Daring Dooz (The Implosion Trilogy (Book 2)) (27 page)

Chapter 62

The trip to
the Black Pool was uncomfortable to say the least. The jungle was thick and the
ground was rough. There were ravines, steep slopes and precipitous climbs and descents.
As contracted, Mick took video, and Jim took stills and recorded sounds coming
from the undergrowth.

Despite the
hostile environment, they had to admit that their own personal Lara Croft looked
amazing, as she hacked a path through the undergrowth, GPS in one hand and
razor-sharp machete in the other. Her lithe, sun-tanned body glistening with
health - although Mick was sure the perverts reading
Daring Dooz
might not be
that
concerned with how healthy she looked. And, when he thought about it for a
moment, that was a point of view he could readily understand.
 

Overnight camp
featured mosquitoes, strange howls, strangled cries and slithering noises throughout
the night. Jim wacked down a good half litre of GUA, and slept like a baby.
Mick did the same, but lay awake ‘til dawn. He’d never been deep diving in his
life. He did a snorkelling course about 20 years’ ago when he was on holiday in
Lanzarote, but was sure that didn't qualify him for what was about to happen.

The Daring
Dooz
Black
Pool Terror
notes
said these watering holes could be very, very deep. Mrs Hathaway had lent him
her diving manual and Giles, the bastard, had thoughtfully provided professional
quality underwater lights and a housing, which would protect a video camera
down to 300 feet.

And so the
journey continued, marked by Mrs Hathaway’s endless enthusiasm and energy and Mick
and Jim’s ability to trail, rather forlornly, in her wake. Towards the end of day
two, she stopped hacking, turned round to face them and announced.

‘Michael,
James, I’m pleased to say we’re just 100 yards from Daring Dooz Challenge Four.
It’s just up there.’

Mick turned
to Jim,
‘That’s
spiffing news, Lara
, but what if the tombs have already been raided?’

By now, Mrs
Hathaway had sensibly learned to ignore virtually everything Mick said.

‘We’ll
pitch the tents here.’

They did,
and it was just as bad as the night before. Mick was so worried that, at dawn,
he got up and trekked off to find the Black Pool, for himself.

By the time
he arrived back, Jim had had enough of acting as the
Plat du Nuit
for a thousand mosquitoes, and was up and scratching.

‘I bring
bad news, my liege,’ said Mick, with a faint smile.

‘Makes a
change.’

‘It’s the Black
Pool.’

‘And?’

‘It's black,
Jim, but not as we know it.’

Chapter 63

Mrs Hathaway squatted
down, ran her fingers across the surface of the Black Pool, and thought for a
few seconds.

‘It’s oil.’

‘Yes it is.
And no, we can't dive in it.’

‘What a pity,
I was
so
looking forward to it.’

‘So was I,’
said Mick.

The Black
Pool was only 20 feet across, and surrounded by scrub grasses. They took the
obligatory video and stills, just in case.

‘If I
remember my O-level geography,’ said Mick, ‘it’s called a seep - that means there’s
oil, probably lots of it, is leaking up from down below.’

‘I claim this
land, and all it’s mineral wealth on behalf of Implosion Productions,’ said
Jim, striking an imperious pose with one foot up on a small mound, and one hand
inside his jacket.

‘Might be a
bit too near the knuckle, my old
camembert.
There are lots of people who’d be
very
interested in the fact that this isn't a crystal clear pool, brimming with
unusual aquatic species.’

‘Well, I’m
not one,’ said Jim. ‘Let’s pack up and get back to the village.’

So they did.

Two days
later, as Mrs Hathaway hacked them a path through the last few hundred yards of
jungle, which seemed to have inconveniently repaired itself since they’d left,
they became aware there was no noise. No kids. No women singing as they worked.
No hubbub from the men as they sat in the shade, discussing the finer points of
the government’s five-year plan. Nothing.

They
straggled into the main central area of the village, and it was absolutely
deserted.

‘Hello!’ called
Mrs Hathaway. ‘Hello!’

Nothing.

‘Hamish!’
called Jim. ‘You there, Hamish?’

Nothing.

Then they
heard a click sound from somewhere under the long house.

‘Stand
still,’ said Mrs Hathaway. ‘That was a cock slide on an M16.’

There was
silence. Then a voice.

‘Pango
impressed
.’

A man
appeared holding a black, automatic rifle.

‘This M16,’
he said. ‘This cock slide.’

The Pango
person made a swift movement with his hand, there was an ominous click. They could
all tell the gun was ready for action.

He wore tight,
black, military-style overalls and a dirty red and white spotted bandana; he
had a small moustache and dark stubble. All in all, he looked decidedly
unpleasant.

‘Had nice
trip?’ he enquired, in a way which implied he didn't want to hear an answer.

‘Six fully
armed
bandidos
look after all your
friends in long house.’

‘Why are you
here?’ asked Mrs Hathaway.

‘We very
interest in Black Pool.’

‘It’s
nothing,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

‘No shit from
bull, lady person.’

Pango waved
the M16 in her general direction. He was close, but not close enough.

‘We buy
mineral rights off villagers, once we know where Black Pool is.’

‘They won't
sell.’

‘I make good
offer. I have money in back pocket.’

He pulled out
a grimy one-dollar bill and held it up above his head.

‘Maybe I pay
too much, but Pango has good heart, eh?’

‘That’s a
joke,’ said Mrs Hathaway.

‘No joke, ‘cos
then Pango sell exploration rights to highest bidder and live life of luxury
and filthy sexual behaviour.’

As Mick and
Jim, clutched one another and waited for the shooting to start, Mrs Hathaway
stepped forward.

‘Interesting
rifle,’ she said. ‘Is it an M16A2 or M16A3?’

‘It shoot
bullets, lots of them. That all I know. And that all you need know. Move.’

He indicated that
they move towards the long house entrance.

‘Alfonso!’ he
shouted, ‘it me, Pango. Open door.’

It was all
over in a flash.

Alfonso
opened the door and spat into the undergrowth. The anaconda struck like
lightning. He fell screaming to the ground. Pango’s mistake was to glance down as
the coils wrapped round Alfonso’s writhing body. Mrs Hathaway’s
karate chop found its mark.

‘Run!’ she shouted to Mick and Jim.

She picked up the M16, and ran for the pier.

One of Pango’s colleagues, who had been
taking a dump in the jungle strolled out onto the rough path just in time to get
in Mrs Hathaway’s way. Without stopping, she smacked him in the throat with the
butt of the rifle. He fell, unzipped, into the undergrowth.

Half way down the pier, she stopped and,
aiming high, sprayed bullets back towards the village. Mick and Jim threw
themselves on the ground.

She jumped into the dinghy, just as Mick
and Jim were being helped to their feet by kicks from the Pango’s colleague who
had recovered from having his alfresco evacuation so painfully disrupted.

Unlike every feature film you’ve ever
seen, the outboard motor fired first time and, within seconds, Mrs Hathaway was
at the Catalina. She made for the cockpit, leaned out and fired a final
discouraging burst. It did the trick.

The engines roared into life, and the Catalina
turned and headed down river en route for a perfect take-off.

*

When Mick and Jim were safely tied up
with the other villagers in the long house, Pango had recovered enough to stand
up and speak.

‘You heard what happened to Alfonso.
It’s sad. He was good man. Well really, he was nasty, sadistic bastard. But you
can’t have everything. Still, good news is, no need to bury him.’

The other bandits applauded the eulogy.

‘Right, back to work. Who head man?’

‘Thas me Jimmy,’ said Hamish, standing
up.

‘Speak English?’

‘Aye.’

Pango looked a little confused, but
pressed on.

‘Tomorrow, you take me to Black Pool. Get
GPS reading, then make offer you no refuse. Hey!’

‘Fokyouz Jimmy ya greet
fannybaws
.’

‘Glad you agree!’ said Pango. ‘6am
start. Oh, and anyone try escape, we shoot and feed to big snake. Sleep tight.’

The armed men stood around guarding the
villagers, while Pango went off to sleep in Hamish’s office.

‘Reckon Mrs H showed her true colours
mate,’ whispered Mick to Jim.

‘There’s no way
she’s
coming back,’ said Jim ‘
And
she’s got the fucking sat phone - and we’ve got
nothing
.’

‘Yeah,’ said Mick. ‘What can you expect
- she’s on 2 million, we’re on 100,000 each - no contest.’

‘Hey, you two,’ shouted one of the
guards. ‘Shut fuck up!’

‘Sorry,’ said Mick, ‘we were just counting
our blessings.’

Chapter 64

The next
morning, while Hamish was getting ready for his trip to the Black Pool, Mick
and Jim were discussing their next move. Everyone had heard of the anaconda
strike, so even popping out for a quick bit of intestinal or bladder relief was
fraught with danger.

‘I reckon
they’ll do the deal, ship us all out, and that’ll be that. Just a slow canoe
down to the nearest town and the whole thing’ll be over.’

‘Yeah,’ said
Mick, ‘but this village is these people’s
lives
.
What are they going do in some town? And they can't come back; this place’ll be
full of oil platforms, pipelines, processing plants and good ol’ boys wearing
Stetsons. National Geographic will get them all to grow beards and have tattoos
and make a TV series called
Snake Oil
Hustlers
.’

‘OK,’ said
Jim, ‘but can't we think of
ourselves
,
for once.’

‘That’s all
we ever do!’

‘OK, then’
said Jim, ‘
you
think of something.’

‘Maybe I
could let a big one rip and paralyse the guards for a couple of minutes, so we
can make our escape.’

‘Where to? I
don't fancy being next on that anaconda’s snack list, and Zac’s boat is
three-quarters submerged and full of caiman.’

This
depressing analysis of their position ended as Pango came in with Hamish.
‘Right we’re off! See you - four days. Be good persons.’

‘Jim,’ said
Mick, ‘reach in my pocket, there’s a flask with some GUA left in it.’

With some
fumbling, they both managed to remove the flask and lift it to their lips.

‘A toast,’
said Mick. ‘To Mrs Hathaway - not even a quarter of the woman we thought.’

‘To Mrs
Hathaway,’ said Jim, ‘she’s probably in Las Vegas by now, widdling it up the one-arm
bandits.’

Suddenly, it
all got too much for him.

‘So, Tallulah
bloody Hathaway,’ he bawled at the top of his voice, ‘up yours, you miserable
old cow!’

This was
dangerous talk, very dangerous talk, because, if he’d shouted just a little bit
louder, Mrs Hathaway would have been able to hear every single word.

Chapter 65

The Thames
looked lovely. Giles gazed out across the sunlit city, having just finished a very
satisfactory meeting with the senior partner from his accountants. The poor man
was so excited by the
Daring Dooz
financial
results, his doctor had had to put him on tranquilisers.

If the Atlantic
shark-bashing story had gone down a storm, the time-warp tunnel was in the
hurricane league. And as for the ‘croc hanging on the boots over the waterfall’
story - well ‘apocalyptic’ would be too mild a word.

The key had
been YouTube. Giles now had fifty million people watching his channel featuring
Tallulah’s exploits. And the conversion rate from viewers to
Daring Dooz
subscribers was incredible.
Mrs Hathaway had virtually doubled the readership - and his profits. And there
was more to come.

And he was
right. There
was
more to come. But in
no way, shape or form was it the ‘more to come’ Giles anticipated. The
immediate future would be unlike anything he, or his readers, had ever experienced.

And as so
often with these sorts of things, it started with a telephone call.

‘Giles?’

‘Tallulah!’

‘We’re in
trouble.’

‘What sort of
trouble?’ said Giles, breaking out in goose bumps.

She told him
the whole story, finishing with how she’d taken the Catalina round the first
bend in the river and anchored up so she could make the call.

‘What can we
do? They’re holding Mick, Jim and the villagers hostage, while the main villain
is off with the headman, Hamish, to get the co-ordinates of the Black Pool. So
we have about four days to come up with something.’

There was
nothing Giles could say. This was out of his league. In business, if things got
tough, there were empty words and phrases you could use to get you to the end
of the day and a good drink down some trendy city watering hole.

This was real
people in a desperate situation, All he could say was, ‘Don’t worry, Tallulah,
keep in touch. I’ll think of something.’

The call
ended. Giles sat down. And couldn’t think of anything.

There hadn’t
been problems like this, before. He’d had some initial worries about getting
the contract set up quickly, before he got betamaxed by someone else with a similar,
fighting-mad, old bird. But since then, it had just been a matter of sourcing
the yacht, the Catalina and the supplies, and working out the challenges. And all
that
took was an international marketing
and procurement team and lots of money - both of which he had.

But lives were
hanging in the balance, and, for the first time since the project began, he
felt powerless. He couldn't talk to his marketing team. He couldn't talk to the
authorities in Brazil, they might go in with helicopter gunships and there’d be
a bloodbath, plus the whole scheme was illegal, and he could see the court
battles going on for years.

He went back
to look at the view across London, hoping for some inspiration. None. He gnawed
his knuckles. Nothing. He picked up a copy of
Daring Dooz
with the front cover showing a bikini-clad Mrs Hathaway
piloting the Catalina through a time vortex filled with colossal electronic
discharges. Not a thing.

His mind was
a desert - with not even a small piece of tumbleweed blowing across the frame. Then,
after ten minutes of staring blankly at this arid, lifeless landscape, it happened.

On the
horizon, he noticed a small cloud of dust. Was it a figment of his imagination?
Was it a mirage? Or was it an idea getting nearer? The cloud of dust got larger
and larger until out of the sandy clouds emerged a small delivery van. On the
side of the van were the words ‘
Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Agency - Swansea’. And out of the van stepped a spotty
youth wearing a ‘Tallulah Rules!’ t-shirt. Giles had never seen him before, but
he knew who he was - and he knew what he had to do.

Within seconds, he’d emailed splatter69, his first Daring Dooz subscriber.
The email said there was a serious situation going on with Mrs Hathaway, and
she needed help, quickly.

Within seconds, Splatter emailed back with a number where Giles could
reach him.

‘Splatter?’

‘Mr
Montagu-Scott!
I’d just like to say how fantastic your magazine is - and that Mrs Hathaway,
what a girl - eh!’

‘Thank you,’
said Giles pointedly. ‘But this is life and death stuff.’

‘Fire away.’

Despite
wishing Splatter hadn't used that term, Giles launched into the full story,
finishing with a rather pathetic, ‘Got any ideas?’

Giles had
forgotten how Daring Dooz readers tended to be incompetent dreamers for whom
the arrival of his magazine was the highlight of their month.

‘Why don't we
all go over there and gang up on ‘em,’ said Splatter in a matter of fact way.

Giles nearly
put the phone down.

‘Splatter, my
old mate, you don't seem to understand, there are five or six bandits and they
mean business.’

‘So, you
think Daring Doozers
don't
mean
business.’

‘Well, er- no,
but…’

‘…but
nothing
, if you’ll pardon my French.
This is
our
magazine, Mrs Hathaway is
our
hero. Even Aubrey’s got a little
fan base, on the side. And I know, ‘cos I have 3 million Daring Doozers as Facebook
fans and they all love her to bits. We’re talking about her
all
day,
every
day.’

‘But it’s in
the middle of the Amazon jungle.’

‘OK, so we get to
Manaus International. You
can get a boat up river, takes about a week.’

Giles was impressed with
Splatter’s knowledge of the Amazonian transportation infrastructure, but he
countered with, ‘But we’ve only got
four
days!’

‘Right,’ said Splatter.
‘Then we fly ‘em in. Get everyone to Manaus, so Mrs H can pick ‘em up in the
Catalina.

‘It would only hold ten
people, at most.’

There was a pause while
Splatter digested this information. Then he spoke. You could feel the camera zooming
in for a big close-up.

‘We’re going to need a bigger
flying boat.’

Giles, thought about that
for a second, then said, ‘Splatter, I’ll do whatever it takes.’ Although, he
had no idea what.

‘I’ll stick a message on Facebook,
asking ‘em to get to Manaus on vital Daring Dooz business - two days max.’

‘And I’ll get
headquarters to send the message out to our subscriber email list - must be
about four or five million.’

‘Great,’ said Splatter. ‘I
tell you, Daring Doozers can make your average couch potatoes look like hunting
cheetahs, but I reckon if it’s Tallulah up the duff, you’ll get plenty of
takers. Most of them do sod all, apart from computer games and facebook. This
could be their chance to get out there and do something useful. Not just do ‘something’.
Something useful for Mrs H and the mag.’

‘What about
you
, Splatter, can
you
make it?’

‘Ah well,’ said Splatter,
‘it’s X Factor Revisited on the telly, and I wouldn't want to miss it.’

There was a pause.

‘Only joking - just I’m
brassic.’

‘I’ll pay for a taxi to
Heathrow, and whatever flights it takes.’

‘You’re on,’ said
Splatter, ‘I got some holiday due - take about an hour to fix - so, as soon as
you’re ready.’

 
‘My people will sort out the details. I’ll
have a satellite phone ready for you at check in - so we can keep in touch. I
want you to organise the Daring Doozers as they come into Manaus, get them on
the flying boat and save the day.’

Giles phoned HQ, dictated
the email message for the five million subscribers, and asked them to make all
necessary travel arrangements for Splatter - absolutely no expense spared.

He felt he’d ticked all
the boxes, apart from one.

Where the
hell
was he going to get a large flying
boat?

He sat down and looked in
vain for inspiration from the London skyline.

It was then he realised there
was another box he hadn't ticked.

In all the excitement, he’d
forgotten to mention to Splatter that the five or six bandits were armed to the
teeth with high-powered automatic weapons.