I hear the van door open. A heavy foot falls.
Breathe slow. I make my mouth a little “o,” concentrate on controlling each exhalation.
Footsteps move away from me. Four, five, six. They stop.
I grip my gun in both hands, the cold wet barrel pressed to the tip of my nose. Like I’m praying to the god of gunslingers.
The footsteps stop, reverse direction, come closer. Four, five, six. As quietly as I can, I thumb back the hammer on the pistol. More steps. Seven, eight, nine. Still coming. I can hear a slight motorized whine with each one. Ten, eleven, twelve. They stop.
I stop breathing. Slowly, so slowly I stretch out my arms, point the gun at the corner of the van.
Get back in, bastard. Get back in.
A woman’s voice comes from the van. Someone calling to the figure in the street. An incomprehensible stream of Russian syllables.
“Come back, Leo. There’s no one there.”
I stare in horror at my pocket. What sort of hellspawn put a microphone with the sensitivity of a hummingbird in this bloody thing? Who would do that?
I hear the scuff of the man’s heels. I take a step backward, brace to pull the trigger.
A flash of light, like a camera going off. Then my world spins. I stagger.
Behind me. Someone just hit me from behind. But he… Did the woman climb out of the van?
Groggy, I spin, bring up the gun. But I’m just staring into a flash of light.
Another blow. From the right this time. From down back the way I’d come. And how many of the bastards are there? How long have they been watching me?
I spin again. A foot crashes into my kidneys. I stagger, go down on all fours. I try to hold onto the gun but it spills from my hands. I watch it scatter uselessly away.
A cold hand grabs my chin. Cold like the barrel of my gun against my nose. It heaves me up, an unforgiving grip on my jaw, lifting me to my knees, my feet.
A man in his forties. Good-looking. Elegant Slavic features. Straw-blond hair matted to his scalp by rain. Disgust in his eyes.
He pushes me back, and I fall. I land on my arse in a puddle. My hands grind against the blacktop. Everything is spinning.
The Russian, Leo I heard him called, says something I don’t understand.
“You think you are clever?” asks the phone.
Not particularly, no.
Another question in Russian.
“You think you have us now?” the phone translates. “I do not think you are clever, little British man. I do not think you have us, little spy.” The Russian takes another step towards me. Still talking.
I scrabble towards my gun.
“I think you are dead,” says the phone.
I’m beginning to think that Coleman’s phone is as big an arsehole as he is.
THIRTY-ONE
The Russian reaches me before I reach my gun. His boot in my gut once more. I grab onto the limb, try to haul myself up. He shakes me off—a deft punch to my sternum that makes me wheeze. I stagger back. My gun is still yards away. The Russian steps between me and it. I ball my fists.
The Russian grins, takes a step back, beckons to me with one hand. And I don’t need the phone to translate that cocky little gesture. Come on then, if you think you’re hard enough.
And screw this guy. Screw all these Russians, and their superior fucking attitude. Winston trod on one of you bastards. I’m going to do the same.
All the fear, and pain, and exhaustion of the day, I ball it all into my fists. I crush it between my hands. And I swing. Because, yes, you Russian bastard, I think I’m hard enough.
And I swing. And I miss.
He’s not there. There’s a flash of light and my fist flies through empty space. He’s simply not there. I stumble forward into abandoned space.
And then a blow out of nowhere. Hard knuckles colliding with the side of my head, sending me staggering.
I spin, and he’s there. Where he wasn’t. Grinning at me. And fuck. This. Guy. I lower my shoulder, charge.
A flash of light. A bright-blue line from van to man, and then I’m sprawling through empty space, tripping and slipping. I splash down, grind my chin against the blacktop. He’s not there.
His foot crashes into my ribs. I fold in around his boot, fail to absorb the blow. Another. Another.
I manage to pull myself together enough to spin my legs at him. Not really a kick. A kick’s inbred cousin. But again—an electric blue flash, a spark from car to man, and I strike air.
His boot comes in again, again. I make it to all fours. I can’t see. Water and blood in my eyes. His foot catches me in the gut. I’m off the ground. Smacking down. Hands and knees. My head down. Water filling my nose. Grunting. Waving my arm. Not really a punch. Not much of anything. All I’ve got left is hurting. A flash of light, and the boot comes from the other side. There’s a rhythm to it. Pain. Pain. Pain.
I collapse. The road pressed to my cheek. An unsympathetic shoulder to cry on.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
“Leo,” I can hear the phone in my pocket saying. “Leo. Leo.” Damn thing isn’t even talking to me any more.
“Leo you’ll hurt yourself.”
Wait. He’ll hurt himself? But I’m too concussed to be truly indignant.
“Leo stop it.”
More of that please.
The world has become a very small place. A tiny point of rain and pain that swirls before me. It seems very far away. Each kick knocking me further away, further darkness, until, finally, everything goes black.
THIRTY-TWO
Consciousness returns in strobe flashes. I see the street. It fades. Rain falls. It fades. Hello world. Goodbye world. See you soon. Even the pain sinks into darkness for a while.
Next time I come to, the world is bleached away. Everything brilliant and white. I try to get away from the brightness, but my body won’t respond.
Should I go into the light? Has it come to that already?
“Not as dead as he looks,” says a voice.
Probably stay away from the light for now then.
“Arthur? Arthur?” It sounds like Felicity. It’s nice to know she’s here.
“Alright, alright. Hold your bloody horses.” It’s the first speaker, the one so keen to shine light into my eyes. He sounds familiar but I can’t quite place the voice. “I’ll give him a shot of the jolly juice.”
There is a pinch in my neck. And then the world suddenly grows very bright and very light. My body grows light. I gasp and air, cold and sharp, rushes into me. Fills me. Makes me buoyant. I sit up. Blink. I feel like I’m in the middle of a bubble.
“Calm down. Calm down.” A hand on my chest. “Don’t get bloody carried away.” I look over. A man in a paramedic’s uniform. A tight little face pinched around a needle-like nose.
I’ve seen him before. At the British Museum. The connection feels simple, easy to make. I laugh. “The cleanup crew.”
Felicity is there too. The others. I go to stand up. The hand on my chest grows heavier. I push against it but I can’t make it move. I look quizzically at the cleanup man.
“Look,” he says, “I know you’re all special and a field agent and what have you, but right now you’re on quite a lot of morphine, a fair few amphetamines, a little bit of caffeine, glucose, and a lot of stuff for the swelling. And I know you feel more like superman now than ever, but when you crash it’s not going to feel any better than when this was done to you the first time.
“The jolly juice’ll get you off site and through the debrief. It’ll speed up the healing but it’ll suck you as dry as an ex-wife. Take it easy.” The needle-nosed man rolls his eyes. “Not that you’ll bloody listen to me.”
To be honest I just didn’t. I feel kind of spacey right now. But I nod.
“Alright,” he says, “on your feet.” He reaches out a hand to me. So does Felicity. She looks pensive. I try to give her a reassuring grin.
“I’ll be OK,” I say. She doesn’t reply.
> “Oh,” says a loud voice from behind me, “there he is.” Coleman. He doesn’t sound overly pleased to have found me.
I turn round, look at the little shit. I sneer my contempt at him, but I think the effect is hampered by the dizziness. No matter.
He stands in front of me, chest puffed out. “Well?” he says, “what do you have to say for yourself?”
I blink at him, trying to work out exactly what he means. “Ouch,” I say. In case he is talking about the beating I received.
“Probably want to give him a minute before you start—” the cleanup man says. But Coleman waves a hand at him.
“Hmm?” He peers at me. “What happened, ’ey? ’Ey?”
“Russians,” I say. I say it like he would say it, loud and pompous. See how he likes.
“I know fucking Russians, you imbecile,” Coleman seethes. Apparently he doesn’t like it very much.
“No, no, no.” I shake my head. Then I do it again more gently, because that makes me feel dizzy too. “No. Just one Russian. Leo. Leo the lion. Except he wasn’t a lion. He was just a chap.”
I’m vaguely aware I sound like Clyde, swimming around my subject. I should probably be concerned but it’s kind of funny, and thinking about how it’s funny when it should be concerning is funny too. I snort.
“Might have given him a tad too much,” says the cleanup man.
“Leo,” I say again. “Teleported about. Jumpy, jumpy, jumpy. And he hit me.” I frown. It is not a pleasant memory. “Quite a lot actually.”
Coleman leans in close. His breath is not lovely. “I don’t give a flying fuck what happened to you in this alleyway. Anything that did, you had fucking coming. I want to know what passed between the two neurons you pass off as a functioning brain when you ran from the field of fucking engagement and left your fellow agents to die.”
It feels like someone just burst a balloon in my head.
“You,” I say, looking him right in the eye, “are a shit.”
For a minute I think he’s going to punch me, right there in the street. I’d go down too. I know that much.
Instead he just jams his finger into my chest. Hard. I rock back a step.
“I’m a shit?” he asks. “I’m a shit? Then I’d rather stay one than be a fucking coward.” His finger strikes me again. Pushing me back. “I’d rather be a shit who stood with his men. I’d rather be the shit who didn’t turn and run.” Each statement punctuated with a finger push, with a step backward. “I’d rather be the shit with honor and spine. I’d rather be a shit with agents at his side when the Russians come so I don’t end up alone and bleeding in a London street.”
He’s pushed me back against one wall of the street. I look down at his finger. Up at him.
“I was being chased by a bronze lion, you fuck,” I say to him. Small, petty man that he is. And I bet he’d love to see me torn limb from limb. “And I had a pistol, and itty bitty little bullets that did fuck all.”
“And Clyde?” Coleman doesn’t give me an inch. “What was he going to do?”
“Clyde knows magic! I was buying him time!”
I look around. Clyde stands at the end of the street, arm wreathed in bandages, not meeting my gaze. Tabitha is next to him, matching bandages on her left leg. She does look at me. It’s not the friendliest look she’s ever given.
Devon, at least, has a smile for me, but Kayla, standing behind her, looks like I shit in her porridge.
“And once that was bought?” Coleman stares at me disdainfully. “You thought you’d done your part.”
“Oh, yeah,” I throw up my hands and sway back a step, “I just figured I’d lie down for bit, have a nap.” I look down at the blood on my arms. “You have any idea where all these bruises came from?”
“It’s good to know, Wallace,” Coleman says, “when push comes to shove, whose life you’re really concerned with saving.” There’s a sneer on his face. “Good to see your true colors.”
“Oh go screw yourself, you bloody idiot.”
It is, I realize after about a second’s retrospection, high as I am, not the smartest thing to say. Because no matter how low my opinion is of Coleman, other people with far more power than me have a high one. Or a higher one than they have of me. So Coleman has more power than me. And Coleman is going purple.
“You’re on probation, Wallace,” he says. “Officially. Thirty days to shape up. To contribute. Or you’re out.”
I stare at him. This has to be a joke.
“Felicity?” I say. I look at her. She is standing off to the side, looking concerned, and completely bloody failing to express it. “Felicity!”
Coleman shoves me. Hard. I stagger backwards, only held upright by the wall I collide with. “Fucking her won’t save you now, toy-boy,” Coleman hisses.
I take a swing at him.
Screw it. Screw consequences.
He bats my fist away. It’s a pathetic attempt on my part. I can barely feel my elbow, let alone my fingers.
“He’s on drugs.” Felicity finds her tongue, finally steps in. Too little, too bloody late.
I feel very sober now. “There were Russians,” I say. The pain is starting to leak back in. “Back here. In a van.” Neither Coleman nor Felicity are really looking at me as I say it.
“They were talking about this as a distraction.” Screw this. I’ll do my damn debrief, then I’m out of here. “They were saying this wasn’t important, that something was going on at Big Ben.”
Coleman starts to walk away.
“Nothing’s going on at Big Ben,” Felicity says. “Nothing’s happened there.”
“It’s what they said.” I shrug. I don’t know what she wants to hear. I’m not asking for forgiveness. “They beat the living shit out of me for hearing it.”
“We’ll look into it, Arthur.” She’s still not meeting my eye. I don’t know whether to believe her.
“He teleported, Felicity,” I say. “I know Clyde and everyone says it’s not possible, but I saw it. He wasn’t there when I went for him. When I tried to fight him. He got hit by lightning or something, coming from the van, and then he was somewhere else. Space magic. Time magic. Impossible magic. He was doing it.”
“We’ll look into it, Arthur.” The same flat tone. And she doesn’t believe me. And I don’t believe her.
“It’s the truth.” I can’t make it any plainer. I can’t make it any more convincing. This is what I have to give them.
“OK, Arthur.” She nods. A small woman in a small suit. Hardly Felicity Shaw at all.
God, I’m on drugs, and I’m in pain, and someone should be taking bloody care of me. And instead I’m trying to explain how I did exactly the right bloody thing in the rain. To my girlfriend.
Three days. Three days since I helped save the world. Three days since I snuck into Felicity’s bed. And now she’s watching as I’m put on fucking probation. And I’m sure she has reasons, but right now none of them feel good enough.
I push off from the wall, start walking away. Away from Trafalgar Square. Away from Coleman and Felicity and the whole MI37 crew.
“Where are you going, Arthur?” Felicity asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say. Away. Trying to find the space to put my head back together.
“Come back to the hotel, Arthur. You need to rest.”
“I need…” I hear my voice rising. All my anger and frustration starting to boil up and over. I take a breath. “I need a little while,” I say.
“Don’t drink on it,” calls the cleanup man. “Lot of drugs in your system right now.”
Not enough. Not enough by half.
THIRTY-THREE
I don’t know London. It’s just streets. Just strips of gray stretching off into a rain haze. I walk them. Get lost in them. And it’s good to concentrate purely on taking this left. This right. To feel the litany of directions overwhelm memory, obliterate thought, obliterate what just happened. I just concentrate on getting lost. In this city. In my head.
I push my hands through rain-slick hair, then shove them into my pockets. There’s a piece of paper in one. Another distraction. I pull it out. A phone number. Eleven digits all lined up.
Aiko’s number.
Aiko. The Weekender. And from there it’s just a short step to work. To the absurdity of the last scene. It’s all the fault of that poisonous shit Coleman. Why else would they think I abandoned them? They found me lying down beaten up. It wasn’t like I’d chosen to remain out of action.
And, yes, looking back on it, I can see how it might have looked like cowardice, fleeing the field. How I might have kept on going too long after Clyde removed the danger. But I was running for my life. If I went too far then… I mean, surely that’s bloody understandable.
And seeing that situation wrong isn’t the only mistake they’re making. This isn’t just about a bomb. This isn’t just about the surrender of the West to the USSR. Something else is happening. And they’re not seeing it. I just wish I knew what it was, had enough vision to make it undeniable for them.
I look down at Aiko’s number again. And would she dismiss my theories so completely? Or would she listen?
I shake my head. I need to remember that I’m on a lot of drugs right now. I need to remember that calling this number would be a stupid idea. A really, really stupid idea.
Thirty minutes later
The Lamb and Flag is warm and steamy, full of thawing tourists and locals already five pints into their supper. I remember the cleanup man’s advice and just order a coke and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps.
Aiko looks at me across the table. “Jesus,” she says. “Tell me you got the number of the truck at least.”
She’s wearing jeans and layered T-shirts. She pulls her hair out of a ponytail and peers at the bruises distorting my face. “I’m starting to think you hang with the wrong crowd, Agent Arthur,” she says. “An unsavory bunch.”
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