Algy Goes Alone:: Chapter 12. Algy Goes Home

By Sopwith

Disclaimer: I do not own, or claim to own, any of the Biggles series characters used in this work. This fan fiction was written for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered part of the official storyline. 

As soon as the lights went out, Algy dropped to the floor with the speed of a man who wishes to keep out of the line of fire. He heard cursing above and around him, both in English and Russian.

A bullet smashed into the window above his head, shattering it to smithereens. Algy threw his hands over his head to protect it from the falling glass, and began to grope his way to the door as best as he could.

He took a grain of comfort from the fact that Biggles had doubtless heard the commotion and was very probably already on his way to the rescue.

In the dark, Algy bumped into something solid, and his heart constricted as he wondered who it was he had run into. He froze for almost a minute before he realized that he had in fact collided with a table.

Gasping with relief, he continued on his way, in frequently interrupted bouts of crawling. Splinters of some bullet-shattered piece of furniture rained down on him, and he could hear someone nearby howling in pain.

Was he near the door? He could not tell. He had all but completely lost his sense of direction in the carnage. Where was Biggles? Surely he would be here…soon?

&&&

Even before Gaskin had brought the police car to a complete halt, its occupants were already tumbling out onto the sidewalk.

“Come on,” said Biggles tersely, putting his hand to his pocket and retrieving his automatic. Unaware that he was being watched from above, he hurried to the entrance of the Ritz.

A small man in a suit was standing just inside the entrance, wringing his hands. He sagged with relief as he saw the newcomers. “They’re on the third floor,” he blurted out. “We don’t know what’s happening, but it sounds quite—”

Biggles did not wait for the end of the sentence; he was already making his way to the staircase, the others close on his heels. “All right,” he said, including the occupants of the first police car in his orders. “I’m going to go in first. Eddie and Bertie, you’ll be behind me. You others, follow us. Ginger, I want you to stay here in case anyone gets away.”

“But—”

“Never mind but,” said Biggles crisply, already taking the stairs two at a time. “You stay here, that’s an order, understand?”

Ginger leaned against the wall, drew his automatic, looked at his broken arm, and sighed.

&&&

Algy decided that the best place to stay, for the time being, was behind the table he had run into earlier. Already he could feel the impact of bullets hitting the wood, and he grimaced, wondering if the table would suddenly splinter into pieces in his hands.

A burst of light flooded the room from what he could now see was the doorway. To his immense relief, he saw a row of uniformed policemen standing at the door, and behind them, familiar faces: Biggles, Eddie, Gaskin, Bertie.

“All right,” shouted Eddie. “Fun’s over, boys. Put down your weapons and get down on the ground.”

It took several repetitions of this order before all the crooks surrendered their weapons and did as they were told. Gaskin and his men moved in efficiently, cuffing men and moving them towards the door. “Move along now,” said Gaskin, expressionlessly. “Well, well, Anton Dunrovski. This is a pleasant surprise. I never thought I’d find you here, of all places.”

The Russian growled and spat on the floor as he was hauled away by two burly policemen.

“It’s about time you showed up,” said Algy to Biggles, as he got slowly to his feet from behind the ruined table. “I was getting worried.”

“So was I,” replied Biggles grimly. “Freddy gave me your message. We cut it a bit close though.”

Algy snorted. “Any closer and you’d be carrying out my remains in a matchbox.”

Konn swore and suddenly twisted free from the policeman holding him. Before anyone could stop him, he had snatched up his gun, and, blasting bullets in his wake, had dashed out the door and was making for the stairs.

“What the—” snapped Biggles, rushing after him.

In front of them, there was the sharp bark of two shots, a cry of pain, and then shouts and screams from what were obviously bystanders.

Biggles went pale. “Ginger,” he said.

&&&

Algy snatched up one of the discarded guns on the ground and dashed out after Biggles, Gaskin hard on their heels.

It took Biggles only a minute to reach the bottom of the stairs, and by then the damage was already done. Ginger was curled up on the floor, one hand clutched to a rapidly spreading patch of red on his shirt. “Sorry,” he muttered weakly to Biggles.

“Look after him!” snapped Biggles to no one in particular, as he stepped over Ginger and continued on after Konn, who just seconds ago had disappeared out the front entrance of the Ritz. “Let me through!” he snarled, as people pressed forward, curious to see what had happened. “Police! Let me through!”

“We’ll never catch him at this rate,” muttered Algy, pushing his way to Biggles’ side, not without difficulty.

“I thought I told you to take care of Ginger.”

“Eddie’s attending to him.” The two of them finally made a way through to the door. “There he is!” exclaimed Algy. Konn was running down the length of pavement in front of the Ritz.

In his heart, Biggles doubted that they would be able to catch the American. He had too much of a head start. “All we need is a red light or something and we’ll be sunk,” was the unspoken thought that passed through his mind.

However, the chase ended sooner than he anticipated and in a highly unexpected manner.

The first Biggles and Algy knew of it was a high-pitched yowl that came from somewhere above their heads. Before either of them had time to comment on it—and truth to tell, even if there had been time, neither of them had the breath left to speak—something dropped out of the sky and landed heavily on top of Konn.

Konn made a choked sound that was half protest and half shock before tumbling down in a heap to the ground.

“What the dickens?” muttered Algy.

“My hat!” cried Biggles. “It’s Bertie!”

And indeed it was Bertie who got somewhat shakily to his feet and turned to face them. “I say, you chaps,” he said, with mild enthusiasm. “What fun! Awfully jolly sort of thing to do, if you know what I mean.”

“Are you completely off your rocker?” demanded Biggles. “You could have killed yourself, jumping out of the window like that. My word! What if you’d missed?”

Bertie half-shrugged. “You know, old boy, I can’t say the thought ever occurred to me, what?” He blinked owlishly and peered at the ground. “I say, have you seen my monocle anywhere about? Beastly thing keeps disappearing at odd moments.”

Biggles eyed him frostily. “It’s in your eye.”

&&&

Konn and Watkins were subsequently sent back to America to await trial. A week after their arrest, Scott Gold was arrested in Paris and sent back to America to join his uncle. Gaskin took charge of the Russians, who were all wanted for multiple charges of murder, theft, and smuggling.

It turned out that Ginger had only suffered a flesh wound from the bullet that Konn had fired. He spent the night in hospital, after which he was sent home and told to spend several days in bed, an order he found rather hard to obey.

It was perhaps a week or so after the affair at the Ritz that there came a knock on the door of Air Police Headquarters.

At Biggles’ shouted invitation to enter, the door opened to reveal Clark and Eddie. “Thought you’d like to know what happened,” said the latter, accepting the chair Biggles pushed towards him. “Konn and his guys are waiting for trial, but it’s my guess he’s going to get the chair. One of the pilots he killed was in the Air Force, so it’s not likely that any judge is going to be lenient, not with the Air Force on their backs. Those guys who tried to stop you stealing the plane”–this last to Algy—“those were our Air Force guys. The commander wasn’t happy with what happened, but there you are.”

“It’s their own fault for butting in,” said Clark. “We told them to keep their noses out of it.”

Algy was staring at Clark with something like mild astonishment. The man seemed to have changed overnight from a slouching muscular mean-looking thug to an ordinary mild-mannered man with quiet confident authority. “You’ve…changed,” he said hesitantly.

Clark grinned. “Gotta try and play the part convincingly when you’re undercover, buddy.”

“Gotta get a start on the paperwork now,” grumbled Eddie. “Thanks for your help, guys.”

“A pleasure.” The conversation seemed to be over, but neither of the Americans made a move to leave the room.

“Is something wrong?” inquired Biggles, into the ensuing awkward silence.

“Well…” said Eddie. “We kind of thought you might be interested…we found out who blew up that Auster of yours.”

“Was it the same person who hit me over the head?” demanded Algy indignantly. “I’d like to get my hands on whoever it was.”

Eddie looked embarrassed. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but as a matter of fact, it was our guys who did that. Clark had told them he was going to try and get the two gangs together, and some guys decided to take a hand. Good thing it all worked out, or there’d be some red faces in the office now.”

“Worked out?” cried Algy. “I could have been in that plane. They might have killed me! If they’d hit me a little harder over the head, I’d be playing a harp by now!”

“Well,” said Eddie, still looking carefully at anything but Biggles and Algy. “They’ve agreed to reimburse you for your plane, which is something, I guess.”

Ginger, who was sitting in a corner of the office resting his broken arm on a stack of books, looked somewhat hopeful. “D’you think they might reimburse us for the Auster that the crooks stole as well, while they’re at it?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Biggles told him. “Come on, Eddie, you’ve time for a bite before you fly back to America, don’t you?”

THE END

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