Executed (Extracted Trilogy Book 2)

by RR Haywood

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, and I said there is no way you are going near her, so Emily is going with me.’

  ‘What?’ Ben asks again. He looks at Harry in the middle room, then back to Safa in her room and blanches at seeing her pulling her top off. ‘Shit, sorry, Safa,’ he turns away quickly.

  ‘What for? I’ve got my bra on. You’re blushing, Ben.’

  ‘I’m not. It’s hot.’ He clears his throat. ‘You sure it’s a good idea?’

  ‘What?’ Safa asks, trying to choose between a black vest and a black T-shirt.

  ‘Taking Tango . . . I mean Emily with you. Out of here, I mean.’

  ‘She gave her word,’ Safa calls back.

  ‘That’s very noble, but she’s a trained agent, Safa.’

  ‘Miri said she can do it. Miri asked her actually. The whore has a phone. Miri doesn’t know if we can take it away, so Emily might need to examine it in situ.’

  ‘Er, why is she a whore again?’ Ben asks. ‘You decent yet?’

  ‘Yep,’ Safa says, holding the vest and T-shirt up.

  ‘Safa!’ Ben says, turning away again at seeing her laughing while still in her bra.

  ‘Twat,’ she chuckles. ‘She’s a whore because Miri said she’s attractive and flirtatious and wanted you to go and speak to her, so like I said . . . I told Miri there is no way anyone like that is going near you.’

  ‘Right,’ Ben says, looking at Harry clearly enjoying himself. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Cos I’ll be jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Safa decides on the black T-shirt and tugs it down over her head. ‘You’re my Ben Ryder, not some other woman’s Ben Ryder.’

  ‘Safa?’ Emily calls out, leaning through the door.

  ‘Ready?’ Safa asks.

  ‘I am,’ Emily says, looking down at herself, then across to Safa. ‘We’re matching.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Draws the eye if we look the same. I thought we had to be covert. Miri said . . .’

  ‘Oh,’ Safa says, looking from herself to Emily, both wearing black T-shirts. ‘Fair one. I’ll change my top . . .’

  ‘Something different to me.’

  ‘This?’ Safa calls out.

  ‘That’s a black vest top.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘No,’ Emily says. ‘Something not black.’

  ‘Something not black,’ Safa repeats, looking round the room at her black clothes. ‘Ben, you’ve got white T-shirts. Can I use one?’

  ‘Er, yeah, sure, hang on,’ Ben says, heading into his room.

  ‘Never been very good with clothes and things,’ Safa tells Emily.

  ‘It’ll be baggy,’ Ben says, walking back with one.

  ‘S’fine, it’ll hide the pistol,’ Safa says, tugging her top off as Ben swears and turns round again.

  ‘You can stop laughing, beardy,’ he mutters, slumping down into the chair next to a chuckling Harry.

  ‘Sharing clothes, eh?’ Harry says. ‘My Ben.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘I told Ben he’s not allowed near attractive, diseased whores,’ Safa says quietly in her room to Emily while pulling the white T-shirt on. ‘He blushing now?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Emily says, leaning out the door to spot Ben’s rosy cheeks.

  ‘That better?’ Safa asks, presenting herself to Emily.

  ‘Fine,’ Emily says. Even in just a baggy white T-shirt and jeans, Safa looks stunning. ‘Leave your hair down,’ she adds quickly as Safa goes to tie it back. ‘Looks more natural.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Safa asks.

  ‘Looks fine,’ Emily says. ‘Your hair is lovely.’

  ‘Needs cutting. Haven’t touched it in, like, six months.’

  ‘I can trim a bit for you later.’

  ‘Yeah? Cheers. Think I’ve got split ends. Is that a split end?’

  ‘Show me . . . Yep, it’s fine though. We’ll just take a bit off. So where are you putting the pistol?’

  ‘On my belt at the back.’

  ‘Turn round,’ Emily says, looking down at the hem of the T-shirt in relation to the waistline of the jeans. ‘Should be okay.’

  ‘We’re off,’ Safa says, coming out of her room.

  ‘Safa, you sure about this?’ Ben asks, lifting his head from his hands.

  ‘Be fine. Miri’s coming with us too.’

  ‘Is Emily going to be armed?’ Ben asks.

  ‘No, I won’t be,’ Emily says before Safa can answer. ‘I gave my word.’

  ‘Maybe me and Harry should come. Like, just be near or something.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Safa says. ‘Come on then, spy lady with the fake name Emily.’

  ‘Emily?’ Ben says as the two women move towards the door. She looks back at him to see his expression has hardened. His gaze on her and her alone. The man who took on five gang members when he was seventeen. The man who attacked the terrorists at Holborn and took the battering from Echo on the landing. She looks to Harry to see the same thing and a hint of the man that lifted Alpha off his feet and brought a German base to its knees.

  ‘I promise,’ she says softly, the words catching in her throat at the subtle, yet staggering sense of threat suddenly conveyed.

  ‘Christ,’ Safa says, looking from Ben to Harry. ‘Silly twats. You’d make me cry if I knew how.’

  ‘Ach,’ Harry says, genial and smiling. ‘My Ben.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Ben groans.

  ‘My Ben,’ Safa laughs, heading out the door.

  Twenty-Two

  ‘So is there anything going on between you?’ Emily asks while they wait in the portal room. Hardly believing she is even asking, or even interested to ask. She is about to go back through the time machine to her own time, after being asked to do so by the woman holding her captive. She should be planning to run or secure the device. She should be doing many things, but right now she is actually really quite interested if Safa and Ben are a couple, and even thinking ahead to later and cutting Safa’s hair.

  ‘Who? Me and Ben?’ Safa asks. ‘Nope. I think we kissed, but . . .’

  ‘You think you kissed?’

  ‘In the ocean. When Ben came back . . . We were sharing an oxygen bottle, and I was breathing for us . . . so I think we kissed . . .’

  ‘Oh,’ Emily says, as though that was the most natural story she has ever heard.

  ‘And, er, this one night . . .’ Safa stops herself. ‘Tell you another time.’

  ‘Ready?’ Miri walks into the room and hands Safa a pistol and spare magazines.

  ‘Ta,’ Safa says. She loads a magazine, checks the safety, then holsters the weapon before presenting her back to Emily. ‘See it?’

  ‘Only just,’ Emily says.

  Miri holsters her own pistol, hidden by the tails of her checked shirt. ‘Get shirts. Easier to conceal a weapon. We’re going in blind. I know the subject’s home address, but not who she lives with. Subject’s name is Clara Jacobsen. We arrive two minutes away in an alleyway during the hours of darkness, but there will be ambient street lighting. We go out the alley. Turn right. Walk down to the junction. Turn left. Walk down to the junction. Turn left. Seventh building. Entrance on the ground floor, white side front. Terraced property. Area looks semi-affluent. That means access to whatever devices are used to summon emergency services. Most urban cities in the western world have a police response time of under four minutes. Is that still the case, Tango Two?’

  ‘Less,’ Emily says. ‘Drones are dispatched with pre-set coordinates. They move fast on a flight plane reserved for their sole use. If anyone calls the police, we can expect eyes on us within two minutes or less.’

  ‘Subject has a phone. She works in a private hospital. Injured persons from the bunker were taken there. Your agents took those males from the clinic. After they left, the female subject used what appears to be a phone to send a message. I want to know who she is communicating with, and what is in that phone.’

  ‘Got it,’ Safa
says.

  ‘Understood,’ Emily says, feeling strangely in work mode, except for the fact she doesn’t work for these people. She works for the British Secret Service.

  The blue light comes on. Mesmerising and shimmering. Emily has seen it before, but still she stares, captivated. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Safa, on point. I’ll take rear. Tango Two middle.’

  ‘Emily,’ Safa says. ‘She gave us her name, so . . .’

  ‘Take point, Miss Patel.’

  Safa takes point, pulling a told-off face at Emily before walking through the light. Emily blinks at the sight of a person disappearing in increments, then bursts out laughing when Safa’s hand comes back through with the middle finger sticking up.

  ‘Go through,’ Miri says.

  ‘Sorry.’ Emily winces at laughing, at looking unprofessional, then worries why she is even concerned at looking unprofessional. A rise in her heart rate as she steps through into an alleyway. Time travel. Instant and without sensation. She spots Safa grinning. This would never happen in the British Secret Service. A joke would never be played, not in training, and certainly never in a live mission. No flippancy. No banter. Just work.

  ‘Ready?’ Miri says, coming out behind her. ‘Move normally. We’re three women walking.’

  The three women walk from the alley into a standard residential, inner-city Berlin street. High buildings. Ornate windows. A transition to dirty, polluted air and the smells of traffic, people, cooking, living. The sounds of a city. Harsh lights overhead.

  Emily feels the jolt of moving from somewhere so pure to a hundred million years in the future. Her head wants to spin, but her mind is set for work. She could run right now and chance it. She could ram an elbow into Safa’s head and just sprint. If she screamed rape or fire, she’d draw attention. She stands a chance at least. Why isn’t she doing it? This is her time. Her world. Do something.

  ‘You okay?’ Safa asks, her eyes narrowing slightly.

  ‘It’s just weird,’ Emily says earnestly.

  ‘I told Greta to tell him to go. She should not be treated like that. Honestly, but she never listens. Just never listens to anyone. Such a stubborn woman.’ Miri comes to life. Her voice animated with pitch, lilt and tone. Her face active to convey the words in fluent German as Safa glances over to a couple walking past on the other side of the road.

  ‘Christ, Miri,’ Safa whispers once the people are gone. ‘Was that German?’

  Emily concedes the expertise shown. The accent was very good, and the delivery and tone were perfect. She spots a man walking towards them. His eyes flicking left to right in that zoned-out way of walking when someone is familiar with the world around them.

  ‘Of course, Greta was the one who had the affair though,’ Emily says in fluent German. ‘I mean, she was treated badly, but she was the cheater, so maybe he should be leaving her, or they could just, you know, work it out and move on . . .’

  ‘Very good,’ Miri says once the man has gone past.

  ‘Look at you two,’ Safa says, nudging Emily with her elbow. ‘Wish I could do that.’

  ‘What other languages can you speak?’ Miri asks Emily.

  ‘French, Spanish, some Arabic dialects, although not well. My Mandarin is good. Cantonese is okay.’

  ‘Russian?’ Miri asks, in Russian.

  ‘Da,’ Emily says. ‘I forgot Russian,’ she adds, in Russian.

  ‘Beautiful language,’ Miri says, in Russian.

  ‘Not as beautiful as English,’ Emily says, in English.

  ‘Clever bastards,’ Safa mutters, wondering if Ben can speak any languages.

  ‘Did you have to learn them?’ Miri asks.

  ‘A second language is essential,’ Emily explains. ‘But I’m lucky. I can take new languages easily . . . Been doing it since I was a child, and of course the intracranial information dumps help enormously.’

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Safa asks.

  ‘Only works for children. Like a skull cap they wear at night that sends information into the brain. My family had an early version. I could speak French by the time I was five, but neither of my parents could speak it.’

  ‘Does it work with everything?’ Miri asks.

  ‘No. Languages are the main thing. Everything else needs context. Maths, sciences . . . core subjects – they all need contextual understanding relative to the world and experiences. Like I said, children work well, but as the body develops, so the thing within the brain ceases to receive the intracranial flow.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Safa mumbles.

  ‘Seventh building on this street,’ Miri says as they turn the corner. Five men ahead walking towards them. Three white. One black. One Arabic.

  ‘Agents,’ Emily whispers, adding a broad grin to Safa, as though in response to something said. She reaches out while chuckling and laughs as she tugs Safa’s T-shirt down at the back, covering the pistol.

  ‘Brits?’ Miri asks, leaning forward to laugh at the joke Safa said that made Emily pull her top down.

  ‘No,’ Emily says, still grinning. ‘Yours. Yanks.’

  ‘Know you?’ Miri chuckles, pointing at Safa’s top.

  ‘No,’ Emily says, pushing her arm round Safa’s shoulders, as though to soften the joke they just made. ‘I am sorry!’ Emily says in German, loud and laughing as she hugs Safa and laughs. ‘It was funny though.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Miri grins, speaking out in fluent German as she looks across at her two friends.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ Emily whispers to Safa. ‘Haha! Your face when I said it. You were, like . . . Did she just say that?’

  Safa does nothing. She doesn’t have to. Emily and Miri take over, both laughing and gabbling in German. She glances ahead to the five men. All hard-looking, but trying to appear normal. To the last, they glance at Safa and smile, but that’s nothing new to Safa. Normally, she would scowl or even tell them to piss off.

  ‘Guten abend,’ Miri says politely as they pass.

  ‘Guten abend,’ Emily calls out, still chuckling from the joke with Safa.

  ‘Gootten aband,’ one of them says in what he thinks is a fluent German accent, but sounds like an American trying to speak German.

  ‘That was an awful accent,’ Emily says quietly.

  ‘Go slower,’ Miri says, risking a glance round.

  ‘How did you know they were Yanks?’ Safa asks.

  ‘Just one of those things. Way they dress and look.’

  ‘Low end,’ Miri states. ‘Berlin must be full of them.’

  ‘We were told it was a new weapon of mass destruction,’ Emily says. ‘Everyone knew something was going on.’

  Why is she saying that? Why is she doing this? They were American agents. She could have shouted for help. They would have responded. Done something. This is not her mission. This is not her job. She has to snap out of this.

  ‘That’s it,’ Miri says, nodding ahead to the seventh building. Lights on inside behind window coverings.

  ‘Take the door,’ Miri says to Emily. ‘Your German is better than mine.’

  Emily falters for a second, trapped between being drawn into this game and desperately trying to remind herself she is not one of them.

  ‘Problem?’ Miri asks.

  ‘No,’ Emily says. It does make sense. Miri’s accent is good, but it carries a trace of American. Emily’s German is perfect, even capturing the imperfections of speech that native Berliners use. She starts forward, staring up at the door.

  ‘Safa is right behind you,’ Miri says with a warning edge to her voice.

  ‘You asked me,’ Emily says, pausing halfway up the set of steps to the front door. ‘I have given you my word . . . and we just walked past five American agents.’

  Emily knocks, and that in itself shows training. The knock is polite and friendly. Three taps. Not too hard. Not spaced apart. The science of showing no threat. She adopts a friendly countenance in case she is being watched through a peephole or camera. Footsteps in
side.

  ‘Movement,’ she whispers, turning her head towards Safa. Neither of them notice Miri drawing her pistol to hold low at her side as she watches the front door.

  The hairs on the back of Safa’s neck prickle. She heard the heavy footsteps too: a solid body wearing big boots on wooden floorboards. Her senses come alive. Her eyes hardening. A very faint metallic click. Safa can’t speak languages. She isn’t good with clothes and hair, but she can bloody tell when a man with a gun is about to open a door.

  ‘Move back!’

  Her hand whips out to wrench Emily away as the door cracks open. Safa hits it hard, ramming it into the face of the man, sending him staggering back as she slips through, weaves to the side and snatches the pistol from his grip while slamming the heel of her right hand into his nose already broken from the impact of the door. She turns as she moves, snatching a view of four men in the front room pointing guns at each other over the head of a woman kneeling in the middle of the floor. Two Asian males. Two Slavic. The woman’s face a mask of mascara, blood and tears. Her clothing torn, livid welts on her face, neck and exposed breasts.

  Emily powers into the hallway behind Safa with an instinct urging her to attack. She spots the man going down and sees his pistol in Safa’s hand.

  No time to think. No time for thoughts. Everything on instinct and gut reaction. Safa pulls the gun from the holster in the small of her back as she spins, and throws the pistol taken from the man to Emily.

  Emily snatches it from the air as she steps through and drops to a knee, aiming at Safa.

  A split second as Safa’s eyes go wide on realising what she just did. A mistake made. An awful, terrible mistake in the heat of the moment, brought on by growing too comfortable with a woman who is a prisoner, not a friend. Her own pistol has too far to travel to aim at Emily. There are armed men behind her. Everything taken in within the blink of an eye.

  Miri saw the pistol being thrown. She saw it as she surged up the steps. She catches a glimpse of Emily aiming at Safa, and four armed men moving quickly. The thrill inside. The thrill of the game. Are the roots strong enough?

  Emily aims and fires. She doesn’t hesitate. She is a trained agent. The bullet leaves the pistol, spinning through the air at a velocity too fast to see. Safa tries to move, but the round whizzes millimetres past her ear to strike the closest one of the four men bringing his aim at Safa.