Captain Scarlet exhaled
and flopped down into the vacant armchair with an involuntary moan.
Captain Grey looked up
from his newspaper and smiled. “You sound knackered,” he commented.
“That’s one word for
it,” Scarlet agreed. He closed his
eyes, hoping that Grey wouldn’t ask any questions.
“Tough assignment?”
Grey asked, folding his paper and settling down to hear the latest gossip.
Scarlet definitely looked the worse for wear, his uniform was grubby, he had
several days’ growth of beard and he smelt quite disgusting!
Scarlet nodded and said
nothing, still hoping Grey would get the message.
“Where was it this
time?”
Scarlet opened his eyes
reluctantly and gave up. “We started in
Brazil.”
“Started?”
Scarlet nodded, was it
less than a week since he left Cloudbase? He’d quartered the globe since then.
“Well?” Grey prompted.
“There was a Mysteron
threat to poison the largest Amazon water treatment plant and the Colonel sent
us over to check it out.”
“Us?” Grey asked, he
knew all the senior Captains were accounted for.
“Yeah, you know Blue’s
away training the Standby Angels – the lucky … Bostonian; well, the Colonel had
the splendid idea that it would be a perfect opportunity to send me out with a
rookie – to give one of them a taste of the cutting edge of Spectrum’s
work. Just a simple bombing of a water
treatment plant – what could go wrong?”
“So who was it?”
“Lieutenant Flaxen.”
“Oh boy!” Grey
sniggered. “I thought she was confined to the Cloudbase Research Library for
crashing that SPJ?”
“Colonel White decided
to give her another chance and I was the muggings
who was supposed to supervise her rehabilitation!” Scarlet groaned. He ached
from top to toe and even his retrometabloism wasn’t helping him deal with the
sense of grievance he felt towards his commanding officer.
“So what happened? Where’s Flaxen?”
“Oh she’s fine! I swear that woman has a
charmed life!”
“What happened in
Brazil?”
“I flew the SPJ down to the nearest airstrip and we drove to the
plant. As the Colonel thought, it was
routine enough – a quick check with the Mysteron detectors flushed out a couple
of Mysteron agents and after we dealt with them, we found the bomb and it was
defused easily enough. It was then that Flaxen decided she ought to check the
computer records to make sure it really was that simple. I thought nothing of it and just let her get
on with it whilst I was having a decent cup of coffee with the Plant
Controller.”
“If you can’t get
decent cup of coffee in Brazil, where can you get it?” Grey grinned.
Scarlet frowned at such
levity and continued, “Anyway she comes bustling in, announcing that one of the
technicians has taken sensitive information from the files – about a potential
food source they were working on. Some
sort of microbial stuff that can be grown by the metric tonne in fresh water and
used to feed domestic animals or fed to people, disguised as chicken – or beef
burgers or whatever. The Plant
Controller got all excited and demanded we arrest this technician and recover
the documents. I didn’t see that it was
really Spectrum business – no obvious Mysteron connection, but Flaxen had got
the bit between her teeth. She said
she’d okayed it with the Colonel and he agreed with her supposition that the
Technician was a Mysteron agent. Then she rushed off to the SPV, you know how she gets all super efficient
whenever you ask her to do something.”
“I rushed after her – she was likely to leave me behind
otherwise. She had already started the
engine when I got there and before I was strapped into my seat and it had
retracted into the body of the SPV, she turned the bloody machine about as if
she was driving a dodgem car in a fairground and out I go! I slid from the seat and landed in the most
disgusting, stagnant pond I have ever seen!
Or smelt.” he added, conscious of the aroma still clinging to his
uniform.
Grey tried to hide his smile and went to make
himself a cup of coffee. Scarlet merely
glowered at him when he offered to prepare him a cup too, and so he returned to his seat nursing the
mug, eager to hear the rest of the story.
“The bloody pond was so
deep I had the hell of a job getting out – damn nearly drowned. Flaxen must have realised what had happened
because she came back and threw me a rope just as I was about to go under. She’d have knocked me out, if she hadn’t
been such a lousy shot – she chose just about the heaviest rope in the
equipment boxes! Anyway, she tied it to
the SPV and dragged me out – smelling to high heaven – it has to be said. Serves her damn well right – she had to sit
in the SPV with me until we got back to the plane and I could change for the
spare.”
Grey tried to look
sympathetic, but he was laughing too much for it to be convincing. “It can take
some getting used to, driving an SPV.
Remember how Symphony drove that one straight into a tree at Culver? Perhaps women just can’t handle sitting
backwards.” Scarlet said nothing in response to this as his own driving
record with SPV’s was not beyond criticism. He usually let Blue drive when they
were together.
“Anyway, you went after the technician?” Grey
asked, sipping the coffee.
Scarlet grunted an
affirmative. “New York – that’s where we went – with me looking like something
the cat dragged in.”
“You let Flaxen fly the
SPJ?” Grey asked in surprise.
Scarlet sighed,
“Couldn’t stop her,” he admitted. “She’s just doesn’t listen! I used to think Adam
was bad enough, but she takes the biscuit.”
“Did you recover the
information?”
“Not exactly.”
“There’s more?” Grey
was delighted.
They both turned as
Magenta came into the Officer’s Lounge.
He gave them both a bright smile and collected his cup of coffee before
coming to sit opposite Scarlet.
“Nice to see you back,
Captain,” he said cheerfully, and then frowned at his friend’s bedraggled
appearance. His frown deepened as he sniffed the air and he said with a
grimace of distaste, “What’s that funny smell?”
“Me,” Scarlet admitted
ruefully.
Grey quickly told the
story of the Brazilian pond and Scarlet’s subsequent flight to New York.
Magenta sniggered. “So
that’s what it was all about,” he said cryptically.
“What?” Grey asked.
“Well, the New York
networks have been reporting stories that hundreds of people have reported
seeing someone, dressed in red, flying
in the skies over Manhattan. Some
reports are speaking of a remake of the Superman
movies!”
“What!” Grey choked on
his coffee and looked at Scarlet for clarification.
“It wasn’t like that,”
Scarlet sighed.
“What was it like?”
Magenta asked.
“Well, we trailed this
technician to the offices of the finance company whose headquarters were in Manhattan. Apparently, according to Flaxen, this
company is none too choosy about who they deal with and they have a
multinational food production company as clients.”
“See, her time in the
library wasn’t wasted,” Grey said soberly and Magenta nodded sagely.
Scarlet grinned
malevolently at them. “I just wish she’d bloody well stayed there! Off we go to
the Manhattan Offices and demand to see someone in charge of dodgy deals. Needless to say – we didn’t get treated very
seriously. We spent some time arguing
with the reception staff and then Flaxen got permission to go to the ladies
room and she never came back – so I had to find her, didn’t I? I tried my cap
mike, but I guess the dip in the pond had done something to the electronics and
all I got was an ear piercing whistle!
I left the building and walked around to the rear, where the service
entrances are. I went up the
waste-chute and
managed to get from that into a lift – it went straight up to the penthouse without
stopping and disgorged me into a conference of top financiers and the wanted
Brazilian technician. There was a
rumpus and I had to run to get away from a couple of goons with trigger-happy
fingers. I went up onto the roof and
saw Flaxen coming up the outside of the building in a hoverpack. Left with the choice of re-enacting the
gunfight at the OK corral or jumping and hoping Flaxen could catch me – I
jumped.”
“Is it a bird, is it a
plane?” Magenta recited, “No, it’s Captain Scarlet!”
Both Captains giggled
at their unfortunate companion’s scowling face.
“I could understand you
taking the risk if it had been Blue on the hoverpack – but Flaxen?” Grey reasoned. “She caught you, I take it?”
he added.
“Yes, she caught me -
eventually - and we went back to the ground away from the main street. She had apparently heard someone talking in
the ladies room about the meeting in the Penthouse and because she couldn’t
find me and my cap mic wasn’t working
so she couldn’t get any further orders, she decided to go up in the hoverpack
and see what she could find out,” Scarlet explained.
“A reasonable call,”
Magenta said, “especially if Cloudbase couldn’t raise you either.”
“So what happened to
the technician?” Grey prompted.
“We were just in time
to see them hustle him into a limo and head for the airport. We followed in the SSC and trailed the
company jet to India.”
“India?”
Scarlet nodded. “The
multinational has a major production plant there and the food would have a
ready market in the region.”
“More of Flaxen’s
research, huh?”
Scarlet nodded.
“That woman is a fount
of information.”
“She’s something
alright,” Scarlet muttered.
“You caught the guy in
India?” Grey asked, almost hoping they hadn’t.
“Well…” Scarlet sat up
and sighed. “We were pretty hot on his trail and then Flaxen got lost.”
“Lost?”
“Yes, there were an
awful lot of people milling about the factory complex and one minute she was
there and the next, she’d vanished.”
“And?”
“You went looking for
her?”
“I did not! I meant to complete the mission before
trying to find her. I didn’t think she could come to much harm with so many
people about and I thought I’d be better working alone, given her performance
record in the mission so far. Anyway,
you know regulations state we shouldn’t let concern for other officers
interfere with our duty…” he said stoutly.
The two Captains howled
with laughter, this particular regulation was the one Scarlet flouted the most!
“Oh yeah, just like you
and Blue always do!” Magenta gasped.
“This wasn’t Blue,”
Scarlet said meaningfully.
“So, you caught the
thief, saved the secret formula and came home?” Grey said archly.
“Not exactly,” Scarlet
sighed again. He decided to come clean. “I accidentally triggered an alarm
getting into the offices and got caught by the security guards. The men we’d
trailed from New York were not pleased to see me and ordered the guards to
‘dispose’ of me, in some way that could be called an accident. They had the brilliant idea of taking me to
the wild life garden and leaving me tied up near the cobra’s lair.”
“Yikes!” Magenta had gone beyond caution now and he was creased up
with laughter.
“I am really not very
fond of snakes,” Scarlet admitted. “Nasty, slimy, slithery things.”
“Actually they are not
slimy at all…” Grey began, but Magenta hushed him up.
“Well, I was there,
desperately trying to get free of the ropes when this cobra came towards me
spitting venom.” Scarlet went pale; he really did have a phobia about snakes
and would never voluntarily go anywhere near even the most harmless ones.
“What happened?”
Magenta asked sobering up fast enough as he saw his friend’s unease.
“Flaxen appeared from
behind a tree and came over with a long piece of cleft stick to pin the beastly
thing down whilst she cut through the ropes and we made our escape.”
“She saved you- again!”
“Where had she been?”
“She’d borrowed two of
those yashmak things women wear that covers everything up...”
“A burqa.” The three men turned to see Symphony
Angel walking towards them, with a bundle of post in her hand. She smiled and
handed Scarlet two letters. “A yashmak thing that covers everything up – a
burqa.”
“You and Svenson spend
too much time doing crosswords,” Magenta grinned.
“It’s a good word for
Scrabble,” she smiled back. “Why should you need a burqa, Paul?”
Grey brought her up to
date with Scarlet’s misadventures and she sat on the arm of his chair, laughing
gaily.
“You wait until Adam
hears this!”
“Karen, Adam is never to hear this!” Scarlet half
threatened, half pleaded.
“Well, maybe I won’t
tell him all of it, but only if you let me hear the rest.”
Scarlet groaned and
nodded. “Okay. Well, we got out of the
complex, dressed in these… burqas.” Magenta hooted at the thought of Captain
Scarlet creeping around in drag. “Whilst the goons had been busy with me,
Flaxen had managed to infiltrate the offices, pushing a tea trolley, and she
had lifted the briefcase with the stolen papers in. We took the papers, chucked the briefcase and tried to make our
escape. The security people were
surrounding the SSC and so we left with a crowd of workers and headed for the
train station.”
“We got on the express
to Calcutta and chucked the burqas under a seat. I thought we were safe then; once in Calcutta we’d get another
SPJ and come back to base, leaving someone else to return the papers to
Brazil.”
“I sense a but coming here…” Grey smiled.
“We were being trailed
by the security men – it seems we hadn’t been as undetected as we’d thought.”
“So what did you do?”
Symphony asked.
“Well, we had to
protect the papers, so Flaxen hid them in her… underwear.” Scarlet’s hands
hovered at chest height.
“Bra – it’s called a
bra, Paul,” Symphony said. “Gee, your clothing vocabulary could do with some
improvement.”
“Yes, well, that’s
where she hid them. She said the
security men would never dare to strip search a woman – even a Spectrum
officer. Besides, if they did catch her
she’d tell them I had the papers and they’d most likely think that was true –
rather than a woman having them.” Scarlet grimaced at his male colleagues.
“Male Chauvinist Pigs!”
Symphony muttered.
No-one was sure if the comment was intended to
include them, so they all looked sheepishly at each other and then Magenta
said, “Did they catch her?”
Scarlet nodded and went to fetch himself a cup of
coffee. “She told them I had the papers
and just looked helplessly feminine
at them – or so she told me afterwards - and they just left her under the guard
of this young chap and came after me. I
was standing by the carriage door,
planning to climb out onto the roof of the train, when Flaxen pulled the
emergency chain and the train shuddered to a halt, the door opened and I fell
out down the bank into this… very… muddy… field!”
“What happened next?”
“The transport police
came to arrest Flaxen for maliciously pulling the emergency cord, but she said
her husband had fallen out of the train and they let her go with a
caution. They came and collected me and
let us stay in their guard van until we reached Calcutta, largely because I was
all smelly again and they said the first class passengers would complain, but
at least the goons couldn’t get at us.”
“She told them you were
her husband?” Magenta said, laughing again.
Scarlet blushed. “It
served to get us to Calcutta,” he said reluctantly.
Symphony leant to
whisper, “I won’t tell Dianne.” He looked balefully at her and she had to look
away to hide her laughter.
“What happened in
Calcutta?” Grey asked.
“We got an SPJ and were
flying across to rendezvous with Cloudbase over the Atlantic when it developed
engine trouble and we were forced to land in Mombassa. At least there we could get the documents
micro-dotted in the Spectrum Offices and Flaxen didn’t have to keep them in
her… bra – Okay Karen?” She nodded with a bright smile. “Then we took a helicopter
and headed for Cape Town to collect a new SPJ. Whilst we were flying overland,
we received a distress call from some miners.
There had been a tunnel collapse and several people were trapped behind
the fall of rocks. We landed, to see if
we could be of assistance and Flaxen ferried several wounded back to the
nearest hospital in the helicopter whilst I helped with the rescue attempts.”
“There was one part of
the tunnel that was barely accessible, but the miners said they had been
planning to detonate a charge and they thought the long delay fuse had been lit
before the roof fall happened. If it
went off in the new confined area the whole mine would go and there was no way
the trapped men would survive. I
managed to get through a narrow opening in the rock fall and I could see a
bundle of dynamite in a clearing ahead, with the fuse still burning. I just couldn’t reach it, so I had to
wriggle out and get something long and thin to try to knock the fuse out
with. That didn’t work either. All the time the fuse was getting shorter
and I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to try again.”
“The miners said we
should all get out whilst we could, but then Flaxen, who was back from the
hospital, suggested using a hose pipe to pump water through to drench the
fuse. We rigged up a jerry built hose
and she kept pouring water through it.
I was just in time and managed to extinguish the fuse and drench the
explosive – and myself.”
Symphony kissed his
forehead. “You are a perfect hero sometimes, Paul.” she smiled and ruffled his
dark hair.
“Unhand that man!”
Rhapsody Angel challenged playfully as she came into the room, adding quietly
to the pair of them. “Just because your Gentleman
Friend is away playing flying instructor to a bunch of dolly birds, there’s
no excuse to pinch mine!” Symphony laughed and vacated her perch on the arm of
the chair, so that Rhapsody could sit there. “I heard you were back and thought
I’d come to see how you were doing – there are some funny stories doing the
rounds of the canteen,” Rhapsody explained to Scarlet with a warm smile.
“There are some funny
stories around here too,” Grey smiled. “Although I have to agree with Symphony
that you do have your moments, Scarlet.”
Magenta nodded and
toasted Scarlet with his half empty coffee cup. Scarlet smiled, embarrassed by their praise. “It was Flaxen’s idea
really,” he said gruffly.
“What happened after
the mine rescue?” Symphony asked as she drew up another chair.
“We carried on to Cape
Town and landed at the airfield to get a SPJ as intended. Only, the company goons had got there
first. They grabbed Flaxen and bundled
her into a car. One of them bashed me
over the head with a cosh and I passed out – for awhile. When I came to, I could just see their car
pulling away from the airport, so I pinched a car from the parking lot and
followed them as best I could. They headed for the marina and threw Flaxen into
a motor boat and off they went. I
hijacked a jet ski and just preyed they weren’t going far.”
“What happened to ‘not putting
Spectrum personnel before duty’?” Grey said mischievously.
“Well, she had the
formula microdot – about her person.” Scarlet justified himself with asperity.
“Where about her
person?” asked Magenta cheekily.
“I didn’t like to
enquire – before you accuse me of being a novice in ladies clothing again,”
Scarlet teased Symphony, who shrugged good-naturedly.
Rhapsody looked in
confusion from one to the other. “You will explain that to me later, in
private,” she warned him.
“Oh good,” he sighed,
sensing that she might have got the wrong end of the stick with his
comments. “Well, I followed the motor
boat out to a yacht and when everyone was on board, I climbed aboard as
well. They had Flaxen in a small room
and from the racket she was making they weren’t being very gentle with
her. Seems like they were far less
gentlemanly than the Indian goons and they were intent on strip searching her.
I burst into the room and made them stop.
She had to get her uniform back on before we could leave and whilst she
was doing that, someone came up behind me and clouted me – again! I remember Flaxen jumping over me and
running through the door as I fell and then when I came to again I was trussed
up and there were two huge, round boulders attached to the ropes. They dragged me to the side of the boat and
dropped me into the sea.”
Rhapsody gasped with
alarm and clutched his arm. “What happened?”
“I was eaten by
sharks,” he said flippantly. She thumped him, none too gently as Magenta gave a
nervous chuckle.
“I was trying to get
free as I sank, and there were sharks around, attracted by my thrashing
about, I guess. It was a toss up
whether they attacked before or after I drowned.”
Rhapsody gave a gasp of
horror.
“Paul, that’s not nice,” Symphony said with a
sympathetic smile at her friend.
“Well, I obviously
didn’t get eaten or I wouldn’t be here,” he said reasonably. “I doubt if even
my retrometabolism can work with partly digested fragments.”
“So, what did happen?”
Grey asked.
“Flaxen had found some
scuba equipment in the cupboard where she had hidden and she saw them throw me
overboard, so she crept around to the other side of the boat and she dove in
and shared her oxygen supply with me.
She shot one of the sharks – the farthest away from me, and fortunately
the others turned on it whilst she cut the ropes. We surfaced close to where I
had moored the Jet Ski, which fortunately the goons had not disabled, so we
were able to get away and reach the marina without being followed. It began to look as if there was a mole
somewhere in our organisation who was tipping off the company as to our
whereabouts, so we decided to take a commercial flight out of Cape Town. The first one was to Cairo, so we took it
and landed there without incident.”
“What did the Colonel
have to say about all this gadding about?” Rhapsody asked.
“Well, we contacted
Cloudbase when we got to Cairo – hardly had the chance before that, what with
the explosions and the sharks – okay, okay, I’m sorry, no more talk of flesh
eating fish!” He placated Rhapsody with outstretched hands as she glared at
him, grim faced.
“What did the Colonel
say?” Symphony asked in turn, coming to stand alongside her fellow Angel.
“Turns out the Plant
Controller in Brazil had been on to the World Government and they had asked the
Colonel to get us to deliver the formula to their laboratories in Geneva for
evaluation. So not only were we on the
run from the company goons, we now had to get to Geneva as well.”
“That can’t have been
too difficult,” Grey said.
“Easy for you to say,
Captain, you weren’t the one lumbered with Lieutenant Flaxen as a partner. It might have been a darn sight easier if
she hadn’t decided to go sight seeing before we left. She’d never been to Egypt and she just had to see sunrise over
the pyramids, or some such rot.”
“Not everyone gets your
opportunities to travel around, Scarlet,” Symphony said sharply.
“Well, she went out
early and I had to go too, to keep my eyes on her, because of this microdot. We
were the only ones there, it was so blessed early. Not that the pyramids by moonlight isn’t romantic, but I could
think of someone else I’d like to experience it with, rather than Flaxen!”
“What’s wrong with
Lieutenant Flaxen? I rather like her,” Lieutenant Green said, coming into the
officer’s lounge with a pile of reports.
He smiled beatifically at Captain Grey and placed them next to him on
the table.
“Oh Lieutenant, have a
heart,” Grey moaned. “I did hundreds of annual reviews last month.”
“You did twenty-five,
actually. There’s another forty to go before this round is over,” Green
corrected him. “Then the Colonel starts
on you, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Have you had yours?”
Rhapsody asked. The Lieutenant nodded cheerfully. “And?” she continued.
“Damn near perfect, I
bet,” Symphony laughed as Green looked slightly abashed. “How do you do it,
Seymour?”
“I’m dreading mine,”
Magenta said to no-one in particular. “Last year I got ‘could do better’ – but
no-one ever tells you how!”
“Doesn’t anyone want to
hear what happened at the pyramids?” Scarlet asked in an aggrieved tone.
“I thought you didn’t
want to tell us,” Grey said. “But, yeah, go ahead. What happened at the pyramids?”
“I bet Scarlet raised
the curse of the pharaohs,” Magenta teased.
“Flaxen thought she had
seen someone following us and so we ducked down this narrow entrance in the
side of the pyramid. We waited and
there were definitely footsteps approaching.
There were two tunnels either side of this entrance, so she slunk off
down one tunnel and I went down the tunnel on the other side. That way we could
cover each other if the suspects came down after one of us. It turned out to be quite a long tunnel and
I went quite a way in, to see if there was another exit, but it just ended in a
brick wall. Someone was in the entrance and they were talking, but I couldn’t
understand what they were saying. After
a time, they left and I thought it was safe to come out, but as soon as I
moved, the walls juddered and then spikes came out from between the blocks of
stone. Every time I moved forward they
came closer, so as long as I stood still I was okay, but I couldn’t stay there
forever!”
“I tried to call Flaxen on
the cap mic, but it wouldn’t work under the pyramid structure, so I just had to
wait. I was standing there, hardly
daring to move for almost an hour, before she had the sense to come to the
tunnel looking for me and realised my situation. She’d seen that the suspects
were just two Egyptian tour guides and had gone off to see the sights with
them! I was not amused by that, I can
tell you!” he said as his friends all sniggered. “I sent her to look for some
way of getting me out without the spikes closing on me and she found a
mechanism back in the main tunnel. She
obviously decided to try it because the walls started to move closer, even
though I was standing still. Luckily,
she came back to see how I was doing and thankfully had the sense to return and
push the lever the other way before I
got skewered!”
“Indiana Metcalfe and
the Temple of Kebab-amun!” Magenta intoned impressively as Symphony giggled.
“Lucky for you
Lieutenant Flaxen had the sense to go looking for you,” Green said.
“If it hadn’t been for
Flaxen I would have been tucked up in the hotel’s comfy bed!” Scarlet
protested.
“Yes, but Scarlet, you
were okay and it was Flaxen that saved you – again,” Grey reasoned.
“Did you stay any
longer in Cairo?” Rhapsody asked quickly, seeing Scarlet preparing to argue
with his friends.
“No, I made her come
with me straight to the airport. We had booked a flight to Geneva and there
were a few hours to wait. I thought it best we keep out of trouble and away
from the busiest areas, so we went out to the cargo bays.”
“You might as well have
stayed at the pyramids until the flight was due.”
“No, I wanted to be at
the airport so we could get on the flight to Geneva.”
“What on earth did you
find to do in the cargo bays?” Symphony continued, thinking that she would not
have been as biddable as Flaxen and would have insisted on a shopping spree at
the very least.
“We sat on a couple of
crates and ate some figs.”
“What an exciting life
you lead,” Rhapsody said, happier now he was somewhere safe from sharks and
explosions.
“Yes, it was nice and
peaceful until Flaxen needed the ladies…”
“The ladies what?” Magenta
asked.
“He means the loo,
Patrick,” Rhapsody explained.
Magenta nodded in
understanding. “Too many figs, I expect.”
“She went off looking for the loo and I sat on the crate and
waited. After about fifteen minutes, I thought
I’d better find her.” Scarlet shifted uneasily in his seat, trying to ease his
aches and pains. “I walked through the cargo bay back towards the offices and
the main terminal, expecting every minute to see Flaxen coming back, but there
was no sign of her. I was getting
worried and I could hear voices on an overhead gantry. Suddenly four crates
came falling down right towards me and it was sheer good luck that I was able
to jump out of their way.”
Rhapsody
shook her head in disbelief at his misfortune .
“I did get hit, but I
was able to walk after an hour’s rest, so it could have been worse. Flaxen was very sorry about it when she
found me afterwards.” Scarlet reassured her.
“Flaxen was sorry? Why?” Green asked.
“It appears that her
search for the loo had taken her to an office where a ‘gentleman’ was only too
happy to oblige and allowed her to use the office facilities. He then insisted on seeing her back to her
‘escort’ – which seems to mean me! You
know, I sometimes think Flaxen is a little naive, because it never occurred to
her – she said – that Mr Helpful was going to make a pass at her! This, of
course is just what he did.”
“The bastard,”
Lieutenant Green said stoutly.
“Well said Lieutenant,”
Symphony agreed. “I hope she decked him.”
“She did. With such ferocity that he lost his footing,
cannoned into the crates and knocked them down on top of me,” Scarlet said with
a rueful sigh.
“Well done Lieutenant
Flaxen, a woman after my own heart!” Symphony Angel said jubilantly punching
the air.
“What about me, with a
broken leg?” Scarlet remonstrated.
“What do you want, a
medal?” said Magenta, scathingly. “You just said you were walking again in an
hour.”
“Yes, but it hurt.”
Rhapsody stroked his
hair. “Never mind, Paul, Its all over now. You got on the plane to Geneva okay
and here you are.” Pulling a disgusted
face, she surreptitiously rubbed her hand clean on her uniform trousers.
“Not exactly,” Scarlet
admitted again.
“I don’t believe this –
it’s like The Perils of Pauline,” Magenta
said happily.
“What?” Green asked.
“Early twentieth
century cinema – silent movie era, where they made a serial to be shown every
week in the cinema of the adventures of a girl called Pauline. Every week the episode finished with her
tied to railway tracks as the train approached, or something equally exciting.”
Magenta was generally acknowledged as the supreme movie buff on Cloudbase.
Scarlet sniffed and appeared to be sulking.
“Come on Paul, you
can’t leave the tale half told,” Rhapsody chivvied him. “What happened in
Geneva?”
“Well, wouldn’t you
know it, when we got to Geneva, it turns out the World Government’s labs are in
the mountains, close to a World Army base.
We drove out there in an SSC – I didn’t trust Flaxen with another SPV! Anyway, I have to say that that decision was
probably a mistake, because we were forced off the road by a black limo – the
company goons had found us again, it seemed.
They opened fire and Flaxen dashed off into the trees but I wasn’t so
fast. I could walk, but my leg was still
painful and I was hobbling after her when the goons caught me. They decided to interrogate me there and
then.”
“Interrogate you?”
Green looked surprised.
“Yes, that’s goon speak
for beating people up a little,” Scarlet sighed. “You know, I had just about
had enough of all this and I wasn’t being very co-operative. They were getting annoyed with me, but at
least I could honestly say I hadn’t the faintest idea what Flaxen had done with
the formula.”
“You knew she still had
it though?” Symphony asked.
“Oh yes, she still had
it. I made sure she kept it safe.”
“Poor
Paul,” Rhapsody sympathised, putting her arm around his shoulders. He winced.
“Still a little sore
there, Rhapsody,” he said and she looked all concern as she removed her arm.
“Never mind,” Magenta
said teasingly, “she can kiss it better later!”
“Patrick!” Rhapsody
chided him and winked.
Scarlet blushed until
he was almost the same colour as his tunic and shifted in his seat.
“So, how did you escape
the attentions of the goons?” Lieutenant Green asked.
“Well, the first thing
I noticed was a large World Army tank coming along the road from the direction
of the camp. It was making a rather
erratic progress and I began to have my doubts. The goons were so busy with me they didn’t realise their car was
in the way and the tank rolled straight over it then swerved towards us and
flattened the SSC as well! Boy, were
they mad! They fired their automatics
at the thing, but of course that had no effect. The gun barrel swung round towards them and a shell whizzed over
their heads and burst in the trees.
They scattered faster than I have ever seen people run! I was watching from the side of the
embankment and as the tank came towards me the hatch opened and Flaxen looked
out, waving like a lunatic. In fact she
was so busy waving that she forgot to stop the thing and it came straight at me
and pushed me over the edge of the embankment before it stopped, causing a
minor avalanche in the progress.”
“Is that why you are still so black and blue?” Rhapsody asked.
He nodded. “It took
Flaxen half an hour to dig me out. I’m
afraid I lost my temper with her and called her some very impolite names –
which I rather hope she either didn’t hear or didn’t understand. I’m not usually given to using … language to
a lady.”
“Woman,” Symphony
corrected.
Scarlet grimaced; it
would appear that Symphony was on another of her girl power campaigns. The
sooner Blue came back and took her mind off such nonsense the better! He
decided not to rise to the bait.
“Once she had dug me
out and I was capable of movement, we climbed back into the tank and not having
any other transport, we completed the journey to the Labs in the tank. Very impressive we must have looked, driving
up to the main entrance in a World Army combat tank.”
“We were expected and
they provided Flaxen with a private room so that she could … unload the
microdot, from wherever it was. I
waited in the lobby and tried not to notice how everyone was giving me funny
looks and pinching their noses as they went past! I had been dunked in slime, thrown into a paddy field, crawled
through a muddy mine shift, chucked into the sea and finally buried by an
avalanche – I wasn’t the prettiest sight you ever saw.”
“Nor the sweetest
smelling either.” Green pinched his nose.
“You try maintaining
personal hygiene under those circumstances, Lieutenant.” Scarlet bristled.
“You could have
showered on your return to Cloudbase,” Rhapsody suggested gently.
“I still have to report
to the Colonel, he decided to debrief Flaxen first.” Scarlet was obviously put
out by his commanding officer’s unaccountable decision.
“Well, you did what was
asked and delivered the microdot,” Grey said, standing and straightening his
uniform, in the assumption that the story was over. “Did you pick up an SPJ at
Geneva?”
“Eventually,” Scarlet
growled. “We had to take the tank back first
- which was a little awkward because they didn’t know Flaxen had
borrowed it - and borrow a car from the Army to get back – remember the SSC was
so much squashed metal by now?”
“That can’t have been a
problem, surely?” Magenta said, sensing that Scarlet’s tale of woe was not yet
complete.
“I should never have
let Flaxen drive…” Scarlet muttered.
“What happened?” Green
cried, his eyes bright with amusement.
“She managed to get it
through the perimeter fence okay and across to the hangers without too much
mishap – just a few bollards, that’s all.
However, she misjudged the hanger doorway and crashed it into the side
of building. That caused an electrical
short circuit, which started a small fire.”
“The sprinklers would
have dealt with that, surely,” Grey said with a frown.
“Yes, they came on okay
and we climbed out of the tank and were walking to an emergency exit, when… I
tripped over a plank and crashed into some fuel drums, and the fire caught and
the roof timbers came down.”
“What about the fuel?”
“Flaxen rushed over
with a foam extinguisher and managed to dampen the fire around me down. Some of
the Army personnel joined her and they brought it all under control after a
time. However, most of the hanger was
destroyed… and three jeeps… and even the tank itself wasn’t unscathed.”
“Sounds…expensive,”
Green muttered.
“Yes, it is, and the
Colonel isn’t going to be very pleased when the Army invoice arrives on his
desk.”
“But – after all you’ve
been through, he can hardly blame you!” Rhapsody cried in defence of her
boyfriend.
“Well, it was me that
tripped over.”
“And Flaxen that
crashed the tank,” Rhapsody reasoned.
“But I was the mission
commander; I was responsible. And she’s the rookie; I was supposed to be taking
care of her.”
“Sounds more like she
was taking care of you,” Symphony grinned.
“Sounds like they
should never be let out together again!” Magenta amended with a laugh. “What a
trail of mishaps.”
“Well, we’d better wait
and see what the Colonel thinks about it all.
There’s no point in trying to second guess the old man,” Grey agreed
grimacing at the files Green had left for him. “I think I’ll have lunch before
I start that – anyone hungry?”
Just then the
communication panel bleeped and Green answered it. “It’s for you Symphony
Angel, Captain Blue, apparently,” he grinned.
Symphony ambled across
with a nonchalance that fooled no-one. The men exchanged knowing glances as her
face lit up when she exchanged smiles with Captain Blue on the screen. “Hello
Captain, how are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks. How’s everyone up there?”
“Alright, although
Scarlet’s just had some pretty hair-raising misadventures.”
“Is he okay?”
“A bit smelly and bruised,
but he’ll live – as always!” she laughed.
Their conversation was
interrupted by the arrival of the Colonel, with Lieutenant Flaxen by his side.
“Ah, Captain Scarlet, I
have just finished hearing about your mission with Lieutenant Flaxen. It seems that you might be in need of a
visit to sickbay for a check up. You
really should be more careful, Captain.
Despite your unique abilities, it doesn’t do to be careless when on a
mission.” Scarlet was dumb-struck; he stared open mouthed at the
Colonel, who continued, “I am very pleased with Lieutenant Flaxen’s
performance; she has acted with courage and intelligence. Her quick thinking provided solutions to
some of the problems you encountered and ensured the success of your mission. I
am sure you will be the first to
congratulate her, Captain, when you hear that I have promoted her to a junior
field officer. And, until Captain Blue
returns from Australia, I have assigned her to work alongside you.”
“What? Oh no, I mean …
congratulations, Flaxen,” Scarlet mumbled, and as everyone clustered around the
blushing Lieutenant with their congratulations, he sidled over to the video
phone and said to Captain Blue, “Did you hear that, Adam?”
His friend shook his
head, but Scarlet wasn’t looking at him, he was staring horror-struck at his
new field partner.
“How much longer do you
think you’ll be skiving amongst the standby Angels?”
“I reckon another six
weeks should do it,” Blue said.
His friend shuddered.
“Do you think you can fast track them through the course and get back here
really quickly? Otherwise I’m not sure
even my retrometabloism will be able to cope with my new field partner for
long!”
“Well,” said Blue with
a grin, “it’s sure nice to be appreciated, at last!”