22

Pigeons Work In Pairs.

Sage and Greta had both had very successful shopping trips during which neither of them had been threatened with poisoned figs, beheading or anything more untoward than a slightly tepid Latte, which Sage had drunk down quickly in the Bloomingdales café. They had re-convened in the hotel room and Sage was showing off a wonderful pair of ankle boots, which swirled with the colours of the rainbow. Across the front of one boot was the word 'Dead' in weird, wavy letters, and across the other boot was the word 'Head', in equally twirly script.
"Deadhead! Hey, cool!" Said Greta, who then revealed the fruits of her shopping trip. She had splashed out on a mass of low-cut bodies, crop tops, sarongs, mini-skirts and the sauciest of thong backed bikinis. Sage had never seen anything like it - even though he was a subscriber to half a dozen home shopping catalogues (which Albert had noticed always had well-thumbed swimwear sections).
"Wow!" It was the only thing Sage could find to say.
"I'm going to shape change and go as the model Christy Turlington..." Greta continued. There was a thump as Sage's chin hit the floor.
“What?” Greta asked, “You’d prefer Cindy Crawford or Claudia Schiffer for sure?”
Sage was drooling, glassy eyed, but he managed to shake his head weakly and mumble,
“No, Christy would be lovely… Perfect.”

Suddenly the door burst open and Dredly, sporting a slightly skewed hair-piece, slammed the door behind him and panted as if his lungs were fit to burst.
“What’s happened?” Greta asked.
“Don’t… Want… To talk… About it…” Dredly puffed, setting his wig on straight. “Let’s get… Out of here!” He grabbed his bags and opened the door. “See you in the lobby.” And with that he was gone again.
Sage and Greta looked at each other in confusion.
“For sure, you might think he had narrowly escaped being beheaded by a Canadian, isn’t it?” Said Greta.
“It’s either that or a sudden and extreme recurrence of piles.” Sage mused and then the two packed as fast as they could. They would leave Dredly with his secret, because whichever of them was right about the cause of his odd behaviour, neither of them wanted to delve into those particular possibilities.

Ten minutes later they were stood in the lobby with their luggage, waiting for the cab. Silvio the desk clerk was there to say his goodbyes.
"You've saved me... I'll remember you always... And don’t worry. I’m gonna shave so much, people will think I’ve taken out shares in Remington.” The man was sobbing as he spoke “And y'know, I’m going to have plants in every damn room in the hotel... Every one - no kidding... And I'll tend them every day and everything... I'll even get the guests to talk to them.”
“That’s so beautiful!” Greta sniffed, wiping a small tear from her eye.
There was the toot of a car horn outside and they hurried themselves, each shaking the hand of their host and erstwhile adversary. They bade him a tearful farewell. It wasn’t that they were moved by the situation, but because after being on an onion-only diet for months, Silvio had breath that could strip wallpaper. Then, with a wave and a promise to have his face waxed on a regular basis, he saw them off into the dusk and a well-deserved holiday. High in the sky above them two grey shapes wheeled and shadowed them to the airport. And when the plane took off for Bermuda, two pairs of grey wings flapped furiously in its wake, following the great jet's vapour trail to paradise.

The pigeons lost the plane's trail about seventy miles out of New York, but they recognised the flight path and headed for Bermuda. It was a fairly long flap, but they were used to it. They were both former racing pigeons - champions - until they swapped their coop in drizzly Burnley for a life of crime. Sure they missed the adulation of victory, but the material advantages of working as couriers and lookouts for mobsters were far greater than anything they could have hoped for on the racing circuit. Now they had nests in London, Paris, New York, Bali and the Seychelles. This job seemed to be a doddle - just follow two men and a polar bear and report their movements twice a day. And for that they were getting ten years' supply of premium bird seed in unmarked sacks paid directly into a grain-store in Bern. Life was good! Teddy and Bernice liked Bermuda. They had visited many times before. They had almost made a nest there, but had decided that the Seychelles would be a better base as it gave them easy access to both India and Africa. So when, after a day's strenuous flying, they swooped down to land by the dockside of Hamilton (Bermuda's capital), it was almost like coming home.

Hamilton was exactly as they remembered it - a pretty, colonial town with its white period buildings glaring in the clear Spring sunshine. They settled on a lamp post and caught their breath. Teddy regarded Bernice. She really was a magnificent bird, with hints of green in the plumage around her neck. Bernice looked into his eyes and felt a warm burst of affection in her chest. She still loved him as much as the day they had first met - at a race meet in Redcar. They cooed to each other, bobbed their heads and nuzzled one another. Not a person on the street below had noticed them. Only a local gull had cocked its head and given them a sideways glance. They looked at it with neutral expressions. It turned and flew away,
“Don't pay no mind to things that don't concern you”, the gull thought, then headed for the East side of the island and the easy pickings from messy American tourists.
Although Teddy and Bernice were a day behind their quarry, Bermuda is a small island and it only took a few inquiries with the local avian inhabitants to track down the newcomers.

Sage and Dredly had hired a cottage in a private complex called Marley Beach. It was a pretty little place, though the black wrought iron gates set into whitewashed seven foot high walls would have barred the way of human agents. Teddy and Bernice swooped majestically over them, over the footpath of pink and beige flagstones that led from the driveway to the cluster of a dozen holiday homes.

A communal swimming pool nestled amid the palms and pine trees that offered blessed, cooling shade to the holidaymakers roasting themselves on sun loungers. The birds alighted in the top of a pine that gave them a good view of the whole complex. As they looked down at the delightful cottage nearest the pool, there was Sage relaxing on its veranda. Bernice had to admit that these men did at least have good taste. The building, which was painted in Bermuda pink - a colour akin to the inside of a conch shell and which would look gaudy anywhere else in the world, but which seemed to fit that island perfectly - had a tasteful veranda with elegant wicker table and chairs, and a marble carving of a porpoise leaping from the sea fixed to the wall by the front door. It was a jolly place, and the setting! It was perfect. At the back of the cottage was the pool and at the front a lawn which spread itself to the top of the cliffs. Steps, cut into the rock, led a winding course down to the crescent of shining powder sand that was the private beach. Bernice reckoned that from the veranda Sage would have a perfect view of the deep blue Atlantic, stretching out into forever. It was truly idyllic.

The front door of the cottage opened, but rather than the man Dredly or the bear stepping out, a beautiful woman appeared. She had shoulder length chestnut hair and the face of an angel... In fact it was a face that was familiar. It couldn't be... It was! Christy Turlington! Bernice recognised her from the copies of Vogue that had once been used to line the floor of their coop. The birds looked at each other in surprise. Surely those bozos couldn't have picked up one of the world's most famous models! They watched, fascinated, as she moved gracefully away from the house and down to the beach. They could see Sage's eyes were glued to her posterior as she walked away from him. The slight, thong-backed bikini she was wearing left nothing to the imagination and the motion of the firm buttocks had Sage mesmerised. Teddy noticed a thin trail of drool sliding from the side of Sage's mouth as he watched her. In fact he sat staring blankly long after she had disappeared down the steps. No, there was no way they'd picked her up. There had to be another explanation, but for the life of them they couldn't work it out. Another thing they couldn’t fathom was why she had been wearing a Tyrolean mountaineer's hat. Teddy cursed their bird brains. He hated loose ends and didn't know how he would explain it in his report to Number 1. He sighed as he pulled his mobile out from under his wing and placed the call.

Number 1's voice was the screech of nails down a blackboard:
"Bermuda? What the bloody hell are they doing in Bermuda?" There was a pause as the auto-translator made sense of the cooing down the line. When the answer came, Number 1 didn't like it.
“Well, I suppose they came to Bermuda because it’s nicer than Billings…” Teddy began.
Number 1 exploded down the phone,
"Because it's nicer than Billings? Droitwich is nicer than Billings for Heaven's sake!”
There was more cooing down the phone and then the auto-translator kicked in. Number 1 listened with rising fury and then replied,
“I don't care how good the seafood is there, I just want to know why they're sunning themselves on a beach instead of walking into my carefully laid trap. God, some people can be so difficult!”
“There is something else…”
“What else?”
Teddy wasn’t enjoying the phone call and decided to break the extra twist to Number 1 quickly.
“They have Christy Turlington with them.”
“What the hell's she doing there?" Number 1 slammed the desk in frustration. How had they dragged a super-model into it?

The bird spoke again - it was concerned. The man calmed it:
"Yes, yes I know we're going to have to tread carefully. The last thing we need is a celebrity getting caught up in all of this... There must be something strange going on." He thought for a moment, then continued, “You're going to have to bug the house... I know that's not in your contract, but you've got to... What? A solid gold bird feeder? But that's extortionate! All right, all right - but you'd better get the information... Yes, yes I'll speak to you in the morning. Good luck."
A thin bony hand with prestidigitator's fingers flicked the speaker phone off. Christy Turlington and a pair of greedy pigeons - that was all he needed! He laid both his hands flat on the console. It was a mass of buttons, lights and switches, which allowed him communication with any of his operatives both inside the base and anywhere in the world. The console itself was a full circle with a swivel chair at its centre. Access was from a ladder which led down through an opening in the floor to a larger room below. Above the console was a circular bank of TV screens. They were stacked four high and allowed Number 1 to view any part of his secret complex. His quick eyes caught a glimpse of something out of place on screen 22. The chair swivelled. On the lawn at the front of the complex there was a squirrel. A fluffy tailed, twitchy-nosed squirrel gambling on the grass. Where it had got its stake from wasn't clear, but it was already a couple of hundred up on two of the security guards. The squirrel had a good set of cards in its paw, too - full house, Queens over Tens. The man in the swivel chair sighed, his slim chest hardly lifting his tasteless rhinestone studded purple jacket. A switch was flicked.
"Stop playing cards with that aberrant arboreal rodent at once!" The high pitched voice galvanised the men, who threw down their cards and stood to attention.
"And as for you..."
The squirrel looked confused and pointed to itself with a 'what, me?' expression on its fluffy little features.
"Yes, you!" Number 1's annoyance gave the words a disturbing bite, "No one likes a cheat!"
The squirrel squeaked indignantly at the suggestion.
"Please, spare me the mock innocence. You've got a Queen tucked up in your tail."
The squirrel shrugged. It was a fair cop. It flicked its tail and the Queen of Spades spun out to land face up next to the pile of money."
"Why you little rat!" One of the guards started forward angrily. He stopped dead as Number 1 interjected:
"Enough! Get that fraudulent forest dweller off the premises and then report to the head cleaner. You're both on toilet duty for the rest of the month."

The guards pulled their guns and led the squirrel away. The hand flicked the switch and the intercom died with a 'phut'. The incident with the squirrel was yet another in a long list of run-ins they'd had with the local woodland creatures. If he'd known that Montana was populated by low-down, scheming critters, he'd have located his evil fortress somewhere else. The racoons were the worst, prowling around in gangs stealing the wheels off the jeeps. What did they do with them all? What earthly need did they have for wheels? Of course, he knew nothing of the new adventure playground the racoons had recently opened a few miles down the road - that even as he sat there pondering, children were playing on his jeep tyres for five dollars an hour, and that the racoons were already booking their holiday in Reno where they fully intended to blow the takings on the baccarat tables.
"Eeh! It's just work, work work being the most evil man in the world!" He sighed aloud. The afternoon would be more hard grind - schemes to think up, countries to de-stabilise, dignitaries to blackmail. Then he remembered his former life...

"Ooh the horror!" He exclaimed with a squeak like rubber on plastic. He shook his head clear of past memories, then set about thinking up the next big plan. Maybe he could steal Newfoundland? No... Who'd notice?

Will our heroes have a lovely holiday in Bermuda? Or is the pigeon poop about to hit the fan? And what was so horrible about Number 1's previous life that being hassled by racoons is better?

Find out in the next critter infested chapter...