Chase Me Faster
Catherine Gale and John Steed and Emma Peel
THE AVENGERS
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by Caroline Miniscule
Chapter One: The Pawn - Page 1
I - Present Day Click. Click. Click. Frederick Smith's footfalls echoed all the way down the hallway and as usual this annoyed him very much. Why couldn't they put carpeting down? It was a useless security feature - anyone who wanted to sneak around unheard simply had to remove their shoes. The way the department was run no one would even bat an eye if they saw someone walking around in stocking feet. But the silence would be blessed. Frederick paused in front of Drummond's door and took a deep breath. He glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand and shook his head. Then he turned the knob and went in. Drummond's secretary looked up from her desk in surprise. "Mr. Drummond wasn't expecting you for another half hour, at least." Frederick nodded. "I daresay. But I've got an answer for him now." Mrs. Pendleton nodded. "Very well." She spoke into her intercom. "Mr. Drummond? Mr. Smith is here." "Send him in." Morris Drummond was a man of average height, slender but muscular with it, with the well-tanned face of one who spent a great deal of time outdoors. His dark blond hair was cut short and came down to a widow's peak on his forehead, his eyes were an electric blue, his mouth wide and with the mobility of an actor. He did not rise from his desk but gestured Frederick to a chair. "Well?" "She's been killed three times already, and she's not even halfway through the course." Drummond sat back, a flash of disappointment in his eyes. "Oh, dear." Frederick nodded. "It's as I suspected, sir. She's got the skills, but she doesn't have the instinct." "I've always thought instinct was highly overrated as a quality," Drummond said somewhat coldly. Frederick shrugged, and handed Drummond the sheet of paper he carried. "The result says differently, surely. She's a marksman on the pistol range - with stationary, paper targets. She goes over the usual obstacle course in quite a respectable time, but when we try to have her put it all together on the Target course...well, she died three times. To me that means her instinct isn't there." "It can be taught." Frederick raised an eyebrow. "She has been taught. Thirty days training. Result, dead three times." Drummond glanced over the sheet of paper Frederick had handed him. Frederick leaned forward intently. "Please consider, sir. This girl has the highest qualifications of an agent that we've had in some time. She's got an IQ off the charts. Her administration skills are top-hole. Language, mathematics, engineering...she's got everything. She belongs at Space HQ, sorting out the reports and making sure the boffins are doing their job properly. Why try to turn a first-rate administrator into a mediocre field agent?" Morris Drummond steepled his fingers. "You say she hasn't finished the course?"
Frederick sighed. "No. But she's already failed, surely. Dead three times in ten minutes. That's a record." "Oh, surely not." Frederick nodded. "Over the whole course, it's dead five times. That record's stood up for a long time...it's held by..." he cast his mind back, "someone named Tara King, way back in the late sixties."
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