by RR Haywood
Miri’s gun clicks empty. Tango Two rises to sprint hard. Powering down the corridor as she watches Miri run while changing magazine. Everything frantic. Everything a blur of instinct and countermove to the things everyone else does.
Delta heaves Roland aside. That slight motion buys time for Harry to grab at Delta’s hair and launch him backwards and down to the floor. Harry drops hard and sends a fist into Delta’s face, knocking him clean out.
Miri bursts on to the top landing. Her right hand holding the gun up. Her left hand gripping Bertie who runs on, shocked to the core and rendered mute.
‘HERE,’ Doctor Watson shouts. She rushes towards him as Echo throws the flash-bang up the stairs and sprints up with his eyes squeezed closed and his hands clamped over his ears.
The detonation is sickeningly loud. Bertie takes it open-eyed, and screams out at the pain. Miri staggers into the wall. Her legs suddenly weak and rubbery. Her head swimming.
Hands grip her arm. She tries to throw them off, but hears the tones of the doctor shouting at her to run. She keeps her grip on Bertie. Dragging him towards the room as the doctor looks back to the stairs now alive with soldiers and black-clad operatives.
‘STOP,’ Tango Two shouts. Doctor Watson goes faster, his own heart thundering as he heaves Miri and Bertie through the door. Only one room to cross to reach the glowing portal at the back.
Bertie’s legs give out. The pain in his eyes and ears is too much. Miri sinks down with him, unable to take his weight. Doctor Watson tugs at them to get up.
Harry dashes out from the door into the small group of operatives running past. That impact sends several sprawling, buying a second’s worth of distraction for Safa, Ria and Ben to come through after him. Safa and Ben go straight into the fight. Fists lashing out, grabbing arms to break and using legs to trip. Roland crashes through. Seeing his daughter jumping on the back of an operative, he runs on past towards the door to the room holding the portal.
They fight as they run. All of them. A pressing, seething clash of form against form. Harry plucks Ria from the back of the man she is trying to blind with her thumbs before booting the almost blind operative away.
Tango Two runs into the room, seeing an old man trying to help the target male. Doctor Watson snaps his head up, his face full of fear. He screams out and charges. His hands lashing out wild and unaimed as he thinks to beat the woman back. Tango Two side-steps neatly, letting him sail past as Miri blindly raises her gun in the direction of the noise. Tango Two darts to the side and rushes for the hand holding the pistol. Miri fires, the gun slamming up from the recoil as Tango Two snatches it from her hand.
Tango Two spots the blue light shining from the open door of the walk-in wardrobe. Mesmerising colours that ripple and dance across the surface. There it is. That’s the time machine. The doctor bounces off the wall with a gargled yelp and staggers back. He turns and screams out again as he commences his second charge at the woman. Tango Two again steps out of his way and sends a foot into his arse, propelling him into the closet and straight through the portal. She sees it happen. She sees the man go through.
A mass of people reaches the door in a confusing, chaotic, wild, brawling, seething bunch of grunts and hisses, of bones snapping and blood spraying. Roland pushes through them. Screaming in fear and terror for his own life as he runs and dives through the portal. Tango Two tracks him going across the room then to Safa Patel, Ben Ryder and the other big guy with the beard fighting like demons to keep everyone else back.
‘WHERE IS TANGO TWO?’ Mother demands again, her voice rising to a screech.
‘TOP FLOOR . . . I HAVE THE TARGET MALE,’ Tango Two transmits in a frantic shout in the utter chaos of the moment.
Miri’s head catches up to the fact the gun is not in her hand anymore. She rises and grabs Bertie, trying to drag him towards the blue light. Heedless of the female agent still holding him. Heedless of anything and everything. Consumed only with the need to get Bertie away.
‘GET TO BERTIE . . .’ Safa bellows.
‘BERTIE, GO . . .’ Ben screams out, his own face streaming with blood.
‘GO, BERTIE . . .’ Ria shouts.
‘GET OUT, LAD,’ Harry roars.
‘Get through . . . Get through . . .’ Miri mutters the words over and again as Tango Two spins to see the older woman tugging on his arm, desperate to get him away.
Ben breaks free of the mass, diving towards Tango Two, who darts back with Bertie firmly in her grip. She has a pistol. She could shoot him, but he’s Ben Ryder. She could shoot the other woman, but it’s Safa Patel. Indecision renders her hopeless as someone slams Ben down from behind.
Safa thrusts her head back into the face of the male grabbing her. She breaks his nose, then kicks into his shins and pulls free. She aims for Bertie and not Tango Two. A black-masked figure dives out, grabbing Safa’s trailing leg and bringing her down. Again Tango Two stares almost slack-jawed at the woman she knows is Safa Patel twisting to fight back at the man holding her.
‘BERTIE, RUN . . . RUN, BERTIE,’ Ria screams out.
‘WHERE IS TANGO TWO?’ Mother’s screeching voice repeats the question. Tango Two winces, confused and jarred. She sees Echo lurching into the room, his hand already on his radio ready to transmit.
‘WITH ME, TOP FLOOR . . .’
‘GUNSHIPS . . . TOP FLOOR . . . FIRE NOW, FIRE NOW . . .’ Mother screams.
The engine pitch of the gunships changes again as they drop and start to turn. Tango Two feels the pull coming from Miri heaving on Bertie’s arm.
‘KILL TANGO TWO . . . KILL HER NOW!’ Mother rages into the radio, into earpieces and through loudspeakers to be heard clearly by everyone in the room. ‘KILL TANGO TWO . . . GUNSHIPS . . . TOP FLOOR, FIRE NOW, FIRE NOW . . .’
The chain guns on the gunships come to life. The noise is overwhelming and blots out all others sounds. Huge rounds slam into the top floor of the house, smashing through bricks that sail down in chunks. The gunships turn slowly, strafing from the ends of the house towards the middle. Nothing in this room will be alive within a few seconds.
A shot snaps Tango Two’s head over. Echo firing at her with his face so beaten one of his eyes is sealed closed. She lifts and fires with an instinct that makes her react before she can give it conscious thought. The round hits Echo’s throat, spinning him back and away. She fires again, the second shot killing him outright. That instinct takes over. Indecision leaves. Hesitancy evaporates.
‘KILL TANGO TWO . . . KILL HER NOW . . .’
Someone lurches at her. She fires at the figure, killing him instantly. She twitches and fires again. Shooting another one down. She aims and fires into the back of the one fighting with Safa. He screams out, releasing his grip. Tango Two fires again. She goes backwards towards the blue light, one hand holding Bertie, the other aiming to fire at anyone coming at her.
Tango Two snatches a glance at the older woman still tugging on Bertie’s arm, and turns to heave and send them both staggering through the blue light.
Safa vaults up to lock eyes on Tango Two firing past her, and tracks the shot to one of the soldiers. Everything on instinct. Safa saw the woman push Miri and Bertram through the portal. No time to think. She grabs Ria and heaves the girl towards Tango Two, who pushes her on towards the blue light.
The chain guns get closer, destroying everything in their trajectory of fire. A missile launched from one of the gunships strikes and explodes at the end of the house that shakes and vibrates from the huge detonation. Dust and plaster rain down from the ceiling. A second fires in. A third.
Tango Two braces, aims and fires the last of the rounds. She kills her own team as Harry grabs Safa and Ben and runs towards the blue light.
The chain guns hit the ends of the room. The rounds powering through the bricks with ease. Daylight floods in from the walls blown away. They won’t make it. Tango Two can see it. There is no way anyone else will get through that portal.
A bright blur swooshes up fro
m the ground outside and slams into the side of the gunship on the right side. Flames scorch up as the impact sends it slewing through the air into the other one. Propellers strike propellers. Metal pings off and spins across the expanse into the house. The chain guns still firing. The gunships’ engines whir louder as the pilots fight to control the craft now coming across the grounds towards the house.
Seconds bought, but it’s enough. Tango Two’s eyes go wide. Someone runs into her, driving her off her feet and back towards the wardrobe. Noise everywhere. Fire, flames, smoke, explosions. The two gunships hit the house with a deep crash of twisting metal and solid ringing thuds. Tango Two goes through the blue light as the gunships crash through the wall into the room. She goes screaming from the noise and the sheer overwhelming awe of seeing such a thing.
She lands hard on her back. Still screaming. Still shouting. Still believing she is in the house. The pistol drops from her hand and it takes seconds for her to realise the only sounds in this bare concrete room are coming from her and the others crying and gasping.
Flames billow through the blue light only a few feet away. She tries to scrabble back and away from the wall of heat that stinks of aviation fuel. Ben, Harry and Safa all tangled on top and underneath her.
Miri crawls as fast as her pain-ridden body will let her. Round the back of the portal to the tablet device left on the side that she grabs and thumbs at, half-blind and half-delirious. The blue light cuts off and with it the flames and heat instantly end.
In the bunker room, they lie gasping, heaving for air, sweat burning eyes. Cuts, bruises and welts show everywhere as Miri mutters the time on her watch to herself, then sinks down on to her back while thinking maybe she got it wrong about Safa, Harry and Ben.
Nine
‘No threat . . . No threat . . .’
‘Don’t fucking move . . .’
It’s not over. Not yet. Not by a long way. Miri lies on her back, gasping for air, listening to the voices around her.
‘Ben, hold her hands . . . Harry, get up . . .’
‘I’m not resisting . . .’
There is work to do. Work that has to be done now, but Miri doesn’t want to move. Her body hurts like hell. Old injuries that remind her how battered her body is. She summons the fortitude to finish what has been started. The situation has to be made safe.
Focus slowly returns. Her hand goes to her hip to check her pistol, and it takes a second or two for her mind to catch up that it’s back in the house on the floor of the bedroom. Did she drop it? No, the female agent took it. Her head snaps over to see the female agent face down on the floor with Ben on top, holding her hands behind her back.
‘Hold her tight,’ Safa orders, her voice hoarse, blood dripping from her bruised face. ‘Harry . . .’
‘Yep,’ Harry groans, rolling from his back to his front then up to all fours. Blood drips from his nose on to the concrete floor, his right eye swollen, a deep cut on his upper arm bleeds freely down his elbow.
‘Why were they trying to kill you?’ Ben asks, his voice rough and low.
‘I don’t know!’ Tango Two says quickly.
‘Not now,’ Safa says.
‘Mum?’ Ria looks up. Huddled at the edge of the concrete room having crawled to grab and hold her brother. Roland lies nearby, curled up in a ball, whimpering in fear. ‘Where’s Mum? Where is she? MUM?’
‘Harry, you fit?’ Safa asks.
‘Aye,’ the big man says, coming to his feet wiping a swollen hand across his bloodied nose.
Ria spots her dad, the older woman, the doctor and the others. She sees one of the attackers on the floor being held down, but not her mother. ‘MUM? WHERE’S MUM?’
‘I’m not resisting,’ Tango Two says.
‘Shut up,’ Safa says, her voice weaker than normal, the back of her skull pounding. Her legs feel heavy, and she keeps blinking to stay focussed.
‘DAD?’
Roland stirs and lifts his head. His face ashen and drawn. His eyes red from crying. He swallows and stares blankly for a second before his brain starts processing exactly where he is.
‘DAD? WHERE’S MUM?’
‘What?’ Roland says weakly, looking round. ‘She, er . . . Susan was . . .’
‘Take this,’ Safa says, nodding at Harry to take the pistol. ‘You move and you die,’ she tells the agent.
‘I am not resisting,’ Tango Two says in the same rough voice as Safa. Her own head spins, pain in her skull, flashes of light in her vision, but she stays still despite the pain of Ben’s grip on her wrists.
‘Mum . . . She . . . She . . .’ Ria gasps the words out, her voice breaking with emotion as Safa glances at her then goes back to the woman pinned down.
‘Where’s Susan? What’s going on?’ Roland asks, his voice growing firmer as the risk of immediate peril starts to abate.
‘CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . . I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . .’ Bertram screams out with sudden panic. His shouting voice adding to the bedlam in the room.
‘It was the flash-bang,’ Safa says, blinking as she looks over at him, then realising he can’t hear her. ‘You . . .’ she shouts at Ria. ‘Comfort him . . . The effects pass . . .’ She shakes her head again and looks down at the woman being held on the floor. ‘Weapons?’
‘Knife on my belt,’ Tango Two says.
‘Firearms?’
‘Pistol only . . . I dropped it when . . .’
‘Keep her hands held . . .’ Safa cuts in, working down one side of the agent’s body to check for concealed weapons.
‘What we doing with her?’ Ben asks, his voice strangely muffled in his own ears. He stretches his jaw and blinks to try and rid the flashes of light in his vision. ‘Why were they trying to kill you?’
‘Ben, not now. Do this first . . .’ Safa says. ‘Move your head back a bit, you’re dripping blood on my hands.’
‘Sorry,’ Ben mumbles, leaning away to rub his cheek on his shoulder.
‘Go back,’ Ria says. ‘We have to go back . . . Get Mum . . . Mum’s there . . . She didn’t get through . . .’
Roland takes it all in quickly, with a sense of instant shame that he ran off and left his family behind. He crawls to Bertie, extending a hand to his son’s shoulder.
‘GET OFF HIM,’ Ria screams, pulling her brother away. ‘You left us . . . You bloody left us . . .’
‘Ria, I . . . I . . . I was trying to draw them away,’ Roland says, forcing belief and sincerity into his voice.
‘WHERE’S MUM?’ Ria screeches the words out. Panicked and terrified.
‘Stop shouting now.’ The glare from Safa robs the air from Ria’s lungs. The sheer intensity coming from her. The bruises and cuts on her face shining with sweat and blood. ‘Open the portal,’ Safa says, still breathing hard as she looks round at Miri. ‘We’ll throw the bitch back out,’ she adds, pointing down at Tango Two.
Miri clambers to her feet, swaying on the spot as she tries to look round. ‘She stays,’ she whispers hoarsely before staggering towards the door.
‘Where you going?’ Ben calls out.
Miri doesn’t reply, but puts her hands out on to the walls to steady her balance as she walks down to the last set of rooms in the corridor. She goes through the middle room, past the blue chairs and into one of the bedrooms to pull the black bag out from under the bed. She pauses, blinking and breathing, before setting off back towards the portal room.
‘Get up,’ she tells the doctor as she walks back in. He nods dumbly, with shock etched on his face. ‘Get sedatives ready . . . Do it now . . .’
‘I demand an explanation,’ Roland says, mutating the anger at his own cowardice into something resembling an attempt at authority. ‘What the hell were you thinking? Where is my wife? You put my children in danger and . . .’
‘I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . . MY EYES . . . RIA, MY EYES . . .’ Bertram screams out again and again, clutching at his sister. His vision strobing with flashes of light. Pain in his eyes, ears and skull. His hearing m
uffled.
‘YOU LEFT US,’ Ria shouts at her father. ‘WHERE’S MUM? GET MY MUM . . .’
‘Jesus,’ Safa mutters, wincing at the noise coming from the Cavendish family. Her own head hurts. Every muscle in her body hurts. Her head is swimming. Her vision is strobing, but this noise is too much. ‘SHUT UP . . . ALL OF YOU . . .’
Tango Two stays passive and still as Safa methodically works down her body searching for weapons. She feels the same as they do. Confused. Hurt. Shocked and stunned. Too many things have just happened in too short a space of time. Training kicks in as she works to gain what information she can. She isolates voices. Attaching each to a name and already gaining a sense of the dynamics.
‘Clear,’ Safa says, staggering back from the female agent. ‘Harry, keep that pistol aimed at her. Miri? What now?’
Miri stops next to the inert machine. ‘Need coordinates for the basement.’ She unzips the bag, reaches in and pulls out a lump of C4 explosive fitted with a detonation timer.
‘Blowing it?’ Safa asks, unaware of the sway in her body.
Miri nods.
‘Good. He had plans all over the place down there.’
‘Mum didn’t get through,’ Ria says with tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘She didn’t get through. Go back . . . Please go back and get her . . .’
‘We can’t,’ Ben says, softening his voice as he speaks to Ria. ‘Listen to me, Ria! Listen to me. You have to stop shouting. Comfort your brother . . .’
‘I demand an explanation. This is my bunker. This is my . . .’
‘Roland,’ Ben says, the soft tone evaporating instantly as he growls the words out. ‘One more word from you and I will batter you senseless . . .’
Roland’s mouth opens ready for the retort. Ready to reclaim his authority, but the hard glares coming from Safa, Ben and Harry stop him before any sounds are formed.