The Letak Disaster

The Letak Disaster, DPDA Case No.89 or Operation Bandersnatch is the final DPDA case of 2012. It documents the first official interaction between the DPDA and Letak Lemons and features an introduction written by Jasper Scunthorpe. The rest of the report is written by Benjamin Sellers (though closely monitored by Jasper).

## Introduction (By Jasper)

All was quiet at Letak Lemons. Witold Letak stared at the clock on his wall. Tick tock, tick tock. Above that lay his great grandfather's sabre: "Riccardo". Witold had sent all of the employees home early and had even insisted that The Lemon Brigade leave as well. What a year, and now it was almost the 25th. Witold looked with an air of mystery at the clock.

It had stopped.

It's hands had almost reached midnight. Witold looked around the room but was thrown back down into his seat. What was happen-? Witold's thought was cut off as he slowly came back to consciousness and looked at where he was.

## The Letak Disaster

### Performers

Witold Letak
TACA

Jasper Scunthorpe

The DPDA

The Lemon Brigade

WIBC

### Location

Letak Lemons HQ, Sicily
Bigga, Shetland Islands

### The Plan

Jasper Scunthorpe was angry. Angrier than I'd ever seen before, he inflicted venom with every glance he gave to the Letak Lemons security team. Most of the people didn't know him too well but they at least had one common goal with him: to rescue Witold and find out who had burnt down several lemon plantations. Jasper had been our financer for a number of years now and we weren't strangers to him hiring us to solve his own cases. We had been considering every possible enemy of Letak Lemons, Witold and Jasper himself.

Bernard and Tim had just got back from questioning WIBC who had admitted that this operation had been even too diabolical for them. Denzel and this man called Squirrel (I didn't ask where the nickname came from) also had come back from checking the security tapes, nothing. Whoever had performed this scheme were professionals and knew what they were doing.

Suddenly, Jasper got a call. It was his uncle - Henderson Scunthorpe. Jasper walked away and began talking in German ecstatically. After about five minutes, Jasper briskly walked over to us and revealed that Henderson had just been notified about Witold's kidnapping and had put two and two together. In Henderson's younger years, he had campaigned for the protection of Scunthorpe and during that campaign a strange thing had occurred. All of the tories Christmas presents had gone missing. This was later followed by a message from a mysterious organisation that had called themselves "TACA".

Bernard recognised the name and was instantly searching the internet for anything on the criminals. A man named Gunther Bianchi also began to assist him. Gunther was one of the big bosses of security and part of The Lemon Brigade (A taskforce designed to protect Letak Lemons). Eventually, Bernard had pieced together the information from conflicting sources and wheeled out a big whiteboard to show everyone. Denzel acted as his flamboyant assistant whilst Bernard revealed that TACA actually stood for the Taylor Anti-Christmas Agency. The Agency was completely against the idea of Christmas (as the name suggests) and had been known for consistently abusing those in charge - usually those that have more right-wing beliefs. This fit perfectly with the current narrative as Witold himself had right-wing beliefs and was the owner of a big company (TACA had also attacked big companies like Amazon or Specsavers in the past).

Cecil Longstaff, who had thrown up all over the floor after drinking several bottles of mulled wine, ran into the room shouting "Come on you cuties I've just found this little thingy." The small tide of people ran to follow him where they found a letter that stated the following:

"Dear Letak Lemons, we are not interested in your money but in fact need something else that we could not find when we searched your offices. Riccardo. We want Riccardo and if you do not bring it to the Island of Bigga (in the Shetlands) on the 30th December at 15:30 then Witold Letak will suffer tremendously."

A picture of Witold, alive, came with the letter. Sadly, Jasper was mentally troubled by these words so we comforted and relaxed him until he was ready to make a decision. Denzel and Jasper went to have a talk and decided that Witold must be rescued at all costs but Riccardo should not be given away. On deciding this, the devilishly devious duo came up with a brilliant plan. One so clever that it shocked even Bernard with all of its intricate little details.

### Operation Bandersnatch

It was now the 30th of December and Jasper and Cecil waltzed out of a Lemoncopter and onto the helipad clad in black, glittery, business suits and holding a very long suitcase. The daring duo Disko danced their way to the main entrance of TACA's HQ, their purple and yellow henchman following discreetly behind them. They flipped and tripped too Tom Jones' version of the Prince song: KISS. The door was opened and they stopped their dancing and smiles were replaced with blank stares. Witold Letak stood before them in chains and behind him (on a throne no less) sat an evil looking gremlin of a man. He had very muscly legs, a goatee and some weird little eyes a colour that was borderline purple. The creature smiled at them and introduced himself as Demetrius Taylor, leader of TACA.

Cecil began barking but Jasper held him back. Jasper began to offer the suitcase to Demetrius but Demetrius simply shook his head. "No Jasper, I don't want you to give me the blade, I want to test my own." Jasper and Cecil exchanged glances. Jasper shrugged and took out the blade. He had learnt fencing for years from his father and now he had to use all of this knowledge to beat this buffoon. Cecil paced the floor impatiently as Jasper and Demetrius took out their swords. Demetrius had a Jacobi basket-hilted sword that he said he'd gained from his great x5 grandfather in Britain's last pitched battle (though Jasper wasn't too sure if he was bluffing).

The duel began in an instant and Cecil could tell they were masters of the art, the way they pranced, danced and grooved around the dueling area was the most captivating performance Cecil had witnessed since a live production of the hit film Mean Girls in a Bradford theatre (sadly he had been distracted for 15 minutes of the performance given that he had dropped his yummy chicken wings and a fat man had laughed at him because of it). The duel went on for 10 minutes until Demetrius roared "ENOUGH!!!".

Jasper stood dumfounded, Demetrius had violated the dueling rules and he was now determined to stab him until he realised his sword... "is a fake" determined Demetrius. Demetrius had also been using a fake sword so if Jasper's sword was real then it would have cut it instantaneously. Cecil began to sweat, it was quite cold and he sweat when the temperature was below -2°C but he was particularly sweaty at this moment in time. Jasper, however, rolled his eyes and then gave a short speech:

"Yes, I apologise for not giving you - Mr. Terrorist - what you want but how can I honour a man if he can't even honour the dueling code you suko chłopcze. Unfortunately for you though, you failed (yet again) to notice one key detail. Your men aren't TACA."

And with a tremendously sarcastic filled bow, the DPDA and Lemon Brigade took off their disguises (hand knit by Tim Crescent the day before) and began sawing at Witold's chains. Denzel Pepper rolled and bounded around the room looking for other little fiends making Demetrius' piggy little face look like it was gonna cry. So he began screaming. The scream was so high-pitched that it shattered the glass of Tim's holy water bottle prompting him to invest in a reusable hydro-flask for the future. Witold's chains came free and the good gang sprinted back to the Lemonopter. Bernard Great Right Hooked the two guards still guarding the Lemoncopter and they were off with smiley happy faces drifting off into the new year.