“Unless someone was already in the area,” Callum said.
“Who? And why would they be?” Darren said.
“Somebody whose parents live in Gwynedd,” David said.
“Math took care of Rupert, so how about we focus instead on getting the industrial magnet and that microhydro-electric thingie David wants?” Cassie said over her shoulder.
“I did find an industrial supply depot near Bangor University,” Mark said.
Callum had taken the seat in front next to Cassie, and he turned to look at David. “That sounds like the place to start.”
David shook his head. “I don’t know, Callum. How important can these things be compared to the fact that the bus passengers are talking so much that The Guardian has heard of it. Rupert could be there in a half-hour. Our cover is totally blown, especially when someone tells him that Mom needed a breast biopsy. He’s going to know who they were.”
“That’s why we need to let Dr. Wolff do his job while we do ours.” Cassie looked into her rearview mirror so she could see David’s face. “The bus passengers were never going to do anything else, David.”
“I just hoped we’d have more time,” he said. “It was a failure of imagination on my part. I thought a great deal about how to get everyone here, but I didn’t spend enough time thinking about what would happen to them and us once we did. I spent more time worrying about ending up in China than in Gwynedd, because I thought in the latter case they could take care of themselves.”
“You didn’t know,” Cassie said. “It’s kind of hard to plan for something like this.”
“At least the local constabulary seems to be neutralized,” Callum said, “for another hour, anyway.”
Cassie pulled the van behind a row of parked cars, many of them stopped half on the sidewalk to get them farther out of the main flow of traffic. The streets here, as everywhere in Wales, were half the width of American streets. Even as deserted as the roads were at six in the evening on Christmas Eve, David found himself having to close his eyes every time they passed a parked car on the left or a moving car on the right. It was even worse when they had to do both at the same time.
“Where to?” Cassie said.
“Mark and I could use an internet café with the ability to print stuff out,” David said. “If we do nothing else here, we need to kill a tree or two.”
“And I’m looking for anonymity before I hack fully into the Security Service,” Mark said.
Cassie looked from Mark to Callum. “Is that really necessary?”
David put a hand on the back of Cassie’s seat. “I want to give them Lee if they don’t already have him.”
Cassie half-turned in her seat. “That’s what this is about? Some kind of vengeance?”
David didn’t even know how to answer that and gazed at her, a sickness in his belly that she would think that of him.
Fortunately, Callum answered for him. “Not vengeance, Cassie. Justice.”
David cleared his throat. “While I’d rather not blow our cover for nothing, I still care about this world and everyone in it.”
“Yeah, I get that. Okay. Sorry, David.” She put out a hand to him. “I’d prefer to forget all about Lee.”
“He’s here, somewhere,” David said. “Mark says there haven’t been any bombings since Cardiff, but that’s not to say there won’t be, now that Lee’s been back here for three months. I find it unlikely that he isn’t planning something.”
“Maybe we caught him when he came in,” Darren said, and David knew he meant the Security Service as the we. “There would have been a flash that could have led us to him.”
“A double one, actually,” David said, “since I came and left again. In fact, those flashes could have led any number of organizations to him. If they were paying attention, which they might not have been.”
“But we’ve done it again now,” Callum said, “which could be getting everyone excited, Christmas Eve or no Christmas Eve.”
Mark held up one finger. “I have a better idea than an internet café, and it will solve all our problems in one go.”
“What is that?” Callum said.
“University of Bangor,” Mark said. “I went to school with a graduate student there, Evan Thomas.”
“In what?” David said.
“Computer science,” Mark said, and then at everyone’s pleased looks added, “Yes, he’s a hacker. I told you he could solve all our problems at once.”
“Let’s go before Anna calls back and tells us that Mom’s done and they’re ready to be picked up,” David said. “I want to be able to leave as soon as we hear from her.”
Mark accessed his laptop again, and then he picked up his new phone to dial his friend.
“It’s Christmas Eve. He might not be there,” Callum said.
“You don’t know him like I do,” Mark said. “He’ll be there.”
Sure enough, Evan picked up on the first ring. “What?”
Mark laughed. “Evan, it’s Mark Jones. You at the university?”
“Of course.”
“Tell me where.”
“Room 221. Off Dean Street. You coming here?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t get in the door without a key. I’ll come down.”
“Be there in two ticks,” Mark said.
“You didn’t tell him there were a bunch of us,” David said.
Mark smirked. “People don’t mean very much to Evan. He won’t care one way or the other, and it would only confuse him.”
Nothing was very far away in Bangor, though traffic had picked up slightly now that it was the dinner hour. A few stores were open late for last-minute shopping, though none of these could sell David an industrial magnet for creating electricity.
He stared out the window. “I’m beginning to see the flaw in the plan in terms of actually bringing home technology,” he said to no one in particular. “It’s Christmas Eve. No wonder my mother was concerned about us stealing what we needed.”
“We weren’t going to be able to walk into a shop and buy the generator anyway,” Cassie said. “That industrial supply place isn’t going to be open tonight, tomorrow, or the next day. We have to break in, in which case we need some time to scout it out.”
“I can help with that,” David said.
“Alternatively,” Callum said, “we could find a dealer, who may or may not have one on hand. For now, while you, Darren, and Cassie surf the internet, Mark and I can see what’s happening at MI-5.”
“If the press is here, and if the bus passengers are talking in Caernarfon, MI-5 can’t be far behind,” Cassie said. “I’d like not to have David end up in a windowless room again.”
David scoffed. “You and me both, thank you very much.”
They reached Evan’s building, which turned out to be made of gray stone, a hundred years old, and one of many similar looking buildings along the block. They piled out of the van: David lugging the reams of paper; Mark and Darren with the three laptops, two of which had been newly acquired; and Callum with the printer.
“Let’s try to keep a low profile, everyone,” Callum said. “David is the only one who looks like he might belong here. Slouch like you’re a graduate student, David, but otherwise I recommend you don’t say anything.”
David grinned, hoping that Callum would someday give him that kind of order when they were in the Middle Ages, just for laughs. Callum wouldn’t, though. He’d missed his calling as an actor, because he played whatever role was necessary to any particular scene. Tonight he was the Security Service commander. Two days from now, when they were back in medieval Wales, he’d be David’s valued retainer once again.
Evan, when he appeared to let them into the building through the front double-glass doors, turned out to be a tall and lanky twenty-something, with straw-like hair and a face full of brown freckles. He wore tan corduroys and a blue-striped, buttoned-down shirt. He also, oddly, sported a string cowboy bolero tie like David hadn’t seen since
he’d lived in Oregon. David couldn’t think of a single reason why the tie would be in fashion anywhere on the planet. Maybe that was the point.
Mark and Evan shook hands, and then Mark introduced everyone else, though he left off the part where David was the King of England in an alternate universe, and Evan was already turning away before Mark was halfway through the introductions. Evan ushered them inside and then up to his office, which, if the number of desks was any indication, he shared with three other people, none of whom were present.
Evan took a seat behind one of the desks and turned to his computer, not even bothering to gesture them to the other chairs. Mark, Cassie, and Darren sat anyway, but since there were no more seats, David braced himself against the frame of the door, which he made sure was securely latched, and Callum perched on the edge of one of the desks.
“What’s going on?” Evan typed into his keyboard for a second, but when nobody answered, he finally swung around to look at the motley assortment of strangers in front of him.
“We need your help,” Mark said.
Evan made a sheesh sound under his breath. “You’re MI-5 aren’t you? You’ve the entire world under surveillance by now. Why would you need my help?”
Callum cleared his throat. “What we want from you is a bit under the table.”
Evan had been leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped across his chest, but now he shifted forward, looking genuinely interested for the first time. “Who are you?”
Callum canted his head. “As you said, MI-5.”
“Is this where you tell me that if I help you I’ll be serving my country?” Evan said, mockery in his voice.
“You would be,” Callum said.
Evan scoffed again and looked at Mark. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone rogue. You of all people?”
Mark turned to Callum. “If we want his help, we have to tell him the truth.”
“To my recollection, telling modern people the truth doesn’t usually turn out well,” David said.
Evan folded his arms across his chest and again reclined in his office chair, which he must have unwound as far as it could go because he was lying almost horizontal. “I get the truth, or I don’t help.”
“We need to know what MI-5 knows about us,” Mark said without waiting for Callum’s or David’s consent. “I can hack in with my old codes, but it’ll send up a red flag the second I do it. Does that sound like something you can help us with?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Evan said. “What is this—some kind of a trap?”
“Not for you,” Callum said. “We all worked for MI-5, but we’ve been out of it for a year. Unfortunately, we now need access to information we can’t get elsewhere. That’s why we came to you.”
“If you’re caught, you’ll go to jail,” Cassie said brightly.
Evan spun around to his computer. “The whole point is to not get caught.” But then he reached back towards Callum and snapped his fingers. “This is a test, right? Let me see your badge.”
Callum obliged, though not before shooting a look at Mark, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“You’re right,” Mark said. “This is a test.”
“You want to prove to your superiors that MI-5 is hackable—which it completely is, by the way.” Evan’s fingers were already moving across the keyboard. “What do I get paid for doing this?”
David shifted slightly against the frame of the door, but then forced himself to stop moving. Nobody else was making an effort to correct Evan’s misconception, and he didn’t feel like it was his place to say anything. He was the low man on the totem pole. This wasn’t his world anymore, and he didn’t feel that he had the right to interfere.
“I’ll be sending you an S-7 form in the new year,” Mark said.
Evan made a guttural sound at the back of his throat, implying disbelief, and remained focused on his computer—which was actually a bank of three oversized monitors. “Get me a job, will you, after I graduate. I’d be happy to hack for MI-5 all day long.”
“Done,” Mark said.
David frowned at Mark’s certainty, but he still kept his mouth shut.
Mark stood up to look over Evan’s shoulder.
Callum stood up too, though not to look at the computer. “Is there some place we could set up our stuff other than in here? Some place we could spread out?”
Evan was focused on what he was doing, but he took a second to wave a hand before returning it to the keyboard. “Sure. Down the hall. Computer lab with everything. My code is 1282.”
“Thanks,” Callum said without commenting on the significance of Evan’s code. He put his hand on Mark’s shoulder briefly, silently telling him he was leaving, though David wasn’t sure Mark noticed. Then Callum shooed everyone else out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, his new laptop on the table in front of him and having spoken to Mom and Anna twice more, David was hard at work on the internet. Military technology aside, David’s highest priority was getting his nascent communication system up and running. Thanks to huge advances in the last few years in metallurgy, he was a few months away from being able to broadcast a speech to half of England. Once you understood the theory behind it, a radio was an incredibly simple device to make, even without stripping the cars for parts. They had turned out to be easier to produce than the telegraph, since he didn’t have to string wire across the whole of the country. Tonight, he was looking for any information that might augment the work.
Each of the others had a list of twenty similar topics—the result of long sessions with various bus passengers over the course of many months where they’d brainstormed for everything they could think of that was buildable in the Middle Ages with the resources they had. David didn’t need to vault the Middle Ages all the way into the twenty-first century—the seventeenth would do well enough.
Unfortunately, David felt like he’d only gotten started on his research when Mark came flying down the hall and skidded to a halt in the open doorway. “We’re here.”
At first David was confused by Mark’s use of the word we, but Callum stood so fast his chair tipped over; he didn’t have to ask who Mark meant. “Where? Outside this building?”
“No. Caernarfon.”
And then David’s phone rang again.
Chapter Thirteen
Meg
… ten minutes earlier.
“Who are you calling, Mom?” Anna said.
Meg tipped the phone away from her mouth for a second. “My sister.”
“You haven’t already? I thought David told you to call her hours ago.”
“I didn’t want to until I knew more about what was going on with me, and then I when I called her home number, nobody was there,” Meg said a little more tartly than she intended. “I had to call Callum to get her cell phone number. I need something to distract me while I wait for the results.”
Which was about the truest thing Meg had ever said. When she’d found the lump in her breast months ago, she’d ignored it, since there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway. She’d had lumps before, as nearly every woman of a certain age eventually did, especially one who’d birthed and nursed four children.
But the lump hadn’t gone away, and she found herself constantly suppressing the urge to touch it, which was hardly something the Queen of Wales should do in polite company, given its location. It was just always there, and she’d grown to hate it. If there was any indication it was cancer, she hoped Dr. Wolff could cut it out today.
From the very beginning, Dr. Wolff had been relentlessly cheerful, but as the evening had progressed, he began to look less like Santa and more like a stern professor. Rachel hadn’t been kidding when she’d said her father had a full service women’s clinic. On the way upstairs, she’d passed birthing rooms, examination rooms, a laboratory, diagnostic imaging, and a childcare facility. Now, here she was in a section of the building with every piece equipment necessary for diagnosing breast cancer.
She’d
had the mammogram first, but when that hadn’t shown anything amiss, and that the lump appeared normally fibrous, he’d gone and done an ultrasound anyway.
After the ultrasound, however, although he spoke reassuring words, she didn’t think he could help the deepening ‘v’ between his eyes. Rachel had said he was only doing a biopsy because it wasn’t like he could tell her to go home and come back in three months. But his expression, coupled with the way he was taking the whole Middle Ages thing in stride, had her more worried than pretty much anything else he could have said or done.
When he’d stuck the biopsy needle into her breast, she’d heard a popping sound, which he said was normal, but at this point, she wasn’t willing to believe that anything about the lump was normal. The biopsy took only a few minutes, after which he’d patted her hand, nodded at Rachel, and then disappeared into his inner sanctum to look at the cells under a microscope. After bandaging the incision point and getting Meg ice for the swelling, Rachel had gone after him.
Meg was officially terrified, though she was trying to hide it for Anna’s sake.
By now it was nearing eight o’clock in the evening. Meg hoped the others were faring better than she was. David had kept in constant communication with both her and Anna. Every time she’d spoken with him, she’d reassured him that things were progressing smoothly, whether or not it was true. At least they’d had no more visits from the police or the press.
Elisa picked up on the third ring, and almost before Meg had said hello, she said, “I knew it! I knew it was you!”
Meg found herself smiling. “Merry Christmas!”
“Where are you?” Elisa said. “Please don’t tell me you’re outside our house in Pennsylvania.”
“No, actually. We’re in Gwynedd.”
“So are we!” Elisa crowed so loudly into the phone that Meg had to hold it away from her ear lest she be deafened.
She put the phone back to her ear. “Really? Where?”
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