She bit her lip, finding amusement in the thought that MI-5 wasn’t far off in thinking that. David might be a twenty-year-old kid, but he’d grown from a high school freshman in a little town in Oregon to the King of England in less than seven years. While she and Callum were smart and resourceful, and she had faith that as long as they worked together, they could figure any problem out, David was a different animal entirely. He was smarter than anyone she’d ever met. He was analytical, a creative thinker, and driven to a crazy degree. MI-5 really had no idea what they were in for.
Chapter Seven
September, 2017
David
David had seen the way the wind was blowing as soon as that van of military police showed up, so he wouldn’t have said that having the agents separate him from Cassie and Callum was unexpected. It was unfortunate. Even worse than the abruptness of his incarceration was the fact that nobody so far had asked him any questions or spoken to him beyond a few direct orders. They’d walked him from the garage to an elevator, descended two floors until he was in the bowels of MI-5 headquarters (or what he had to assume were their headquarters at Cardiff, given that he couldn’t ask Callum where they were), and into an interrogation room.
That it was an interrogation room he had no doubt. It was painted vanilla white on the ceiling, floor, and walls, with one wall taken up by a grayed out, ten-by-five foot picture window that mirrored his reflection back at him. David assumed it was one-way glass without bothering to put his nose right up to it to see if he could see anything of the room on the other side of the wall. That would be too humiliating.
After Natasha removed his handcuffs and hood, he unhooked his wool cloak from around his neck and hung it over a chair. The wool had mostly dried in the warmth of the car, but he felt his toes squishing a bit inside his boots. He hadn’t slept in his armor, so he hadn’t been wearing it when the storm came. It would have been a bear to remove by himself, and he strongly suspected his captors wouldn’t have been of any help. It would be nice to get it back once they were done examining it. It fit him perfectly.
The agents had already taken his sword from him, along with his three knives (one from his right boot, one from up his left sleeve, and a third from his waist), and patted him down looking for anything else he could use as a weapon. David wondered if Callum had received the same treatment; David knew about the gun, of course. As far as David knew, Callum had left the cog with it still in its holster at the small of his back. He made a note not to mention Callum’s use of it in Scotland to MI-5.
Once Natasha left him alone, a quick twist of the door handle proved that it didn’t twist at all, and a single pace around the room showed David that he wasn’t going to kick his way out of this cell either. Where was young Thomas Hartley when he needed him? David faced away from the one-way glass. It felt awkward to know that others whom he couldn’t see were watching him.
“So. David Lloyd. Or did you want to go by something else?”
He turned around at the sound of Natasha’s voice. She had pushed open the door to the room, already speaking before she was halfway through it, with a file open flat in her hands.
“‘Lloyd’ was my last name before I found out the identity of my true father,” he said.
Natasha dropped the manila folder on the table that took up a good portion of the center of the room, pulled out the chair closest to her, and gestured that David should sit in the chair opposite. Unlike the walls, the table was black, finished with a utilitarian lacquer, and the chair was blue plastic with metal legs. It rocked under David’s weight as he sat in it. He appreciated the chance to rest without having to show Natasha how much he needed it. The initial adrenaline rush of their arrival in the twenty-first century had passed, leaving him a little shaken. His sore throat and achiness hadn’t seemed like something he could pay attention to in the middle of a storm in the Irish Sea, but now he had to admit that his throat was exploding out his ears.
“And what is your name now?” Natasha said.
David smiled. “David Arthur Llywelyn Pendragon, King of England.”
Natasha stared at him, open-mouthed. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”
David brows came together as he looked back at her, surprised at her surprise. Did she really not believe him? She had to have known his origins, since she’d spoken with his Uncle Ted. But then he remembered that he’d become the King of England after his mom and dad had returned to the Middle Ages from their brief sojourn in the twenty-first century last November. Before his crowning, David had been ‘merely’ the Prince of Wales.
“Callum, Cassie, and I decided that we wouldn’t lie to you about where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing,” David said. “By telling you the truth and nothing but, our stories will be the same, and you won’t be able to trip me up in lies, which I don’t tell well anyway.”
Natasha leaned back in her chair, tapping at her lip with one finger and studying David. “Tell me why you think you’re the King of England.”
“Excuse me?” David said. “Why I think I’m the King of England?” He hadn’t intended to be combative from the start, but his hackles had risen right out of the gate at being accused, essentially, of being deluded. “That sounds like you’re trying to psychoanalyze me.”
Natasha pressed her lips together and then said, “Perhaps I should start again. Please tell me what you’ve been doing since that December day when you disappeared from Pennsylvania in your aunt’s minivan and dropped off the official record.”
David nodded, placated somewhat by the little victory but telling himself not to be sucked in by her capitulation. She was probably the ‘good cop’. She’d try to put him at his ease and get him to reveal pieces of himself he might rather not have discussed. Still, as he’d said, if he didn’t lie, they would gain nothing but the truth. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything illegal. “I assume you’ve heard most of my story already from my Uncle Ted.”
“I didn’t know about the King of England part,” Natasha said. “It would help to hear it from you from the beginning.”
David canted his head, studying her. “If you’re the good cop, could I have a hamburger and fries or maybe fish and chips before we begin? I haven’t eaten since 1289, and my story is going to take a while.”
David thought he detected a twitch of a smile on Natasha’s lips. Good. Callum had spoken to David of his life in Cardiff, mentioning Natasha specifically. Callum and she had been friends of a sort. She had implied to Callum on the docks that the show of force wasn’t her idea, and perhaps his incarceration wasn’t either.
“I might be the bad cop,” Natasha said.
David dipped his head as if she were a visiting ruler, and he was sitting on his throne. “I have no intention of underestimating you.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” she said. “This could simply be the calm before the storm.”
David couldn’t tell if she was joking, so he decided to play it straight. “True. But I live in the Middle Ages. How afraid do you think I’m going to be of what you might do to me? I’ve killed men with a sword.” David dropped his voice slightly, not so much feigning regret (which he did feel), as playing it up for her benefit. “Too many men.”
Natasha paused for a beat and again, he could tell that he’d surprised her. “I’ll see what I can do.” She stood and left the room.
David sat in the chair for another minute, waiting for her to return to tell him that the food was on its way. When she didn’t come back right away, he got to his feet and began circling the room, trying not to think of himself as a lion in a cage. Almost worse than being penned in was that this interrogation routine was wasting his time. If he had two days in the twenty-first century, he had a lot to do and not much time to do it in. He needed access to a computer and a phone.
The thought of a phone brought him up short, and he stopped his pacing. The first people he needed to call were his Uncle Ted and Aunt Gwen. For all that Uncle T
ed had cooperated with MI-5 last November when David’s mom and dad had come to the twenty-first century, David assumed he’d done it out of naiveté, not maliciousness. After all, Uncle Ted had aided and abetted Mom by getting her duffel bag from her room and leaving her the key to his rental car. For the rest, if they stuck him in a room like this one, Ted may have felt he had no choice but to cooperate. David had been brought here in a hood and handcuffs like he was a terrorist. Maybe they’d done the same to Uncle Ted.
The image of what Ted (and his parents) had gone through last year suddenly gave David a very different perspective on Callum. MI-5 was his agency. Interrogations were something he ordered and took part in. While the transition from high school freshman to Prince of Wales hadn’t exactly been easy for David, he could see why the transition from agent to medieval man would have been even more difficult for Callum. He’d gone from being the head of his MI-5 section to being baggage, with no job, no authority, and unable to communicate with anyone but David’s family. It was pretty much the reverse of what was happening to David now.
On the other hand, Callum had proved himself to be a reasonable person. Chances were, Natasha was too. David walked to within a foot of the one-way glass, put his hands on his hips, and said, “I believe I’m entitled to a phone call.”
His statement didn’t elicit a response—from Natasha or anyone else.
David stood staring at the mirror, contemplating what to do if Natasha didn’t come back soon. He’d all but made up his mind to pretend to have a seizure when the door opened again, and Natasha came through it with a white sack. The smell of fried fish rose from it, and David’s mouth watered. Sore throat or not, he really was hungry.
She raised the sack high to show him that she’d brought what he’d asked for. Before she could close the door, he took two steps towards it, trying to see past her into the hallway. He caught a glimpse of a white corridor stretching for at least thirty feet with several doors opening off of it. He hadn’t tried to disguise what he was doing, and she very pointedly handed him the bag and gestured that he should resume his seat. Then she closed the door behind her. Another half hour and he was going to insist on using their bathroom (or ‘loo’, as he reminded himself to say). He needed to get himself a better look.
Bevyn had told him a long time ago that soldiers should eat and sleep when they could, so David accepted the bag of food. “This isn’t drugged, I hope,” he said.
Natasha gave him a withering look. “We wouldn’t do that.”
“Uh huh. You put a sack on my head.” This time, instead of sitting in the chair, he perched on the edge of the table, swinging one leg. “Did that come from you or your boss?”
Natasha pressed her lips together.
“What’s his name, by the way?”
“Her name, and it’s Director Jane Cooke.”
David nodded. “I stand corrected. Ultimately, I’d like to speak with her, but for now, I need to use your phone, and I need access to a computer, a printer, and a backpack to hold what I print out.”
As he’d foreseen when he sat on the table, Natasha had to turn in her seat and look up to talk to him; she wasn’t the only one who could play power games. “We’ll see about getting you what you want after you answer my questions.”
“How about, I won’t answer your questions until you get me what I want,” David said. “Truthfully, I don’t need to tell you anything, and you can keep me locked up here for the next two days if you choose. But if I have to stay in the twenty-first century, I’d like to use the time wisely, and that doesn’t mean sitting in this room staring at you all the day long.”
“The sooner you talk, the sooner we’ll let you go.”
“Is that a fact?” David said. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because you have no choice,” Natasha said.
David took out a chip and popped it into his mouth. He chewed, thinking. “How about an exchange?”
“I’m listening,” Natasha said.
“I tell you something, you give me something, I tell you something, you give me something. Since you started with the food, which is good, by the way, so thank you, you can go next. Ask me a question.”
Natasha shifted in her seat, and David thought she looked pleased that he’d capitulated so quickly. Of course, she didn’t know how easy it was for him to talk; he had nothing to lose, and who didn’t like talking about himself? He’d led a pretty incredible life these last six years. David was almost looking forward to telling someone about it and seeing Natasha’s face as she listened. He didn’t care so much if she believed him. He was pretty sure she wasn’t prepared for what he was going to ask for in return either.
“You say you’ve been living in 1289. How did you arrive back here?”
“Did you note the listing hulk the tug was hauling behind it as we left the marina?” David said. “We came in that.”
“So I gathered,” Natasha said. “I mean how? The mechanics of it. What was happening to you in the Middle Ages such that you ended up here?”
“Since last year, a baron named William de Valence has been causing trouble for me and for England. I was sailing to Ireland with several hundred men and horses, with the express purpose of dealing with him once and for all, when we encountered a storm in the Irish Sea.”
Natasha eyed him and then flipped through a series of notes in the file folder she’d brought. “I guess I don’t understand what you’re saying. What does a storm at sea have to do with you coming to the twenty-first century?”
“Our ship was going down; my life was in danger. Thus, the time travel,” David said.
Natasha continued to flip through the papers in the folder. “This—” She looked up at David. “This is new, you mean? No one in your family has ever traveled to or from the Middle Ages as the result of a storm at sea.”
“No.” David shrugged, and then asked a question of his own. “You’re telling me your sensors didn’t pick up the flash?”
Natasha pursed her lips.
“Yeah. I thought they might have,” David said.
“That’s why you came quietly, isn’t it?” Natasha said. “You knew that we knew you were here.”
“Callum told me you would know,” David said. “I suspected you would chase us if we ran.”
Natasha looked down at her paper, suddenly still, which David thought was odd. Did she really think Callum wouldn’t have told him? He wished he knew what Callum had revealed so far, if anything. Had he mentioned that he was the Earl of Shrewsbury? Somehow, David guessed not. David, for his part, resolved to keep Callum and Cassie out of this conversation with Natasha as much as possible. He would tell the truth, but his friends weren’t here, and he didn’t want to guess what MI-5 thought about them—or had done with them.
“Your mother ran,” Natasha said.
“With good reason, as it turned out,” David said.
Natasha grimaced. “We knew at the time that we’d fumbled the initial contact.”
“And yet, given your treatment of me, you learned nothing from your encounter with her. If you’d picked us up at the pier without your jackbooted thugs, put me in a conference room, and asked your questions with the three of us together, this could have been so much more pleasant for all of us.”
“As was the case with your mother, it wasn’t my call.” Natasha had the fortitude not to eye the one-way glass, though David did. Natasha could still be playing the good cop, or she could be telling the truth, not caring that her superiors were present and aware of the fact that she’d just disowned them.
In the end, it didn’t matter to David if his incarceration was Natasha’s decision or someone else’s, because he was still locked up and distrusted. “Callum assured me that your sensors were sensitive enough to detect my location. You might not know that I had come through, but you would know that one of my family members had. I decided I’d spare you having to chase me around Wales for two days until I could figure out how to get back home.” He look
ed pointedly at the door. “It seems I made a mistake.”
“I repeat: we mean you no harm,” Natasha said.
David stood. “I guess I’ll just leave, then.” He went to the door and pressed on the handle, which wasn’t a knob but a lever. It didn’t move. He looked back at Natasha, who’d turned in her seat to watch him try the door.
She didn’t admit wrong-doing but merely pointed at the chair opposite her. “Please, David. Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. Sit.”
“I’ll sit if you stop pretending that you’re my friend or on my side or that I’m anything but a prisoner.” David folded his arms across his chest.
“Fine. This can be adversarial if you want it to be. Sit,” she repeated.
“Oh, so now it’s my fault,” David said, but he returned to the chair opposite Natasha and sat in it, rocking it back on the rear legs. The muscles around Natasha’s eyes tightened, telling David that his sullenness annoyed her. Excellent.
“Who is William de Valence?” Natasha said.
“Now, now.” David wagged a finger at her. “You got your question—more than one, in fact. Now I get what I want. I need a computer connected to the internet, a printer with paper in it, and a backpack. And I need to talk to someone from the CDC.”
“You need to talk to whom?”
“Someone from the Centers for Disease Control,” David said. “It’s in Atlanta.”
“I know it’s in Atlanta,” Natasha said.
“Or if you prefer, I can talk to someone who works for an equivalent institution in the UK. Your choice.”
Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 7
