Three Little Boys

Chapter 1

As the last of the sun's golden rays waved goodbye to New York's skyline, the city's twisted buildings jutted up against the impending darkness like giant traffic cones from hell's fiery contraflow.

A black Vauxhall Cadillac's engine purred through the wet streets, casting a trail of spray behind it like a water-skier – only on tarmac instead of the frogspawn-breeding water in Rickmansworth's Aquadrome. The vehicle had seen action. Its bulletproof chassis had saved its occupants from more hit men's bullets than an elite group of presidential bodyguard-ninjas. It soon left the nice part of New York behind. The last sign of human decency was a small boy playing with a weird oval-shaped football instead of a proper round English one.

From then on it was all downhill and the car passed into one of the metropolis' rougher areas. Scary people prowled the neighbourhood. You wouldn't see your average law-abiding American around here, doing whatever decent law-abiding Americans did.

The car drew up outside the tallest building on the block. A neon sign above the door read, 'Mafia: DO NOT ENTER.' Little did the skyscraper-scum who infested the tower know that their warning sign was like poking a particularly petulant alien squid with a cattleprod. For Vauxhall's finest mock nineteen seventies Grease-lightning Cadillac didn't just contain Mr and Mrs Joe American, but a pair of unflappable British secret agents.

Doug was the older of the pair and the better looking by far. He gallantly stepped out of the driver's side door; his chiselled jaw was as square as the handles on his trusty twin pistols. His foes were blissfully unaware of the raw power contained under his long brown trench coat. A taller man followed – this was Dave. He was three years younger than Doug and, although reasonably all right at his profession, still had a lot to learn about reducing hired goons to simpering Minnie Mouse impersonators. He too wore an identical garment, however, Dave's lankiness meant that his coat didn't drape along the dirty New York pavement and get frayed edges that had to be velcroed back together when they got home.

But Doug was too big a man to bear a grudge over the fact that he got through more coats than he did women. Besides, they had work to do. Evil was only a revolving door away and the wicked were about to get their first taste of the awesome might of the Holster brothers, Doug and Dave.

"Not yet – patience, my young compadre," said Doug resolutely, as his insignificant charge pulled out his lime-green semi-automatic rifle and headed for the entrance.

"What, why not?" protested Dave, "I've got the best gun today. You said I could use it this time."

Such eagerness and youthful exuberance made Doug smile, bringing a twinkle to his dark knowing eyes and a wrinkle to his battle-worn brow. "All in good time, you'll get your shot," he reassured him. "There'll be plenty of evil to go round. President Bush called us here personally and said so. He said it to me."

"Who's President Bush?" said the inexperienced one of the two. "Is he the baddie?"

"No, he's the President of America," Doug reminded him. "We're in America now. They asked us to come here and... oh, look, never mind – I'll show you where America is on Mum's map when we get home."

Dave may be adequate at counter-terrorism, but he still had a lot to learn about lair-invading techniques. Doug quite rightly knew that you could not just march into a room filled with a super-villain's personal army of faceless henchmen and start shooting wildly. You needed a plan, "I'll go first," he said bravely, drawing his own twin pistols and preparing to blast his way into the gangsters' sitting room.

"But you always go firs..." was all he heard, before a hailstorm of bullets came down on them, like metal rain with, 'Death from above to the valiant Holsters,' written all over each deadly droplet.