Anyway, want a pointless action sequence?
Gris gets into a cab to leave the airport, one driven by "a squat and crumpled-looking driver" who gets out and opens the door for Gris. The porter stows Gris' luggage, then stands in his way with a hand out, putting the Apparatus officer in a conundrum.
I saw I was not going to make it. Not unless I bought him off. He could still call the airport police. They stay in constant communication through the Nazi Gestapo headquarters in Strasbourg, which operates under the name of Interpol. They have a huge radio station down in South America and use the lines of CIA to radio on ahead of planes and grab people they don't like or who aren't criminal enough to join their ranks. So I was not out of danger so long as I was on airport ground. I decided to tip him.
This paragraph is a bit of a puzzler, innit? On the one hand, Gris has been going a bit crazy as of late, convinced that everyone he meets is trying to delay him so the Turkish authorities can deport him to face execution by Mohammad. On the other hand, Mission Earth's setting already has plenty of stuff crazier than the Interpol-Gestapo thing Gris is suggesting here. So just how serious is Gris at this point? Is this a delusion, or a rare moment of lucidity?
This is the sort of problem that pops up when the guy writing "satire" about vast international conspiracies earnestly believed that Nazis, drug companies, bankers and psychologists were teaming up to go after him.
Well, Gris tries to tip the porter in drachma, then in lira, but the man "pretends" not to know what the currencies are. Gris attempts to bluff that he has nothing else, but the porter spots the thousand-dollar bills at the bottom of his luggage. He says nothing about it, though, and tells the taxi driver that Gris hasn't got anything else. But when Gris gets in the taxi, the driver pulls over and spends five minutes "phon[ing] in to the dispatcher" because his radio is broken.
If warning bells are going off in your head, congratulations! You're more alert and careful than the cream of the Voltarian Coordinated Information Apparatus.
Instead of taking Gris to Times Square, the cab driver insists on giving Gris the "scenic route," free of charge, which leads to a nearly-deserted stretch of town lined with trees. Gris grumbles about the scenery not being all that scenic, but doesn't get worried or tense up or ready his gun or anything. Much less demand that the driver go where ordered or jump out when he doesn't. Especially since the last time a cabbie took Gris on an unwanted ride he ended up buying a limousine he hadn't asked for. Nope, no pattern recognition or anything.
Then it gets silly.
Suddenly a log came crashing down across the road, dead in front of the cab!
The driver braked frantically.
There was a roar!
Three motorcycles leaped into view and stopped, two in front and one behind the cab.
The riders wore bandannas tied across their faces!
They had guns pointed at the cab!
"Throw down your guns!" the nearest rider said. "All passengers out! And don't try nothin' funny! We got the drop on you!" A stagecoach holdup! I knew! I had seen them in the films. The next order would be to throw down the Wells Fargo box! And I had no gun handy!
The problem with Mission Earth is that we've already had sadistic lesbian BDSM sessions and an elderly Nazi general suggesting that a banker and an alien spy use an aircraft carrier launch line as a rubber band to trap a fleeing publicist, so I can't really say Hubbard's jumping the shark here. We're long past the shark. I miss the shark. We're jumping coelacanths and other prehistoric sea monsters now.
Gris and the driver get out with their hands up, and one of the "highwaymen" takes his wallet and bag of money. They try to take his passport too, but Gris offers to get it out for him - and then stabs the robber with a plastic fork he stole from the airplane last chapter to see if his Apparatus skills were still up to snuff. Chekhov's Plastic Airline Fork! I should've mentioned it last chapter but dismissed it as unimportant! I'm a terrible amateur literary critic!
He's armed!" he screamed.
I dived under the cab.
A gun exploded!
Something hit the cab.
Three bike motors were roaring.
They were gone!
Yeah. A plastic fork just scared off some muggers. And their first instinct was to scream in fear instead of using the guns they had trained upon the man armed with, and again I must emphasize this, a plastic fork.
The fired shot was at the taxi driver, who has taken the classic Shoulder Injury and can't drive. So Gris draws his gun, takes the wheel, and tries to go after the robbers. He asks the taxi driver where they went, but the guy confesses that he doesn't know before passing out in the passenger seat.
And that's it for the highwaymen, as far as I can tell. I've searched the rest of the book but can't find any sign of them. But, because three highwaymen appeared for less than two pages out of a single chapter, the book jacket felt confident to promise us "an army of mounted outlaw highwaymen."
This all leaves Gris in a bit of a lurch. He has no money, no credit cards, nothing. He's terrified of going back to Turkey, and he's worried that someone will try to turn him in if he goes to the local Apparatus office (why?). But he realizes he knows where he could get some money.
No, it's not Mr. Bury.
No, it's not Madison.
No, he's not going to rob a bank.
No, it's not Heller.
My teeth gritting, but determined, I was headed stealthily for the apartment of Miss Pinch.
Yep. Gris' flight to Turkey, chapter after chapter spent loafing around, the fortune quickly gained and just as quickly squandered, the flight from Turkey over adultery charges, the random acts of murder, all of it ends with Gris returning to the place that caused him to flee to Turkey in the first place. 94 pages of An Alien Affair and 272 pages of Fortune of Fear and we've gone in a big, dumb circle.
Back to Chapter Four
Your sporking's been a bit sporadic of late, I wondered why.
ReplyDeleteThen I remembered what the next bit of 'Mission Earth' is.
Good luck.