From Molek’s vantage point inside the Caddy, the situation couldn’t have looked worse than if Nepo opted to haul a cartload of hay through a firestorm. At any rate, the moment had come for him to bale on his cherished (but expendable) bird. A corpulent coward such as Molek only reacted quickly when his ass depended upon it. Therefore, he scooted into the driver’s seat and started the car’s engine. Of course there still was a matter of dislodging the vehicle from the muddy hole it dug for itself; this task left the car’s wheels spinning futilely. But this didn’t stall Molek’s bid to escape.
Meanwhile, Nepo was prepared to relinquish a few feathers in order to avert capture or a worse fate. What the bird failed to observe, however, was that her jerky movement on the tree’s branch agitated one of the beehives positioned directly above her. After the bees swarmed around her, Nepo finally freed herself from the sap. But when she went airborne again with the weapon in tow, her speed slowed down considerably. The bees were now ready to turn her plumage into a pincushion.
“They’ve got your number now!” Bruce barked. “Those bees are gonna have you sulkin’ like Culkin at the end of My Girl, Macaw-ly!”
If Nepo hoped to elude the bees, she determined that she had no other option but to drop the gun from her talons. After doing so, the gun hit the ground within three feet from where Mason fell. He hadn’t budged a centimeter since the bees’ first strike. But a flinch of his fingertips proved that he wasn’t yet dead. The possibility of reclaiming the gun might’ve given him a slim chance at retaliation.
With the gun no longer a burden, Nepo pitched her angle of flight higher above the trees and avoided sharing space with Mason on the forest’s floor. When the bees broke off from chasing her, she changed her trajectory and flew toward the Caddy. Molek hadn’t yet managed to move the car more than ten feet in reverse.
“They’re getting away!” Mark bellowed.
Bruce and Kip restarted their pursuit toward the Caddy, but it was the beagle that showcased the boldest and fastest set of skills. Kip couldn’t even keep pace with the dog.
“He’s running like a greyhound,” Bella remarked as she tore the duct tape from Wint’s mouth and hands.
“Go, Bruce, go!” Mark hollered.
Bruce centered on Molek’s Caddy with a resiliency that stunned even his staunchest devotees. He might’ve even made it to the car without halting his stride if it wasn’t for an unexpected show of perseverance by an unlikely foe. Mason popped up from the earth like a creation by George Romero, and he presently looked deader than anything that ever wriggled from a crypt. His face was bloated beyond recognition from the amount of bee stings he absorbed. If another comparison was needed, Bruce thought he looked like John Merrick in barely living color.
Mason wagged the gun in front of Bruce as if he was as happy as a pooch to see him. “Did you really think your killer bees could get the best of me?” Mason moaned. His mouth was so swollen that he hardly managed to enunciate a rhetorical thought.
“Take it easy, Dumbo,” Bruce said, while braking with his front paws to avoid crashing into the injured agent. “Drop the gun and let’s settle this like you’re a human being. After all, it doesn’t fit you to act like an animal, right?”
“I am not an animal!” Mason roared.
“We’ve already established that, so just step down from your ivory tower and we’ll talk. You’ve got more lumps than a burlap potato sack, but there’s no sense in anyone else getting hurt,” Bruce negotiated.
“I beg to differ,” Mason grimaced. “Does today feel like it’s a good day to die, Bruce?”
“Can you ask me that again tomorrow?”
“Never.”
“Somehow I knew you were gonna say that.”
Because of his proximity to the gun’s barrel, Bruce had no chance to avoid a pointblank assault by Mason. The beagle only prayed that Mason’s aim was as unsteady as his social life. Bruce failed to see Kip rushing up behind him in a full sprint, however, and it was this action that changed the course of forthcoming events.
“Kip, stay back!” Bruce yapped. This warning served more as a reflexive response, and arrived far too late to stop Kip’s heroic surge. As Mason squeezed the gun’s trigger, Kip courageously launched his own body between the bullet and Bruce. Mason fired again, but a resounding click from his firearm foretold the end for him. He collapsed to one side and became still again—this time apparently for good. But he wasn’t the only one in immediate peril.
Kip’s effort to save Bruce proved successful, but it didn’t come without a burden. The bullet hit Kip in his chest. He subsequently rolled over in the dirt and remained static on the ground. Bella was already coming up behind them, while Mark and Wint concentrated on Molek’s position. Bruce abandoned his mission to stop the Caddy straightaway. He scrambled over to his partner to help him.
Bella kneeled on the ground next to Kip as Bruce sniffed his ear. Both of them prepared for the worse scenario. Barring some unforeseen miracle, no one could have survived taking a bullet to the torso at that close range. But when the beagle’s cold nose touched Kip’s neck, he rolled over. Bella readied for a gapping wound, but there was none visible. No blood was on Kip or the ground. A bullet hole in the breast pocket of Kip’s pirate shirt was the only evidence of a direct hit.
“Are you hurt?” Bella asked him.
Kip delayed his response. He was still lightheaded, but otherwise breathing normally with no apparent injury. “What happened?” he said groggily.
“You were shot,” Bella said, but then she felt inside his pocket and pulled out a tin of shoe polish. The bullet was lodged in the center of the wax. Neither Bella nor Bruce believed their eyes.
“Holy Shinola!” Bruce decried. “Where did that come from?”
“Mark must’ve given it to him,” Bella mused. “He supplies all new field agents with an expired canister of shoe wax. Sort of like a good luck charm, I guess.”
“What is this—MacGuffins-R-Us?” Bruce said.
Kip sat up and smiled at his good fortune. “Honestly, I forgot that can was in my pocket,” he said.
“Well, the best spies are never smarter than they are lucky,” Bella declared.
No one was inclined to argue the point, but it still wasn’t slap-on-the-back time. Mark and Wint had not let this moment of good fortune overshadow the larger problem looming in the background. Molek had managed to free the car’s tires from the mud, and he had no problem with the motto ‘live to fight another day’, particularly when it was assured that someone else was engaged in the fighting.
“He’s getting away!” Mark shouted. Wint, of course, was quick on his feet, but even quicker in the brain. He realized that they couldn’t catch the car while it was in motion. Almost by accident, Wint tripped on Arma 937. The drone still remained on the ground in a nonresponsive state, but that was something Wint aimed to change in a matter of seconds. Perhaps with the right amount of tinkering, Arma might serve as a useful combatant after all.
“I always wanted to see how one of these things worked,” Wint said as he picked up the robot. After flipping the drone over to inspect its mechanisms, he realized that a single red wire on its undercarriage had snapped in half. This technical surgery required little more than a splice job, and Wint was more than a hobbyist when it came to fixing things with electronic gadgetry. Within seconds, he mended the wire and Arma lit up like a talking head on CNN. The robot’s amber eyes ignited and it once again became operational. Wint twiddled with one final adjustment by changing Arma’s tracking device to ‘heat-seeking’ mode. Unfortunately for Molek, his gas-guzzling Caddy threw off the most energy in the forest right now.
All Wint needed to do was set Arma back on the ground and release it. The robot paused momentarily; then rumbled off in the direction of the Caddy as if it had a fishing line attached to the end of the car’s bumper.
“This should be good,” Wint said to Mark. “You might want to cover your ears.”
“Do you think it’ll blow up th
is time?” Mark asked, while cupping his ears with his palms. Wint shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t say anything. Sometimes it was just better to take the wait-and-see approach.
Molek was accustomed to having things work out in his favor. After Nepo flew back to him safely and he managed to get the car moving, he figured the Higher Powers must’ve coddled him once again. He planned to show his gratitude back at the Grove’s altar. Another effigy of something burning in the woods seemed to appease those whom he believed watched over him. Unbeknownst to Molek, however, he was a lot closer to becoming a centerpiece to an even bigger bonfire.
Nepo still picked a few bees out of her plumage as Molek drove along the trail. She wasn’t yet convinced that they were as safe as her leader presumed.
“Aren’t you going to try and stop them?” Nepo asked him.
“They’ve had enough for today,” Molek said. “If I learned one thing in my life as a Boho, it’s that you don’t have to try as hard as the little people when you’re already sitting at the top of the world.”
Nepo might’ve taken those words to heart had it not been for what she espied in the car’s rearview mirror. Arma 937 rumbled up fast behind them.
“We may need to rethink our strategy,” Nepo advised.
“Hogwash. Let me make the major decisions. I appreciate your input, but it’s man before macaw. That’s the natural order of things. Is that understood?”
“Oh, surely, sir,” Nepo said. “But is it man before armadillo, too?”
“What are you squawking about?” Molek peered into the rearview mirror, and by the time he saw the drone closing in on their vehicle, it was much too late to outmaneuver it.
“It’s Agent Oranger’s drone, sir!” Nepo cried.
“Well, what do you know about that?” Molek huffed in disbelief. “That moron finally engineered something that might actually work.”
“We’re doomed!” Nepo screeched.
“Nepo, may your bird song be our swan song,” Molek sighed.
Mark and Wint stopped their pursuit after it became certain that Arma had the finishing touches of this chase well under control. They couldn’t see the Caddy or hear its engine any longer, but an ensuing explosion took (and shook) the mystery out of what happened next. Smoke and flames burst through the treetops, and an aftermath of twisted metal and bird feathers rained down over the clearing.
“Holy holes,” Bruce grizzled. “That explosion had to make a deeper impact than Tommy Lee did on Pamela.”
“I think that drone got them both!” Bella shouted.
“Well, you know what they say,” Bruce mentioned. “Birds of a feather are flocked together.”
The dust settled, and Bella and Kip embraced. This jubilant exchange didn’t go unnoticed by Bruce, but now was not the time to expose his jealously. If all was as it seemed, and smoke and fire usually indicated a victory for those standing on its fringes, then the threat of Molek and company had fizzled. Well, almost. There was still the matter of saving one particular beagle from a meltdown of life-ending proportions.
Bella checked her watch. She estimated that they still had about fifteen minutes before the final bell tolled on Bruce.
“I need to get the demagnetizer,” she said to Bruce. “Your chip is almost spent.”
“How much time do I have left?” Bruce asked.
“Just enough.” Bella stood up and sprinted toward the bunker. “I’ll be right back.”
Kip and Bruce watched the woman as she ran; their eyes never made it beyond her wiggling hips.
“That’s what I always admired about you, Kip,” Bruce said. “Even when facing death, you’re still thinking about burying only part of your body.”
“What are you talkin’ about now?”
“Oh, we don’t have to pretend anymore. Your eyes are on her bleep like maggots on scrap meat.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“As plain as the tooth on my muzzle.”
“I’m such a goofball,” Kip huffed.
Kip suddenly appeared bashful; his cheeks turned redder than a ripe radish. Bruce, of course, wasn’t about to let the opportunity to harass his friend go by the wayside. “What’s the matter? You’re looking more sheepish than Little Bo Peep.”
“I guess I’m just being ridiculous,” Kip admitted. “Bella would never date a guy like me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, stumpy.”
“Seriously, do you really think a woman like her would ever go out with a guy like me?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen stranger pairings. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley spring to mind.”
“You’re right, Bruce. They were a very odd couple.”
“Not as odd as the Klugman and Randall, but I concur.”
“So you think I gotta chance with her?” Kip’s voice perked up like he had just awakened from a romantically induced coma.
“I don’t see why not. Then again, I thought Mike Tyson and Robin Givens were soul mates.”
“Maybe if I had some facial hair, not like a full beard or anything, but do you think I’d look good with a five o’clock shadow?”
“Only in the winter.”
“Why only then?”
“Because it’d be dark by five and nobody would be able to see how ridiculous you really look.”
“Oh, come on, Bruce. Most women like a ruggedly handsome guy. Remember Matt Houston?”
“Kip, forget Houston. You’re about as virile as San Francisco in June.”
“I think I’d turn some heads with a little goatee.”
“You’re gonna need something bigger than a goatee.”
“Like what?”
“Like a ram.”
“You’re not exactly building my confidence, you know.”
“Hey, if you want a pep talk go see Joel Osteen,” Bruce advised. “As for this beagle, I’m keeping it real.”
Mark and Wint continued to inspect the environs on the slim chance that Molek managed to avoid Arma’s shell-shocking attack. They couldn’t find anything that resembled a human being, but Wint did return to Bruce and Kip with a handful of charred hippie beads. As for Nepo, the feathers scattered about the terrain pretty much guaranteed that this bird had mottled for the last time.
“We couldn’t find much left of Molek or the macaw,” Mark said.
Bruce blew a white feather from the tip of his nose. “At least we know that’s one macaw-ly who wasn’t droned alone,” he said. Wint then spilled the beads in front of the beagle’s paws. They plopped like owl pellets on the ground.
“I don’t think Hooty’s coming back for an encore performance either,” Wint noted.
“I gotta give ya your props,” Bruce commended. “It looks like you’ve got a clue after all, Mr. Greene.”
“I just like to roll the dice and see what happens,” Wint said.
“As long as you don’t do it in the conservatory with a candlestick, that’s fine by me.”
Chapter 34