The Last Avengers Story, Chapter 16 (Final chapter)

Chapter 16: End Game

PRESENT DAY

TRITON, SOMEWHERE AT SEA

I.

Mr. Honeywell looked at his watch. Two hours to rendezvous point. In a mere 120 minutes, the HMS Triton, and all who sailed in herwould disappear.

"We're right on schedule, Mr. Strange," he observed complacently.

"Indeed we are, Mr Honeywell. Everything has gone like clockwork."

"Indeed. Nothing can stop us now."

II.

John Steed and Emma Peel sat in the wardroom of the HMS Triton. Thirty pairs of eyes looked at them expectantly.

"Vell, vy are we just sitting here?" demanded Professor Stephenson. "Ve can't let dese bastards get away vit it! Vat are we goink to do?" "

Steed glanced over at Emma and snapped his fingers. "I've got it! I know what we have to do!"

"Vat?" demanded Stephenson.

"Ve...I mean, we, have to come up with a cunning plan!"

Emma hid a smile.

Stephenson eyed Steed and harrumphed his fluffy mustache.

"All right, let's examine what we've got," Emma said. "Admiral Verinder tells us there are six men on the control deck. Each one armed. Each one very likely prepared to shoot to kill. There may be other men aboard - we don't know."

"Do you mean to say that this entire ship is being controlled from a single room? That there are no engineers manning their little dials in the engine room? Making sure the nuclear engines don't go up in a poof of smoke?"

"If there are any other men aboard," said Verinder, "that's probably where they'll be. But this ship was designed to be controlled from the control deck, yes. By computer. And so far it seems to be working perfectly."

Steed reached over and tapped Emma's laptop computer. "You said you gave the over-ride codes to our friends. Is there any way we could access the ship's computer from here...over-ride those codes again?"

Verinder shook his head. "No. I gave them the top codes. Only the prime minister knows the ultimate 'fail safe' code, if you'd like to call it that, that could bring this ship to a dead stop."

"It could be done," Emma mused, "by a brilliant hacker. Someone who had a few weeks to work on the problem."

"Ye-es..." said Steed. "Unfortunately I doubt if we'll have a few weeks, Mrs. Peel."

"Yes...brute force would be quicker. Sabotage the physical engines themselves, perhaps. Stop us dead in the water."

"I'd be very nervous about trying to sabotage the engines on a nuclear vessel, Mrs. Peel. Somehow the thought of playing around with that much power makes me...uneasy."

Emma smiled. "Yes...unless you know exactly what you're doing things could get out of hand. Admiral, how's your knowledge of the nuclear engines?"

Verinder shook his head. "Not good enough, I'm afraid."

"So the only solution is to take out the men in the control deck." mused Steed.

"Yes. But how? They've all got guns. They won't hesitate to use them." growled Verinder. "And as long as they stay in that control room, we can't get at them."

"Then we'll jut have to give them a reason to leave," said Steed.

"How? Knock on the door and say, 'Will you come out, please?'"

"Something like that," said Steed.

"We just need to be prepared for them when they do come out," Emma commented.

Steed nodded. "This is a big ship. Lots of stuff left laying around, I have no doubt. Let's go find it."

III.

A loud clanging noise reverberated throughout the control deck. Again. And again. And again.

"What is that?" demanded Mr. Honeywell.

"Sounds as if someone is pounding on a bulkhead or something," commented Mr. Strange.

"One of those oldsters in the wardroom, no doubt," said Mr. Francis. "Getting a bit fractious."

"Well, I don't propose to put up with it. Mr. Francis, go deal with, please."

Francis smiled an ugly smile. "With pleasure."

The big man left the control deck and made his way down the corridors to the wardroom. The wrench that had been placed under the handle was still there - preventing anyone inside from getting out. Francis removed the wrench, jerked open the door and stepped inside.

"What's all this then?"

He stood, frozen. There was no one in the room. He whirled, but too late. The door slammed shut, and there was the sound of the wrench being slotted back in place. Francis swore and yanked at the door, to no avail. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at the door...then hesitated. Bullets ricocheting off a metal door around a metal room...not healthy for the occupants of that room.

Francis swore some more.

IV.

Mr. Honeywell looked at his watch.

"It's been ten minutes. What's taking Mr. Francis so long?" he demanded.

For answer, the clanging noise came again. And again. And again.

As one, the men removed their guns from their shoulder holsters.

"I say we do nothing," said Mr. Quarl. "We stay in the control deck another hour...get to the rendezvous point, and then start searching with the rest of our men."

"Something's going on." Honeywell retorted. "I don't fancy sitting here while a bunch of geriatric roam around the ship trying to cause trouble. What if they're pounding on the engines?"

"They wouldn't be that stupid."

"They might be. Charon. You go with Mr. Strange. Check out the engine room."

"Shouldn't we go to the wardroom? Find out what happened to Francis?"

"Go to the engine room first. On your way back, stop at the wardroom and see what's going on there."

"Right."

Charon and Strange left the room. Honeywell and Quarl looked at each other. "Under Siege," said Honeywell.

"Not possible," replied Quarl. "No one who wasn't exposed to the Sleep Antidote could be awake...whether they'd locked themselves in a freezer or whatever. Whoever is on this ship is one of our geriatrics."

Honeywell nodded. "Verinder must be doing something. Perhaps he thinks while we're at sea we can't contact our man at his house. If so he's a fool."

Quarl nodded at the communication control. "Why don't you send a message throughout the ship? Informing him of that little fat?"

Honeywell nodded. "I'll wait to see what Charon and Strange turn up. But if worst comes to worst, that's exactly what I'll do."

Quarl stretched his neck, rather like a boxer getting ready to go into the ring. He shrugged his shoulders, and his huge trapesius muscles bunched and bulged.

"Control yourself, Mr. Quarl," said Honeywell. "I don't want you to go about knocking heads together. We're too close to our rendezvous to handle them with kid gloves anymore, I'm afraid. If we see any white-headed figures anymore, shoot to kill."

"As you wish, Mr. Honeywell."

V.

Mr. Charon and Mr. Strange padded down the aisle way toward the engine room. Charon held his gun in his hand, Strange had replaced his in his shoulder-holster.

The clanging had stopped.

"I don't like this, Mr. Strange," Charon said quietly. "Thirty people running around this ship..."

"Hardly running, old chap," said Strange. "If the Mulberry people managed to get out of the wardroom somehow, that's one thing. But they can't do anything to us. I mean...please! We're 40 years younger than the youngest of them!"

"But how did they get out of the wardroom? And where is Mr. Francis? Why has he disappeared?"

Strange shrugged. "We'll find out. There's the door to the engine room."

He opened the door, turned, and began climbing down the ladder to the lower deck, holding on to the railing. After two steps, his hands slipped on the railing, he overbalanced, and fell backward off the ladder onto the metal deck below.

"Mr. Strange!" Charon yelled. He started to move down the ladder himself, then stopped. Strange must have hit his head on the deck, for he was unconscious. Charon took a closer look at the ladder leading down to the next deck...the first few treads were fine...the rest glistened as if they'd been covered in grease or oil of some kind...as had the railing.

Someone had set a trap, and Mr. Strange had sprung it. Charon regretted now that he had let out a yell. If he'd remained silent, some of those geriatrics might have come out of hiding to drag Strange away...but since they had heard his voice they knew he was up here and they might be laying in wait for him.

Charon's hand clenched on his gun. He had a bad feeling about this.

Should he try that old chestnut?

"I"m going for help, Strange," he called down into the hold. "You hold tight."

And then he ran swiftly down the corridor...stopped...and crept quietly back.

Strange's body remained where it had fallen. Nothing stirred.

Charon turned and headed back toward the control deck.

When he and Strange had come down this way, the ladder leading from the top deck to the second deck had been clean as a whistle. Charon did not give it a close look but started up. Half way up he felt his feet slipping out from under him and his hands unable to gain purchase. He fell backward with a yell of rage.

He hit the deck hard, but retained consciousness, enough to see a door open and a lithe woman dressed in sailor's fatigues come out and kick the gun out of his hand.

"Honeywell!" he yelled.

Another elderly figure came out through the doorway, Admiral Verinder. This individual shoved a sock into Charon's mouth - more viciously than necessary, Charon thought - and then he felt himself being dragged backward into the anteroom.

VI.

Emma hefted Charon's gun. John Steed held the one that Professor Stephenson had retrieved from Mr. Strange, who was now tied up and resting comfortably beside his colleague in crime.

"Now comes the hard part," said Steed. "If our two remaining villains have any sense, they won't come out of the control room, no matter how much noise we make out here."

Mrs. Peel nodded. "Noise won't do it. But if Professor Stephenson has been working wonders with those household chemicals we removed the wardroom..."

Steed nodded.

"I'll just go see if he's ready." Mrs Peel squeezed Steed's shoulder as she passed him, and went out of the 'operations room' where Steed and the rest of the Mulberry residents were headquartered. Stephenson was working in an adjacent room.

"Are we ready, Herr Professor?" said Emma.

"Yes, yes." said Stephenson absently, adding a dollop of liquid from one container into another. The second container began to smoke. "It is all prepared. Pour this onto the door to the control deck...and then stand back."

"Right."

VII.

Emma Peel bounced on her feet as the adrenalin flowed through her. This was living! It had been a long time, but now here they were again. The villains were at the gate, and it was she and Steed against them all.

Well, she and Steed and 28 other individuals of more and less usefulness...depending on how things panned out in the next five minutes...

She was ten yards in front of the door to the control deck. Steed, and half of the oldsters from Mulberry, were just behind the door. The half who were the most mobile, and the ones who could lift the heaviest wrenches.

Emma raised a hand signifying she was ready, and Steed nodded. He picked up the smoking bucket of material Stephenson had prepared and poured it thoroughly over the door.

The door began to smoke. Not only on the outside, but on the inside as well.

Within a minute, the two men in the control deck began yelling. Hatch door was unlocked and Honeywell stumbled out with streaming eyes. John Steed grabbed him with two strong hands and whirled him around into the blank space between two rows of hands holding upraised wrenches. He never stood a chance.

With a roar like a bull, Mr. Quarl burst out of the control deck in a cloud of smoke and headed right towards Emma Peel. He had a gun in his hand but didn't seem inclined to use it.

Emma did the only thing she could do. She timed her drop perfectly, and Quarl went hurtling over her body, helped as he was because she grabbed his foot and twisted as he went by. He roared again and clambered to his feet.

Emma leveled her gun at him, holding it in both hands.

"Take one more step, and you are a dead man." she said quietly.

Quarl stood there, chest heaving. But he believed her. He raised his hands.

VIII.

"What a disappointment," said John Steed. "What a ... wuss!"

Emma laughed. "I"d say he was a smart man. It may have been anticlimactic for him to have given up without a fight, but it's too bad more villains don't do that. Give up when they know their beaten. Save a lot of lives."

"It's a bit unsatisfactory, though," Steed said sulkily. "I wanted to see you give him a few high kicks and then a whirl to send him in our direction so we could give him the coup de grace."

"Well, maybe next year."

Steed grinned. "This certainly was a birthday to remember."

"Oh, yes," said Emma. "And I almost forgot to give you your present." She leaned forward and kissed Steed on the lips.

"Best present in the world," said Steed huskily. "For now, anyway."

IX.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Steee-eeed, happy birthday to you."

"And many more," chimed in Mike Gambit in the lowest baritone he could manage.

John Steed and the rest of the residents of the Mulberry Luxury Retirement Center were back home. Steed was surrounded by Cathy Gale, Tara Truffaut, Purdey, Mike Gambit, and Emma Peel.

They each raised their glass of champagne.

"To honor, trust, and commitment," said Steed. "To friendship, and the best people a man could ever know or hope to know. To the Avengers, forever."

They all touched glasses. And then they drank. And then they picked up their golf clubs and headed out to the Quite Quite Fantastic Golf Course to try their skill in cut-throat competition against each other, and all was right with the world.