Luger at me.
“Hands
up, Overkill,” said the world famous British Secret Service Agent Fred Foster.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I had heard of
Fred Foster, of course. Everyone had. He was Britain’s most famous and
successful “double-oh” spy. So famous he wasn’t a very good spy anymore. It’s
almost impossible to sneak up on an enemy when you’re surrounded by screaming
fans and writers waving spec scripts. Try it.
And he wasn’t
much use as a spy anymore anyway, even without the fame. The fabulous Cold War
lifestyle he had led all those years had finally caught up with him. His liver
was shot – one drink and he would completely lose control of his motor
functions – and he couldn’t lay in wait successfully anymore because of his
smoker’s cough, (“I think the coughing is coming from behind this bush,
Alexei”). And his eyesight was starting to fail him, but he was too vain to
wear the giant clown glasses his eyes required.
Foreign agents
were well aware of all these faults, of course. They no longer feared Foster.
To them, he was just a joke. Eventually even the British Secret Service became
aware of his physical problems, when they captured some enemy jokebooks.
He was sent to
rehab several times, but it never did any good. He just came back drunker and a
bigger and funnier joke than before. And every time he was sent out on an
assignment, the British Empire got smaller.
Finally his
license to kill was suspended, and he stopped getting the plum assignments. To
his mortification, he watched younger agents with better functioning livers and
bladders getting all the glamorous assignments, while he was reduced to opening
the door of MI5 for them as they bowled off on their next action-filled
adventure.
I found out later
that he had begged as a personal favor from his old friend Z, who ran the
Secret Service now that the rest of the alphabet was dead, to give him one last
chance and let him handle the Overkill matter. That favor had been reluctantly
granted, and now here he was standing in my chili.
“I’m not
Overkill,” I said.
“Maybe not, but my
supervisor won’t know the difference. Hands in the air.”
I was aware of
his current reputation. I held my arms straight out from my sides like I was
welcoming my wandering boy home. “You mean like this?”
“No,” he said,
raising his hands high in the air, “like this.”
He overbalanced
badly and fell backwards onto the table where he instantly fell asleep in the
forks. I snapped my fingers and my guards picked him up and carried him away.
I didn’t have him
thrown in the dungeon. I’d seen enough Fred Foster Secret Agent movies to know
that a super villain, which is what I was now, I guess, was supposed to treat
enemy agents like honored guests. Give them a fancy room, let them hobnob with
your beautiful women, and get a good long look at all your defenses and secret
plans. I didn’t know why this was so - it made more sense to just kill them, or
at least lock them up - but this was the way it was supposed to be done, so I
did it that way. For awhile, anyway.
As a house guest,
Foster left a lot to be desired. I’d have him for dinner to exchange witticisms
and clever barbs, for example, and he’d either pass out mid-barb, or suddenly
leap at me, knocking me and my babes over, and then start pounding on us with
his fists.
He kept trying to
get me to tell him my plan so he could foil it and get his reputation back. I
kept telling him I didn’t have a plan, and didn’t care about his stupid
reputation anyway, but that just seemed to make him surly. He’d drink some more
and tell me I was insane, but I usually couldn’t understand most of what he was
saying because his mouth was so far down in his drink. I’d mostly just hear a
bunch of bubbles.
His presence in
the fortress got more annoying every day. He kept opening, and answering, all
my mail before I could get to it, stealing diagrams of my defenses that I
needed to show to
“Hands
up, Overkill,” said the world famous British Secret Service Agent Fred Foster.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I had heard of
Fred Foster, of course. Everyone had. He was Britain’s most famous and
successful “double-oh” spy. So famous he wasn’t a very good spy anymore. It’s
almost impossible to sneak up on an enemy when you’re surrounded by screaming
fans and writers waving spec scripts. Try it.
And he wasn’t
much use as a spy anymore anyway, even without the fame. The fabulous Cold War
lifestyle he had led all those years had finally caught up with him. His liver
was shot – one drink and he would completely lose control of his motor
functions – and he couldn’t lay in wait successfully anymore because of his
smoker’s cough, (“I think the coughing is coming from behind this bush,
Alexei”). And his eyesight was starting to fail him, but he was too vain to
wear the giant clown glasses his eyes required.
Foreign agents
were well aware of all these faults, of course. They no longer feared Foster.
To them, he was just a joke. Eventually even the British Secret Service became
aware of his physical problems, when they captured some enemy jokebooks.
He was sent to
rehab several times, but it never did any good. He just came back drunker and a
bigger and funnier joke than before. And every time he was sent out on an
assignment, the British Empire got smaller.
Finally his
license to kill was suspended, and he stopped getting the plum assignments. To
his mortification, he watched younger agents with better functioning livers and
bladders getting all the glamorous assignments, while he was reduced to opening
the door of MI5 for them as they bowled off on their next action-filled
adventure.
I found out later
that he had begged as a personal favor from his old friend Z, who ran the
Secret Service now that the rest of the alphabet was dead, to give him one last
chance and let him handle the Overkill matter. That favor had been reluctantly
granted, and now here he was standing in my chili.
“I’m not
Overkill,” I said.
“Maybe not, but my
supervisor won’t know the difference. Hands in the air.”
I was aware of
his current reputation. I held my arms straight out from my sides like I was
welcoming my wandering boy home. “You mean like this?”
“No,” he said,
raising his hands high in the air, “like this.”
He overbalanced
badly and fell backwards onto the table where he instantly fell asleep in the
forks. I snapped my fingers and my guards picked him up and carried him away.
I didn’t have him
thrown in the dungeon. I’d seen enough Fred Foster Secret Agent movies to know
that a super villain, which is what I was now, I guess, was supposed to treat
enemy agents like honored guests. Give them a fancy room, let them hobnob with
your beautiful women, and get a good long look at all your defenses and secret
plans. I didn’t know why this was so - it made more sense to just kill them, or
at least lock them up - but this was the way it was supposed to be done, so I
did it that way. For awhile, anyway.
As a house guest,
Foster left a lot to be desired. I’d have him for dinner to exchange witticisms
and clever barbs, for example, and he’d either pass out mid-barb, or suddenly
leap at me, knocking me and my babes over, and then start pounding on us with
his fists.
He kept trying to
get me to tell him my plan so he could foil it and get his reputation back. I
kept telling him I didn’t have a plan, and didn’t care about his stupid
reputation anyway, but that just seemed to make him surly. He’d drink some more
and tell me I was insane, but I usually couldn’t understand most of what he was
saying because his mouth was so far down in his drink. I’d mostly just hear a
bunch of bubbles.
His presence in
the fortress got more annoying every day. He kept opening, and answering, all
my mail before I could get to it, stealing diagrams of my defenses that I
needed to show to
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