S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B.

by Rob Stevens

  ‘Oh, I’m not hungry, thank you,’ said Archie.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Barney, grabbing the chocolate bar.

  He pinched the top of the wrapper with both hands and was just about to tear it open when—

  ‘STOP!’ bellowed Holden Grey.

  Barney relaxed his grip on the sweet wrapper and everyone waited in stunned silence.

  ‘That’s no ordinary chocolate bar,’ explained Grey, breathing heavily after his outburst. ‘I’ve been experimenting by lacing chocolate with various chemicals in order to make it a doubly lethal secret weapon. I’m trying to perfect a poison that is as deadly as cyanide to anyone who consumes it and also releases a toxic substance into the air that will immobilise anyone whose DNA contains the evil gene.’

  ‘The evil gene?’ questioned Archie.

  Grey nodded. ‘Oh yes. As you’ve seen, I haven’t exactly stayed at the cutting edge of comms technology but I’ve been spending my retirement studying the genetic make-up of history’s most barbaric individuals. Attila the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible – you name it – they all had one thing in common. They all possessed the evil gene.’

  ‘So this chocolate bar will kill anyone who eats it,’ marvelled Barney, turning the Mars bar over in his hands. ‘And immobilise any really bad guys in the vicinity?’

  Holden Grey’s smile dropped. ‘Actually no,’ he said. ‘It’s still very much a work in progress. What you hold in your hand is a prototype chocolate bar laced with a substance that has the same toxic qualities as a powerful insecticide. In addition, when the bar is bitten into it releases canine pheromones into the atmosphere.’

  ‘Wow,’ Barney grinned. ‘So if, say, we were being attacked by killer bees and surrounded by some really ferocious cats, then … this is exactly the gadget we’d need?’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Grey. ‘The insecticide would kill the bees and the canine pheromones would repel the cats.’

  ‘Is that the sort of situation many agents find themselves in?’ asked Archie pointedly.

  It’s bound to happen all the time,’ Agent X-ray mumbled.

  Holden Grey puffed out his cheeks as he considered his response.

  ‘You never know,’ suggested Barney. ‘Anything could happen.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Grey gratefully. ‘You never know when the Toxic Chocolate Stinkbomb will come in handy.’

  ‘OK. Thanks, Mr Grey.’ Archie smiled uncertainly and took the Mars bar from Barney, slipping it into the pocket of his hoody.

  ‘Stinkbomb?’ said Barney. ‘That’s a brilliant name. We could use it for the agency too.’

  ‘Dear oh dear, Mr Jones,’ sneered Helen Highwater. ‘It really is no good choosing exciting words if the initials don’t mean anything.’

  Spurred on by his friend’s discomfort, Archie’s mind spun into action. ‘They do though,’ he insisted.

  ‘They do?’ asked Highwater.

  ‘They do?’ whispered Barney.

  Archie smiled. ‘Of course. S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. stands for Secret Team of Intrepid-Natured Kids … Battling Odious Masterminds, erm … Basically.’

  Helen Highwater replayed the phrase in her head a few times before proclaiming her verdict. ‘Not bad. Not bad at all.’

  ‘It’s insane,’ Grey added. ‘And by that I mean I like it.’

  ‘Wicked,’ smiled Agent X-ray.

  ‘STINKBOMB,’ mused Archie with a smile. ‘Watch out, Doctor Doom, we’ll get right up your nose.’

  Highwater ushered Archie and Barney back to the other end of the converted cellar, where they both signed the Official Secrets Act and the MI6 Undercover Agents Disclaimer.

  ‘So basically,’ Archie surmised, sliding his completed forms back to his new boss, ‘if we blab that we’re undercover agents then you’ll deny all knowledge of us?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Highwater with a cold smile. ‘Then we’ll have you killed by MI6 assassins.’

  Archie and Barney stared into Highwater’s flint-grey eyes.

  ‘K-k-killed?’ repeated Archie after a few seconds.

  Highwater’s mouth curled into a wicked smile. ‘Kidding!’ she chuckled. ‘That’s just a little bit of Secret Service humour to help you to relax.’

  ‘That’s very funny,’ Barney wheezed, adding a nervy laugh.

  Archie blew a lungful of air through his lips. ‘I don’t know about Barney but I’ve never felt more relaxed.’

  ‘We couldn’t have you killed even if we wanted to,’ continued Highwater. ‘Not without mountains of paperwork anyway. But if you did try and out us we’d have you diagnosed as pathologically delusional by a government doctor and have you permanently institutionalised – somewhere peaceful and clean like the Falklands.’

  Barney began to chuckle again but, realising Highwater wasn’t joking this time, pretended to cough instead.

  ‘From now on, for the purposes of any future communications via unsecure lines, we will no longer use any names. Archie, your designator will be Agent Yankee and Barney, you’re Agent Zulu. Agent X-ray’s real name is Gemma Croft but you are to stick rigidly to designators unless ops specifically require otherwise. Everyone calls me Icy.’

  ‘Perhaps you could try smiling more often?’ suggested Archie with a cheeky grin.

  ‘I.C., not Icy,’ Highwater barked. ‘It stands for Initiative Commander.’

  ‘Oh right,’ said Archie, adding under his breath, ‘I think I was right the first time.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ asked Barney eagerly. ‘I’m guessing we’ll go dark on the comms until the Cockerel crows that the Golden Eagle has laid another egg when we’ll RV on the QT?’

  ‘I have no idea what you just said. But I’m monitoring Doom’s website so we’ll let you know as soon as we need your assistance,’ said Gemma.

  ‘And in the meantime? We just carry on as if none of this ever happened?’ Archie demanded, holding his palms upward.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Gemma.

  ‘I get it.’ Barney winked conspiratorially ‘We go back to pretending we’re just a couple of ordinary schoolboys.’

  ‘You were never ordinary schoolboys,’ said Gemma. ‘Ordinary suggests a level of popularity you two could only aspire to.’

  Gemma led Archie and Barney back upstairs and stood at the front door, watching the boys walk down the footpath.

  Halfway to the pavement Archie turned and asked, ‘I was just wondering, how did MI6 recruit you?’

  ‘Seriously, Yankee,’ she hissed, scanning the street, ‘could you say that any louder?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Archie whispered.

  Gemma’s expression softened. ‘It was no big deal really. I’ve always been into computers. One day I just hacked into the Police mainframe computer. I’d been snooping around for weeks before they traced me.’

  ‘Did you get into trouble?’

  ‘Not really.’ Gemma allowed herself a fleeting smile of triumph. ‘They said they’d let me off if I showed them how I’d done it. Then they offered me a place in this new agency so here I am. It was a no-brainer.’

  ‘That’s so cool,’ Archie cooed, immediately thinking his words sounded lame.

  ‘I’m so excited we’re actual agents!’ Barney called from the pavement, immediately clapping a hand over his mouth. Then he whispered, ‘It’s unbelievable.’

  ‘You know what?’ Gemma scanned the street once more and smiled coldly. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  A squat figure was peering over his banked console at his freakishly tall and painfully thin visitor.

  ‘So nobody tried to intercept you?’

  The strangely skinny man unfolded his immensely long arms, which seemed to have at least two elbows each. He pushed back his cap with a twiggy, hairy finger and shook his shiny, elongated head. ‘Nobody Mr Doom.’

  ‘DOCTOR!’ shrieked the small man. ‘DOCTOR Doom.’ Then with chilling cordiality he continued, ‘Really, Antony. How many times must I remind you?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr
– I mean Doctor Doom.’ The skinny figure adjusted his stance and cleared his throat. ‘No one physically tried to stop us but we did hear something of interest on our police scanner … A squad car being dispatched to the Hunt residence around the time of the intercept.’

  Dr Doom’s human eye glinted. ‘I see,’ he purred, steepling his fingertips together thoughtfully. ‘So maybe someone is paying attention to me after all. Perhaps there are some people in the world intelligent enough to understand and marvel at the genius I am about to unleash?’ He threw his head back and the first ripple of malevolent mirth burbled in the back of his throat. Antony looked on nervously.

  ‘So.’ Dr Doom laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out in front of him. ‘If you managed to decipher my last riddle then let’s see how you do with this one.’

  Antony watched his boss typing feverishly on his keyboard for a few seconds then, uncertainly, asked, ‘Sorry, Misterdoctor Doom, were you talking to me?’

  ‘No,’ Dr Doom answered sweetly, ‘I wasn’t. I doubt, dear Antony, you could unravel a ball of wool, never mind untangling my fiendishly clever clues. I am sending a message to whoever tried to warn Hunt of your imminent arrival – challenging them to see if they’re clever enough to save Mr Schumaker. Somebody out there has picked up the gauntlet and my little game of cat and mouse is—’

  ‘What gauntlet?’ Antony asked.

  ‘It’s an expression, you fool,’ spat Doom. ‘I’ve told you before, please don’t interrupt me when I am giving my explanatory evil monologues.’ Doom’s eye swivelled skyward in exasperation. ‘Now where was I … ? Oh yes, somebody out there has picked up the gauntlet and my little game of cat and mouse is about to get interesting. Very interesting indeed.’ He was about to throw his head back again, but stopped. ‘In the interests of expediency, let’s assume that at this point I laughed, you joined in, and we both cackled about my genius together. That will be all.’

  Doom’s fingers rattled on his keyboard for a few more seconds before he noticed Antony was still loitering in front of him. One of his exceptionally long, wiry arms was raised like a schoolboy waiting to catch his teacher’s attention.

  The evil villain’s shoulders drooped. ‘If you’re waiting to ask about the cat and the mouse, the answer is no. They are not real either.’

  ‘Oh.’ Slowly Antony lowered his hand and turned, skulking towards the exit with long, loping strides.

  ‘Just one more thing, Antony,’ Dr Doom said casually, lightly resting his mismatched hands on his computer keys. ‘When you went to intercept Hunt, am I right in concluding that you chased his car off the road, resulting in Richard Hunt sailing into the sea inside his vehicle? While his son could not be found and is presumed to have been thrown clear?’

  ‘Erm, that’s right.’

  One side of Dr Doom’s mouth stretched into a broad smile. ‘Thought so,’ he said warmly. ‘Oh – one very final thing. Could you take a couple of steps to the left for me? Thank you.’

  Immediately Doom yanked a lever then pressed a button next to it. Antony instinctively glanced at his feet.

  Three sounds followed in quick succession. First there was an emphatic ‘shuck’ like the sound of someone putting their palm over the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. Then came the pneumatic ‘swish’ of sliding doors before a deep liquid ‘ploosh’!

  Dr Doom grinned at the dark cloud billowing on one of the screens mounted on his desk. Calmly he reached out and flicked a small switch then leaned towards a microphone.

  ‘Hello, is that the Clone Zone?’ he asked. ‘It’s Doctor Doom here. Listen, I need you to grow me another Antony and I need it in twenty minutes. Is that understood?’ Pause. ‘Excellent. I’m afraid the last one rather dropped himself in it.’

  Archie and Barney were sitting in Archie’s room, snacking on sandwiches and two tall glasses of cold milk Archie’s grandmother had prepared for them. They’d cycled back from the safe house in stunned silence and hadn’t spoken since getting to Archie’s.

  ‘We’re MI6 agents, you know,’ said Archie at last.

  ‘I know!’ Barney beamed. ‘STINKBOMB agents, to be precise.’

  ‘How’s your sandwich, Agent Zulu?’

  ‘That’s classified, Agent Yankee. I could tell you but I’d have to kill you!’

  ‘Gemma’s pretty cool, don’t you think?’ Archie said, trying to sound vaguely bored by the topic. ‘I mean, she’s not like other girls we know or anything.’

  ‘Of course she’s not,’ Barney laughed. ‘She’s an MI6 secret agent for starters.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Archie studied his glass before taking a slurp of milk. ‘But apart from that, she’s just quite, I dunno, cool.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, hacking into the police computer is pretty cool.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And the way she dresses – the jacket and that – is cool.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Have you noticed that funny dimple she gets …’ Archie stopped himself. Suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to swallow he slowly raised his eyes to meet Barney’s.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Barney said, grinning. ‘The dimple is cool too?’

  The boys were interrupted by the sound of Archie’s phone chirping the theme from Star Wars.

  Archie was slouched back on his bed so Barney pushed across the room on the chair’s castors and picked the phone up off the desk.

  ‘Hello?’ he said, rolling a bite of sandwich into his cheek like a hamster. ‘Archie Hunt’s phone. Oh, hi, Gemma.’

  There was a lengthy pause before Barney spoke again. ‘Sorry Yes, Agent X-ray. It was a momentary lapse in agency protocol. It won’t happen again … That’s affirmatory.’

  Archie watched his friend’s eyes open steadily wider as he listened to the handset. Finally he said, ‘Copy that – message received and understood. Over,’ before ending the call and tossing the phone on to the bed.

  ‘We’ve got to get online,’ he announced, spinning to face the desk. ‘We’ve got a code blue on the suspect. Looks like the cheetah is about to snare its next mouse.’

  Barney bit his bottom lip and hunched over the keyboard, typing feverishly. When Dr Doom’s page appeared on the screen both boys sat in silence and read the latest message.

  I will select my next volunteer where a secretive cave dweller hangs around with someone whose achievements are out of this world – 12071600

  Archie let out a long breath. ‘I haven’t got a Scooby Doo what he’s on about.’

  ‘Agent X-ray said Doom must have changed his cipher on this one. It’s classic evil mastermind behaviour. He’s sort of taunting the authorities while still keeping us guessing,’ said Barney, with a knowing look.

  ‘Well, how are we supposed to crack it if we don’t know how the code works?’

  ‘Agent X-ray told us not to bother trying to solve it anyway,’ Barney said, before glugging the last of his milk.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘She said it was far too complicated for us to work out and we should let the professionals do the thinking.’

  ‘She said that?’ said Archie, his blood fizzing with anger. Suddenly the importance of what they were doing jolted him into action. His father’s life was at risk and it was in his power to help. It was as if someone had lit a fuse inside him and he could practically feel the synapses in his brain firing as he channelled all his attention into solving the riddle.

  ‘OK, let’s think about this,’ Archie muttered. ‘A cave dweller could be an animal of some sort – a bear or a salamander or even some kind of sea creature which might live in an underwater cave …’

  The boys stared at the walls for a long while. Barney popped open a packet of crisps and started munching.

  ‘There must be millions of creatures that live in caves,’ he sighed, spraying cheesy crumbs into the air.

  ‘Maybe we’re thinking about it too literally,’ Archie offered, wiping some crisp spray off his cheek wi
th the back of his hand. ‘What if it’s not an animal at all? Who else lives in a cave?’

  Barney shrugged. ‘A caveman? Ooh, I know, Captain Caveman!’

  As he excitedly pronounced each C, more globules of soggy potato rained over Archie.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d describe Captain Caveman as secretive exactly.’ Archie paused, picking a morsel off his glasses. ‘What about Batman, though? He was pretty secretive and he lived in a cave.’

  ‘I think you’ve cracked it, Agent Yankee.’

  ‘Well, it’s a possibility,’ Archie said. ‘Let’s see if it fits with the rest of the clue. Let’s see … Whose achievements are out of this world?’

  ‘Anyone who’s really successful,’ Barney suggested. ‘Actors, sportspeople, rock stars – tons of people. How are we supposed to pick a name out of thin air? It’s impossible.’

  For a few moments both boys slouched in front of the computer, staring at the screen in silence. Then Archie’s back straightened.

  ‘Unless …’ he said, leaning across Barney and tapping something into the computer, ‘… Doom is referring to someone whose achievements are actually on another planet.’

  ‘Like E.T.?’ Barney suggested.

  ‘Could be,’ encouraged Archie, adrenalin pumping round his body. ‘Who else goes outside this world to achieve their goals?’

  ‘Astronauts,’ Barney beamed, starting to enjoy the challenge.

  ‘Exactly!’ said Archie. ‘And who’s the most famous astronaut in the world?’

  Barney clicked his fingers triumphantly. ‘Armstrong. Neil Armstrong!’ he proclaimed, then a frown puckered his forehead. ‘But I’m not sure the Caped Crusader ever met Neil Armstrong.’

  Archie’s fingers were a blur on the keyboard. ‘The clue doesn’t say they meet each other,’ he pointed out. ‘It says they hang around with each other.’

  ‘Same difference, isn’t it?’

  Without taking his eyes off the computer screen Archie shook his head. ‘I think Doom chose his words very carefully. What jumps out at me is that we’re not talking about actual people, obviously, but we might be talking about pictures, or portraits. And where might you find paintings of, say, Batman and Neil Armstrong?’