“She may be.”
Jesus. Devon is not a physical girl. And Coleman is a big guy.
“She’ll remove his testicles before he gets a chance to do anything.” I don’t know if Aiko is trying to reassure me or herself. I don’t take the time to figure it out. I’m already running.
SIXTY-FOUR
Knightsbridge
I wilt onto Coleman’s street. My lungs are on fire. My legs, rubber. Bastard couldn’t live any bloody closer to the Underground station, could he?
I sag against a car. But I need to keep going, I need to… I stumble forward, bounce off the car’s neighbor. Its alarm blares into life. Flashing indicator lights highlight the sweat dripping off my brow.
The lights in Coleman’s apartment are still turned low. No sign of Devon. No sign of any of the others. I glance down at my watch. 12:15 pm. She had his ID in about five minutes. That’s almost two hours of Coleman without his pants on. I can’t believe that’s a good thing.
I cross the street to his building’s door. I’ve given up running for more of a shuffling hobble. I need to think of something that will convince the bastard to buzz me up. No, screw that, I just need to smash the glass in the door and open it myself.
Except someone’s done that for me already.
Oh, we have so definitely left good very far behind.
I shoulder open the door, pull the gun out of my jacket. And for about the first time in my life, I’m actually premeditating murder. If he’s hurt Devon, I’ll kill him. Actually kill him. And I’ll do it gladly.
I crash up the stairs, panting, huffing. I slam into one wall then another. My gun echoes hollowly against wallpaper and plasterboard.
Coleman’s door. The lock busted. Splinters and the exposed bronze of the lock. And what the hell?
But I can’t stop, so I don’t stop. I stagger through, try to suck in air, try to focus. I try to get the breath to call Devon’s name, but I can’t.
A staggering footstep forward. And there’s a body. A body facedown on the floor. Someone standing over it.
And Devon. Devon sitting on the couch.
Wait…
Wait… I… On the couch?
Kayla stands in the middle of Coleman’s living room. Stands over Coleman’s comatose form.
“Finally,” she says derisively. “The feckin’ cavalry.”
SIXTY-FIVE
Coleman’s living room, 12:58 am
“I’m telling you,” Devon says, upper lip firmly stiffened, “I’m fine.”
Aiko stands across the small living room, staring at Kayla. “But,” she says, “you said no. You said you wouldn’t help.”
Aiko, Malcolm, and Jasmine arrived two minutes ago and chaos is still busy reigning.
“I said you didn’t want my help.” Kayla is as gruff as can be anticipated. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t give it.”
“Oh, Kayla,” Devon says from the couch, “of course they’re surprised. It’s not like you overwhelmed us with your enthusiasm.”
Kayla looks away, her face guarded. For a moment I think that’s going to be the full extent of her response. Then she shrugs. “You said I didn’t save my daughter.”
“I said you could save the world.”
“I don’t give a feck about the world.” Kayla spits onto Coleman’s carpet.
“You sure he’s going to stay out?” Malcolm pulls his head back from the doorway to the bedroom where we laid Coleman’s unconscious body.
“He’ll stay out.” There’s an element of professional pride in Kayla’s tone.
And Coleman, and the fact that he did something to make Kayla attack him, brings me back to the beginning of this conversation. “You’re sure you’re OK?” I ask Devon again.
Devon’s smile is still shaky but she waves a hand as Jasmine and Aiko advance in step. “I’m fine.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Devon looks around the small room. For some reason we’ve not turned the lights up fully yet, and everything feels too close and overcrowded. She grimaces. “It was…” She looks up at Kayla.
Kayla lets her gaze drift away from Devon’s. It comes to rest on me. “Followed you after the park,” she says with another shrug. “After what Devon said. About my daughter.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. Not that I’m objecting to Kayla’s presence. It’s just it would be nice if something actually did make sense for once.
“Never feckin’ do.” Kayla grimaces. “It was what hit home. Someone else I care about going off with you. And I thought, well maybe some things are worth fighting for.”
Well at least Kayla’s low opinion of me is good for something…
“Plus,” Kayla says, “Coleman’s a prick.”
Devon shifts on the couch. “He didn’t touch me,” she says. “I don’t want you to think that. He’d just been… Just been talking and pacing and drinking for over an hour. And drinking blended malts. My father would have beaten a man for having blended malts. That said my father didn’t take his lithium very often. But then he… Well I was on edge. And someone should really talk to that man about personal space issues. And I think at one point he might have sniffed my hair, which I don’t care what Hollywood tells you, is always creepy. I mean, it’s hair. It’s hardly an erotic bloody tool. It sits on top of your head and gets greasy if you don’t wash it.
“So, yes, I was not at all comfortable, and then… well, he offered me the whiskey you see. And it was a blended malt. I said that. And you have to understand, in a way, how profoundly wrong that is. And, well, it was probably silly of me to scream about it. But I did scream. And then the door crashed open. And then there was Kayla. And then it was all over.”
There’s a satisfied smile on Kayla’s lips. “Good enough excuse,” she says.
“He offered you whiskey?” I ask, just to clarify exactly why we have broken and entered this house.
“A blended malt, Arthur,” Devon implores. “That’s just not right.”
I stare at the others. Aiko is still looking confused. “But how did you get his ID in under five minutes?”
“Oh,” Devon gives us a small smile, “apparently Coleman prefers silk pajamas in the comfort of his own home. Left his other pants on the bathroom floor.”
The sight of Coleman, unconscious or no, in maroon silk pajamas will haunt me until the day I die.
“Now,” Devon reaches a hand out to me, “could you just give me the files. That’s what this was all about anyway.”
It’s a quick, efficient way to force the room’s attention onto me.
“Shit, yes,” Aiko says, flicking her eyes my way. “How did it go? You get everything?”
I pull the stack of papers from under my shirt where they’ve been nestled between my skin and my paunch of Malcolm’s socks.
“Any problems?”
And how exactly do I describe my exchange with Felicity to Aiko of all people? I don’t even know how to describe it to myself
“Nothing significant,” I say. Saving the world before personal crap. Plus now it’s almost past one in the morning and I’d rather skip any extraneous matters and get down to business.
“So,” I say, “Devon looks at the papers, we find the bastards, and make plans about how best to hit them very hard in a place that hurts.”
“That’s your plan?” Kayla looks at me as if I’m a half-wit.
“It’s a little more nuanced than that.”
“Better be.” Kayla looks over the Weekenders with an appraising eye. “You’re outnumbered, out-trained, and outgunned.”
“I know,” I say, ignoring Malcolm’s sour face. “We need MI37 too.”
“You say.” Malcolm can’t quite hold in the bitterness.
“Hush.” Jasmine taps his arm.
“You realize,” Kayla says, “Shaw’s probably going to feckin’ shoot you on sight?”
And God, I do now. “It’s a risk,” I concede. But we have to try. The Russians are just too powerful for us to
go up against them alone. “We just have to convince them of the truth.”
“Because that’s gone so feckin’ well for you so far.”
And she does have a point. But… “Every time we’ve encountered the Russians,” I counter, “it’s been on their terms. We’ve seen what they want us to see. They’ve been prepared. This time we draw them out. We catch them off guard. We get them to show us what they don’t want us to see.”
It’s hardly Sun Tzu. But it’s my plan, and I have a certain amount of pride in it.
Malcolm steps up. “A controlled first contact operation with both the Russians and MI37,” he says. Which I think is what I said.
“So you define the second engagement.” Kayla nods.
Malcolm nods.
“A controlled environment,” Kayla says. Something in her body language has changed. Less confrontational. And she and Malcolm seem to have found a common language. They move closer, speak lower, sit down on the couch, fire suggestions back and forth with increasing rapidity. Jargon and acronyms I can’t follow. Next to them, Devon sits, head buried in the papers I printed out. Jasmine balances on the couch arm next to her. I glance at my watch. Less than seventeen hours until the Russians make their move.
“We’re running out of time, aren’t we?” Aiko has slipped up next to me.
“Yes,” I say. I can’t see the point in denying it.
“You think there’s time for this?” She nods at Kayla and Malcolm.
“I think we have to make time.”
She looks at me. “This is the bit where we consider having to live this day as our last.” She puts a hand on my arm. “Carpe diem, Agent Arthur.”
We will take him down.
“Well this is interesting.”
Devon’s boom seizes the attention of the room. And, seriously, can I not catch five minutes to think about this one?
Aiko takes a quick step away from me. Jasmine is looking at us.
“What’s interesting?” I ask quickly.
“Oh,” Devon says, looking up and remembering she’s in a room full of people. “Well, I was just thinking that maybe this might be useful.” She holds aloft a sheaf of paper. “Old protocols on how the Russians used to contact each other. They really did drop personal ads into newspapers. I just assumed that was your standard Hollywood tomfoolery. Always had these images of spies accidentally turning up to first dates when they expected nuclear plans or some such. But no, the codes are all here. ‘Single white female’ is one sort of meeting. ‘Desperately seeking’ is request for a mission status update. That sort of thing. Different papers even mean different things too. All divided up by geographical location and everything. It’s all very Machiavellian. Which I suppose shouldn’t be unexpected. Spies after all. It’s not like they’re going to send each other instructions in Hallmark cards with love and kisses.”
Suddenly Aiko is not the only woman in the room I am considering kissing.
“But there are hundreds of newspapers in London,” Aiko says. “It’s bloody huge.”
“Oh yes.” Devon nods. “They’ve subdivided London a lot.”
“So how do we know which papers to use?” I ask.
Jasmine looks up from a piece of paper she’s been staring at. “Would, like, this list of safe houses be helpful?”
This place is threatening to become a regular smooch-fest.
There is much calloo-ing and callay-ing at this. Spirits rise slightly. Even Kayla seems like a functional member of a team again. I should fail to defend her friends from lecherous old men more often.
In the end, the list narrows it down to six locations. “The East London Advertiser should cover us,” Devon concludes.
Suddenly it feels as if we have momentum, as if this might actually be achievable. “Can we make the morning edition?” I check.
Jasmine taps at a smart phone. “Yeah,” she says after a while. “Might, like, cost a bit extra, but there’s a 9am edition we can probably get in, if we submit something in the next few hours.”
I turn to Kayla and Malcolm. “And you. This plan. You can work something out within the next few hours?”
“Feck you,” Kayla says.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
They sit down, get to work. Jasmine and Devon go back to their papers, searching for extra clues. I stand at the center of the room.
Aiko is looking at me. It takes me a moment to recognize the look in her eyes. And then I realize what it is. Admiration.
SIXTY-SIX
Lot’s Ait, Brentford, London. October 17th. 10:38 am.
As it turns out, you can’t save the world from time-traveling Russians without getting your feet wet. And unfortunately my rain boots are back in Oxford so it’s time for my feet to get a soaking.
We’re in an old, river-soaked, industrial barge house. The roof’s rusted through and a couple of rotting hulks are slowly sinking into the Thames mud. The barge house itself sits on the edge of a small island in the middle of the Thames—Lot’s Ait—caught between the brilliance of the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and the grungier end of Brentford. Around us trees and duck shit threaten to swallow the building entirely.
I turn to Jasmine. “How did you know about this place again?”
She shrugs noncommittally. “I, like, grew up round here. Kind of.”
I look over my shoulder over the thin stretch of water back to the city. “You mean your parents live…” I nod in the direction of civilization.
Jasmine shrugs again. Part of me wants to push it, but I can’t see much point to antagonizing her. And any way, while I’m no expert, the responsible adult thing is probably not to worry about Jasmine’s past but to save the present from total annihilation.
“The place I was talking about is down here.” She points to some stairs at the back of the barge house. I flashback to the stairs in Chernobyl and hesitate. But that’s hardly the heroic thing to do, and I’m trying to keep on the roll I’ve been on since last night. I follow her. Aiko, Malcolm, and Devon trail after us.
“I played here when I was, like, a kid. Was easy enough to get over when the tide was low. Been under contract for development for, like, years, but nothing ever happens. Good place to smoke, and, you know, stuff.”
I try not to be visibly middle class about that statement.
“But yeah, there’s this bit.” She waves her hand around.
A small basement area squats at the bottom of the stairs. A few rusty shelves, some amorphous lumps of rust that were maybe once tools, rotting wooden planks. The floor is a stew of river silt and decomposing leaves. The smell puts me in mind of open sewer pipes.
“So this place totally floods at high tide,” Jasmine says. “Almost killed my friend Jimmy back when we were, like, eight or something.”
It’s a revolting little space. Cramped, dirty, and likely infested with vermin.
I look to Malcolm.
“Perfect,” he says. He pats Jasmine on the arm.
“You’re sure you can rig something up to seal the doorway?”
Malcolm ducks his head out of the basement and looks up. “Roof should do,” he says, nodding.
Which seems a bit much to me, but we’re way beyond subtle at this point.
I look to Devon. “And Kayla will hold up?”
Devon shrugs. “I think knocking Coleman out did her good.”
I check my watch. Just over seven hours until the deadline. Just over four until high tide. And I actually have a plan.
“OK,” I say, “let’s get to work.”
Lot’s Ait. 2:46 pm.
I am now officially nervous. I can tell by the way I’ve checked my watch eight times in the last three minutes. And by the sweat.
“You’re sure your phone gets reception?” I ask Aiko.
“Shockingly my phone has remained entirely functional in the thirty seconds since you last asked me.” Aiko is moving from sympathetic to the point where I’m honestly not sure she’d be totally upset if Felicity shot
me.
Which, of course, we may all get to see in a minute.
I check my watch.
Felicity’s phone buzzes. She glances down. She looks back up. “Right on time.”
God I hope I don’t get shot. Like Aiko said, this is potentially my last day on earth. I’d hate to spend it bleeding everywhere.
Aiko’s phone buzzes again. She checks the message. “They’re crossing the river.”
Malcolm provided us with some waterproof industrial lights, the ones that come complete with protective orange cages. He set up a small generator for them outside and ran the wires in. Now, his job as our spotter complete, he starts it. The lamps blaze to life. Hopefully that should make the basement a more tempting lure. My plan’s a bit buggered if they fail to come down the stairs.
“Is Coleman with them?”
I worked out what Kayla had to say very specifically before she called Felicity, but there are certain elements of this plan I just can’t control.
Aiko re-checks the message. “Malcolm doesn’t say.”
My stomach lurches. That would really screw the pooch.
What a horrible phrase…
Aiko’s phone buzzes again. “Incoming,” she says.
Devon and I step into the middle of the room and raise our hands.
The first thing down the stairs is Felicity’s gun. She follows shortly afterward.
Behind her come Tabitha and Clyde. She’s got her laptop open. He’s got a double A clenched between forefinger and thumb.
Kayla brings up the rear. “There they are,” she says. “Feckin’ told you.” And she’s come through. Everyone has. It’s up to me now.
I stand there, water starting to lap around my ankles and look Felicity full in the face for the first time since I threw my badge at her.
She looks… God, she looks everything. Violent, and beautiful. Like someone who betrayed me. Like someone I should apologize to, who I should demand apologies from. Too much history has been compressed into too few days. It’s only slightly reassuring that she looks as confused as I feel. And how is she going to play this?
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