What Really Happened to Tim Blair

This may or may not appear over at Paco Enterprises (I’m not sure if he was inviting us to write stories or just addressing himself):

They struck at dawn.

Concealed by shrubbery, they waited with the calm, icy detachment gained only through years of professional espionage. There was only one moment of alarm, when Detective Paco noticed one of Commander Wronwright’s jodhpurs – which he insisted were standard Guatemalan field issue – poking out from behind cover, but it was too late to do anything about it, for directly in front of them, no more than fifty feet away, the daytime security detachment for the Daily Telegraph was relieving the night shift.
MarkL checked his watch. “Twenty seconds.”
Everyone inspected their dials.
“Check,” whispered El Cid.
Kae confirmed hers: “Check.”
Frowning, Margos Maid tapped his watch. “Mickey’s big hand seems to have stopped.”
“Forget about it,” Grimmy growled under his breath. “It’s time.”
They watched as the security guards cracked their jackboots and saluted each other, right palms up. Everyone held their breath as the departing night shift marched straight past their shrubbery, 1.618 suddenly regretting the amount of Chanel No 5 she had doused herself with just an hour ago, but the danger moment came and went without incident. From the front glass sliding doors to the Daily Telegraph’s main building, the day patrol surveyed the outside area a minute more, then split into two groups, each moving away in the opposite direction to circle the complex.
“That’s it,” the Real JeffS said when both groups rounded corners, “everyone move out.”
They scurried, commando-style, over to the main building. Infidel Tiger quickly brought out the Particle Atomic Conversion Obliterator and applied it to the glass in front of him. In an instant it was no more. They proceeded into the darkness of the foyer.
“Map!” barked Swinish Capitalist.
Ash produced the blueprints for the building and a pen-torch. “Okay, we’re here. The stairs leading down to the cells should be over there.”
They moved as one to the inconspicuous single door well off to one side. The sign on it warned AUTHORISED PERSONEL ONLY. FAIRFAX SPIES KEEP OUT!
Infidel whipped out the Particle Atomic Conversion Obliterator, held it to the door and switched it on. This time the device emitted a sick-sounding whine, three sparks and a whiff of smoke.
“Bugger.” Infidel shook it a couple of times and tried again. Nothing.
“I thought that thing was atomic powered!” said Yojimbo.
Paco coughed with embarrassment. “Yeah well, the EPA was giving us some static on that. Health and Safety regs, they said. We couldn’t afford the bribe money – they’ve got this scale, see. Atomic’s right up the top, just under coal and oil. Anyway, after R&D it was just too much. Ecuador wouldn’t loan us again, said somethin bout us being a credit risk, so we compromised. It’s solar powered.”
“That’s false advertising!” remarked carpefraise.
“Hey, the sun’s atomic powered, ain’t it?”
“Enough!” roared Mr Bingley in a whispery kind of way. “Step aside, I’ll do it.” Deftly he removed a hairpin from his hair. Spiny Norman opened his mouth to comment but shut it just as quickly when he caught the look from RebeccaH. Before anyone could really worry too much about it, a little click came from the lock Mr Bingley was working on and the door gently swung inward.
Ash consulted her blueprints. “He’s probably being held in solitary confinement, maximum security section. That’s six levels down.”
“Then let’s get going,” said andycanuck. “The sooner we nab him, the sooner we get our blog back.”
They descended the stairs single file, stopping at a door at the very bottom.
“There’ll be a guard on the other side,” Paco cautioned. “Captain, get ready, but wait for my signal.” The detective removed his fedora. “Ma’am, if you’ll allow me…” Without actually waiting for permission, he adroitly plucked a long, slightly waved strand of coppery hair from Missred’s scalp. “Pogria?”
Sucking away the excess saliva, Pogria took the piece of gum she’d been chewing from her mouth and handed it over. Paco used it to fix the hair strand to his hat.
“No one make a sound.”
They all held their breath as he gently, silently opened the door just enough to slip his fedora into the corridor on the other side. Then he closed the door, leaving the distinctive strand of hair trailing along the floor where they could see it.
“Now we wait.”
What was probably only a minute seemed like an hour as they waited for the guard to notice the hat. He might not have been the usual mindless grunt, either, because no one heard the sound of his approaching jackboots. It was only when the hair began to slide away that they knew he was directly outside.
“Captain, you’re on!”
Whilst it was true Captain J.M Heinrich’s slightly resented being considered just the ‘muscle’ of the squad, he was more than ready and willing when the opportunity came. Launching himself in one powerful charge, he shouldered the door, crashing it open and knocking down the guard who was already bent over rather awkwardly with one hand on the fedora. The guard managed a short gasp of pain and shock before Heinrich followed through with a vicious kick to the left temple, putting him out cold.
“Cheers.”
As Wimpy Canadian and Mr Creosote expertly bound the guard’s wrists and ankles with electrical wiring and dragged him away, the rest of the squad split up to inspect the cells, which were all were equipped with judas peep holes.
“My God, they’ve got Nicki Webster,” said Nilknarf. “Always wondered what happened to her.”
Stackja found who they were actually looking for at the very end of the corridor. “He’s here.”
They gathered outside the cell door, examining with no small consternation the series of bolts and deadlocks.
“They’re not mucking around, are they?” said Mr Bingley. “I don’t think the hairpin’s going to work with this lot.”
“Nothing else for it, then” Habib said, ostensibly concerned, though even in the dim light they all noticed a gleam in his eye. “Who’s got the C4?”
Dan Lewis and Dave S both produced the explosive and set it to the cell’s doorframe. Michael Leonie connected it to the detonator.
“Tim!” 1.618 called through the judas hole. “Tim Tam, can you hear me?” She bit her lower lip with worry. “He’s just sitting there. I don’t know if he can hear me.”
“We don’t have a choice,” said Richard McEnroe. “If we don’t do this now, News Ltd will be all over us like flies on a hippy.”
“Right then,” 1.618 agreed, steeling herself. “Tim Tam, if you can hear me, get under cover. We’re blowing the door!”
Everyone backed up as far as possible. Michael Leonie gripped the detonator. “Three, two, one!”
They averted their eyes from the sudden flash. The sound and impact of the explosion shook the corridor. But as the dust and smoke cleared they found a satisfactorily large hole gaping where the cell door used to be.
Paco and Wronwright were first in. They rushed to Tim Blair who sat in front of a old 1940’s Olivetti typewriter. Iron bracelets secured his ankles to the legs of his chair and there were strange, different coloured wires connecting a metal headband to some electrical equipment against one wall. Similarly there was an intravenous drip in one arm connected to a bag of fluid suspended from a nearby metal bracket.
“You can still smell the pentothal,” whispered Kae.
Blair had a dazed look about him, but something suggested it wasn’t from the explosion. He was typing dejectedly on the keys, one finger at a time, muttering what he wrote.
“No one seems to be holding these bastards to -”
A light on the equipment against the wall came on, followed by an electrical buzzing sound and suddenly Tim Blair’s body jerked like someone suffering an epileptic fit. When it was over, he went on typing and muttering.
“No one seems to be holding these people to account.”
Paco shook his head in sad disbelief. “Okay, I think we’ve seen enough. Someone unhook him from that stuff. Dminor, check him out.”
Dminor leant forward, examining the shackled journalist. He took Tim’s head gently in both hands and rotated it from side to side. It didn’t take a doctor to see that although the head moved, the eyes didn’t track.
“Doll’s eyes. This is bad.”
Tim was mostly limp as they took off the metal headband and removed the IV line, but when they tried to lift him from the chair he suddenly looked panic and seized the armrests.
“No, no! Leave me alone!”
“Tim, we’ve got to get out of here,” 1.618 urged him. “There’s no time to lose.”
“I don’t want to go.”
There was a stunned silence. Puzzled glances were exchanged.
“Tim, you’re delerious. But you’ll be better soon. Come.”
But when they took him by the arms again, he resisted violently. “No, no! Let me go! I like it here. I like it here…” His voice trailed off. He did nothing to stop some spittle dribbling down his chin.
“We’re too late,” said Dminor. “They’ve broken him. Trying to force him now would probably leave him in a permanent vegetative state; he’d have to write for The Age.”
1.618 wiped the tears from her cheek. “But surely we can’t leave him like this.”
“We have to. He was a strong man, I’m sure he held out a long time. But the Tele got him in the end. Come on, we have to go before they come for us, too.”
Paco nodded. “D’s right. We split up. Rendezvous at o-eight hundred at Paco Enterprises or Tizona’s.”

The Very Sad End.