Alice Through The Multiverse

by Brian Trenchard-Smith

  “Would you like to smoke some hashish?” asked Brandt, as if he were offering tea and biscuits. He pulled a neatly-rolled joint from his breast pocket, and placed it on the table.

  “Now you’re talking.” said Broken Teeth. He dropped the magazine and stood up. Brandt picked up the gabardine and carefully helped slide the man’s arms through the sleeves. It was a good fit if it remained unbuttoned. Broken Teeth did not care. His eyes remained fixed on the joint. Hash was a rare commodity in the homeless squats that he inhabited.

  Satisfied, Brandt handed him the joint, pulled out a cigarette lighter, and lit it for him, before stepping to one side away from the smoke. Broken Teeth sucked in a deep lungful, holding it in for as long as possible. As he exhaled, the room seemed to swim from side to side in front of him.

  “This is some good shit,” he said, starting to cough.

  Yes, it was good shit, but in addition to hashish it contained a chemical compound that would render the smoker unconscious in a matter of seconds. As Broken Teeth began to stagger, Brandt deftly caught him and laid him back down on the cot. Out like a light. He checked his breathing, then made sure he lay stretched out comfortably, a pillow under his head. He covered him with a blanket, and tucked it round his chin, covering up the gabardine completely, then left the cell, padlocking it behind him.

  Nelson chose his time alone with the girl to play his next card. He had predicted Alice’s fascination with his tablet, and he placed it on her lap. Then he tentatively took her finger and guided it scrolling through a blizzard of images. Alice resented his uninvited touch but said nothing. What great skill these portrait painters possess, Alice mused, portraits that look so true to life you could imagine them talking. Then one did. Nelson had steered Alice’s finger to a slideshow of photographs from the Pamela van Doren website. He touched an icon, a frame unfroze and Pamela van Doren began to speak. It was a recording of her addressing a rally in Peru on water rights. Nelson muted the sound.

  Alice gasped at the sight of the strikingly beautiful woman with red-gold hair. Could it perchance be she?

  “Do you see this young woman? Pamela van Doren. She has the power to help you. You will meet her within the hour.”

  “Meet her?” Alice stammered. What did this evil man intend by granting her an audience with the Princess Elizabeth? He gave her another name. Did he not understand who she truly was? Alice decided to keep these thoughts to herself. She would continue to dissemble. “How can I thank you, sir?” Alice asked meekly.

  “You can thank me by giving me your trust. To join her, we must enter the White Tower by a secret passage.”

  The White Tower. To which she and James had been taken and where they were condemned. Where James had been killed. Where she had murdered. It frightened Alice to contemplate going back there. Yet she sensed that the millstone of justice was turning. To save her James this time, she would let it crush her.

  CHAPTER 41

  Tempus fugit

  Jane paced about her small cell, as far as her chains would permit. She gazed at the narrow barred window above her, which cast a blur of dawn light on the opposite wall. “God… Are you there?” Jane whispered to herself, in her small cell, gazing at a narrow barred window above her. “I’m going to be burnt to a crisp in a little while. Something I could live without. So if you are up there, well… Tempus fugit, you know… It’s time for me to go back… Really is...” Jane stifled a sob. “Paul, where are you? I need you, Paul…”

  These were her thoughts, as she contemplated the hour ahead with that special acuity of the unjustly condemned. Death Row, the final frontier. Jane tasted all the rage and helplessness of the soon to be terminated. Why? Why me? The hopes, the dreams not realized. A sense of futility, punctuated by leaps of false hope, and prayers for a miracle. Would there be a miracle in her case?

  Jane shuddered, anticipating the flames. Then she forced herself to calm down and reflect on her life while she still had one. Hadn’t she been wasting it so far? What did her life matter, if she spent it alone? Sure, she loved her studies, found meaning in activism, had more than she needed. Well and good. But what had she gained from her fiercely-guarded independence? Figuratively, she’d been living in a cell, like this one. Self-condemned to isolation. A life sentence. Jane made a pact with the God in Whom she scarcely believed: If I live, she vowed, I’ll find people who’ll accept me. Accept them. Make it up with my aunt and uncle. Find a best friend. Experience romance. Maybe true love? Help people, individual people, not just humanity. As things stood, who would know or much care when she failed to show up in her own world?

  Jane wondered why she had collided with the paranormal. It had turned all her notions upside down. She had entered another dimension of existence. It fired her imagination. She couldn’t think of a better job for an historian than being Jane Fixit Ph.D., zapping from era to era, tightening a nut here, loosening a bolt there, keeping the machine on track. She knew she was being fanciful, but it was part of a new zest for life she felt. She wanted to go on living more at this moment than ever before. Why would the Supreme Webmaster open this portal, show her what was possible, only to reduce her to ashes within the hour?

  For some unfathomable reason, it seemed, she was required to share Alice’s fate. From her research, Jane knew that those condemned to burning were sometimes euthanized before the flames reached them. By garrote, a bag of gunpowder hung around the neck, and other means. None pleasant. Jane contemplated the intense pain that she knew was ahead for her. She hoped she could bear it with dignity. Then she heard the distant clink of chainmail in the corridor. They were coming.

  CHAPTER 42

  Riding in a Car with Boys

  The U.S. Embassy had given Paul back his phone but not his weapon, citing strict British gun laws. Paul was in an elevator being escorted to the basement parking lot by a man who had introduced himself as Special Agent Josh Levinson. He had entered the interrogation room to apologize for the misunderstanding, and had delivered the good news that the plot had been foiled. Paul had gone along with the apology and the explanation he’d been fed, but didn’t buy any of it. It was too pat, the agent often broke eye contact, and he seemed anxious to get Paul transported to the site of the alleged arrest. Paul played along, while considering his next move.

  The elevator doors to Parking Level 3 opened. At the curb ahead Paul saw an SUV with three men in suits standing beside it. They were between thirty and forty-five, and each one was built like a linebacker, like Levinson himself, who led Paul toward the group.

  “This is Special Agent Paul Montgomery,” Levinson called out, then turned back to Paul. “Meet my team. Paul, here’s Dennis Adamo and J.R. Simmonds, and that’s Tommy Sigura.” Pleased to meet you was exchanged all round. Levinson gestured Paul to the back passenger door. Adamo got in before Paul.

  “I had to give up my weapon, so I’d appreciate a loaner, if anyone has a spare,” said Paul as he settled into his seat. Sigura sat to his right, leaving Paul wedged between two hefty men.

  “Gotta get you a permit first,” replied Levinson, getting behind the wheel.

  “You know how funny they are about that sort of thing over here,” muttered Agent Sigura.

  “Won’t need one today,” continued Agent Levinson. “Bad guys are in the bag now, thanks to you.”

  “Yeah, congrats, man. Awesome work,” chimed in Agent Adamo, echoed immediately by the other agents.

  “Thanks. Where are they being held?” asked Paul, as he secured his seat belt, wishing he had not entered the vehicle.

  “Not far. Be there in about ten minutes.” Levinson hoped that was vague enough. They just needed to get him to a spot they had used before, a lane between two buildings where there were no CCTV cameras. There was a body bag ready in the trunk where the subject could be stored prior to disposal. It shouldn’t take long.

  “How about those Clippers? Been watching? You a Cl
ippers fan?”

  “Man, they are so strong this season,” replied Paul without missing a beat. Why weren’t they pumping him for information about this bizarre plot he had uncovered, Paul wondered with mounting disquiet. Sports conversation continued as the van drove off. Agent Simmonds pulled out his phone and texted something. Paul shifted suddenly in his seat to check the reaction. Agent Adamo beside him reflexively slipped his hand inside his jacket towards his shoulder holster. Paul pretended not to notice. But it confirmed that he was on his way to execution.

  CHAPTER 43

  “Thanks, Winnie!”

  As Nelson’s car approached Tower Hill, the massive stonework of the Tower complex came into view. Alice flinched in her seat. It chilled her to see harsh noon light on its stark unforgettable central edifice, the White Tower. The car turned a corner and the castle disappeared from view. Nelson pulled into the underground car park of an office building. Alice saw the Inquisitor who called himself Nelson point another Talisman and the gate barring entry opened by itself. This world of marvels, Alice wondered, was it of God or the Devil?

  Few people were working that Saturday afternoon, so the lowest level of the car park was empty. Nelson parked beside the door to a storage room. Brandt pulled a duffel bag out of the trunk. Once again, Alice saw the door open at Nelson’s gesture. Both Nelson and Brandt produced flashlights, illuminating stacks of boxes. Dust. Cobwebs. Abandoned. Dimly visible, there was a hole in the far wall big enough to slip through. Alice seemed to take some convincing to step inside this dark place with them, but Nelson’s powers of persuasion prevailed. Or so he thought.

  Only a handful of people knew of the existence of the chamber they subsequently entered. Even fewer knew how to access it. Located under the north corner of the White Tower, it was Winston Churchill’s secret war room, long closed, still classified.

  The official War Cabinet rooms had been constructed under the Treasury Building in Whitehall before the outbreak of World War II. When Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he commissioned a second secret emergency cabinet command center, for use should an invading force reach London. Churchill’s sense of the dramatic drew him to the White Tower, a symbol of British power for nearly a millennium. Churchill knew of subterranean chambers thirty feet below that had been constructed during the reign of Charles I. This was the bolt hole he wanted. He ordered the chambers expanded and strengthened. A narrow spiral staircase was installed, along with an oak door that opened to the ground floor. A sliding steel door was installed behind it, sealing off access from above. Here in this historic venue he would direct the defense of London and fight to the end if need be. Churchill and his military leaders could enter through a secret tunnel constructed from Tower Hill Tube Station, half a mile away.

  As it happened, Churchill only visited the chamber twice as the threat of invasion receded. Early in the Cold War it had been briefly considered as a government command center in the event of a nuclear exchange but was ruled too small and shallow and was abandoned. Under Prime Minister Thatcher, all Churchill wartime memorabilia was relocated to a special section of the Imperial War Museum for public display, and the tunnel to the forgotten bunker was bricked up. The plans to Churchill’s private lair were in the classified section of MI5’s data bank. Nelson had discovered that the original tunnel passed right beside what was now a corner storeroom located at the basement level of an underground car park not far from the Tower. There were barely three feet of earth and construction rubble between the wall of the storeroom and the wall of the tunnel. It had been an easy matter for Nelson and Brandt to breach both walls, create access to the tunnel and set up the abandoned war room as the forward staging area his plan required. They passed through the tunnel into the chamber.

  Having quickly set up the staging area, Nelson watched security camera coverage of the Tower ticket office on a widescreen laptop. At precisely 1:00 p.m., a limousine pulled up outside it. Pamela van Doren and her assistants Emily and Paige stepped out. One of them paid the driver, while the other texted their assigned personal tour guide. A well-dressed young man exited the ticket office to greet them. After shaking hands, he showed them the day’s itinerary on a tablet. Nelson noted that Ms. van Doren was wearing a chartreuse bomber jacket and a stylish cap, covering her signature mop of fiery hair.

  Nelson had hacked into the Tower mainframe and had key surveillance cameras inside and out available on his screen. He clicked on another icon and the guide’s itinerary came up. First destination: Tower Grounds with the Ravenmaster. Second: Jewel Room. Third: Hall of Kings. Nelson watched as the tour guide led the party towards the main gate. He estimated that it would take just under an hour for them to progress to where he wanted them.

  The text from Simmonds came in. Nelson was much relieved as he deleted it from his phone. The last serious loose end—the American—would be disposed of like the others. Nelson scrolled through security cameras on his laptop. Everything was tight. Time to take a quick break. He stepped out of the curtained alcove where he had been working into the large stone chamber of the War Room, where arched pillars supported a low ceiling. It was lit by battery powered lanterns they had placed at each corner.

  “They have him,” Nelson whispered to Brandt.

  “Glad to hear it.” Brandt’s police work had taught him that the people who get caught are people who leave witnesses.

  “Call Jones. Tell him he can stop looking. He’s to go back to base and text me from there.”

  Brandt put his Bluetooth back in his ear. Nelson turned his attention to Alice, who was crouched over a tattered map of 1940 Europe that lay in a corner. Through the dust she made out the word London. Was this what England looked like from the heavens? It was so small, and the island beside it so big it could not be contained within the parchment.

  “She OK?”

  “Like a kid with a new toy.”

  Brandt had given Alice a pocket flashlight as a distraction and she had been exploring her new environment with awe. It was a jumble of furniture deemed too awkward to move when the bunker was abandoned. She stood up and played the torch beam across the wall. To have a shaft of light at your fingertips was better than holding a torch of rushes that oft sent a spark into your face. It illuminated an affectionate cartoon of Winston Churchill, drawn in boot polish by one of the workmen before they sealed off the access tunnel in 1985. “Thanks, Winnie!” was inscribed below in surprisingly neat copperplate. Britain’s wartime leader was depicted with a cigar in one hand and a scotch in the other. Alice had never seen a cartoon. As a country girl her access to visual depictions of people was liturgical. Saints in stained glass. Revered. Serene. Yet these lines on the wall so captured the spirit of a man full of pride and determination. The tunnel had frightened her at first but Brandt had tried to buoy her confidence by telling her stories of the legendary English hero who had built this secret passage and had won a great war. She looked at Brandt across the room. The big man had just placed a blue and silver jewel the size of a peach stone in one of his ears, then walked away talking to himself. Such odd customs.

  CHAPTER 44

  Time for a Different Sort of Life

  Nelson studied Alice, looking for signs she might revert to the girl he had kidnapped. None so far, but it hardly mattered now. He had her in his grasp at target point. He could make it work, even if she did change back into Jane. He had a cover story ready that would persuade Jane to ascend the staircase from the chamber, and enter the Hall of Kings in the Tower. Or he’d just break her neck. Whatever. He would detonate by cellphone when the security cameras showed the target was within the blast radius. His phone pinged. A text from his junior agent. He walked away.

  Jones was parked across the street from their temporary base, the soon-to-be-demolished derelict building adjacent to a large construction site. Jones clicked off his call from Nelson. “Yes!” he exulted. Nelson had given him a critical task to carry out, namely kill
the vagrant they had taken as plan B, then call the disposal subcontractor. A text followed with a direct link to the number to call. When Nelson had recruited Jones, he had pointed out that a time would come when he would be required to go, as he put it, “hardcore”. Carrying out this order would earn Jones a substantial rise in pay grade. Not a problem, Jones had responded instinctively. Now the acid test had come.

  Like other would-be murderers, Jones rationalized the crime as the only moral lapse of biblical proportions he would ever have to commit to secure his future. After this, he would content himself with a life of minor moral elasticity. In fact, he would have the money to do good. To compensate for his sin, he would fund charities. He would become a philanthropist with lots of girlfriends. The reverie of his future was interrupted by a passing forklift.

  Once inside the building, Jones descended to the basement and found the cell with the razor wire gate, dimly lit by a fluorescent tube in the far corner. Jones peered inside. The unconscious man was lying on a cot, as Nelson had said. Jones unlocked the razor wire gate, slid it closed behind him, and pulled out his Glock. He was not taking any chances. Putting his cellphone down on the table, he approached the figure on the cot. Jones tentatively lifted the blanket. Mr. Broken Teeth looked like a city businessman in a smart suit and an elegant if slightly flamboyant gabardine overcoat. He was quite unrecognizable as the man they had acquired the day before. Jones prodded him in the leg. No reaction. All set then.

  They say the first one’s the hardest, Jones reflected, yet at this point, it didn’t feel hard at all. The real question was whether to shoot him in the head or the heart. Better the heart, less mess for the cleanup crew. Suddenly Broken Teeth bolted upright and grabbed Jones’ gun hand, twisting it violently. Before Jones knew it, the weapon was pulled from his grasp and pointed straight at him. Whatever the drug was that they had given him, it was no match for a constitution forged in the worst meth pits and crack squats in town, Broken Teeth would later boast. Not that anyone ever believed his tall tale.