For King and Country

by Robert Asprin

  How could she not? She was Irish, wasn't she? Reason enough for any self-respecting Brit to hate and distrust her, given the circumstances. By the end of Mylonas' hideous little lecture, every colleague at the table had been shooting her furtive, unhappy little glances. The IRA, those looks said, the IRA's threatening us and ours, and you're by-God Irish. It would have done no good to stand up and say, "You're absolutely right, mates, I'm IRA to my bones, and I'm the only thing standing between you and a disaster so enormous, you can't even comprehend it."

  Admission would only earn her a one-way ticket to prison—and leave the man she'd come here to stop with a free and easy road to success. A very powerful intuition was screaming at Brenna that her enemy—all humanity's enemy—would waste no time, now that the SAS was on the job. It wasn't logical, not even remotely. Logic said he'd simply sit back on his own forged and impeccable credentials and smile while the SAS locked her up. But intuition said otherwise. Intuition whispered, He'll move now and throw blame on you, Brenna, so what are you going to do to stop it, eh?

  She turned the key in the ignition and put the car into a smooth reverse in the crowded carpark, then set out for the lab. Whatever he planned, he would do it tonight. Sitting at the pub all evening with a crowd of eyewitnesses would get her an alibi, but what good was that if he blew the entire future to hell while she earned it? She thought of Terrance Beckett, alone in a silent lab office, working like a fiend to prepare them all for the next trip into time, and shivered.

  There was a gun in her cottage, the most illegal thing she owned, urged on her by her own grandmother, for safety's sake on a mission like this. Not for assassination, no. Her job was to identify the Orange mole, so that others could take him out—under circumstances that would not throw suspicion on the IRA. This was a covert ops job of the most delicate kind ever undertaken by the Irish Republican Army Provisionals and one of the very few where publicity was the very last thing they wanted. Enough to get the job done.

  But the bloody SAS had thrown everyone's timetables into disarray.

  Brenna was torn between the desire to drive back to the cottage to slip the gun into her pocket and the equally powerful desire to drive to the Firth of Forth and throw it into the bay. An impossible situation. It had been from the outset. And dithering about it would do no one any good. Get on with it, she told herself fiercely, hating the tremors in her hands.

  She drove carefully, swinging off the main highway onto the access road, windscreen wipers slapping with futile energy at the downpour hammering the glass, and finally pulled to a halt beside her temporary home, the drab and repulsively ugly cottage assigned to her by Terrance Beckett. None of the others had returned from the pub, yet. Only Beckett's car was visible, in front of his own cottage, the one closest to the main lab building. No way to tell if he were in bed or still working, since the lights in his cottage were off and there were no windows in the lab to reveal a telltale glow.

  She shut off her car and dashed across to unlock the cottage door, wiping water from her face despite the overhang protecting the door from the elements. She switched on a single light and stood irresolute for a moment, gazing bleakly at her belongings scattered through the room. There was less of her personality in this cottage than there had been in her dorm room at University. Old habits, consciously set aside for the move to Dublin and the declaration of independence from the organization she'd finally found the courage to repudiate, had returned to haunt her, as familiar as her own skin and far more disturbing. Brenna's face twisted, half bitter recrimination, half grief. Once Cumann Na Mbann... They had you for life, whether you willed it or no. Insanity, to stand here wishing like hell she'd walked a different road as a girl.

  Pride and hatred. They solved nothing. Unfortunately, neither did walking away from the trouble. God knew exactly how hard she'd tried that. What, then, was the answer, when the other side refused to put down its weapons and be reasonable? When, backed into a political corner and snarling like a wounded dog, the other side viewed your very existence as a threat to their survival? Who could win a war like that? She'd told that SAS captain no more than God's honest truth. Nobody won in Northern Ireland. Brenna slid open the drawer, hands trembling as she gazed down at the gun hidden there.

  A Russian-made 9mm Makarov, sleek and semiautomatic, sixteen centimeters long. Small enough to conceal in a sturdy coat pocket, large enough to pack a lethal punch. Smuggled in from God alone knew where and brought south across the border into Dublin by her own grandmother. And carried in her luggage from Dublin to Scotland, reminder of why she was here and of the ugliness that had erupted once again, threatening her life and her world. 'Tis no answer! Brenna's very soul screamed the protest. Yet what choice did she have? He must be stopped.

  Headlamps flashed past outside the window, sending her eight centimeters off the floor. Her heart thundered into the hollow of her throat. The SAS captain, come to search her rooms? Brenna caught her breath on a ragged gasp and switched off the lamp before slipping over to her window to peer out through the murk and the rain. She knew the car which rolled to a stop at the cottage next to hers, knew the man who climbed out into the raw night, who glanced toward her abruptly darkened window before turning and heading toward the lab, crossing the road at an easy jog. Damn, damn, damn! He was making his move and she was out of position, wasn't ready... And there was no time to call in the Provos team that was supposed to make this hit...

  She stuck the gun into her coat pocket, hands shaking, made sure of her own ID card to get through the security door, headed into the wind and the downpour at a run, slithering through puddles and mud and filth. She had a longer way to run than he'd had, her cottage being farther than his. She fumbled the card at the reader, had to grope through muck to find it, wiped it against her skirt and got it, shaking, through the reader. The door clicked and released and she yanked it open, jerking the gun from her pocket and slipping inside. She slid the Makarov's safety downward with her thumb, ready to fire with a simple double-action, first pull of the trigger. He had a good five-minute lead on her...

  She caught the sharp, coppery smell of death instants before his fist caught the side of her head. Brenna crumpled into blackness, knowing only the terror of defeat.

  * * *

  The telephone shrilled somewhere close to Stirling's ear, shattering sleep and jangling his nerves. He groped in the unfamiliar darkness, fumbling the receiver onto the floor with his wrist cast. He tried to read the time on the bedside clock as he searched along the cord to find the handset again. Bloody murder! Two-thirty a.m.?

  "H'lo?"

  "Captain Stirling!" He didn't recognize the voice.

  "Who is this?" he demanded, coming slightly more awake as the panic in that voice hit home.

  "It's Marc Blundell. Dear God, you have to come at once! We're sending a car for you, there's been a disaster at the lab."

  That woke him up. "What kind of disaster?"

  Blundell gulped, voice shaking. "It's... it's Dr. Beckett. Someone's killed him."

  Oh, sweet Jesus... "Get that bloody car here yesterday!" Stirling was already out of bed and moving. "And for God's sake, no one leaves the building! No one in or out, except me."

  "But—"

  "But what?" He already had his uniform buttoned and was slinging on his gunbelt with the ease of long familiarity.

  "The constables..." Blundell quavered. "We'll have to contact the police—"

  "Like bloody hell you will! Nobody! Got that? Not even the local bobby, not until I've seen everything firsthand!"

  The project liaison gulped audibly over the line. "Yes, sir. Oh, God, please get here quickly! There's more—I daren't say what over an unsecured phone line."

  Stirling snarled under his breath. Worse he did not need. "The car's just pulled up," he muttered as headlamps stabbed past the curtains in his cottage window, sending shadows swinging wildly. "I'll be there in five minutes."

  He grabbed up his field kit, carefully prepared
before leaving London, and ran, lurching on his bad knee. He snatched open the driver's side door. "Move. I'll drive."

  Bad knee or not, he could outdrive any graduate student on the planet, and Miss Dearborne was shaking violently behind the wheel. She slid frantically into the other seat. Stirling gunned the engine and squealed out onto asphalt. He didn't even take time to fasten his safety belt. The road roared past in the wake of their passage, tearing great holes in the drizzle and mist. Water sheeted down across the roadbed. Ghostly trees skittered and jumped as he skidded the Land Rover through the turns.

  He tried to recall who'd left the pub and in what order—and when. Significantly, Brenna McEgan had left first, pleading weariness. Cedric Banning had followed shortly thereafter, leading Stirling to wonder who might be sleeping with whom. A couple of computer techs had left early, as well, and Zenon Mylonas had called it quits a quarter of an hour after that. A whole laundry list of potential suspects.

  He took the turning onto the access road on two wheels, drawing a sharp gasp from Miss Dearborne. They thumped back down and sent gravel flying. Lights blazed in most of the on-site cottages. Beckett's windows were a notable exception, dark as the night itself. Poor bastard won't be needing them ever again, will he?

  He skidded to a halt in front of the door, having made the drive in three minutes flat. The main lab door stood open, held by an ashen Blundell. The man gestured frantically. A sharp babble of voices greeted Stirling. The senior scientists were clumped together, faces shocky and pale, voices shrill. Several of the grad students were crying. So was Indrani Bhaskar. Brenna McEgan was missing. So was Cedric Banning.

  "Where?" Stirling asked tersely.

  Blundell pointed, hand shaking violently, toward Beckett's office.

  The death inside that room was nearly too terrible for such a small space to contain. Terrance Beckett had died hard. His equipment lay in smashed profusion, his files scattered across the floor where violent struggles had swept them off his desk. Blood had pooled beneath the body, with splashes across the files, the front of the desk, the broken document trays. Given the placement of the wreckage, Beckett had been tempted out from behind his desk before the attack was launched, taking him by surprise in the middle of a conversation. He'd been knifed repeatedly and his skull crushed for good measure. Stirling didn't have to use guesswork on the type of knife. It lay on the floor beside its victim, all twenty-two wicked centimeters of it. Commando fighting knife, he catalogued the weapon automatically. American-made, high quality, and even easier to smuggle than firearms.

  Not a woman's choice of weapon.

  Or was it? It wouldn't take much strength to inflict fatal damage with a knife like that, and a woman attacker might explain the prolonged struggle. Beckett could easily have fought his way from one side of his office to the other, if his attacker were female. Less upper-body strength, weaker grip, and the women members of the research group were decidedly petite, compared with Beckett. Might explain the crushed skull, afterwards, as well. Hell hath no fury...

  "You said there was worse," he turned abruptly, nearly running Blundell over in the process.

  "Yes." The project liaison had to swallow twice before his voice would hold steady. "There's—that is—"

  Fairfax Dempsey, Beckett's grad student, snarled, "It's Brenna bloody McEgan, that's what! She's set up the equipment and transferred through time!"

  Oh, dear God...

  "Show me."

  They led him into the transfer room, as they'd dubbed it. A row of padded tables, looking much like ordinary medical examination benches, lined one wall. Two of the five were occupied. Two? Brenna McEgan was closest to the far corner, a psychological choice indicating, possibly, subconscious fear of being caught. A bruise discolored her cheek, evidence of the struggle with poor Beckett. The other traveler was Cedric Banning. His table was the one closest to the door—the position of pursuer, or perhaps just plain haste. Both of them were soaking wet, from the storm or from attempts to remove blood from clothing or both. McEgan's clothing was badly bloodstained; so was Banning's. He must've come in and discovered Beckett, tried to reach the poor bugger, slipped and fallen in the gore...

  "Banning left a note," Dempsey said, eyes reddened from the attempt to hold back tears. "She'd killed Beckett before he got here, set up the equipment to transfer herself. Banning plugged his headset into her coordinates and went in pursuit, to stop her..." Dempsey was clutching a crumpled sheet of graph paper, torn from a notebook.

  Stirling smoothed it out, frowning over the hasty scrawl.

  McEgan's done it, the bloody bitch, the note read, Banning's handwriting nearly illegible. Must have known I was on to her, and the SAS showing up spooked her into jumping. Found out last week she's Cumann Na Mbann, although I couldn't prove it. Came in here to warn poor Beckett, slipped and fell in the blood, trying to get to him, but it was far too late. Have to stop her before she wrecks British history and kills off the whole bloody world. For God's sake, send through a backup to help me with this!

  Stirling lifted his gaze to find himself at the still-point center of an invisible, all-too-real sphere of terror. It radiated like a living heat source in the confines of the lab, pushing him up against invisible walls. With creditable calm, he asked, "Why don't we just pull the ruddy plug?"

  "You can't!" Mylonas cried, pupils dilating in naked shock.

  "Why not?"

  "You'd kill them both instantly! Systemic shock, disrupted energy transfer lines, and God knows what the resulting flux in power would do to the fractural planes involved; the system's set on a timer, you see, to taper the power levels off gradually, so there's no possibility of an energy embolism! She's set the bloody timer for a year, and if we try to override it, I can't answer for the consequences! We can plug someone else into the system, send another traveler at the power level she's set, which is what poor Dr. Banning's done, but we can't possibly disengage the system in an emergency shutdown! If we could do so safely, Cedric Banning would have shut it down at once!"

  "All right, I get the bleeding picture," Stirling muttered, mopping his face with one hand. Christ, he'd needed more sleep before facing this. Cumann Na Mbann, that was the last thing he'd wanted to hear. The women's arm of the IRA, the most secret part of the whole terrorist organization and the most efficient as well, damned near impossible to infiltrate. Cumann Na Mbann members had done everything from courier jobs, running guns and messages in their babies' prams, to blowing up Protestant social clubs and gunning down British dignitaries. A more ruthless, clever opponent, Stirling could not imagine.

  Just his stinking luck...

  "Right, then. I'll have to go after them."

  "You?" Indrani Bhaskar gasped. "But you're not trained! You don't know the first thing about the time period—"

  "And those two do?" Stirling shot back. The too-still bodies of McEgan and Banning lay shrouded beneath the wires of their time-transference headsets. "They're not exactly historians, Dr. Bhaskar. Although I suppose it wouldn't take a great deal of historical training to assassinate Henry II before he has the chance to invade Ireland."

  The uneasy silence puzzled him. Then Dr. Bhaskar gave him the rest of the bad news. "They didn't go to the same time Dr. Beckett did. They're not at Henry II's court, not anywhere close to it, in fact."

  "All right," Stirling grated out, "where have they gone?"

  Her eyes, still wet from her shocked weeping, reflected a fear of not being taken seriously. "Well, Captain, you see... They've set the equipment for this region, right here in Scotland."

  "This region?" Stirling echoed. Uneasiness stirred, worse than before, in the pit of his stomach. "Granted, Scotland's been the site of a number of historic battles, but major enough to upset all history? What could McEgan possibly be after, here, that would benefit Northern Ireland?"

  Indrani's lips worked. The answer came out as a ragged whisper. "King Arthur."

  The unreality of it tried to crash down across him. Sleep-dep
rived, off balance, badly shaken by the possibilities for mass murder, that was the last answer he'd expected to hear. "King Arthur?" It came out flat, disbelieving. "Dux Bellorum Artorius? Sixth-century Briton war chieftain, fighting Saxons?"

  "And Picts," Indrani whispered. "And Irish invaders. A very large number of Irish invaders, in fact. She's gone to the year 500 A.D. The height of Artorius' power. If the Irish were to kill him before his resounding victory over the Saxons at Mount Badon, the Irish clans could drive the Britons and the Saxons straight into the sea."

  The whisper of air conditioning from the laboratory's vents raised a chill along Stirling's neck. Go back to the very beginning of the Irish invasions of western England and Scotland, rewrite history so the Irish took possession of the entire island, instead of the Saxons, so that later Anglo-Saxon kings would never exist, so that William of Normandy wouldn't be strong enough to wrest England from the weak Saxon monarchy, which meant Henry II would never exist to invade Ireland and murder its culture or set in motion Elizabeth I's centuries-long nightmare of colonizing Northern Ireland as a Protestant colony. And Brenna McEgan would destroy billions of lives in her own future, trying to give the Irish a victory over Artorius and his Saxon enemies.

  It was exactly what he would expect of a Cumann Na Mbann agent. Subtle. Cunning. Utterly ruthless.

  Cedric Banning, Aussie playboy scientist, had about as much chance of stopping a fanatical terrorist like McEgan as the alley cats in Belfast's scarred neighborhoods had of stopping the bombings.

  "I see." It came out ragged. "Very clearly, in fact. Which makes it absolutely imperative that I be the one to transfer after them."