“Why do you want to speak to someone at the CDC?”
David tsked through his teeth at the question. “We’re looking at measles, scarlet fever, dysentery, leprosy, not to mention the Black Death coming up in sixty years. I’ve got some big problems on the horizon, and I need help dealing with them.”
Natasha stared at him. “You really think you’re going back to the Middle Ages, don’t you?”
“Do you really think you can stop me?” David crumpled the now empty lunch sack and lobbed it towards a garbage can in the corner. He raised two fists in the air in victory when it went in, sparking a cough of laughter from Natasha. Then he lowered his arms. “I’m the King of England.”
“So you said.”
“Then you must realize that I have a job to do, and I can’t let anyone stop me from doing it. Now, are you going to get me what I need, or are we going to stare at each other for the rest of the day?”
Natasha rubbed her chin and didn’t answer.
David leaned forward, aiming to sweeten the pot. “If you find me a laptop sooner rather than later, you can ask me all the questions you want while I work.”
Chapter Eight
September, 2017
Callum
“Have I mentioned that I love you?” Cassie stood beside Callum at a picture window, admiring the view of downtown Cardiff. With five stories above the lobby floor, the MI-5 building (called ‘the Office’ by everyone who worked in it) certainly wasn’t the tallest building in Cardiff, but from their angle, they could see the old castle standing on its motte, overlooking the old city. Callum could hardly believe that he’d been in this very spot the day before in 1289, riding a horse to the harbor where they’d boarded the ships to Ireland.
“You have.” He put his arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her to him. “As you should.”
“Are we being monitored?” Cassie pulled back a little.
“We should assume it,” Callum said.
“Good,” Cassie said, and gave him a long kiss.
Callum broke off the kiss with a laugh. “The transition leaves you breathless, doesn’t it?”
Cassie shook her head. “I’ve been here only a few hours, and it’s already as if the last five years never happened.” She smiled. “Except that I’m standing here with you.”
“Five years ago, I’d just left the army and joined the Security Service. I came to Cardiff a little over a year ago, six months before the events at Chepstow Castle. The city hasn’t changed at all.”
“Which is what makes this so hard,” Cassie said.
Callum nodded. “Because we have changed. For the better.” As much as the medieval world had knocked him flat when he’d first arrived, it had been transformative. How could it not?
“Anyone who could see Cardiff in 1289 would be appalled at what’s been done to it,” Cassie said. “Have you noticed the air?”
“It was the first thing I noticed,” Callum said. “Well, other than the thousands of buildings, of course. That gray pall hangs over everything, even when everyone here thinks the sky is perfectly clear.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing.” Cassie looked up at him.
“This world can’t turn back the clock. It’s too late.”
“But we can,” Cassie said.
Callum was silent a moment. “I’m going to have to think about this.” He’d experienced culture shock a time or two. If he stayed, he would again, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be happy here in the end.
“Can you talk to me about what you’re thinking?” she said.
“If the Security Service really accepts me back, I could serve David just as well—or maybe better—from here.” He couldn’t say to her that the idea of risking her life to return to the Middle Ages had his heart stopping in mid-beat.
“Our obligations are very real in both centuries,” Cassie said. “I need to talk to my grandfather.”
Callum kissed her again, and then said, “I will go wherever you go. For better or for worse.”
“I know,” she said, “but this needs to be our decision. Together.”
“It does seem that we have a little time to think about it.” Callum rubbed at Cassie’s arms, feeling the soft wool of her cloak under his hands. She’d put the cloak on over the top of the dry clothes she’d changed into: trousers and shirt that fit the modern world. He’d had the cloak made for her especially for this trip, an evergreen hue, thinner for early fall weather, with embroidery at the edges: tiny stags from the McCallum crest she’d modified for his own use as the Earl of Shrewsbury.
In turn, she adjusted his tie. The first thing Driscoll had done was find them new clothes. This suit, in fact, had been one that Callum himself had kept in his office as a spare. At his departure, it had gone into the Office’s collection. More than one agent had hurriedly found himself a new shirt from the wardrobe before reporting for duty after being up all night on a case—or having spent the night some place other than his own home.
After that, Driscoll had left them in a small office adjacent to this conference room, where they’d spent over an hour concocting Callum’s report on an old-fashioned typewriter. The powers that be had put a moratorium on any kind of written electronic communication until further notice. Callum hadn’t known if that extended to shutting off the cameras that monitored them, but he and Cassie had assumed it didn’t. Cassie had insisted on talking normally because they had nothing to hide, just as David had said. Callum had gone along. They had been living in the Middle Ages. Whether or not anyone believed them didn’t change that fact.
Callum had started out typing with his usual two fingers until Cassie had elbowed him out of the way to finish it with all ten. They’d written volumes about specific experiences, but remained light on the personal details. Until Callum knew whom he could trust, he was determined to say as little as possible about anything but his mission.
The door to the conference room opened, prompting Callum to release Cassie. Driscoll stood hesitating in the doorway, but then someone behind him urged him forward, and a small crowd entered the room. Driscoll gestured to the conference table which took up the central portion of the room and had fifteen chairs around it. “Please, sit.”
Callum held out a chair at the end for Cassie before sitting himself. The chair was faux black leather, soft and padded, and he took a moment to revel in the way it rocked back gently under his weight, cushioning him in a fashion he hadn’t experienced since last November. As a companion to the King of England, he merited goose down bedding, but there was something to be said for memory foam.
Eight of the chairs filled with men Callum knew marginally well, and then the last person entered the room: ‘Lady Jane’ Cooke. Of uncertain age with too-stiff over-permed hair, she was the dragon-boss of the Security Service, the Deputy Director General, whom everyone was, quite frankly, terrified to cross. It was her husband who was the physicist at Cambridge and the friend of David’s Uncle Ted, who’d started this ball rolling in the first place. Her boss, known as the DG (the Director General), was a political appointee who had little to do with the actual running of the Security Service.
Lady Jane stalked to the seat at the head of the table, which everyone had wisely left vacant. Her secretary hastened to pull it back for her, and she sat. Callum had steered himself and Cassie to the opposite end when Driscoll had suggested they sit, and now the two women—the only women in the room—glared at each other from opposite ends of the table. Callum fought a smile. If she’d been born in another time and place, Cassie would have had the wherewithal to fill Lady Jane’s shoes.
The two women continued to look at each other, though both of their expressions had softened slightly by the time the men in the room arranged themselves and removed files and documents from their briefcases. Their electronic tablets remained resolutely dark. Then they all waited, pen to paper, for Lady Jane to say something.
“Put everything away,” she said. “I don’t want anythi
ng we say here to leave this room.”
The men hesitated for a second and then obeyed. Callum continued to rock back in his chair, studying everyone else. This was little different from the daily conferences with David in the hall of whatever baron or nobleman he happened to be meeting that day. David would gather minor lords and their underlings together, listen to them bicker about this and that, their rights and responsibilities. Meanwhile, he’d be gauging their strengths and weaknesses for himself—and relying on Callum as a second pair of eyes.
Lady Jane straightened the edges of a stack of papers in front of her, which appeared to be Callum’s report, and then looked straight at Callum. “So. You’re back.”
Callum righted himself in his chair and clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Perhaps you would introduce me to your companion?” She looked down her long nose at Cassie.
Callum held out a hand to Cassie. “Director, this is my wife, Cassandra. Cassie, this is the director of the Security Service, Jane Cooke.”
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cassie said, completely without irony.
Lady Jane inclined her head regally. “And you as well.” She looked around the table at the men in the room. “We have all read your report, Agent Callum, but of course we have many questions. Smythe, you may go first.”
Callum controlled his expression as best he could. Thomas Smythe was now Lady Jane’s right hand man, and he made Callum’s skin crawl. To everyone else, he was eminently respectable in his suit and tie, with chiseled jaw and firm handshake from hours spent in the Security Service’s athletic facility.
“Who is the man downstairs?” Smythe said.
“David. He’s the King of England,” Callum said.
With a nod from Lady Jane, Smythe reached into his briefcase for a folder and pulled it out. He flipped through the pages, read a few words silently to himself, and then said, “Edward I was King of England in 1289.”
“In this world,” Cassie said. “He’s dead in ours.”
Smythe raised his eyebrows, and Callum cursed under his breath that she’d given them away with the ours.
Cassie had her arms folded, elbows resting on the conference table. She leaned into them. “This isn’t time travel, you realize? It’s an alternate universe.”
“We understand that, young lady,” Smythe said, though he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Cassie, a year or two younger than Callum, who was thirty-five.
Cassie narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t think you do.” She looked around the table at the men. “All of you sit here with no idea what you’re dealing with or who you’re dealing with. David is the King of England.” She pounded a fist on the table. “You should not be keeping him here against his will. He has a country to run, and many lives depend on him.” She gestured to Callum. “His job is to act as David’s ambassador, to advise him, and to keep him safe. David has been surviving death threats since he was fourteen years old. He fought King Edward in single combat at sixteen. How many of you would have run screaming from the room if faced with any of the enemies either of them have encountered in the Middle Ages? You people are petty and insignificant in comparison.”
Even Callum was stunned by Cassie’s vehemence. But proud, too, of course.
“Really!” Smythe stuttered his objections, and the other men murmured their disapproval.
Lady Jane lifted a hand to end all discussion. “I have changed my mind. Please clear the room.”
Coming hard on Cassie’s tongue lashing, several more mouths dropped open, and nobody moved but Driscoll, who went to the door like he couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.
“Now!” Lady Jane clapped her hands. But when Callum and Cassie started to rise, she added, “Not you two.”
With some under-the-breath complaining, the men rose to their feet, fumbling with the items they’d brought, and followed Driscoll out the door. Lady Jane moved down the table, pulled out a chair next to Callum, and sat in it.
“The cameras are off; it’s just the three of us. I want to hear what you have to say for yourself.” Lady Jane held up the report. “This is the bare bones, and I want the details. I trusted you to apprehend David’s parents. What happened?”
Callum found Lady Jane’s demeanor somewhat dismaying. She was speaking like a mother instead of a boss. “I tried.” He just managed not to shrug, which would not have done in Lady Jane’s presence. “Coming on top of the shambles Smythe made of the Aberystwyth situation, my team had a few mistimings too, along with what I’m guessing was a too-helpful custodian?”
Lady Jane nodded. “We interviewed all the staff at Chepstow after you disappeared. While you and your men were watching the castle’s front entrance, the maintenance worker let Meg and Llywelyn into the castle right under your nose.”
Callum scowled. “I tried to stop them from jumping, and they ended up pulling me over the balcony wall with them. We went from 2016 Chepstow to 1288 Windsor in a blink of an eye.”
Lady Jane’s brow furrowed. “Windsor? Why Windsor?”
“Because, as Meg put it,” Callum said, “that’s where she was needed.”
Lady Jane gave a very unladylike grunt, but Callum couldn’t tell if she was dismayed or approving of what he’d said. Lady Jane now eyed Cassie. “That was quite a speech you gave. You are from Oregon, are you not?” Lady Jane pronounced the name of the state as ‘Are-eh-gone’ which Callum knew from Cassie to be incorrect. Neither he nor Cassie chose to mention it.
“Yes,” Cassie said.
“And you saved his life?”
“Yes.” Callum took Cassie’s hand.
“Hmmm.” Lady Jane looked from Cassie to Callum. “What was it like for you?”
“I thought about how to return to the twenty-first century every day,” Callum said, without hesitation. “Until that could happen, I focused on continuing my mission, as ordered.”
“You believe you have done that?” Lady Jane said.
“When I discovered I had traveled with Meg to the Middle Ages, I took it upon myself to do what I could to learn of that time and serve my country as best I could, even from there,” Callum said.
“And here you are, back again,” Lady Jane said, “almost as if you’d planned it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Callum straightened in his chair. “I did.”
“Tell me, what do you see as your responsibilities going forward?” Lady Jane said.
“The same as they’ve been, from the moment I joined the Security Service,” Callum said. “And I think it’s time you told me your objectives in this. What, exactly, are you doing with David?”
“What needs to be done,” Lady Jane said.
“No,” Callum said, and then overrode Lady Jane’s protest. “I spent nearly a year working my way into David’s confidence, and within ten minutes you have undermined the relationship I’ve spent all this time building! Why is he in interrogation? Why is he being treated like a criminal?”
“It was deemed appropriate,” Lady Jane said.
“At least let me talk to him,” Callum said. “He will be more cooperative if he sees me working with you.”
Lady Jane looked over the top of her glasses at Callum. “I will take your suggestion under advisement. I believe it has merit.” She almost sounded regretful.
Some of the fire left Callum. “You’re not in charge, are you? Who is—the Home Office?”
Lady Jane’s eyes narrowed. “I serve my government, as do you.”
Callum sat back; he could press her no further. “Of course.”
“I’m glad to see you safe and sound. You’ve brought us a very valuable asset indeed.” She straightened her suit jacket with a jerk. “Your government thanks you.”
Callum dipped his head. “As I said, I was only doing my duty.”
“And we will see that you continue to do so. You will be reinstated, of course. Full back-pay.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Ca
llum didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know that he could stomach working underneath Smythe, but he needed to stay close to David, and this was the way to do it.
Then Lady Jane took a mobile phone from the side pocket of her suit jacket. Setting it on the table, she pushed it with one finger toward Callum. “That’s your new mobile. Passcode 6631, same as before. The standard numbers have been inputted into the directory.”
Callum looked at the mobile without picking it up. Unlike Cassie, he had nobody to phone. “Thank you.”
Lady Jane pushed back from the table, and Callum hastily stood to match her. “We’ll have to sort out your living situation. You’ll be staying here for now.” She strode towards the door, but stopped before opening it, wavering, and then came back a few steps towards Callum. It was strange to see her hesitant, after she’d appeared so confident before. “Callum, I must tell you that this case has attracted attention from outside the Security Service. Other parties—interested parties—might question your allegiance.”
Callum swallowed hard. “I see.”
“You have been gone ten months, so you don’t yet understand, but what faces us today is bigger than David. Bigger than you can imagine. It may be that you are the only one who truly understands our mission. Your ability to see the truth of a situation has always been one of your greatest assets.”
“Ma’am—”
“In fact, I am counting on it.” Lady Jane turned on her heel and departed.
Callum gazed blankly at the closed door and then sat back down in his chair, absently picking up the mobile as he did so.
Cassie leaned forward. “What was that about? What is she counting on?”
“I think Lady Jane just gave me a new mission,” Callum said. “Something is going on here, something that has her running scared.”
“Director Cooke, you mean?” At Callum’s nod, Cassie added, “Did she have to be so cryptic? What did she mean by interested parties?”
“I don’t know.” Callum entered the passcode and flipped through the screens. The mobile was an upgrade from his old one, with many more bells and whistles.
Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 8
