Once they had, I took stock of my surroundings.

I was lying on a sun lounger beside a pool. I looked over to the unmistakable shape of Dave asleep on a similar lounger beside me. He was wearing just a pair of shorts but his sunburned skin made it look as if he were wearing a fleshy white dress. The parts of him that had been exposed to the elements over the last few days were a scarlet red, while the parts that had been covered by his beloved dress were still the deathly white shade of a man from Bolsover. He was wearing a large sombrero over his face and the rhythmic grunts issuing from within it assured me he was still alive. Gail the pig was lying on her back between his ankles, her feet in the air and snoring at perfect counterpoint to Dave. The sun was very warm and there was a faint smell of bacon in the air.

“Hurrrrrrrkkk.” said Dave.

“Phweeeeee.” said Gail.

“Hurrrrrrrkkk.” said Dave.

“Phweeeeee.” said Gail.

And so on.

Sarah stumbled into view wearing a silk nightgown covered with fancy black lace bits and gemstones, a large hat and a massive pair of sunglasses.

She smiled and handed me a glass of something fruity with huge quantities of ice in it.

“Thought you might need that Mike.” She smiled and sat on the lounger on the other side of me.

Memories flooded back.

We had found an enormous amount of money in the kitchen larder. Then Sarah and I had to perform a bastardised version of the Heimlich manoeuvre on Dave as he choked on a piece of cheese he had inhaled due to the shock.

We spent the next few hours emptying a bottle of whisky I had found and discussing our next move. We talked at great length about who would know about the money, the compound, the nuke and everything else we had gone through over the last few days. We could not think of anybody who was still alive except Crackel, and we assumed he thought we were dead.

So we took the joint decision to take over the compound and take all the money for ourselves. Just reward for averting nuclear disaster and ridding the world of an evil criminal mastermind and what must have been several thousand hired mercenaries. Also a dodgy MI5 agent and what was probably a few innocent soldiers but we decided not to dwell on that. Their blood was on Smith’s hands.

We then got very, very drunk.

Today, after a hearty breakfast and a shower and possibly a bit more drinking, we were going to contact our families and loved ones and have them all flown out to Cuba to spend the rest of their days in luxury on a Caribbean island.

I leant back in my lounger and took a huge gulp of freezing cold, refreshing, purple knobbly fruit juice. A great smile rested happily on my lips as a thought occurred to me.

“What are you smiling about Mike?” asked Sarah.

“Coincidence.” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” I smiled, “Look around. The tropical sun, the mansion, the piles of cash, the silk lingerie.”

“It was all I could find amongst the weird grey suits.” She said by way of explanation, “and I was sick of bloody surf wear!”

“But,” I continued, “It seems we predicted our own futures. We did knock off a drugs cartel, take all their stuff and live the millionaire’s lifestyle on a tropical island on their ill-gotten gains.”

She smiled and we clinked our glasses together.

Fin.