Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  “You’re back,” she says finally. A small statement. Not confrontational. Not exactly. But not welcoming.

  I want to say something dashing and cool about her postcard being in the mail, but I’m too busy being scared shitless.

  “Yes,” I say. Which should win points for lameness if nothing else.

  “From the Ukraine,” she says.

  “We went to Chernobyl.”

  “Told you he would,” Tabitha says mildly.

  “Was it worth it?” Felicity’s asking about Chernobyl, but she’s asking about more than that too. Her eyes momentarily flick over my shoulder to Aiko who’s standing back in the shadows. My stomach lurches again, and I have the urge to protest that nothing happened, but too much is riding on the next five minutes.

  The water laps above the edges of my shoes, a cold rush soaking my socks.

  “I’m still waiting to find out,” I say. I don’t really enjoy being the cryptic asshole, but I have to play this so damn carefully.

  “You realize you’re going to jail?” Felicity snaps at me. “Both of you.” She looks over at Devon. “That’s the best thing that can happen to you at this point.”

  “I’m going to look at my watch now,” I say. I can’t afford to go off script here, no matter how much I want to. We’ve worked out the timing of this down to the seconds. “I’m going to do it very slowly.”

  “I’m not fucking around here, Arthur,” Felicity snaps. Clyde and Tabitha shift uncomfortably. Behind them, very quietly, Kayla is drawing her sword. I really, really hope she doesn’t need it for…

  I look at my watch. Less than five minutes. The water is above my ankles.

  “I’m going to take five steps backwards,” I say to Felicity. “If you come down here, I will give you a list of six addresses. The Russians are likely at one of them.”

  That causes Felicity to pause. She seems irresolute between anger and sudden hope. I’m sure it crosses her mind to just shoot me and take the addresses. “What are you playing at, Arthur?”

  I take a step back. Devon steps with me. Felicity keeps the gun trained on me. We take another step in unison. We keep going until we’re in line with Aiko. Five and a half steps. Close enough.

  “The others,” Clyde says abruptly. “The black man and the girl. Where are they?” He’s still using that short curt voice that doesn’t seem to be quite his.

  “Arthur?” There’s a warning edge to Felicity’s voice.

  I was really hoping they wouldn’t notice that. “They’re outside,” I say. I don’t have a good answer prepared.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I am not walking into a trap. I am not as stupid as you.”

  So we’re back to anger apparently. Felicity is wearing thin. I want to reach out to her. To reassure her.

  “Please,” I say, “get off the stairs.” I’m asking as nicely as I can.

  Felicity looks at me very hard.

  “I promise you,” I say, “the last thing on earth I want is for you to get hurt.”

  Beside me Aiko twitches her head slightly. But I just can’t afford to be delicate about everyone’s feelings right now.

  Behind Felicity, Tabitha, and Clyde, unseen by them, Kayla shifts her grip on the sword. But I really don’t want to do this with violence. I don’t want judgment clouded here. The MI37 crowd has to be alert. They have to see.

  “Show me the list,” Felicity says.

  Slowly I reach into my pocket and pull out the printout sheet. I glance at my watch as I do it. Two minutes.

  Aiko’s phone buzzes. Felicity twitches the gun in her direction. Everyone seems to flinch. But the gun stays silent. Slowly, Aiko opens up the phone, examines the screen.

  “They’re early,” she says.

  Shit and double shit.

  “Please,” I say. “Get off the stairs.”

  “Who’s here, Arthur?” Felicity asks. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I promise you,” I say it again, “if you just get off the stairs and come over here I will happily allow you to arrest me in five minutes time. I will cuff myself.”

  Devon looks at me askance. And I am admittedly way off script with that one.

  Aiko’s phone buzzes a second time. “They’re in the boat,” she says.

  “Arthur?” Felicity wants to trust me. I know she does.

  “Please.” I’m not above begging.

  Felicity screws up her face. The gun is back on me, and it doesn’t waver for a second.

  “Fine.” She doesn’t sound happy but I don’t care. She has acquiesced. She takes a step forward into the watery stew. It’s reaching up to her calves. She grimaces as the Thames soaks through her suit pants and ruins her shoes.

  “This better be worth it.”

  “I know,” I say.

  The ghost of a smile on her lips. Just the ghost of one. But maybe, if I die today it won’t be at her hands.

  We stand in a small huddle at the back of the basement, just out of the pool of light cast by the work lamps. Kayla has her sword still out but held down, the blade turned so it doesn’t reflect any light.

  “Give me the list, Arthur,” Felicity says.

  I have my eyes firmly on the basement stairs.

  “One minute,” I say.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Arthur.” And I’m not the only one who’s willing to beg today.

  “I didn’t know a better way to do this,” I say.

  “Do what, Arthur? What the hell have you got me—”

  But she never finishes the sentence. Because that’s when the Russians enter. Summoned to this space at this time by a coded message in the 9:00 am edition of the East London Advertiser.

  They’re in a tight little group. Bunched together. If I’d choreographed it, I couldn’t have gotten it better. Well… I’d probably have gotten rid of the crackle of blue fire around Ivan Spilenski’s right hand, but aside from that…

  Everything hangs very still for a moment. Everyone trying to work out what just happened, what to do next. All except me, and Devon, and Aiko. We know exactly what’s going to happen.

  Ignorance would probably be better.

  Malcolm detonates the explosives.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  The thunderclap of the explosion blows the Russians violently into the room. Bodies and legs spray plumes of white froth. There are curses in English and Russian. A scream. The spit of sparks. I try to take a step back, lose my footing. The water froths madly, messily. The lamps skitter, cast wavering beams of light. Everyone is shouting and staggering. I’m down on my knees. Someone leans on my head, almost pushes me under. Whether it’s friend or foe, I have no idea. I kick out and away.

  The stairway is a bright rectangle of white light. A silhouetted figure races towards it.

  A great thundering creak from above. An ugly tearing sound. The water swirls. A sequence of blasts, like bombs, one, two, three. Everything quaking. I’m down again. Water closes over my head. Everything blurred and muted.

  I break the surface. Gasp, blink, stare at the rectangle of white light. Watch it disappear.

  A cry. A shout. A violent, “Nyet!”

  Bodies scramble and splash in the wallowing half-light. I thrash backwards. My gun is a sodden lump against my chest. The water is halfway up my thighs now. Rising quicker and quicker. But it’s the equalizer. The Russians won’t want to be throwing lightning bolts in this much water. And I still have my ace in the hole.

  I reach a shelf on the back wall. My fingers scramble along it. Don’t have fallen into the water. Don’t have got dislodged by the blast. And there it is.

  I seize the scabbard. I pull out the sword. Flames burst into life.

  “Oh,” I hear a thick Scottish brogue come from my left. “You have got to be feckin’ kidding me.”

  And sure, this is primarily a way to prove to Felicity et al that I was right about the Russians, but if I get to take some of the bastards out now then I’m not going to complain.
<
br />   A shape lurches through towards the water. I have no idea if it’s friend or foe. Then one of the remaining lights glints off metal that encases a hand. Joseph Punin. I swing the sword like a baseball bat.

  The impact runs up my arm like an electric shock. My hands ring. I stagger back, hang desperately onto the sword. Rotund, little Joseph hangs onto the other end. The blade is encased in his massive metal glove. I tug at it. The glove spits sparks, and Punin crashes towards me.

  People shout, yell all around us. I slosh in water up to my waist. A flash of light blinds one of my eyes. There’s a loud crash. A muzzle flare, or Kayla’s sword? Electricity? The Russians powering a spell?

  Blue light envelops Punin’s free, flesh hand as he closes on me. I skip back faster.

  “Fry me and you fry yourself, you little shit.” God I hope he understands English.

  Either he does or he works it out on his own. Because he mutters a few words and the electricity turns into a crackling ball of fire.

  “Oh shit.”

  I heave on the sword again. Metal screams again. More sparks. I kick at Punin’s legs, my own moving slow through the water. But I catch something. Punin grunts. I wrench the sword again. He goes down, water swallowing the flame-wreathed hand. There is a spit of steam and the flame goes out.

  Another wrench on the sword. It comes free. Punin’s glove fragments. Shards of jagged steel erupt out, arc into the rising Thames swill.

  Punin screams.

  Flesh folds and unfolds from the hole I’ve ripped in his glove. Jags of bone explode and evaporate. Branching arterial trees spraying blood in brief fountain spurts. He staggers back, clutches the wound.

  More screams around us. More cries.

  “Get them!” Felicity bellows. “Put them down!” I hear the report of her gun. She must have kept her gun drier than I kept mine.

  Clyde is muttering nonsense syllables. Something crashes through the water. A body flies backwards. The water rises. Up above my belly button now. Screams in Russian.

  Suddenly the room is lit by a lightning flare. I see Ekaterina Kropkin limned in white light, a massive spark linking her to the one of the wires powering the work lamps. And then nothing. A hole where she was. Gone.

  Teleported.

  Right before the eyes of MI37. So they saw it. So it was undeniable. So they know. They know I’ve been telling the truth.

  “What the fuck?” I hear Felicity say.

  And oh God, it worked. This plan worked. I could cry.

  More lightning flares of light. Five more Russians. Five more disappearances.

  The room suddenly seems very quiet. Just panting breath and the splashing of water.

  “What in God’s name…?” Clyde starts.

  “Teleportation!” I yell. I scream the word. I can’t help myself. “Don’t you dare fucking doubt me now! Don’t you even dare.”

  We stand there. The seven of us staring at each other. Me, Devon, and Aiko—the true believers on one side; Felicity, Clyde, and Tabitha on the other—our potential converts; Kayla stands in the middle—not really giving a shit either way.

  “Space-time magic,” Felicity finally says. She looks at Clyde and Tabitha.

  Nothing from Clyde. But Tabitha shrugs. “Wrong. We were.” She shrugs again. “I guess.”

  Felicity looks back at me. “This was all planned? You intended it to go down this way?”

  “Pretty much.” I feel abruptly modest. I realize I’m holding a flaming sword. I slip it back into its scabbard, not quite meeting her eye.

  “And you didn’t think that maybe telling us they were coming so we could set up something to actually capture them might be helpful?”

  “They can teleport!” I throw up my hands. This is not exactly the praise I’m looking for. “You were looking to arrest me. I had limited options.”

  Felicity weighs all that. “And trapping us all—who, I might add, can’t teleport—in a room where the water level is rapidly rising. That was in the plan too?”

  I wave my hand. “Malcolm’s going to get us out. Just keep away from the staircase. He’s going to blow a hole for us to get through.”

  Felicity is actually starting to look impressed. “You figured this all out?”

  I pat my breast pocket, still just above the waterline. “I’ve got six addresses right here. We’re pretty sure they’re retreating to one of them right now.”

  For a moment Felicity actually lets a smile through. And for a moment it actually feels like the sun is shining.

  Clyde has his head cocked on one side. “Police are coming,” he says. “Five minutes.”

  “You get wireless down here?” That stuff is bloody ubiquitous. I smile at Clyde. It is good to see him even if he still doesn’t seem himself. “And hey.”

  “Hello.” Clyde sounds distracted. And even if I did just prove him totally wrong in a pretty grandiose way, I did hope for something a little warmer than that.

  Next to him, Tabitha grimaces.

  We stand. We wait. The water rises. I take the list of Russian safe houses out of my breast pocket just in case. I can hear Devon’s teeth starting to chatter.

  “This man, Malcolm…” Felicity starts.

  “He knows what he’s doing,” snaps Aiko. But she doesn’t look as if she has full confidence in her own words.

  “Shouldn’t he have stopped the generator?” Clyde says abruptly, addressing no one in particular. “Your wires are frayed. If the water hits them there might be enough power to electrify it.” He tilts his head on one side. “And us,” he adds as an afterthought.

  “Might be?” I ask.

  “Willing to find out. You are?” Tabitha asks.

  And she has a point. A sharp one.

  I look at the wires. We’ve got about eighteen more inches before that disaster. By which point I’ll be swimming.

  “It won’t come to that.”

  The water continues to rise. I look at Felicity. She looks right back at me. I try to think of something to say, something to encompass the totality of what I need to express. Something more than, “How you doin’?”

  “Nice sword.” Tabitha breaks my concentration.

  “Picked it up at Chernobyl.” I try to play it cool. It’s not my strong suit.

  “Good trip?”

  I think about that. “Our plane got shot out of the air by a jet fighter.”

  Tabitha nods. I was sort of hoping for a bigger reaction. I look to Felicity. She’s just shaking her head.

  “It was bloody terrifying,” I point out. Still nothing.

  “Speaking of terrifying things,” Devon cuts in to the witty banter, “I don’t mean to doubt Malcolm, but I’m treading water now.”

  “Call him?” Tabitha suggests. She’s swimming too.

  “My phone got wet,” Aiko says.

  “Feck this.” Kayla starts marching towards the staircase.

  “No!” I call after her. “If he’s up there with explosives then that’s both of you turned into meat wallpaper.”

  Aiko looks at me. “Meat wallpaper?”

  I shrug. “Sometimes I don’t think before I speak.”

  “Sometimes?” Felicity sounds incredulous.

  Not exactly an expression of desire for our continued relationship that.

  “Can someone at least please do something.” Devon is hanging onto a shelf. The water is only twelve inches from the wires. It’s almost up to my chin.

  “If I skewer Malcolm it’s his own feckin’ fault.”

  “Police are three minutes away,” Clyde adds to no one in particular. He sounds like the talking clock.

  Kayla sloshes towards the steps.

  The explosion lifts her off her feet.

  She flies back through the water. A great white spray swamps the room. Water slams over my head. I gasp in a great ugly mouthful. It laps against the back of my throat, and I gag, convulsing under the waves. My arms and legs spasm, driving me upwards. My head breaks the water. Chaos reigns once more.
>
  I dive towards the spot where I assume Kayla must have gone under. I collide with something. A tangle of limbs. I head for the surface and for a moment I can’t find it. Waves slosh around me. I panic, kick. I break the surface. I’ve got one of Kayla’s arms. She’s unconscious. When I finally manage to get out of here I am going to give Malcolm a stern bloody lecture on the nature of tardiness.

  And there he comes now… except why is he coming down here? Why is he coming down the stairs backwards? And who on earth is he firing that massive assault rifle at?

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  “Back!” Malcolm bellows, between bursts of rifle fire. “Fall back!”

  Despite his urgency, this proves an unpopular suggestion.

  Devon is the first to reach him, floundering through the sloshing water. She barrels into him and his shots go wide. Ricochets ping off the stair rail.

  “Back!” he yells again.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” I surge forward, struggling to keep Kayla’s head above the water.

  “What’s going on?” Aiko yells at the same time.

  “The generator!” Devon is shrieking. “It’s going to fry us all.”

  Malcolm keeps on firing, blocking the stairway, even as Clyde tries to pilot his angular body past him.

  “Speak!” Tabitha barks at him. “Inform!”

  “Sit rep, major!” Felicity’s voice slices through the madness like a flaming sword through a time-travelling Russian’s space-glove.

  Malcolm comes up short, almost flinching to attention before hunkering down against the stair rails. “Russians,” he says. “Still engaged.”

  Balls. That was not exactly the plan. They were more meant to flee in terror. Maybe I’m overly keen on the tactical withdrawal as a strategic option.

  “Positions?” Felicity snaps at him.

  “Ten, one, and two,” Malcolm barks back.

  At that moment lightning arcs through the doorway. The concrete lintel sprays shrapnel. Devon shrieks.

  We’re crowded in the mouth of the stairs. I’m treading water now. I glance back. The water is two inches from the wires.