by RR Haywood
‘It’s a bit handy you being German, Konrad.’
‘Thanks, Malc.’
‘Don’t bother you then?’
‘What?’
‘You know, being here . . .’
‘In Norway?’
‘Yeah, you know . . . never mind.’
Confusion now. Edith still in his mind but fading away at the English voices speaking German, or are they German voices speaking English? He’s pulled over the side of a boat and lands heavily with hands gently slapping his cheeks.
‘Here, Konrad, don’t hit him . . .’
‘I’m trying to rouse him, Malc.’
‘He might do what Ben did and I ain’t getting beaten up twice in one night. Hang on. Is he even alive? He doesn’t look too good.’
‘He’s going into shock . . . his lungs are full of water . . .’
‘Give him that epinephrine, I’ll get the defib charged.’
‘I’m doing the defib.’
‘Just give him the eppy pen. I’ll get it charged.’
‘We said I was doing the defib . . . the boss said I was doing it.’
‘Alright, Konrad! I’ll just charge it.’
‘Don’t zap him, Malcolm.’
‘I said alright, Jesus Christ, it’s only a defib. Just give him the eppy.’
‘Which one is it? This one?’
‘That’s the sedative. The other one . . . the other one . . . oh my God, Konrad, the bloody other one, you twat.’
‘Got it. Right, Harry . . . you’re going to feel a burst of energy now. What if he starts fighting, Malc?’
‘Just give him the bloody eppy before he dies.’
Whatever residue remains from death beckoning is banished the instant the adrenaline shot is administered and a surge of power and strength floods Harry’s battered system. Dying from drowning to unquestionable consciousness in an instant, his mind cannot cope with the transition as he tries to grasp the fleeting image of Edith. He bucks and writhes from a spasm that purges the seawater from his lungs and stomach out through his mouth and nose. Gasping for air, puking, writhing and all the time freezing from the icy water clinging to his clothes.
‘Cor, that stuff is strong, Konrad.’
‘You ever tried it?’
‘Epinephrine? Nah, you?’
‘Yeah,’ Konrad snorts. ‘It’s bloody awesome stuff. Get some oxygen into him.’
Harry feels a mask pushed on his face and sweet oxygen flowing down his burning throat as someone starts cutting his clothes off. He tries feebly to bat them away.
‘It’s okay, Harry. Stay calm. We’re here to help you.’
Pulsing with energy but freezing cold, his body starts shivering with the first danger sign of hypothermia and his skin, now exposed to the air, feels like razor blades are being pulled over it.
‘Hypodermic shock, where’s the thermal blanket?’ Konrad says.
‘By your feet, dickhead. And it’s “hypothermic” not “dermic” . . . “hypodermic” is a needle thing,’ Malcolm says.
‘Needle thing? Good explanation.’
‘At least I know what it is,’ Malcolm huffs.
The hands roll him on to his left side and push a thin material over his back before rolling him over on to his right side, cocooning him within the blanket.
‘Is it on?’ Konrad asks.
‘I don’t know, I’m driving the bloody boat now,’ Malcolm replies.
‘It’s on. Oh, it feels so nice and warm, my hands are freezing.’
Instant heat surrounds Harry but the shivering continues as the blanket works to raise his core temperature. Not vomiting now, but his lungs hurt with each breath and his throat burns. Exhaustion saps at his mind as the adrenaline burns off. The sweet oxygen and the heat of the blanket lull him down from frenzied consciousness back towards sleep.
‘Hey, I think he’s alright now,’ Konrad says.
‘Good work, just got to get the hell out of here now,’ Malcolm mutters.
‘Harry, can you hear me? Nod if you can hear me. He’s nodding.’
‘Is he? Wow.’
‘Sarcastic twat,’ Konrad says.
‘You just proved an English bloke can nod when you ask him . . . well done for that.’
‘Harry, just rest. We’re getting you somewhere safe so don’t panic. Everything will be okay. Rest now, Harry. I’ll give him the sedative now, Malc. He’s out. Christ, that town is ruined. Have you seen it?’
‘Seriously?’
‘What?’ Konrad asks.
‘You’re asking me if I’ve seen the town? The town that’s just had the shit bombed out of it . . . the town with the massive fires . . . the town we’re going away from . . . that town?’
‘Shut up.’
‘No, really. Did you mean that town or is there another one?’
‘Such a sarcastic dick. We ready to go yet?’ Konrad asks sulkily.
‘Almost, we’re still in visual sight. Give it another minute.’
‘Mad Harry, eh?’ Konrad says. ‘Christ, we’ve got Mad Harry . . . the actual Mad Harry . . . at least I hope it’s Mad Harry. Do you think it’s Mad Harry? What if we got the wrong one?’
‘He’s not the wrong man. The program matched him,’ Malcolm says.
‘No, I mean what if we got the wrong one, like . . . picked up the wrong bloke.’
‘Oh, I see. We’ll just bring him back if we have and do it again.’
‘Yeah, I suppose. I’m bringing gloves if we come back again.’
‘I’m bringing earplugs so I don’t have to listen to you.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Funny!’
‘I try.’
‘You’re very trying. We’re here, you ready?’
Three
2020
‘Listen up.’ The sergeant waits for the conversations to stop. ‘Duties. Smith, front door, Carter and Lamb on the main gate, Pilkington, you’re at the rear, and Patel, you’re upstairs.’ He rattles through the roster, glancing up to get a visual check that each officer understands their posting. ‘Nothing new intelligence-wise. It’s Friday night so hopefully he will retire to his rooms and you shall have a peaceful and pleasant shift. Patel, you cover the main corridor in addition to upstairs.’
‘Will do.’
‘Questions? No? Good. Five minutes then we take over from the day shift.’ The conversations spark up again as handguns are checked, boots polished, hats brushed, hair tidied, ammunition fed into magazines and utility belts adjusted.
‘Safa,’ the sergeant calls out, ‘a word in my office.’ He walks off ignoring the low calls of the other officers as Safa flicks them a middle finger and walks after the sergeant across the corridor and into his office. ‘Close the door,’ he says, taking a seat.
She does as told and pushes the door closed before standing easy and watching as the sergeant activates the screen on his tablet, thumbs across and hands it over without saying a word. She hesitates for the briefest of seconds then reaches out to take the device.
‘Read it,’ the sergeant says.
‘It’s headed confidential,’ Safa says, wondering if this is an integrity test.
‘It’s about you, read it,’ he says.
She scrolls down the screen, glancing at the email addresses and dates and times until getting to the main body of text. With a heavy heart she scans the text until reaching the bottom, then blinks and reads it again. Glancing up she notices the grin on the sergeant’s face.
‘Accepted?’ she asks. ‘Seriously?’
‘That’s what it says,’ the sergeant replies. ‘I tried to stop it going through of course,’ he adds wistfully. ‘I told them you were the laziest, most bone-idle copper I’ve ever worked with and you couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a shotgun and you were rude, obnoxious and just generally shit at your job.’
‘So they ignored you then?’
‘Everyone bloody ignores me,’ he grumbles. ‘Might as well not be here for anyone actually listening.’
‘Very funny,’ he says, standing up and holding a hand out. ‘Well done, Safa.’
‘Finally,’ she says, taking his hand.
His expression softens. ‘Got a month to do,’ he says gently. ‘I can maybe speed it up by a few days or a week . . .’
‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine. It’s not bloody fine, Safa.’
‘Sarge . . .’
‘Go to the federation,’ he urges. ‘Speak to someone.’
‘No.’
‘Safa . . .’
‘No,’ she says with a firm edge to her voice.
‘Safa, you know I could do it without your consent.’
‘You won’t,’ she replies bluntly. ‘You can’t.’
He sags down into the seat, shaking his head as she gently places the tablet down on his desk. ‘Such a nasty, vile prick. Go on the gate . . .’
‘Sarge, we’ve been through this.’
‘Sick? Go sick for a few weeks.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘You look sick,’ the sergeant says hopefully.
‘Sarge,’ she says softly. ‘I appreciate it but . . . I won’t go sick and I can’t do the gate or the front door. Three weeks. I can do three weeks.’
He sighs and holds her gaze. ‘Okay, but if it gets worse then tell me.’
‘With respect,’ Safa says, ‘I won’t. I’d better get upstairs.’
‘Yeah. I’ll come up as much as I can. Go on.’
Closing the door behind her, she walks down the main corridor and pauses at the full-length mirror by the security door. Black trousers pressed and clean. Boots shiny. Hair scraped back into a tight bun. White shirt and black tie. The pistol on her belt is checked. She turns her radio on before popping the earpiece into her ear with a wishful glance at her ballistic vest hanging from the hook. The officers on the main gate and front door wear their vests but those posted inside are not allowed as it is deemed too aggressive to visiting dignitaries and heads of state.
The vest would have hidden her shape and worked to take away the appearance of femininity. It might have helped, but then the vest would never hide her eyes and face.
Three weeks. I can do three weeks. Twenty-one days, and with days off that makes it fourteen days. Seven of those fourteen days are eight-hour shifts and the other seven are nine-hour shifts, so that makes one hundred and nineteen hours. God, that sounds even worse when you think of it like that. Fourteen days is the one to keep in mind. Just get through it and move on.
Steeling herself, she steps out from the police offices and into the main corridor with her head held high. She takes the service stairs to the top floor and down the corridor to take over from the day-turn officer.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Sergeant wanted to see me.’
‘It’s fine. You okay?’
‘Yeah, great. Got the heads-up,’ she says quietly.
‘Yeah?’ the day-turn officer asks as he hands over the duty tablet. ‘You going then?’
She nods quickly, swiping the screen to sign in on the device. ‘Three weeks, maybe a month.’
‘Wow,’ Mark whispers. ‘Diplomatic to royalty, eh?’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Much going on?’
‘Nope, he’s due back in an hour.’
‘An hour? Is he out tonight?’
‘Not heard anything,’ Mark says. ‘He stays in on Fridays, doesn’t he?’
‘Normally,’ she replies, keeping her tone carefully neutral.
‘Oh well, I’d better go. Promised I’d take the kids swimming.’
‘Yeah, see you tomorrow.’
The duty starts. The corridor falls into silence. She walks down, checking each door is locked, the windows are secure and, taking the scanner from the discreet cupboard, she checks the side tables and vases for placed listening devices or bugs and goes through the same ritual every officer does at the start of the duty and several times during their shift. When he gets back she will repeat the sweep through the rooms of his apartment and then again as many times as he deems fit.
Transfers are not uncommon. The skill sets are the same. Diplomatic protection officers guard politicians and dignitaries, which is much the same as the royal protection officers guarding the royal family. Transfers within six months of being posted are uncommon though, so her request was initially refused. The problem was not having sufficient reason to request the transfer, but she could not use the real problem, she could never use the real problem. Only the sergeant knew the real problem and even he did not know just how bad it really was. In the end, a discreet suggestion that one of the aides was showing undue attention was enough for the transfer to go through. After the debacle of her one-day posting on the door, they realised it was the safest option to prevent any negative PR.
Safa loves the job. All British police are armed now so being an armed officer is nothing special, but to be a Close Protection Officer is still to be the cream of the elite. She had only been in the job for two years when Holborn happened. She was first on the scene and the last person to see Ben Ryder alive before the train blew him apart. She already knew who Ben Ryder was. Everyone did, and it was because of him she wanted to be a police officer in the first place. Then Holborn happened and that touch of fate or destiny or simple staggering coincidence sparked her desire to achieve the best she could. Besides, she hated investigation-based police work. She was too headstrong, too physical and detested the slow, plodding world of gathering evidence to compile court files and write reports of who did what to who and why.
This world is by far the best. The military and police cross-over skills are fantastic. The knowledge of weapons, strategies, tactics, combat, both armed and unarmed. The level of fitness required, the constant training, house entry, VIP escort, static guarding and high-speed vehicle manoeuvres. It is so far removed from normal policing she is amazed she is still able to call herself a police officer.
Over an hour passes before the update comes through the secure radio into her earpiece. He is on his way back now. She checks her watch. Just gone sixteen hundred hours, which means he will be downstairs for a while until early evening. A few more hours until it starts. The tension increases. In her mind she plays out the dream of going Mad Harry on him. She could physically destroy him in seconds just with her bare hands but that knowledge only makes it worse, that she could stop him but she can’t stop him.
She does not wear make-up now and never uses perfume. Even her deodorant is unscented. A sports bra keeps her chest as flat as possible, the cost of the discomfort weighing off against the reduction in attention. The trousers are good, they hide the shape of her curves, but the tight utility belt only serves to show the narrowness of her waist. Most of the other female officers look severe and imposing with their hair scraped back, but Safa only looks more alluring as it opens the shape of her face and those eyes. Shaped and hued like an Egyptian goddess. The kind of eyes technicians spend hours doctoring photos of models to achieve. All of that and her dusky skin tone and high cheekbones are what made the national press so frenzied on the one and only occasion she’d been posted on the front door.
They had seen female officers before but no one like Safa. Within a few hours she was removed from post as the Internet became inundated with her image. The attention was staggering and threatened to destroy her career within the Diplomatic Protection Squad. Close Protection Officers were faceless, expressionless, devoid-of-emotion sentinels posted to do a serious job. The top brass went into meltdown. They couldn’t remove her from the squad as that would render them liable to charges of discrimination, but under the mandates of national security, officer safety and the role profiles of discretion they could impose an order banning her from any forward-facing roles.
She accepted the order as everyone knew what the requirements of the posting were. Two other officers on the squad had already been removed from forward-facing roles. One due to a scar on his face and the other fo
r having complete heterochromia, which was something else picked up by the ever-watchful vultures of the press pack outside. You couldn’t really blame them, they were bored and spent hours waiting in a deserted street for something to happen, so the arrival of an armed officer with one blue eye and one green eye gave them something to look at, and photograph, and film, and discuss on websites and rolling twenty-four-hour news channels.
Once posted inside she took the jibes and comments in good humour. The aides, staff, visitors, politicians and even the man himself all recognised her from the coverage but she thought the attention would pass. Only it didn’t pass. It got worse.
‘Mobile to gate, we’re on your channel now for approach.’
‘Static gate receiving, waiting order to open.’
‘Static control to mobile, that’s received and understood. All static units be aware of approach from mobile.’
Safa moves to the stairwell heading down to the ground floor corridor and her position beside the main lift.
‘Mobile to static gate, open now please, code alpha alpha nine seven.’
‘Code alpha alpha nine seven received, gate opening.’
She listens intently, processing the movements in her mind. The code means there are no issues and a normal approach is expected.
‘Mobile to gate, we’re through. Comms to you.’
‘Static gate to front door, approach to you now, confirm visuals.’
‘Front door to gate, visual clear approach to me now. Mobile slowing. Mobile stopped. Door open. Transfer under way, hold positions, he is answering questions from the press. Hold. Hold. Hold. Transfer back under way and safely through front door.’
Safa waits with her left hand closing to activate the press-to-talk switch as the front door swings open and the man himself walks through, waving back at the press.
‘Inner post,’ Safa transmits softly. ‘Inside now, door closing . . . secure.’
The front door closes with a horde of aides waiting to rush forward the second the view outside is gone. She watches everything, everyone. Eyes sweeping over the aides as they hold tablets and sheets of paper, but more than anything she watches the man himself to see if the smile given to the press fades when the door closes. It doesn’t and her heart sinks because to her a good mood is worse than a bad one. He grins round at the aides, making jokes in his blustering, seemingly permanently confused way that won so many millions of people over during the last election.