There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 17

17. The Curious Incident of the Plaster Dog

"Come on now, tschildren. Ve must get you all indoors. Zere iss dänger." Fräulein Meinck was herding teams One, Two, Three and Four urgently into a low, dome-roofed stone hut which opened off the castle courtyard. "Zis room voss originally an ice house. Ze castle authorities häff ässured me zät it häss very sick valls."

"Whass wrong with the walls, Miss? Are they feelin a bit peaky, loike?"

"Ze valls are över vone metre sick, Armand."

"Wow, Miss. That sure is a lot of sick."

"Why we got to go in ere, Miss? There ent no winders."

Fräulein Meinck waved her whistle hand in frustration; everyone's eyes followed it like a dog's following a stick. "Zät iss ze whöle point, Ryan. If zere are no vindows, zen ze bät people outside cännot see you to dämage you."

Ryan looked around the courtyard in frustration. "Bat people, Miss?"

"Very bät people. Now get into ze room, sofort! You vill be säfe if I häff to use physical violence."

"Cleo ent comin in with us, Miss."

"Yeah, why's Cleo talkin to the man from the aeroplane, Miss?"

Across the courtyard, a spaceship was still parked on the cobbles, and Penelope Farthing, now wearing her flight helmet, was hurriedly running around it doing whatever it was that needed to be done to spaceships before they took off, trying to ignore the fact that an entire coachful of English schoolchildren was goggling at her.

"So George Quantrill", said Penelope, "was a traitor ."

"And then some", said Ant. "With added treachery."

Turpin frowned and said nothing. He was sweeping up mechanical and electronic parts he'd found fetched up against a tree with a dustpan and brush.

Penelope looked at Turpin oddly. "Richard, what are you doing?"

Turpin emptied the dustpan into a big plastic bag. "Reckon I've got all the bits for our own robosheep in here, along with the bits of the chassis I've already put in the Harridan. We can rebuild it. We can produce our own sheepy legion. No-one in the universe will be able to stand against us."

Penelope shivered. "Let's hope we can control it better than they were able to control their robosheep in Cardington last year. Those things almost wiped out the base they were set to guard."

"New technology always has teething troubles", said Turpin, picking up a gigantic set of steel teeth.

"It's quite reasonable that no-one suspected Mr. Quantrill", said Ant, hoping to make Turpin feel better. "And he didn't have much choice. They tortured him, by all accounts."

"By his own account only. And he sent people to Alpha Four", said Penelope. "That's where they all end up, you know. There are three camps on Alpha Four, with lovely happy-sounding codenames - House Beautiful, Plain Ease, and Celestial City - spaced out around the Sunset Desert. People get sent in. No-one ever comes out -"

The ice house door, thick as a tank's hull, finally banged shut, and Jochen turned the key in the lock. Fräulein Meinck sank back onto a mounting block next to the door and breathed a sigh of relief. She held up a thumb to Armand, who was still outside in the courtyard, and shakily pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Armand looked at the cigarette hungrily. Fräulein Meinck saw the look, shrugged, took out a cigarette for Armand, and lit it in turn.

"Du hast sie verdient", she said.

"I don't understand", said the woman Turpin had said was Charity Drummond, who had been sitting on a café chair Jochen had provided with her head bowed. "You have another Shield, but you are not prepared to give it to us." At the us, Ant saw Penelope and Turpin exchange harsh glances. Neither of them, it seemed, was quite prepared just yet to consider Charity as One Of Us.

Beyond the window, the sound of police radios could now be heard drifting up from the castle courtyard. The sun was weak and low over the western hills. Night had already come to the valley below.

"I do", said Cleo. "But I am not offering it to you for free."

Penelope looked up from inspecting what looked like a near miss from an enemy gun on her portside fuselage. "Cleopatra, I was under the impression you were on our side."

"So did I", said Cleo. "But when Ant asked if he could come and live on Gondolin, only last year, the Commodore said no."

Penelope frowned as she discovered she was able to poke a gloved finger clean through her own hull. "That was the Commodore's decision."

"I have suffered for the USZ this year", said Cleo. "My family has suffered. Alastair Drague has made threats against them. I was forced to work for him." She looked up at a table full of aghast faces, and nodded. "Yes, it's true." She unwrapped the pink mobile phone Alastair had given her, and set it down on the café table next to her. "I was given that to communicate with him. Among other things, I was supposed to find out the location of Gondolin. He still hasn't figured out where it is, you see. Maybe he isn't as crafty as the Commodore gives him credit for being, because I worked that out a long time ago."

Penelope's eyes went hard and glassy as gunsights. Cleo remembered that, last year, a USZ cruiser had been debating whether to open fire on Drague's ship without warning just because Drague might have figured out the location of Gondolin. The cruiser's commander, Commodore Drummond, had held his fire, insisting that the USZ had to be gentlemanly to its enemies.

"In any case", said Cleo, "I couldn't carry on. I was going the way of Mr. Quantrill. And I am not prepared to have that happen any more. It has got to end. All of this has got to end. And you are going to make that happen."

Penelope climbed up into her cockpit. "Cleo, it's hardly going to be possible for us to make Alastair Drague stop harassing your family on Earth. We have no influence here." She began picking at the cockpit controls. Sounds of imminent antigravity began humming in the hull.

"I didn't suggest it was. In any case, you won't need to worry about Alastair shortly. We are going to need his help, in order to convince the Shadow Ministry and the Americans that we have a common enemy. We need to gain his trust, and I think I know exactly how to do that." She coughed violently into her palm, knowing that everyone in the kitchen was watching fearfully to see whether blood and blueness appeared in it. Nothing, however, did. "Mind you, even with Alastair out of the way as an enemy, there will be others to take his place. Others, I suspect, far worse than he is. Far less intelligent, far less scrupulous. But there are other things that can be done." Cleo pointed at Jochen. "Baron von und zu Spitzenburg here needs a home, and so does Frau von und zu. He can't stay here. The Goo will be back, and even if it doesn't understand revenge itself, the human minds it has infested do. You know it isn't actually evil? Not as we understand it."

Charity Drummond spoke up again.

"It relishes the emotions of the human minds it inhabits. It finds human emotions such as hate and fear...exhilarating. It particularly liked the taste of Kurt and his comrades. Kurt genuinely believed the - goop, did you call it? - had made him a superman. The goop let him carry on believing it. It relished the sensation of him believing it."

"But Gondolin needs everyone it can recruit here on Earth", said Penelope.

"Only if their covers aren't blown", said Cleo, "and Jochen's has been blown quite comprehensively. You have to take him with you."

Harjit interrupted. "Besides", she said, "you have a ready-made private army here on Earth now. We are Team Salami. We are your Ground Crew, and no pilot can fly without us."

She looked around the courtyard at Sukhbir, Narinder, Armand, Porsh, and Zirc, all standing shivering in the snow. Zirc shouldered her industrial-sized bottle of drain cleaner and saluted.

Cleo looked round the room at the Ground Crew. Tears were forming in her eyes.

"But...you can't do that", she said. "Your cover's been blown before you've even started. You don't know what they'll do. They'll ruin your lives. They'll stop you succeeding at everything you ever work hard to achieve -"

Armand, Porsh and Cubic Zirc exchanged wry glances. Cleo had never before considered underachievement to be an advantage. She learned something new every day.

"- all right, all right, but they won't just do stuff to you, they'll do it to your families -"

Armand looked Cleo in the eye sardonically.

"OK, OK, point taken. But, I mean, some of you have, might have, got families who mean a great deal to you. You can't -"

"Just you try an stop us", said Zirc.

"- I mean, you've seen what they did to me and Tamora -"

"An we'll beat the flippin eck out of you", continued Zirc. "Cause we're your friends", she added.

Cleo sighed.

"You're right", she said. "You are that."

"We godda go elp Tazza in a minute, Arjit", reminded Zirc.

"Go", said Harjit. Zirc saluted hurriedly and left at a run with Porsh, Narinder and Sukhbir, carrying enough drain cleaner to unblock Godzilla's waste disposal.

Cleo looked at Penelope again. "Captain Farthing, do we have a deal? And don't give me any of that 'I can't speak for my commanding officer' guff, or your Shield stays exactly where it currently is."

Penelope was quiet for a minute in which the only sound was the gentle impact of snow falling on whatever it was flying saucers were made of.

"All right", said Penelope. "You have a deal."

"Your Shield is currently a hundred yards outside the castle", said Cleo, yawning and collapsing back into her café chair. "Still in the spaceship it came in. I have no idea why you didn't see it when you landed."

Penelope's face creased in anger. "You tricked me!"

"I did nothing of the sort", said Cleo. "You believed what you wanted to believe. And I'm not just giving you a Wolfram's Shield, I'm giving you a whole working spaceship. You're getting more out of the deal than you thought you were, and you should thank me."

Penelope fell silent, fuming, but unable to think of a reply.

"Let's just hope it takes Drague as long to figure out how the Wolfram's Shield works as it did the Americans to work out Saucer Drive", said Charity.

Turpin smiled humourlessly. "No need to worry about that. Drague's not going to have his own Shield for long."

"How so?" said Penelope, blinking in shock.

"Remember that neat little device we have on our flight suits, that allows Control to locate us if we're shot down behind enemy lines? I cut mine out and popped it into the lining of George's jacket. All you need to do is turn on the Pilot Finder in your Harridan cockpit, and it'll lead us straight to him." Turpin noticed Ant's blank look of amazement. "I didn't believe that rubbish about jumping off bridges onto trains any more than you did."

Ant was about to say Actually, I did believe it, but thought better of it.

"So where is he now?"

"I took a look a couple of minutes ago. By my calculations, and according to Jochen's road map of Germany, he's in a service station somewhere on the A3 between Regensburg and Nürnberg. Westbound for the Dutch border."

"That doesn't mean the Shield is with him", said Cleo quickly.

"No. But it's a fair bet. I really should take off some time in the next few minutes."

"You should take off?" said Penelope. "May I remind you who is in command here?"

"Okay, you really should command me to take off some time in the next few minutes."

Ant looked anxiously at the ice house door, which was now banging on its hinges as teenagers hammered to be let out. "You'd best do that anyway. Fräulein Meinck can only keep everyone in our school party locked up For Their Own Safety for so long. You'd best take off over the woods, away from the town. See those blue flashing lights down there on the road? That's police. Those are fire engines. The only thing stopping them from getting up here is probably the fact that they have rear-engined cars and they'll skid on the ice. Someone's called the emergency services. The whole town probably knows there's trouble up here by now."

Turpin squinted at the distant lights and nodded sagely to Penelope. "Aha, blue lights mean police. This is the sort of local knowledge we recruited Anthony and Cleopatra for."

Fräulein Meinck raised her hand to speak.

"I do not underständ", she said, "vhy it iss so important zät a scientific discovery vhich voss mäde in Tschermany by Tschermans must be kept secret sö zät only ze British änd Americans knöw it."

"Because there are twelve worlds up there in space right now", said Cleo, "who are fighting for their independence against the British and Americans, and who are currently outnumbered ten to one. The Americans have already successfully taken back the most heavily populated of all the USZ colonies, Alpha Four, with thousands of civilian casualties. The only thing stopping them from doing the same with the remaining twelve is the Morgan Doctrine."

"Vhich is?"

"A threat issued by the first USZ president, Levi Morgan. If they attack the USZ again, the USZ lands a flying saucer in Times Square and spills the beans on their whole operation. But this threat only works if no-one on Earth knows flying saucers exist. If there are beans to spill. That's why we have to ask you to keep the secret, Fräulein. All of you."

Fräulein Meinck looked to Herr Riemann and Herr Schieß.

"Zese...creatures", said Herr Schieß.

"The blue space nazis", nodded Cleo. "We now know what they are and far more importantly, where they live. They were in my head for a good few hours, remember, and a nasty side-effect of taking over other people's brains and having a hive mind is that no-one can keep secrets from anyone. And once I get a chance to talk their location over with an astronavigator, USZ military command will get their exact coordinates, and so will Alastair Drague."

"Cleo", said Penelope, "I'm not entirely sure it would be good to pass that information on to -"

"It will be passed on to Alastair", said Cleo vehemently. "And the Americans. And the Russians. And those things will be hunted down. And destroyed."

"Good", said Herr Schieß. "Zen I am viz you änd vill keep your secrets. Ve will all keep your secrets", he said, looking round ominously at Herr Riemann and Fräulein Meinck, who nodded reluctantly.

"Harjit, take Captain Farthing out and show her where the other ship is", said Cleo. "Then she can make good on her bargain, which will also involve doing me another small favour. A very important one. Come back to me once you've shown her the ship, and I'll explain."

She coughed again, and clasped her temples with her fingers.

"Oh my giddy aunt", she said, "having an entire Einsatzgruppe of nazis running around in your head all morning doesn't half take it out of you. You have no idea what those men think about."

"What do they think about?" said Jochen.

"Tanks, mostly", said Cleo. "And guns. Sometimes tanks and guns."

All the boys and men in the courtyard looked at each other in a sort of shared brotherhood. Evidently, it was perfectly acceptable to think about tanks and guns.

"In äny cäse", said Fräulein Meinck, "ze police vill be arrivink very shortly. Ze hill up to ze castle iss slightly slippery, but zät vill not stop even a policeman forever. Zey vill be vanting to talk to us in only a few minutes time, änd Penelope and Chärity do not häff pässports."

"There is a back door to the castle", said Jochen. "A postern gate, I think you call it in English. It is normally locked. Anyone who needs to leave without a conversation with the police, they can leave by that gate."

Cleo looked up at Jochen's mother.

"Frau von-und-zu - wissen Sie, was ich meine, wenn ich auf Englisch 'meringue' sage?"

Jochen's mother thought carefully, then nodded. "Man sagt 'Baiser' auf Deutsch."

"Können Sie vielleicht für mich ein Baiser machen? Es muß ein ganz besonderes Form nehmen. Dies ist sehr wichtig."

"What are they saying?" said Penelope suspiciously.

Jochen looked at both Cleo and his mother oddly. "I can honestly say I have no idea."

***

"LET US OUT! LET US OUT!"

"We can't breave in ere!"

"OM AGORAPHOBIC MISS! OM FROIGHTENED OF FIELDS!"

"This is cruel an unusual, miss!"

"BITTE UNS FREILASSEN -"

The ice house door swung rapidly open, depriving everyone inside of a surface to hammer on. They fell forwards into the eye-burning daylight.

Outside, among piles of horribly reflective snow, stood Fräulein Meinck, the key of the ice house in her hand.

"Zät is better", said Fräulein Meinck. "You häff said it in Tscherman."

High in the sky above the castle, two tiny dots shrank into invisibility against the setting sun. Among the students stumbling out into the brightness, Glynn chewed his apple cheeks in consternation, squinting round the frozen courtyard.

"Where has it gone?" he said. "The flying saucer?"

"Flying saucer", said Fräulein Meinck, as if Glynn were a special new kind of lunatic.

"It were a flyin saucer, Miss", agreed Ryan Pearcey, one of the Year Sevens. "You seen it too."

"Oh zät sing", said Fräulein Meinck, smiling happily and nodding. "It voss in fäct ä top secret NÄTÖ vertical täkeoff and länding fighter. Zät iss vot ze man who voss flying it häss töld us änd vhy should he lie?"

Glynn turned round, looking at the empty walls in frustration. "Why would he say that?" he said. His eyes burned with suspicion.

"He's right, Miss", said Nigel Devonport. "Why would he tell us the fighter was a fighter if it was disguised as a UFO so no-one would think it was a fighter? There's nothing for him in this scenario."

"Clearly he voss not an älien, but a män", said Fräulein Meinck. "Änd do men fly flyink saucers? I do not sink so. Äss it iss so wery wery clear zät men do not fly flyink saucers, he knew hiss cover voss blöwn. He häss töld us zät nö-vone voss going to beliefe in a two-armed, vone-headed älien viz a side parting änd a British äccent. He säid he voss göing to häff to put us on our honour not to säy änysing about him not being an älien to ze Russians änd ze internätional press."

"There were aliens in Star Trek who looked just like human beings", said Serafina doubtfully. She was standing in the ice house doorway, apparently parasitically attached to Justin.

"They did have Cornish pasties on their foreheads, Seffie", cautioned Justin. "So you could tell they were aliens."

Fräulein Meinck thought about this. "Sometimes also zöse ridges, too, zät you see on bendy straws, on ze bridges off zeir nöses."

"Antennae", nodded Justin.

"Ears", said Ryan Pearcey.

Glynn was silent for a very long time. He reached down to the rucksack beside him and pulled out an almost completely flat packet of crisps, sealed with sellotape.

"Eurgh!", said Serafina. "You've crushed it to bits."

"Can fit more crisp packets into the same bag that way", explained Glynn. "No air."

Unpeeling the sellotape, he tilted his head back and poured the contents of the crisp packet down his throat. Serafina could not turn her head away, but watched, horrified, half hiding behind Justin's shoulder in case Glynn's crisp-eating habits might somehow be contagious.

"So why", said Glynn, wiping tiny crisp flecks from his mouth, "did one of those top secret NATO fighters have Nazi swastikas all over it?"

Fräulein Meinck and Herr Riemann exchanged pained glances. They had hoped no-one had been in a position to see the swastikas.

"Äh, possibly", said Herr Riemann with a flash of inspiration, "because a reporter from a newspäper might believe somevone who told him zey häd seen a flying saucer, but not a Nazi flying saucer?"

"They're Nazis", said Ryan Pearcey, backing away, pointing a finger. "They're all Nazis! We've discovered their orrible secret!"

"Ve are not Nazis, Ryan", said Fräulein Meinck, shaking her head firmly.

"If you ask me", said Serafina, displaying an uncharacteristically rapid grasp of events, "when we get back home to England, we should go to the papers and sell to the highest bidder."

"I know just the paper", said Glynn with an air of vast authority. "They specialize in stories like this."

"Do not be ridiculous, Glynn", said Fräulein Meinck.

"Why was there a smashed china dog in the café?" said Serafina suddenly.

"The castle öwners vere transporting ze dog vhen the NÄTÖ aircraft flew öfer", said Fräulein Meinck. "The män hölding the dog häss dropped it in schock."

"That's right", nodded a little old lady standing so closely behind Glynn that he jumped in shock. "That's what happened, I seen it. In he come, that young man, e picked up the dog, and then e dropped it when the haircraft come over. It were loike in the War, loike, when the German bombers an them V Wuns, them Vergeltunswaffen, come over."

"And who is she?" said Glynn. "She sounds like she comes from two miles outside Northampton."

The little old lady had dyed oily black hair, a green woollen bonnet, and tiny pebble-lensed glasses like twin gunsights. Fräulein Meinck had never noticed her before, though despite this, she seemed oddly familiar.

"I were visiting the carstle, just loike you were", said the little old lady, apparently hugely offended. "Your teacher said it’d be safe innat little room there."

"You don't sound German", said Glynn suspiciously.

"Om from two moile outside Northampton", said the old lady.

"What are you doing in Germany?" said Glynn.

"What are you doing in Germany?" said the old lady.

"I think you been outwitted there, Glynno", said Ryan Pearcey.

"Why was there a hammer on the floor next to the dog?" said Glynn with unnerving perceptiveness.

Fräulein Meinck shrugged. "I häff no idea. Mäybe it voss hänging on ze vall viz all the özzer mediaeval torture implements."

"It wasn't", said Glynn. "And it had a sticker on it saying ALDI SUPER SPAR PREIS."

"Maybe that means summat in mediaeval German", said Ryan Pearcey.

"It does. It means ALDI SUPER SAVER PRICE."

Herr Riemann threw his arms wide. "Who knöws? Maybe zey just do not like china dogs around here."

"An apparently insignificant detail", said Glynn, wagging a pudgy finger, "that may well provide the key to solving this whole conundrum."

"Oh no", said the little old lady. "The ammer dropped out the young un's pocket when e dropped is dog. An did you notice that little tiny Stars an Stripes on the side of the hairoplane?"

"I saw a big, black swastika on the side of the aeroplane", said Glynn stubbornly.

"Yeah", said Ryan Pearcey. "I saw that as well."

"Me too."

"Too right. Nazis, in this day an age."

The little old lady patted Glynn's hand. "I thought that too. But then I looked arder, an I saw it was just the way the sun caught the hair intakes on wun soide of the haircraft. The other wun, the wun what landed, it looked loike the other wun, but there weren't no swastika on that wun."

"Thass roight", said the voice from the next table.

"Second wun didn' ave no swastika on it", agreed a second voice.

"Must have bin a Noptical Illusion", agreed a third.

"I seen the American flag on the first wun", said a fourth.

Glynn looked round himself in disgust. "You people!" he said. "You believe the last thing anyone says to you! You repeat it like parrots!" he flung a pudgy hand out at the old lady. "What if she's a, she's a, she's an Alien Agent?"

There was a pause.

"She dun't look like an alien agent, Glynno", said Ryan Pearcey.

"Vhere vere all off you vhen all off ziss häss häppened?" said Fräulein Meinck. "Häff you häd a good view off it? Voss it fuzzy or indistinct ät all?"

"We were in one of the upstairs bedrooms", said Justin smugly.

"No we weren't", said Serafina, reddening.

"We got in through a side door", said Justin, glassy-eyed, still replaying the event in his mind. "It was fantastic."

"I was examining the murder holes in the north parapet", said Glynn. "They're clearly fake", he sniffed. "Eighteenth century brick. I doubt they were ever used to murder anyone."

"We was up on the south walls", said one table of Year Sevens, who had clearly been told not to go up on the south walls. "It was well cool. We saw the Experimental Fighters fly over an land an everythin."

"We was tryin to stuff Kelvin's ead down the Mediaeval Privy."

Kelvin, a short, unpopular boy, glowered.

"You are so gettin bad beats when I grow up to be an international hired assassin, Ryan Pearcey."

"We was up on the north wall, where we was sposed to be", said a third table consisting entirely of girls. "We was lookin for them morons an ambrosias, loike it said on them sheets the Frownline give us."

"I think you mean", said Glynn with immense scorn, "merlons and embrasures. And Fräulein."

"Oh, shut up, Glynn, you spanner."

"Yeah, numbnuts. Whaddya you know."

"Wazzock."

Glynn's fists clenched and unclenched in fury. He unwrapped a Lion bar and ate it to calm down. The rest of the trip smaned. But fire glowed in Glynn's eyes. It was plain he would be getting to the bottom of this.

Fräulein Meinck clapped her hands for attention, whilst making it plain that the use of her whistle was still an option. "Tschildren, you vill please move in an orderly fäshion down tovards ze cöach, it iss time for us to be leavink! Ät ze Freizeitheim Herr Schieß häss arränged for us a beautiful impromptu repast off mustard änd sausages."

"We dun't wanna go back to the Frizzytime, Miss. The food there's all European."

"Yeah, it's got all vitamins in it an that."

"YOU VILL EAT VITAMINS ÄND LIKE ZEM. Ve vill return to ze Freizeitheim vhere ve vill cläp händs änd sink häppy sonks! Mäny of zem", she added, ominously, "in Tscherman." Her hand moved towards her whistle.

Dispiritedly, everyone began trudging towards the castle gate.

“Miss! Cleo ent ere!"

"Yeah miss! Neither's Tamora!"

"Cleo ent comin with us in the coach. Why ent she coming with us in the coach, Miss?”

Fräulein Meinck drew her breath in painfully through her teeth. Only Herr Riemann and Herr Schieß could see that, behind her back, her fingers were crossed.

“Cleopätra iss not feelink vell”, said Fräulein Meinck. “Tämora iss also feelink a liddle bit under ze vezzer", she continued, her eyeballs swelling with the enormity of her own lie, "äs are Hartschit, Sukhbir, Narinder, Armand, Zircönia, and Porsche."

"But Cleo was looking right as rain earlier on, Miss -"

"You, on ze özzer hand, Glynn, are feelink perfectly all right. Zerefore you vill report to ze cöach along viz eferyone else, right ät ziss moment.”

His entire face one mistrustful scowl, Glynn hoisted his rucksack onto his shoulder and stalked away under Fräulein Meinck's laser glare. Other members of the school trip followed suit; soon the courtyard was deserted apart from Fräulein Meinck, Herr Schieß, Herr Riemann, Anton, Stefan, and the little old lady. Fräulein Meinck exhaled in grateful relief and sagged till she was shorter by several inches.

She turned and looked directly at the little old lady who came from a mile outside Northampton.

"It iss an amäzing cöincidence", said Fräulein Meinck, "how somevone who häss än äccent zät everyvone trusts, who iss looking just like everyvone's fävourite grändmozzer, turns up right ät the moment vhen she iss möst needed."

"Praps I just melted into the background", said the little old lady. "No wun notices a little old lady."

"Although, now zät I think about it", continued Fräulein Meinck, "I remember somevone who might häff been your sister ät ze svimming bath in England, in ä service station on ze M25, and in ze town ät Lumpenburg. You häff vorn different vigs, different glasses, änd different äccessories, but it voss alväys still ze säme liddle old you."

"Oh, fiddlesticks", said the little old lady. "Alastair did say you'd be a tough one." She appeared to grow several inches as she said it, uncurving her spine, and her voice was now that of a Englishwoman twenty years younger who appeared to have gone to a very expensive finishing school. "What was it that gave me away?"

Fräulein Meinck thought about this. "Probably ze fäct that, although you vere not äble to speak your öwn länguage properly, you häff pronounced ze Tscherman vörd Vergeltungswaffen perfectly."

"Of course", nodded the little old lady sadly. "A schoolgirl error. I do apologize."

"You häff been very convincing up to zät point", said Fräulein Meinck. "Your employer should give you ä raise."

"He certainly should", said the old lady, laying her spectacles down on the table, pulling off her hair and shaking out a silvery brunette bob. "Even audiences that moronic are difficult to convince that they've seen nothing when you not only blow up a Nazi flying saucer right over their heads, but also land a ruddy UFO right in front of their faces."

"Es tut mir leid dafür", said Fräulein Meinck.

"Alastair isn't as bad as all that, you know. I've worked with him for years. He cried like a baby when his cat died." She craned her neck to look out into the castle courtyard. "Where is Anthony, by the way? I don't believe I saw him in that lot."

"Änthony iss in ä better pläce", said Fräulein Meinck.

The old lady frowned. "I'm terribly sorry to hear that."

"He iss in Holland."

The old lady stayed silent, her eyes fastened on Fräulein Meinck's; then she said "You horrible German woman", whipped out her mobile phone, furiously tapped down a list of contacts, pressed SEND, and clapped the phone to her ear saying "Pick up, pick up, pick UP!"

***

The rain on the windscreen clicked like drumming fingernails. Only a few metres away, headlights howled past, bound for England, France, and Belgium, with trucks and cars and motorcycles behind them. The names of towns and cities on the roadsigns had begun to appear in two, or even three languages, rather than just in German. The snow on the ground looked as if it had acne. The first rain after the snow had already gone to work on it, dissolving it. Soon only a few stray lumps would remain, hiding in shadows and ditches, slowly melting.

Hammond Karg tipped his head back and let an entire tube full of breath mints slide into his mouth.

A disparaging voice came from the back of the car. "You great big greasebucket, Karg."

"They're sugar free", said Karg defensively.

"They'll make you go to the toilet like anything. Those things have got Sorbitol in them."

"How exactly", said Karg prissily, "does one Go To The Toilet Like Anything? How does Anything go to the toilet?"

A voice came, in stereo, from the Hands Free speakers on the dashboard. "Gentlemen, you will please refrain from lowering each other's morale and do your jobs. We are carrying a very valuable cargo, you are still on duty, and I need your eyes on the area around this vehicle at all times.."

Karg and his fellow passenger looked darkly forwards to the huge black bulk of the Lagonda. Neither dared say anything in reply.

"How long is Phillips going to be in there, anyway? How much did he have to drink back at Nürnberg?"

Karg cleared his throat. "Uh, he had an Apocalyptico Latte, sir. It was quite large."

"How large?"

"Slightly smaller than his head, sir. Said he needed the caffeine to stay awake till Calais, sir."

"Why am I surrounded by idiots? Doesn't he know that'll mean we have to stop for toilet breaks five times between here and the ferry? Next time, Karg, you will devise some means of changing drivers and taking toilet breaks out of the window whilst the car is still moving."

"I'll get right on it, sir."

A Heavy Goods Vehicle turned into the parking area, dazzling Karg with its headlights. The lights seemed, briefly, to flare green and purple.

"We need to get the contents of this vehicle to Warminster Research Laboratory as soon as possible, and then stored securely at least half a kilometre underground."

"Hurr", said the man behind Karg, looking up at the HGV. "Those lights are pretty."

"Karg."

"Sir?"

"Did Johnson just say 'hurr, those lights are pretty'?"

"I believe he did, sir."

"Johnson? Are you feeling all right?"

"Hurr", said Johnson.

"Karg. Listen to me. Get out of that car straight away. You are under attack."

"Attack by what, sir?" said Karg.

"That is on a need-to-know basis. Suffice it to say Johnson has been shot with a device known as an Orgonizer. Run. Now."

There was a brief pause.

"Hurr", said the Hands Free set. "I love you, Mr. Drague. You are my very special friend."

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, CORPORAL WISE, STOP HUGGING ME."

"COURTNEY, WHAT'S GOT INTO YOU, STOP HUGGING MR. DRAGUE -"

Another brilliant green-and-violet light flared around Drague's Lagonda.

"HURR, COURTNEY. YOU'RE MY BEST MATE, YOU ARE."

"Hurr", said Johnson. "He's hugging Mr. Drague. He's going to be for it when he gets back home. That's funny. I should laugh. Hurr. Hurr. Hurr."

"SNAP OUT OF IT, MAN! I AM IN NO WAY YOUR FRIEND, SPECIAL OR OTHERWISE! I AM YOUR TYRANNICAL EMPLOYER!"

"You're lovely, Mr. Drague. You're like a big cuddly fluffy bunny puppy."

The door of the Lagonda was opened by a tall dark figure holding a device that looked very much like a gun, without actually being one.

"Mr. Drague", said the Hands Free set.

"Mr. Turpin", said Mr. Drague's voice, with venom.

"Hurr! It's the Enemy! I should shoot yer, you're the Enemy! Wait a sec, I got a gun here somewhere -"

"The Shield, please, Mr. Drague", said the Hands Free set. "And the Mark Two Orgonizer you took off Armand Jeffries. Or its fluffy bunny puppy time for you."

Karg saw something pass from the man inside the Lagonda to the man outside it. From the shadows close by the Mercedes, he saw a shorter figure wave at him. He raised a hand and waved back.

"Hang on, hang on, I got the gun - let me just look down the barrel to check it's loaded, hurr hurr - whoops, blimmin safety catches -"

"Goodbye, Mr. Drague", said the tall figure, and backed away into the landscaped bushes.

He looked to his right - the shorter figure had also gone.

There was a brief, ominous pause.

"Karg?" said the Hands Free set. "KARG!"

Karg breathed in, and carefully considered his options. He leaned forward to the microphone.

"I THINK YOU'RE LOVELY, MR. DRAGUE", he said.

***

Through the picture window, blue flashing lights of police cars snaked up the zig-zag to Spitzenburg Castle across the valley. Herr Schieß, Anton, Stefan, and Fräulein Meinck were sitting in the Freizeitheim canteen, the doors out to the kitchen and hallway guarded by armed policemen. Another armed Schutzpolizei officer faced them over the table. English schoolchildren surrounded them, sitting on canteen benches.

"So when you went down into the cellar", said the policeman, "all the men who had gone down there were dead."

"Carbon monoxide poisoning, I imagine", said Herr Schieß. "It's a good thing I noticed the first man's red face before any of us went down the steps."

"The floor around the bodies seems to have been cleaned", said the policeman suspiciously. "With some sort of heavy duty solvent."

"Sodium hypochlorite bleach", said Herr Schieß. "I'm sorry - we just didn't think. Frau von und zu Spitzenburg was adamant that the floor should be cleaned. She was very upset."

"I'm not surprised. We just found the body of her father-in-law further down the hill. Some of the bodies were splashed with it too. How did that happen?"

"Some of it may have got on the bodies. Like I say. We just didn't think."

"Have you ever seen any of the gentlemen in the cellar before?"

"No. I don't think Frau von und zu Spitzenburg had either."

"I see", said the policeman. "And where is Frau von und und zu Spitzenburg?"

"We have no idea", said Herr Schieß. "Her or her son. Or a number of the children we brought here. It is most distressing."

"This boy", said the policeman, pointing to the tall, unhealthy-looking child who called himself Nigel, "says that you herded all the children indoors, into a store room with no windows, while a strange flying machine took off from the courtyard. Another flying machine, he says, attacked the castle and caused all that damage to the front gate. Several of the other children corroborate his story."

"The woman in the flying machine had a British accent", said Fräulein Meinck, "if that helps."

"The flying machine must have taken off and landed vertically. Was it a helicopter?"

"Possibly. We did not see it too clearly. We were concerned for the welfare of the children. That is why we took them indoors."

"The boy says you locked them in."

"For their own safety."

"He says you seemed to be obeying the instructions of one Tamora Shakespeare, one of the girls in the party."

"Nigel does not know what he's saying. He certainly doesn't know what we were saying. Despite my best efforts, he hardly speaks a word of German."

"What is she saying?" said Nigel to the policeman in English. "She put us in danger. We are her pupils. She had a duty of care towards us."

The policeman ignored Nigel. "He also says that you talked a great deal about aliens and Nazis, indeed ran round the house for quite some time armed with fire extinguishers and kitchen implements looking for them, before the main building of the castle was attacked by one of the flying machines. He says that one of the English girls, one Harjit Kaur, leapt out of one of the upper storey windows and attacked it with a fire extinguisher. He says that the flying machine then exploded, and that Harjit Kaur has not been seen since."

Herr Schieß opened his mouth to speak; Fräulein Meinck raised a hand to stop him. She pulled a mobile phone from her coat pocket, flipped it open, and tabbed down the list of names to a number, which she then dialled. She held the phone to her ear.

"Hello", she said in English. "Hello, Harjit?

"I am sorry, but I have a gentleman here who needs to speak to you. You should not be unduly worried, but the gentleman is a Schutzpolizei officer, a German policeman. I need to assure him that you are safe. Can I pass you on to him?

"Thank you." Fräulein Meinck passed the phone on to the policeman, who put it to his own ear.

"Hello?" said the policeman. He listened for several seconds, and then said:

"And you are Harjit Kaur."

He nodded, and then said: "And where are you now?

"I see.

"Thank you very much. Could you please ask your parents to telephone me and to confirm this?

"Thank you, Miss Kaur."

He closed the call and handed back the phone.

"I could hear motors in the background", he said. "As if she was in some sort of machine."

"She should be above the Channel by now", said Fräulein Meinck. "A number of the children had to go home to England early, accompanied by my assistant, Bernd Riemann. We had a number of cases of poor discipline."

The policeman nodded. "English children."

Herr Schieß grimaced distastefully. "Two World Wars and One World Cup, Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah. You know the sort of thing."

"Nigel has a very active imagination", said Fräulein Meinck. "He gets excited if he does not take his medication."

She tapped her head meaningfully. The policeman looked up at Nigel, sighed and nodded. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"My superior, Polizeirat Bosch, has received a very peculiar telephone call. A call from a member of the Bundesregierung, no less. A junior minister. Explaining that our NATO allies have experienced yet another top secret aircraft malfunction in this area, very similar to the recent incident at Regensburg. Explaining that every scrap of metal and microchip needs to be collected from these hillsides by men who will be arriving very shortly in clean suits and very fast helicopters, bringing metal detectors, fine-toothed combs and toothbrushes. And that I must pull my men back and only poke my nose in again when the helicopters take off and disappear once more into the night."

Fräulein Meinck raised her eyebrows.

"If that is the case", she said, "then believe me, it makes me no happier than it does you. It makes one suspect that one is a second-class citizen in one's own country."

The policeman stared angrily out at the gently snowing night.

"Yes it does", he said. "Yes it does."