Alek Popov - Mission London

“Wow! Loads of chickens!” Racho said once the freezing cloud under the freezer’s lid had dissipated.

“They’re not chickens,” Kosta gloomily corrected him. “They’re ducks.”

The radioman scratched his head. The noise in his headphones continued its persistent pulsation. “Take them out,” he ordered.

“What for?” asked the cook, failing to understand.

“Because you’re in the shit.”

The cook began to take out the ducks one by one. The radioman listened to each one carefully, looking like a doctor. His actions were a mystery to Kosta, and it terrified him. The frozen ducks were slippery. His fingers were soon numb from handling their frozen carcasses. He got clumsy. One bird slipped from his grasp and escaped under the tables. He crawled after it on all fours, swearing himself blue.

Racho continued to listen, unaffected. Most of his patients were quiet, but from time to time one of them gave itself away with a little squawk, dinning in the headphones and ringing in his skull like a huge wasp. The radioman put the song-birds to one side. That way there were soon two piles, one large, and the other small. There were eight birds in the smaller pile.

“Now what?” asked Kosta stupidly.

“You tell me,” the radioman took a bird from the small pile and looked at it from every angle. It was cold and hard as a rock. He looked at the hole between its legs, shook it — nothing. “Give me a knife,” he said, turning to the cook.

Kosta gave him the big cleaver. Racho chopped off the greasy yellow parson’s nose, and, using the sharp corner of the cleaver, extracted a shiny silver disc that looked like a watch battery.

“What the hell is that?!” asked the frightened cook.

“Looks like some kind of transmitter…” replied the radioman thoughtfully. “Where did you get these ducks from?”

“From the market, where else…!” mumbled the cook unconvincingly.

“Don’t lie, Pastry!” Racho cut him off. ‘No one down the market puts transmitters up their birds’ arses!”

“Errrrrrr…Well, you s-see…” stuttered the other.

“You nicked them, eh? Thieving bastard! Where the hell from?”

“It wasn’t me!” shouted the poor cook.

“Who was it then?” Racho shouted back.

The cook ended up explaining the whole story. Once he knew where the ducks were from, the radioman grew suddenly nervous. There was no more time to listen. He snatched up the cleaver and extracted the rest of the transmitters.

“I’m amazed they haven’t found them yet,” he said thoughtfully, as he tossed the bugs in his palm. “Or maybe they have…”

“Shall we destroy them?” the cook suggested bravely. “I’ve got a mortar and pestle here…”

“No,” the radioman shook his head; he had been brought up to love and respect all things technical, and such an unintelligent method of disposing of the bugs disgusted him. “But we have to get them out of here immediately,” he added, then asked unexpectedly, “Do you have any bread?”

“Bread?!” Kosta gawped in surprise. “What for?!”

“Get on with it!” urged Racho.

Ten minutes later, the two men casually entered Kensington Gardens by the Gloucester Road entrance. They took the wide path to the oval lake and once there, started to feed breadcrumbs to the ducks and swans near the shore. The birds threw themselves hungrily at the big chunks of bread. Some insolent geese also tried to get in on the action but came too late. Then the clamour died down and the birds dispersed. Cunning satisfaction was written all over the men’s faces.

Just then, a van came down the main alley, which they just had taken, a flat spinning antenna on its roof. Then the tall helmets of ten police officers appeared through the trees on the other side of the lake.

“Do you see that?” asked the radioman. “You’ve escaped that by the skin of your teeth, dumb-arse.”

“I don’t know how to thank you!” Kosta sighed.

“I’ll tell you exactly how…” Racho said, thumping him on the shoulder, and added, “Now let’s get out of here!”

Dale Rutherford leapt from the van and raced up to the lake. “My ducklings! My little Ducklings!” he screamed.

Nat Coleway followed him, totally thrilled.

Soon the entire search team assembled on the shore. They tracked down the transmitters, and were soon hunting down the birds with big nets. Dale could not believe his luck. He flapped excitedly, getting under everyone’s feet. A large crowd began to gather.

“What d’you think you’re doing! Stop at once!” shouted an angry voice.

Dale turned quickly. Behind him, arms akimbo, stood a tall, well-built man in the uniform of the Parks Police. His face was as red as a tomato. “Sir, are you the instigator of this travesty?” he frowned menacingly.

“What travesty?” gasped Dale. ‘These are the ducks from Richmond Park that disappeared three days ago.”

‘Oh really?” The other smiled mockingly. “And I suppose they turn into swans all the time then?” He pointed to a huge white bird that was entangled in a net.

“Hey, you lot, can’t you tell a swan from a duck?” shouted Dale to the embattled police who were attempting to deal with the bird.

“There’s an implant inside it, sir,” an officer said.

“Whaaaaaat?!” Dale’s face suddenly fell.

Meanwhile, further Parks Police turned up, and not long after that, the Head Butler of Kensington Palace himself. The two groups faced off. Nat Coleway, seeing the scandal develop before his very eyes, felt the sudden urge to see every duck on the planet hanging upside-down in the windows of a Chinese restaurant. “Listen!” he started, trying to broker some kind of peaceful agreement. “Why don’t you just check their leg-rings.”

It was done immediately. Dale Rutherford received the news stony-faced. The police checked the birds that had somehow come by the Richmond transmitters. Three swans, four ducks and a goose. The ninth microchip was nowhere to be found.

“So what’s the result?” asked someone. “Have the Hyde Park ducks eaten the Richmond ones?!”

Those words were printed all over the press almost instantly.

Hyde Park Ducks Eat Richmond’s

Extreme Demonstration of Duck Cannibalism

Ducks and Duck-eaters

Beaked Monsters in Central London

Who Ate The Ugly Duckling?

Beaks — New Subject for Hitchcock

The cook and the radioman did not read the British Press, or watch the BBC. For that reason they had no idea of the after-effects of their covert operation. But they were not vain. It was enough for them that that evening was unusually quiet at home, and that their constantly nagging wives were happily working around their ovens, in which two juicy ducks were tenderly turning golden.

In his lonely quarters, Chavdar Tolomanov opened a tin of cat-food and swallowed it with the last shreds of his pride. Last month’s rent had sucked out his last financial juices and his future looked grim. There was no more Batushka, and nothing was working right now. The Serb did not want to hear about any ducks without health certificates. Kosta was acting strangely, and the newspapers were publishing cock-and-bull stories. The cat-food was surprisingly tasty.

Dale Rutherford was left unmoved by the saddle of lamb, served in his favourite dish. His wife Eloise looked at the cooling meal, sad and worried, but did not want to encourage him to eat. If even his favourite dish, had no effect on him — that meant that things were serious! The kids, two in number, had eaten quickly, and sensibly gone to hide in their rooms. A dark, mourning cloud hung over the modest, yet cosy Richmond home. Eloise busied herself to clear the table. Dale stared at the dish as though seeing it for the first time. One niggling thought had been bugging him all this time. Only eight microchips had been found in Hyde Park. Where on earth was the ninth?