by M T McGuire
“To the people in charge,” she said, and The Pan had a distinct impression that rather than the Grongles, she was referring to somebody else. “Cheers!”
“To us,” said the Grongles, the irony of Ada’s statement passing, unnoticed, over their heads as everyone downed their glasses.
There was a moment’s silence and then, as one, they keeled over unconscious. Well, that answered a lot of questions. Gladys and Ada were clearly working against the government, but presumably not with the officially designated organisation. The Pan wondered whether they were part of a different, less well-known group or operating alone. Ada turned to him and smiled.
“Now that’s what I call resistance,” she said proudly.
“Yer,” Gladys chipped in, “none of yer letting guns off an’ bleedin’ all over the place.”
“Exactly,” said Ada, “subtlety is our hallmark.”
“If you call poisoning Grongles in groups of seven subtle,” said The Pan drily, although his sense of relief was overwhelming and try as he might, he couldn’t wipe the huge grin he was wearing off his face. “Who’s going to clear that lot up?” he asked, “you can’t just leave them there—although, I suppose I might be able to help.” He wondered if he could call on the expertise of Frank or Harry in this situation or whether he’d have to busk it, relying on the snippets he’d picked up from their conversations about the art of what was known, in the trade, as ‘cleaning’ and ‘waste disposal’.
“No need for your assistance, dear, they’ll clear themselves up,” said Ada.
“How?” asked The Pan. “You’ve poisoned them,” he held his arms out sideways and then let them drop to his sides again. “They’re dead.”
“They ain’t. We hasn’t poisoned ’em!” exclaimed Gladys.
“Then how did you do it?” asked The Pan with interest, “whatever you did, it’s strikingly effective.”
Gladys tapped the side of her nose conspiratorially with one finger.
“Calvados,” she said, “can’t take their liquor. ’S only a few drops in it.”
“Exactly,” said Ada. “They won’t remember a thing when they wake up. Which reminds me, they’ll come round before long and when they do you should be upstairs, now run along.” She picked up the brandy glass he had left on the bar and shooed him towards the door.
“Should I pack?” asked The Pan. “I mean, won’t they ...?”
“No dear, if you leave the room now they won’t remember they ever found you.” The Pan allowed himself to be shoved unwillingly into the hall and stopped. Left to his own devices he’d have liked to have examined the Grongles’ wallets or at the very least, relieved the one who had spoken to him of his static-powered hand-held computer.
“What about ... um well ... that personal organiser ... the search history, won’t I ...?”
“Oh no dear, he’ll never know he found you if we get Trev to clear the cache.”
“You know, a bit of kit like that would come in handy, can I ...?”
Ada gasped.
“Stealing from an unconscious drunkard! Surely you have better morals than to take advantage of the socially disadvantaged?”
“Well, actually, no. I don’t. That’s why I’m still alive. Anyway, they’re not drunkards are they, they’re Grongles and aren’t I the socially disadvantaged one? More to the point it’s not self-inflicted—you knocked them out.” Ada’s expression was stern. “Oh go on ...” Her expression changed from stern to frosty. “Their small change then?”
“No! Honestly, dear, I’m shocked. That would be quite immoral.”
Arnold’s pants! Foiled! The Pan wondered if he should try another tack. Hmm, probably not. There was a certain tone of ‘no’ which, when used by either old lady, brooked no argument.
“Do hurry up, dear,” Ada said. “It doesn’t work so well the second time. I’ll let you know when they’re gone.”
“Mmm,” said The Pan thoughtfully, “perhaps then we should all have a chat.”
“All in good time. Here,” she shoved the half-finished glass of brandy into his hand, “you might want this. Now git.” She pushed him towards the stairs, retreated back into the bar and slammed the door.
The Pan didn’t need to be asked a third time. He did as he was told.
Chapter 25
Nothing was quite the same for The Pan after the Grongles visited the Parrot. So far, apart from the first terror-stricken night on the edge of the River Dang, being a Mervinette had felt like taking part in a light-hearted prank. Now the danger of the situation had begun to sink in. Especially once he realised the significance of the articles the gang had stolen. If the safety deposit box from which Big Merv had taken them really belonged to Lord Vernon he would be very annoyed; and if Lord Vernon was annoyed with them, the Mervinettes would be dead within the week.
When it was time to drive for the next robbery, The Pan’s altered perception of his situation had begun to play on his nerves. He drove the MK II through the bustling city with a great sense of foreboding. It wasn’t necessarily the prospect of another getaway which was filling him with such dread, it was the culmination of various events.
First, there were the two bulky gentlemen who had tried to follow him home and kept popping out of the woodwork whenever he went out dressed in Mervinette mode. It was easy enough to shake them off but it took him hours to go anywhere these days, because every route was scenic.
Second, there were the endless precautions he had to take to avoid being recognised by the Grongles, and the fact he had to spend most of his time disguised as an old man, when what he really wanted to be doing was going out and partying and ... well ... dating.
Third, he had no real friends because his GBI status and his secret Mervinetting activities meant that anyone he got close to would be highly likely to die, or worse, betray him. He was on nodding terms with most of the regulars at the Parrot, but there was nobody he could confide in, not even Gladys and Ada who were the closest thing he had to a family. The Pan wasn’t the type to thrive on solitude. He tried to tell himself that in a few years it wouldn’t matter, that he’d have done enough getaway driving to have repaid Big Merv for his block of flats tenfold, that he’d be rich enough to buy himself a new identity, join the real world and live a normal life. In the meantime, though, he feared he might go a bit too la-la for a life of normality before he got there.
He glanced at the formidable hulk sitting next to him. He was being a fool if he thought he’d ever escape. Big Merv was addicted to robbing banks. Unless the Resistance stopped monopolising all the getaway drivers he’d always find some way to force The Pan to continue his work. The only hope of escape was if the Grongles gave up on world domination and went back to Grongolia. Then the Resistance would just be another cartel and they wouldn’t need all those drivers.
Some hope.
The Pan was tired and fed up and beginning to wonder if he could be bothered to pursue his twilight existence for another four years when the outcome was so unlikely to be in his favour. He kept asking himself if the type of future for which he was destined would be worth it. Unfortunately, his answer to this question was normally negative. That was what scared him more than anything. If he stopped caring about dying, the chances were, he would.
He slowed the MK II as they came to a pedestrian crossing and waved an attractive young woman across the road. Big Merv indicated his disapproval by shifting impatiently in his seat and drumming his fingers on the doorside armrest. The Pan sighed and Big Merv gave him a sideways look.
“What’s your problem, today, you tart?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said The Pan.
“Nothing,” said Merv flatly, “it had better be, because if there is something you should tell us, you’d better say it now. Nobody keeps secrets in my organisation.”
By The Prophet. Did he know?
“I’m not keeping any secrets,” said The Pan wearily. He thought about the strange objects hidden in the bottom of his wardrobe ba
ck at the Parrot, or more to the point, their reputed owner. If what the Grongles in the Parrot had said was true, he had a bag of things belonging to Lord Vernon in the cupboard in his rented room. The mere thought made beads of cold sweat appear on his forehead. Lord Vernon, himself, owned the stuff they had stolen. That was definitely something he should tell Big Merv but he also knew how Big Merv would react and he didn’t think his nerves would take another evening stood in a box of concrete on the edge of the river Dang.
“What’s up then?” said Big Merv, “you’re sweating like a pig.”
“I don’t feel very well,” said The Pan. It wasn’t strictly a lie, although the nausea he felt was due to fear rather than ill health.
“Yeh. You look crap an’ all. Whatever you’ve got, you’d better not give it to me or there’ll be trouble.”
“I’ll be very careful not to,” said The Pan making a great show of breathing in the other direction.
The robbery went without a hitch, despite all The Pan’s fears, and the Grongolian police were even dopier and easier to shake off than usual. Maybe that was what aroused his suspicions. Glancing behind him he thought he caught sight of another snurd cutting swiftly through the traffic. It might be somebody in a hurry, he told himself. There was no reason for anyone to be following them, they had thrown off all their pursuers, but The Pan wanted to be sure. They were travelling through one of the newer parts of the city, which was built in a grid formation, so he turned swiftly down a side road and zigzagged onto a parallel street.
Behind him, in the distance, was a glint of light as a distant snurd pulled out of a similar side street and continued to follow them. It was black, with the same anonymous dark tinted windows as the MK II. The Pan pressed the button labelled ‘wings’, waited while the MK II transmogrified itself into aviator mode and took off. Almost a mile back, half concealed by the traffic in between them, he could make out the shape of the other snurd taking off, too. He increased his speed, flipped up another side street and landed again. He pressed the button to retract the MK II’s wings and continued on his way. Behind him the other snurd mirrored his manoeuvre.
“The robbery’s over. What are you doing?” demanded Big Merv.
“Trying to spill himself some loot,” said Frank. The Pan sighed. He was used to Frank’s digs. The two of them didn’t get along. In fact he suspected that, left to his own devices, nothing would please Frank more than cutting his throat.
“We’re being followed,” he said.
Frank turned round in his seat and surveyed the road behind.
“I don’t see nothing,” he said.
“That’s why you rob and I drive,” muttered The Pan.
“What did you say? You little piece of—”
“Shut it!” warned Big Merv.
Frank and Harry fastened their seat belts – any chance of a chase and they knew the drill. They craned their heads through the back windows. The Pan waited while Big Merv scrutinised the view in his wing mirror. He was glad that his boss was suspicious, not to mention cautious, enough to check.
“What’s it look like?”
“Black, low slung, fast. It’s not a shape I’m familiar with.”
“Nah,” said Big Merv. “Me neither. Tinted windows though, like ours. If it ain’t another gang, it must be Grongolian. Either way, I reckon it’s bad news. Lose it.”
Far away in another dimension of space and time the pursuing snurd was a 1955 Mercedes prototype, the Uhlenhaut, with gull-wing doors.
The MK II morphed back into aviator mode and doubled its speed in two stomach-lurching seconds, as The Pan floored the accelerator. He flew upwards, skimming the rooftops of the adjacent buildings and down into the next street in the opposite direction. Slowing up he checked his surroundings carefully.
Nothing there.
Surely it wasn’t going to be this easy?
No.
The Pan shuddered. He hadn’t lied to Big Merv, the shape of the black snurd was unfamiliar, but it did fit with rumours he had heard. The kinds of tales no getaway man would want to dwell on. Stories of desperate flights, of the finest drivers relentlessly pursued through the darkness of the night and downed in a boiling fireball. Stories of an invincible shape, a legend, a ghost, a mechanical banshee that came screaming out of nowhere to do its lethal work and disappeared as quickly. It was called the Interceptor and nobody was sure it existed but then hardly anyone who’d seen it had lived to describe their experience – certainly none of the people who had been chased. If the anonymous black snurd was the Interceptor, The Pan realised he and his colleagues were as good as dead and there was nothing he could do about it.
He decelerated to normal speed, landed among the rest of the terrestrial traffic and carried on as if he and the Mervinettes were a group of normal people going about their business.
They had gone almost a mile and there was still no sign of their pursuer.
“Have you got rid of it?” asked Big Merv.
Whoever was driving that black snurd had been very subtle and The Pan suspected it was still out there. He took his hands off the wheel to make a ‘search me’ gesture.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not like the others. He knows what he’s doing.”
They were driving along one of the main thoroughfares of the city and as usual, it was busy. The Pan was sick with nerves. If anything happened, the presence of other traffic gave him little room to manoeuvre and although he could remain inconspicuous more easily with other snurds around him, so could his pursuer. He turned into a side road and pulled onto a narrower, less frequented street one block over that ran parallel to the one they had been on.
They were going in the wrong direction and he would need to turn around, but he wanted to be doubly sure they had lost their tail before he did. Although he could see nothing, he had an instinctive belief they were still being followed. He had learned to trust his instincts but as yet for his fellow Mervinettes – especially Frank and Harry – trust was still a work in progress. They were getting restless; he was going to have to turn round soon or they were going to get irritated and Big Merv was going to vent his irritation on him the only way he knew how – physically. Big Merv never hit him hard, but he still didn’t want to get thumped. If anyone was behind them he would have to draw them into the open by going so fast they had to concentrate on keeping up rather than concealing themselves. He accelerated, and as he did so the black snurd pulled out of a side alley ahead of them, turned towards them and stopped in the middle of the street. The Pan screeched to a halt, engaging reverse. As the MK II’s backing lights came on, a flotilla of police snurds pulled out from side roads and garages up and down the street, behind him, about forty of them.
“Arnold!” said Big Merv. “It’s a trap.”
“Mmm,” said The Pan, selecting first gear.
Chapter 26
Inside the immaculate cockpit of the black snurd all was calm. The Interceptor was a prototype, a secret piece of Grongolian hardware, commissioned and built for the military. It had been in testing for over a year and when it eventually went into production a less sophisticated version would be used by the security forces. Higher spec models would be used by ministers, government officials and upper echelon ruling party members.
However, none of the production models – even the most lavish – would achieve the levels of sophistication present in this one.
Despite the chaos going on outside, little could be heard inside but the gentle thrumming of the engine and the breathing of the occupant. His suede-clad hands squeezed the steering wheel. As usual, he was wearing rings on the outside of his gloves. The jewels caught the light. The most recent acquisition, a huge, red ruby, particularly pleased him. He held his hand up and moved it this way and that. Centuries old, it glowed in the soft light, feeling heavy with the weight of tradition. He smiled to himself.
“First this ring and now the Mervinettes.” He breathed a sigh of something approaching ecstasy and waved
the hand with the ruby on it casually. “Two life goals in one week.”
And then he laughed. A quiet, malicious laugh – with a touch of smugness – because nobody outran the Interceptor. A pair of cold, grey eyes stared through the windscreen at the MK II in the road ahead. No need for sunglasses to hide that distinctive colour in here. The blackened glass assured anonymity.
“Do you know me?” he asked them. “No. But soon you will learn who I am.”
Chapter 27
Back in the MK II The Pan was so afraid that he was having to divert all his energies to not throwing up. The sensation of prickly heat hadn’t gone away. Now he was certain the black snurd ahead of them was the Interceptor and for some loopy reason he had a very horrible suspicion that Lord Vernon himself was at the wheel. Whoever it was, he was clever. Maybe that was why. It was going to take more than driving skill or an unusual ability to see forwards and backwards at the same time to outrun this one; it was going to take intelligence; intelligence he was not a hundred per cent certain he possessed. It would also depend, a lot, on whether or not the snurd in his path was as lavishly equipped as the MK II. From the look of it, he feared it might be.
“You little scrote! You’ve set us up!” shouted Frank, and Big Merv glared at The Pan.
“Well? Is that what’s got into you? Have you been disloyal to me?” His voice had an ominous tone and The Pan realised, with horror, that he was close to believing Frank.
“No, no, I promise,” he whimpered.
“If you have, we’re going to be paying a visit to the river later,” Big Merv continued, “it’ll be just like old times.”
“N-no,” stammered The Pan. “This isn’t about us. It’s something we stole.”
“Have you been keeping information from me?” asked Big Merv.
The engine of the black snurd revved and with his foot on the clutch The Pan revved the MK II back.
“Yes,” said The Pan distractedly before realising the gravity of his admission, “I mean no,” he corrected himself quickly, “not on purpose.” He turned to his boss who was glaring at him. The antennae were moving but only just, and they were standing up straight, which meant Big Merv was on the brink of blind rage. The Pan glanced down the street at the black snurd, which was still revving its engine aggressively and at the same time, sneaked a look behind at the ranks of police snurds blocking his retreat. This was not a good time for Big Merv to lose his rag, The Pan needed him to be able to listen, answer questions and more to the point think. Better make the explanation fast.
