The scene has become a visual cliché now, after Stash's notorious depiction in Escape from the Temple, the blockbuster mega-hit which finally earned him Hollywood dollars in addition to the usual critical acclaim; even beer ads on television now parody that famous moment when a troop of nuns scrambled six flights of stairs down a fire escape, hitched up their skirts and ran through the traffic snarled up as usual on Budapest's busiest boulevard, chased by a horde of husky men in tight purple jumpsuits. One devout old lady suffered a minor stroke when the wimple flew off Xox's beaming bald head as he ran past her car, causing irate motorists for several blocks behind to impatiently honk their horns, in turn causing the Prime Minister, engaged in a fiery parliamentary debate, to briefly consider resigning. A survey commissioned by the Archdiocese some weeks later confirmed the Archbishop's worst fears: nuns had plummeted in public opinion to a status barely higher than policemen although still substantially above lawyers and journalists.
"Phew!" Lulu said breathlessly, as we found shelter in a dark alcove behind a fast food stand on the Danube embankment. "Are we safe yet?"
Stash stuck his head out for a peek. "For now," he replied cautiously.
"Oh good." Lulu pulled off her habit and straightened her hair.
"Good idea." Barbie followed Lulu's example. "I'm hungry."
"I could use a coffee." The two girls ordered refreshments from the fast food vendor, a dissatisfied middle-aged man who couldn't take his eyes off his gorgeous customers. Stash, Xox and I also disrobed but we didn't get nearly the same level of service. We sat calmly around a table, sipping cappuccinos and soaking up the pale winter sunlight, transformed in that moment into lazy tourists enjoying a well-deserved vacation from mayhem and chaos.
"So what did you find out?" I asked Lulu.
"So much resistance to telling the truth. Got some juicy stuff though." Lulu peeked sideways at Xox. The great man's head was thrown back and his mouth was slightly open. An incipient snore gurgled forth. Lulu and Barbie giggled.
"With whom did you get into a fight?" I asked Stash, who was applying a cube of ice to his black eye.
"Nectarini."
"My hero," Lulu trilled, solicitously taking the ice cube from her husband and deftly dropping it down his neck. "My big strong man got into a fight to defend my honour, didn't he?"
"Nobody is going to call you names in my presence," Stash said firmly. "Except me."
"I must say I would never have got engaged to Nectarino if I had known his true opinion of women," Lulu said. "Italian men... I didn't know Nectarino could even speak but there he was, yelling away, calling me a two-timing unfaithful bitch. And Luciano was nodding away too, even though I only slept with him once when we were at Oxford."
"What did Godfrey have to say about it?"
"Ah God. He just sat there watching calmly. We went around the table, you know, confession time, and when it was God's turn he just admitted that he totally bored with everything."
"Which makes him a very dangerous person," Stash commented soberly.
"Was he representing Terence at this meeting?"
Lulu nodded. "Terence couldn't make it because he was at some ceremony in London deifying Lady Snatcher. So he sent Godfrey."
"Did Godfrey explain the connection between the British secret service and these crazy Euro-plotters?"
"No, but he did confess that he had told Axel that Anastasia and you were at her father's castle."
I nodded. "That's what I thought. Any revelations out of the rest of them?"
Lulu shrugged. "Just your usual tangled mess of conspiracies. This pompous little man Pickie was from the Zurich Club..."
"He's Navel's father," I explained.
"The one who institutionalised Navel?" Lulu asked, interested.
"Navel's only got one father as far as I know. Why was Pickie at this meeting?"
"He was representing the Sultan of Arabia. Apparently the Sultan owns this bank…"
"Bank Ripoff."
"Yes." Lulu seemed affronted. "Do you know everything or do you want to shut up and listen?"
"Oh, okay," I said meekly. "So Pickie was here to put through this merger of Bank Ripoff and Hotbank?"
"Exactly. He had to negotiate with Nectarino, since the Nectarini family basically runs the Vatikan's finances. But Pickie was also buying something from Nero Insanetti…"
"Secret documents," Xox said unexpectedly. We turned to look at him. He seemed wide awake and completely lucid. "Nero took them from me this morning when they put me into captivity."
"What happened, exactly?"
Xox shrugged. "Nothing special. I was on my way back from a MIDAS meeting…"
"MIDAS?"
"Have you heard of it?" Xox beamed. "It is a billionaire's club. Fine fellows. We play bridge together sometimes. Yesterday we met at the funeral of Christian Covett."
"Covett's dead? What happened to him?"
"His private jet lost cabin pressure and he suffocated to death along with all the crew. The plane flew half-way across the Pacific Ocean before landing on auto pilot in Hawaii where he was due to play in a bridge tournament. A sad loss. He was a good player. Anyway I was on the way back from his funeral so I thought I would drop in and see how things were going here in the Budapest college."
"And they just locked you up?"
"There was some talk of ransom," Xox said mildly. "Our European friends have not been particularly happy with me since I picked their pockets. Also the Sultan of Arabia was particularly anxious to get these documents. My colleagues and I have been funding some research which might affect the Sultan's interests."
"What kind of research?"
"Solar energy. A new artificial photosynthesis process…"
"Oh my god," Lulu said, appalled. "Why didn't we take those papers away from that pudgy little man…"
"Oh, it really doesn't matter," Xox replied calmly. "The documents were just camouflage. I always have my documents stamped "Top Secret". It diverts people. Everything in those papers is readily available on the internet."
"So where are the real secrets?" Stash asked slowly.
Xox smiled and tapped his forehead.
Just then a shot rang out. A hunk of plaster crashed down from the wall behind Xox, narrowly missing his skull. I turned and groaned. I had barely drunk half of my cappuccino and there they were again, the men in purple jumpsuits running towards us, tireless, indefatigable, always on our trail.
"Quick. Let's go." We jumped into a small motor boat moored to the embankment. The boat's owner, a hefty middle-aged woman with bright yellow hair, drinking coffee with her friends at a nearby table, screeched angrily at first, but then waved permission after we threw her a fistful of dollars. Stash revved the engine and let her go. Rifle shots rang out as we careened wildly into the middle of the Danube, bouncing through a freighter's wake, nearly colliding into a tour boat laden with middle-aged tourists. Jaws dropped and cameras snapped as Stash expertly whipped our vessel around the big boat, eluding our pursuers' sniper fire. We made as if to follow the tour boat to the other side of the Danube before turning back in our tracks and docking at the embankment right below the Grand Hotel.
"What fun." Xox beamed as we pulled him out. "Thank you for the rescue. Excellent timing. I have a meeting in New York in ten hours. My Learjet is parked at the airport. Taxi!"
We waved goodbye and then went up to the hotel. Stash and Lulu packed and paid up, after which we caught a taxi to the university building where Stash's Mercedes was parked. Stash sneered at the parking tickets on the windshield and threw them away like so much confetti.
"You know what I still don't get?" I asked as we left Budapest behind us, driving into the sunset. Stash had his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Barbie was curled up comfortably against me, her head in my lap. I stroked her hair idly as I spoke. "Why did Axel bring Anastasia with him to Budapest?"
"Oh, we asked about that, angel," Lulu replied, looking over her shoulder. "I didn't finish telling you about the interrogation. Apparently, Anastasia's father left her the bulk of his fortune and so Axel can do what he wants with it now since Anastasia just signs everything. He wants her to make over the shares she owns in this Tamato robot company to Nectarino. In return, the Nectarini family will help Axel buy up lots of seats in the European assembly."
"What for?"
"The Cardinal wants Anastasia's son, Ulrich, to eventually become the Holy Roman Emperor. They want to make the European bureaucracy really powerful and to have young Ulrich rise through the ranks till he becomes President. The idea is that once he's President he would declare himself Emperor and nobody could do anything about it."
"Like Napoleon."
"Exactly, sugar. But Axel doesn't want to wait till Ulrich grows up. Axel wants to become Holy Roman Emperor himself. So he wants to pack the European assembly and then stage a coup. It was all working out fine until Xox threw a spanner into the works."
"What did Xox do?"
"He took billions off the European bank, didn't he? So now they've lost all this credibility. Nobody trusts Eurocrats any longer."
"That's why Hohenstaufen wanted to kill himself." A thought struck me. "Why do the Nectarini want to buy Tamato robots?"
"Luciano said something about perpetual motion. I didn't get it," Lulu confessed. "I was always terrible at science in school."
"So Luciano has been working for the Nectarini all along?"
"Tamato hired him on his own merits but he sold out to the Nectarini." Lulu shuddered. "I always knew he was twisted."
"He's Sicilian," I said, defending our old Oxford acquaintance. "What do you expect?"
"Whatever. Did Xox tell us something we didn't already know about MIDAS?"
"He made it sound so simple," I replied. "A billionaire's club. They play bridge together and go to each other's funerals. Lots of those lately. And they also fund research on solar energy that makes the Sultan of Arabia nervous. Nervous enough to kill? I have no idea if Xox was telling the truth or not."
"Why not? Didn't he eat the Truth sandwich?"
"You saw him gobble it up. It didn't seem to affect him though."
"You're right. It was a wrenching experience for all the others. Maybe Xox tells the truth all the time."
"Maybe. But he can also keep a secret. I just wonder what's behind the smile on that big bald head."
"Phew!" Lulu said breathlessly, as we found shelter in a dark alcove behind a fast food stand on the Danube embankment. "Are we safe yet?"
Stash stuck his head out for a peek. "For now," he replied cautiously.
"Oh good." Lulu pulled off her habit and straightened her hair.
"Good idea." Barbie followed Lulu's example. "I'm hungry."
"I could use a coffee." The two girls ordered refreshments from the fast food vendor, a dissatisfied middle-aged man who couldn't take his eyes off his gorgeous customers. Stash, Xox and I also disrobed but we didn't get nearly the same level of service. We sat calmly around a table, sipping cappuccinos and soaking up the pale winter sunlight, transformed in that moment into lazy tourists enjoying a well-deserved vacation from mayhem and chaos.
"So what did you find out?" I asked Lulu.
"So much resistance to telling the truth. Got some juicy stuff though." Lulu peeked sideways at Xox. The great man's head was thrown back and his mouth was slightly open. An incipient snore gurgled forth. Lulu and Barbie giggled.
"With whom did you get into a fight?" I asked Stash, who was applying a cube of ice to his black eye.
"Nectarini."
"My hero," Lulu trilled, solicitously taking the ice cube from her husband and deftly dropping it down his neck. "My big strong man got into a fight to defend my honour, didn't he?"
"Nobody is going to call you names in my presence," Stash said firmly. "Except me."
"I must say I would never have got engaged to Nectarino if I had known his true opinion of women," Lulu said. "Italian men... I didn't know Nectarino could even speak but there he was, yelling away, calling me a two-timing unfaithful bitch. And Luciano was nodding away too, even though I only slept with him once when we were at Oxford."
"What did Godfrey have to say about it?"
"Ah God. He just sat there watching calmly. We went around the table, you know, confession time, and when it was God's turn he just admitted that he totally bored with everything."
"Which makes him a very dangerous person," Stash commented soberly.
"Was he representing Terence at this meeting?"
Lulu nodded. "Terence couldn't make it because he was at some ceremony in London deifying Lady Snatcher. So he sent Godfrey."
"Did Godfrey explain the connection between the British secret service and these crazy Euro-plotters?"
"No, but he did confess that he had told Axel that Anastasia and you were at her father's castle."
I nodded. "That's what I thought. Any revelations out of the rest of them?"
Lulu shrugged. "Just your usual tangled mess of conspiracies. This pompous little man Pickie was from the Zurich Club..."
"He's Navel's father," I explained.
"The one who institutionalised Navel?" Lulu asked, interested.
"Navel's only got one father as far as I know. Why was Pickie at this meeting?"
"He was representing the Sultan of Arabia. Apparently the Sultan owns this bank…"
"Bank Ripoff."
"Yes." Lulu seemed affronted. "Do you know everything or do you want to shut up and listen?"
"Oh, okay," I said meekly. "So Pickie was here to put through this merger of Bank Ripoff and Hotbank?"
"Exactly. He had to negotiate with Nectarino, since the Nectarini family basically runs the Vatikan's finances. But Pickie was also buying something from Nero Insanetti…"
"Secret documents," Xox said unexpectedly. We turned to look at him. He seemed wide awake and completely lucid. "Nero took them from me this morning when they put me into captivity."
"What happened, exactly?"
Xox shrugged. "Nothing special. I was on my way back from a MIDAS meeting…"
"MIDAS?"
"Have you heard of it?" Xox beamed. "It is a billionaire's club. Fine fellows. We play bridge together sometimes. Yesterday we met at the funeral of Christian Covett."
"Covett's dead? What happened to him?"
"His private jet lost cabin pressure and he suffocated to death along with all the crew. The plane flew half-way across the Pacific Ocean before landing on auto pilot in Hawaii where he was due to play in a bridge tournament. A sad loss. He was a good player. Anyway I was on the way back from his funeral so I thought I would drop in and see how things were going here in the Budapest college."
"And they just locked you up?"
"There was some talk of ransom," Xox said mildly. "Our European friends have not been particularly happy with me since I picked their pockets. Also the Sultan of Arabia was particularly anxious to get these documents. My colleagues and I have been funding some research which might affect the Sultan's interests."
"What kind of research?"
"Solar energy. A new artificial photosynthesis process…"
"Oh my god," Lulu said, appalled. "Why didn't we take those papers away from that pudgy little man…"
"Oh, it really doesn't matter," Xox replied calmly. "The documents were just camouflage. I always have my documents stamped "Top Secret". It diverts people. Everything in those papers is readily available on the internet."
"So where are the real secrets?" Stash asked slowly.
Xox smiled and tapped his forehead.
Just then a shot rang out. A hunk of plaster crashed down from the wall behind Xox, narrowly missing his skull. I turned and groaned. I had barely drunk half of my cappuccino and there they were again, the men in purple jumpsuits running towards us, tireless, indefatigable, always on our trail.
"Quick. Let's go." We jumped into a small motor boat moored to the embankment. The boat's owner, a hefty middle-aged woman with bright yellow hair, drinking coffee with her friends at a nearby table, screeched angrily at first, but then waved permission after we threw her a fistful of dollars. Stash revved the engine and let her go. Rifle shots rang out as we careened wildly into the middle of the Danube, bouncing through a freighter's wake, nearly colliding into a tour boat laden with middle-aged tourists. Jaws dropped and cameras snapped as Stash expertly whipped our vessel around the big boat, eluding our pursuers' sniper fire. We made as if to follow the tour boat to the other side of the Danube before turning back in our tracks and docking at the embankment right below the Grand Hotel.
"What fun." Xox beamed as we pulled him out. "Thank you for the rescue. Excellent timing. I have a meeting in New York in ten hours. My Learjet is parked at the airport. Taxi!"
We waved goodbye and then went up to the hotel. Stash and Lulu packed and paid up, after which we caught a taxi to the university building where Stash's Mercedes was parked. Stash sneered at the parking tickets on the windshield and threw them away like so much confetti.
"You know what I still don't get?" I asked as we left Budapest behind us, driving into the sunset. Stash had his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. Barbie was curled up comfortably against me, her head in my lap. I stroked her hair idly as I spoke. "Why did Axel bring Anastasia with him to Budapest?"
"Oh, we asked about that, angel," Lulu replied, looking over her shoulder. "I didn't finish telling you about the interrogation. Apparently, Anastasia's father left her the bulk of his fortune and so Axel can do what he wants with it now since Anastasia just signs everything. He wants her to make over the shares she owns in this Tamato robot company to Nectarino. In return, the Nectarini family will help Axel buy up lots of seats in the European assembly."
"What for?"
"The Cardinal wants Anastasia's son, Ulrich, to eventually become the Holy Roman Emperor. They want to make the European bureaucracy really powerful and to have young Ulrich rise through the ranks till he becomes President. The idea is that once he's President he would declare himself Emperor and nobody could do anything about it."
"Like Napoleon."
"Exactly, sugar. But Axel doesn't want to wait till Ulrich grows up. Axel wants to become Holy Roman Emperor himself. So he wants to pack the European assembly and then stage a coup. It was all working out fine until Xox threw a spanner into the works."
"What did Xox do?"
"He took billions off the European bank, didn't he? So now they've lost all this credibility. Nobody trusts Eurocrats any longer."
"That's why Hohenstaufen wanted to kill himself." A thought struck me. "Why do the Nectarini want to buy Tamato robots?"
"Luciano said something about perpetual motion. I didn't get it," Lulu confessed. "I was always terrible at science in school."
"So Luciano has been working for the Nectarini all along?"
"Tamato hired him on his own merits but he sold out to the Nectarini." Lulu shuddered. "I always knew he was twisted."
"He's Sicilian," I said, defending our old Oxford acquaintance. "What do you expect?"
"Whatever. Did Xox tell us something we didn't already know about MIDAS?"
"He made it sound so simple," I replied. "A billionaire's club. They play bridge together and go to each other's funerals. Lots of those lately. And they also fund research on solar energy that makes the Sultan of Arabia nervous. Nervous enough to kill? I have no idea if Xox was telling the truth or not."
"Why not? Didn't he eat the Truth sandwich?"
"You saw him gobble it up. It didn't seem to affect him though."
"You're right. It was a wrenching experience for all the others. Maybe Xox tells the truth all the time."
"Maybe. But he can also keep a secret. I just wonder what's behind the smile on that big bald head."
No comments:
Post a Comment