“And the wild witch of the woods, darling.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“If you don’t surrender right this minute . . .”

I had to laugh. “He doesn’t know us very well, does he? Who do you think they are?”

“Big display of force, even bigger guns, and not a grain of common sense among the lot of them . . . got to be Manifest Destiny. The I-Can’t-Believe-They’re-Not-Fascists brigade. Truman must have got his act back together again. Who knew he’d still be mad at us, just because we destroyed his underground base and scattered his whole repellent organisation to the winds?”

“All-powerful cult leaders with delusions of godhood are often funny that way,” I agreed.

The spokesman threw his bullhorn onto the ground and stalked forward to confront us. Molly and I turned around and fixed him with a thoughtful gaze, and he slammed to a halt. He was carefully not pointing his automatic weapon at us, just yet.

“Look,” he said, in the strained tones of someone trying to be reasonable under very trying circumstances. “We both know you don’t have your golden armour anymore, Eddie. None of the Droods do. If I have to order my men to open fire, you’ll end up riddled with so many bullets your family will be able to use your corpse as a colander. You’ll have so much lead in you, your coffin will have to be labelled toxic waste, and even your DNA will end up in pieces. So will you please just do the sensible thing and surrender, and we can all get out of here!”

“I think you pushed those metaphors a bit too far,” I said.

“Definitely reaching there, at the end,” said Molly.

“Nobody does really good villainous threats anymore,” I said. “In the old days, a real villain could make your blood run cold with just a simile.”

“Hell, I could make someone wet themselves with just a baleful glare,” said Molly.

“Sorry,” I said to the spokesman. “We don’t do reasonable. Do we, dear?”

“Certainly not,” said Molly. “Bad for the image. Hey, what do you want to bet I can turn this creep into some kind of dripping snot creature before he can give the order to open fire?”

“You can’t take on a whole army!” said the spokesman. His voice was becoming just a bit hysterical. “Extreme measures have been authorised!”

“Well,” I said. “That’s always nice to know. Now we won’t have to hold back. I count fifty-seven armed men, Molly.”

“Probably more in hiding, as reinforcements,” said Molly. “He looks the sneaky type. Nice to know they’re taking us seriously, at least.”

“Who are you?” I said bluntly to the spokesman, leaning forward to try to peer through his dark visor. “Your voice is familiar . . .”

“Codename Alpha!” he snapped, actually shying back a little. “Are you going to come quietly, or not?”

“Oh, definitely not,” said Molly. “We have a reputation to live down to.”