A small homage to David Niven, English actor and his extraordinary autobiography of the same name

‘Is Reverse Trojan? You yankee doodles love.’ The Russian offered another spinach samosa.
‘Ivan, mate, wtf?’ The American flossed his teeth, ensuring both a perfect smile and providing a string for Langley to check for any drugs.
The Russian smiled his best vodka-topped smile. ‘These Syrians love their ‘orses, no? We steal their favourites and run them up to the gate. They are like ‘Wah, woah’, let them in. But they are full of trackers and microphones and cameras. We now inside Citadel. We have knowledge of their plans. Bingle!’
‘It’s bingo. I get the Trojan bit. Horses. But Reverse?’ The American disinfected the neck before swigging quickly and slipping a nano-recorder into the bottle.
‘They empty. We use empty ‘orses!’ The Russian tipped the remaining booze into an ashtray and set it alight.
‘That stinks. They won’t swallow that.’
The Russian shrugged his steroidal shoulders. “Is on fire. Of course they not swallow.’
‘Your plan, dullard.’ The American rubbed his waxed chin. ‘Though we could build animatronic horses, exact copies of the originals. That would be the bizz.’
‘Da, Da, yankee doodles always want show off his toys. ‘Look at me, my ICBM is bigger than yours.’ Bullshit.’
‘How do you get their horses? What’s your cunning plan, Baldrick?’
‘Who Baldrick? He not have Kremlin clearance?’
‘He’s a figure of speech, you moron.’
‘You think I know fuck nothing, when really I know fuck all!!’
A short knock disturbed them and a square jaw appeared.
‘Yes?’
‘Da?’
‘Er, news just in from Central, sirs. The Brits apologise but they’ve just bombed it. They wanted to know if it was important.’
As the American’s gaze met his Russian counterpart’s the super-heated nano-recorder exploded. The Russian, his eyebrows aflame, smiled. ‘Now that is real booze.’