The Secret Life of Kitty Granger

by G. D. Falksen

  Inside the car, she saw Mrs. Singh screw a silencer onto her own gun and crawl out on the other side. Mrs. Singh edged forward along the far side of the car, and Kitty lost sight of her behind the rear wheel. Suddenly a shadow fell over Kitty and she looked up at the two men, who had just come around the side of the van.

  “What’ve we got here?” one of the men asked, glaring down at her.

  “Oh, ’ello,” Kitty said awkwardly. “I’m Kitty.”

  Both of the men looked confused. “What?”

  Kitty heard the sharp rattle of a silenced weapon firing. One of the men collapsed, followed by his companion. As they lay the pavement, looking even more confused at what had just happened, Kitty put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming at the sight.

  Mrs. Singh came around the car, her pistol aimed at the bodies. Verity’s hand covered Kitty’s eyes for a moment. At first, Kitty didn’t understand why, until she heard the noise of the gun again.

  Mrs. Singh was making sure the men were dead.

  Kitty forced herself to take long, deep breaths as she and Verity got up again. She was trying not to panic. Strangely, a sensation of calm had come over her. Maybe the trauma of the night had finally battered her good judgment into pieces.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that, Kitty,” Mrs. Singh said.

  “No, I understand, missis,” Kitty replied, through chattering teeth. Her whole body was trembling. “You saved me life.”

  “What are those men doing here?” Verity asked. From her nervous tone, Kitty knew she already suspected the truth.

  “The Old Man’s sent ’em to kill the Orchestra,” Kitty said quietly.

  Mrs. Singh nodded. “I suspect once it’s done, they’ll doctor it up as a raid by the security services. They’re probably inside planting more ‘evidence’ against us already.”

  Mrs. Singh stepped around them and opened a panel underneath the glove box. Inside were two more pistols and four magazines of ammunition. For a moment, Kitty feared Mrs. Singh was going to give her one, but Mrs. Singh just shoved the magazines into her pockets and closed the compartment.

  “You two should stay with the car,” Mrs. Singh told them. “This is going to get rather messy, and you’ve been through enough already.”

  “You can’t go in there alone!” Verity exclaimed. “You have no idea what you’re walking into!” She opened the compartment and grabbed the two extra pistols. She handed one to Kitty, who shivered as her fingers touched the weapon. “We’re going with you. Someone has to watch your back in there!”

  Mrs. Singh looked at Kitty. Her expression softened as she read the fear in Kitty’s face. “What about you, Kitty? You can wait for us here.”

  Kitty clenched her jaw tightly, trying to work up whatever reserves of strength she had left. Verity was right: Mrs. Singh needed someone to watch her back, and Verity did too. The pressure along her teeth and the tightness in her jaw muscles helped shove a small bit of the terror and confusion out of her mind. The rest she forced down someplace deep, where she hoped it would stay until all of this was done.

  “I’m goin’ with you too, missis,” Kitty said firmly.

  Mrs. Singh looked as if she had misgivings, but she said, “Fine. Both of you stay close to me, and keep to cover. Don’t shoot unless you have to, or I say so.” She looked into Kitty’s eyes and said gently, “I’m sorry, Kitty. This was not how your first assignment was meant to turn out.”

  “I’ll be fine, missis. I promise.”

  “No one is ever ‘fine’ after their first time, Kitty,” Mrs. Singh replied. “So when this is all finished, we are going to sit down and talk about everything, do you understand?”

  Kitty bobbed her head. It was much easier than speaking at the moment.

  Mrs. Singh led them inside the building, to the front office. They were met by another unfamiliar man dressed in street clothes, like the men in the parking lot. He raised his gun the moment he saw them.

  Mrs. Singh was faster. She shot twice, and the man fell.

  There were other bodies on the first floor, all Orchestra agents and security personnel. Faces that Kitty recognized. People she knew, more or less. They were dead now because of Smythe.

  Tears stung Kitty’s eyes and an overwhelming pressure began to form inside her skull. This was too much to think about. Too much to look at.

  So she didn’t look. She just kept going, following Mrs. Singh and Verity down the stairs into the basement. The guard on duty by the door was dead too. He had a shotgun across his knees, and he had fired it. Another one of Smythe’s men was lying at the foot of the stairs. Kitty stepped over him and forced herself to keep breathing.

  There was some mercy in it being so early in the day. Not many people had been in the building yet, which was good because Smythe’s men had gone through quickly and violently. Kitty didn’t look at the bodies. They became blank places in her field of vision. She saw everything else but them. She couldn’t look at them, so they weren’t there.

  Except that they were there.

  A few more of Smythe’s men appeared from the radio room. Mrs. Singh shot them without a moment’s hesitation. They passed an office where another man was busy planting documents in the desk. Mrs. Singh shot him too, as he reached for his gun.

  It was terrifying how easily Mrs. Singh could do that, but it did grant Kitty some measure of comfort. These men were horrible and wanted to murder them, and to blame them for all sorts of terrible things. At least Mrs. Singh was a shield against their plans.

  As they neared the armory, Kitty heard more gunfire. She peeked around the corner and saw the man called MacIntyre and two of his soldiers lurking on either side of the armory door, firing half-blindly into the room.

  “You can’t keep this up forever!” MacIntyre shouted. “Drop your guns and we won’t kill you.”

  Kitty heard Saul shout back, “I have a better idea! You drop your guns and I won’t kill you! You bleeding bastard!”

  Saul’s voice sounded ragged with pain, but it still thundered just as Kitty remembered it. MacIntyre scowled and looked at one of his men.

  “Give me a grenade,” he ordered. “Think they can barricade themselves in there? I’ll get them out.”

  The other man removed a hand grenade from inside his coat pocket, but then he hesitated and looked down at it. “Sir, there’s kids in there,” he said.

  Kitty gasped and then bit her lip to silence herself. Kids. That meant at least some of the Young Bloods were with Saul. He must have brought them to the armory to protect them, only now they were all going to die anyway.

  “So?” MacIntyre demanded.

  “I didn’t sign up to kill no kids, sir.”

  “You signed up to follow orders!” MacIntyre shouted. “Now give me the damn grenade!”

  Mrs. Singh looked at Verity and held up her hand. Verity nodded, and Mrs. Singh slowly counted down on her fingers. Five. Four. Three. Two.

  “Shite, who’re you?” exclaimed someone in the hallway behind them.

  Kitty looked and saw another one of MacIntyre’s soldiers approaching from the direction of Mr. Pryce’s office. He had an empty valise in his hand. More documents being planted.

  Kitty started to panic. What was she to do? She couldn’t bring herself to shoot someone again, not so soon. The thought was unbearable. But here was a man who wanted them all dead, and he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

  He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot once he had drawn his gun. It was still holstered, since his hands were full with the valise.

  “On your knees!” Kitty shouted at him. She braced her pistol and made sure that she had good form, to make it clear she knew what she was doing. It didn’t convince her, but hopefully it would convince him. “’Ands back of your ’ead! Get on your knees!”

  “Ah, shite,” the man cursed, but he did as he was told, dropping the valise and slowly kneeling on the ground.

  “’Ands on your ’ead!” Kitty repeated.

  The ma
n laced his fingers together and put them behind his head, still swearing under his breath.

  From the direction of the armory, Kitty heard MacIntyre’s voice: “Bollocks, what’s that?”

  Mrs. Singh and Verity dashed into the hallway in front of the armory and Kitty lost sight of them. There was another burst of gunfire, and then silence.

  “Mrs. Singh?” Kitty called fearfully. Who had shot, and who had been shot?

  Mrs. Singh poked her head around the corner. “We’re fine, Kitty. Bring our new friend along, will you?”

  Kitty nodded. She turned back to her prisoner. “On your feet,” she snarled.

  The soldier got up slowly, still keeping his hands on his head. Kitty nodded toward the armory, and the man went. As he passed her, Kitty was certain he meant to jump her, but he looked at her gun again and went peacefully.

  In the next hallway, Kitty saw MacIntyre on the ground, bleeding from gunshots in his leg and his arm. Another man had fallen, and the third had surrendered. Verity took charge of the prisoners, shouting commands at them.

  “Hands up, against the wall! You’ve just shot a bunch of my friends, so don’t get any clever ideas!”

  Kitty rushed past and went into the armory. A metal table had been upended and set facing the door, offering some measure of cover against MacIntyre’s bullets. Crouched on the other side of it was Saul, holding a revolver. Boxes of ammunition were scattered on the ground around him. Debby was huddled next to her uncle, with two more revolvers in her lap. She was in the midst of reloading one of them, and she relaxed at the sight of Kitty.

  “Kitty! Oh, I thought we were done for!” she exclaimed.

  Saul chuckled. He was bleeding from the side, but he flashed a smile at Kitty. “Miss Granger, very nice to see you. How are you this morning?”

  “Now is not a time for jokes, sir!” Kitty exclaimed.

  Saul grunted. “Nonsense. Always a good time for jokes.” He glanced at the pistol in her hand. Kitty still held it at the ready, with the barrel pointed down since she wasn’t planning on shooting. “Good to see you remember your discipline under pressure.”

  There was another upended table farther back, and as the room grew quiet, Kitty saw Faith, Tommy, and Liam get up from their hiding place. They all looked shocked by their ordeal, and equally relieved that it was over.

  “Kitty? Is that you?” Faith cried, rushing to join her. “And Mrs. Singh? Oh, thank God!”

  “I’m here as well!” Verity shouted from the hallway.

  “You a’right?” Kitty asked Faith. She looked at Tommy and Liam as they joined her too. There were a few scrapes and bruises, but they all looked unhurt.

  “Yeah, thanks to Saul and Debby,” Liam said.

  “I tell ya, Kitty, that man’s a bloody tiger or somethin’!” Tommy said.

  Saul grimaced as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get up. “This? This is nothing. Let me tell you about Arnhem . . .”

  Debby sighed with exasperation. “Oh, shut up, Uncle Saul! You’re bleeding!”

  “Here, let me help,” Liam said. He grabbed a first-aid box from a shelf and knelt by Saul.

  Mrs. Singh crouched next to Saul and rested an arm on the table. “How are you doing?”

  “Better than the chap who gave me this, that’s for sure,” Saul answered.

  “What happened?” Mrs. Singh asked.

  “Bunch of bastards got in upstairs, then forced their way down here. I got the kids to the armory and covered their retreat, and, well . . .” Saul looked down at his wound. “You’ve seen what happened. What is going on?”

  The others gathered around, eager for an explanation.

  “It’s Sir Richard Smythe,” Mrs. Singh explained. “Our suspicions were correct. He and Lord Lowell are plotting to attack the government today.”

  “How?” Debby asked. “What, like this? Like what they did here?”

  “They’re gonna use bombs,” Kitty said. “If their MPs are the only ones still alive, they’ll control the government.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Liam looked flabbergasted. “No one will stand for it.”

  Mrs. Singh shook her head. “We’ve seen the plans. They’ll blame us for the attack—declare a state of emergency, martial law—and then bang goes British democracy.”

  Debby looked confused. “Blame us?”

  “That’s what this attack were about,” Kitty explained. “Plantin’ evidence that we was the ones behind the attack. Or will be the ones, I guess. Claim it’s a Communist uprisin’.”

  Mrs. Singh stood up again and began rummaging through the supply of ammunition. “So,” she said, “we’re off to Westminster to stop them. I had hoped we could get some backup here, but you all have your hands full.”

  “I could come with if you really want,” Saul offered. Even Kitty knew it was a joke. Saul gestured at his side wound. “Just the thing to walk off this damn gunshot.”

  Mrs. Singh gave him a stern look. “That’s enough, Saul. Debby, call in reinforcements. Let’s get this place locked down. And I want the prisoners interrogated. I want to know how deep this conspiracy goes.”

  “Or how high,” Faith added. “How did they know to come here?”

  “The Old Man’s in on it,” Kitty said.

  “Bloody ’ell,” Tommy murmured. While the others gaped in disbelief, he set his face into a determined expression. “Look, you can’t do this alone, Mrs. Singh. I’m comin’ with ya.”

  “Me too,” Faith interjected. “I may not be a fighter, but I’ve got my basic training, and a handbag full of gadgets, so that must count for something.”

  Kitty grinned at her, feigning a jaunty attitude that she didn’t actually feel. “That’s a lot better ’n me. I don’t even ’ave the ’andbag.”

  Chapter 26

  Given the state of things, they had to wait until reinforcements arrived at the Orchestra before moving against Smythe. It just wasn’t safe leaving a handful of injured people to secure the entire facility. Every minute that passed was agony to Kitty.

  She sat against the wall in the armory, pretending the be studying the map of Parliament, while most of the time she just let her mind turn in circles to work out the tightly coiled mass of stress and fear. Memories of the bodies kept resurfacing no matter how hard she tried to keep them at bay, and all of them had the face of the man she had killed. There was just no escaping it.

  Three agents arrived within an hour of the call. George Harman was one of them. The crusty old security guard turned ashen-faced at the sight of the bodies, and Kitty heard him confide to Mrs. Singh that he wished he had been there. Better he had been the one shot than the young fellow who’d been on duty at the time. Harman’s guilt was palpable, and shared by the other survivors. Kitty practically tasted it.

  By midmorning, headquarters was sufficiently secure enough for Mrs. Singh to leave. Parliament would be sitting soon, so there was no question that the bombs would be in place by now. Smythe would surely be in the area, ready to oversee detonation himself.

  Mrs. Singh was at first resistant to letting the Young Bloods accompany her, but finally she had to accept that with the prisoners to worry about and the danger of another attack on the orchestra, Harman and his men had to remain at headquarters. Debby and Liam stayed too: Debby to call up their contacts in the security services and alert them to the threat, and Liam to tend the wounded—including Saul, who was still grumbling about being left behind. Mrs. Singh’s backup could only come from Kitty, Verity, Faith, and Tommy.

  They took an unmarked van to the Palace of Westminster. Kitty sat between Faith and Verity, with her hands tucked between her knees so that no one could see her fingers tapping against each other. Not that anyone was paying attention to her. Faith was busy organizing her “handbag of gadgets”—really, a large satchel filled with whatever equipment she’d been able to grab before they left—while Mrs. Singh, Tommy, and Verity were discussing what was to be done when they arrived.

  “We can’t very well storm i
n with guns blazin’, can we, Mrs. Singh?” Tommy asked.

  Mrs. Singh frowned. “No, Tommy, we certainly cannot.”

  “Take the pistols and hope for the best?” Verity offered.

  “If we get caught, we’ll be detained,” Mrs. Singh said matter-of-factly. “And if the worst happens, that will be confirmation of Smythe’s lies. We need to be inconspicuous.”

  After a long time of silence, Kitty found her voice. “Smythe’s gonna have soldiers with ’im. We can’t be empty ’anded. Is there any quiet way of doin’ it?”

  Faith’s eyes turned wide and she rummaged through her satchel. In the process, she pulled out several unmarked bottles and handed them to Kitty. Kitty just took them without protest. She often did important, frantic things without explanation. Why should she complain if someone else did too?

  “Well, I’ve got chloroform,” Faith said, holding up yet another bottle for Mrs. Singh to see. “Will that help?”

  “That’s perfect, Faith.” Mrs. Singh made a face, both gratified and exasperated at the same time. “To think that I’m reduced to fighting fascists with chloroform . . .”

  By the time they arrived at the Houses of Parliament, the team had formulated a plan for entry. To avoid attention, they went in through a side door pretending to be maintenance staff, which would help them avoid any awkward questions about their presence in the basement. Once underground, they moved with as much stealth as possible. If weapons fire happened down here, it would draw unwanted attention and risk everything.

  As they neared the maintenance room beneath the House of Commons, Kitty spotted a pair of armed men standing guard near a crossroads in the passageways.

  She made a hissing noise to get everyone’s attention, and pointed. Nobody seemed to find the hiss odd, probably assuming it was to preserve secrecy, but really she was having a little trouble forming words at the moment. They kept getting lost in the maelstrom inside her head, and it was better not to say anything than to say the wrong thing.

  “Chloroform,” Mrs. Singh muttered. She held out her hand to Faith, who handed her the bottle. Mrs. Singh pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and wet it with the chemical. Then she slowly advanced on the men.