Down: Trilogy Box Set

by Glenn Cooper

  Kyle bristled and said, “Hey, watch it, buddy.”

  “Another American,” Marsh said, “and a limping one at that. Were you the pink beret, then?”

  Captain Yates, a broad-shouldered black man said, “Put a cork in it Alex. Let me apologize for my colleague. Once you get to know him you’ll realize he really is an ass-wipe.”

  Captain Gatti was dark and swarthy with a thin moustache. “Yeah, go on,” he said. “Don't mind Alex. He gets that way with blokes with hair on their heads.”

  “Not to worry,” John said with a knowing smile. “I would’ve been rip-shit if some limey bastard showed up in my house to tell me how a mission was going to go down. I’m sorry about that but after you hear what I’ve got to say, you’ll understand that there aren’t any active-duty British soldiers who could do this briefing. Trevor Jones and I are it. Trevor’s also ex-military. He was a sergeant with the Royal Dragoon Guards with multiple tours in Afghanistan.”

  Captain Greene, the youngest looking of the officers with golden-boy good looks, fine, closely cropped blonde hair and a cleft chin said, “And you?”

  Kyle shook his head. “Never enlisted. Baldy here with his eagle eye spotted my limp. I’m John’s brother and I’m still not a hundred percent sure why I’m here.”

  “He’s here because he’s got specialized skills,” John said.

  “Fair enough,” Greene said, looking at Ben. “What’s your story?”

  Ben had answered for John and now John returned the favor. “This fellow’s the only one in the room whose ass you ought to be kissing. One of these days, if you survive this mission, you may be knocking on his door for a job. Mr. Wellington’s right near the top of the heap at MI5.”

  “All right, duly impressed by the lot of you,” Marsh said sarcastically. “Suppose you go ahead and tell us about these singular challenges and unexpected dangers our CO alluded to.”

  “I presume this has everything to do with the badness in London,” Yates said.

  “It does,” Ben said. “Mr. Camp will do the honors.”

  “Okay, guys,” John said. “Listen up and prepare to be amazed.”

  “Nice place,” Kyle said, dropping his bag onto the floor in John’s hall. The helicopter had put down a half mile away on a dark school football pitch and they had walked through the largely deserted streets of Dartford to get to the flat.

  “I haven’t been here much lately,” John said. “Your bedroom’s down that way. It’s en suite.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means you’ve got your own shitter.”

  John went to the fridge, got a couple of cold beers, and gave Kyle one. He watched as his brother finished it in several mighty gulps.

  “Want another?” he asked him.

  “For starts. Got anything stronger for later?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “I need to know if you’re in or out. If you’re in I’ll want you to wean off the hard stuff.”

  “Fuck you.” Kyle got up from the sofa and helped himself to another can of beer.

  “That’s not an answer,” John said.

  “I think you and I’ve got some unfinished business to deal with first,” Kyle said angrily.

  “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

  “Fucking me over on the store, that’s what.”

  John wasn’t surprised. It was the elephant in the room and it had been a wedge between them from the day their father died. The old man’s house and gun store, the only thing he possessed of any value. The two brothers grew up in that house. Their father had put them to work in the store as soon as they were tall enough to see over the counter. John had been a student athlete. He got into West Point and never looked back on Bend, Oregon. When Kyle hit high school a few years later he wanted to be a football star like his big brother, date cheerleaders, join the army too, maybe special forces, but a drunken car wreck ruined his leg and his life. He got stuck in Bend, stuck in the shop, and stuck in the house.

  “Exactly how’d I fuck you over?” John asked. “It was dad’s decision to leave me half of everything. Mom’s dead. He had two sons. Splitting the pizza down the middle’s the way he wanted it.”

  When the two of them argued the f-bombs always flew and Kyle unleashed a cluster bomb. “It’s not a fucking pizza. It’s my fucking house. It’s my fucking job. It’s my fucking life. You fuck off to Afghanistan and God knows where, you get medals and citations, you live the high life in England. You want to know what my life is? I’m still in Bend in and out of debt with a gimpy leg. And you own half that goddamn life. How do you think that makes me feel?”

  John’s response jammed up his mind. He wanted to tell Kyle it wasn’t his fault he was a pathetic fuck-up, an excuse-ridden, alcoholic loser. He wanted to tell him that thank God at least one son made their mom and dad proud. He wanted to haul off and punch him in the mouth. But he made himself bottle it up. For the first time in his life he needed Kyle for something.

  He got up, went over to his desk, and pulled out writing paper. Bent over he wrote out a paragraph, dated and signed it.

  “Here,” he said, handing it to Kyle. “When Emily gets here she can witness it. If dad’s lawyer says it’s crap I’ll sign his version. You’re right. It should be your house and business a hundred percent.”

  Kyle read it. His Adam’s apple moved up and down each time he swallowed. He sniffed back some secretions and looked up to say, “I …”

  There was a key in the door and Emily came in. John was relieved to avoid whatever awkward version of gratitude he was about to hear.

  “Emily, this is my brother Kyle. Kyle, Emily Loughty.”

  Kyle turned the paper upside down and stood up to greet her. After a friendly exchange she disappeared into John’s bedroom to change clothes.

  “She’s amazing,” Kyle said.

  “Yes she is.”

  “She’s a scientist?”

  “A good one.”

  “If you’d said she was a model I’d have believed you.”

  “She’s got it all,” John agreed. “I’m pretty fucking lucky.”

  “You always were.”

  Kyle polished off his second beer and started on his third. Emily came out in jeans and a t-shirt, barefooted.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked.

  “We should do take out,” John said.

  “Little chance of that,” she said. “Dartford’s a ghost town.”

  “How’d you get here?” John asked.

  “A helicopter materialized in a courtyard at the Ministry of Defense. How’d you do it? All I saw were red tail lights for miles on the motorway.”

  “Same as you, thanks to Ben.”

  She found some frozen entrees and put them up.

  “So Kyle, I understand the US Air Force flew you in?” Emily said.

  “It was pretty sweet. I had the whole plane to myself.”

  “What do you think about this mess we’re in?”

  Kyle put his beer down, using John’s attestation as a place mat. “I think we’re being tested,” he said. “It’s our hour of trial. ‘Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test those who live on the Earth.’ Revelations 3:10.”

  “Since when are you a Bible quoter?” John asked.

  “You don’t know me anymore,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “An ex-girlfriend got me into it. She’s gone, the Bible stayed.”

  Emily said, “Well, biblical or not, I agree we are being tested. How we respond in the next hours, days, and weeks will affect our future profoundly.”

  “Anything new on your end?” John asked.

  “I’ve talked to every expert who was on Leroy Bitterman’s panel and a handful of others. No one’s got a solution because there really aren’t any strangelet experts out there. Paul Loomis was the only one; is the only one. My colleagues at the LHC in Geneva are working on ways to ge
t control of the computer systems at MAAC remotely to fire up the collider if and when a fix materializes. We can’t risk putting people into the Dartford hot zone.”

  Kyle said, “I’m not the smartest guy but I’m not a dimwit either. But I’ve got to tell you I didn’t understand any of that.”

  She apologized and gave him a laymen’s version. With John’s nod, she also told him about their encounters with Paul Loomis.

  “That’s why you’re going again?” Kyle asked Emily.

  John answered. “She’s going even though I don’t want her to.”

  “We’ve got to move fast,” she said.

  The microwave beeped and John fetched the food. “I’ve got a chicken curry, a mac and cheese, and a beef lasagna.”

  “Mac and cheese, please,” Emily said.

  “I never had curry,” Kyle said.

  John put the lasagna in front of him. Without asking, Kyle said grace. They listened in awkward silence.

  Emily peeled off the film of her entrée and sunk her fork into the yellow goo. Before her ordeal she wouldn’t touch this kind of processed food but now she savored it as if it had come from a Michelin-starred restaurant.

  “On the flight from London I got briefed by the government’s chief scientific advisor that the hot zones have expanded in Upminster and Leatherhead,” she said. “We’ve lost several more security personnel at both locations and God knows how many residents who were advised to shelter in place.”

  “Can I ask a stupid question?” Kyle said. “John told me that before, these passageways or whatever opened then closed each time the collider ran.”

  “That’s right,” Emily said. “The points of connectivity were transitory. They were wholly dependent on new energy production from the sub-atomic particle collisions.”

  “But now you’re saying that the connections are permanent.”

  “Well, hopefully not permanent,” she said, “but they’re persistent and expanding. We’re calling the affected areas hot zones.”

  “Well, okay, here’s my question. If you’ve got someone from either side caught up in this hot zone and they zip on through from one world to another, how come they don’t zip right back?”

  “It’s not a stupid question. It’s an important one. I don’t have a good answer but there seems to be some polarity at play. What I mean is, there may be some quantum effects caused by the interaction of strangelets and gravitons that …”

  John interrupted. “Emily, I’m crazy about you but you’ve got two dumb shits from Bend, Oregon here.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been talking to physicists all day. Think of the points of connection as one-way tubes. You go through but you can’t travel back on the same tube. It’s as if there’s a one-way valve that lets you travel in only one direction. That must explain why people aren’t shuttling back the moment they arrive in the other dimension.”

  John put his fork down. “But in Leatherhead we saw Hellers reappear after they were shot by the commandos,” John said. “How do you account for that?”

  “All this is guesswork based on limited observation. It may be that you reset your polarity by leaving the hot zone. If you then re-enter you can cross back. I wish I knew more. How was your meeting with the SAS?”

  “They’re pros,” John said. “Of course they’re apoplectic they’ll be reporting to me but they’ll be effective, especially if I can get Kyle on board.”

  “Are you on board?” Emily asked him.

  Kyle pushed his chair back and went to the coffee table. He picked up John’s handwritten statement and ripped it into several pieces.

  “It’s the thought that counts, bro,” he said. “I’m in. To be honest, I’ve been spending the last few hours thinking about what you want done and how I could pull it off. I’ll need a workshop in the morning.”

  “Already have one lined up,” John said, standing up. He spread his arms. “Come over here.”

  While the two big men hugged, Emily’s cheeks streaked with tears.

  Later, holding her close to him in bed, John asked her what she thought of Kyle.

  “If it weren’t for the family resemblance I wouldn’t have known you were brothers. He’s very different.”

  “How?”

  “Stating the obvious, he’s rough around the edges where you, my dear, are a polished stone. He lacks self-confidence, you are brimming with it to the point of arrogance—and I say that with love. He’s suffered from living in the shadow of his accomplished big brother. It’s rather sad.”

  He pulled his arm from around her shoulder and laced both hands around his neck. Staring at the ceiling he said, “Yeah, it makes me sad too. I could’ve done more to help him along.”

  She put a hand on his chest and rubbed it. “You’re giving him a chance to do something really important. It has the potential to meaningfully change his life for the better.”

  John turned his head to kiss her. “If it doesn’t get him killed.”

  11

  It had been five days. Five excruciatingly slow days.

  John and Emily had been pushing to go in three days, four maximum, but Kyle’s work was the rate-limiting step. He had been methodical and at first wouldn’t accept help, arguing that training someone would just slow him down. He had holed up in a workshop set up for him at Holland & Holland gunsmiths in London where he toiled in isolation until, bowing to reality, he had begun delegating to eager Holland & Holland craftsmen. Due to the sheer volume of work Kyle had put in eighteen-hour days. He gave up bourbon but downed a few beers before collapsing on his workroom cot every night.

  After the first day John stopped by to check his progress and had found him hunched over a workbench.

  “How’s it going?” John had asked.

  “It’s going.”

  “Is it doable?”

  “My part’s doable. We’ve got to figure out the primers.”

  “What about them?” John had asked.

  “The chemicals, bro. Can’t make boom-boom without the primers.”

  “Shit,” John had said. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “Neither did I until today.”

  “What do we need?” John had asked.

  “They got any quicksilver over there?”

  On the way to Credenhill John had called Malcolm Gough who was on permanent babysitting duty in Hampshire.

  “How’s Henry getting on?”

  “I think he’s rather enjoying himself,” Gough had said. “He likes the food and the wine a great deal and thinks the bathtubs and toilets are smashing. Bit of a problem last night when he demanded a wench to be delivered to his bed. Suffice it to say, the MI5 minders were not helpful. Had to dip into my well as a father of young children. I distracted him with television.”

  “I need you to ask him a question for me. Ask him if he has any quicksilver in Hampton Court or any other London palace.”

  “Quicksilver? As in mercury?”

  “As in mercury.”

  When Gough rang him back he had told John, “Alas, no. He seemed dimly aware of the substance but has never possessed it. He suggested that one might perhaps find some in Iberia.”

  John’s next call had been to Kyle.

  “No joy,” he had said.

  “Next best thing’s something called lead styphnate.”

  “How do we get it?”

  “They got lead over there?”

  “Plenty.”

  “We’d still need a chemist.”

  “Why?”

  “I looked it up. You’ve got to make it with nitric acid which I assume means you’d need to make nitric acid too. Plus maybe some other stuff.”

  “That’s fucked up,” John had said. “On top of everything we need to find a chemist with a death wish?”

  John had gotten MI5 involved with the chemist problem while he and Trevor concentrated on training the SAS teams. There was no way to do special-ops-grade preparation for this kind of mission. John knew that but Major Parker-Bur
ns was decidedly uneasy that A Squadron had no objectives to drill against, no mock-ups of compounds, no aerial photos or drone footage to study, no psychological profiles of the enemy to learn. As far as John was concerned, the key was going to be orienteering, finding the hot zones in a world that lacked the landmarks of modern Earth. They had found a good topographical map of Greater London with accurate elevations, positions of rivers, tributaries, ponds, and lakes. Although there were bound to be some differences owing to modern man-made alterations in terrain, John had thought it would be as good a tool as they could get. But how to get the maps over to the other side? John knew from his experience carrying books that untreated paper printed with natural vegetable inks successfully made it across. Ben had been prepared to get the same printing company to do the job but Parker-Burns had come up with a better idea. Silk. During the Second World War the allies produced millions of silk maps of Europe and Asia for pilots to carry and use to find escape routes if shot down. Paper burned and ripped and got soggy and useless. Silk was far better and it was a natural fiber bound to make the transfer. A textile manufacturer in Leeds was identified and MI5 made it happen quickly.

  The training John and Trevor introduced to the SAS was in the use of unconventional weapons. The commandos were already expert in hand-to-hand combat and knife-work but none of them had used a sword and only a few had done archery. None of them knew how to load and shoot a black-powder gun or a medieval cannon. Half of them had ridden horses before but fewer than one in ten were accomplished horsemen.

  As they trained the men at Credenhill, they had wished Brian Kilmeade were there. Nobody was better at handling medieval weapons but Brian was far away in the Europa of Hell, hopefully enduring the harsh existence he had chosen. There hadn’t been time to line up a Brian substitute so John and Trevor had conducted weapons drills in the squadron’s gymnasium with sixty trash-talking commandos, irreverently skeptical of the exercises. An afternoon at an equestrian centre had at a minimum gotten the inexperienced men more comfortable around horses.

  Then the blow-up. The commander of the SAS had informed Major Parker-Burns that he would not be accompanying A Squadron on the mission.