by RR Haywood
‘Roger, doing it now.’
‘He’s doing it now . . .’ Alpha relays as the others stare on.
‘Why don’t you just get the girl out now?’ Emily asks after a few seconds.
Why didn’t he think of that? Alpha presses the button on his radio. ‘Echo, Echo . . . are you receiving me?’
‘Echo . . . go back in and get Bravo, Charlie and Delta through. Be discreet and if Mother asks say I’ve gone down into the street and you think I might have something.’
‘Roger, doing it now.’
Echo moves swiftly across the room and out through the landing to the back room and through the green shimmering light to the portal room.
‘Keep it open,’ he orders, walking briskly out the room and down the corridor. He wants to run, but that will draw attention. He passes Mother’s closed office door and moves on to the offices and canteen.
‘Hey, are you both back?’ Kate asks, seeing him rush past her office.
‘Er, not yet,’ he calls out. He walks on to their day room, pushing the door open to see Delta snapping awake and Charlie and Bravo looking up from a game of chess on a tablet resting on the table between them.
‘Got something?’ Charlie asks, seeing Echo’s expression.
‘Alpha ordered to be discreet, but he wants you out. He’s down in the street and might have something.’
A glance between them as the three rise to follow Echo. Bravo, Charlie and Delta in combat tactical rig with pistols on hips following Echo in his 1940s suit.
‘Did he say what?’ Bravo asks, falling into step next to Echo as they pass Kate’s office, who moves to the doorway to watch them go down the corridor.
‘No, just said to be quiet,’ Echo says.
‘Have you told Mother?’ Bravo asks.
‘No time. He said to be quick.’
‘Understood,’ Bravo says, casting a look at Mother’s office door as they march past.
They go into the portal room with Echo taking the lead through to the top floor of building number eight, moving straight back to the window to look down at Alpha still standing with Maggie, Ben and Emily. He glances behind, seeing that Bravo, Charlie and Delta are through.
‘Alpha, it’s Echo . . . We’re all here.’
In the complex, Kate watches the four agents go past her office and frowns lightly as she steps back, deep in thought with a small tablet held in her hand that she brings up to swipe the screen.
‘Hey,’ Rodney says, walking into the room red-faced and feeling pumped from his new gym regime.
‘Howdy,’ Kate says. ‘Gym okay?’
‘I love it,’ the lad says happily. ‘I’m huge now . . . Wanna see the gun show?’
She laughs and looks over, ‘Go on then . . .’ She smiles as he strikes a pose, tensing his thin arms as though she should be greatly impressed. ‘Oh wow, you look so good now.’
‘HUGE,’ he says, laughing at himself. ‘What you doing?’
‘Choosing a song.’
‘Song? What for?’
‘Oh, I’ve got some work to do,’ she says with a roll of her eyes. ‘Music always helps it go quicker.’
He walks over to peer over her shoulder, seeing the names of the songs and artists as she scrolls through playlists. ‘Queen,’ he says quickly. ‘I love Queen . . .’
‘Er, no, it’s not right,’ she says. ‘I want something a bit harder.’
‘Guns N’ Roses,’ he says, pointing at the screen.
‘Um, nope, not right . . . You know when you know . . . Does that make sense?’
‘Oh, totally,’ he says earnestly.
‘Something a bit edgier . . .’ She scrolls through.
‘Those are all so old,’ he remarks.
‘Er, hello? We’re historians.’
‘Ha! Good one . . . Ooh, go back . . . Yeah, that one.’
‘Nirvana? Good choice . . . Which one?’
‘Which one,’ he scoffs. ‘There’s only one . . .’
‘“Smells Like Teen Spirit”?’ she asks.
‘Totally,’ he says.
‘Hmmm.’ She takes the two tiny gel buds, pressing them into her ears and waiting till they expand out, filling the shape. A press of the screen and she stands upright, pushing the tablet into her pocket as the opening bars fill her ears.
‘Good?’ Rodney asks, looking at her expectantly.
‘Brilliant!’ she shouts.
He turns away, flexing his arms to see if his muscles are growing yet, while she opens the drawer of her desk, takes out the silenced pistol, aims and shoots him through the back of the head before stepping out of her office, humming to herself as the tones of Kurt Cobain belt the song out in her ears. Coreen walks into view, smiling weakly at seeing Kate and ready to stop and say she’s considering telling Mother she wants out, they all are, even Gunjeep is ready to jack it in, and maybe Kate can talk to the agents, you know, seeing as she’s so close to them.
Coreen doesn’t get to say any of that. She doesn’t get to say anything at all because the bullet enters her forehead and takes the back of her head off in a shower of gore that coats the wall behind her.
Kate sweeps into the canteen, striding to the mid-point as those eating glance up while absorbed in their hushed conversations as they build momentum to tell Gunjeep they want out. She gains the middle, lifts the pistol and starts firing. She’s fast too. Incredibly fast, and each shot fired is a tiny noise of compressed air as the tables, chairs and floor run with blood. She hears the screams over the music, but it’s done in seconds and she goes on, striding while changing magazine before knocking and entering the office of the bearded physics guys who look round, startled at being disturbed, to be shot and killed.
She walks through the complex, sending bullets through the air that slam into bodies and heads. She guns workers down in the corridors, in rooms, in doorways and not one sees it coming. Not one does anything other than show utter shock at the smiling woman they all know so well aiming a gun at them.
‘Kate,’ Gunjeep calls out as she strides into the portal room with the gun behind her back. Everyone already reacting to the screams they heard. ‘What’s going on?’ the chief technician asks as she gauges the position of everyone in the room. She pulls the gun round and moves in a circle on the spot, firing quickly with deadly aim, humming to herself as she works, then it’s done and everyone lies dead in pools of thick red blood.
She spins to aim as the door opens, the gun locked on with perfect sight as Mother walks in, taking care to move round the bodies while saying something.
‘HANG ON,’ Kate shouts. ‘GOT MUSIC ON . . .’ She pulls the buds out, shaking her head for a second. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said hurry up.’
‘I am hurrying up,’ Kate says. ‘That was really quick.’
‘Yes, great. Ready?’
‘Er . . . need some blood on me. Hang on.’ She ditches the pistol and drops at the side of Gunjeep’s body, pushing her hands into the blood to flick it on her front and across her face, flinching as she does so. ‘Urgh, hot blood is the worst.’
‘You’ve had worse,’ Mother mutters.
‘That’s disgusting,’ Kate replies. ‘And watching me having sex was just weird too. You didn’t need to see that.’
‘I will monitor whatever I need to . . .’
‘I’m your bloody daughter,’ Kate snaps, rising to her feet. ‘It’s gross.’
‘This is the level we work at.’
‘Oh my god, straight from the Maggie Sanderson big book of spy rules. Right, I’m off . . .’ She moves to the portal while rapidly sucking air in and out.
‘Kate?’ Mother asks.
‘What?’ she gasps between breaths.
‘Do you like him?’
‘Alpha? Of course I do. He’s an amazing man, but don’t worry, Mother, I won’t jeopardise your precious mission . . . See you soon.’ She gulps air a few more times, waves, then runs flat out through the portal while screaming out as Mother draw
s the pistol she was carrying, stands off to the side, aims high through the portal and starts firing.
‘What’s going on?’ Bravo asks, moving to the window to look down at the street.
‘Not sure,’ Echo says, half lying.
‘Oh my, is that Maggie Sanderson? Good lord . . . that’s our Alpha talking to Maggie Sanderson . . .’
Charlie and Delta rush forward, peering up to see the small group standing together.
‘Tango Two,’ Charlie says.
‘Ben Ryder,’ Delta says. ‘What the fuck? What’s going on, Echo?’
‘I don’t know,’ Echo says again.
‘Charlie,’ Bravo says. ‘Run back and draw sniper rifles from the armoury, assault rifles too . . .’
‘No!’ Echo says as Charlie goes to move off. ‘Alpha would have said if he wanted them . . .’
‘I’m second in command, my dear chap. Charlie, go . . .’
The scream cuts them off as Kate runs flat out through the portal, diving to the ground as silent bullets whip after her, embedding in the walls with chunks of plaster smashing out.
The three react quickly with a glance at Kate to see her covered in blood and wild with panic. They draw fast, going low to aim back at the shimmering doorway.
‘SHE’S KILLING EVERYONE!’ Kate screams, scrabbling as though to crawl away in abject fear. More rounds come through. The noise of them taken away by the portal so just the hiss and ricochets of bullets hitting walls, but Bravo fires back, Charlie and Delta doing the same, with loud gunfire erupting in the rooms that is heard through the street. Alpha spins on the spot and Ben, Miri and Emily shove hands into pockets ready to draw while Harry braces at the ground floor door at building twenty-five, ready to run out, and Safa charges down the stairs.
‘Echo! Report. Report . . .’ Alpha orders.
The whole street can hear it. Sustained firing of pistols coming from the top floor of building number eight.
‘Kate . . . she got through . . . said Mother is killing everyone . . . We’ve got incoming fire through the portal at us . . .’
The new noises come together. The warble of the air-raid siren screaming out from street to street as the air fills with the roar of heavy bombers, already thick in number, flying high overhead. The AA guns start up, drowning the sound of the pistol shots in building eight.
‘Stand still.’ Ben draws fast, aiming his pistol at Alpha as all around them people stream past, running and shouting in fear of the bombers coming and the late warning of the air raid. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Kate got through . . .’ Alpha blurts.
‘Kate?’ Ben asks, having to shout over the noise as Safa and Harry batter a path through the people to reach them.
‘Go back,’ Miri hisses at them.
‘The girl,’ Alpha says. ‘She got through . . . She said Mother is killing everyone. I have to go now . . . Let me go now . . .’
In the complex, Mother fires into the portal, making sure her aim is high while counting seconds in her head.
On the other side, Kate crawls away, whimpering in fear, crying out, panicked and terrified, but also counting the seconds. She reaches Echo, who reaches out to yank her into the front room as Mother rolls a grenade through the portal.
‘GRENADE!’ Delta roars, diving away as all three launch themselves back into the room. The explosive detonates with a dull whump that starts collapsing the ceiling with scorching hot shards of metal embedding into walls, and a second later the portal goes off.
‘Alpha! It’s Bravo . . . The portal is off. I repeat, the portal is off. Orders?’
‘Let me get to them,’ Alpha says to Miri, Ben and the others in the panicked street. ‘I’ll disarm them and bring them to you . . .’
‘Me and Harry will go with him,’ Safa says. ‘Rest of you draw back . . .’
The problem with time travel is that any incursion into a period, no matter how seemingly small, can cause a ripple effect. Building number twenty-five in Bundesstraβe 2 is not meant to be hit by a bomb. In fact, this air raid was not meant to come until later, but Emily and Konrad were spotted in the street a few days ago. Their suntanned hands were seen and reported back and that report went through the channels, which resulted in a German battalion being diverted into the city with the possibility of spies operating. That report was picked up on by the allies, who decided to alter their air-raid plans and drop heavy ordnance with a view to disrupting that flow of troops, and so the heavy bombers unleash their payloads, which fall through the sky with one hitting the roof of building twenty-five and crashing through the attic to smash down through the ceiling and past the portal into the floor below and all the way down to the ground floor where it explodes with a roaring fireball that sends bricks flying out into the street.
‘COVER.’ Harry roars the words without thinking, barrelling into the others to take them down to avoid the debris flying at them. Alpha dives away, scrabbling to his feet amidst the dust and smoke to run down the street, his ears ringing from the noise.
So many things happening. So much noise and heat and smoke, but Harry rises first, the most used to this environment, and he spots the danger instantly. ‘Ben! Get up . . .’
Ben shakes his head, rolling on his back in stunned shock. His ears are ringing, his senses feeling battered. Harry’s above him, reaching down to drag him up, shouting about something and pointing. Ben shakes his head again, trying to understand, then snapping alert on seeing it.
Building twenty-five is now no more, with the roof gone, collapsed inwards as it fell in through the floors that blew out from the explosion, but there, hanging in the air where the top floor was, the blue portal shimmers and shines like a beacon.
‘They’ll aim for it,’ Harry says. ‘The bombers . . . they’ll aim for it. We’ve got to get away . . .’
Time slows for Ben. Like it did before when he was seventeen and then when he was on the platform at Holborn. Everything in perfect clarity, everything understood in the blink of an eye. He looks up to the portal hanging in the air and knows instantly it is way too high to reach. He also knows there is nothing here they can use to get to it, certainly no ladders. He also understands exactly what Harry meant when he said the bombers will aim for it. The only option is the portal in building eight. They have to get through it now and take control so they can go to Bertie’s island and switch their own portal off, and right then, in the midst of all that noise he also berates himself for not bringing one of Bertie’s new mobile portals with him.
‘Up. We’ve got to move,’ he shouts over the bedlam, heaving Miri to her feet as Harry does the others, hefting Safa and Emily up, then planting a huge hand on Konrad’s arm to lift him up too. ‘Go . . . GO! That way . . . after Alpha . . .’
They set off, shielding their faces from the heat of the flames and the thick dust while coughing from the acrid smoke. Another bomb sails past the portal, hitting the remains of building twenty-five and sending more scorching debris out.
Alpha runs fast, sprinting down to building number eight and through the door to charge up the stairs. ‘ECHO? ECHO?’
‘ALPHA!’ Bravo’s voice. Alpha goes up, coughing on the smoke caused by the fires started by the grenade.
They meet on the landing to the first floor. Echo in his 1940s suit, the others in tactical rig with Kate held between them. ‘Portal is off,’ Echo reports. ‘Mother’s lost it. Killing everyone.’
‘She was going mad,’ Kate says, throwing herself into Alpha’s arms. ‘She killed Rodney and . . . She was going mad . . . Screaming and . . .’
‘Exfil to building twenty-five,’ Alpha orders. ‘Go . . . GO!’
No time for explanations or reasons, no time to understand what is happening. They run down and out into a street given to chaos and the blue shimmering portal hanging in the air above the remains of building twenty-five, shining through the smoke and dust.
The blink of an eye, the beat of a heart and the two sides see each other. Alpha, Kate, Bravo,
Charlie, Delta and Echo snapping their heads over to the sight of Maggie Sanderson running with her team towards them.
Bravo, Charlie and Delta spot the pistols held in the hands of Safa, Emily and Harry and draw fast.
Safa sees the threat of three agents reaching for weapons and raises her pistol, which in turn makes Emily and Harry lift to aim as Miri draws her gun.
‘HALT!’ A German voice, loud and deep coming from behind the agents and both sides snap their heads over to the scores of German soldiers pouring from the backs of trucks parked outside Arch 451 and running into the street. ‘WEAPONS DOWN NOW.’ The officer screams the words in German. ‘PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN,’ he adds in thickly accented English.
The blink of an eye, the beat of a heart and both sides, the agents and Miri’s team, all turn, aim and fire their pistols at the charging German soldiers. A barrage of shots ringing out like fireworks sounding amidst the deeper explosions of heavy bombs and the roar of aircraft overhead.
German soldiers fall dead or fall screaming from the rounds hitting them while the rest dive for hard cover, dropping down behind piles of bricks and masonry.
‘SCATTER,’ Harry roars. This is his world now and he can see the immensity of the return fire that is about to come their way. They starburst away, all of them running to the sides of the street as the Germans open up with sustained automatic gunfire that bounces off the walls and houses, smashing through windows and whizzing through the air and still more German soldiers jump from the trucks to pour into the street, joining in with returning fire.
It’s carnage. Utter awful brutal carnage, with a noise so deafening it renders any communication between them impossible. Thoughts whirl in Alpha’s mind that they should join forces now, but when he looks round he can’t even see any of his own side, let alone Miri’s team. The smoke is too thick. The dust and debris in the air. Kate at his side, who stays silent but takes it all in with a hidden expertise that matches his own.
Harry grabs Miri and his team, pulling them up to make them run. There’s no way through the Germans so they have to go the other way. ‘UP . . . RUN . . .’ His enormous voice gets them moving and his huge arms and presence of mind keeps them together as they scrabble over piles of scorching bricks and leap over wooden window frames set alight lying in the street.
