Epilogue

“Are you staying for one more?” asks the Very Well Spoken Barman, dusting off his best glass of Old Tired Metaphor.

"I am not," replies Jonny B. "I have milked you for all you are worth, and now I am going home to die happy."

"Right you are," replies the Chipper Barman, who had returned from Coventry just to say this.

"We had some good times, didn't we?" says Jonny, to no-one in particular. "The Post Office thing. The sick chicken. The cow. The raid on the snooker club. The Risk. All good things, though, all good things."

Silence descends on the small pub, in the small corner, of the small village.

The clock in the corner ticks down the time. Tick. Tick. Tick.

"Right. I'll be getting off then," murmurs Jonny.

He stands up and walks to the door. From behind him, he hears, but does not see, a group of people break into applause, slowly at first, and then growing louder, louder, until the noise is deafening.

It is Big A, with his 95 year old escort, Glenda. It is Len the Fish, toting a fat stogie. It is the LTLP, child in each arm. It is John Twonil. It is everyone from the bowls club, a couple of folk from the snooker, and the bloke who spent far too long renovating a cottage which really wasn't that bad in the first place.

It is me, Short Tony. I am standing behind Ann Widdecombe.

"Thank you all for coming," manages Jonny. And as he leaves the pub for the final time, his cast of characters fade away, to be replaced by a field of poppies, just like at the end of Blackadder, which was a pretty good ending, all told.

Belt. Braces.

I'll admit, it was quite novel when he turned up in the village.

It wasn't the London thing. We get folk coming up from down that way all the time. It wasn't the writer thing either, as after all, he was just a wannabe back then. It wasn't the craziness; we're quite used to that, (this is Norfolk after all). It was the blackness that did it.

I mean, young black guy playing bowls with octogenarian Tory voters. There's a certain humour there. Young black guy keeping chickens and perving over vegetable delivery ladies. It's funny. I would read about it, for a while, and maybe you'd hear about it on the radio. Like in that slot before six o'clock on Radio Five with that grumpy old bastard Peter Allen. No, second thoughts, that's too popular. It would probably turn up on Radio 4, after Farming Today, at 5.45 AM.

But the point is that "black guy in white world doing strange things" is inherently funnier than "just another white guy playing bowls for a bit". Call it a commentary on modern society, if you wish.

But, over the years, people around here have come to accept him. He is now a part of the scenery. Accepted, if not loved.

Which is why I was surprised to see Jonny B at the village pub, wearing a pair of braces he claimed were from the Black and White Minstrel Show. When it was pointed out to him that this show was a bastion of the kind of racism he has fought all of his life to overcome, he just smiled, and muttered something about it being post-ironic.

Perhaps, we will never truely understand him.

Deja vu. Again.

Close-contact observation can be a risky and often dangerous business. It can be tiring, it can be laborious, and, as I have just discovered, it can be demeaning.

I have donned a new costume in my pursuit of the nefarious Jonny B. Thanks to the boffins at MI5, and in no small part to the action blockbuster Face/Off, (Cage, Travolta, et al), I have managed to swap both my face and my body with that of a small child. I have kidnapped the second spawn of the target, and am now deep undercover in the lion's den.

The surgery was not without its failings. The drugs they have given me do not even scratch the surface of the pain. In addition, I appear to have lost many of my fine motor skills. I am screaming for most of the night, and pooing my diaper in the day. Mine is not a comfortable existence, although the poo does go squish when I sit down, which can be comforting. I am forced to play with a multitude of children's toys. There are trucks and swords and guns, but I am keen to play with the dollys, just to annoy Jonny.

There is endless Peppa Pig. I am George. My sister is Peppa. My daddy is Daddy Pig. There is an uncanny resemblance, both phsyical and mental.

I am afraid I am losing my ability to think like a grown-up. It is a bit like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, (Pitt, et al). The more I poo and eat and poo and play and eat and poo and play and scream and eat and poo and poo and scream, the more I forget how to form those things that you use to talk with, you know, the things that come out of that thing that is in the middle of your face. I will count to ten to get my bearings.

One, two, three, four, three, four, two, three.

I must get out, make a break for that thing over there that leads to the outside world. The thing that is made of the same stuff as my train. It is hard. I banged my head on it the other day. It hurt. I screamed.

I have pooed again.

I am me, I am not George. Am I George?

I am George.

Oink. Dinosaur.

Alive

As part of my selfless espionage, I am forced into attending many social outings with the heinous Jonny B.

One such ritual humiliation is the weekly snooker match. As it has been since the dawn of time, we are left cursing our general lack of skill and manliness, as we succumb to a 25-0 beating. Fast forward several hours, (and several pints), and we are travelling at breakneck speed along a small country road in the middle of nowhere. Jonny is driving. He has been drinking again. He's always drinking these days. I beseech him to slow down, but he just stares into the gloom ahead and ignores my cries.

We round a tight corner at high speed, the car tilts, leaves the ground for several minutes, and executes a mid-air triple-salko. The next thing I know I am flying through the air, like a beautiful angel, down from Heaven for the weekend, before thumping face-down into the snow, head ringing and balls aching. The Firm trains you to be calm in these situations, but I am shaking with fury and fear as I struggle to my feet.

The car is laying upside-down in a ditch. It looks like it has been through one of those compactors you get at the breakers. You know, I think they had one in Superman. Or like Luke Skywalker would have looked like if he had actually got crushed in that room that he was stuck in with Princess Leia. I am babbling incoherently, and struggling to think of a half-decent metaphor, but hopefully you get the picture.

I fall to my knees and look inside. John Twonill is out cold and bleeding from a nasty gash to his temple. Len the Fish is conscious, but has a thousand-yard stare in his eyes. I think he might be dead, before he coughs bright red blood all over the back seat. The Chipper Barman is upside down with his head in Len's lap. (I don't know whether he was like that before the crash, I was in the front.) Jonny B is strangely unharmed, and busy crawling out of the driver's door.

"Hit some black ice", he explains. The man's audacity knows no bounds.

We set about pulling the others from the wreckage. John appears to have broken some ribs, and Len has to forcibly extricate a rogue snooker cue which appears to have lodged itself in his arse, but otherwise we are remarkably unharmed.

We assess our situation. The country road we had been travelling down is deathly quiet. The snow is falling heavily now. I can barely see ten yards in front of me.

"We must find some shelter", says Len the Fish, to which there is general assent. We do not know which way to proceed. Jonny B says that he did some orienteering when he was in the third year, and says that you can find north by sticking your tongue out and seeing how many flakes you can catch standing in different directions.

It sounds like bollocks to me, but I’m still reeling from the crunching ball-ache, so I nod and tell him to lead the way.

Hours later we are still making away across snow-covered fields. Visibility has dropped to nothing. John has turned slightly blue and can only walk for short periods before he has to be given a piggyback by Len, who has kept the snooker cue, ostensibly to ward off any bears, wolves, etc. I think he might just be a bit fond of it.

The Chipper Barman wails "I don't want to die out here" from time to time. Chipper no more, the poor man.

We make camp under some old bits of wood that have been put together in a seemingly haphazard fashion. It is not much of a shelter, but it will do until the snow subsides. We swallow our pride and cling to each other for warmth.

I awake during the night to find Jonny B gnawing on my buttocks. Whether this is a sign of affection or hunger I am not quite sure, and I am too tired to make a big issue of it. I tell him to bugger off and roll over, and try and get some sleep.

Morning comes, finally, and we wake to find the world covered in snow. We survey our surroundings, and find that we are in the Chipper Barman's garden. We have been sleeping in the shed we helped move, back in September 2005, if memory serves.

Lucky.

Despair, hope, etc.

The cold northerly wind whistles through the Village, scattering leaves hither and thither, like so many broken dreams.

In the village pub, a lone patron hunches over the remnants of a beer that has long warmed in his hand.

The village shop is closed, as it is closed on every Wednesday at this time of the year. Business is not what is used to be. Up the stairs, the shopkeeper sobs quietly into her Tesco Value porridge, and wonders what will happen to her once the shutters come down, for the final time.

The bowls club is silent, (except for the distant howls of a 75 year-old grandma being tag-teamed by a roaming pair of itinerant fencers, down for the weekend from Glasgow, but that is not the point of this story). The turf is frozen over. Summer is a distant memory, as far away as the bright lights of London are from this dour, terminally ill place. The remnants of a society long cast-adrift from the outside world huddle inside their faux-period cottages, heating one room at a time. This is how the Eskimos feel, looking out from their igloos over miles and miles of cold, unrelenting bleakness.

Here comes the man now, shuffling, hunched-over, up the hill from his house. Face buried inside his coat, against the sub-zero temperatures that have befallen this outcast community. Who is this man? What is he doing, out alone, struggling up the road on this wretched day? He stumbles towards the village pub, almost falls through the door, and shakes off his dreary garb.

It is him.

The bartender wakes from his half-sleep, face brightening like the dawn of a summer's day. Legend has arrived in his pub, and he feels proud.

It is The Author, (from down the hill).

The man who has shown that something good can come from this desolate wilderness. That there is hope! Yes, hope! There is hope for us all. For if one man can become a published author, then perhaps we can all fulfill our dreams, our loves, our deepest longings. A shout goes up from the figure in the corner, a mangled kind of "hooray"! The barman turns on the jukebox, and from across the village they come, to wallow in the pool of brilliance that emanates from this man. In the village shop, the shopkeeper removes the shotgun from her mouth and turns toward the sounds of the gathering. She wipes a tear from her eye, and knows that everything, everything, everything will be OK.

The party will last long into the night. The wine will flow, the people will laugh and when it ends, they will embrace, and they will look into each other's eyes and say, yes, this is a good life, this is worth living, for the small moments, if nothing else. When they wake in the morning, they will smile and go about their business, refreshed, with a spring in their step, and a reserve of joy in their hearts.

The Author returns to his cottage, kisses his family as they lay sleeping, and sits, thinking.

Boom!

The interesting thing about the Terrorist's Handbook is that it's really, really badly named. I mean, if you had called it something crap like "Musings on the etymology of gardening-related terminology, 1912-1915", you'd probably be able to sell it on the high-street without anyone blinking an eye. But call it the Terrorist's Handbook and we here at the MI5 can easily track any nutcase who types the words into Google. And then catch them and give them a good shoeing.

Furthermore, if you were to take the important bits - like how to blow people up - then you could take each letter, put it at the start of each sentence, and have a really clever way of disseminating Jihad information to the sleeper-cell community.

Note to self: keep a keen eye out for Jonny B attempting to release any innocuous-looking publications.

Busted

Our eyes meet from across the breakfast hall, and I realise that of all the hotels in all of America, I chose the one that Jonny B and his freakish clan are staying in. A mistake, a mistake, a foolish mistake.

"You!" he shouts, charging at me from across the room.

"Arrrrghhhh," he bellows, launching himself headlong at my midriff. We crash into a unusually positioned lorry of grit, he gets up and, showing inhuman strength, picks me up by the throat and shakes me like a naughty baby.

"I feel a little violated," I say, as he slams me down directly on to a salt shaker.

"Damn your violation," he says, "you have been stalking me! Via the internet!"

It appears I have been busted. I decide to plead ignorance. He has long believed me to be unskilled in the ways of technology - little does he know I have a CSE in the use of the ZX Spectrum.
 
"What? I don't even know what the internet is! I booked this holiday on Ceefax! You know that that is as close to modern technology as I get? I'm just here, minding my own business, eating these waffles and syrup, consuming over 2000 calories before 9am. This is surely why America is so great?"

"And the free coffee," he says.

"Yes, that too. The free coffee is a bonus. But I don't know what you're talking about with all this internet business. Remember you showed me that video of that fat kid on that rollercoaster, and I didn't like it because I thought it was like, cruel, and you said I didn't understand the internet, and I said 'you're right', and you said 'you must never use the internet again,' and I said, 'yes, you are right, I will never use the internet again'?"

He pauses momentarily.

"It wasn't you then? It definitely wasn’t you?”

“No. I’d have needed to ask what buttons to press and all that.”

This seems to appease him. He settles like a silverback after a good dump.

"Oh. What are you doing here then?"

"I came to see Graceland," I say. "Uh huh." (This was my impression of Elvis. It was the best I could do at short notice.)

"Oh. I have come to see Dollywood, and see if I could find some good banjo music."

"Yes. You like banjo music. Banjo music makes you happy. You will be happy if you find some good banjo music. I guess I'll see you back in England then."

"Right."

He wanders off, looking slightly dazed, surely with a very suspicious mind. I throw my gear in the Hummer and burn out of town.

Cherokee

Tennessee turns out to be a lot like Norfolk, only with bigger hills, and sillier place names.

We were given a full security briefing at the airport, by a friendly trooper in a big hat. He told us to look out for the Sugarland Mountain Massive, but there is no sign of them as we pass through Grandfather, no clues in Boone, and no redemption in Bethlehem. Gang activity is relatively light back home in rural Norfolk - although you do get the occasional defacement of the wall behind the Village Pub - so maybe I am just not looking in the right places. We move on to Cherokee, (named after the Jeep), and settle down for the night.

I do not know why Jonny has led us to this place. What is there in Tennessee? To our West lies Memphis, the home of the King (Elvis). For those of you unfamiliar with his work, he was the one who inspired the costumes in the late-seventies science fiction programme Blake's Seven. I learnt about Graceland from Paul Simon - who was the fellow from Simon and Garfunkel who did not have the big hair. I am not sure quite where Art Garfunkel is involved in all this, but he has always struck me as a bit of a strange character. I will keep him at the back of my mind for now.

Maybe tomorrow we will make the pilgrimage to Graceland. Maybe we will be forced to track Jonny as he scouts potential terrorist targets. Whatever. As the sun goes down over the beautiful Smoky Mountains, I fall asleep listening to the sounds of silence.

Tennessee

As the old saying goes, boys go for looks, girls go for status. I flash my badge at the dolly behind the check-in desk, and bingo, I'm upgraded to first-class. It's the only way to fly. Champagne on boarding, spacious legroom, food and snacks all the way to America.

Later, as the stewardess delicately fondles my nuts, I stretch out in the full-reclining chair and ponder the perils that lie ahead. What nefarious activities does Jonny have planned for our trip the States? We have alerted the ground crew to his presence, and they have delayed the plane long enough to search the baggage hold for explosive materials. Apart from some dubious-looking pants, which may form the basis of a targeted chemical strike, Jonny B's luggage is clean.

I take another sip of champagne and regard my fellow passengers. Kirsty Allsopp is touching up her make-up in the seat to my right, whilst the entire cast of the Leningrad Cowboys are discussing their favourite tractors to my rear. I close my eyes and settle down for a few hours shut-eye, and before I know it we are touching down. I awake feeling refreshed, ready for the challenges before me.

Those good sorts at the FBI have layed on a top-of-the-range Hummer for us. This thing is so good it pretty much drives itself. I watch from my leather-clad nest as Jonny B enters his Kia Dinky Donk - a nondescript car if there ever was one. Thankfully, we have managed to delay him long enough at the car-hire desk to plant a microphone in the Kia, and we can hear every word he utters. We follow him at a safe distance, the sounds of a deeply discontented man ringing in our ears.

Tongue

We spend Father's Day together.

It's nice to spend some quality time with Jonny B. Even though I know he is a maniacal killing machine, hell-bent on the destruction of the civilized world as we know it, I guess I've developed a certain fondness for him over the years.

There is a certain joy de vrie in the air, mixed with a small but unmistakable amount of bonhomie. Despite the French flavour to the afternoon, I stop short at rolling Len the Fish's tongue around my mouth, however velvety and succulent it may appear. Jonny doesn't share my apprehension however, and he and Len go at it like Labradors on a bone, chewing and sucking until they both collapse, exhausted, but happy.

Later, when Len shows us his molotov cocktails, there is nearly a mishap as one partially detonates in Jonny's face. We all smile. It has just been that kind of day.

Center Parks

Jonny is off on one of his numerous holidays again. For someone who prides himself on never leaving the confines of a small Norfolk village, Jonny B is a suprisingly active traveller.

This time around we are off to Center Parks. For the benefit of our CIA friends, Centre Parks is an English holiday resort, a bit like Disneyland, but crapper. Instead of actual rides, they have "activities", instead of a hotel, they have "chalets", and instead of teenagers dressed up as cartoon characters, they have teenagers whose sole role in life is to pretend to be busy doing other things. There are several of these resorts dotted around the UK, but curiously, whichever one you go to, it never quite ends up looking like the one that is on the TV.

If you pay lots of money (which our subject has, of course, as all of his trips are part-funded by "Big" Al Qaeda), then you get to stay in a nice log cabin with a suana, flat-screen TV, and wifi. If you go for the entry model, you get an old wooden shed with an outside bog. The corrugated iron roof is liable to fall off in a strong breeze, they collect their matresses from the front gardens of inner-city houses, and you must feed yourself by catching and killing wildlife from the surrounding woods.

Regardless of what time of year you go, it will always be raining. They pay evil scientists to persist their own micro-climate. This is a ploy they use so they do not have to resource their numerous outside activities, like boating and tree-walking. You can look at these things through handy viewing portals (disguised as windows), but you are never actually allowed to use them. Instead, you must visit the swimming pool, where children are piled on top of one another, sometimes four or five deep.

This is what the English refer to as "a nice break".

Jonny is seemingly happy in this purgatory. There is a minor incident in one of the whirlpools when Jonny attempts to murder his in-laws, but thankfully I have disguised myself as a lifeguard, and I plunge in Hoff-style to their rescue.

Steerpike

I'm looking at Jonny through my Praktica 9-40x21 standard-issue long-range binoculars. Nestled in a tree twenty feet from the floor, I watch a man nestled in an armchair, never more than twenty feet from the fridge.

As I sit, and he sits, and I sit, and he sits, and I sit, and he gets up and checks the washing machine, and I sit some more, and he picks his nose and flicks it across the room, I wonder where my life has gone so wrong that I am reduced to this. I think back to the time when I was young, the girls, the booze, the feeling that your life could take you anywhere. And then it hits me. I've seen this punk before.

Early 1990s. Some dive in the East End. I'm drafted in to play bass with some below-average pseudo-clever rock outfit called the Sultans of Ping. Something about the bassist they'd had lined up - the next big thing in bass playing apparently - being ran over by a clown in a Reliant. That guy never did get his shot.

But I digress. I remember a band on the undercard that night. 'Steerpike' they called themselves I think, after some shoddy Lord of the Rings rip-off. I remember the lead singer was ok, the drummer not too bad (maybe lacking in practice), but the lead guitarist had a miserable time of it. I peer at Jonny through the binoculars and try and think of him as he was then...dyed green hair...no belly...retro Filas and Adidas tracksuit...and yes, it's him alright.

Him of the snapped string.

Him of the missed intro.

Him of the farcical attempt at a guitar solo, which I seem to remember sounded a lot like the opening sequence of 'Minder'.

Maybe that experience - being booed-off with no more than a minute of the opening song played - maybe that was what turned him against society. Maybe he saw then that he would never experience fame, or success, or even the simple adulation of pubescant schoolgirls, and maybe right then was when he decided to side with the looneys, the fanatics, the classical-music lovers.

It all makes sense now.

Steerpike.

The Piano Tuner

Jonny is all in a flap, like a chicken on acid. The Piano Tuner is coming.

The Piano Tuner last visited just over two years ago. At the time I dismissed him as just another crazy loon, intent on parting Jonny B from the LTLP's hard-earned money. But this time, there is something in his manner that makes me think of doom and destruction. Could this be the Big Boss. Could this be the man who controls The Man.

Even with the kind of advanced sound amplifiers that the government supplies to its agents these days, I can make out little of their conversation over the god-awful racket of some 18th century Communist. The Tuner complements Jonny on his instrument, they discuss some dates that I don't quite hear clearly, and before I know it, the Tuner is making for the exit. I put down my glass tumbler and watch him drive away.

Just like two years past, I can hear a muffled (but clearly poor quality) rendition of the theme-tune to Minder from the other side of the wall. I had previously considered this to be just another anti-establishment ditty, a light-hearted call-to-arms for the criminal underworld. Now I consider the terrible lyrics with a new trepidation:

If you want to, I'll change the situation.
Right people, right time - just the wrong location.
Sometime when you're feeling like a poor relation, call on me.
I'll give you more than conversation.
Take them. Shaking hands.
A deal.
Move it brother. I'll make you heal.

Oxford

I track the subject through the stark beauty of Northampton, and then on to drearily old-fashioned Oxford. The LTLP is addressing high-powered industry leaders today, Jonny B is clinging on to her coat-tails like a bird on an elephant.

His behaviour is perplexing. He stands for long periods, motionless, staring at the sky. There are other people doing much the same - most of them look vaguely foreign. At first, I believe this to be some kind of extremist mass worship. All that is missing is the chanting. Eventually I realise that this is not the case - these people are scouting for potential kamikaze airplane routes. They plan to attack Oxford, one of the major seats of learning in our fine country, with a fiery rain of terror from the skies.

Later, JB purchases a raw pork and leek pie from a vendor in the market square, and hastily evacuates into a local retailer. Perhaps he is purging his system of impurities before the final attack.

Chicken Four

I may have been wrong about the drugs.

Chicken Four has been sick for some time. I fear he may have been experimented on by JB. Chicken Four was always smaller than his brethren. Perhaps JB has been feeding him some kind of anti-growth hormone, which he plans to release into the water supply.

Chicken Four is not a well bunny.

Chicken Four shits on my floor.

Chicken Four is savagely murdered by Jonny B.

Of Chicken Four, there is no more.

Maybe he had to kill Chicken Four before his genes mutated.

Piff Paff Poof!

It's funny how sometimes you think you know someone, and then, poof, out of the blue, you learn something that completely changes your perception of them.

Listen, avid reader. Jonny B can do magic. I jest you not.

I'd popped around to have a talk about the curious disease that has been affecting Chicken Four of late. Jonny B is standing there, holding Chicken Five at about waste level. Jonny B appears to be a bit naked, as in he's not wearing any clothes, at all. I consider this for a moment, as I have been trained to avoid making snap judgements. I decide to garner more knowledge of the situation.

"Jonny? Why are you holding Chicken Five at about waste level, with more than the normal level of undress common in these parts?"

Jonny appears to be a bit stumped by this line of questioning.

"Umm," he says. "Umm. Because...I am practicing my magic? Yes. I am practicing my magic. That is what I am doing."

"Oh," says I. "You can do magic? May I see some?"

"Of course", says Jonny, more confident now. "Observe."

And sure enough, before my very eyes, Jonny removes first one, and then the second, hand from Chicken Five.

Chicken Five does not fall to the ground in the normal chickenny manner. Chicken Five is floating in mid-air! Chicken Five looks as surprised as anyone about this turn of events.

I return to my house with a new respect for Jonny B. If he can manage to levitate the whole chicken brood is this manner, there may be a new David Blaine in town.

I stare at Chicken Four, who is taking refuge in my conservatory. Chicken Four is looking introspective. It is a shame that he will never experience the sensation of floating before Jonny B's navel. I would have thought that would be the highlight of any chicken's career.

I get the olive oil out of the cupboard, and prepare to stick my finger up his arse.

Chickens

We go through the charade of purchasing chickens together.

There has been a lot of talk about high-quality chickens. Jonny apparently wants to buy the "Rolls-Royce" of the chicken world. Yet, by the time our chicken-perusal is complete, Jonny has settled on the chickens who reside closer to the Kia end of the market. These chickens cost barely more than a family-size bucket from KFC, and some of them wouldn't look out of place there.

Clearly, JB has realised that the sham of actually keeping chickens is going to eat into his skunk profit-margin.

Coup

Len the Fish toils on a wooden structure in Jonny's garden. For hour after hour, he nails, saws, hacks and tacks. Jonny makes him a cup of tea from time to time.

Len is very good with his hands, particularly when it comes to cultivating the 'erb. This structure appears to be some kind of advanced marijuana production facility. I wonder what kind of cut JB is going to give the Fish. I'm surprised he would let Jonny move into production - there must be a healthy sweetner involved.

Later in the day, JB asks me if I had ever considered keeping chickens. I play him for a while, and eventually he asks if I would like to share his new coup. This is a subtle strategy, I must say. Get me on side, then grow the skunk right under my nose. It reeks so bad I can almost smell it.

Urdu

Staring at Jonny through his kitchen window is a worrying sight.

He is wearing only his pants.

He is watching the cricket.

He is chortling at the intense physical pain another human being is experiencing after being struck in the testicles with a very hard ball.

He is tuned to the Urdu channel.

I am acutely disturbed by the pants. The pants are, in themselves, disturbing. But, sporting as they are one Jonny Billericay, they are doubly so.

I am disturbed that he seems to be enjoying cricket. Surely only half-crazed lunatics actually enjoy cricket.

The fact he is taking pleasure in the torture of a fellow human should not come as a surprise. Yet disturbed I remain.

But most of all, I am disturbed by the apparent ease with which he is understanding the commentary. I had previously thought that Jonny had been radicalised after a Western upbringing. Now I may have to reassess this view - perhaps he was born and raised in the developing world, and has since contracted some kind of weird skin pigmentation disease, like Michael Jackson.

Quid Pro Quo

From the chatter that we have to wade through on a daily basis, I get wind of a possible attack. Maybe I'm feeling paranoid today, but my gut tells me that Jonny B is going to be involved.

I think back to anti-terrorism 101, the heart of which seemed to be:

1) Don't shoot anyone unless you are really, really sure they are almost definately a terrorist.
2) If you have to shoot someone, try and do it in a third-world country, as you can get away with practically anything there.
3) Don't let the target get near a large crowd.

So I make a pre-emptive strike, and get the agency to arrange a little "accident" for Jonny's car.

A little while later, I'm coming back from the shops when I'm rear-ended by a white van. Coincidence? Or retribution?