by RR Haywood
‘Yes,’ Delta says. ‘But we’re not dying, are we? It’s the old us.’
‘Clever and good-looking,’ Bravo says, offering a huge humourless smile.
Alpha detects the tension between them. The smug posh manner Bravo has that is normally so funny and witty is starting to grate. The agents aren’t used to being cooped up.
‘Echo, meet me in the portal room.’
‘Roger that.’
Alpha goes out, marching down the corridor to the history department to see Kate and Rodney in deep conversation, which ends as he walks in.
‘We need to check the software,’ Alpha says, maintaining a business-like manner that makes Rodney briskly walk off and Kate nod smartly as she grabs the download tool.
They walk silently to the portal room and through to the darkened interior of the university.
‘What’s happened?’ Kate asks, programming the device to start working. ‘Mother held a meeting. She wants a hydrogen bomb extracted and said we’re to start researching anthrax.’
‘She wants results,’ Alpha says darkly. ‘Listen, I saw a flash of blue in Berlin.’
‘Okay,’ she says quietly, widening her eyes. ‘Them?’
‘Got to be . . . Far end of the street. They’ve got an OP in . . .’
‘What’s an OP again?’ she asks with a wince. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember all the terms for things.’
‘Observation point. Top floor of number twenty-five.’
She frowns as though thinking. ‘Far end on the right side? Yes, yes, I remember it. Twenty-seven is hit by a bomb but twenty-five stays intact . . . Would Mother do it? An H-bomb. Would she use one?’
‘She won’t stop . . . Unless I told her I saw them, of course.’
‘No, you can’t. She’ll make you kill them or . . . I don’t know. What can we do?’
‘I’ll keep thinking. I’m going back in with Echo to monitor our second visit.’
‘Do you trust Echo?’
‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘It’s impossible to know. We’re meant to catch them, reset everything we did, then go back to our lives, but . . .’
She listens intently, her eyes searching his face. ‘We can’t let it happen. It’s not right. It’s not. Resetting doesn’t stop millions dying . . .’
‘You said the timeline wants to cling to a set course . . . Maybe whatever we do is pre-destiny.’
‘No.’ She shakes her head with all the sadness of the world in her eyes. ‘She’s planning an extinction-level event . . . You’ve got to reach out to them,’ she says, looking up into his eyes, holding his gaze trapped in her blue eyes.
‘How? Echo is with me, then one of the others will be with me, and I can’t do every observation deployment without them getting suspicious. We don’t work like that . . .’
‘Take me with you,’ she jokes. ‘I’ll just go over and say hi and ask them what they want.’
He snorts a grim laugh. ‘That would probably work.’
‘Well, why not then? I’ll tell them what Mother is doing and say we want out.’
‘God, no. Jesus, Kate, we don’t know anything about them . . . I’m not putting you at risk.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘I’ll think of something.’
The tablet vibrates, signalling the download is complete. ‘Reach out to them,’ she whispers. ‘You’ve got to. Mother will kill everyone.’
Twenty-Five
Bertie’s Island
‘How was it?’ Malcolm asks, rushing over on seeing a very pale and shaken Konrad coming out of the shack.
‘Bloody awful, Malc. Worse than Norway when we got Harry.’
‘Worse than that, was it?’
‘Much worse. Never heard anything like it . . . Eh, look at that, you got the tents up then.’
‘They went up themselves, Kon. Just open the case, press a button and they self-erect.’
‘Do they really? That’s good, that is, Malc.’
‘Wow,’ Emily says, stopping with the others to look at the row of green walk-in-sized army tents arranged in a line next to the shack. ‘We’re reduced to this. Sleeping in tents.’
‘A temporary measure,’ Miri says curtly, walking past. ‘Until we have time for an assessment of a permanent HB.’
Turns out you can pretty much buy anything in Lambeth-not-Lambeth, or the streets and areas surrounding it anyway, which are just as chaotic and packed. It also turns out the trade in ex and surplus military gear is as high in the future as it was in their times. Six tents purchased along with anti-grav hovering collapsible cots, bedrolls, boots and even down to basic hygiene kits of good old-fashioned toothbrushes and safety razors.
‘Aye,’ Harry says, nodding happily as he looks round the inside of the closest one. ‘Good kit, this.’
‘Is it?’ Emily asks, arching an eyebrow at him.
‘We slept in muddy puddles in my time. It’s got a roof and walls, bed, kit. What more do you want?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, say a cupboard, some shelves, maybe a hanging rail, holo-player, music-system, hot running water . . .’
‘Ignore her,’ Harry says to Malcolm, whacking him on the arm. ‘She moans a lot. Done a great job.’
‘What did you say?’ Emily asks, folding her arms to glare at Harry. ‘I moan a lot?’
‘Aye. All the time.’
‘And time for a brew,’ Ben says. ‘Nicely done, Malc.’
‘What about me?’ Konrad asks, following Ben, Safa and Miri back round to the front. ‘I risked my life.’
‘Well done you too,’ Ben says.
‘I’m not a super-soldier, you know. I’m an engineer and general expert on . . .’
‘He’s not an expert on anything.’
‘Shut up, Malc. You weren’t there. I was there— Hey, I can say it.’
‘Say what?’ Malcolm asks.
‘When you’ve been in a war,’ Konrad says, looking round proudly at the eye rolls and tuts.
‘Oh god, you sound like Harry,’ Emily says, staring at the tents. ‘Which one is mine?’
‘Er . . .’ Malcolm says.
‘I want that one,’ she says, pointing at the far end. ‘And Harry wants that one,’ she adds, pointing to the other end. ‘So I can’t hear him snoring.’
‘Right,’ Malcolm says quickly, nodding in agreement as she walks over to claim the end tent.
‘I like this one,’ Harry says, walking into the one next to Emily’s, who hears the proximity of his voice and rushes out.
‘What are you doing? Yours is at the end.’
‘I like this one.’
‘You are so annoying today!’
‘Debrief,’ Miri calls out.
Ben sits down at the table as the others make their way over, Emily giving Harry loaded looks while the big man smiles and nods happily at her.
Miri clears her throat, waiting for them to pay attention. ‘The Affa and London changes were both done by British secret service agents. This suggests the British Government have a device and used it to extract the agents from before Cavendish Manor. There are five dates in February nineteen forty-five when Herr Weber is visited by the agents. We’ll continue the observations and . . .’
‘Pardon?’ Ben asks, cutting across her.
‘We’ve got enough now,’ Emily says. ‘We’ve got the element of surprise so we can stop them easily . . . Oh, hang on.’ She frowns and shakes her head. ‘It’s not them we need, is it . . . not them in Berlin, I mean . . . That will be the old them . . . so even if we find their portal it’ll be the memory of the portal and not the live one . . . as it is now? Bloody hell, this is confusing.’
‘Lay a trap,’ Harry says, making them all turn to look at him. ‘We need them now. Like we are now. Anything behind us is a memory. We need to do something to change what they did and when they come out to look that’s when we strike.’
‘What Harry said,’ Ben says.
‘That’s what I said,’ Emily says.
‘Bloody wasn’t,’ Safa scoffs.
‘That’s it then,’ Ben says to Miri. ‘Lay a trap and wait for them to pop up, then we get into their base . . . Obviously it’ll take some more planning but . . .’ He stops talking when she shakes her head.
‘Observe for now. Run the OP and gain intel,’ Miri says.
‘Why? We know it’s them,’ Ben says as the others murmur agreement while Malcolm, Konrad and the doctor listen intently.
‘Fools rush, Mr Ryder. We are not fools. They will be watching for us so this is not the time for rash decisions . . .’ She holds her hand up at the voices disagreeing with her. ‘You are all good at what you do, exceptional in some cases, but this is what I do. This is my expertise. We run the OP and gain intel.’
A begrudging silence settles in response to her words. Harry nods, lifting a hand in a show of compliance.
‘Okay,’ Emily says.
‘Fair enough,’ Safa adds.
‘Take refs. We’ll deploy for the second Berlin visit in twenty minutes,’ Miri says, pushing up from the table to pull a pack of cigarettes from her pocket as she walks off towards the shore.
Ben watches her go, something in her words, the nuances, the tells, the tone of her voice. ‘Can someone make me and Miri a coffee, please?’ He walks off, following behind Miri and watching as she stops on the edge of the soft sand to smoke and stare out across the blue waters. She shows no reaction when he falls in at her side, standing quietly.
‘Why aren’t we responding now, Miri?’
She sucks on the cigarette, pulling the smoke into her lungs before blasting it out through her nose. ‘Diligence,’ she says bluntly.
He nods, folding his arms. ‘True, but isn’t there a risk of escalation? We didn’t respond to the Affa thing so maybe that’s what made them drop a nuke. What if we don’t respond now? They might drop a bigger nuke . . .’
She smokes again and he finally turns to see that her normally cold grey eyes now look more blue. Stress in her features, her lips pursed with a bare hint of worry.
‘Never use a nuke,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘Even we never used one after Japan. Even Russia in the cold war never used them. We had them to make sure no one used them . . . It wouldn’t be sanctioned.’
‘What?’
‘The Brits would not sanction the use of a nuclear weapon on their own country, Ben.’
He almost flinches at her using his first name and the real emotion showing in her voice, then her words hit, the realisation of what she means. ‘Oh,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ she says bitterly. ‘Oh.’
‘Right, well, that’s us between a rock and a hard place.’
‘Damn right. Now you can see why I’m hesitating. No government would sanction the use of a nuke on their own people. Not even for this. It changes their own history, it stops them existing . . .’
‘And if the government didn’t sanction it then it means whoever is running that show did it themselves.’
‘They killed twenty-five thousand people like that to get at us, Mr Ryder.’ She snaps her fingers as she says it, ramming the point home. ‘Hundreds of thousands then suffered the worst kind of injuries you can imagine . . . just to get at us.’ She stops to smoke, shaking her head again. ‘That’s a cost too high to pay.’ She looks stricken for a second at allowing the thought that so many died because of her actions, that she didn’t make enough effort to ensure no blueprints or plans survived Cavendish Manor, that this is her fault – her ego and desire to be back in the game made this happen. Agents and operatives have to separate emotion from duty, but after that? After seeing that someone dropped a nuke just to get their attention?
‘Okay,’ Ben says, bringing her mind back. ‘So maybe they’re thinking they can make changes and then reset it once we’re caught. Like, go back and tell the old them not to kill the Romans or drop the nuke . . . But that could have dire consequences depending on if the old them was in the same timeline they are in now as that goes back to the whole killing-yourself-as-a-baby thing. Bloody hell. Right . . . we need to think about this.’
‘I want you focussed on this situation,’ she says firmly. ‘We can run the OP. Stay here and work out a solution.’
‘What? Me?’
‘As much as I hate to admit it, and trust me, Mr Ryder, it gives me great pains, you are smarter than me . . .’
‘Really?’ he asks, smiling at her.
‘Don’t get cocky,’ she says flatly, easing back into normal Miri-mode.
‘I’ll come with you to Berlin,’ he says casually, casting her a look. ‘Geniuses can multi-task.’
She snorts a rare laugh and drops to stub the smoke out.
‘We’ll sort it,’ he says with a confidence reserved for the young, foolish and brave.
Twenty-Six
Berlin, Bundesstraβe 2, 3 February 1945
Berlin. The day after the mass bombing raid and still the fires burn with black smoke choking the air. This isn’t earth. This is hell. A place forsaken by a God who turned his back on the evils of mankind. This is a city on its knees, suffering for the years of horror it unleashed on everyone else. This is punishment on a scale unwitnessed in the history of this planet.
Over a thousand USAAF heavy bombers dropped payloads to decimate the infrastructure and make the giant die a death of a thousand cuts. To weaken the might of the Third Reich and bring its people to the brink of annihilation and yet it’s not over. The Führer cowers in his bunker and those of his high command who can sniff the wind and see the coming armies bolt for South America to new identities and new lives.
To see that day, the day of the bombing, was a thing indeed, but to see this now, the aftermath and the horror of human suffering, is something else.
It’s freezing cold, it stinks and dead bodies are everywhere – mangled corpses that lie half-covered by whatever burnt and smouldering material could be found. The buildings stand like broken skeletons. Walls here and there tower over rubble. Mounds of brick and masonry still too hot to search for bodies or even hope of survivors.
There are no young men now. Not here. They’re all away fighting a war and so women and the old and infirm carry the stretchers to the broken ambulances. They hold the hoses to spray water on fires. They tear down walls to make fire-breaks. They drag the bodies into the street so the survivors can try to name the fallen. Clothing and faces are blackened from the grime, soot and smoke. There is no valour here, no hope that it will get better. The Russians are coming closer, and everyone knows those heavy bombers will return to punish them more.
They thread a slow route through the street. Clambering over chunks of buildings and round piles of corpses waiting to be taken away. They cover their mouths and noses in a vain attempt to prevent the putrid stench seeping through. Emily has seen death. She has given death many times, but this is beyond anything and she grips Konrad’s hand as he takes the lead over a pile of bricks. Konrad has a sepia photograph of a smiling child, cherubic and angelic. The clothes they wear were once tailored and expensive but are now as ripped, torn and stained as everyone else’s. They pretend to have been searching all night with filth rubbed on their faces to hide the healthy glow of their sun-kissed skin.
Konrad stops at a pile of bodies, his stomach heaving. His eyes fill with tears and at that second he detests Roland Cavendish with every ounce of his being. For taking him away from his death to be a part of this. To be here in this place.
‘Who?’ an old man asks, his voice broken and low. He nods at the photograph in their hands.
‘Our boy,’ Konrad says, his voice cracking with emotion.
The old man limps over to them, his sore red eyes squinting as he studies the photograph. ‘Not here,’ he says, motioning the pile of bodies. ‘Try further down.’
‘Danke,’ Konrad says quietly.
‘Danke,’ Emily says, following her husband down the street. She might have been a Two, but she is a trained agent and this is where she excels. To blend, to assume t
he cover needed to become a part of the scenery. She clocks the railway arch at the end of the street and looks back to the third building from the end on the right side from where Ben and the others are watching. She takes in the remaining buildings in the street, any one of which could be used by Alpha and his team to conduct surveillance now. She drops her head, pretending to be distraught and heart-broken, without hope of finding her son and she walks on with her husband through the broken lives and broken buildings.
They go slow. They are tired, weary to the bone, but they will search every street in Berlin for him. They’ll not stop until they know. It’s an awful thing to do, to borrow grief from those suffering to blend in, while holding a picture of a child bought from a shop in Lambeth-not-Lambeth. It feels wrong, like voyeurism, like fraud of the soul.
More bodies laid out in a neat row. Mostly adults but the smaller covered mounds at the end mean they must stop and check. Konrad falters, his heart breaking into a million pieces at the thought of looking at dead children. Emily squeezes his hand, sensing his fear. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispers in German. ‘I’ll do it. Watch the arch.’
‘I can’t,’ he says, the emotion clear in his voice. Tears track down his cheeks, scoring marks through the grime. ‘I can’t . . . not children . . .’
‘Let me see,’ a woman walks over to them. She looks exhausted, drained to the point of passing out, and Emily can see it’s pure grit and nothing more keeping her up.
‘My husband,’ Emily says, her voice quavering. ‘He can’t look . . .’
The woman nods once, glaring balefully at Konrad as though the whole of this war is his fault, the fault of man, the greed and ego of man. She studies the photograph and nods once again. ‘We might have him.’ When she speaks she does so softly, kindly, and sets off to the end of the row and the small mounds with Emily following and Konrad weeping as he tries to watch the arch.
The woman looks at Emily, lowers to her knees and gently pulls a single rose-patterned curtain back from the body of the child. Blond-haired, small and so fragile. Emily feels the reality of it, the trueness of it and the tears that come are not faked at all. ‘No,’ she says hoarsely.