"You're in Chicago at the Veteran's Hospital, Mr. Price."
"Mr. Who?"
She looked down at his chart and said, "Stuart Price, it says. You serve in the British Navy?"
He looked up at her in confusion. "Are you sure?" He listened to his voice and thought, I don't sound British. I sound American.
"Aren't you sure, sweetie?" she said with a soft giggle.
"No," he whispered. "Not really."
"Oh," she said. The nurse patted him on the head tenderly, "Well, you were asleep for a very long time. I am sure it will all feel much clearer after you rest. Don't you worry a lick. I'm going to go find you some good and let your doctor know you're awake."
She scribbled a few notes on his chart and closed his curtain to give him privacy. She'd been his nurse since he'd arrived six months ago, the victim of a gunshot and some kind of rare poisoning. Why a British Navy Officer was shot on American soil was not her concern, though it did make her intensely curious. Maybe it was something to do with spies, or some kind of secret operation against the Russians.
He looked like more like a college student than a spy, except for the nasty scar going down the side of his face. His whole body looked shot up and scarred and stabbed, like he'd been dragged off the beach after the Normandy invasion. She guessed anything was possible. Some people just have young faces.
The nurse knocked on the doctor's office door and said, "Excuse me, but that patient is awake now. The one you wanted me to let you know about? He's up and he's talking and all. I'm going to get him some food, all right?"
"Did he say anything?" the doctor said.
"Like what?"
"Did he say what happened to him?"
"No," the nurse said. "The poor thing didn't even know he was British or remember his name. He must've taken a frightful fall after he got shot," she whispered conspiratorially.
"I'm sure the doctor said. All right, get him some food and I'll be out in a few minutes to see him." He waited for her to leave before he shut the door and locked it. He took a deep breath before picking up his phone and dialing a number he kept hidden in his wallet. There was no name or any of the code words, but he'd learned them by heart and told himself he would not screw it up.
He dialed the phone number and waited for someone to pick up. "Hello?" the voice on the other end of the line said.
"This is Antonio. I'm looking for Greenleaf."
A slight pause, and the man on the other end said, "Greenleaf isn't available. He'll be back tomorrow."
"That's fine. Can you let him know his delivery has arrived?"
"I will. Did the package come with any instructions?"
"No," the doctor said. Not if what the nurse was saying was true about the patient not remembering his own name. "No instructions at all."
"Very well. He'll be in touch."
The line went silent and the doctor hung up. He pulled out his private patient file marked Stuart Price and scanned through it for the hundredth time. A Swiss bank account was paying all of Price's hospital bills. It was the same account making a hefty deposit into his own bank account to make sure everything went according to instructions. The only part that bothered him was something the old man who'd brought Stuart Pryce to the hospital said on the day of their arrival. "Now, this fellow will probably not remember who is when he wakes up, so you will have to explain it to him. Poor kid's memory has always been a little tricky. My boss will call you with further instructions."
The doctor looked at the patient and said, "Well let's hope for the best. There are advances in medicine that can greatly help amnesiacs recover their memory and get him feeling like his old self in record time."
"You'd better pray to God that doesn't happen, doctor," the old man had muttered.
He shrugged it off and told himself it was none of his business. In the medical field, much like any other form of employment, it was all about the income, not the outcome.
Halfway across the United States, Wild Bill Donovan hung up the phone in his office and pressed his face into his hands, trying to calm himself. He was desperately outclassed by the resources of the American government's intelligence network, and yet here he was, taking phone calls at his house from a doctor regarding a registered hostile threat. He'd thought he lost his mind going personally to the Chicago hospital, but no, this was worse.
The FBI and CIA had thousands of agents, budgets larger than most developed countries, and technology that made what they'd used in the OSS days look like tin cans and slingshots.
Donovan had exactly one thing they didn't, and he was about to use it up with one phone call.
Better make it count.
He picked up his phone and dialed a series of numbers that connected him across the Atlantic Ocean. He bit his lip, waiting for someone on the other end to pick up.
"Hello?" a pleasant-sounding woman with a thick British accent said.
"Hello, Mrs. Knight, it's William Donovan from the United States. I apologize for bothering you so late. Is there any chance I can speak to Lee?"
"Oh, it's no bother, Mr. Donovan. We were just talking about you. Wait a moment, dearie." She put the phone down and Donovan waited. His lip was getting sore. A man picked up the phone and said, "Bill? How are you?"
"I'm good, Lee. I wanted to make sure I had your address. We're getting our Christmas card list together and I'm never sure where you get your mail these days."
There was a slight pause, and then Knight said, "Send it to the Ontario Street address if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Donovan said.
The winds blowing off of Lake Ontario were cold enough to crack his lips and freeze his eyelids together. Donovan kept his head down to use the top of his hood to block the winds and pressed his gloves hands over his mouth, breathing into them. A plane's engine whined overhead, cutting down through the brilliantly blue sky toward the small stretch of runway cut into the thick snow covering the ground.
The man standing beside Donovan said, "Blimey, just imagine if it were one of the cold days."
Donovan was too cold to laugh, but the dry British sense of humor never ceased to amuse him. He had known Bradley Blake when he'd first joined Lee Knight's operation, and now the man had risen to the rank of Commodore in Charge of Camp X. The plane touched down on the runway just as its propellers sputtered and slowed. There were icicles hanging from the wings that made Donovan nervous. He was hitching a ride on the same plane home in less than ten minutes.
He watched a young man climb out of the back of the plane and throw his bag down onto the snow, then look around in wonder at the wintery landscape. It was all Donovan could do to not call out to him.
The young man saw them standing there and hustled across the runway, snapping a salute at both of them. "Hello, sirs. Stuart Price, reporting for duty. Are either of you Commodore Blake of the Special Operations Executive, by chance?"
Blake's eyebrows raised in surprise at the man's American accent and he said, "What part of England are you from, lad?"
Donovan stepped in, "He was deep undercover with the American forces when they got hit. I've seen it happen where someone adopts an accent as part of their cover for so long, they forget their original one. I'm sure a few weeks of good English beer and football talk with your boys up here will straighten things out."
"It bloody well better," Blake said. "I can't have one of my men disgracing the Queen's English with that horrible vulgarity of an accent, now can I?"
"I'm sorry, sir," Price said. "I'll do my best." Price's eyes met Donovan's and he paused, wondering why the older man was looking at him so intently. "Is everything all right, sir?"
"Yes, of course," Donovan said.
Christ, you're already starting to look older, Donovan thought. He was mesmerized by the change in the young man's features. In all the decades they'd known each other, it was like he'd been etched from marble, but now, even after just a few months, there were slight changes.
Donovan held out
his hand and said, "Stuart, it's been a pleasure. I'm sorry you don't remember it, but we actually worked pretty well together for a while."
Price shrugged and said, "If it ever comes back to me, I'll let you know."
"Sounds good," Donovan said, forcing himself to smile.
Commodore Blake shook hands with Donovan and waved for Price to come with him, leading him across the crunchy snow toward a gatehouse near the runway. "So, do you remember anything about your time in the war? Anything at all about your service in Her Majesty's Royal Navy?"
"No, sir," Price said. "Not a darn thing."
"Bloody," Blake said.
"Sorry, sir?"
"Bloody, lad. That's how we say it. God, we've got our work cut out for us deprogramming you from whatever the hell those Yanks filled your head with. You understand that we do not produce standard soldiers here. Nor do we train for standard missions."
"Actually sir, I don't know what you do up here. I was told to report to a man at an airplane hangar the day I was released from the hospital, and we came straight here."
Blake nodded and said, "Well, then you should feel quite proud that you have been selected to attend our little training camp. We only take the best of the best, and we train them to do bad things to all the maniacs around the world who want to destroy it. Does that sound like something you might be interested in?"
"Yes, sir. Very much, sir."
They entered the gatehouse as Wild Bill Donovan climbed into the back of the plane that would carry him back to the United States. He lifted his gloved hand to wave goodbye, but neither Price nor Blake turned around. He lowered himself into the seat and said, "My job is done here. Let's go home."
Camp X was eleven years ago.
Eleven years of learning to lie and kill, all in the name of Queen and Country.
Blake would be proud of me now, he thought. My accent is flawless.
He was swimming in the clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean, on some holiday or other, taking a rest on the Service's dime by spearfishing during the day and doing another kind of spearfishing at night. Old Blake, he thought. He's been dead for years.
Price was treading water on the surface, catching his breath, when he felt something nudge against his leg. Probably a large fish, he thought. Maybe a shark. They mean me no harm and I mean none to them, so we'll just have to learn to coexist. He looked down into the water, trying to catch a glimpse of the thing, and saw a large black eye staring up at him hungrily.
The creature had him before he could even scream.
It clasped him around the leg with its steel-like tentacles, yanking him down into the water with one sudden jerk. He could feel its poisonous suction cups biting into his flesh as it yanked him down into the murky depths, cinching around him more and more with its tentacles, hugging him with its enormous, gelatinous form.
There was nothing to push against or fight with, no way to grab the knife sheathed around his waist. Price opened his mouth to scream and swallowed lungfuls of sea water.
The beast crashed with him against the silt floor and Price saw a man swimming in the water nearby, waving a gnawed-off arm and stump of a leg. Jack, Price thought. Help me.
Jack Ivor watched Price struggle and said in his slow, southern way, "I'd lend you a hand, Stu, if I had one to spare. Why'd you let me go in there all alone? Why weren't you with me?"
The octopus swirled around Price now, engulfing him completely, spinning and spinning until Price lost consciousness and the world turned black. From a far off distance, he heard something ringing. The noise persisted and grew louder, rattling in his head until Price opened his eyes and sat up in bed, gasping for air. He snatched the phone's receiver up and said, "What?"
"Good morning to you too, Stuart," the woman on the other end said. "The boss would like to see you straight away."
Price could still feel the octopus tentacles wrapped around him. He could still see Jack Ivor staring at him accusingly. When he didn't respond, the woman on the phone repeated herself. Price shook his head to clear it and said, "Yes, Miss Maxwell. Of course, Miss Maxwell. That's all very lovely, but I'm slightly indisposed at the moment."
"I'll bet you are. Is she beautiful, Stuart? Does she do the things to you that—"
"What does the boss want?"
She sighed and said, "You never let me have any fun. I'm really not sure what he wants, but he says it's urgent."
"How long have we been working together at MI-6, my dear? Has it ever once not been urgent?"
The intercom buzzed at Miss Maxwell's desk, and a voice crackled, "It is always urgent when I call on you because I have other people to attend to things that are not urgent, Commander Price. Your usefulness to me relies on that fact, and little else. You'd do well to bear that in mind."
Price pushed the café's door open and waved to the shop owner as he walked in, "Good morning, love."
Mrs. Bridge finished pouring hot coffee into a cup before she looked up at him and smiled, "You're right on time. I just brewed a fresh pot."
He stopped and looked around the store, "Where's the little one?"
Mrs. Bridge glanced down the aisle and said loudly, "I don't know where she could have gone. I certainly hope she didn't leave and miss seeing you."
Price looked over and saw a little girl limping up the aisle softly, trying not to make any noise. He ducked behind a row of sweets and waited for her to come out. She looked around and said, "Mummy? Where is he?"
Mrs. Bridge shrugged her shoulders and said, "I'm not sure. Maybe he disappeared?"
Price leapt out from behind the aisle and shouted loud enough to make the little girl scream and laugh and grab him by the hands. "I got you!" Price said.
She showed him how she'd caught his sleeves and said, "But I have you!"
Price looked down and smiled, "I guess you'll have to keep me then. What shall we do? Do you want to come to work with me?"
"No," Jillian laughed. "Work is boring!"
"You are absolutely correct, love," he said. He patted her on the head and said, "Try to avoid it for as long as you can, yeah?"
Mrs. Bridge finished making Price's cup and said, "Jillian, it's time for school. Got get your things."
"Yes, mummy," the little girl said. She waved goodbye to Price and limped back down the aisle, heading toward the back room to get her books.
Price watched her go and said, "How long has she had that limp?"
"Oh, I dunno," Mrs. Bridge said. "A day or so. You know how children are, always getting banged about by something or another. So how are things at the firm? Anything exciting in the world of accounting?"
"So exciting, I could die," Price said. "Absolutely die."
Price walked past Miss Maxwell's desk and stopped, staring at the closed office door directly ahead of him and said, "Nothing good waits for me in there, does it?" He turned and sat on the edge of the desk, looking down longingly at her and said, "Wouldn't a wiser man choose to stay right here, with you?"
"I don't know, Stuart. That depends what you suppose awaits you here." She leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs so that her skirt slid just above her knee, careful not to reveal more than a slight glimpse of thigh.
He looked down at her leg and sighed, "It's always the same, after all. Murderous villainy. International intrigue. Exotic, ridiculously expensive cars…and then, of course, there's the women."
"So I've heard," Maxwell said, reaching up to stroke the collar of her shirt with the tips of her fingers. "How dreadful for you."
He bent forward, smelling the hint of mint on her breath from her morning tea. "It seems rather implausible that I would consider giving that up just to stay here. But still, it seems worth investigating, if only for academic purposes. It might be nice to see how a man who leads a quiet, normal life gets on. I expect we'd have to find a way to while away the long evenings at home," he said, leaning down closer to her as she rose up to meet him.
"Urgent means now, Commander!" the
intercom squawked.
Maxwell laughed and sat back in her chair. "Saved by the bell, once again, Stuart," she said.
Price stood up and straightened his tie. "You can't hide from me forever, Maxwell. I always collect on old debts and you have owed me for far too long."
"I was counting on it," she said.
Price turned away from her and opened the office door to greet Sir Admiral Lee King, a white-haired man sitting behind a large, ornate wooden desk with three phones, each of which went to various offices of Her Majesty's government. One went to the Queen herself. "Good morning, sir," Price said.
"Sit down, Stuart. It's one thing to keep me waiting, for I am but a simple, humble public servant. It is quite another to delay the entire organization devoted to protecting the Empire while you flirt with my secretary."
"You considered that flirting, sir?" Price said. "I'm rather surprised. That was mere conversation."
Sir Knight waved his hand at the agent dismissively, "We have a situation. There is some nasty business afoot from the damned beekeepers again."
"Ah. Beekeepers," Price nodded. "Them again? You don't say."
Knight stared at his agent without amusement. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
Price smiled and said, "Nice try, sir. Now you've had your fun. What is it you really need?"
"The bloody beekeepers! Didn't you read the packet I sent you two days ago?"
The unopened parcel still sitting on my kitchen table, you mean?
"Actually, I haven't been home much recently, sir," Price said.
"Bugger all," Knight mumbled, pressing his intercom. "Maxwell, tell Llewellyn to report to my office straight away."
"No, not Llewellyn, sir," Price groaned.
"Yes, him. You brought this on yourself. If you'd read the packet, I wouldn't need someone else to explain it to you. Anyway, what's wrong with Llewellyn? The man's a blasted walking history lesson."
Desmond Llewellyn was hardly able to contain himself as he walked into the Admiral's office and sat down next to Price. It was rare that he got to attend intelligence meetings, and even rarer that he got to be the one to provide the intelligence. He cleared his throat and said, "So, the beekeepers. It's really quite the intrigue. There's been decades of speculation as to how they came into existence and what exactly it is they've been up to. No one seems to know. All very shadowy stuff, indeed."
Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever Page 12
