The Pan flew the MK II low, a few feet above the sand, partly to avoid detection and partly because he hoped to persuade Big Merv to change his view on underwater travel. As they left the land behind them, the sky gradually faded from pink to purple, the last rays of daylight disappeared altogether, the first stars came out and, to The Pan’s alarm, the moon rose. A few feet below them its reflection glistened off the dark waters of the ocean.
To his right, The Pan could make out the shape of a ship, presumably a Grongolian trawler fishing for the large boring fish the Grongles ate – they would throw away the interesting ones, like the Angler Fish and the Octopus. Being Hamgeean The Pan preferred crustaceans, or things that were covered in tentacles or hideously ugly. He watched as the ship moved towards them. It was going quickly for a trawler. He glanced idly left and saw another one; it was nearer and also closing on them.
“Er, Merv?” he said.
“Shut up, you! I’m trying to sleep!”
“I know, I’m very sorry but I think this might be urgent.”
Big Merv grunted.
“I think this is a trap.”
“Get a grip you pansy! This isn’t a trap. Not this far out! If they’re waiting for us, they’ll be waiting at home where they can humiliate us in front of our whole nation.”
“Mmm, good point,” said The Pan, “but those trawlers—I don’t think they’re there by coincidence.”
“In the name of The Prophet you paranoid girl,” began Big Merv but he was interrupted by an insistent beeping from the dash. It was getting louder and the beeps were getting closer together. The Pan’s stomach turned over.
“If they’re so innocuous, how come they’ve fired a missile at us?”
“Arnold’s armpits! How long before it hits us?” asked Big Merv.
“Ooooh,” The Pan looked at the read-out on the dash, “about thirty seconds.” Thank The Prophet he’d spoken to Snurd after their experience with the Interceptor; the MK II was now equipped with anti-missile chaff. But he couldn’t remember where the button was. He accelerated and the missile sped harmlessly past them. He gave it an appraising glance as it disappeared upwards into the sky. It was ground-to-snurd, they would have another thirty seconds before it made a second pass. He pointed the nose of the MK II downwards, straight into the sea. The MK II hit the surface of the water at high speed, throwing a huge column of water up into the air, the missile hit it and exploded. Below the surface, the water leaking in had risen to their knees before The Pan had the presence of mind to press the submariner button and turn on the bilge pump. As they sank lower, the water swishing around their ankles began to disappear, the oxygen conversion unit kicked in, and The Pan risked turning the headlights on briefly.
Of course! How could he have been so utterly dumb? They were trawlers. There was bound to be a net and here it was.
The Pan winced at the volume when the other Mervinettes screamed “Aaaaaaarrrrrgh!” as he hauled on the wheel and the nose of the snurd turned upwards again. He pressed the nitrous oxide boost button. The MK II rocketed out of the water at high speed, transmogrifying itself back into aviator mode as it went.
“What the smeck are you doing?” bellowed Big Merv, more out of fear than anything.
“Saving you, as usual!” snapped The Pan.
“And knackering my snurd! I’ll bet you’ve invalidated the warranty doing that you snivelling little scrote!”
“Yeh, there’s a stern warning about that in the handbook,” said Frank and everyone took a few moments out to turn and stare at him.
“I suppose thanks would be out of the question,” retorted The Pan.
“Too right you little git,” snapped Big Merv, “your friend got us into this!”
“For the last time, he is not my friend! I don’t know where he came from and I’d never met him until about twenty-four hours before you did. I don’t hang out with old people,” he said, pretending for a moment that Gladys and Ada didn’t exist. “Most especially old people who are trying to blackmail me.”
“And succeeding,” said Big Merv.
“Yeh, don’t rub it in. He blackmailed you, too, remember.”
“Yeh, and remember what happened? If you want another nosebleed, you carry on talking you big nonce.”
“If you thump me I won’t be able to drive, will I, you stupid K’Barthan halfwit, so don’t hit me while I’m driving if you want to live!” retorted The Pan, putting his arm up to fend off any blows.
“Don’t worry I won’t touch you now but I’LL PUNCH YOUR BLEEDIN’ LIGHTS OUT WHEN WE GET BACK, YOU BRAINLESS HAMGEEAN PUFF!” shouted Merv angrily.
The two trawlers were far behind them now but a small pinprick of light flashed from one of them as it fired a second missile.
“Incoming,” said Harry, helpfully.
“Thanks,” said The Pan, who had already seen it but believed, firmly, that it pays to be polite to everyone, especially, to big scary people.
He wasn’t worried this time – he’d remembered the position of the chaff button. When the missile was close to impact, he’d press it and a cloud of aluminium tinsel would be released, causing the warhead’s guidance system to think it had reached its target and explode. For a second time, the insistent beep which heralded the missile’s approach could be heard from the dash. The nearer it came, the closer together the beeps became until eventually, when it was ten seconds away from impact, the beeps changed to one long, continuous tone. The Pan waited for the tone, reached out with all the affected nonchalance he could muster and pressed the button. Nothing happened. He stifled the inevitable scream but a small mouse-like squeak escaped him as he flipped the snurd into a dive with the missile in hot pursuit.
“Oh great,” he whimpered as they plummeted downwards, “we’re going to die.” He couldn’t risk submerging again, there was bound to be more than one net and this time they might not be so lucky. The snurd wove from left to right as The Pan tried to think of a way to throw the missile off their tail. He swung the snurd sharply left and the missile drifted to the right long enough for the tone to become a beep again. The Pan looped the loop and found himself flying towards it in a game of deadly chicken. If only the MK II had been armed it could have blown the missile apart but the four All Purpose Torpedo tubes behind the lights were empty. Even Big Merv’s contacts couldn’t get hold of APTs, these days. Anyway, as he had explained to The Pan, while threatening bank tellers with what Frank insisted on calling a ‘shootah’ was one thing, killing them, or police officers – even Grongolian ones – was public relations anathema.
“Don’t hurt nobody unless it’s him or you, and never shoot to kill. I mean it. The minute anyone gets hurt, we’ve lost the respect of the bloke in the street, and if you lose the bloke in the street’s respect, the little bleeder will grass you up in no time,” was how Big Merv had actually put it. “They love us because we succeed and there’s no harm done. This isn’t serious to them, it’s a comedy turn and the Grongles are the butt of the joke. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Big Merv was right, of course but he had never envisaged an emergency such as this one, even if The Pan had. Anyway, procuring missiles was a dangerous business, so The Pan could hardly blame him when he hadn’t made an enormous amount of effort. In the absence of any alternative he fired a red distress flare. They heard the metallic clunk as it bounced off the warhead and then the snurd was catapulted upwards by the force of the explosion.
“Arnold’s earwax! That was close! Any damage?” asked Big Merv.
“Hmm,” said The Pan as he checked the telemetry system, “nothing I can see.” According to the screen on the dash all sectors were functioning normally but his instinct told him otherwise. Either that or he wasn’t functioning normally. That wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility; he had been very shaken up by the explosion and the telemetry system would be significantly more reliable than his off-the-wall hunches. All the same, he wished it was easier to be honest with Big Merv.
He pressed the telemetry button again. Still no faults reported and yet the MK II wasn’t handling the way it had before the explosion; something somewhere was vibrating and the steering wasn’t so – he had no idea of the technical term – pointy. It’s nothing, he thought, but deep down in the bottom of his stomach he felt a little knot of fear, one which wasn’t going to go away until Gerry the Work Experience Creature had performed his post-robbery check and given the MK II the all-clear.
The beeping resumed. Ah yes, The Pan remembered, the other trawler. He checked the status of the red distress flares, none left. They had been flying forty minutes since the first missile attack, they were two minutes from land and he was willing to bet that when they hit the coast they’d hit another ambush. Things were not good.
“Arnold,” he muttered as the time between each beep began to shorten. There were no more flares, no APTs and no chaff. The Pan realised the only thing standing between himself and an early bath was one very bad plan.
“OK,” he said. “Unless you want to die I need everything metal you can lay your hands on.”
“Why?” asked Frank, a hint of belligerence creeping into his voice.
“Because there’s another missile coming and we’re out of flares, APTs, chaff and therefore, other options. So. Here’s my suggestion. You find all the metal things you can, then we stuff them in a bag, we chuck it out of the window and the missile hits that instead of us.”
“This weren’t the usual robbery, we done this by stealth,” wailed Harry, “there’s detectors at the bank—I even left me knuckledusters at home.”
“Yeh,” said Frank, “’S why I ain’t got no knife either, same reason.”
“The lads are right. There isn’t anything metal,” snapped Big Merv, “except the snurd and this,” he held up the safety deposit box containing the loot and something rattled from one end to the other, “and if you think I’m going to let you throw that out of the window you’ve lost your mind.”
“I’m going to lose more than my mind, I’m going to be vaporised if you don’t find something, anything metal, within the next forty seconds, and so are you!” said The Pan.
“It was long odds but we’ve pulled off the biggest heist of all time—I was gonna retire on what your mate agreed to pay me.”
“I think we’ve agreed, whoever he was he is not my mate,” said The Pan, “and if you want to live to retire you’re going to have to bung that,” he gestured to the safety deposit box in Merv’s hands, “out of the window.” The beeps were getting closer together now. “According to this we’ve now less than forty seconds before the missile hits us and we’ll be over the coast soon; you can bet there’ll be a reception party waiting on the mainland. By The Prophet, you’re a master criminal! Can’t you pick the lock, stick the loot in your pocket and chuck the box out?”
“The box stays where it is,” said Big Merv, “don’t open the box was part of the deal.”
“Well it wasn’t part of the deal I made,” said The Pan.
“No, but it was part of the deal I made,” said Big Merv shoving the box into his leather trench coat and holding it there.
“Look, does it matter about the deal?” said The Pan. “If we ditch the safety deposit box at least the old guy gets the loot.”
“If I open the box, I’ve broken my word,” said Big Merv, “where does that leave me?”
“Exactly where you would have been, the only difference being, the loot is in your pocket and we don’t get blown up with the box,” said The Pan. The beep from the dash changed to one long continuous tone. “Come on!” He took both hands off the wheel and waved them outwards expansively. “At least my way someone’s happy.”
“Ah shove ’em both,” said Merv. He pulled the box out of his coat and turned it on its end. Whatever had been rattling about inside had stopped. “Nothing’s worth dying for,” he said, wound down the window and pitched it out. The Mervinettes heard it bang off the front of the pursuing missile and braced themselves for the explosion but nothing happened.
“Holy Arnold, it’s a dud!” whispered The Pan as he yanked on the wheel in an effort to dodge the missile. They had been so close, he could see the coast ahead, if they could have just made it to the river Dang. Even if they had been ambushed, it would have been the usual chase, twenty or thirty police snurds all competing to bag their quarry, all on top of each other, getting in each other’s way. He could have submerged in the river in the confusion and slipped out of sight. Instead they’d lost the loot and they were still going to die. Which seemed highly unfair.
In a last desperate effort to avoid the inevitable he put the MK II into a dive, only to find himself directly in the path of the black snurd which had pursued them so relentlessly over the recent months. It, too, went into a dive in order to head them off. The Pan almost laughed.
“Brilliant! Two in one!” As he flew under the rapidly descending Interceptor the missile flew into it, exploding on impact.
“Blimey!” said Harry.
“Mmm,” said The Pan. The black snurd had better armour than the MK II but it was still damaged. It headed downwards, belching plumes of rancid brown smoke. The Mervinettes watched with satisfaction as it made an emergency landing among the waves.
“So now it’s the ambush,” said The Pan. “Them and me, but not him.”
“Yeh,” said Merv, “I reckon you’re right; unless he changes snurds.”
“Mmm, don’t go giving him subliminal ideas,” muttered The Pan. In the driver’s mirror he watched the lights of the Interceptor diminishing in size as they left it behind.
“Shut up and drive you ponce,” retorted Merv, from force of habit rather than necessity as they sped off into the night.