“Put her down!” I say again, trying to break through.
“You’re being a stupid selfish idiot who’s messing up the whole goddamn mission,” Tabitha tells Clyde. It is less than helpful.
“I’ve got the shot.”
In the chaos I almost miss Hannah’s words. But then they catch me. In Clyde’s moment of paralysis she’s gained her equilibrium. Her pistol is gripped in both hands. One eye closed she sights down the barrel.
She’s going to shoot it. Shoot the Uhrwerkgerät.
I’m not a demolitions expert, but I’m pretty sure nothing good happens when you do that. Hannah probably knows that too, but desperation has the better of her.
“No!” I yell. I launch myself into the air, snagging at her trailing foot.
I grab it, just as she fires. The shot explodes out into the night in a cloud of flame and cordite fumes. It lances through the intervening space.
It hits the Uhrwerkgerät.
And bounces away. The sound of the ricochet sings out in the night. A sharp clear sound, strangely sonorous in the space between the old stone houses that line Jericho Street.
I’m sure that will leave a mark, but it hasn’t ruptured anything. The bomb isn’t going to kill us all tonight.
And then, as the truck accelerates away, the night unspools before my eyes.
Oh God. It’s happening again.
A future echo.
It’s like the backdrop to a movie. As if the whole scene before us is some scene painted onto cloth. And someone has pulled the thread. And behind the world, behind the thin scrim of reality, is just the emptiness of space. A sucking rushing void. I see stars glinting, impossibly distant.
And this unreality is so much more real than the paper-thin buildings around me, this petty pretense of existence. This is absolute, implacable, unstoppable. It is everything we are not. And it undoes me.
The void in my vision becomes the void in my mind. Gaping lacuna of thoughts and emotions. The echo is eating me up, consuming the flickering flame of light and passion.
My face is bloody. Vessels rupturing around my eyes, my ears and nose. The blood covering my face, soaking my shirt. But it’s so distant. Such an unnecessary concern. In the face of this. This absolute. This undeniable. This truth. This implacable, unstoppable future.
And then it is too much. It overwhelms me. I fall to my knees. I see Hannah lying face down in a pool of her own blood. I hear Clyde hitting the floor. Tabitha’s voice moaning, “No, no, no, no, no, no,” in the earbud in my ear.
And then the darkness consumes everything.
52
GOD KNOWS WHEN
When I come to, the pool of blood I lie in has started to congeal. For a moment I lie there, breathing shallowly, encased in my pain.
Friedrich is getting away. Taking the Uhrwerkgerät with him.
I have to get up.
I heave. The blood resists. Things I’d rather not rip do so anyway. I think I just left half my eyebrows behind on the asphalt. I grab for my gun.
But the truck is gone. Long, long gone. Police sirens are rushing to fill the space it has left.
The future echo was more powerful this time. Why?
Because we’re getting closer to the point of origin. The ripples in the fabric of space and time getting larger as we approach the actual disturbance, each one rocking the boat of my existence to a greater and greater extent.
Because we’re up shit creek, basically.
I look around. Clyde is lying on his back, still out. The front of his jacket is covered with blood. Tabitha is further away, curled up fetally in the light of a streetlamp. Kayla spread-eagled and shadowed fifty yards ahead of me. The glint of the steak knife still caught in her hand.
And Hannah. She sits a few yards from me, head in her hands and pressed between her knees.
“Are you OK?” I ask. I don’t go to her. The gulf between us is too great.
She looks up. Her face is a horror show. Blood has seeped out from around her eyes, the lashes matted together, the whites bloodshot. It has flowed freely from her nose, painting a sad clown’s carnival make-up around her lips. It has soaked her shirt, her trousers.
“Do I bloody look OK?”
I shake my head. “Not really, no.”
“So why the bloody arse hell are you asking me?”
I actually think about that for a moment. “Because I’m the field lead. Because you’re part of my team.”
Her sardonic laugh is barely audible this time. A bubble of ironic mirth just managing to surface through the mire of… of whatever the hell it is that Hannah feels. Disappointment? Frustration? That can’t be too far from the mark, I think.
“God,” she shakes her head. “You are, by far, the worst agent I’ve ever come across. Ever. I mean, you are truly terrible.” The laughter is stronger this time. “But you know what really gets me? Your crapness isn’t even really the problem. I might be able to work with it eventually. I think I could get you to pay attention to me in the end. Learn some basic fieldwork. It would suck, but I’ve been undercover in Kandahar for six months before, I can do suck. What I can’t do is bloody hopeless. Because it’s not you. It’s all of you. It’s this whole dysfunctional shit show of an agency.”
“The police are coming,” I interject. “We should wake the others. Get out of here.” I don’t need to hear this. This is for Hannah really, not for me.
“Shut the fuck up,” Hannah says. The first real hint of emotion beyond dull disappointment creeping into her voice. “I’m talking. And I really, really hope you actually listen, because it’s about the last time I talk to you.” She pushes her hands deep into her hair. “You’re a disaster. I covered that. But what else would anyone expect you to be? You’re a police detective who has never received a day of training in his life. Apparently none of you have. There is no attempt to educate, to immerse you. Just the hope that the skills you have are enough.” She’s becoming animated now, voice gaining decibels. “And if they aren’t, well, shit, sorry, I guess we gambled the fate of the world on the wrong bloody group of idiots. Our bad. But at least there’s no culpability because no one can complain about your total and utter failure when they’re all fucking dead!”
Her cheeks are flushed now. “You want to know what the real problem is?” She finally releases her head long enough to shake it. “You don’t, because you’re banging her. I mean, Jesus.” Now the head shaking has begun it seems it’s here to stay. Behind us Clyde starts to stir. “I mean,” Hannah continues, “don’t even get me started on that. Actually, no. Let me get started. I mean first off it means she should be discharged immediately. You are bloody military intelligence. That sort of thing is not OK. And if you want an example of why it’s not you’ve got Clyde and Tabitha right there in front of you as a walking, talking, bloody real life instructional bloody video. Jesus. You let them screw basically in front of you in Nepal, and then are all shocked when the situation blows up and leads to us actually creating the bomb you’re trying to stop from being…” She trails off and just froths for a moment. “That was in the field too. That was your chance to stop things. Because, shit, Felicity isn’t going to do it. Because she goddamn sucks. Kayla is the goddamn best of you and she in all seriousness suggested holding a cage match of potential suitors so she could weed out weak seed. She showed me a location she had picked out for the bloody octagon. That is the best you have to offer. Remember that. Please. If you remember nothing else of me. Remember that. This stupid bloody rant, that is likely bouncing off your remarkably thick skull.”
If I remember nothing else of her? I try to puzzle that out. Apparently not even the blood caked on my cheeks is enough to hide that. It just fuels Hannah’s frustration.
“I am putting in for a bloody transfer. The paperwork will take a week or two. But I am out of here. Part of your team, Wallace? Fuck no.”
I stare at her. Her bloody visage staring back at me.
“But,” I say. “The Uhrwerkg
erät. The end of the world.” I can’t believe… Except I can. Of course I can believe it. This has been as inevitable as everything else. And it doesn’t matter. In a short-term world of course it doesn’t matter but…
“If I’m going to stop the end of the world,” Tabitha interrupts me, “I’m sure as hell not going to do it working with you wankers.”
And that’s it really. There is no arguing with that. If I even really wanted to argue. This, in many ways, is the desired result. But, Jesus, Felicity is going to kill me.
53
FELICITY’S OFFICE
“You’re asking me to kill you, aren’t you? This is some warped suicide attempt. That’s it, right?”
There are not many times a man gets to use the word apoplectic in his life. This is one. Felicity is apoplectic.
She also seems set on getting an answer.
“No.” I barely whisper the word.
“You’re sure?” she barks. “Absolutely, one hundred percent certain that all this imminent death thing hasn’t gotten to you and you want me to right here, right now rip your balls off and beat you to death with them?”
I nod, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
We’ve had fights before, of course. We’re like any other couple. And the nature of our jobs has put us through the fire on more than one occasion. But, usually after the event, I like to think that those are the sorts of fires that forge us into a stronger whole. This feels more like the flames of hell checking in to see how long it will take them to melt us to oblivion.
“So why in the name of all that is good and holy on this goddamn planet did you not say a goddamn word when she told you she was quitting?”
“She,” I start, but I’m still at the barely audible level. And if I want to be able to ever meet Felicity’s eye again after today that is not how to go forward from here. “She did not give the impression,” I say, louder this time, “that she would be entirely amenable to a protracted plea for her to stay.”
“Oh really? Rrrrrreally?” She rolls the word about, tasting it. I don’t think she likes it very much. “And I wonder why that would be? Perhaps it would be that contrary to every piece of advice I’ve given you, contrary to every promise you have made to me, despite me spelling out to you the very high price that would be paid, you have continually and actively gone out of your way to antagonize and alienate her? Could that possibly be the goddamn fucking reason, Arthur?”
She punctuates this by flinging a folder at me. Papers explode out, littering the air around me. By the time it strikes much of its heft has gone.
I feel numb. Too beaten up and exhausted to deal with this. Because it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
“It’s not going to happen,” I say. “You shouldn’t worry.”
For a moment I think Felicity’s eyes are actually going to explode out of her head and rip through me like shells fired from a rather attractive cannon.
“Shouldn’t…” she manages.
“It will take weeks,” I say. “We don’t have that long.”
For a moment, nothing. Just a long, dead silence stretching out, out—
Another folder follows the first. Another. Another. Felicity is yelling something but I can’t make it out. The room is full of flying paper. Analog static, filling the room. Manilla edges strike me again and again. I retreat down the office’s narrow length.
“You stay goddamn there!” Felicty’s bellow will be obeyed. My feet know that before my head even registers what she said. I stand there. A piece of paper is stuck to a patch of blood on my shirt that hasn’t completely dried yet.
“It’s pointless,” I say to her. “Those were your words.”
Felicity looks very tired then. She flings a final folder at me, but it’s half-hearted. It doesn’t even make it all the way to me—skids to a halt an inch shy of my feet.
“It probably is,” she says. She’s closer to my volume now. “But doesn’t that make this time even more important? Doesn’t that mean that we should be striving even harder now than we ever have before? I mean this, this…” She stares at me. “This pathetic capitulation, Arthur. What the hell is that?”
I could tell her, I think. Tell her everything that Hannah said. But what good would it really do to tell her that she is really Hannah’s biggest complaint? How would that make this situation any better?
“This was my life’s work, Arthur,” Felicity says. She sweeps an arm up and around, pointing to the ceiling, the walls, the whole damn edifice. “This place. This was everything I strived for. And we were so close to being something bigger, something better. It could still have happened, before the end. Whatever end that is. But now it can’t. Because of you.”
And OK, I’ll admit that hurts. My eyes sting. She’s done it. She’s cut through all the apathy, and the shock, and the physical goddamn pain, and she’s found a way to hurt me.
Because I love her. And I’ve hurt her so much.
“My first anniversary present.” Felicity shakes her head. “Well done, Arthur. You’ve really outdone yourself.”
There has to be something. There must be. Something I can do to try and take the hurt away from her.
“The only thing,” I say, “I want to strive for, when everything is ending, is you.”
Felicity’s face cracks. Disappointment bursting its dams, spilling into sorrow, scorn, anger, and maybe worst of all, love.
“Well you fucked that up, didn’t you?”
As bare and bald a statement as there can be.
“Didn’t even try to move in with me. Didn’t even pack your boxes.”
The accusations mount one upon the other. I can’t deny a single one.
“You know what, Arthur? I don’t think I want you to move in anymore. I don’t want to see you at my apartment even for a moment. Not this version of you.”
“I—” I start, not really knowing what sentence follows from there.
“Get out, Arthur.”
Felicity stands there. Implacable. Her words… inevitable. I get out.
54
FAR TOO MANY DRINKS LATER
Honestly I couldn’t even tell you how I got to London.
Wait…
Is this London?
Jazz billows and blooms about me. A saxophone melody sidles through my consciousness. A lilting bass line insinuates itself between the glasses scattered on the table in front of me. Pint glasses rattle against whiskey tumblers, make an awkward syncopation.
Around me, couples lean together, whisper beneath the melody. Groups of students wear fedoras and try to look as if they invented the style. A few herds of businessmen, ties loosened, let their eyes rove. And then there’s the odd lonely, useless bastard: a man with his eyes closed in rapture at the notes; another reading a book and sipping from the same whiskey glass he’s been nursing all night.
So what stereotype does that make me? The lonely drunk, drowning his sorrows in alcohol? Jesus, I’m even a washed-up detective.
The cocktail menu slips from my hand, lands on the floor. I curse, bend to pick it up. The room heaves in front of my eyes. I decide against it.
As a teenager, I used to dream of coming to places like this. Now, almost twenty years later, here I am. Almost twenty years and in that time I have personally helped save the world from imminent destruction three times. Me. And what’s it gotten me? An inability to enjoy this bloody music is what.
I go for another slug of booze but all the glasses are empty. I appear to have been rather enthusiastic in my consumption. I swirl a hand above my head. Eventually a waiter interprets the signal, comes over. There is a look of resignation on his face.
“Another one of…” I survey the empty glasses. “That one,” I say pointing to a rather interesting looking glass.
“That one?” the waiter says. He sounds like he wants to say more. To hell with him. I am a young buck once more. Hell, thirties isn’t old. It’s a long downhill slope from here.
Well, it would
be if the world wasn’t utterly doomed…
I start to giggle at that. The waiter seems to take that as a cue to leave. Probably not a terrible idea on his part.
I close my eyes, try to sink into the music, to remember what it was that teenage version of myself wanted to do when he got here.
I seem to remember my younger self imagining friends being here. I think he imagined better jazz than this as well… Something less Latin and with sharper, harsher edges.
Maybe the problem is in the specificity of my dreams. They’re twenty years out of date. All I really want is to recapture that moment when the future was bright and bold and too big to even hold. Before all the decisions closed it down to one stupid pinprick of obsolescence. Fuck all that.
I stand up, unsteady. My chair falls over, lands next to the cocktail menu. I attempt to rescue it from the floor, rethink the idea as my stomach sloshes. A waiter says he has it, hands me a drink and a bill.
“How bloody much?” I ask him
He tells me, and then points out that a gratuity is not included in the bill.
Jesus, no wonder I never came here as a teenager.
The cold of the London night bites. I check the time on my phone. There don’t seem to be enough numbers. Well, piss on it. I hail a cab. By the time the third one stops, I’ve learned to sit down and strap in before I open my mouth.
“A club,” I slur at the driver. “A night club. With dancing. And music.” I think hard. “And booze. And young people.”
It strikes me that calling them “young people,” is probably not something young people call themselves. “Cool people,” I correct myself. Yes. That sounds right.
The cabby says something incomprehensibly cockney. It sounds disparaging. I laugh. Show bloody him. What it’ll show, I’m not completely sure.
Still we arrive. I can feel a dance beat shaking the pavement. Yes. This is more like it. I remember the Park End in Oxford. I enjoyed that. Yes. Dancing and drink and… fun.
The queue is short. The bouncer is dubious. Possibly more so when I tell him, “I’m a young buck,” as defiantly as I am able.
Broken Hero Page 30
