Piffy should have been thankful the skylight was made of plastic and not of glass, that the Mujahideen who had hitched a ride atop the Midnight Rider hadn’t sprayed the little compartment with a thousand fiery fingers of death from their AK-47s, that they hadn’t lobbed combustibles or fragmentation grenades down on his head or made themselves disagreeable in some other way, that they hadn’t acted like Ghenghis Khan's Golden Horde storming a hovel near Poltava, that they weren’t wearing spurs and shouting “Yippee Kiyay-Kiyay!” There were a thousand things he could have been thankful for—and in a way he was—but the “Allahu akbars” spewing from between their bearded lips would have been enough to ruin a surprise party for the Devil in Dante’s Inferno.

It was tough being a ten-year-old boy in a Bratz bra and rosebud panties. He didn’t get any respect—especially from eleven-year-old girls a lot larger and stronger than he was and with a grudge against him. He had used his considerable skills as a Marine Corps close combat instructor and as Mayberry’s Three-Time Junior Calf-Roping Champion to hogtie and stuff Hanadi under Aisha’s bed. But that had been a while ago—a day or two at least. Couldn’t she let bygones be bygones? It wasn’t his fault Sheikh Rahman Al Kabibble had left her standing at the altar in favor of the slim-hipped boy in the Bratz bra. It was just as embarrassing for him. Still he could understand how she might be a bit piqued and would want to slug him—but a knife? And where in the world did she get a knife?

"Tantum ergo Sacramentum, Veneremur cernui,” mumbled Piffy, his voice barely audible over the roar of the fans. He couldn’t remember the rest of the words to the Pange Lingua so he mumbled the same ones over and over again as he stared in growing horror at the Sheikh and his immensity. Where in the hell was he going to put that damn thing?

It was all Yaser Abdel Said’s fault. If he hadn’t murdered his daughters, Sarah and Amina Said, Piffy wouldn’t be in this predicament. He would be in Bellwether for the octopus wrestling championships or in the Amazon Tidal Basin for the Annual Dead-Enders Red Piranha Fish Fry and Fly Casting Championships. But, no, he had walked into Joe’s Bar and Grille and Gun Club and had accepted a handful of dollars from a great bunch of guys to bring Said to justice—dead or alive, they said, preferable dead. Piffy would do what he had to do, he was a first class private eye, but in the six months he had been on the case he hadn’t come anywhere near finding Said. He had been to Dallas, to London, to Gaza. He had been stabbed, drugged and knocked on the head. He had suffered indignities Rodney Dangerfield would never have tolerated. And his reward had been what?  James Bond had been granted a license to kill him! Nothing like this had ever happened to Mike Hammer or Travis McGee or Richard Diamond or Barnaby Jones. Had any of them, just one of them—except maybe dear old Barnaby—ever been reduced to tracking down a vicious band of Jihadists while mired in the body of an eighty-year-old man or, for that matter, as a ten-year-old boy dressed as a girl? He thought not. Just try getting Mike Hammer in a skirt. It couldn’t be done.

Piffy eyed Bond—James Bond—from the corners of his eyes. He hoped he hadn’t given himself away by any display of emotion. He was sweating, that was for sure, more than a ten-year-old girl would be expected to sweat and his face was flushed and well it might have been. He was excited. It was the same box he had held in his hands that night in Yaser Arafat’s Fuhrerbunker—the one that had contained the so-called Sufi Flea; the Sufi Flea the adult Bernard Piffy had set loose on mankind. But none of this made any sense. There was no way Bond could have found the flea, no way he could have known it had been set free, let alone get it back in the box. It just wasn’t possible. It was either a different flea or an empty box—a hoax! Besides, it was 2009 and the British Secret Service wasn’t anywhere near what it had once been. Mountbatten and Churchill were long dead. Thatcher was in retirement. Socialism had replaced blood sweat and tears with a whining lassitude drenched in fear and Islam had done the rest. An aura of doom lay over England. Any Double Naught Spy with access to Jed Clampett’s bank account could have done a better job preventing 7/7 then the Keystone Kops currently employed by His Majesty’s Secret Service.

Even though Duldul was almost twice his size, Piffy was sure he could handle the former donkey master without breaking a sweat if it came to it—he had written the Marine Corps Manual on Close Combat—but the two plug-uglies lurking behind Duldul were another matter. They would not stand by idly while the baby triceratops neutered their master. Even if he had been Alley Oop he wouldn’t have had much of a chance against them. There would be no brawl if he could avoid one.