bounced, and hissed, belching flames and thick smoke the color of egg yolks. Angela set her chin and sprayed a few rounds through the billowing yellow fog. Vinnie’s jaw dropped. Briefly. Then he closed his mouth, swallowed and said “Ordinarily, that would scare me in a spouse.”
The words had barely left his lips when a misfired Skua missile slammed into a small pleasure craft moored to a wooden jetty just behind them. John and Jane swung from the ladder like rag dolls, while the others rattled around on the floor like dice. The X-Jet tumbled, clanging, off the roof and drowned with a mighty sploosh! The shockwave actually gave the duck boat an added forward thrust, while the foremost pursuit boat jumped five feet out of the water sideways and capsized. A second confused missile exploded in the path of the last speedboat, scattering Royal Marines to the four winds. Like the African Queen, the duck boat doggedly kept right on chugging. It was within easy firing range of the bridge now and if the commandos didn’t get them, the Lynx, with two more Skuas in its firing bays, most assuredly would. Oh - and another pod of speedboats was skimming toward them, from the Blackfriars side this time.
“We should be dead,” John remarked. “For real this time.”
“Give it a minute,” Jane said.
Vinnie pointed to Jane’s grenade launcher. “Couple more of those and we could take these clowns.”
“RPG under front seat,” Leo piped up, restored to the captain’s chair. “Is Soviet era, but works.”
Jen’s voice crackled in the dangling earpiece. “Hello? Anybody there?” She switched the audio over to speaker mode.
John hoisted the R-47 Widowmaker to his shoulder, “I’ll take it out the hatch.”
Jane nodded, “I’ll clear the right. On three.” Vinnie slapped a fresh clip into his MP5 and shifted to the left.
“Head’s up, boys and girls. One minute,” Jen mockingly trilled a sing-song warning.
“Shut up!” Everybody yelled.
“OK,” Jen said, a tad miffed. “Don’t look out the window. Fine by me.”
As she spoke, it sounded like the second Battle of Britain had begun - or the world was coming to an end. It was precisely 12:30 pm GMT. The royal couple was standing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace encircled by the rest of the royal family, preparing to enact the pre-reception ritual of the royal kiss. Across London and, indeed, from end to end across the entire British Commonwealth, including UK territories and dependencies, church bells rang, guns saluted, jets screamed overhead. And fireworks detonated. The streets were full of sparklers, firecrackers, and minor squibs. The squares had rather larger set pieces primed and ready to ignite. Along the Thames, major displays had been days in the planning - elaborate fusillades, barrages, and cannonades, professional pyrotechnics consisting of computer-activated chain-fused aerial shells and comets. According to the master schedule, the Thames display was programmed for 9:00 pm in the evening, a Disney ending to a Hans Christian Anderson day.
Except it was taking place NOW.
Gandalf the Gray would have been proud. There were beehives, brocades, bottle rockets, chrysanthemums, cones, crossettes, dragon eggs, dahlias, diadems, girandolas, peonies, strobes, wheels, and willows. The shells screamed and whistled and crackled in every direction. The air over the Thames banged and snapped with arcs, spirals, and spiders of glitter interspersed with pillars of dragon fire. But more immediately important than the sparkles and spangles, mind you, was the technicolor blanket of thick, camouflaging smoke.
They were already under, then past Waterloo Bridge, the furor of the fireworks drowning out their motor, the momentary shock and awe pinning their would-be adversaries to the bridge.
“I can make it, we’re going to make it,” Leo shouted, pointing to his nautical GPS unit. He spun the steering wheel hard to the left and shifted into overdrive. There was a bump and a lurch as Leo rammed the duck boat into the shallows. Near the water line the rainbow fog lifted just enough to allow those aboard to see that the prow of the duck boat was pointed toward a concrete ramp climbing a gap in the river bank between two grimly imposing Victorian warehouses. The brick corner of one building was painted Heinz catsup red and adorned with a stenciled Banksy original in black and white - an anarchist, face half masked by a bandana, eyes ablaze, one arm frozen in the act of hurling a sheaf of wildflowers into the blank heart of London’s financial district.
“O frabjous day,” Angela cried. “We’re amphibious!”
Well, not exactly. The duck boat was indeed a 6-wheeled WWII surplus amphibious transport vehicle converted to tourism use, but at the moment only half the tires, those on the right side, were operational, causing the vehicle to slew sideways rather than mount the ramp.
“It’s your pneumatics, little buddy,” John said, pointing. “Separate controls.”
“No time, you sit,” Leo traded places, hefting the Widowmaker, which was about as long as he was tall, onto his own braided and epauletted shoulder. “10 seconds, Bob.”
John inflated the left side, threw the gears into full reverse, and, twisting the wheel to realign the boat, stepped on the gas. The duck boat surged backward, broke from the water, and plowed rear bumper foremost up the incline like the Allies re-taking Normandy beach. It reached the crest and everybody cheered.
“We win!” Vinnie crowed, arms in the air.
“Ummm - what exactly did we win?” Jane said doubtfully, peering out the front windshield as the fireworks ended abruptly and an eerie smoke-filled silence reigned. As if in answer, two things happened simultaneously. The Lynx helicopter loomed suddenly and terrifyingly out of the obscuring haze. And every ear caught the sound of a low rumble that seemed to increase with each passing second.
“Not to worry, too close for a Skua,” John scoffed, “But remind me to tell you that I love you.”
“Sorry to be a Debby Downer, but I think he’s pivoting to give his door gunner a clear shot,” Jane said. “And remind me to tell you that the rabbit died.”
“There’s a Starbucks. And it’s open,” Angela said from the platform at the rear of the duck boat, facing away from the river and therefore mercifully oblivious to the brevity of her future. “How Repo Man is that? You’ll find one on every corner, kid. You’ll see,” she intoned.
“Let’s all go get a latte. Or something. I’m buying,” Vinnie called, his line of vision similarly obscured. He followed Angela down the steps and onto the cobbled street.
John and Jane stared after them. And then at each other. And then at the helicopter. As one, they dove for the back door, dodging the stairs to the roof, where Admiral Leo, his duck’s head restored, stood in brave if comical defiance, calmly sighting the Lynx through the Widowmaker’s laser scope.
They felt and heard rather than saw the thundering wall of water that came sweeping up the Thames, shaking the ground and washing over the bridges one by one, carrying boats, soldiers, debris, anything and everything in its path on a wild swirling ride from the Barrier to Battersea and beyond.
Leo fired just as the water struck. As he was preparing to pull the trigger, the front of the duck boat was rising imperceptibly up up up, on the outermost frothy edge of the approaching wave. Then came a final jarring punch, after which the duck boat paused, wavered, toyed with the idea of toppling, but decided to drop to terra firma again after all. The way the Lone Ranger’s horse used to rear and paw the air at the end of every episode. It all happened in a flash, sending Leo’s shot high and wide.
But the Lynx burst into flames and a shower of spare parts anyway.
27 Lost in Hollywood
“Did I hit anything?”
Leo lay on the ground, on his back, still in full duck regalia, his round cartoon head cradled in Angela’s feathered lap, a circle of worried faces above him.
“One shot,” John said promptly.
“One shot is what it’s all about, man,” Vinnie corroborated. “Unless we’re talking espresso.” He gestured with
his Starbucks cup.
“You’re so full of shit you’re going to float away,” Leo contradicted. “Nobody ever thinks of me as a badass.” He sat up and glared around accusingly.
“You can play dodgeball on my team anytime,” Jane said.
“I missed, I know I missed,” Leo insisted. “The world turned upside down.”
“Somebody at Skynet didn’t get the memo,” Jen put in, from behind. “IFF is now SIFF. A little transponder SNAFU. A failure to communicate between copter and missile control. So it was friendly fire, not you, my friend. We should drink a toast to the gods of complexity. Frappachino?” She held out a cardboard carry carton.
“As long as it’s not a short one,” Leo warned, getting testily to his orange, webbed feet.
“Never send a machine to do a man’s job. I keep saying,” John sighed. Jane opened her mouth and John hastened to correct himself. “Person. A person’s job. But what I want to know is - where did you find a flood on such short - er -“ Leo whipped his duck’s head toward John. “scant notice?”
Jen pointed to the camera crews, airstream trailers, and milling background actors close at hand. “New James Bond film. Number 23. ‘Skymall’ or something. Whitney got hold of the shoot schedule, which included closing the Thames Barrier for most of today, while the rest of the world was otherwise engaged. We just