2 cobra 17

 

Chapter 17

 

 

“Did you get all that?” I asked the drone.

It made that dipping motion.

“Well, looks like I have kittens,” I said. I tore up some of my cooked meat and fed it to them in tiny pieces; bacon isn’t that good for cats. They seemed to know what to do with pigeon meat, however, so I fed them a bit more. Goodness, did they have to be toileted? No, they were weaned if they would eat meat, so they should be able to manage on their own.

The little black ball of fluff proved this by finding a corner and dealing with his needs. His sister cuffed him on his return, inspected his nethers, and washed firmly.

Then she did her business, and rolled over with one leg in the air to wash before walking back up me.

“You know, I think it’s time we moved on,” I said. I had one of the anoracks; the two fitted neatly into a pocket, where they curled up, pot bellied from pigeon meat, and settled down to sleep it off.

“I must be a complete nutter,” I muttered to the drone.

It didn’t have to nod so positively.

I slipped down the rickety stair, more than a ladder, but not by much, and checked that my way was clear. The sun was well up, and to go east and south, I needed to go towards it, with it to my right shoulder. I got out of the farm yard, and Puss came to escort me off the property. I squatted to pet her, and show her the sleeping kittens. She licked my hand, and on an impulse I gave her some pigeon too. She had probably gone without to feed her illicit babies. She ate neatly, but with concentration.

I left her most of the rest of the pigeon meat, and said to the drone, “Say, can you get someone to get me some tins of kitten chow? I have no money on me, but I can pay you back in the hotel.”

The drone bobbed.

Yes, Willow was doubtless getting some as well, but she was my ace in the hole.

She was also giggling fit to bust.

“Rick! Oppenheimer just got to your home from home, and crashed in to tell you to get your lazy carcase out of bed and come back to make yourself presentable for the award ceremony, and there you weren’t. He’s shitting bricks over what’s happened to you.”

“I judge I’m about ten miles short of Quebec,” I said to my faithful drone. “There has to be a road,  I’ve a feeling it’s a bit to the east.”

I carried on, and something prompted me to turn round.

That poor cat was still padding tiredly but determinedly behind me.

“I don’t know if this is cat-napping,” I said, “But they weren’t treating you right. Come on, up, Puss; but if you come with me, I’ll be having you fixed.”

She bunched up, and made it to my shoulder in one bound, discovered that the anorak had a deep hood, and proceeded to make herself at home in it.

Oh, well. We were going to settle down in blameless domesticity, and a cat about the place, or three cats about the place, would add to the ambiance thereof.

Willow managed to get her drone feed to my ear bud; it was a bit distorted, but Oppenheimer was shouting about what he’d do to that ornery sonofabitch injun when he caught up with me.

It was very satisfying and not suitable for primetime.

I reached the road, and started walking fast now that I had a good surface. An army truck passed me, and screeched to a halt.

One of the men ran back.

“Are you Jay Silverheels?” he asked.

“The one and only,” I said.

“Jump up, buddy; we’re sick of Oppenheimer and you stuck one to him, and good.”

“Are you my security contingent?” I asked.

“Yes, too little, too late, but you seem to be a survivor,” he said.

“It’s how I got so old,” I said. “Careful, I have passengers – a cat and kittens. Probably less welcome passengers too, I stink like nothing on earth and I’d kill for a beer.”

“We’ll take you back to barracks to clean up,” said the friendly soldier.

I always seem to fall on my feet; someone loves me.

Willow turned up at the barracks with clean clothes as I emerged from a hot bath in the officers’ quarters, someone’s orderly shaved me, cut my hair, and provided milk and kibble for Puss and her offspring. Whom I should have to name. Black and Tabby were not that original. Eomer and Eowyn might be suitable for a pair of little survivors, but a bit too fancy. They were busy mousing in someone else’s slippers. I decided the little girl, with her flying goggles from the early days of aviation could be Amy, for Amy Johnson; and that meant the little boy might as well be Orville.

It made sense to me, anyway.

The soldiers wanted no thanks or reward, putting one over Oppenheimer and winning a packet on me was apparently enough.

 

 

I moseyed into the hotel in a sharp suit, whilst Willow smuggled our cats up the back stairs.

“Where have you been?” Oppenheimer yapped.

“In the national park, fighting off assassins and winning ‘Extreme,’” I said.

“You weren’t there when I went to collect you!” he howled.

I looked surprised.

“You went to collect me?  Well, I’m sorry. I felt like a little night hike. So I came on overnight.”

“You... you’re clean!”

“Yes, I stopped off for a bath and bought a new suit,” I said. “I smelled.”

He gobbled a bit, and led me firmly into the dining room cum lounge which was for our use.

My friends cheered.

“What are you like!” scolded Elizabeth. “We had no idea what you were going to do!”

“No, it was funnier that way,” I said. “Which is my poor beleaguered drone operator?”

“The one with the lovely chassis and go-to-hell eyes,” said the honey blonde.

“Does that rankle?”

“Not after I saw you with those kittens,” she said, handing me a big box of kitten chow. Willow had provided me with a decent bribe for her, which I slipped her.

“Now I get to tell Oppenheimer I was with you all the time,” she grimaced.

“Tell him you suspected this, and kept an eye on me, and I never knew you were following,” I suggested. “But you didn’t want to spook me, so you said nothing. And tell him what fantastic footage you have. And that you persuaded me to let you show him, on condition that the navigation lessons are shown in full.”

She nodded.

“I can handle him,” she said.

“I’ll buy a copy of the navigation part,” I said. “I know a school which could use it.”

“Ok,” she agreed.

Of course, with me talking to the drone it would become obvious that I was aware of it, but maybe once it had aired and the ratings soared, any furore would die down.

I went to Willow’s room, not mine, for an hour’s kip before dinner.

“What have you discovered?” I asked.

“I’d set up some bugs and a couple of discreet cameras, and there’s someone in your bathroom,” she said. “Doubtless expecting you to go and bath and be off your guard.”

“What, hiding in the shower unit? How tediously quaintly predictable,” I said.

“There’s nowhere else to hide,” said Willow. “Now, if I was going to kill you, I’d wait until you had run the bath and got in it, washed off the worst, refilled it to luxuriate, doze, wank, or whatever, and then I’d come out, grab you by the feet to pull you under and wait until you drowned. I read about that in your classic crimes book.”

“The brides in the bath,” I said. “Where the volunteer lady policeman was almost drowned in a very graphic demonstration. It has the beauty of simplicity. I wonder if their assassin is ready to use the beauty of simplicity?”

“Well, he has to be ready for you deciding to shower off the worst first,” she said.

“There is that,” I agreed. “Probably won’t wait then. I need an edge.”

“Knowing he’s there is a good one,” she said.

“Tear gas,” I muttered.

“Together with a gas mask,” said Willow, handing over a gas mask and a rather alarmingly hand-made looking grenade launcher on a shotgun.

“How on earth?” I asked.

“You made a big impression on the manager. He is most sympathetic over you being attacked by criminals, and I just asked where someone might go for shadow supplies. He rang a man beforehand and I was picked up to go to his workshop. He asked very nicely not to leave dead bodies in his hotel.”

“That seems fair enough,” I agreed.

“You did put a panel through to the storage spaces, didn’t you?” said Willow.

She knows my liking for back doors out.

I didn’t get much sleep in the hour before dinner, but I found it relaxing. Apart from Orville coming to see what was going on and putting a cold nose on a tender place below my buttocks. At least my pained yell startled him enough not to swipe at anything dangling.

When we got up, he was being washed by both his mother and his sister.

 

I enjoyed my dinner; delicate sauces, tender meat, and plenty of vegetables, with herbs and salt. I had been missing salt. I can’t say I took much notice of what there was only that there was plenty and I hadn’t had to kill, gut, or cook it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like cooking well enough. But it was rather extreme cuisine.

 

oOoOo

 

The hotel had a good system of fire escapes, and I went to Willow’s room on the upper floor to gear up. I went out of her window, and half way down to the fire escape onto my room. I did not go all the way, as I would have passed the bathroom window; and even a shadow on that would not be good. So, I went over the balustrade, getting my feet onto the handrail round the platform of this level. A bit of a swing, and I could get into the window of the pie-shaped cupboard, helped by the charming maid who had brought a pile of towels in. The charming maid was, of course, Willow, because nobody looks at maids. And we did not know if there were other watchers, which is why I did not go directly to the cupboard.

There was a bit of a squeeze past the cupboards on both sides, but the way to the window was there for safety reasons.  It made my safety easier.

Willow pulled on her gas mask, and I opened my hidden panel.

The shower unit had an open top. Good.

I fired my launcher, which was apparently a short range one designed for gas grenades, and the pill flew gently over into the shower unit.

The black-clad assassin fell out of the shower, choking. Hikaru sent a ninja? He did rate me highly.

I dived through the panel to take him in the back of the knees; I wasn’t going to mess about with a ninja. I slammed into him.  If he hadn’t been full of tear gas, he would probably have evaded me. I grabbed his ankles and pulled hard.

It works every time, from front or back. He went down with a crash, hitting his head on the bathtub as he went.

That, at least, silenced him a little bit. I trussed him up like a chicken, and opened the bathroom window.

I looked up as well as down, and the maid who had been about to descend quickly vanished back inside.

“You could just drop him,” said Willow. “He’s unconscious, so it won’t hurt or frighten him, which is what you were worried about, wasn’t it?”

“It’s not the point,” I said.

As there was a maid lurking on the fire escape, presumably with amorous pursuit in mind, I put on a bellhop’s uniform, we loaded him into a dirty linen cart, and took him downstairs and out the back, where the manager himself diverted the toffee-nosed flunky who was going to ask awkward questions. I found a dumpster some way down the back alley, and broke his neck before tossing him in it.

Then we went back up to the service room to change back, and to clean up the bloodstain where he had impacted on the bath. A good scrubbing with bleach, likewise in the shower in case he had peed in there, and all should be good. We went back to Willow’s room and the cats, who were ready for us to go to bed.  Puss dumped Orville on Willow, Amy on me, and squiggled down the duvet between us.

“It’s a dress rehearsal for having kids,” I sighed.

“They’re adorable,” said Willow. “How did you come by three cats?”

I explained, and she took my hand and squeezed it.

“I love you, Rick,” she said.

 

oOoOo

 

Next day was all about interviews and playing dumb about being attacked; and the show was stolen by Puss bringing in and presenting the manager with three big rats.

She was much praised in French for her cleverness in catching the only ones he had not been able to trap, which came from the cochons next door. Puss was also in good odour.

We’d be welcome another time, but preferably without the  trideo paraphernalia.

Oppenheimer wanted to disqualify all four of us of course, but we had endeared ourselves to the public, sticking together to fight evil killers, and not to let competition stand in the way of friendship and loyalty. There was speculation about my relationship with Elizabeth, of course, as Dave had so publicly proposed to Julie; but I got used to saying, ‘me too scared of wife to answer questions.’