"Spud," said Nics. "We don't have a fax machine."
"I know," said Spud. "And if we did, it wouldn't be filled with pink paper either."
"So how did you get the fax then?" she asked.
"It came through on my printer," he said, scratching his nose. "How do you know James Bradford?"
"I don't," Nics said. "I just keep getting messages from him."
"He was Gran's partner," said Spud. "He got retired after her last mission. He's dead now, I hear."
"Doesn't stop him from having an active afterlife, it seems," said Nics wryly.
The taxi pulled up outside the airport and everyone, including the ducks, got out. Sam walked around to the back of the taxi and barked. Chas looked at him.
"What?"
Sam lifted a paw and scratched at the boot. Chas opened it to see three suitcases in there.
"You want us to take these?" he asked Sam.
The dog barked again, and wagged his tail.
Spud had pushed in beside Chas.
"Hey, look, this one's got my name on it. I wonder what's inside..."
"Not now Spud," said Nics, having thought ahead, and walked a few steps away to return with a trolley to load the bags on. Together, she and Spud hoisted the suitcases onto the trolley. The four ducks took a waddle up, flapped their wings and settled down on top of the bags.
"Are you sure we're doing the right thing here?" Nics asked no one in particular as they walked into the departures hall, Sam trotting along beside them.
"No," said Chas with a grin, his bad mood lifting like the clouds after a storm. "But it feels right."
"Besides," Spud chimed in. "Would you rather be at home now? With all the weirdness and guns and crap?"
Nics shuddered. "Weirdness I can handle - guns just freak me out."
The departures hall was full of people, bags and other assorted items, all in constant motion. There were people dragging suitcases and small children behind them, while talking unceasingly into the mobile phones that were clamped to one ear, frantically running around. There were other people wandering aimlessly, in a sort of random motion that might eventually take them to the right check in desk. Some people were even standing still, staring into space, as if beseeching for guidance from the heavens, or the public announcement system, whichever came first.
No one seemed to notice or care that there were four ducks sitting on top of the bags on one particular trolley.
An announcement came over the public address system:
"Bing-bong. Would Mr Jones, recently arrived from Barbados, please pick up the white courtesy telephone."
Spud abruptly stopped, and bent down to tie his shoelaces so quickly that Nics almost thought he was making a dive for the floor. Which was odd, because Spud was wearing trainers that had never in the entire period of Spud's ownership of them, had ever been tied.
After a minute he straightened up cautiously, looking back over his shoulder. Nics and Chas were staring at him open-mouthed. The ducks had gone to sleep.
"Sorry, thought I saw a pizza delivery man."
Whoever had masterminded their escape had done a magnificent job. Not only were their tickets first class, but passports and a sizable wodge of American currency had also been provided. They checked in, and watched as their bags were whisked off by the conveyor belt.
The stewardess didn't even bother to ask the usual questions, like "have you packed these bags yourself?" Which was a good thing, because Spud was having enough problems keeping his mouth shut as it was. He was a terrible at lying.
He breathed a big sigh of relief as soon as they made it through security. The ducks and Sam came with them, and the security staff manning the metal detectors didn't even blink.
"Wow! This is so cool!" he said.
"I thought you were supposed to be the secret agent," said Chas. "This should be old hat to you, surely."
Spud's answer was interrupted by the PA again:
"Bing-bong. Would Mr Mandela, recently arrived from Johannesburg, please pick up the white courtesy telephone."
"Nope," said Spud. "We never get anything this fancy. Always have to travel as cheaply as we can. They say it's to stop us drawing attention to ourselves, but personally I think they're just cheap."
Nics was looking worried.
"Doesn't this seem a bit too easy to you?"
Chas and Spud exchanged looks, and Chas shrugged. Sam, walking close beside her, pushed his head up under her hand, as if to reassure her.
"Yeah," said Chas. "But I'm not going to worry about it now. Let's hit up duty-free instead."
Even Nics succumbed to the temptation of duty-free; she bought herself some perfume. Chas bought himself a litre bottle of some very nice whiskey, and as for Spud, he came out loaded with t-shirts, cuddly toys, chocolate, wine, cigarettes, vodka, disposable cameras and sunscreen.
"You are never going to get that on the plane," Nics told him as they sat waiting for their flight in the first class lounge.
"Of course I will," said Spud reassuringly as he tried to shove a cuddly toy that was determined to escape back into the already bursting-at-the-seams plastic bag.
Chas had loaded up a plate with the free buffet that was provided and was shovelling it down with both hands. Nics looked at him disapprovingly, and he just grinned at her. With the hand not currently occupied with shovelling food into his mouth he indicated Sam and the ducks, who were also taking advantage of the free food. The ducks were happily pecking away at pastries, while Sam was enjoying a rather large steak, served blue.
"Bing-bong. Would Mr Presley, recently arrived from Memphis, please pick up the white courtesy telephone."
A stewardess-person appeared smoothly at Nics' side.
"Would madam care for some champagne?"
Nics bit her lip in indecision. It was all too easy to get seduced by all this luxury...
"Oh, alright then... but just the one."
She looked out the window as she sipped from her glass of champagne. A movement caught her eye and she switched her focus from outside to what was reflected in the window. A little brown mouse twitched its nose at her, and she quickly looked away in shock. When she looked back, only her own reflection stared back at her. She sighed with relief, the mouse was gone. She downed the champagne quickly and requested another. It was her imagination, she told herself. The mouse hadn't really winked at her.
On the other side of the lounge a woman in a very low-cut dress was arguing with a steward about the quality of caviar that was to be fed to her pet toy poodle. Nics sneezed, and the steward dropped his tray. The poodle didn't seem to mind the new arrangement of his food on the floor, and hoovered it up with gusto.
Chas decided that the gentlemen's toilets attached to the first class lounge had to be the epitome of luxury. Not only were there the usual facilities, there was also a barber on hand for any quick shaves/haircuts that might be required. There were full showers, with courtesy fluffy white towels and bathrobes, even a sauna and a hot tub and a person who'd shine your shoes for you while you waited and read the freshly pressed and still warm papers.
He was washing his hands when something odd about the mirror in front of him caught his eye. He'd just seen his reflection blink.
He blinked in surprise. His reflection started to raise its hand up to touch the glass about half a second before he did, and blinked. Chas blinked again, and then went through a wide range of facial expressions in an attempt to figure out what was going on.
"Cool," he said to himself. "A mirror that shows you five seconds in the future."
"Did you say something sir?" asked the very anxious attendant outside.
"Nothing - never mind!" Chas called back, with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary. There was something slimy about the attendant that just bugged him.
He saw the mouse in the mirror before it jumped up onto the countertop. It twitched its whiskers at him, and proceeded to sing, in a very high pitched voice, "Fly me to the moon".
Chas applauded politely when it finished the song. It squeaked at him and tugged gently on his shirtsleeve.
"What?" asked Chas.
The mouse ever so gently and slowly started to climb up the arm of Chas' shirt.
"You want to come along?" he asked.
The mouse squeaked again in what could only be the affirmative.
"Ok," said Chas. "But you've got to stay hidden. Nics is a bit scared of mice."
In response the mouse dove down inside Chas' jumper, and settled quite happily in the breast pocket of his shirt.
Chas took a final look in the mirror. His reflection had already gone.
When it came time to board their plane, the three humans, the dog and the four ducks got directions to the gate, which seemed to involve walking down lots of twisty passages that looked all alike. But at the end of all of this was a door, leading out onto a very quiet, one might almost say deserted section of landing strip. And parked on said bit of landing strip was the most peculiar plane any of the humans had ever seen.
Instead of the usual fixed wing aircraft, which, you have to admit, do look very odd indeed when you're not used to them, this flying machine was built after the form of a very large bird. It was made out of metal, and instead of eyes there were windows for the pilots to look out of. The body was one smooth shape, while the wings looked like they were feathered, with the feathers made out of very light, very strong steel. There were steps leading up to the side of its neck, and a long row of typical aircraft style windows along its body.
It was painted white, with a red and gold stripe down the side of it.
Sam led the way up the steps, followed by the ducks. They didn't bother to climb; instead they stretched their wings out and flew up, with the poor duck who'd been taped finding it a bit harder than the others. The humans followed, Chas staring in fascination at the machine that they were about to travel in.
First class was very luxurious indeed. But inside the craft it looked boringly like a normal airplane, seats all facing forward, with the fold down trays and in-flight magazines.
They went through the usual pre-flight talk - "in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure blah blah blah blah..." Chas had buried his nose in the in-flight magazine, searching for as much information about the plane as he could. Nics was fussing after the duck that had been taped up, and looked like it wasn't feeling very well. She made sure it was as comfortable as possible, getting blankets from the stewardess to make it a nest. The duck tolerated all these ministrations with good grace, then stuck its head under its wing and went to sleep.
Spud was gawping at everything, the other passengers, the in-flight magazines and the stewardesses (all nicely dressed in a conservative red and gold uniform and all drop dead gorgeous). He bounced around in his seat pushing buttons at random, until one of the stewardesses had to come over and tell him, with a very nice smile and in a very patient tone of voice, that the captain had switched on the seatbelt sign, so would he mind sitting down and not pressing any more buttons thankyouverymuch.
Suitably chastened, he slumped in his seat, brightening enough to ask:
"Have you got a lighter?"
The stewardess smiled even more brightly and said:
"I'm sorry sir, this is a no smoking flight."
Spud watched her smugly sashay down the aisle and sighed. He craned his neck to get a better view of the passengers across the aisle. Was that really Mahatma Ghandi?
His head snapped back into position abruptly as the plane leaped into the air with one enormous, sick-making jerk. Fumbling in the seat pocket in front of him, he grabbed the air sickness bag.
The plane flew on unconcerned through the clouds, counting its way across the Atlantic in giant wing beats.
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