The Dastardly Mr Winkle Meets His Match

by Rufus Offor

  “If you wish.”

  Shoop placed a chloroform soaked cloth over Jeeves’ nose and mouth from behind. Jeeves, apparently prepared for whatever might follow, breathed calmly and deeply and nestled into a very deep and relaxing sleep.

  Luckily the library was directly above the main boiler rooms and storage basement area of the school. Shoop was tall and scrawny but held in his frame freakish strength. He had no problems in slinging Jeeves’ ample frame over his shoulder like an empty sack and hoofing him downstairs, but not before turning all the desk lamps and computers off and locking the library. The things that Shoop had to do were better done in dark private places without windows.

  Once in the boiler room he tied the unconscious Jeeves to a chair and waited for him to wake up. Before this happened, however, he was briefly interrupted by a couple of students that’d come looking for Mr Jeeves. Shoop suspected that they were a part of the same organisation that Bunty and Jeeves were in. One of the two was a heavy set young man who delighted in cracking bad jokes in the face of danger and he took a good couple of cracks to the skull before Shoop could render him unconscious.

  The other one was a bit more difficult to deal with. She was a small redheaded girl and a proficient witch, but even witches pass out if you hit them hard enough. It was proving quite difficult to hit her though. She had managed to summon a small whirlwind that picked Shoop up and whipped him around the room. Shoop wrestled to get a billy club out of his pocket, once he’d grabbed it he lobbed it directly at the girls’ temple. She hit the floor, bouncing her head off the hard concrete and the whirlwind stopped. Shoop landed deftly on his feet.

  He tied and gagged them both. It occurred to him that he could use them to make Jeeves talk. If Jeeves cared even slightly about them, then hurting them would force Jeeves to tell Shoop everything that he wanted to know. It didn’t work though.

  As Shoop pushed a long, very hot needle like object through the girls’ collar bone, all Jeeves said was, “Oh don’t worry about her, I’m sure she’ll be fine, but if it makes you feel better to do what you’re doing, then I think you should go right on ahead.” while the girl silently grinned and nodded in agreement.

  Shoop was getting very fed up with the amount of people that weren’t reacting properly to pain.

  Shoop turned his attentions to Jeeves and, hours later, no matter how much Shoop hurt him, Jeeves still stubbornly refused to answer any questions. All he did was suggest that Shoop start drinking more herbal tea while wearing a pleasant smile. Luckily Shoop had anticipated that something like this might happen and had remembered to bring some Truth serum. Jeeves took far more than the average person could take before opening up but once Shoop had given him a large enough dose for it to work, the answers started coming thick and fast.

  The problem was, though, that the dose that had been administered had been large enough to make Jeeves’ liver collapse and he died before Shoop could get all the information that he needed. He tried the serum on the two students but before they could tell him anything useful, the witch temporarily glued their mouths shut with a spell.

  He spent a bit of time kicking them around to satisfy his sadistic needs, wiped their memories clean with a handy little gadget that he always carried with him (it looked a bit like a drill and hurt massively) and left them stunned and confused outside the library.

  He walked down the road and once he was satisfied with the distance between him and the scene of the crime, took out his phone and dialled.

  “Yeah it’s me again, did you manage to get the boys together?”

  The voice on the other end of the phone replied, “Yeah, we’re on our way to the address we got from you now. ETA fifteen minutes.”

  “Good, listen, don’t do anything until I get there, and don’t let anyone see you approach the cottage. Use your night vision glasses and turn of the headlights in the van while running it on silent. I’ve just been chatting with the owner of the cottage and it looks like there will be people there. I don’t want them to see you, the only reason they should know you’re there is if they try to leave. Do NOT let them leave. Am I clear.”

  “Affirmative!”

  “Good, I’m just getting myself some transport,” Shoop had stopped walking and was standing at the gate to a driveway that housed a Jaguar E-type. “I’ll be with you in about forty-five minutes.”

  Shoop hung up and dialled another number.

  “George, it’s me, switch to secure line.”

  “Done.” Said George.

  “Right, we’re going to have our work cut out for us here and we’re going to have to move fast.”

  “I take it that you managed to get a bit of information then?”

  “Yip, Jeeves was looking after Bunty Autumn. He was her guardian of sorts and he was the source of information behind all her fieldwork. In short, he was her handler. They operated out of the basement in his cottage. By the sounds of things he has a fairly vast vault down there that has more information on the P.O.S. than anywhere else for hundreds of miles. He was a kind of caretaker for the Priory Of Sion museum.”

  “Was?” Asked George.

  “Eh?”

  “You said he was a caretaker for the museum….past tense!”

  “Oh, yeah, well, he had a bad reaction to the truth serum. He died before I could get much more information out of him.”

  “Jesus Shoop, you really must stop killing people that might be useful!”

  “Piss off George, you’re not my mother, anyway, it was an accident, and by the sounds of it all the information that we could ever need will be at his house. I’m heading there now but I’m expecting resistance. I’ve called all of the independents in and they’ll meet me there.”

  “What, ALL the independents?”

  “Yep!”

  “Are you sure you need them all?”

  “This is big George, I can feel it in my bones. I didn’t want to get the hopes up earlier but I’m fairly sure now. The sixth sense is well and truly back.”

  “It’s about bloody time!” said George gleefully.

  “That’s what I thought. Now get your arse out of your hovel and meet us at Jeeves’ house. I’ve got a feeling we’ll need you for some organising.”

  “What, leave my rooms?” George sounded at lot less gleeful at this prospect.

  “Just shift yourself, The Boss’ll be down there soon questioning you soon anyway, its not safe, time is very much a factor on this one, and be absolutely sure that you’re not followed, use the tunnels if you have to. In fact, it might be better if you got out of Edinburgh that way rather that on the roads. Now move your arse!”

  Shoop hung up, walked up the driveway he’d been waiting at, stole the Jaguar E-type and headed south.

  Chapter 7

  The Independents and the Vault

  Jeeves’ house was out of town tucked neatly in a valley between some of the Pentland hills just south of Edinburgh. It took Shoop an hour or so to work his way there, slightly longer than he’d anticipated, after making sure that the Sphere hadn’t managed to pick up his trail and follow him.

  There was a narrow dirt track road that ran between the hills and down a valley toward a small wooded area that housed Jeeves’ cottage.

  Shoop turned off his headlights as soon as he saw the lights of the house through trees in the distance. He didn’t need night vision glasses, his vision was super human and, once his eyes had adapted to switching off the headlights, he could see quite adequately. It wasn’t long before he came across the group of men that he’d asked to meet him there and a surly bunch they were too.

  They were sitting in a home made, four wheel drive, monster of a vehicle nestled in a small valley two hundred yards from the cottage. It looked like the bastard son of a jeep and a Sherman tank but was missing none of the creature comforts. It came complete with leather interior, DVD player and a mini bar that was being joyfully utilised.

  Shoop turned off his engine and rolled the stolen car to withi
n 10 meters of the make-shift tank. He took great pleasure in sneaking up on them and appearing suddenly at the driver’s side window, like a spiritual apparition made solid he appeared as if out of thin air. The drinking hoard in the car was shaken briefly at seeing him appear so abruptly. They were exceptionally well trained in numerous different fields including espionage and martial arts and were infrequently caught by surprise, but were visibly shaken by Shoop’s ghost-like misery stricken visage coming out of nowhere and staring at them through partially misted windows.

  The Independents had all been mercenaries at one time or another and had been involved in some of the bloodiest combat situations of the previous twenty years. Shoop called them the Independents because they had no solid ties to any group or organisation. They only bowed to the highest bidder and not for anything as impractical as belief or honour. Having such men on board This Tmeant that Shoop could exact any given operation under the radar of the Sphere of Influence. They worked for the biggest pay packet and, invariably, Shoop supplied them with more money than anyone else did. Shoop’s consistent ability to supply them with that which they craved, i.e. loads of cash and interestingly bizarre combat situations, meant that they would hurriedly and enthusiastically answer his call, no matter what.

  This made for another contradiction in Shoop’s life. The independents were fiercely detached from the numerous battling secret organisations of the world; and yet were pathetically loyal to Shoop, or more accurately, they were pathetically loyal to Shoop’s wallet and it’s seemingly bottomless capacity. They loved his affluence yet hated him at the same time. This was a mental state that Shoop liked to encourage in his men. It meant that nobody had any misconceptions about anything; nobody had any ideas of false friendship and emotional loyalty. He hated misconceptions as they tended to lead to false loyalty. Loyalty could always be bought and that was the way that Shoop liked it. Bought loyalty had the bonus of being a lot more honest than personal loyalty. It meant that he didn’t have to pretend that he liked them and they didn’t have to pretend that the liked him. As long as the money kept coming everyone was happy.

  Shoop had a very large supply of money, which meant that he could keep the people in his personal service free of the Sphere and its influence.

  There were four of them and Shoop had only worked with all of them at the same time twice before. Calling them altogether usually meant that something big was going down and that the money was going to match the size of the mission. Whenever Shoop called any of them, they always jumped at the chance, but when they knew that all four of them were being called in they got a little more enthusiastic than normal.

  The first of the four was called Jim.

  Jim had a slight frame and sharp facial features that looked as thought they wanted to be softer. By this I mean that he had the potential in him to be a kind and merciful man but life had dictated another course for him. In different circumstances he could have been a well-rounded, sensitive person and this impression lay under the veneer of his severe face. His potential for kindness was the true base of his nature, but he had turned into something much more vicious and mean. He had had his innocence taken from him far too early. He’d had a rude awakening to the harshness of the world at a very young age. The effect of which had been to make him cynical and bitter before his time. He hated anyone that showed any kind of weakness or sensitivity as a result. He despised people who had the freedom to remain positive and upbeat. He was very angry at the world because it had robbed him of his ability to be a nice guy. He thoroughly enjoyed making the world, and everyone in it, feel bad about this whenever he could.

  He had thick dread-locked hair that he wore in a kind of pineapple sprig of an arrangement on top of his head. He had a long pointed face housing a long, sharp down turned nose and a permanently knitted brow under which hid two bright beady little eyes. His mouth was small and tight. A thin black beard went along the line of his jaw looking like someone had drawn it on with a marker pen, which gave him a slightly comical look. This was no accident though, as, the way he saw it, the funnier a person looks, the more people underestimate them. His look had been carefully designed to confuse, it had helped him to get the upper hand on more than one occasion.

  The largeness of his hair made his neck seem ludicrous and thin, but his wire-like muscles were tight and powerful. He was small but had terrifying strength and speed for his size. This matched with the venomous anger that pulsed through him so consistently made him a force to be reckoned with. The acute training he’d received from the foreign legion, a Japanese ninjistu master and his better than average intelligence made him a down-right hazard.

  Carl’s story of innocence lost was quite similar to Jim’s with the one exception that instead of getting all angry and bitter about the real horrors of the world he embraced them with vigour. His real name was Stephen Adams. He had been a left wing hippy who, upon rebelling too frequently against his parents, had been shipped off to the navy to teach him some discipline. He’d taken to it like a chimp to a tree.

  He too was slight of stature but had softer, yet well weathered features that gathered into a stubby scowl. He had unruly short-ish hair and a permanent covering of lazy stubble on his chin. It never grew into a beard, just always looked a bit shaggy. It was almost as if he’d found a razor that left precisely half a centimetre of growth on his beard at all times.

  Carl, upon joining the navy, found that he really liked the life. He liked the discipline, the exercise and above all, the ability to shoot big guns and sneak up on people in scuba gear. He fast realised that he’d been a bit of a misguided pillock when he’d been a hippy.

  He quickly applied to the commandoes. He was so enthusiastic about his new career that he volunteered for any mission there was going, no matter how dangerous or insane. He didn’t care, he just loved running around, being sneaky and shooting things.

  His gung-ho attitude got him noticed by a scientist who was working for the British government trying to improve the effectiveness of British troops. Carl was made aware of a new project involving experimental cranial implants to bolster strength and aggression in combat situations. He still had the scar on the side of his head from the operation.

  The experiment had not gone well. Carl turned psychotic. His new strength and aggression made it possible for him to wipe out thirteen crack security troupes (predominantly from the SAS) before being restrained and locked away. He’d spend three years strapped down in a mental hospital before he escaped. The hospital gave him tranquilisers to keep him dormant and under control but one day Carl decided that he wasn’t going to swallow them and hid them at the back of his mouth between his teeth and cheek. Not taking the drugs brought on a very powerful fit of aggression, he snapped his leather bindings and threw his bed clean threw the iron bars in the window in his room.

  Since then he’d managed to control his implant with the use of massive amounts of cannabis. It was the only thing that worked. When he wasn’t chewing on a lump of hashish, he was puffing on massive pure marijuana conical joints. It kept him reasonably under control. The strength was still there and even with his sedation he was still one of the most dangerous people on the planet.

  It didn’t take him long to find buyers for his unique talents. He changed his name, got a new identity and spent the next ten years inducing pain and misery around the world with unnatural glee.

  Dr Komodo was a very imposing looking character. He was very tall, very black and very scary. The scariness didn’t come from daunting size, it wasn’t that he had a mass of muscles that could crush the skull of a hyena, no, his unnerving intimidating stature was due to the size of his head. He had a thin sinewy yet muscular neck that’s sole task seemed to be the rather strenuous task of holding his massive cranium on his shoulders. His brain-power was extremely daunting. He had an unshakable stare that screamed intelligence of stupendous proportions. His mind held huge amounts of information and was completely void of emotional entanglements. Most o
f his body was designed to support his towering intellect rather than get involved in affairs of the heart. In fact his heart was a tiny shrivelled, prune like organ of very little merit. It made his eyes cold and dead. He was a biological robot designed to house a massive brain and that was all.

  He was logical and lethal. His amazing astuteness had been powerfully and intensely directed at the practices of logic and organisational strategy. He could plan his way out of any situation and was blessed with frightening physical strength and speed.

  He had been the student of a Cambodian street fighter who taught him that martial arts were a bit flowery. He believed in the lack of martial ceremony and replaced it with knocking massive lumps out of people as quickly as possible.

  He was also deadly with a knife, either in hand-to-hand combat or as a projectile. He could throw a butter knife through a caravan and kill someone on the other side of it.

  Lastly, there was Yan.

  Yan was the most intimidating of the lot. He was Six Feet eight and seemed barely alive. He never appeared to move. Even when he was moving quickly he looked as if he were just floating along without making use of his limbs. His arms barely ever left his sides and his looming static frame gave him the look of an ancient unmovable pillar.

  He had a pale marble like complexion and a hard unchanging face. He was completely bald with no eyebrows but still managed an eternal frown, underneath which was the source of his real power.

  Nobody had ever managed to ascertain how exactly he did it, but when his eyes fixed on people, they could hear his voice in their heads. His entire appearance was hard cold and dead, but his eyes were life itself. They had universes swimming around in them. Life and death were dished out by his hypnotic stare. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, his were the mirrors of the gods.

  The effort of sustaining the power hiding in his cornea resulted in constant beads of sweat rolling off his bald head. The perspiration made him look like a man who’d just finished a five-mile sprint in a desert.