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As I clung to the landing bar of Zanastro’s ascending helicopter, my thoughts meandered from this topic to that. I contemplated the existence of an afterlife, whether or not anyone would miss me once I was gone, and what shape my funeral might take. Manchengo was trying to shoot me with a machine gun which was bolted down to the floor of the chopper, which was laughable, because he just didn’t have the angle. Who bolts a machine gun to a helicopter? Zanastro kept on shouting: “Get him off! Get him off” - as if we were quarreling over positions on a merry-go-round. Tacky cretin. I mean, the man had a Z logo designed and painted onto the side of his helicopter. But back to my funeral: the theme would be white, purity, and ascension, echoing the manner in which I was last seen by my fellow Agents. There would be lots of linen. White lilies? Perhaps that would be too cloying, too cliché. White roses? White roses would certainly get the attention of the lads at the Agency. “What is this, a wedding?”, I can hear Franks murmuring to Dorsey. My quasi-intellectual brother would no doubt make some obscure French post-modernist epitaph of some kind. My hippy sister would most likely place seashells or beads on the casket, reading something from The Prophet, or some such rubbish. I would, of course, be wearing my Joseph Banks tweed, with the dark blue on blue Brooks Brothers tie. Certainly Maura knows me well enough by now. And if the morgue attendants knew their business, they would insure that my white gold Givenche cufflinks were showing. I looked up at my clasped hands on the landing bar and approximated the angle. Yep, they would be showing all right. But wait – Manchengo was – was it possible? – The hulking dolt was trying to climb down on the bar in order to step on my hands. Moron! Flashing my Cartier, I grabbed his pant cuff, and gave it a good solid tug. He instantly sailed down past me, wailing like a banshee. If I’d had the time I would have watched him plummet to the city below, but I had to seize the chance to storm the cockpit. Zanastro was fumbling with his gun like a caveman – was that a FLAIR gun? “Ha! You don’t even have a proper gun! What kind of mastermind are you?”, I shouted, grabbing his lapels. He began to weep. “Your real name is probably something like Josh”, I said, and gave him a head butt. I then swiftly smashed his face into the radio, and he lost consciousness. I drew my silver-coated 9mm Ressingior and touched it to the pilot’s lower skull. “Pilot, take this craft back to the docks”, I said, already wistful of the white linen.