Whitehall - London

‘So you may have ended wars and injustice and terrorism for the time being but there will always be loose cannons like Wong running around. So you can’t put your feet up just yet.’
Straker sighed. He was sitting in the wood panelled office of Sir Portly Sanderson – Head of Subterfuge and Eradication. Deep down he knew it would never have been as easy as that.
‘So it’s confirmed then?’ he said.
‘I’m afraid so’ Sir Portly answered, ‘he not only survived his plunge into molten lava but is back in China as we speak and up to his old tricks. Our man in Panchong has just sent us this photo.’ He handed Straker a hazy image of a scorched but otherwise unharmed Wong juggling three dinner plates. ‘The boffins are speculating on some sort of cunning asbestos buoyancy suit, although I must say it all seems a little far-fetched to me.’ Straker jadedly studied the grainy photo and handed it back,
‘And what do we know about this ray?’ he wondered.
‘Ah yes the mysterious ray. It’s news to us I’m afraid. Even the satellites have drawn a blank. So your mission is to find out what it is, where it is, what it does and who or what he is planning to point it at, and why. And if possible when. And also how. Then eliminate the wretched Wong once and for all. And for God’s sake use a bullet this time Straker - people are starting to say you’re going soft.’
‘Soft? It was a sea of molten lava I shoved him into for Chrissakes.’
‘A more thorough man would have held his bloody head under and counted to 35 - as the training manual clearly states. You let him slip through your fingers.’
Straker bridled at the slur – no-one had eliminated more undesirables than he - they had been shot, eviscerated, set fire to, chopped up, flayed, boiled alive and blown apart with dynamite. No-one walked away from Jack Straker. And many’s the time he’d had to fight the urge to bring their heads back to London and plonk them firmly in Sir Portly’s In Tray, their eyes replaced by pickled eggs just to make some sort of sick point, the meaning of which he was not entirely sure of. Soft indeed. What did those desk jockeys know?

‘Your best lead will be a man called Roger Octavius Belvedere.’ Sir Portly continued blithely. ‘Heard of him?’
‘Hmmm, wears a pink cravat?’
‘So they say. But he’s also an arms dealer with connections to some the world’s shadier regimes. He’s also in Wong’s pay and knows more than anyone about his doings, his dealings and his whereabouts.’
‘So he’s a Wong ‘un eh?’ quipped Straker drily. If he’d been made of stone Sir Portly could not been any less responsive to Straker’s wry witticism.
‘But now he knows we know he knows - so he’s bolted. Reports say he’s hiding out in the Central African Republic of MnDungo.’
Straker groaned inwardly – why couldn’t the man have fled to Paris or Berlin, Moscow or Rio di Janieiro or anywhere with street lighting, fine restaurants and cockroach-free bedding. Maybe I am getting soft, he thought. MnDungo was a seedy dictatorship in central Africa – a country renowned for famine, disease, corruption, violence, mud and flies. Sir Portly held out his hand. The briefing was over.
‘So, good luck Straker and watch out for the flies. My man Podger will meet you at he airport.’


Several hours later on a Mandingo Airways 737 bound for Agogo – MnDungo’s shabby capital city, Straker considered his strategy. He knew it would be a risky business travelling to MnDungo - especially now that he had a much higher profile figure than any undercover operative ought to have. So he was travelling on a false passport under the name of Brian McFishburn – he fingered the false moustache handed to him by the department’s False Identity Lady just hours before. ‘Brian McFishburn is a Scottish sanitary engineer’ – she had briefed him – ‘he is married, two ginger-haired kiddies, photo supplied, and when in Africa he wears a pale blue polyester safari suit’.
Oh no he fucking doesn’t, thought Straker, and the hideous pastel creation had been left in a taxi. But he did need to travel incognito. He patted the newly purchased Ray Bans in his top pocket – they, along with the bristly Scots moustache, would have to do. For the greatest threat to him in MnDungo came not from disease or starvation but from the brutal and unhinged leader of MnDungo herself: President Threepence Nmjubli.

Straker recalled the day five years ago when Threepence had seized the reins of power after her husband President Ngo Nmjubli had been killed in a mysterious plane crash in the Mbungi mountains. Straker thought of the two stainless steel Pratt & Whitney Fuel Distribution Valves he now used as bookends at home and gave a faint smile of satisfaction at the memory. But the plan had backfired. Threepence Nmjubli was if anything a worse dictator than her husband, worse in the sense that she was better at it - more ruthless, more corrupt and twice as likely to feed members of the Opposition to the crocodiles. And she’d long suspected that Straker had been behind her husband’s death. Let’s hope this damned moustache works he thought.

As he stepped from the plane into the intense glare of the African sun Straker paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, don his sunglasses and discreetly prod his fake Scottish moustache. After collecting his bag he strode out boldly through the arrivals lounge.
‘Mr McFishburn sir?’ said a voice approaching him. ’I’m Mr McPodger sirr, Hamish McPodger, aye Scottish sanitary engineer’s assistant, that’s me. Aye.’ Straker looked the man up and down and winced at his all too familiar outfit.
‘It’s OK Podger, you can drop the pretence.’
‘Pretence sirr? Whateverr can yer mean sirr?’
‘Podger’ he sighed, ’how many times have we met?’ Podger glanced about him.
‘Not sure we should be dropping our false identities quite this soon into the operation sir.’ he whispered
‘It’s for the authorities Podger, for hotel receptionists, taxi drivers, ladies with East European accents who are far too beautiful to be true and anyone else we are not thoroughly acquainted with.’
‘Sorry sir, I usually just drive Sir Portly about sir, attend to his needs, as you well know. It’s the cutbacks sir. This way sir.’ Straker followed Podger outside to the waiting Land Rover. The department is not what it was, Straker mused, a fine pair we would have looked strolling about MnDungo in matching pale blue safari suits.

Scraggy chickens and indolent goats scattered for their lives as the open topped Land Rover bounced along the dusty, rutted roads of the city, heading for the MnDungo International hotel.
‘I take it Mrs Nmjubli is still actively siphoning off the European Union’s Highways Development Grant.’ shouted Straker as the potholes threatened to detach the solidly built Land Rover from its wheels.
‘As I understand it sir – and it’s a …ouch...fuck…ow…dammit…. very grand Summer palace she’s built with it too with an impressive.. ooch...ow…bollocks….swimming pool. Sorry sir.’
The country had changed little since Straker was last there. Although if anything there seemed to be more poverty, more flies and more bullet holes in the public buildings. They passed through shanty towns, Ashanti towns and under-populated scanty towns as abandoned cars, dead cattle and decaying shacks whizzed through Straker’s line of vision. But Straker, even watchful, soon found they were not alone on their journey.
‘I think we’ve got company Podger’ he said, eyeing the battered white Nissan following 50 yards behind them.
‘Yes sir, already spotted them sir, probably the local plod, they tail us sometimes.’
‘These aren’t local plod Podger, these are blond haired, gimlet eyed, ex Eastern Bloc-special forces plod by the look of them. Get your foot down.’
Now many of the scrawnier chickens found their luck was out as Podger hit the accelerator and put his newly acquired Pursuit and Evasion skills into effect. He winced as the hapless poultry perished under his wheels. Down to third, he muttered to himself swerve, check mirror, revs, oops there goes another one… but he was more used to chauffeuring Sir Portly regally around London’s more exclusive Gentlemen’s clubs and the pursuers were gaining on them. He was also profoundly aware that he may be flattening some poor soul’s only chance of a good lunch that day and that pained the liberal minded Podger intensely.
‘Next left here!’ yelled Straker suddenly, but no sooner had the words left his lips than he felt the unmistakeable zip of a Czech made titanium tipped Zletschelnyinyin .44 bullet brush past his ear, Podger slumped over the wheel and the whole world seemed to spin out of control…..

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