by RR Haywood
‘Not me.’ Charlie’s voice comes back through his earpiece.
‘Maybe they do this,’ the sergeant says, staring in awe at the size of the explosion a few hundred metres ahead.
‘They’re army rebels, not bloody fanatics,’ Bravo says, his privately educated voice strong and cultured.
Gunfire ahead. An assault rifle giving burst fire. Bravo looks at his own assault rifle, knowing the gun firing in the ruined complex is the same as the one he is carrying, and not the god-awful things the rebels are using. A frown starts to show. A puzzled look as he starts weighing up options. If Charlie is on the far side, who is inside the complex?
From the swirling dust, smoke and debris, Bravo spots the outline of a lone figure walking between the now-ruined buildings. The flash of muzzle-fire comes a micro-second before the sound of the assault rifle firing as the figure shoots to the side of him, and the frown on Bravo’s face shows deeper.
‘Stay here,’ he orders the sergeant.
‘Bravo . . . you seeing this?’ Charlie’s voice asks through the secure radio network.
‘I am, old chap,’ Bravo replies.
‘Er . . . what’s Alpha doing here?’
‘I rather think we should go and ask him,’ Bravo says, jogging towards the lone figure he knows so well.
‘BRAVO?’ Alpha shouts, shielding his face from the dust still whirling in the air around them.
‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?’ Bravo calls out, a hint of humour in his voice, but his finger rests on the trigger of his weapon, which is held ready and aimed. ‘SHOULDN’T YOU BE IN SIBERIA?’
‘IS CHARLIE WITH YOU?’ Alpha shouts.
‘INCOMING,’ Charlie calls out, striding towards Alpha from the other side of the complex. ‘DID YOU BLOW THE VILLAGE?’
‘YES,’ Alpha shouts, turning to see Charlie, then waiting until the two men get closer. ‘Thought you could do with a hand,’ he adds with a casual air.
‘Well, that is jolly nice of you,’ Bravo says.
‘Lower the weapons,’ Alpha orders, knowing they’ll be suspicious. ‘New mission. Mother’s orders. Immediate redeployment. This area is negated.’
‘How did you blow it?’ Charlie asks, looking round. Smoke billows all around them. The stench of chemicals from different materials on fire. Solid dry heat, a choking, nasty air, and Bravo notices a tinge of green light showing in a wide section between the buildings.
‘I prepped a few hours ago,’ Alpha says. ‘Long story but I knew . . . well, Mother knew from your post-mission debriefs that you would both be here at this time, so it made sense to use this as the point of extraction.’
‘Extraction?’ Bravo asks, confused by the word.
‘I’ll explain. Come with me. We’re getting Delta and Echo this afternoon.’
Italian Riviera, 2060
She is so beautiful. So heart-achingly beautiful. That he is being paid to do this is just crazy. Some missions see you covered in filth and shit. Some missions have people shooting at you. He heard Alpha is on a covert embed in Russia and Bravo and Charlie are somewhere on the African continent training troops to fight army rebels. Poor sods. Delta grins at the thought.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asks in a lilting Italian accent.
‘Just thinking,’ he says softly, still smiling at the thought of the others having such a bad time while he is here with a warm breeze blowing gently over his naked back. He even shivers pleasurably, but that’s more from her fingernails tracking so lightly up and down his spine.
The bed is soft. The light is perfect. The doors to the balcony are open and outside the sound of the Italian Riviera gives a backdrop of perfection. An Italian heiress. Her father a multi-billionaire media mogul who needs to understand that the British sometimes need positive reflections to certain political stories reported on his twenty-four-hour news channels.
This is proper James Bond stuff, this is. Woo the woman, earn her trust and worm your way into her family to find dirt and leverage.
It worked too and the last few weeks have been some of the best of his life and now, in the golden afternoon of a perfect day, he is about to make love to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
She smiles coyly, fluttering her heavy eyelids. Dark-blonde hair spilling over her shoulders and splaying across the pure brilliant-white pillows on the pure brilliant-white bed. A full voluptuous figure. Radiance in her cheeks and her blue eyes so caring, so deep and searching his for validation of the love she is feeling. He doesn’t even have to fake it. He feels it. He actually feels it and slowly lowers to press his lips against hers and they both sigh as they kiss with hearts booming and passions igniting, and it takes but seconds for their breathing to become heavier and their bodies to start pushing harder.
Slowly, while kissing, touching, searching and seeking, they become naked on the pure brilliant-white bed and the yearning builds as they grind and kiss and then, without warning, without concern or worry, he is inside her. She gasps and freezes. Her eyes fixed on his. She must know he loves her. She must know she is not giving something away that is special and real and that her heart is not lying.
‘I love you,’ he whispers.
The love shines in her eyes that fill with moisture as a single tear breaks free to roll down her cheek. ‘I love you too,’ she whispers. ‘Will you stay with me?’
‘Forever.’
‘For always?’
‘For always and forever.’
The knock at the door comes heavy and hard. They freeze. Coupled. Clinging to each other.
‘Not now!’ he calls out while already feeling a prickle of concern. This hotel is the most expensive in the region and there is no way a hotel employee would knock on the door. They’d call the room first. The knocking comes again. Louder and harder.
‘Please, not now,’ she calls out this time, pushing into him for fear of breaking this perfect yet fragile moment.
‘Oh, I am terribly sorry,’ a strong, cultured voice calls out from the other side of the hotel door.
Delta freezes then recovers instantly without showing the utter surprise he feels inside at the voice he knows so well.
‘Be two seconds,’ he says quickly, grabbing a pillow to cover his groin before running for the door. He wrenches the thing open and steps out to see the grinning faces of Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Hi,’ Bravo says cheerily.
‘Seriously . . . what the fuck?’ Delta asks, looking up and down the corridor.
‘Nice pillow,’ Charlie says.
‘What’s happened?’ Delta asks. ‘I’m on a job.’
‘Job?’ Bravo asks. ‘We were in Africa getting shot at and Alpha was embedded in Siberia . . .’
‘So,’ Delta says with a defensive shrug. ‘Missions are different . . .’
‘Is she in there now?’ Charlie asks, leaning to peer past Delta through the open door.
‘Yes, now what’s going on? What’s happened?’ Delta asks.
‘Recall,’ Alpha says. ‘New mission.’
‘Right,’ Delta says. ‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘Okay. I mean . . . right now?’
‘Yes, right now.’
‘Of course. Er . . . so you mean absolutely right now? Not, say . . . in ten minutes?’
‘Ten minutes!’ Bravo snorts. ‘You doing it twice then, you rampant sod?’
‘Seriously fuck off . . . She’s lovely,’ Delta says. ‘Give me an hour.’
‘You just said ten minutes,’ Charlie says.
‘We can grab a coffee,’ Alpha says, making Delta stare in stunned amazement. ‘Hour? We’re in room seventeen.’
‘That’s my room,’ Delta says.
‘We know,’ Bravo says obviously. ‘We are spies too, Delta. Anyway, need a hand in there?’
‘No! An hour . . . Thanks, Alpha.’
‘Wear a condom,’ Bravo says as Delta runs back inside.
‘Is everything okay?’ the
Italian heiress asks, sitting up in the pure brilliant-white bed with her hair cascading down her shoulders and her breasts without a hint of awareness of her own nakedness.
‘Yep,’ Delta says eagerly, ditching the pillow. ‘Wrong room . . . Where were we?’
Eight
The Bunker
‘Just ditch him in an ocean somewhere,’ Safa says, staring at the dead Nazi wrapped in a sheet pushed into a corner of the portal room.
‘Doesn’t seem right,’ Ben says.
‘Well, we can’t exactly take him back, can we,’ Safa says. ‘For a start we don’t know what bit of the war he came from, or where in the war . . . or where in the world for that matter.’
‘Acid bath,’ Konrad says as everyone else in the main room slowly turns to look at him. He shrugs back at them. ‘Just a suggestion.’
‘Bit morbid, mate,’ Ben says.
‘Morbid?’ Safa says. ‘Fucked up more like.’
‘Pigs,’ Malcolm says. ‘They eat everything . . .’
‘Aye,’ Harry says thoughtfully.
‘We don’t have any pigs or acid baths,’ Ben points out.
‘No, no, no,’ Konrad says, ‘what you do is you take the body to the pigs, see. You don’t need to bring the pigs here. Just find a big pig farm somewhere.’
‘Big pig farm?’ Emily asks.
‘Yeah, big pig farm,’ Konrad says.
‘You’re messed up,’ Safa tells him.
‘I’m just trying to move the issue to the solutions table. Can’t stay at the problems table forever now, can we.’
‘Ready?’ Miri asks, striding into the room and glancing round at their casual clothing of shirts and jeans, all in muted colours. ‘Ben and Safa will deploy first. Unarmed. They will reconnoitre the immediate area and assess the suitability of deployment for the rest.’
‘Okay,’ Ben says slowly, giving Miri a confused look. ‘I thought it would be me and you first?’
‘You and Safa are a couple,’ Miri says. ‘You look like a couple. The profile is better.’
‘Ah, okay, yeah, that makes sense,’ Ben says thoughtfully.
‘That is why I said it, Mr Ryder, and you are more than capable of conducting an initial assessment without me,’ Miri says, picking up the Blue’s portal tablet. ‘Coordinates?’
‘Ah, right, yes,’ Ben says, handing Miri a sheet of paper. ‘Electrics and maintenance room accessed by an underground car park in a building between Haymarket and Regent Street,’ he adds as Miri reads the GPS settings on the paper. ‘I did a job there a couple of years ago. Some chap slipped on a wet patch and tried to sue the building owners. They brought us in to investigate the claim.’
‘And?’ Safa asks to the silence that follows when he finishes speaking.
‘Leaking pipe. They settled quickly.’
‘Oh,’ Safa says. ‘I was expecting a bit more of a story then.’
‘Yeah, I was too,’ Emily says.
‘Sorry,’ Ben says as Miri starts thumbing the numbers into the device.
‘Are we using the camera again?’ Emily asks.
‘Nah,’ Ben replies. ‘Just go straight in, be fine . . . That room is only accessed every six months for a safety check.’
‘Okay,’ Miri says, bringing everyone’s attention to her while her thumb hovers over the button to activate the portal. ‘Time is early evening . . . There not here, Tango Two,’ she adds when Emily turns to look out the door as though seeking validation of the time of day.
‘I was just looking.’
‘Date is a week after the previous deployment. Central London. Summer. Expect densely populated streets. Ben, stay alert and watchful. Look for clothing. Do you blend in? Are people staring at you? What is everyone else wearing? Shoes, legwear, upper-body clothing, hair styles. Will any of us stand out as we are now if we deploy. Clear?’
‘Got it,’ Ben says. ‘I am surveillance trained, Miri.’
‘I am sure you are. Safa, your role is to risk assess and look for signs that anyone is observing you. Clear?’
‘I’d do that anyway,’ Safa says.
‘You are team leader for mission deployment but do not engage unless absolutely—’
‘Yes, we know, Miri,’ Safa cuts in.
‘Activating.’ Miri presses the screen. The Blue comes on.
Safa goes forward with Ben right behind her. The two of them stepping through to central London and what should be a maintenance room accessed by a door from an underground car park.
‘THREE FISH, HOLD THE SAUCE ON ONE AND THE VEGAN WANTS . . .’
‘SERVICE! SERVICE! GET THOSE FUCKING PLATES OUT . . . THE SAUCE IS BUBBLING . . . WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO?’ the head chef screams at Safa and Ben appearing at the end of his kitchen.
Plumes of steam everywhere. Ovens, gas hobs, hot plates and heated lamps. White-suited chefs running back and forth as penguin waiters scurry from the service table carrying plates loaded with fresh meals towards the heavy swing doors at the far end.
‘Mind out, mate.’ A thin man in chef’s whites pushes in front of Ben to reach a pan of bubbling sauce that he stirs while tossing another pan full of vegetables with the other hand.
‘Toilets?’ Ben asks.
‘GETTHEFUCKOUTOFMYKITCHEN . . .’
‘Who you fucking shouting at—’ Safa snaps, going towards the bellowing chef as Ben grabs her hand to pull her back through the Blue.
‘Abort . . .’ Ben says quickly.
‘Aborting.’ Miri thumbs the screen, ending the Blue.
‘That cheeky twat,’ Safa says, still bridling.
‘We walked straight into a commercial kitchen,’ Ben relays to the others. ‘Chefs and waiters everywhere.’
‘Redevelopment?’ Miri asks.
‘Must have been,’ Ben says.
Harry tuts mildly and pushes off the wall he was leaning against as he pulls a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and heads towards the door. ‘Call me when you’re ready.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Emily says, following behind with Malcolm and Konrad.
‘Let me see,’ Ben says, looking from the sheet of paper he passed to Miri to the tablet in her hands. ‘Maybe I wrote the numbers down wrong . . . Hang on five minutes. There’s an alley just off Piccadilly we can use.’
Outside, Harry inhales and blows the smoke into the warm clear air while staring down at the vast herds of enormous diplodocuses grazing far below on the plains of the valley floor, moving slowly between glittering lakes and forests of trees.
‘Ever been down there?’ Emily asks.
‘Who are you asking?’ Malcolm asks, when neither Harry nor Konrad reply.
‘Anyone.’
‘We haven’t,’ Malcolm says.
‘Nope,’ Harry says.
‘Shame really,’ she says. ‘I’d like to see them closer.’
‘Big distance,’ Harry says. ‘Take a day to walk.’
‘So? We’ve got time,’ she says.
‘Aye,’ he says quietly, inhaling on the cigarette.
‘What’s wrong?’ Emily asks him. ‘You’re not you . . .’
‘Beardy,’ Safa says, stepping into the line staring down into the valley. ‘Stop smoking . . . It stinks.’
‘Aye,’ he says, still smoking.
She tuts and blows air from her cheeks. ‘They’re bickering over where to go next.’
‘Rio,’ Harry says.
‘Rio?’ Safa asks, shielding her eyes to look up at him. ‘We’re going to London.’
‘Rio was a good night,’ Harry says deeply, quietly.
‘Oh, oh, right . . . Yeah, it was good,’ Safa says.
‘The carnival?’ Emily asks. ‘You said you went there.’
‘Should go again,’ Harry says.
‘We’ll go tonight if you fancy it,’ Safa says easily.
‘Aye.’
‘Yeah? You fancy a night with dancing ladymen in Rio, Beardy?’
‘Aye. Do,’ he says, looking down at her. ‘Not the ladymen thou
gh.’
‘You loved the ladymen. Done. We’ll go later. You two bell-ends up for it?’ Safa asks, looking at Malcolm and Konrad.
‘What about Miri?’ Malcolm asks.
‘What about her?’ Safa asks.
‘Will she let us?’ Konrad asks.
‘Why wouldn’t she? We’re not prisoners. I’ll tell her in a minute.’
‘Brave that is, Kon,’ Malcolm says.
‘She is brave, Malc,’ Konrad says.
‘WE’RE READY,’ Ben shouts from inside.
‘Bet we’re not,’ Emily mumbles as they turn and file back inside, each pausing for a second under the now-fixed filtration system.
‘Right,’ Ben says, smiling as they walk back into the portal room. ‘Piccadilly Circus, same time, same date . . . early evening during the summer. The portal is opening in a back alley I know. It should be empty, as it’s only used as a fire-escape route for a load of offices. We’re appearing right at the far end . . .’
‘Piccadilly will be packed,’ Emily says.
‘Yeah,’ Ben replies. ‘That’s why I chose it. Hide in plain sight and all that.’
‘Great,’ Safa says, holding a thumb up. ‘Let’s get on with it then. Oh, we’re going for a night out in Rio later, Miri,’ she adds as Malcolm and Konrad hold their breaths and Emily winces at the blunt tone.
‘Good idea,’ Miri says, working on the tablet in her hand as Malcolm, Konrad and Emily exchange shocked glances. ‘Ready?’
‘Yep,’ Safa says, moving in front of the portal.
‘Activating,’ Miri says.
‘On it.’ Safa waits for the Blue to shine, then steps through with Ben behind her.
Central London. Early evening in summer and they should be walking into an alley tucked up behind the giant display boards in Piccadilly Circus.
‘It’s not an alley, that’s sure as hell,’ Safa says, looking round at the huge plaza.
‘Abort.’ Ben grabs her hand again to launch back into the portal after snatching the same view of an enormous pedestrianised area packed with thousands of people walking in all directions. ‘It’s not Piccadilly,’ he tells the others in the portal room. ‘Like a massive plaza . . .’
‘Plaza?’ Emily asks.