by Tim Waggoner
Eggsy and Merlin moved in to attack. The cowboy wielded his shotgun like a staff, blocking their blows. He rammed the shotgun’s butt into Merlin’s stomach, and then he grabbed hold of the Scotsman’s arm and threw him toward one of the casks. Merlin’s head smacked against wood, and he staggered back several steps before falling to the floor, unconscious. Eggsy leveled his gun at the cowboy, but the man swung his shotgun and knocked the pistol out of Eggsy’s hand. As the weapon hit the floor and skidded away, the cowboy slammed his gun butt into Eggsy’s side.
Eggsy stepped back and raised the arm on which he wore his Kingsman watch. The cowboy looked amused.
“You think you’re gonna stop me with nothing but a little bitty watch on?”
The cowboy spun behind Eggsy and slammed the gun butt into his back, driving him toward one of the casks. The man ran up behind him and shoved him hard against the wood. He held his shotgun in one hand while he grabbed Eggsy’s wrist with the other. Before Eggsy could react, the man pressed a button, and the watch—which was aimed at Eggsy’s neck—fired a tranquilizer dart. And then everything went black.
* * *
Eggsy woke, and the first thing he did before he was fully conscious was try to raise his gun and fire. But not only was he not holding a gun, he couldn’t move, and an instant later he realized why. He was tied to a chair, bound so tightly he could barely breathe, let alone move. He glanced to the side and saw Merlin, also tied to a chair, begin to come around.
The cowboy stood several feet away, arms crossed. He no longer carried his shotgun, but he wore a sidearm on his belt. Eggsy saw that they were in a stark interrogation chamber: concrete walls and floor, harsh lighting, and an opaque window on the other side of the room. Eggsy assumed it was an observation window, and someone was on the other side, watching. Behind the cowboy was a wooden table atop of which rested a bottle of Statesman whiskey.
The cowboy asked Eggsy to explain how he and Merlin had ended up at Statesman distillery, and Eggsy began to groggily explain.
When Eggsy finished, the cowboy said, “A bottle. In a secret vault. You expect me to take that seriously?” He considered. “Know what I think? I think your story is a load of horseshit to cover up your failed rescue mission. I think you boys are here for the lepidopterist.”
Eggsy and Merlin were both fully awake now, and they exchanged confused looks. They had no idea what this crazy American was going on about.
The cowboy went to the table, picked up the bottle of whiskey, and walked over to Eggsy and Merlin. He held the whiskey closer so they could inspect it.
“Your mystery bottle look like this?” he asked.
Eggsy nodded. “Same brand. But much older.”
The cowboy smiled. He removed the cap from the bottle and tucked it in his pocket. He then stepped forward and poured half the bottle’s contents over Eggsy. Eggsy closed his eyes to keep the alcohol out of them, and he sputtered as liquor ran into his mouth.
“Do you know why the measurement of alcohol content is called ‘proof?’” the cowboy asked. He stepped over to Merlin and emptied the rest of the bottle onto him, continuing to talk the entire time. “It goes back to the old days when pirates wanted to test the strength of their rum. They used to pour it on gunpowder.”
There was one last swallow left in the bottle, and the cowboy drank it. He sighed in satisfaction. “That’ll make you slap yo momma. So. If the gunpowder still burnt when it was set alight, they considered it ‘proof’ that the rum was good ’n’ strong. I don’t have me any gunpowder.” He removed a butane lighter from his pocket. “But I’m sure you boys will make a loud sound when I set your balls on fire. Or… you can tell me who you really are and how the hell you found us.”
Merlin’s face darkened with anger. “For the last time: we have nothing left to protect but our honor. So you can take your cheap horse piss that you call whiskey—which, by the way, is spelled without the ‘e’ and is nothing compared to a single malt Scotch—and go fuck yourself.”
The cowboy looked at Merlin for a moment. He then turned to Eggsy and flipped open his lighter.
“How about you?” he asked.
Eggsy didn’t particularly relish the idea of being set on fire, but after losing Roxy, Brandon, JB, and the rest of the Kingsman agents, he was in no mood to put up with the cowboy’s shit any longer.
“Nah. I love a Jack and Coke, mate. But I do agree with the part where you go fuck yourself.”
The cowboy looked at them both for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he clicked his lighter shut.
“Nothing to protect but your honor, huh?” he said. “Let’s see what happens if we change that up.”
He slipped the lighter back in his pocket, walked over to the desk and put the empty bottle down, before continuing to the window. He flipped a switch on a panel next to the window, and the glass became clear, revealing not someone observing them, as Eggsy had expected, but a middle-aged man wearing a gray tracksuit and an eyepatch. It was a small room with a cot, toilet, mirror, and sink. The man stood at the sink, looking into the mirror as he shaved. The walls of the room were decorated with hand-drawn pictures of colorful butterflies, hundreds of them, all different types.
The man was Harry Hart.
Eggsy and Merlin reacted at the same time. “What the fuck?” they said in unison.
The cowboy drew his gun and aimed it at Harry through the glass. “Look at him. Smiling like a dead pig in the sunshine. You have three seconds to tell me the truth,” he said. “One…”
“Harry!” Eggsy shouted.
“He can’t hear you,” the cowboy said. “But I can. So talk. Two…”
Eggsy was about to shout Harry’s name again, when a woman’s voice called out, “Stop!”
The three men turned to see that the door to the interrogation chamber was open, and a beautiful African-American woman in her forties had stepped inside. She wore a black vest over a white blouse, black slacks, and a bolo tie made from a thin black ribbon. She wore glasses and her hair was styled in a shaggy bob cut. What’s more, she was holding an umbrella. She threw the umbrella to the cowboy who caught it easily with his free hand.
“Little late for this, Ginger,” he said. “They’re already wetter than a duck’s pussy.”
“Their story checks out,” she said. “I just opened our doomsday scenario locker. This umbrella was in it. Kingsman brand. And it has our logo on it.”
Eggsy could just make out a letter S inside a square stamped on the umbrella’s handle.
The cowboy examined it for a moment, then he holstered his gun, and put the umbrella on the table. He walked over to Eggsy and began to untie him, while Ginger did the same for Merlin.
“Apologies, boys,” the cowboy said. “No hard feelings, I hope. Just doing my job. Welcome to Statesman. Independent intelligence agency. Just like you, I guess. Only our founders went into the booze business, thank the sweet lord above. This is Ginger Ale, our strategy executive. And I’m Agent Tequila.”
The cowboy extended his hand for Eggsy to shake, which he did, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Harry.
“Now we know why we never found his body,” Merlin said, sounding as dumbfounded as Eggsy felt.
Eggsy continued shaking Tequila’s hand without being aware he was doing so.
“How is he alive? Why didn’t you let him contact us?”
“Your momma never tell you it’s polite to look someone in the eye when you shake hands, boy?”
Eggsy released Tequila’s hand. Ginger gestured for Eggsy and Merlin to follow her. She led them out of the interrogation room into the hallway beyond, Tequila bringing up the rear. She stopped at a door with a biometric lock and pressed her palm to the panel. An instant later, the door unlocked and she opened it to reveal Harry, still shaving at the sink in his cell.
Eggsy and Merlin rushed inside. Ginger and Tequila remained in the doorway, watching.
“Harry!” Eggsy shouted, confused but overjoyed to see his mento
r alive.
Harry turned toward Eggsy and smiled. Eggsy ran over to give him a hug, but Harry recoiled and stiffly stuck out his hand.
“How do you do?” he said, then added, frowning, “Have we met before?”
For a second Eggsy was taken aback, but then he understood what was happening. Harry, ever the professional, was pretending not to know him and Merlin so he wouldn’t blow their cover.
“Harry,” Eggsy said, “they know we know you.”
Harry lowered his hand. He looked at Merlin, then at Ginger and Tequila, and then back to Eggsy, an expression of confusion on his face.
“I think there must be some mistake,” he said.
Eggsy turned to Merlin and gave him a questioning look. Merlin stepped forward to join the two of them, and he began speaking slowly and softly.
“Harry—it’s been a long time and my brogues need to be resoled.”
Eggsy understood what Merlin was doing, and he joined in. “Yeah, my Oxfords are done in too.”
Harry looked at them both as if they were insane. “Why are you… telling me about your shoes? I’m a lepidopterist.”
Eggsy frowned. “A what now?”
Harry smiled. “I study butterflies.”
A cold chill rippled up and down Eggsy’s spine. “You… wanted to when you were a child. Harry, look at me…”
Harry did, and Eggsy saw no recognition in his eyes whatsoever. Harry wasn’t acting. He genuinely had no idea who they were.
Eggsy and Merlin said goodbye and stepped back into the hallway. Ginger left the door to Harry’s cell open, and they spoke softly so he couldn’t overhear. Harry seemed completely uninterested in them, though. He returned to shaving, humming to himself as he worked.
“What’s wrong with him?” Eggsy asked, the question coming out more as an accusation.
“I think you mean, ‘Thanks for saving my buddy’s life,’” Tequila said, irritated.
“He has retrograde amnesia,” Ginger explained, her voice kind. “We knew from his eyeglasses that he worked for an intelligence agency. We just didn’t know whose. I hope you understand why we had to keep him.”
Eggsy felt as if he were on the verge of exploding. Harry, his friend and mentor, was alive! Just when he and Merlin needed him most—but he had fucking amnesia? Eggsy’s emotional distress must’ve been evident, for Merlin put a hand on his shoulder to calm him.
“How did he get here?” Merlin asked.
Chapter Five
Statesman boardroom. V-Day minus one
Tequila sat in front of a computer monitor, reviewing case notes about a suspected human trafficking ring being run out of San Francisco, while Ginger worked on something sciency at the computer station next to him.
She scowled at the information on her screen. “I’m getting a crazy spike of ELFs eleven miles from here. Something’s going down. I’m gonna need you to escort me there immediately.”
Tequila looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Elfs?”
“Extreme low-frequency waves,” Ginger explained. “Some kind of targeted signal.”
“Just messing with you, Ginger,” Tequila said. “Let’s go.”
Looks like we’re going elf hunting, he thought.
* * *
The distillery had a number of warehouses on its property, but one of them—Warehouse S—was located a fair distance away from the other buildings, and instead of holding boxes of liquor, it concealed one of the surface entrances to Statesman’s underground facility. Tequila and Ginger rode the elevator platform up, and rushed outside to where a helicopter was fueled and waiting for them. They got in, and Ginger—computer tablet in hand—navigated for the pilot. While the aircraft looked no different to any standard commercial helicopter, it was outfitted with a number of concealed hi-tech augmentations, and the miles literally and figuratively flew past as the two agents tracked the ELFs.
Eventually, Ginger pointed and said, “Down there!”
They were approaching a white building with a steeple, and Ginger recognized it as the South Glade Mission Church. She groaned inwardly. Not these guys, she thought. Having to deal with bigoted assholes like these could ruin a woman’s whole day. Still, whatever was going on here, they had to check it out. The pilot landed the helicopter as close to the church as he could, and Ginger and Tequila disembarked. The moment their feet were on the ground, the pilot lifted off. He’d return to pick them up when they called for him.
The first thing Ginger noticed was how quiet and still it was. The helicopter had made a lot of noise, but even though there were a number of cars in the parking lot—enough to indicate the church should be full—no one had come out to see what was happening. The second thing she noticed was a well-dressed man lying on the ground in front of the church’s entrance. As they drew closer to the man, they began to run. His left eye was gone, in its place a crimson ruin, and a pair of broken eyeglasses lay in the dirt nearby. The left lens was shattered, and Ginger understood what had happened. The man had been shot, the bullet having passed through the left lens of his glasses, and whoever had done the deed had walked away, leaving him for dead. But was he?
Ginger rushed over, knelt by the man’s side, and placed her fingers to his neck.
With no time to lose, Tequila removed his hat and handed it to Ginger.
“Use my alpha gel,” he said.
Ginger nodded, reached into the hat, and removed a concealed gel pad. As she applied the gel to the man’s head—making sure to put a good amount into his ravaged eye socket—Tequila ran back to the copter to get a stabilizer unit. Ginger watched the nanites in the gel activate and start to move about as they prepared to begin their work. Tequila returned with the stabilizer unit, an electronic device roughly the size of a portable defibrillator, and put it on the ground next to the injured man. She removed a pair of probes that were attached to the device by thin black wires and inserted them into the gel. Nanites swarmed around the base of the probes to keep them steady, and Ginger activated the stabilizer. The nanite-infused gel swelled up to cover the man’s head, leaving his nose and mouth free so he could breathe.
Tequila looked on grimly and then nodded silently to himself. He drew his sidearm and stepped into the church.
* * *
Eggsy and Merlin didn’t need to guess what Tequila found inside.
Eggsy had seen it through Harry’s glasses. It was an absolute massacre. Harry was responsible for most of it. Valentine had been testing his aggression signal on those in the church, while Harry was there, investigating. Everyone had turned into a homicidal maniac and started trying to kill each other. Eggsy didn’t want to think of how Harry was that day: a merciless, highly efficient, almost inhuman killing machine. Those god-bothering bastards had never stood a chance. When the test was over, Harry came back to his senses, but Valentine shot him.
“We developed the alpha gel technology for our own agents, in the event of a headshot,” Ginger said. “It’s… miraculous. But it has to be applied almost immediately.”
“I’m impressed,” Merlin said, taking a step closer to Ginger. “I experimented with alpha wave technology but found it was too volatile. And—” he glanced through the doorway at Harry, who had finished shaving and was applying aftershave with gentle pats of his hands—“potentially damaging to the brain.” He looked at Ginger again and smiled. “Still, you have our deep gratitude. Do you have his medical records? I’d like to take a look.”
A clipboard hung on a hook by the door. Ginger removed it and handed it to Merlin, who immediately began examining the pages.
“You must be my opposite number,” she said.
“Indeed.” He flipped back and forth through the pages, becoming more excited. “Low velocity round. Clean exit. No damage to the ventricles, brainstem, or thalamus.”
“Yup! Just the neural pathways, and we have the capability to rebuild those. We just need a map. Someone who knew him. So now you’re here, in theory, we could do it.” She paused and then
added, almost shyly, “You could be my GPS.”
She smiled, as did Merlin, and Eggsy could’ve sworn he saw his friend blush a bit.
“Sorry to bust your tech-nerd love bubble here,” Tequila said, “but, Ginger—you don’t have time to waste fixing up vegetables for fun. You’d need Champ to authorize it.”
Eggsy bristled at Tequila’s use of the word “vegetable” to describe Harry.
“Who’s Champ? Your boss? I wanna talk to him.”
Tequila locked eyes with Eggsy and held his gaze a moment before replying.
“Well, ain’t you luckier than a puppy with two peters?” he drawled. “He wants to talk to you too.”
* * *
Poppy, hair down and wearing a long-sleeved flower-print dress, sat in the fifth row of her Vegas-style concert hall, facing the stage. Her chair—large, golden, and very plush—was one of only two VIP chairs in the place. The hall was a huge arena-style auditorium, with a gigantic crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a pair of video screens one hundred feet tall on either side of the stage. The gaudy orange curtains were closed, and Poppy was waiting impatiently for the show to begin. As far as she was concerned, the fifth row was the perfect place to watch a performance. Any farther back, and you couldn’t see the performers’ faces; any closer, and you risked having their sweat flung onto you.
She heard an awkward shuffling coming down the aisle toward her, and she turned to see Charlie approaching. He wore a heavy suit of green body armor and carried a helmet with a transparent face guard beneath his new arm.
“You’re late,” she said. She glanced at his outfit. “And why on earth are you still wearing that?”
Charlie sat in the VIP chair next to hers and tucked his helmet under his seat.
“Until you get rid of the perimeter landmines, I’ll keep wearing the suit, thank you very much.”
“Ooh, thank you! Reminds me, I forgot to move them this morning. I’d hate for anybody to get too comfortable about visiting.”
She removed a tablet computer from her purse. On the screen was a map of her compound. Numerous dots around the perimeter showed the position of landmines. She tapped a button labeled RANDOM RESET and watched as the dots began to move. She imagined the hi-tech mines burrowing beneath the surface like mechanical moles as they traveled to their new positions and settled.
