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Her mouth
remained wide open, the ultrasound continued - she casually looked
around. She got to her feet and considered running… somewhere… out
of audible range of the base. Unfortunately Nuttall annoyingly had
a kind of sixth sense.

‘
Don’t think
of going anywhere or its phobia time,
’ said Nuttall failing
completely to be nice.

Madeline did as
she was told. She helplessly watched all the trucks drive off the
base whilst the guards stood motionless, slightly swaying in the
breeze. After twenty nine minutes her mouth closed, at last she
could talk properly, so she said something.

‘Nuttall, you
are a complete bastard.’

Almost
immediately the soldiers snapped out of their hypnotic state,
quickly got there bearings, raced over to Madeline and arrested
her.

It may have
been a daring and ambitious robbery but there seemed to be a couple
of glaring absurdities that even Madeline had foreseen: Firstly,
the convoy of trucks would be blatantly conspicuous and couldn’t
possibly get very far in just 29 minutes. Secondly, if the trucks
did manage to get away, what the hell, would they do with near on
three thousand gold bars. Who would be brave or insane enough to
take them off their hands?

Madeline went
quietly, she saw no reason to fight, complain or struggle. Clearly
the on site CCTV would show that she had no part in the crime other
than sit there in the splits with her mouth wide open. She had to
be questioned, that was procedure. Once again she found herself in
a small holding room with nothing else to do but continue watching
Prisoner Cell Block H.

As predicted
the six trucks were found no more than fifteen miles away, all
lined up and deserted. There was an overwhelming sense of relief by
all concerned. The gold was surely still inside. It wouldn’t have
been possible to remove, transfer or dispose of 360 tons of gold in
such a short time. At first glance, it appeared to be a very daring
but pointless robbery.

Eventually,
after patiently waiting two hours for several top security guards
to arrive, the police wrenched open the first of the trailers rear
doors - to their utter disbelief, it was completely empty. This was
the case for all the other five trucks, the gold had gone. Not a
single bar remained. It was rapidly developing into the crime of
the century – perhaps millennium.

Everyone put it
down to a trick of the light but the leaves on the countless beech
trees either side of the road seemed to radiate a distinct golden
tinge in the sunlight.

Chapter 35: A
fake Irish accent

In a motel room
somewhere insignificant, a television was playing to itself,
showing the Vixen News channel. Carol, the news girl was especially
excited with the latest news flash.

‘
Good
evening. We start with breaking news about a gold heist at Fort
Knox. Let go over to Bernard Carp who is at the scene. What can you
tell us about the robbery, Berny?’

‘
Good
evening Carol. Well this may well indeed, turn out to be the
robbery of all time. Many of the pieces are now being put together.
It has been revealed that a total of three thousand, I repeat,
three thousand gold bars were stolen from the vault. That’s
approximately eighteen billion dollars worth, right under the noses
of the security staff.’

‘
Do they
know where it has been taken?’
asked Carol.

‘
This is
where the whole thing gets surreal. The gold was loaded into six
trucks which were found just fifteen miles down the road.’

‘
So they’ve
found the gold then?’

‘
No, the
trucks were empty, all the gold had gone.’

‘
What, all
three thousand bars?’

‘
Apparently…
Hang on a second, there seems to be developments. The director of
the bullion depository is about to comment…’

‘
Today
between 14:35 and 15:00 hours a large quantity of gold ingots were
stolen from the depository. An estimated 360 tons of 24 carat gold
was loaded into six trucks. These trucks have been found but the
gold has gone. Scientists are now investigating a theory involving
corrosive liquids stored in tanks in the roofs of the trailers. It
is feasible that a mixture of acids known as aqua Regis could under
ideal conditions, possibly disperse the gold but at the moment this
is pure conjecture. This is an unprecedented event and as yet we
are amiss to know why this has been done. Are there any
questions?’

‘
Bernard
Carp, Vixen News. The closing markets today have shown a huge hike
in the price of world gold stocks. Anyone owning gold has benefited
immensely out of this crime wouldn’t you say?’

‘
I can’t
comment on that.’

‘
Bernard
Carp, Vixen News again, apparently a British Agent Madeline Bull
was on the scene at the time and may be involved, can you confirm
this?’

‘
Miss Bull
was indeed in the complex at the time and is been held for
questioning although CCTV shows that she played no part in the
robbery.’

‘
That may be
so Director, but isn’t it true that trouble always seems to follow
the British agent Madeline Bull around…?’
probed Bernard.

‘…
Any
further questions?’
interrupted the Director.

The camera
panned away from the Director, Carol had a much more important
question to ask.

‘
Berny, does
any one know what Madeline was wearing?’

‘
Yes
apparently a short pleated maroon skirt, short grey leather jacket
with tassels and high heel grey leather boots,’
said Bernard
pertinently.

‘
Hmm,
tassels. They must be in then?’
said Carol intrigued.

‘
Yes and the
latest colours, maroon and grey,’ said Berny, thoughtfully.

‘So that’s
where you are!’ said someone putting on a false Irish voice, in the
insignificantly located Motel room.

For the first
time Madeline was disillusioned, defeated, disheartened and many
other words beginning with D. Any one of her weapons would be
sufficient to get her out of the holding room but what was the
point. Where would she go? What would she do? She was trapped by
her phobia. She didn’t want to be burnt, cooked, poached or singed
ever again – she would rather die than go through anything like
that again.

Nuttall was
presumably listening to her every word so she had to be careful
what she said to the interrogators. She couldn’t spill the beans.
She couldn’t mention the fact that everyone one was subconsciously
programmed and could be made to do anything by an ultrasound sound
emitted by her mouth. All she could say was that she just happened
to be there whilst the robbery was taking place. Naturally this
wasn’t enough of an explanation. She dearly wanted to tell them
everything but she couldn’t - not until she had figured out a way
of ousting Nuttall from inside her head.

The holding
room, as confinements went, wasn’t all that bad. She was well
looked after and had a comfy bed. The officers, guards and staff
were all nice and friendly – some of the officers, guards and staff
were a little too friendly. All in all she quite happily could have
stayed there for weeks but she knew eventually she have to make a
move. She could no longer have a friendly chat with Barton and
thoughts of Adam were particularly upsetting. A visit by her fairy
Godmother was seriously overdue - never more so did she need her
now.

What was mildly
puzzling was the lack of response from the top USA officials. After
all, she had saved the world from world war III and/or Armageddon
which hadn’t been particularly easy. To do this, she had been
dropped out of a plane from some ridiculous height, frozen to death
in the coldest place on Earth, shot at and generally been put out
and maltreated - and this was the thanks she got. Surely the
defence secretary, the vice President or event he President would
have taken the initiative and straightened things out and got her
released. But then it dawned on her, this time it wasn’t just war,
destruction and perhaps Armageddon, the US reserves were now down
by 18 billion dollars and that was altogether more serious, they
really were pist off this time.

On the forth
day she was told that she was to be collected and taken elsewhere.
Most likely to a more secure prison. Shortly, a secure police van
awaited her presence. Just one officer with a large moustache and
baldish head mostly hidden with a police cap escorted her into the
back of the van. The van then drove off erratically with Madeline
in almost complete darkness in the back.

Madeline had
been in this position before but that time she was chained up. This
time she was free to use any weapon she wanted. She decided that if
she was lauched two feet in the air once more, she would act. It
happened; it wasn’t going to be particularly good for the
driver.

‘Nuttall, do
you know where they’re taking me? Nuttall!’

No reply came
back, this was very interesting indeed. At that moment the van
screeched to a halt. Seconds later the rear door slightly opened,
the officer squeezed through the gap and closed the door behind
him. For a few seconds both the officer and Madeline were in almost
total darkness.

‘Doesn’t this
thing have windows?’ complained Madeline.

‘No but there’s
a light switch somewhere…’

The voice
sounded definitely familiar but it was disguised using a fake Irish
accent.

‘Arr… he we
are,’ said the officer, finding the light switch.

Madeline was
dazzled for a few seconds but quickly the large moustache and ill
fitting cap came into view. The officer said no more, he didn’t
have to. The removal of the false moustache and cap said it
all.

‘Well… you took
your time!’

Adam couldn’t
really say much for a moment, Madeline’s lips were getting in the
way. Eventually he got a word in…

‘Tell me I’m
good.’

‘You’re good…
How did you… Nuttall, he’s bad… he’s listening!’

‘No he isn’t.
We’re totally screened, even covered the windows up in tin
foil!’

‘Thank God for
that! Nuttall you’re a bastard, a shitting putrid turd and I’m
going to kill you painfully and slowly! God, that felt good.’

Nothing came
back. Her head was silent, not even a tremble from her nemesis.

‘So how…?’ said
Madeline very nearly speechless.

‘How did I
escape?’

‘Well, yes.
Last time I saw you, you were getting in a cab with Zol… Pidem and
that Bream woman.’

‘Strange pair…
I asked them if they knew a decent hotel where I could stay. They
said they’d take me to one. Whilst in the back seat I thought I’d
go online and read up on this Zol Pidem chap. Turns out he’s one of
the riches people in the world, a multi billionaire, he owns more
gold than Britain.

‘So that’s what
the gold heist was all about!’ said Madeline thoughtfully.

‘It seems so;
he’s certainly benefited from the increase the value of gold.
Anyway, he’s a clever chap, went to Cambridge university, did a
paper on…’

‘…The
subliminal effects of ultrasound over large distances by any
chance?’

interrupted
Madeline.

‘Oh, you
knew.’

‘Had to do
something to pass the time away.’

‘Well, when I
found all that out, I suspected he was most likely behind all this
brainwashing. I had to get out. First set of traffic lights on red
and I made a run for it. Since then I’ve been keeping a low
profile.’

‘You could have
let me know.’

Madeline played
back the recording of Adam clearly in pain. The sound projected
from Madeline’s open mouth:

‘
Madeline…
please… save the world. I love you… and… always will… my
darling,
’‘My Darling! I never say that! Sounds nothing like me
anyway, fancy falling for that,’ said Adam.

‘Well next time
I won’t… even if it is you!’

The banter gave
way to matters a little closer to their hearts – well not exactly
their hearts but what was between their legs. They both knew they
hadn’t a lot of time together – they had to make the most of it.
There was nothing soft in the back of the police van but that
didn’t matter. It wasn’t particularly clean either but as long as
Madeline was on top, that didn’t matter either.

Madeline did
occasionally wonder why she was so ravenous for sex… making love,
as she would always call it. Of course it had to be with Adam… most
of the time. If she didn’t know better, it was though she was on
heat… all the time. Perhaps androids don’t have a sexual cycle -
just permanently receptive, she thought.

‘Can’t be out
of radio contact too long or Nuttall will get suspicious. You know
he’s got Barton…’ said Madeline.

‘Thought he
might have,’ said Adam.

‘And he’s
threatened to cook me in my tank if I don’t tow the line.’

‘Figured as
much.’

‘Anything else
you’ve worked out?’ asked Madeline curtly.’

‘Well, that
£60,000 watch… saw the exact same one on eBay for £150. Pretty
obvious he was trying to trick you.’

‘You’re getting
a right old Sherlock, aren’t you?’

‘I suppose I
better make tracks, where do you reckon I should start?’

‘I can
recommend Barton’s Meats in Buxton… Do you mind if I keep the van?’
Madeline gently pleaded.

‘Now how did I
know you were going to ask that? …Okay, time to duff me up.’ Adam
winced in prepared for pain.

Of course,
Madeline couldn’t possibly do that. She put his moustache and cap
back on, gave him another lingering kiss and pushed him very gently
out of the back door.