CHAPTER 6 COMING TO AMERICA "I wish they all could be Californian. The west coast has a sunshine and the girls all get so tanned..." we began singing on the Rampage, looking out to sea at 11pm. "You want me to take the Cessna. OK. I'll give it some slack," I said and went off the test it. The Rampage was free of oil and grime and still contained the 20 seater Cessna- 10 seater after Dan had made some room by ripping the seats out. He wanted to smash the portholes out as well but we told him the perspex couldn't take it. On board, we had all our weapons (of course), 10 beach balls of coke (not cocaine), our Japanese Mitsubishi disguises (not Nissan), a cargo of one tonne of liquid fuel contained in an extra large condom (Dan was to climb out of the plane to refuel), 100 pairs of shades, surfboards and lots of bin liners to put our rubbish in (we wanted to help the environment). We, well, K regarded this as top stuff which made your adrenalin go boom-de-boom, so we flew a dummy plane on our course 1 hour before we flew just to confuse anyone who might be following. The Rampage eased out of Marseilles, autopiloted on a pre-designated course to New York. We had a bit of a cock-about in it like all taking Dan on at once. His kung-fu did work and did us all in by handstanding and flipping around and doing about 20 different moves. His masochism called us to try throwing knives at him, but he dodged all of them. He enjoyed it as well and only got hit once on the glass frames. Apart from us, there was K's thick slave crew consisting of a Spanish bull fighter (the captain), a Lichenstinian lumberjack, a Scarborough polytechnic liberal studies lecturer, a Mexican chilli maker, 2 brothers from Somaliland (sheep herders), 5 Indian buzbe/curry makers and a Nigerian bog roll holder designer. K was giving them English lessons and wages of 10000 pounds a week and 500 pounds for every word of English they learnt, so although they were thick s///s they were speaking right and proper English a day later. K doubled the money for each successive language they learnt. By the time we'd got on the second time, they were playing poker and charades in Serbo-Croat and Yiddish. It was just after the Azores when it was time to launch the plane- out of all radar range except satellite, but we exploded the dummy plane just as we launched at 11pm American time and headed off into the opposite side of the sunrise, more commonly known as the sunset. During all this time that we'd been in Germany, Naff, or Johnny Patel or Sonny Jim had been stuck- literally stuck with super glue to his own private cell bed. The authorities had got hold of his old school report saying he was a dangerous conman working against the pro-Salmon Rushdie defence council. He was to go to trial in two weeks' time. Unknown to him, the FBI had already decided to send him to death row since Alcatraz was for hardened criminals and not some short and weak lunatic who could do quarter malfunctioned roundhouse kicks. Just after he'd phoned us at 12pm the day before, the FBI put superglue on his back, stuck him onto his bed (no iron bits to use as bars) and put the bed in a giant inflatable plastic ball which had a breathing hole and couldn't be sliced open by knives (there was a zip on it though). I guess Naff felt depressed. He couldn't get pirates of the latest films though and his moustache was growing back- he'd also lost company with his Clacton-On-Sea keyring in the coin return flap on the outer area of the FBI jail. He decided it was time to escape. The bad dudes with affro hairstyles were far away now. He surveyed the situation. It looked bad. It looked back at him. He looked even worse. There were two guards in front of the cells. The plastic sheeting was impossible to split. The breathing hole lead to a cylinder of compressed air for him to breathe. The old trick of pretending to be having cardiac arrest wouldn't work since the authorities wanted him to die. He thrust with all his force to one side and he and the bed fell to the floor, then he got up (with the bed stuck on his back). The large ball was stuck to the floor, so it wouldn't move. He then stuck his finger into the hole and waited for either the finger to get blown out or stuck or the cylinder to blow. He used his biggest finger, so it got stuck. The cylinder (a large one to keep air supply enough for a few hours) needle began rising. Pressure built up more and more and the needle flicked to and fro. Just bad luck: it was lunch shift, so there were 2 more black guards talking with the other two, ready to switch. It reached around 5 atmospheres pressure (they'd taken his reading glasses away so he couldn't read secret messages) and just as 2 of the blackies left, he tried to remove his finger. It was well and truly stuck. The blast was going to be the worst. He turned round, so the bed was on top of him and he was facing the ground looking at his faeces in his bedpan. At 50 atms it blew. His finger was sent out and the shruddering gas cylinder was sent into the bars at 100mph, stretching the tubing to breaking point and nearly ripping the ball from the floor. The bars were pierced, knocking a he-man guard git out. He couldn't believe it because the superglue managed to fix the inflatable to the ground. The cylinder went flying back into the far wall at 80mph and exploded, knocking the wall to bits and tearing the plastic inflatable up- it was still stuck to the floor though. He was free from ball!!! The room behind him housed 4 of the baddest dudes not in the middle east and it meant it was freedom for them as well. The remaining cop got his revolver out, but Naff slid with the bed still on him to the broken bars and swung the bed legs into the cop sending him into sterility. The 2 cops guarding the other jail cell fired at the 4 bad dudes and downed three of them but the fourth one jumped out of the bars after Naff and his bed. Naff picked up the 2 revolvers of the idiot cops to find the corridors filling with twats without tits on their heads. The remaining blacky was strong but thick and tagged along behind Naff like Quasimodo following Esmerelda. There was a small window which Naff could fit through but the bed and the bad dude couldn't. The 20 cops surrounding them took cover as Naff fired the revolvers at the lights to reveal pitch darkness. The cops began firing everywhere, hitting the black dude, so Naff used him as a front shield (as in Total Recall) and the bed as the back shield, then he raced into all the cops and bowled them all down for a strike before running out of the basement still with the black dude managing to crawl behind him. Naff slammed the door into his face and confronted more cops. They were growing and growling out of his ears. The main exit was sealed off but not the fire exit. He ran for that (being chased by more cops and bullets). He found a fire extinguisher and sprayed it into everyone before throwing it into a clever dick (Dick Tracy). Using his skill of stair navigation, he clambered up to the 1st floor, using the empty extinguisher as a front shield. (More cops were firing from the above floors). "Window!!!" Naff thought and jumped through it backwards. The bed wasn't bad as an escape tool and he landed on an ice cream van before the roof collapsed. "Cowabunga dude! Hit the road!" he shouted to some bewildered 18 year old high school kid sciving school, who was driving the van. The lights were still red and it looked like the kid knew Naff was an escaped convict and so he crept out of the seat slowly. The cops emerged from the window and scanned for Naff. The ground floor cops looked like Father Christmas and wanted to look like Crockett and Tubbs instead, so they jumped up and down to look mean and tough. Naff went onto the wide road, jumping over the queues of traffic and getting shot at once or twice. In amongst the Fords, Porsches, Maseratis and Ferraris, he found a giant cement mixing lorry. Since the bed legs were crumpled by now, he jumped into the cement mixer and waited for it to set. At last, he was sort of free. He thought he was the masterman and the best. Unfortunately for him, the lorry's destination was a building site 2 blocks away. The cement was to be poured down 30 foot deep boreholes. Looking out of the cement mixer, he could see 5 more mixers behind him. It was around 2pm and he enjoyed thinking over his escape plan, until he looked out the end to find a blackness and the mixer tilting. "Oh no, no , NO!" he shouted. The cement began sliding down and he was scrambling upwards. The revolver he had beside him slid down slowly. Banging was no use amongst the noise and there weren't any grips inside. He decided to be carried down and holding onto the mixer edge as he went out. He missed the handgrip and fell 1 foot into the borehole. There was only 1 foot of cement on top of him, but he didn't know. He got a hand onto the borehole edge and just managed to climb out. "Hey, Joey, what is that? Is it your pet dog?" Bob the builder asked. "I'm not sure. It could be a lump of cement. Better change the brand," Joey replied. "I think it's a rock," Terry the truck driver added. "For crying out loud, I'm not a dog, a lump of cement or a rock. I'm this guy on candid camera. Now, if you would move. We'll have to take the shot again Leroy. You see this button. It is actually a video camera. Carry on with your work," Naff said wandering off. "Hey man. That stuff sets in 20 minutes. Showers are over there," Joey said. Naff got clean and went into a nearby cafe. He wondered if the police would look for him close to the block. He was about a mile away from the FBI offices. Just after lunch hour, the cafe was still full of sweaty smells of manual workers. The worst thing was that the dented bed (a piece of flat and crumpled steel now) was still on his back. "Missus. Could you get me a large coke?" he ordered in an American accent. "No coke, only Pepsi," she replied chewing gum and looking straight at him like one of the ugly sisters. "Gimme a large Pepsi then," he said. Since he was a con-artist, he could still be classified as a t(h)ief and nicked 10 dollars from the till. He slurped the Pepsi up and thought about us in Germany. Now that he was on the FBI's list as well it would be a bit hard completing his 'mission'. With the remaining 9 dollars, he bought 3 Megaburgers, 5 packets of fries and some milkshakes. He took the 10 dollars back (there were only 20 dollars in the till, so taking all of it would look a tiny bit weird, unless she was the thickest). He tried to phone us, but he forgot the zillion digit number- it was with his keyring, so he found a bus stop and paid the fare to get to the last stop- the centre of town which was really useful (he was hoping it would go to somewhere like Florida). Just to cause more chaos at the FBI offices, he spoke in an Irish voice and rang the T.V. companies to tell them the address of the FBI offices. He was to get his sleep in a 30 storey block, on the 30th floor, in the cleaner's cupboard. Ted was to arrive at JFK at 8am American time the next day. That read on HUD systems made him feel like he was an HUD. The plane was a nice 747-400 series. Dollar signs were going through his eyes. The credit card account contained $15,000,000 got from K's nearly infinite money account. It was in the airport that Eddy first heard about Johnny's escape from the FBI. The perfect guise to get the Bombay 6 files: a reporter from NBC news. We first heard about Johnny's dastardly deed on the news cruising at 400 knots at 30,000 feet. "Sonny's broken loose," Dan laughed. "Look at that sergeant. He's barring the doorway with just his hand. Fat or what," K said. "That's Willie B.Good, the schmuck who nicked us in Australia," SY said. "So we don't need to fetch him anymore," I said. The plane was on autopilot. "Were we going to fetch him in the first place?" JiJi asked. "Big mistake," I apologised. "Still got to get those files," SY added. "There's bound to be about 10 copies," Al added," but lots on a computer. I suppose I'll have to hack in," Al said and went over to the Archie. Ted first went to check the money in the account which was registered as Takashi Uedo. When he saw the the amount, he rolled over into the street and nearly got run over by a stray coke can. He began laughing so much, his tears flooded a newspaper stand by the roadside. "I'm in the money, I'm in the money..." he began singing and began tap dancing on parking meters. Glancing round, he saw flashing on the screen the words: ONLY IF YOU COMPLETE THE MISSION OTHERWISE YOU GET $1 50 CENTS FOR A CHICKEN SANDWICH Then he lost his balance and fell through the windscreen of a $100,000 Lotus Super Seven. The guy inside wasn't too pleased and gave Amoebaninja a black eye and wanted $5000 and $500 for doctors fees for any injuries and subsequent payments. "Look man. I can give you $15 million tomorrow. C'mon. Just tomorrow," Ted pleaded on the pavement. "This camcorder will do for a start," the beefy butch shouted. "Oh Henry baby, stop harassing the kid. Oh, the windscreen's broken," Henry's wife said, returning from the jewellers wearing enough gold to make BA Baracus jealous. "This twat's crummed up the car Isabella. Let's go to court!" "Oh Henry, stop it. Give the twat his camcorder back." "Yeah, gimme," Ted shouted and took it back. "Isabella. I could be injured and you're worried about some stinking chink." That got Ted going. He put his arm over his eyes and emerged as Amoebaninja. He tripped Henry down and got the camcorder back before basically running for his life. Sometime later, he was wandering to the address on side 2 of the moustache. Side 1 said 'fooled you!' He arrived at the FBI block (secret no more) to find 99 reporters trying to barge into a downtown block with the words 'Peruvian Basketweaving Monthly'. The brain of his whirled into action. He had to destroy the Bombay 6 report (he didn't know it was us yet) either by putting a nuclear bomb on New York or sneaking in. He figured way one was best, but he didn't have a bomb, so he had to get in and get the $15 million big ones. He found a nearby rumble jumble sale shop and with the $1.50, he bought he bought a very woolly hat which covered his face, so that he looked like one of Little Bo Peep's sheep got lost. He rejoined all the reporters which had grown to 201 in number. (At least 99 of them were working for Pravda and Izvestia and at least 98 of them were KGB spies or double agents). The group blocked the whole street. He got his camcorder out and barged through them all. As usual, Kate Adie the poser was there. To get rid of her posing about how dangerous the escapee was, he tripped her up. At the doorway, a classic American sergeant in grey waistcoat and frizzy hair with a large stomach with inches of blubber was there. It looked remarkably like Roy Kinnear.(He was actually the notorious Willie.B.Good who locked us up in India). "The escapee, a Johnny Patel is a dangerous rogue who has murdered many people..." the sergeant coughed with a fat cigar. "Lies, lies and lies," Ted murmured and used his size to shove to the front. "...throughout the world. This is a pic..." the sergeant began but Ted grabbed the picture of Johnny- even though it was when he was 5 years old and a photocard thing. He looked more like a large chocolate pudding with lumpy custard than an alien. Anyway, why should Johnny get famous. "Mr. Sergeant. I know something you don't. If you don't let me in, I won't tell you about Johnny and the Bombay 6. I am actually an M25 agent disguised as an Alaskan news reporter- notice the ear flaps for John Cravan's Newsround a division of SKYBSB news." "Shut up you scu..." the sergeant began again. "Johnny has a 'I love Clacton-On-Sea' keyring in your coin-op telephone," Ted continued. The sergeant decided it wasn't a bad idea to let the weirdo in. He could get away from the press and smoke his cigar in peace. He let Eddy Teddy in. There was a busyness of packing and sellotape sounds- actually Scotch 3M tape. "We're moving. Not safe. KGB agents sprouting out of our lugholes." "Where do your prisoners usually phone for help?" Ted asked, still with the hat on. "Just here. You said the coin return flap. Nothing...err, 'I love Clacton-On-Sea'. He phoned you. Where is he? I'm putting you under arrest," the mad, mad man said. "For what?" Ted asked. "Conspiracy, helping convicts escape. Pretending to be an M25 agent," Willie said. Ted stuck his Magnum in his back. "Nice and slowly. Get the files on the Bombay 6. All of them. Don't scream or call for ya mum. Just get the files," Ted said. "As if," Willie laughed. "Don't get feisty. Do it or I'll fire this," Ted said , cocking the weapon. "OK," Willie said, and grabbed the gun. Ted kneed his bollocks before dragging him out and dumping him in the cleaner's cupboard. "Hey you. Serg's told me to get all the 15 files on the Bombay 6 case. I got to check them all through. Bring me a coversheet as well and get me a cup of Nescafe Gold Blend-iced, shaken and stirred," Ted said. "What's the magic word?" a lanky cop said. "Cowabunga. Now, I'm in no mood to fool around. England wants those files. Here's a warrant from the serg.," Ted said holding up a receipt from Pizza Hut. "Yeah, OK," the guy said and turned away looking peeved. Whilst he waited in the 'mess', he saw other reports from serial murders to cases of glue sniffing amongst monks in Harlem. "Hey, here's the files you wanted and Johnny Patel's stuff." "And the rest of the files?" Ted asked. "Separate transport to Main before being processed. Top secret so I can't accept bribery money but I wouldn't mind 99 concubines but it's going by armoured car. I guess it's the usual London HQ thing?" "Yeah, just put it through," Ted hummed,"Don't get too big for your boots. You need discipline boy. You Americans have no respect for your elders. See you around kid." Ted photographed the armoured car and went to the park. "How will we find Naff?" SY asked chewing a giant gobstopper whilst sticking his Garbage Pail kids stickers onto his rifle. "Well, you know that aftershave Solo," I said. "No," SY replied. "Well, he's got some fake stuff called Polo. It was so bad, the chemistry teacher told him to get out. We can smell it within a mile or so," I said. "Yeah, but the smell of him might cancel it out," Al said, still on the computer (playing E-type and designing some weird car with it). "That stuff lasts for days. Don't get too close to him. You have to leave him in his home for 5 days to get rid of it," I said. "Where's Dan?" Al asked. "Out refuelling. Oh, he's skydiving outside without a parachute but with an oxygen mask. He's just beside us," JiJi said watching Neighbours. "Get him in, we don't want him to freeze to death," I said. "Don't we?" SY asked. "I heard that!!!" Dan bellowed and flew in from the hatch, nearly dragging us out. They had another cock-about in which Dan got SY into 2 armlocks and 2 leg locks. "4 hours till we get to the U.S.A. Ted had better done what he was told. Al finished hacking in yet?" K asked waking from his sleep. "No. Got through 2 levels. Still 3 to go. They're using base 128 for some reason. You need a Cray 2 or N-Cube 3. The Archie might be able to do 4 MIPS but the N-Cube 3 does 60 MIPS and has 15 billion megabytes of memory. I think I'll need 2 more hours. All these numbers are just tests. Get one wrong and you have to start all over again," Al replied shrugging his shoulders and went back to playing E-type. "Those news reports, they said Naff is dangerous. More like he's deranged. I suppose the FBI offices won't be easy to get in. We got 3 days to get to Leesburg," I said. "No worries," Dan added. "No, didn't you say Bush mentioned some crap about San Francisco?" SY asked. "Yeah. He said don't blow it up or something. I reckon the terrorists who want those missiles might use earthquakes to get what they want," JiJi explained. "Spend a day in the Big Apple ehh," Al said from the Arc. "Not with Naff's Polo," I said. Ted was eating some chips in the park. The files on us (he knew it was us who were the Bombay 6 now) made him laugh so much, he rolled into the pond and nearly drowned but didn't. It said we'd killed V.P.Singh and were caught in Australia trying to escape. Most of it was made up of course and Ted knew it. After reading it, he set alight to all 198 pages of it and went to collect the dosh. Unfortunately, Al programmed the account to be 'operational' when we got there, so Ted had 31 cents left. We said we'd meet him in the park between 11pm and 1am that day. He had 13 hours to doss and get hungry. Although Naff was desperate for a shag (and a hag), he didn't envisage it was with 2 mops and bottles of Domestos. He slowly tried to ease the door open, but it was locked. "What time was it?" he thought. He knew he did the jail break at 2pm and slept at 4pm. There wasn't any light trying to squeeze through the door grille. With a half malfunctioned roundhouse kick, he hit the door. It didn't move, but his foot did. He sprained his ankle on the kick. Great news. He looked around in the cupboard. There was a floor polisher, 5 mops and heads, bottles of liquids and 5 buckets. He whammed the door open with the floor polisher and went into the opposite wall. The silver framed picture fell from the wall and smashed on the floor. "Security guards," he thought. There was 1 light on every 10 metres. His ankle make him look like a soggy cabbage whereas he was just a cabbage before. He got some mops and some bleach and knocked an office door open. This time, he did the pushing too much and couldn't stop and had to use the mops to smash against a window pane. He switched on the light, which revealed that the office belonged to a Miss Olga Friedreich. The firm was Sun Pat peanut butter and there were bottles on display in pyramid shapes. He ate lots as he was hungry. There was just an intercom. Of all the offices, he had to pick one in which the phone didn't work, so he went out and smashed another office. "Video cameras," he thought. There was one further down the corridor by the lifts. It seemed too far away to catch him. Inside the office were airplanes on display. There was a phone! Immediately, he phoned the airport (from a phonebook). "JFK enquiries." "Yup. What time is it?" "Which city, sir?" "What do you think? Clacton-On-Sea." "In Clacton-On-Sea, it is 6.30am." "Shut up. I mean here. New York. C'mon." "The time in New York is 10.30pm." "Thanks. Can you give messages on the loud speakers?" "Yes." "OK. Hold on a minute." "I can't, I'm busy. Call back later." "Well, from 11pm till 1am, give the message that Sonny Jim will be, no, will meet them at the pop corn stand at the airport at 6am tomorrow morning." "OK. I'm a good person- you know? There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that the police have called all ports and airports about you and they've just matched your voice and they know where you are and the good news is that I've told you that they're coming to get you. Also, there's a police car 1 block away from yours. Have a nice day!" "Fingerprints!" Naff thought. There wasn't any cloth, so he put trainer marks on the phone and threw it out the window onto the street below. His luck wasn't too good: it hit and went through the police car below. The office was quite large. The room next door had a large glassy conference table. He found 2 large rubber plants and took them. He thought about the fingerprints on the light switches. He couldn't chuck them out of the window, so he used the rubber plant leaves to wipe at the light switches and Sun Pat peanut bottles. Since it was quiet up there, except for that one fly that gets in but never gets out, Naff heard the lift moving. He ran, or rather hobbled with the mops and stuff in the opposite direction. The corridor was in a circle, so he ended up back where he started. The guards would know the place back to front, front to back and inside out. There was an outer ring of offices and an inner ring. The cleaning cupboard was about 20m from the lifts and there were 2 smashed doors. Hadn't time to find emergency stairs. There were 4 lifts, so he'd have to sneak in one and overpower 1 guard with mops and bleach. Naff smashed some lights out and waited next to the lifts. As soon as the doors opened, he jabbed a mop in and sprayed bleach, but the 2 guards were at the sides and so the mop went into the back and broke. Naff knew he was the worst and legged it into the nearest office (the Sun Pat one), being chased by the 2 guards. He hid behind the desk and (no door to hide behind) chucked the empty bottles at the doorway as the bullets went in. Just as in films, he ran to the window ledge and went out onto it, then he played Mr. Daredevil and walked about 5 metres on it and smashed the window of the room next door (the conference room). The guards saw that he was getting away and went into the Sun Pat office. Naff went back into the Sun Pat office behind the guard and whammed one with a mop handle. The other one was out on the ledge and couldn't do anything except balance for his life. Naff took both guards' guns and walkie talkies and pulled faces at the one outside. "Hey, you're Johnny Patel, the dangerous criminal who's escaped!" the guard shouted. "Naw, I'm Donatello. Want my autograph?". He heard other footsteps and went to the nearest lift. No-one had pressed it down, so he didn't have to wait and he jumped into it. He sorta remembered the frequency he used to talk to us in the bogs in Frankfurt airport. It worked. "Hello," Naff said. "Yeah," Al replied. "Is it, the six?" "Six what. Anyway, who are you?" "I'm him, the guy who you sent into the U.A.E., Frankfurt. Sonny Jim." "Andy, it's another one of your enemies," Al laughed and told me it was Naff. I put it onto loudspeaker. "Long time no hear!" we all shouted. "Crap yourselves. You guessed it, I'm in a fix but of course you won't give me your help, so I just want a meeting place. I told JFK airport. Where shall we meet?" "Nowhere," I said. "Meet Ted, you know, your mate Amoebaninja in Battery Park at 6.30am, no, I think he's there now. Meet him there now. I guess you're being chased, so err, get Ted to withdraw money from my account. Al reduced it to $100,000 by the way. You're to go with him to the Statue of Liberty when we're gonna have a jolly, hum, hum reunion there at 1am tomorrow. Miss it and we'll be in Leesburg tomorrow. Is this frequemcy safe?" K asked. "No way man," Johnny replied. "Hold your ground for 2 hours. We'll be there soon," K said. "What's happening pal?" I asked. "I'm on the 10th floor in a lift and being chased by about 6 guards and police. Where's Battery Park?" "Quick, look out the lift. See a monument WW2 thing lighted up?" I asked. "Err, yeah, over there by the right." "How should I know, but I suppose it's the right thing. Got to go. See you in or by the statue," I said. We were an hour away from the airport. The lift reached floor 1 and Johnny stopped it. He knew that these modcom blocks had to have decorations or fountains outside and hey presto, there was one, even though it was 10m too far. Using a mop handle, he vaulted into a large fountain pool by the front. He reasoned there'd be cops guarding the entrance to the ground floor. He heard lots of sirens loudening, so he ran to the police car with the phone smashed through, then he got the shotgun from the boot and got in the driving seat. "Nice sunroof," he said and sped off to Battery Park, where Ted was sleeping on a bench. We began our approach to JFK. As usual, Dan had drunk half the fuel, so we did an SOS thing. "Guys, set the charges. We don't want no evidence. Andy, land and crash into the end fencing. Should be a highway where we can nip off. Drink some coke. It'll do you good. Caffeine. I could have easily landed normally, but we needed to get out. I did a skid past the safety nets, smashed into a fuel truck and 737 wing before going through the fencing onto a street. We jumped out immediately and took cover behind a graffiti wall. The Cessna blew and set the scene a nice firework colour. "Put your disguises on, we're going out," K said. Johnny headed for the park. Although thick, he did have a bit of a brain but not enough. In the darkness and empty street, he drove on the wrong side of the road and realised when he crashed into a police car and caused the 10 police cars behind to smash into that one as well. He smashed the back window and rolled out (he still had the bed on his back). He decided to stay under the car and crawled along under all 10 police cars. By doing that, he away scot free. He decided to be Rocky and do the Rocky run. Trouble was, he was a tenth the size of Rocky, had no biceps or triceps, a steel plate on his back, there wasn't any sort of crowd, it was dark and he had a sprained ankle. It took him about 30 minutes to hobble there. Since he was a fugitive already, he raided food shops and more food shops. After a bit of walking around town looking big and strong, he reached Battery Park and used the loudspeaker to call Ted by his nicknames. "Ted! Eddy! Jimbo Jim!" He managed to wake all the vagabonds and tramps immediately with his screaming. Ted only woke up when he smelt Johnny's horrible fake Solo called Polo. "Sonny, gimme some food!" Ted shouted. Ted got into one of his food moods and jumped at the food bag Johnny had. "Ted, it's me, Johnny," Naff said "Munch, munch. I have had one portion of chips in the last 10 hours," Ted munched. "After you've finished..." Naff began. "Finished," Ted said, licking his lips. "Andy and the other 5..." "What other five?" "You haven't met them?" "Met who?" "Andy's friends." "Friends, what friends?" "I heard that Ted," I said hearing from the transmit mike under his lip. "So I'm decreasing the $15 million to $100,000. I'm about 1 mile to the park. Get that money." "OK, pal, chum, dog food," Ted said. "$50,000," I said. "Take a joke. No probs," Ted said. He and Johnny bounded to Manhattan Bank to withdraw $30,000. "The police have got your trail. The Polo smells worse than you," Ted said. "That's because I am the best," he said," sorry I sent all your buddies, the tramps, away." "You send everything away. Police sirens," Ted said," after all these years, I can honestly say they've come to get you." "Quick, get the money!" Naff called. The dispenser's money came flying out. The police were creeping all over New York. They used a helicopter with thermal imaging camera, so they found us 5 and were still searching for Johnny and Ted, who'd got into the subway full of more black dudes and even more Guardian Angels. They got to the statue in one piece and took cover under some trees. We were going the same way as they did (via the subway), the police helicopter thought- it didn't think, the cops inside it did. We were in trouble, so they got units to move in. We reached the statue as fine as we could be. On the plane, Al had cracked into FBI HQ and got rid of everything on our files and Naff, so we were basically free again. "My infra-red goggles detect Ted and Johnny over there," Al said. We crept up behind them and gave them such a fright, they couldn't breathe for 10 seconds. "This is Amoebaman guys, known as Jimbo," I introduced. "Jimbo Jim. I know my stuff," Ted said. "It's best if we find somewhere secure," K said. Suddenly, 3 spotlights got us from the helicopters above and we saw we were surrounded by 3 helicopters and 100 well'ard cops with revolvers, shotguns and 2 armoured vans. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the Bombay 6, that s///ead Johnny Patel and the git who locked me in a cupboard," Sergeant Willie said." a neat package. Not bad for one night's work. Promotion's up." I quickly threw a fragmentation grenade into the air and blew the 3 searchlights up but the searchlights on the armoured cars came on, but we'd left that spot. "Harbour!" Al shouted, as I threw 2 smoke grenades and 2 gas grenades. The police had decided to adopt the tactic of firing all over the shop and nearly hit their own men. We took cover behind the Statue of Liberty. "Where've they gone?" Sergeant Willie asked. "Over there, behind the statue," an officer answered and all the police began spraying at the stonework. "STOP, STOP!!!" Serg. shouted on the loudspeaker," that's a landmark!" The firing ceased after 1 minute and the base of the statue didn't look too nice. "The only way out is into the water," Al said. "I can't swim," Johnny said. "Give a toss," Dan muttered. "Hey, 2 police boats over there," I said. "Who's a good swimmer?" K asked. Ted and Dan answered. "Leave your stuff here, we're going into the statue. Ted, take the boat on the left, Dan dare superman, the boat on the right. Beat the cops up and drive the boats to about 100m from here," K explained. They slipped into the icy cold water (which Dan loved but Ted didn't) whilst we got inside the monument. "All units. This is Sergeant Willie. Come to the Statue of Liberty. Forget about the drug pusher you're beating up. I want you here. HQ, get the SWAT team and get flares, APCs and alert the 10th army to get down here. Get 2 F-14s scrambled and snipers positioned on the Manhatten bank and Hilton. We got the gits nailed," Serg. smiled," get the media as well." We were inside the base of the statue and had made pill box type holes to fire out of. "Isn't this fun?" I asked Naff, firing a couple of bursts. "Yeah, I suppose so. Do it more often," he replied. On the word of "let the bums have it," we took accurate shots (infra-red flashlight and light intensifier helped our targetting) at the police who ran away as our bullets shot all the trees to bits. Both 80mm missiles blew the APCs to molten metal and the flame thrower burnt all the grass, any remaining trees (cover) and park benches up. "Sergeant. President Bush says not to shoot at the Statue of Liberty. Any holes and you'll get sacked and face a court martial," the radio operator said. "But I've already blown holes in it," Serg. stuttered. "You'll get sacked," the operator laughed. "You're sacked boy. Out!" serg. said. "But..." "Shut your mouth and go back to your hole Wilson. Out!!!" Since Serg. Willie would get sacked, he decided to tell everyone to blow the statue to moondust. He wanted to get us and he'd do it even if his mum was in the way. The shotgun blasts and bullets hit the base and shook the place like Smiths Salt and Shake crisps. "Care about their heritage," SY said. "They'll get through in 5 more minutes. SY, get your Winchester out. Where's Ted and Dan?" Al asked. Dan felt the best and raced underwater to the back of the first police boat. He saw there were 4 officers, so he jumped in and started the party. "Hey, gimme some skin!" Dan shouted and whirled around, punching and kicking them into the water. The last one, he flying kicked into the windscreen and out the front. He set the boat to forward full, before diving overboard to attack the other boat. One was dealt with a jab to the neck, another a backheel into the abdominals and the third with a thrust into the face. "What took you so long?" Dan asked Ted, who was panting beside the boat. "The water, y'see. C-c-cold and there, there's resistance," he replied puffing even more. Ted climbed aboard and they trained the 15mm boat's gun into the park by the statue, but explosive shells hit the boat and other bullets made holes in the side. "Those shots are coming from somewhere on the skyscrapers," Ted said," this gun won't reach the buildings." Al managed to intercept the police calls to find out that 2500 soldiers from New Jersey would arrive in 10 minutes, a fleet of 2 cruisers and 10 attack/landing craft would also get there and 5 F-18s from the USS Yorktown would arrive to TRY to blow us up. "K, let's start WW 3," Al said and chortled with laughter after blowing a parked Rolls Royce up. "Not yet. The Russians haven't been informed yet. Let's move back. They're breaching the stonework," K answered and went back. We got down to the mini museum on the first floor. Unknown to us, 2 helicopters were dropping 4 members of the crack commando unit onto the statue and their orders were to eliminate us. "Hey, the police boats are coming with Ted and Johnny on!" JiJi shouted. Ted and Johnny dived overboard, just as a bullet hit the fuel tank and sent it to Timbuctoo. "No it ain't," SY said and turned around to spray bullets out the front. The police had all retreated to about 600 metres away and they were scared stiff. The other boat which Dan had left on auto was 200m out. He swam to it and began unwinding the rope to us. Since he was champion fuel drinker, he drank nearly all the fuel so there was no risk of it blowing up, even though he was a walking fireball and could spontaneously combust. Ted had swum further out and was snoozing under a pier. The action was too much for an amoeba. "Rope's coming from a police boat!" Naff shouted, just as the whole front base collapsed and the police began advancing. The Leaning Tower of Pisa would have some competition now. "Gas!" JiJi shouted, as 5 gas grenades rolled in. "Johnny's odour eaters!" I shouted. According to the manufacturers those things could neutralise hydrogen cyanide and we were hoping it would work. It did, but it meant we could smell Johnny's feet and that was as bad as cyanide. We were being fired at from the open end by the 100 well'ard cops and the snipers half a mile away. "Must be SAS types up there," K said and got his large Provincial bullet-proof umbrella up and we- all except SY hid behind it. Sure enough, the commandos swung down just like tarzan, firing bursts of bullets at K's umbrella. SY, standing beside the far wall swung his 6 foot iron bar into them and winded them on the spot. K turned his umbrella round to deflect the bullets from the advancing cops whilst we took cover behind some steps. "How many more d'you think are up there?" JiJi asked. "Only one way to find out," Al said and told us to take cover in the left back corner. He set up 10 sticks of cyclonite with fuses and primed them, then blew them, leaving only the left supporting wall remained and bits of the back wall without holes. The statue tipped over 45 degrees and threw the 2 commandos into the bay. Just as the statue tipped, the flame in the statue's hand banged against a helicopter, sending it plunging into the water. Half of the arm of the statue smashed to the ground in one trillion bits of dust and even more atoms. We ran out the back and clung onto the rope of Dan's police boat. "Lieutenant. Take control here. I'm running away to Tierra del Fuego," Serg. Willie said and took a police car. "You can't do that. That's where Garfield lives," the lieutenant shouted back. We chugged along quite nicely out into the bay. Our weapons were chucked into the boat in waterproof bags, alias binliners and we were drinking the coke from the 10 beach balls so they could be used as floats. Dan winched us onto the boat before the snipers could fire. "Where's Ted?" Naff asked. "He said he needed his beauty sleep. He's under that pier over there," Dan pointed out. "Andy, those snipers on the bank are making a terrible racket. Road construction workers can't hear what they're doing and they're waking all New York up. Fire a missile over there will you?" Al asked. I fired a missile into the top of the Manhattan bank and silenced the terrible racket, but another terrible racket started- all the burglar and fire alarms went ding-a-ling-a-ling. "You win some and you lose some," JiJi said. "The boat's springing leaks," Al said. "I don't eat leeks," Naff laughed. "Not funny. Get a life," K said. Before we knew it, 2 flares lit up the sky in nice colours, showing that we were eating pizza and hot dogs, so we waved at the sky and SY held up a sign with 'Hi mom!'. "Radar detects 5 planes and lots of ships 5 miles away," Al said. "Soldiers on the edge of the bay. Setting up mortars," I said viewing with my light intensifier goggles. "Get those surfboards out. We're surfin' U.S.A.!" K shouted. With some nifty work by all of us, we fixed the boat motor to Dan's board and we used the rope to tie our surfboards to his. The boat was really leaking now and the mortar shots were closer than in James Bond films. We all jumped overboard again and cruised underwater at 20 knots. The boat had been sent back backwards and a missile ended its chugachuga. We'd got a third of a mile away from the soldiers before needing to breathe. There were even more searchlights than in Batman's show. As usual, Johnny's gasping for breath alerted searchlights to us and he was a star again. Dan, at the 'helm' saw 10 attack craft approaching and brought us back underwater. As we went under them, SY used his iron bar to smash the motors of 5 landing craft before ours conked out. We surfaced behind the last craft and Dan did another kung-fu session with us backing him up. It took 10 seconds and JiJi's silent crossbow got two. We quickly boarded with our gear and went the other way. We took potshots at the rest of them. Another flare lit the sky with the message "Latest from the football match: Washington Red Skins: 3 Miami Dolphins: 29." Then 5 F-18s roared past for surveillance. "2 cruisers blocking the place lengthwise," I said. "The shore's clear," K said and we headed towards the edge and landed and we all felt like 'hangin' tough' and clambered onto the freeway. The soldiers were a few hundred metres back but thought we were still underwater. "Can't shoot us here. Too many civilians," JiJi said. "Haven't you forgotten we're civilians as well?" Johnny asked. There was busy traffic and we bounded across the central reservation to reach a shopping centre. After grabbing a kebab or two, we found 7 well 'ard lads, the perfect geysers to frame. There were more police helicopter sounds and so we- well Dan and SY beat the sods up. We took our disguises off and put them on them and gave some of our weapons to them before running to the train station after a quick comb (a long comb by Johnny). "Johnny Suede, this is all your fault. We were hoping to have a doss around New York," K said. "My fault? Who said you had to meet me by the statue?" Johnny asked. "And who phoned us for a meeting place?" K asked back," I thought you couldn't botch 5 things up in a day. From now on, shut up!" K said. "Where are we going?" JiJi asked. "South, near Leesburg. They haven't got photos of us, just good descriptions of us with our disguises on. Once they find our disguises, they won't know us at all. Let's go to..." K began. "Washington," Naff butted in. "SHUT UP!" we shouted. "Washington," SY said. "Excellent," K said. "What about Ted?" I asked. "That Polo scent should do it," SY said. "Got anymore?" JiJi asked. Naff kept quiet as a dumb idiot. "OK, speak," K sighed. "I don't know and I don't care," Johnny replied. "It's I don't know and I do care," I added. "We'll find a way. Let's groovy along to good old Washington D.C.," Dan said. We boarded the train at 1.30am and decided to go to sleep on it. We hadn't many leads except that someone was nicking missiles from America and Russia on a world-wide scale, but for what reason? Ted was still sitting under the pier, waiting for the police to go away, but, of course, they didn't, so he had to sleep there. We had to be woken up by a 92 year old OAP to tell us we'd got to the end of the line in Charlotte. I was surprised I could sleep on that 100 year old wagon train (it still had arrows in it) and curious to know what a 92 year old OAP was doing on a train at 1.30am in the morning. It was Wednesday 10am. "Where are we tough lads going?" SY asked. "We're staying right here in Charlotte," K said. "The shipment's on Friday. This place is sure sunny," Al said. "What I'm waiting for is food," I said. "Let's get a hotel. We're gonna bust this case cos' I need my sleep," K said and we all did the secret handshake which took 10 minutes.