Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2))

by Stan Arnold

  Once inside the airport, he also spent a small amount of time committing a cheap CD entitled Plan Your Own Fantasy Marina to the first available waste bin.

  Chapter 39

  Mick and Jim sat across the table from Mrs Hathaway, looking as miserable as two men who had finally realised they had been swindled out of 400,000 smackers by a trusted family bastard. Which, of course, is exactly what they were.

  ‘So, first things first, what’s the pay?’ said Mick.

  Mrs Hathaway was bright, cheerful and business like.

  ‘I thought something significant - say £100,000 - for the whole thing, plus expenses, travel, accommodation, food and all that.’

  The £400,000 loss was still shoving their faces into the grinding machine of life. There were no spark deflectors. No eye protection. No gum shields. No heat absorbing lubrication spray. Just pain. Consequently, their response to Mrs Hathaway’s generous offer was decidedly muted.

  ‘How long is this “thing” going to take?’ asked Jim, with a heavy degree of disinterest.

  ‘About a month.’

  ‘Any idea where?’ asked Mick, as he trying to grab a passing fly.

  ‘No idea where.’

  ‘Any idea where we’ll be going?’

  ‘No idea at all.’

  ‘Any idea how we’ll be getting there?’

  ‘Not the slightest.’

  ‘Doesn't sound like much of a deal?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Mrs Hathaway. ‘Would you like some tea?’

  They both declined. The fly continued to zoom around Mick’s head.

  ‘Well then, perhaps you’d like me to do something else for you?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Remind you of the precarious state of your bank balances.’

  ‘That’s below the belt!’ cried Jim.

  ‘Fine,’ said Mrs Hathaway. ‘£200,000 and that’s my final offer.’

  Mick got the fly in one. And a smile warmed across his features.

  ‘Well,’ he said, wiping the dead insect on his jacket, ‘I think that most gracious offer moves the action to well above the belt.’

  He took Jim’s silence as agreement.

  The last minute, offer-doubling technique had worked for Giles back in the Shard. And now it had worked for Mrs Hathaway in the coffee lounge, cum cocktail suite, cum dining room, cum ironmongers at the Hotel du Lack.

  They attracted the attention of Pierre, the owner-concierge, and called for drinks all round. There was a short delay while he removed his upturned bicycle from the top of the reception desk and cleared away his puncture repair outfit.

  When the drinks arrived, they drank a toast to Daring Dooz and a successful partnership. Even the fact that their champagne flutes smelt of 3-in-1 oil and volatile adhesive couldn't dampen the team spirit and close personal friendship generated by the extra £100,000.

  *

  Once Giles knew everything was up and running, he started finalising his ideas for Daring Dooz Challenge Two.

  While they were waiting for instructions, Mrs Hathaway devised a physical training programme for Mick and Jim to, at least, give them fighting chance when things started to hot up.

  Neither Mick nor Jim were suited to physical exercise. Mick was too overweight and couldn't move fast enough to burn calories, particularly as he finished each training session with a couple of pints of lager. As Jim’s ranting against the world developed megawatts of nervous energy, he was already quite slim, and so felt justified in finishing each training session with a couple of pints of lager.

  As his old granny used to say, ‘Jimmy-boy, you got the metabolism to drive a sewage pumping station.’ Mind you his granny also used to light a fire with the curtains closed because she thought wood took longer to catch alight if the sun was shining on it.

  Still, at the end of each training session, the team would meet at the Hotel du Lack to discuss progress, and to fill in the spreadsheets Mrs Hathaway had drawn up.

  The Hotel du Lack could be described as an interesting example of old French colonial-style architecture, including an amalgam of wooden, louvred window shutters, balconies with fine metalworked tracery, delicate pink bougainvillea climbers and strategically placed sheets of chipboard and corrugated iron.

  With six bedrooms, and not very many paying guests, the hotel had been forced to multi-function. The ironmongery store was really a wall behind the reception desk, hung with an amazing range of products - from hand drills to pop rivets to ironing board covers, from fly spray to electrical connectors to meat cleavers, from paint brushes and paint to garden gnomes. The stock turned over slowly which meant its dust-laden, cobwebby outlines added a certain old-world charm to guests’ first impressions. Or so Pierre thought.

  The hotel name had been a disappointment. He’d originally ordered the sign from a company in Florida, over the telephone. After it arrived on the fortnightly steamer with ‘Lack’ instead of ‘Lac,’ there had been a few heated calls, but in the end, he realised ‘Lack’ or ‘Lac’ would make no difference to his trade. So he let it drop.

  He also saved money by cancelling his order for the ‘Anita Brookner Snooker Room’ sign. In fact, in a spurt of creative business thinking, he also cancelled his order for the snooker table, balls and cues, and used the space to start Chez Pierre, a boutique selling erotic lingerie.

  You could see the display of peephole bras, thigh-length PVC boots and see-through nylon basques from the hardware store area, and vice-versa, so he was hoping for some cross selling.

  As it turned out, not many people came in looking for a vacuum cleaner dust bag and a red leather, extra uplift corset with integral suspenders. However, he did a good trade with the lap and pole dancers from the island’s only erotic dancing club, who, for some reason, were always getting their underwear damaged in various ways.

  *

  After three weeks, during which time Mrs Hathaway calculated that Mick and Jim’s fitness levels had risen by around five per cent, an envelope arrived by courier from England. The fact that the envelope featured a full colour photograph of beach volley girl happily riding a hippopotamus in a waterhole surrounded by salivating wolves left, even Aubrey, in no doubt as to its origins.

  Inside was a golden envelope featuring ‘Daring Dooz Challenge Two’ in a dramatic black typeface which looked as thought it might have, originally, been used to announce the date, time and place of a public execution.

  Mrs Hathaway opened the gold envelope, and looked absolutely delighted.

  ‘How lovely,’ she cried, ‘I’ve got to pilot a 1943 PBY Catalina flying boat down to a remote tributary of the Amazon.’

  Aubrey left to get something for his stomach cramps, which had been brought on by the words ‘remote tributary of the Amazon’. Mick and Jim, said ‘Excellent. Jolly good,’ then left immediately, citing similar problems.

  Mrs Hathaway thought it a little strange, as her intestines were, as usual, functioning perfectly. Nevertheless, she carried on reading through the other information in the package. This had really captured her imagination. A flying boat! And no ordinary flying boat. A 1943 PBY Catalina.

  The package contained a recently declassified reproduction Pilot's Flight Operating Manual (more delicious midnight reading) and a file full of information. Catalinas served with distinction throughout World War II, and this one, hired from a collector in California, had been equipped with extra fuel tanks to give it the range to get to the Amazon and back - plus all the latest navigational aids. There was also an impressive list of ‘challenge’ equipment already loaded.

  Mrs Hathaway had a pilot’s license; so that was all neat and tidy, even though the Catalina was considerably bigger than the Piper Tomahawk, she’d flown during her basic training.

  Flying lessons were extremely expensive and well outside her means. But, by chance she’d met Group Captain Peter Wooldridge, CVO, DSO, DFC and Bar when she had a cleaning contract at the Royal Air Force Club in Piccadilly, and, she had to admit, he�
�d taken a shine to her.

  After a few afternoon teas at the Ritz, he suggested he drove her down to Biggin Hill in his green racing Bentley, and gave her basic flying lessons, at no charge. After more dinners at the Savoy, he paid for formal lessons and flights to clock up the flying hours she needed to get her pilot’s certificate.

  Yes, there had been a brief, starry-eyed liaison. But despite the fact that he was rich, fit, extremely well-mannered and absolutely besotted, his unshakable attachment to his handlebar moustache meant it was all, eventually, destined for a crash landing. Both survivors walked away from the wreckage, and, although it was many years ago, he still sent her a postcard featuring a different aeroplane, every week.

  *

  Up in the hotel room, Jim was also thinking about plane wrecks. Although his view was less romantic.

  ‘So this is how we get out of trouble,’ said Jim, his voice cracking with disbelief. ‘Our ex-cleaning lady, who was great at removing vomit, slinging cheap sherry bottles into black plastic bags and giving everything a quick go-round with Pledge, will soon be piloting a huge, clapped out, seventy-odd year old plane, on a 4,000 mile trip to the Amazon’s version of shit creek.’

  ‘It would appear so,’ said Mick in his most irritating ‘They Win. You Lose.’ voice.

  It was all the more irritating, because it was confident and calming. The problem for Jim was that Mick really believed in ‘They Win. You Lose.’ as a life-enhancing, blood-pressure reducing philosophy. The idea was that nothing in life goes your way, so relax and expect crap to hit you from every angle, all the time. So when it all starts rocketing towards you, it’s just what you expect - and you stay calm and in control. Mick had absolute faith in ‘They Win, You Lose.’ and considered it qualified as one of the world’s greatest philosophical platforms, except when it didn't work.

  When it didn't work, he resorted to mind-boggling hysterics and uncontrolled panic, just like everyone else. But this was not one of those times, and he sought to reassure his fretting colleague.

  ‘Look at this way James, my old barnacle. Thanks to Uncle Jocelyn’s aquatic duplicity, we have been fucked over good and proper and, if we pooled all our cash, we’d be lucky to pay for two minutes ogling time down the Golden Legover.’

  This brought the seriousness of their situation right into Jim’s heartland. A typical evening’s entertainment consisted of three hours at the lap dancing club, followed by a trip with three or four dancers and a crate of champagne down to Big Dick’s for fun and frolics (if they were lucky) before a late bed and an even later hangover.

  ‘Now,’ said Mick calmly, ‘with no cash, that’s all going to stop. We’ll be camping out on the beach, wrapped in newspaper and worrying about the price of frozen sausages.’

  ‘But it’s a big plane and it’s got no wheels,’ said Jim, reverting to type. ‘And it’s old. And it’s got a long way to go. And we’ve got to find this creek thing up the jungle, and - and then what?’

  ‘Just think “frozen sausages”, and I’m sure that will put everything into perspective,’ said Mick pouring himself a light Amontillado.

  ‘Anyway, I tapped the old love for £5000 in advance, and she’s transferring it to our account as I imbibe.’

  ‘So we could get down to the Golden Legover tonight?’

  ‘Absolutely, mi viejo debauchee. So let’s whip downstairs and act like men, eh?’

  But when they got to reception, Mrs Hathaway had gone, leaving her champagne unfinished.

  ‘No idea what happened,’ said Pierre. ‘She just jumped up, grabbed my bike and shot off down the road.’

  Perhaps Jim was not the only one having worrying thoughts about Daring Dooz Challenge Two.

  Chapter 40

  Roberto Velazquez, the island’s Chief of Police, was bending earnestly over his desk. He was involved in precision work of the highest order. One mistake and the results would be incalculable. He knew none of the police chiefs on the surrounding islands could even attempt to pull this off. So his concentration levels were intense.

  Every year, Chief of Police, Velazquez, performed what was, virtually, a religious rite - adjusting the truss rod on his electric blue 1960 Fender Deluxe Jazz Bass. It required, experience, technical knowledge, lightness of touch and unlimited veneration for an instrument that had supplied, care of Aston ‘Family-Man’ Barret, most of the bass lines for Bob Marley’s classics. The ritual went on for a week, with infinitesimally small modifications every day to give the wood ample time to settle to any subtle changes in ambient temperature and humidity, prior to further adjustments.

  When Mrs Hathaway tapped lightly on the police headquarters hut, Roberto’s adoration had to be suspended. He might be a reggae bass guitarist first, and a police chief second, but he considered himself an honourable man and a consummate professional.

  ‘Kick it open, it ain’t locked!’

  She kicked. The door swung open. And immediately Roberto fell back under the spell that, a few weeks ago, had caused such inconvenient damage to his skull.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Velazquez. How’s your head coming along?’

  Roberto’s head was, in fact, swimming with admiration tinged with lust, but he hid his true feelings, and played to the gallery.

  ‘A bit of pain from time to time, but it’s bound to get better, some day, isn't it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hathaway with all the sympathy she could muster.

  She knew she was in the gallery, but this was not the time to throw rotten tomatoes.

  ‘I have a problem, and I wondered if you could give me some of your professional advice.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Roberto, throwing out his arms. ‘You’re in the right place, baby. Shoot!’

  Mrs Hathaway chose to ignore the ‘baby’ bit, and got straight down to the point.

  ‘I have a pilots licence to fly a small plane, and as part of the Daring Dooz Challenge Two, I have to fly a rather large, World War II flying boat down to the Amazon - and back.

  ‘Ain’t it just the same controls, but bigger?’

  She decided to keep the conversation to legal matters.

  ‘I have three problems.’

  ‘One: I don't have a certificate to pilot the flying boat.’

  ‘Two: We could be tracked as we fly through various countries’ airspace, and I’m sure their military people would have something to say about that.’

  ‘And Three?’ asked Roberto.

  ‘I can deal with Three!’

  ‘So, it’s One and Two? Hm! Certification and airspace. Hm! Give me a couple of hours.’

  Mrs Hathaway smiled, a gorgeous smile, thanked him profusely, and left.

  Roberto gazed at the recently closed door for a few minutes. Then, absent-mindedly picking up his bass, he lobbed it over to the office armchair, where it bounced and slid to the floor with a sort of faint, thumping clang. He didn't give it a second glance.

  Instead, he cleared his desk, took out a pencil, sharpened it, opened his phone book and began work on something really exciting - getting answers One and Two for the Vision.

  Chapter 41

  Roberto waited for Mrs Hathaway’s return with mixed feelings. He’d solved Two - the countries’ airspace thing. But One - the flying boat certification - had completely eluded him.

  When she eventually kicked the door open, he leapt to his feet and his heart leapt with him.

  ‘Do take a seat,’ he said, smiling charmingly, while shoving the 1960 Fender Deluxe Jazz Bass out of the way with his foot.

  Mrs Hathaway sat in the office armchair.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Luck this ain’t,’ said Roberto with a confident smile. ‘This is all about high level contacts, calling in favours and compromising photographs.’

  Mrs Hathaway looked worried. ‘I’m not sure…’

  ‘Don't you worry your…’ He was going to say ‘pretty little head’ but Aubrey had told him about Enfield Bin Man, and he’d seen the footage on YouTube. He was concerne
d a misplaced word could severely damage a blossoming relationship, not to mention his shoulder blades.

  ‘Don't you worry yourself,’ he continued. ‘I think we got something going here. See, I have this associate who works for the police in Mexico City and he drinks with a guy with good contacts in Mexican Air Traffic Control, and he has a number of non-official liaisons with, shall we say members of a semi-legal social group, who have compromising information, including the negatives, on a leading politician in Honduras, and he knows this woman who had a fling with an un-named air traffic control guy in Nicaragua, and…’

  Mrs Hathaway had had enough. Quite rightly, she reckoned the less she knew the better.

  ‘And the result is?’

  ‘It’s all clear for your trip to the Amazon.’

  Roberto beamed.

  ‘All you have to do is let me know when you’re taking off and your ETA.’

  He gave her a big smile and a double thumbs up. Right sign. Wrong man.

  ‘That’s very good news,’ she said and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Despite hyperventilating with happiness, Roberto continued with the not-so-good news.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve had no luck at all with the certificate. Couldn't get anyone to swing it, even when we had HD video footage of their, shall we say, physical transgressions.’

  He gave Mrs Hathaway a knowing wink. She was not in a ‘knowing wink’ mood, but she didn't let it show. This was an important breakthrough. She smiled, thanked Roberto again, and left him alone in his headquarters hut.

  Yes, there was still the certificate problem, but she was cycling away with half a result. She’d been given the go-ahead, even though it involved dozens of blind eyes being turned. It also meant she wouldn't have to be dodging heat-seeking missiles for 4,000 miles, and who wouldn't be pleased with that?