Girl Who Fell 1: Behind Blue Eyes. Offbeat Brit spy series-cum-lesbian love triangle. Killing Eve meets female James Bond meets Helen of Troy returns (HAIL THE QUEEN series)

by Raechel Sands

  ‘First world problems,’ said Blanka unhelpful y. ‘Compared to what many others face.’

  After several minutes of what seemed like universal darkness, the lights came back on. In seconds, the shops and the Children’s Hospital came back to life; followed by the honking of car horns as the traffic lights shone red and green once more. In the distance, alarms began to howl.

  Nearby felt her gold-color iPhone vibrate back to life. She glanced from it to the Irish Filofax in her bag.

  I’ll make a note of this power outage, she thought. Just in case it’s important!

  She loved being one of Blanka’s team, the Iceni crew! And she

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  had great respect for the KGB-trained Sokol, Blanka’s second-in-command. If Sokol had been running the unit, she would have drowned Felicity in the river, rather than let her become an AI. Sokol was going to kil her before she could marry Jude, but Blanka stopped her.

  And I was supposed to keep Felicity from becoming OhZone 7…

  Nearby tried to make light of her failure. But she was hit by the irony. For 40 days and nights, the gay black Dr Oxberry, who no one ever had a bad word for, laboured to transform a self-confessed racist, anti-Semite—who despised everything he and Blanka stood for—into a super-woman.

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  The Fifth Option

  I have been asked whether in the years to come it will be possible to kill forty million American people in a single night. The answer is yes.

  1945, JULIUS ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

  ‒ FATHER OF THE NUCLEAR BOMB

  The next day.

  Castle Moncus, Dorset.

  A midst heavy snowfal, Blanka mounted her favorite stallion, Caesar, an eight-year-old white Lusitano her brother Will had given her for her thirtieth. Waving goodbye to Sokol, she turned her back on Poole Harbour, and rode off towards Castle Moncus.

  A bronze short-sword swinging at her side was a humorous gift Professor Hart had given on her last birthday, having dug it from the shal ow seabed off the coast of England. Underneath her quilted Barbour, Blanka wore a T-shirt adorned with the PADI logo and the words Dive Master Instructor; but at her col arbone hung a different badge, a kidney dialysis cannula leading to a Dacron cuff.

  MI6 ran Castle Moncus (‘monk castle’) as a training facility for Intelligence officers and special forces.

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  Its original inhabitants, the monks of its name, had tirelessly made copies of the original 1215 Magna Carta, drafted by Cardinal Langton to make peace between the Barons and King John. The castle stil bore the scars of a brutal siege during the later English Civil War, the missing pieces of battlement testimony to the effectiveness of 17th century cannonbal s.

  Caesar’s hoofs clattered over the castle’s wooden drawbridge as two Royal Marines sentries raised the barrier and saluted.

  Blanka saluted back and eased Caesar to a walk. She wiped a strand of hair from her face, and brushed off some snow.

  Looking at the flakes, she asked Hebe:

  Is this the eerie kind?

  No, answered Hebe, normal structure and behaviour.

  Looking across the courtyard, Blanka saw the six-foot-eight tal captured Russian spy, Andrei Petrov. He had resisted MI6’s year-long grilling before he was handed over to OhZone, and now he acted as Blanka’s groom.

  Blanka slipped her boots from the stirrups, reined her horse to a halt, and vaulted from the saddle. Landing skilful y in the snow, she handed Petrov her riding crop, and had started towards the castle keep when her left knee suddenly buckled.

  She quickly regained her balance and looked at Petrov.

  ‘You didn’t see that.’

  The Russian bowed his head slightly and fed back to Blanka the words she had impressed upon him during his interrogation.

  ‘Warrior, know thyself.’

  A bulky Marines Sergeant Major escorted Blanka to the vaulted stone banquet hall that served as a conference room. C sat regal y, surrounded by his captains, signing orders using his special green ink.

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  As Blanka entered, C didn’t look up, but the six other men looked at her, and fel silent. Her reputation was daunting to say the least. With 94 wet jobs on the MI6 records, her standing as the premier assassin in Western Intel igence was unchal enged.

  Then there were those hits for the CIA and OhZone that MI6

  didn’t know about. Then there was the complete absence of bodies.

  ‘Good afternoon, directors and Miss Banks,’ Blanka said.

  The directors had titles in line with MI6’s names policy. The oldest, Devices—a silver haired lady past retirement age—ruled the realm of technical innovations, gadgets and the quartermaster’s stores. She looked up from the agenda, and smiled at Blanka.

  The youngest man, Bantu (Africa Desk), normal y never short of a joke, took a step back as Blanka approached the table.

  ‘Hel o, darling,’ said Bio, the most junior director. ‘Worked up a sweat, have you?’

  C’s personal assistant, known only as Miss Banks, poured Blanka tea, and handed her a cup and saucer.

  ‘How was the going?’ she asked.

  ‘Hard underfoot,’ answered Blanka, as she hopped onto the boardroom table between Devices and Bio.

  Devices was reading a magazine article celebrating 2015’s 800 year anniversary of Magna Carta, and the role Castle Moncus had played in it. Miss Banks handed Blanka a copy.

  Reaching into her self-designed Iceni purse, she took out a bag of Lindor dark chocolate balls and offered them to Miss Banks and Devices, before taking a couple herself.

  As Blanka swung her booted legs back and forth, Bio examined the turquoise inlays on the hilt of Blanka’s short-sword, and Blanka noticed the powder-coated lipstick the 40-year-old was wearing.

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  With an adroit wave of her hand, Bio conjured one of the chocolate bal s from behind Blanka’s ear.

  ‘If you keep eating chocolates,’ she whispered, ‘you’ll turn into one.’

  She popped the chocolate into Blanka’s mouth.

  ‘Mm,’ said Blanka. ‘And I suppose you wouldn’t mind licking me, and eating me up then.’

  As C glared at the pair across the table, Bio leaned in closer.

  ‘He’s not been getting any Felicity,’ she said.

  Blanka grinned, and Bio took a Lindor and popped it on to her own tongue.

  As the wait continued, an E minor guitar strum Blanka’s grandfather had taught her 10-year-old self drifted through her head. America’s A Horse With No Name always made her smile, as she thought of spies and disguises and the ocean.

  She recalled that the composer, Dewey Bunnel , had once explained to her that Horse was ‘a metaphor for a vehicle to get away from life’s confusion to a quiet, peaceful place.’

  The sudden laughter of two men echoing in the castle corridor outside the room made it apparent to everyone that Jude Robinson was briefing his superior, Russia. They all knew Russia’s laugh, and his sense of humour. The tab going through Blanka’s head was interrupted by Miss Banks, an octave higher.

  ‘Blanka.’

  Blanka looked at her, then past her to Russia as he walked into the conference room.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Blanka said, bursting out laughing.

  Russia nodded to the four women and approached her.

  ‘I wanted to check if you were paying attention.’

  ‘You got my attention alright,’ said Blanka. ‘An English cricket box if I’m not mistaken?’

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  ‘Very good,’ smiled Russia, as Miss Banks passed him a cup of tea. ‘Lead-lined and polonium-proof. Devices knocked it up for me.’

  Blanka was the only person present with AI vision—enabling her to do many useful things, and a few embarrassing ones.

  She could see into the bottom
of her handbag from the outside, see through doors, and so on. But she could also see through people’s clothes (and inside their bodies). Russia’s little joke was based on the fact that Blanka’s AI vision could not see through a lead-lined cricket box.

  Probe, the male Director of Interrogation, was chairing this meeting. He now approached them, patting his pockets. He was the eldest director after Devices and shared with her a certain mellowness that age brought to some. In fact, undi-agnosed and untreated, he was experiencing severe neural symptoms of Stage 3 Lyme Disease. Seeing Blanka’s short-sword, he tapped his old-time MI6-issue sword-stick.

  ‘You can’t beat a good blade. May I?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Blanka replied, handing him the short-sword.

  ‘An ancient weapon,’ he said admiringly.

  ‘Bronze,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, a truly sophisticated blade.’ He ran his finger careful y along the edge. ‘Celtic Is It?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blanka. ‘A present from my stepfather.’

  ‘It looks like it’s seen some action.’

  With a flourish, Probe feigned a couple of thrusts, and the others laughed. Flipping the sword around, and returning it to Blanka, he nodded in the direction of Russia’s cricket box.

  ‘In the light of today’s agenda, I think I may be needing Russia’s cricket box!’

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  From across the table, C reminded Probe:

  ‘We’re not here to admire Miss Maguire’s outfit, can we start?’

  Probe turned to Devices.

  ‘I seem to have left my reading glasses at H.Q. Wonderland.’

  Handing Probe her pair of half-eye reading glasses, Devices shook her head.

  ‘You need looking after.’

  Having donned the borrowed glasses, Probe wandered to the front of the banquet hal , waved his copy of the agenda and cleared his throat. The meeting had official y begun.

  At the front was a wall-mounted blackboard labelled, Top Secret: Novichok Metapox Weapon for Britain.

  While the Intel igence services of al nations had embraced state-of-the-art Comms, Probe and C stil recognized the value of media that could be erased completely without leaving a trace (chalk), or swal owed whole (rice paper).

  As Miss Banks dimmed the lights, a yel ow microbe, long and coiled—the Metapox host cel —shimmered on a projec-tion screen. It was labelled in Russian, with the English translation:

  Spirochaeta grininensis.

  Probe looked over the half-eye glasses at those around the table, pausing to catch the eye of each in turn. Slowly they stopped talking.

  ‘Novichok Metapox, gentlemen,’ Probe said in his best official voice.

  ‘And ladies,’ cal ed out Bio, raising her eyes at Devices.

  ‘And Queen Boudica,’ Probe added with a chuckle. ‘She’s an OhZone AI, but I assume we can stil consider her a lady.’

  Blanka shot to her feet in sprightly fashion, and took a bow.

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  ‘Get on with it,’ C barked at Probe.

  Bio cued the projector, and another electron micrograph slide came up. This showed the host cel s fil ed with four species of virus, label ed in Russian and translated by her.

  ‘Chemical weapons and nerve agents are old hat,’ said Probe. ‘This Novichok Metapox is the ultimate uber-warfare agent. Explain the science please, Bio.’

  Bio reeled off her part of the presentation while Probe drummed his sword-stick in time.

  ‘The Novichok Institute in Moscow (tap) took Japanese World War Two (tap) cell-wall-deficient (tap) virulent spirochete bacteria (tap).

  Bio turned to Probe, and the tapping stopped.

  ‘The bril iant team,’ she concluded, ‘of Grigori Grinin and Clyde Carlos genetical y modified the DNA to code for tiny airborne spirochete-cysts. These can be sprayed from a perfume bottle, infecting everyone, on contact, with four lethal viruses.’

  ‘Thank you, Bio. One virus is none other than our old friend, smal pox,’ Probe said excitedly, tapping the smal pox DNA with the sword-stick. ‘As Bio has explained to us before and most of you should know, just a dozen contaminated perfume bottles wil spread Metapox in a few months: through an entire nation!

  The four virus strains lie dormant—until activation by the high-frequency signal—when the host cel s rupture, releasing the viruses and kil ing the population in…’

  ‘24 to 48 hours,’ confirmed Bio.

  ‘What’s this W.M.D.’s* kill rate?’ asked Asia, the British Indian director of the Asia Desk. [* Weapon-of-Mass

  -Destruction]

  ‘99.5 to 100 percent,’ answered Bio.

  ‘In short,’ Probe flatly declared, ‘the population of a whole nation can be infected and then held to ransom, under threat of death.’

  Silence fol owed his words.

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  ‘To counter this threat,’ Probe continued, nervously toying with the glasses, ‘we have in our custody the Nobel Laureate, former head of the Novichok Institute, and inventor of Metapox, Major Grigori Grinin.’

  ‘He’s not in our custody. He’s our guest,’ interjected Asia.

  ‘Oh, yes. So he is,’ admitted Probe, laughing. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘He’s in our hands. That’s the main thing,’ growled C to Miss Banks, as she poured him more tea and added his sweetener pil s.

  ‘Yes, wel ,’ continued Probe. ‘We want him to manufacture Novichok Metapox for Britain–’

  ‘And our NATO al ies,’ interrupted Asia.

  ‘Of course,’ Probe acknowledged, glancing sideways at C, his expression and voice unchanged.

  ‘Our intent is to manufacture it as a deterrent to those who might use it against us. And to this end we have spent a bil ion pounds—from the secret funds—on the most sophisticated microbiology laboratory in the world.’

  ‘ Biology Farm,’ said Devices.

  Bio smiled, coldly.

  ‘Its name is Facility Q.’

  ‘Why is it under the Channel Islands?’ asked Asia, closing the cover of a Her Majesty’s Government folder (color: red).

  FACILITY Q (ISLAND OF JERSEY) — TOP SECRET

  Release is Liable to Cause Considerable Loss of Life or International Diplomatic Incidents

  ‘Not - relevant,’ said C. ‘Move on, Chairman.’

  ‘I mean, what’s Jersey ever done to deserve this lethal accolade?’ insisted Asia. ‘We’re going to make the deadliest weapon in human history right underneath it?’

  Probe looked sheepishly at Asia.

  ‘Wel , so far, Major Grinin hasn’t made anything. As a result,

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  we are left with three options.’

  He twirled a whiteboard. In his professorial voice, he read the three options. The first, The Five Techniques, he identified as the methods developed on IRA detainees in Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Agreement.

  The second option— C’s Method—he described as similar to the first, ‘but with a lot more blood.’

  Comments and sardonic laughter ran around the table, and C glared at Probe.

  ‘These are harsh times,’ C announced, holding up his hand.

  ‘And harsh times require harsh actions. My methods are born out of necessity. We are al Crown Servants. As a loyal servant of the Queen, I don’t hesitate to get my hands dirty when the situation cal s for it.’

  Blanka smouldered, and she could see the anger behind Russia’s calm exterior: the mask of a seasoned diplomat.

  While C’s supporters nodded their assent, there was a knock on the door. Relieved, Miss Banks got up and answered it.

  The Sergeant Major who had escorted Blanka stood in the doorway—with a coffee trolley. Miss Banks nodded to him, and turned to Russia.

  ‘Did you order coffee?’

  Russia smiled at her, ‘Yes, I did.’

  Miss Banks stepped aside, and the Sergeant Major pus
hed the trolley into the banquet hal . As he turned to leave, C

  suddenly pointed at a bowl of mints on it.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, recalling a recent board meeting when he’d sucked his favourite mints only to foam at the mouth because they’d been replaced with denture cleansers. ‘Remove the mints.’

  ‘Look,’ said Probe. ‘They’re polos: “the mint with the hole in.” ’

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  ‘I don’t care what they are,’ said C. ‘Have a chocolate biscuit instead.’

  The Sergeant Major lifted the bowl of polos, and left with it.

  Bio and Devices chuckled, as they described the humorous episode to Blanka. Probe munched happily on a bourbon cookie until C dug him in the ribs. He coughed at Devices.

  ‘The mints incident is not real y the concern of OhZone.’

  Probe returned to his whiteboard, and pointed to the next heading: Blanka’s Method.

  ‘We now turn to our third and final option. Though I cordial y disagree with OhZone 4 on many subjects, her soft interrogation techniques do yield remarkable results.’

  ‘Remarkable and fast,’ put in Devices.

  ‘Col eagues,’ Blanka cal ed out as she stood back from the table. ‘Although I’m grateful for your recognition of OhZone’s successes, I will not participate in a plan that increases the amount of Novichok in the world.’

  A buzz went around the room. C dramatical y rose from his position at the table.

  ‘Queen Boudica,’ he asked with exaggerated dignity, ‘Do I take it you won’t interrogate Grinin?’

  Blanka turned to Devices, Bio and Miss Banks, and mouthed the words ‘Excuse me.’

  Then she turned back to C.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said softly.

  C, pretending not to hear, grimly smiled back.

  ‘Chemical and germ warfare is banned by all civilized countries,’ Blanka continued. ‘Everyone here knows that.’

  ‘It’s for protection,’ Probe added, attempting to defuse the situation. ‘We wouldn’t actual y use the Novichok. Your methods

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  are formidable,’ he pleaded. ‘You had Petrov eating out of your hand after a few days at your torture farm –’

  ‘It’s referred to as animal farm,’ Devices interrupted.