Chapter 4

"One may smile, and smile, and be a villain." (Hamlet)

Shakespeare – English poet, playwright, and actor (1564-1616)

The two men were taken back to the basement. The first thing Gordon noticed was that the three Senators were no longer there. "So," he said to Loveless, "You have carried out your diabolical plan."

"Yes, the Senators are on their way to Washington, as we speak. It was a good idea to test the serums on you two, it made me realise that I used far too large a dose. I don't want the senators to show signs of extreme hatred until they reach the people they are to kill. Still it was fun watching you cope, through my two-way mirror." He saw the look of horror on the men's faces and laughed. "It was very entertaining, I assure you."

They were put in one of the empty cells and Loveless hurried away to the laboratory. He returned with a filled hypodermic needle in his hand and a large grin on his face.

"Due to your present malady, Mr Gordon," he smirked, "I thought you would rather not see Miss Brewer, at the moment, so I have decided to undertake this task myself." He turned to his henchmen. "Hold them down!" he ordered. "Don't worry, gentlemen," he continued, smiling, "this injection will not harm you; on the contrary it will bring you back to your senses. I want your minds to be totally clear when you finally meet your end."

Loveless injected them with the antidote and then he and his men left the cell. "I shall see you in a little while," he said. "Where has that dog got to?" they heard him ask as he ascended the steps to the ground floor.

Gordon and West lay there for some minutes without saying anything. Then Gordon broke the silence.

"Well, that was certainly some merry-go-round ride Loveless had us on," he said.

By his comment, West could tell he was trying to cover the embarrassment both of them were feeling so he answered in kind. "I'm glad to see that he, at least, gained some amusement from it. I always like to do my best to entertain my host."

Slowly, but surely, they started to feel a change coming over their minds, which were no longer clouded by overwhelming emotion.

"What do you think Loveless has in store for us?" Gordon asked.

"He's probably cooked up some crazy scheme by which he means to kill us. That's what he usually does," West replied.

Gordon nervously cleared his throat. "Seeing as we could very well be dead soon, do you want to talk about it, Jim?"

"No, but I suppose you're not going to leave me alone until I do."

"Not at all," Gordon said, "I respect your right to your own personal thoughts."

West sighed. "Thanks for that, Artie, but I guess I owe it to you, especially if we don't get out of this one alive."

"First, let me say 'thank you' for putting up with my lunacy and for trying to help me," Artie said. "I know how hard it was for you under the circumstances."

West was silent for a moment; even an oblique reference to his humiliation was hard to hear. "Hey, that's what friends are for," he finally said, "and it wasn't you saying and doing those things. That was the serum. Anyway, I was just as bad."

"I'm sorry, I was too wrapped up in my own problems to pay any attention to yours," Gordon said.

"Maybe it was better that way; there wasn't much you could do and I would have hated any attention. I'm just going to have to deal with it." It occurred to West that Gordon was handling this better than he was. Was it because he was older, and therefore wiser, or was it because he, James West, was more vain and less able to deal with something that hurt his pride and dented his confidence in himself? He didn't know if he wanted the answer to that question but he felt he owed it to himself to find out.

"Jim, I'm always here if you want to talk about this," his partner said, "but I think we both want to deal with it privately, in our own way, for now. Shall we agree not to mention it to anyone?"

West nodded.

Both of them felt that the air between them had been cleared a little and that they could carry on without having to put up walls between them.

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. It was just as well that they had finished their discussion because it looked as if they were going to be moved again.

West and Gordon were sitting with their ankles bound with rope to the front legs of a couple of dining chairs, placed back to back. More rope was looped around their upper torsos and the chair backs.

Doctor Miguelito Loveless was walking up and down, laughing at what he considered to be his genius in setting up two identical lethal contraptions, currently facing the two secret agents.

"As you can see, gentlemen, you are each facing a loaded cross-bow, the mechanism of which is triggered when sufficient of the delicious chunks of meat on one side of the scale have been consumed. I'm sure you'll agree it is absolutely devilish. In a moment I will let the dog loose and he will begin to consume the food. Perhaps I should reveal that he has not been fed since yesterday. I'm expecting his appetite to be quite keen." As usual he was laughing loudly at his own inventiveness and the inevitable fate of his two enemies.

"I wouldn't count your chickens until they're hatched," West warned him.

"Why not, Mr West? Surely you can see that no one can stop me now. Besides, I don't have time to bandy words with you. It's time for me to leave."

"Then let me just keep you long enough to hear a limerick I composed in answer to the one you sang earlier." Without waiting for an answer, West launched into the following verse:

Dr Loveless had numerous tries,

To cut Agent West down to size,

But West was too smart,

To be speared through the heart,

So his threats, they all turned into lies.

West finished with a wry smile and Gordon chortled.

"Very clever, Mr West, but you will find that my final threat will end in your death. Now I really must say 'good-bye'."

"Don't let us keep you," Gordon chipped in and West smiled.

With a scowl, Loveless left the room, henchmen in tow. The door was left open for the little Jack Russell to enter. It made a tour of the room, sniffing as it went, until it reached the first scale and the meat sitting in the pan. It was the one in front of West's chair. Gordon called to the dog.

"Here, boy, come to uncle Artie!" he said. The dog remembered him from their meeting in the bedroom earlier and trotted happily over to see him.

"Here, boy," West called, bringing the dog over to him.

"I don't know how long we can make him do this before he gets fed up and starts to eat the meat," Gordon said.

"I think I have an idea how to get free," West said, wiggling his toes. "These boots they gave me are far too big and I think I can wriggle my feet out of them."

Gordon called the dog back over to him, while West concentrated on the task in hand. So far it had eaten some meat from both scale pans.

In short order, West had left his boots tied to the chair and had teetered to his stocking feet. He managed to reach the marble mantle-piece and banged the chair against it two or three times, at which point the back was smashed and fell into the grate. He was free, although still swathed in ropes, which he managed to wriggle out of, now they were no longer attached to the chair. The first thing he did was remove the bolt from both cross-bows, just in time as far as Gordon was concerned, as the dog had eaten just about all the meat on his side. He finally released Gordon from his ropes.

"We don't have time to lose," West said. "We need to get a message to Washington, warning them about the Senators and the mission Loveless has sent them on."

"Actually, I have a confession to make," Gordon said. "Loveless told us that the hate serum was the purple one so, when we were in the laboratory yesterday, I threw all the purple serum away and replaced it with a mixture of the blue and the red serums."

"So, you're telling me...?"

"Yes, the senators are about to boldly declare their love for their victims, as soon as they reach Washington."

West began to laugh and he laughed louder and louder until he was doubled over. Gordon joined in and they joined arms and walked cheerfully down to the basement, where they headed to the laboratory to smash up the bottles of serum.

That was where they ran into Octavia Brewer. Gordon was glad to find that he had no feelings for her whatever.

"Miss Brewer," he said, "I'm afraid we will have to arrest you for your part in all this."

"Really, Mr Gordon, you surprise me; are you and Mr West really prepared for what happened here to be bandied around in open court?"

Gordon turned a questioning look on West. "Maybe you were a little bit hasty, Artie," West said. "After all, if we destroy all the serums, as we plan to do, there won't be any evidence to convict Miss Brewer."

"You make a good argument," Gordon agreed. "Well, my dear, it would appear you are free to go."

"Thank you," Octavia Brewer said, briefly kissing Gordon on the lips before she sped to the basement stairs.

Gordon was smiling like the mouse that got the cheese.

"Come on, snap out of it!" West said, "we have work to do."

Back on the Wanderer, Gordon and West were relaxing with a glass of sherry. West was holding his glass in one hand and lazily stroking the little dog on his lap with the other, now and again tweaking the animal's ears.

"I don't know why you brought that dog on board," Gordon said.

"We couldn't just leave him there," West replied. "Besides I think he's quite cute."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to keep him; I'll find a good home for him before we leave town."

"Have you come up with a name for him?"

"Yes," West said, "I thought Doguelito Well-Beloved would suit him very well."

Gordon did a double take and then laughed. "Well, I guess he did try to kill us," he laughed.

THE END