Contact at King's Weigh House Chapel

A tall figure walked down the coble stone sidewalk of Gilbert Street, his jacket pulled tight against his frame with his head bowed against the misty rain. The sound of an approaching moped bike echoed between the red brick building walls. The figure continued at his current speed but turned his head to watch the small bike splash pass him on the street.

“What idiot rides a bike in this weather?” he mumbled to himself. He was sure this was the second time he had seen that exact bike which meant he was being followed.

The bike continued straight down the narrow street. The tall man turned sharply at the corner onto Weighthouse Street but his gaze was continually towards the bike making so that he wasn’t paying attention to the road ahead of him. Just as the bike moved out of sight, he walked headlong into a set of plastic orange construction walls that where placed inconveniently in the middle of the walk. With a crash, the orange walls gave way and fell with the man. Quickly jumping up from his blunder, the man breathed out a low curse of his own stupidity. There was nothing graceful he could do to recover nevertheless he tried to find his composure as he attempted to dust himself off from the gravel and water. He replaced the knocked over wall and began walking on, acting as if nothing had happened.

“Pissing, banana eating-surrender monkeys”, he said as he looked behind him again. He was referring to Britain’s SIS. He was sure that was who was following him. He walked another block and then stopped, leaned up against the red brick wall building and waited.

His name was Rick, Rick Coontail and he was a west-coast, American old-Yank product, walking the wet streets on London on a Sunday morning. His longish blond hair was ruffled up but it still had a quality of style that only good looking people seem to naturally exude. He was wearing a dark gray tweed jacket, brown collar shirt with a mustard orange necktie. And jeans.

A few people passed him, most minding their own business. One older looking gentleman in a bowler hat and a blue neck-tie looked up at him as he passed by. But Rick merely ignored him and continued wait as he looked up and down the street. He was sure his lead was solid but he was taking a terrible risk coming here.

Another ten minutes passed until the Rick moved again. He looked one more time up the street, then set of to his right at a fast pace. Just ahead of him threw the rainy mist loomed the church of King’s Weigh House Chapel with its dark red brick and terracotta dressed tower.

Two individuals were approaching on the side of the church. The first was a sensible woman holding a weather-grayed umbrella. The second was a man walking double time holding a magazine over his balding head. Rick studied them as they passed him but neither lifted their eyes to meet.

Reaching the intersection of Duke St and Weighthouse, Rick stopped again and looked behind him. It looked clear. He reasoned momentarily with himself, knowing that he had doubled back a number of times and zigged zagged his way through the underground tunnels. If someone had been good enough to tail him, maybe they deserved finding him.

He looked at his watch to note the time. It was now or never. He made his choice and walked up the steps and through the front doors of the church.

Inside was bright compared to the overcast morning outside. It was a pity the church was so well-lit. A gloomy Gothic twilight cathedral meeting would have been preferable but Rick had no control over where and when. He just needed to make the contact and get the information.

Rick walked forward to the font with holy water at the entrance. He reached down and dipped his fingers into the water and the made the sign of the cross. The mass was about to start. He scanned the congregation, trying to identify his man among the backs of heads. He spotted his target at the end of a row near the back sitting next to a family with three little girls. There was a massive wooden pillar behind the man that nearly hid him from the entrance.

“At least he had picked a decent place to sit.” Rick thought as the congregation was just starting to sing a hymn. Rick quietly moved forward and slid into an open seat next to his contact.

“Good place.” He whispered with a sarcastic undertone.

The man he sat down next to turned and looked up. He was middle-aged, looked ironically to be a mole and had the air about him that bespoke years of being a bachelor. A small man, neat in dress to the point of fussiness, the neck-tie knotted tightly, and every button done up on his blue jacket suit that shinned from years of cleaning and brushing.

“You’re Monique’s friend?” he asked in a heavy accent.

“Yes,” Rick looked around the church and noted the balcony. “We can still be observed from the galley.”

“I don’t think so; everyone will be looking toward the front.” The man said as he turned his attention forward.

“Hope your right. I appreciate you meeting with me.”

“Just get on with it.” The mole said, “I could get into a boat load of trouble if my boss at the embassy finds out I talked to you.”

“You need something from us?”

The little man turned to say something but he stopped as the hymn, “Rock of Ages” by the sound of it, came to an end and a hush fell upon the congregation. A priest in heavily embroidered robes got up and began the service. There was no mistaking that this was a service for Slovaks as everything was being said in Russian. Rick didn’t understand a word of it. The two sat in silence listening to the priest while the child sitting next to them fidgeted with her mother.

As soon as another hymn began, Rick whispered surreptitiously to the mole: “What’s the mood in St. Petersburg?”

“They favor the EOH,” said the man.

“So what is up with all the pirate and slave trading activity?”

“They don’t consider it piracy. It is just a matter of business to them. Hybrids aren’t always considered people to them. You have to remember that. The men are privateers; they all have letters of marque from the tsar.”

“I am looking for a missing agent. Pretty Devon silver-fox girl: Name is Huntington, Reagan Huntington.” Rick said as he slipped a photo to the man.

The man looked at the image for a brief second and then stuffed it under his leg as the hymn ended. He said no more as the service continued. Rick had to wait for another twenty minutes. After the congregational donation was finished and Rick had dropped in a £5 pound note, another hymn began.

"The man you are looking for is Roman Nikonov . . . Nasty man . . . Big Russian bear.” The mole said as he handed the photo back from under his leg. “I wouldn’t count my chickens on finding Ms. Huntington.”

“You have a place?” Rick asked as he pocketed the photo in his jacket.

“Croatian coast, maybe Split or Dubrovnik.”

“Thank you my friend.”

“I ain’t your friend.” He said. “But you helped out Monique and she is why I am doing this.” He said with finality. He got up and moved to the front of the church to partake of the holy sacrament with the rest of the congregation. When he returned to his seat, Rick was gone.

Rick's Car

While Rick is not looking for a racing super car, he is interested in getting something very fast with curves that would make anyone's sense of adventure melt at the sight of the car.

So he is looking at the Maserati Gran Turismo S. It is a great car, maybe a little under powered, but that is something he can fix.









One might say that the Coontail brothers were good mechanics. Well, one would be dead wrong. It would be like saying Versailles was a quaint valley cottage. The brothers were more than mechanics; they were nothing less than spot-on fantastic wrench-wielding-ninjas when it came to mucking around with a petrol eating beast of metal. Watching them work on a car wasn’t like watching a lion-tamer work with some gentle overgrown African cat, but that of a knight is silver bright armor taking out a dragons.

So good with a wrench? Yes. Impervious to mechanical troubles? Not so much so.

Rick was building a dream car but he was already into the project three times longer than his original estimate and more money than he cared to think about.

A few months ago, he had come across the antique rusting remains of an old world Maserati GranTurismo S. The car was astonishingly practical for a something that looked like pure porn. It was like discovering a nymphomaniac Page 3 girl that cooked, sewed her own fashion line of clothing, and enjoyed doing freelance accounts. The car had room for four men and a boot large enough for luggage, which was unheard of as all supercars were notorious for having stone hard seats with a ride that pulverize your spine into pudding and a boot smaller than a preschooler’s lunch boxes.

Rick saw potential in this car. He wanted to remake it into something that when other guy saw it, they would think of abandon wife and kids so they could get one. Well maybe not abandoning so much as selling wife and kids for it.

He wanted to put in a new 6.2-liter V8 monster engine to power the car but it wouldn’t fit and he came to his senses and settled for the smaller 4.6-liter V8. However, Rick ever the showman, beef it up with a dual system of screw supercharger/turbo charger combination package. The belt-driven supercharger compressor provided a mammoth kick of torque for the low rpms while the turbocharger jumped into the game to provide added performance at higher rpms. He accomplished this by setting the supercharger to declutch when it reach ideal speeds for the turbocharger which triggered an electronically controlled bypass valve to direct air to the turbocharger, delivering the high-end power without the generally associated "turbo-lag". It was so sexy it would make any self-respecting car enthusiast’s manly parts simply melt with awe.

The original chassis was a problem. It had rusted beyond repair. So Rick remade the whole thing out of aluminum, hoping to reduce the weight. He also spent a fortune getting the body fabricated out of carbon fiber. He overhauled the suspension, decided it wasn’t good enough, threw more money into the car and added a German made high-end electronic suspension system. He also thought it would be best to update the braking power of the now fire breathing monster. He equipped it with racecar quality carbon ceramic brakes to stop his now slightly less heavy, but still knee-weakening-sexy, big fat Italian opera star on 21 inch premium, ultra-performance SP Sport Maxx GT tires.

The results were not unlike any unruly child with a mind of its own. The car was the sexiest, most fabulous, most desirable car Rick had ever made and it was almost drivable; that is if you didn’t mind the psychotic handling and never applied pressure to the gas pedal.

Frustrated, Rick got together with some blokes with lots of pens in their top pockets to fiddle with the car. And the weeks of tweaking commenced.

In the end they modified vehicle's ESP system, transmission behavior, throttle response, and totally change out the differential to put in Ferrari’s most sophisticated differential controls, the E-Diff. Then they added a Manettino (Italian for little lever) control system that tied all the electronic components of the car and allowed for the quick and adjustments of the suspension settings, traction control, differential, and change speed of electronic gearbox. More tweaking happened and then they cracked it!

The Maserati GranTurismo S was pure art. Rick had it custom painted a pearl white. Black leather interior finished it off. It wasn’t dripping of wealthy vulgar like Dave’s Bugatti Veyron, nor was it as fast. But is exuded all the sexy thrill a supercar should.