Clawing Back from Chaos: Book 9 in the Cat Among Dragons Series (A Cat Among Dragons)

by Alma Boykin

  “Right. I have to be back at HQ,” he glanced at his watch, “tonight. Ahkai has the material from Manchester and is working on it right now. Apparently she’s nocturnal.”

  “She is,” Rachel said, continuing to study the chart. Rahoul also began tracing the connections. “Rahoul, what happens if there’s an invasion or a coup attempt while the police and Army are dealing with riots, and the government is busy recovering from the demise of a minister or dealing with a scandal?”

  Rahoul replied in Trader, “It depends on the scandal and the riots. And what we are doing at the time.” He considered the exercise, his eyes stopping at the possible link between the Pakistani imam and the Manchester riot. “And the international response to the riots. If they are purely religious, or seem to be religious, and are dealt with firmly, then Britain will lose international support, especially from France and the Muslim nations.”

  His adviser nodded. “That’s what I’d wondered. The current French government is already rather reluctant to allow its branch to assist the other branches, so we’d lose their back-stopping capacity.”

  Rahoul shook his head, arms folded. “No. Who in their right mind would try to use Britain as a starting point for an invasion? And the French, the Low Countries Branch, and certainly the Germans would support us.”

  “Would they?” She turned and faced him. “Muslim rioters brutally suppressed by the British, who could not even protect their own people from power failures that everyone else on the planet knew were pending. So the British use the poor underprivileged youths as scapegoats and a distraction from their own incompetence?” Rahoul shook his head again and Rachel frowned. “The French Minister of Defense is a Muslim,” she reminded him, leaving the rest of her sentence unsaid.

  Lee trotted into the room, skidding to a halt as Rahoul exploded at his adviser. “Absolutely not! Religion has nothing to do with this, Commander Ni Drako,” he almost yelled, still in Trader. “The riots are economic and social. Religion is unrelated. And the French Minister took an oath to defend the French nation. He has to do whatever is necessary, including helping us.”

  Rachel folded her arms and glared right back at him. “Listen to yourself, Rahoul. The prospect of rampaging jihadis in the streets of England touches a nerve, doesn’t it? Why?” To Lee’s amazement she stepped nose-to-nose with the furious general, continuing in a calm, cold voice. “You have said that I am paranoid about the Islamists. If that be so, it is because I have every bloody effing right to be, as you damn well know. So why are you so bloody blind, Rahoul Peter Khan? What’s your excuse?”

  Lee remained frozen, barely daring to breathe lest the sound attract the officers’ attention. They too stood absolutely still, neither willing to give an inch. Finally, Rachel stepped back, making a complicated gesture with her left hand. “Fine,” she snapped in English. “Let your religious sensitivities drive your country to hell in a car with halal upholstery. I’ll be in the Tirol watching the disaster on the telly and eating smoked chamois bits.” Commander Na Gael picked up her computer, grabbed her dark coat off the wall peg, and stormed off toward her ship. Lee hesitated, then followed her when the general didn’t speak.

  “Commander? Ah, ma’am, wait,” Lee called, hurrying to catch up with her.

  She stopped. “Sergeant Lee, go back to Brigadier Khan. He’ll need you, and he knows how to find me if he chooses to.”

  Still torn, Lee hesitated, looking first toward Brigadier Khan, then turning toward the Dark Hart. Before he could make up his mind, the scout vessel warped and seemed to fold in on itself, making his stomach churn. Lee glanced away as he heard a whistle and then felt his ears pop. Nothing remained. “She’s worse than the Cheshire Cat, Sergeant,” Khan observed from the main room. The officer sounded tired. “We need to get back to headquarters, and you need to write up everything that the three of us have discussed, as well as your own findings.”

  Ten minutes after the humans left, that Dark Hart returned to their bolt hole. Rachel vented her frustration on the sacks of empty tins, the pillows and blankets, and other slow-moving targets. After she’d cleaned and tidied everything, she left a note thanking Tony Lee’s friend for use of the place, and slid two gold guineas under the page. The person could keep or sell them as he saw fit. Rachel refused to leave a debt unpaid, despite Tony’s assurances that his friend wouldn’t mind. She conducted one last sweep for any personal items or technology they might have left, then vanished again.

  A few hours later, as Khan and Lee rushed to get their findings and ideas into usable form, Arnold Winston rinsed his razor under the tap, relishing the return of hot water and electricity to his residence. Bill had warned him about the probability of losing the utilities, but Winston had given the local Council too much credit. It had taken them two weeks to get power and light back with any regularity, and the rural areas still faced rolling blackouts at best. Winston very carefully shaved under his chin, then gave the razor a final rinse. No cuts this time. He preferred the old razors, because they gave him more control. As he rinsed his face, the Home Secretary’s thoughts moved toward another control problem.

  The tone of Ibrahim Mahmoud al Din’s last message had raised Winston’s hackles. Now safely ensconced in Leuten, with refugee status and a mosque of his own, the imam apparently felt that he, and not the Home Secretary, dictated the next steps in their dance. The minister snorted as he buttoned his shirtfront and reached for a dark red tie. “Illusions of power and delusions of grandeur,” Winston sneered at the memory. Al Din might briefly control the young men affiliated with his neighborhood place of worship, but Bill and Winston determined who attacked what and at what time. Without their help, al Din would still be hiding in a cave in the Pakistani mountains, preaching jihad to ignorant goat herders. After Bill and Winston reached their goals, they planned on returning al Din to that cave—his sort never saw reason. Winston sighed yet again as he collected his coat and briefcase. Too blinded by incorrect beliefs to see their own real needs.

  “Good morning, Secretary,” Ms. Riley, his driver, said, as Winston climbed into the rear seat of the lightly armored blue sedan.

  “Good morning, Ms. Riley. How many snarls await us this fine day?” He locked the door and settled against the soft leather as the car pulled onto the road.

  Only after the car had joined the early morning traffic’s brisk flow did she respond. “Two thus far, but the closest should be clear by the time we reach the area, Secretary.”

  “Good to hear, Mrs. Riley. Good to hear.” Winston skimmed through his schedule for the day, knowing full well that an update awaited him at the office. Only the usual items greeted him, and he let his mind drift back to the imam problem. As he’d told Bill, it came down to logistics. His predecessors had encouraged anyone from the Commonwealth to move to England, no matter their cultural background. In some cases, groups had been invited because of their cultural background, in order to break up the homogeneity of English tradition and society. So long as they voted reliably, a few more overly-religious individuals couldn’t harm anything, or so the idiots had thought.

  As Winston now knew, however, the overly-religious could indeed cause mischief and harm, even when they voted reliably. The trick was who should be master. Oh, the imams and others mouthed “jihad,” and “sharia for the UK,” and other platitudes and slogans, but it remained Arnold Winston and Bill Smith who controlled the mobs, directing them with Bill’s technology. And once the proper national control had been established, well, Arnold Winston and Bill Smith also knew who to send back to their flea-infested homelands. It’s all about order and control, Winston thought as he watched the buildings slide past. Order and control.

  Soon the car slowed, as did the traffic around it, giving Secretary Winston more time with his thoughts, which turned to the future. He regretted the deaths of the scientists a little, now that they had names. And he regretted the chaos about to engulf the cities of England, which would require much re-ordering and cleaning up a
fter he and Bill’s people took over the government. Or, more precisely, after Winston organized the survivors following the aliens’ arrival—the newcomers wanted minerals and some plant species for which humans had no use, and Bill assured his ally that the Yylsavi entertained no desire to govern humans.

  “You require too much effort to organize, Mr. Winston,” the alien said. “Your species has much potential, but many other more orderly and cooperative species exist that can much better suit our commonwealth. Perhaps later—and I do not envy you your duty, Mr. Winston.” The admission both pleased and worried the human. The recognition of his talent and of the rightness of his ideas pleased him, but the difficulty of his task appalled him. Well, he had the training, thanks to the London School of Economics and several decades’ service in government, which also gave him access to the means needed to assert order and to banish chaos.

  Marx, despite what Arnold’s instructors had believed, had had the right ideas about organization. Alas for both Marx and his students, humans required much more effort to organize and direct than the long-dead German had believed. Arnold Winston frowned at the chaos outside his window as the car rolled past a construction and road-repair site, then cleared his mind and returned to studying his papers. Two days more and then he could begin his task.

  Elsewhere, between the threads and streams of space-time, Rachel Na Gael sensed trouble. The symbiote swam back and forth in its tank, agitated by something outside the ’Hart. Rachel closed her eye and pushed her mind down into a close contact with the symbiote’s own senses. She felt the problem as well—it “tasted” like the node she’d found, and carried almost the same power to warp the timethreads. Carefully, she worked back, then forward, until she found the exact place and time. “Oh fewmets!” She began humming, then singing, as she directed the ship to a new destination. The symbiote expressed concern; too many timeships in proximity to one another made it difficult for the creature to see time or to feed easily. The Wanderer acknowledged the emotion, but pushed ahead, working with the creature to bring them to the correct place. Temporal turbulence began churning, and Rachel spared a thought to her god, praying to get through to her destination. The ship hummed, and then the tone faded as they emerged into four-dimensional space. She had only seconds to act, and lunged for the door as quickly as she could.

  A quick glance told Rachel where she was, and when, and the warrior darted from her ship, through some bushes, and around a tree, then vaulted a low fence, making full use of the pre-dawn twilight. She drew her personal weapon as she ran, thankful that she knew exactly how to get to the small house’s back door. A few seconds, please God, she pled, give me a few seconds lead. She slid around a corner, hit the sweet spot that popped the side gate open, and ducked into the backyard, then ran up the steps and pounded on the door.

  Panpit Khan looked out the back window and startled at the sight of her husband’s friend, then threw open the door. “Panpit, grab the twins. Now. Trouble coming,” Rachel panted. The human woman spun around and fled the kitchen, taking the steps to the first floor bedrooms two at a time. “Grab some clothes too, if you can,” the alien called up the staircase “You’ve got to leave.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” the general’s wife called back, even as she chivied sleepy children. “Take Sita.”

  Rachel grabbed the girl, using her dark, loose-fitting coat to conceal the child as she heaved her onto her hip. “Panpit, is there a place Rahoul told you to go in case of trouble? And not in London or a big city?” Back in the kitchen, Rachel turned off the stove and the water tap as Panpit caught up with her.

  “Yes, it’s—”

  Rachel interrupted her. “No—don’t tell me. Do not call Rahoul at work. Rahoul will call you when it’s safe. I can’t explain, my lady, just go. Drive as fast as is safe. And be careful, for the love of God,” Rachel warned, her accent thickening as her sense of danger grew.

  Panpit nodded, grabbed her purse and a pair of shoes, then rushed out the back door toward the detached garage. Rachel followed, carrying Sita. As Panpit buckled the twins into their car seats, the Wanderer cleared the alley. The sense of not-rightness grew, and her stomach twisted as a timeship arrived nearby. Rachel jog-trotted to the far end of the alley and saw nothing. But as she turned back towards the garage, a humanoid figure appeared, blocking the outlet. “Fewmets,” Rachel repeated, running along a fence toward the figure.

  He raised something, pointing it at the emerging car. Rachel fired first, aiming for center of mass with energy enough to kill a human. As soon as the shot left the pistol, Rachel pivoted to the left, shooting at a motion she’d glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. The second figure dropped. The first man staggered, but re-aimed at the fleeing car. Rachel dropped to one knee behind some rubbish bins and fired at his head, killing the intruder as Panpit fled in the other direction. Rachel waited, trying to breathe silently, listening and feeling for more attackers. A familiar, sickening, twisting sensation rolled over her, and this time she saw it: a rippling, churning mass just past the fence at the shooter’s end of the alley. The shapeless presence vanished abruptly as the stranger timeship fled, leaving the failed assassins behind.

  Rachel pulled her coat’s hood up over her head and began clearing the scene. She left the bodies and their weapons, and cursed when she saw that one had been human and wore Russian body armor. She returned to Panpit’s house, cleared it, and finished closing it, making certain that the appliances and lights were off. She locked the back door and shut the gate again, then limped quickly back up the street to the house with the overgrown shrubs and the tatty pine tree in the front yard that had helped conceal the ’Hart’s presence. The morning star gleamed down from the pink-white dawn sky as Rachel dragged herself into the safety of the Dark Hart. Drained again, she flopped into the pilot’s seat and closed her eye. “Someplace neutral,” she said aloud, then began humming. Equally tired, the symbiote joined its pilot in linking to the central computer. A whistling pop marked the strange vehicle’s departure. A few seconds later, a man passed by, walking his terrier and not thinking of much at all, until he rounded the corner and discovered the first body.

  Rahoul and Sgt. Lee had barely set foot in the door of the regimental headquarters building before Col. Selassie and RSM Smith, followed by Lt. O’ Keefe and Corporal Lee, ambushed them. “Brigadier, urgent news from—” Selassie began.

  “Not now, Colonel,” Khan interrupted. “Sergeant Lee, give everything we’ve found and discussed to Lt. O’Keefe, then get some rest before you come back on duty. RSM, sit on him if you have to.” Khan glanced at his watch and blinked. “I said go,” he repeated when the junior officer hesitated, looking like a tennis judge as she glanced back and forth between him and Col. Selassie. Desta made a shooing motion, and O’Keefe all but dragged Sgt. Lee down the hallway, the RSM following behind.

  Desta Selassie vibrated where she stood. “Now, Colonel, come to my office and tell me what it is that is so urgent.” The Ethiopian woman managed to contain herself until the door closed behind them.

  Col. Selassie waited until her commanding officer had sat down before launching, “The police called. They found two dead bodies near your home, and your wife and children and car are missing.” Rahoul froze. Then he calmly and deliberately turned on his desk computer, logged into his personal e-mails, and skimmed through them. Without a word he turned the monitor so that his executive officer could read it and pointed. Desta leaned forward and read the terse message. “Did you know already, sir?”

  He shook his head. “I anticipated something like this after what happened to Commander Na Gael.” Panpit did not know exactly what he did in the military, but she knew that he had enemies—thus their plans, made well in advance. “Anything else I need to know before I change and officially come on duty?”

  “No, sir. But we need to have a staff officers’ briefing as soon as possible. There have been some developments that require our attention, and I put us on pre-deployment watch
as a precaution. And I sent small detachments to the Royal Radio Observatory and to the IRAA after the attack there.”

  “Good. Because your suspicion about the astronomer was correct, among other things. Call a staff briefing for forty minutes.” He wanted a shower and needed a shave. “Have Lt. O’Keefe load everything that she and Sergeant Lee worked up into my master computer, and warn Vienna that they are going to get a very large data packet in a few hours.”

  “Yes, sir.” She nodded as she made notes, then slid out of his way as he got up and left the office, following him part of the way towards his quarters before turning and entering the communications suite.

  Half an hour later, Rahoul surveyed his staff as they came into the briefing room. Sheep Cluj already knew something from helping Lt. O’Keefe load the computer for the briefing, and the Serbian communications officer cast slightly concerned glances at his CO and the XO. Col. Selassie settled into her usual seat at Rahoul’s right side, as RSM Smith took his place by the door. Major Sigurdsson glowered down at his computer display, trying to persuade it to cooperate, while Captain Pieter Smoot, the sun-bleached adjutant from South Africa, ruffled through papers on his clipboard. Lt. O’Keefe tried to act calm in her solitary place in the xenologist’s seat at the far end of the table.

  “Since the Branch is already on watch, I will dispense with the usual formalities,” Rahoul began. “Sheep, privacy please.” Sheep blinked, then snapped a nod as he turned some switches at his place. Khan did the same, and a hidden transmitter began producing a scrambler field. “We are going to be discussing very sensitive materials and information, more so than usual.” The general met each staff member’s eyes in turn, gauging their reactions. So far, all was calm.