by RR Haywood
‘No way,’ Ben says, hardly believing it. ‘Right . . . you ready, Kon?’
‘No, I’m not bloody ready – my hands hurt and . . .’
‘Final push . . . GO!’ Ben sets off as the tank speeds up, sending the German soldiers scattering, and Emily runs wide as Safa and Charlie burst out to fire sub-machine guns while Harry vaults to the top of the moving tank, a sub-machine gun in each hand that he fires into the screaming men.
Emily fires her pistol, sending single shots into centres of mass to drop men, striding out with her pistol in a double-handed grip. She empties the magazine, but changes it with a blur of speed to resume firing as Ben and Konrad grit their teeth and run through the bedlam with bullets flying everywhere.
Emily changes magazine again, then runs hard into the melee, dropping to slide at the last second to take out the legs of a German soldier, making him fall as she rises to send her last bullet through his head, then ditching her pistol to snatch his sub-machine gun as she rolls and rises, surging to her feet to strafe the grey uniforms near her as the tank turns into Bundesstraβe 2. Into the final stretch and the sight of Arch 451 at the very end.
‘BEN . . . GET BEHIND . . .’ Harry roars from his perch on top of the tank. ‘I’M OUT,’ he shouts, throwing his empty guns away as two more get flung up by Safa.
‘Kon . . . RUN!’ Ben goes for it, gritting his teeth to run across the junction and into Bundesstraβe 2 to get behind the tank as Charlie, Safa and Emily move out to cover them.
‘Let me have her.’ Charlie pushes his arms under Miri’s form, lifting her from the stretcher to run at the back of the tank. ‘HARRY!’
The big man spins and moves fast, dropping to take Miri from Charlie, heaving the unconscious woman up onto the tank. ‘GO,’ he roars, thumping the hatch.
‘I AM BLOODY GOING,’ Delta shouts back.
Ben flexes his hands, grimacing at the pain in his fingers and shoulders as Safa thrusts a sub-machine into his hands and turns him round. ‘Get shooting . . . ONE STREET TO GO . . . COME ON!’
The German soldiers rally and start running through the ruins on both sides as ahead more German soldiers come into the street, running past Arch 451 to join the fight, and those odds start stacking again, becoming more and more as the tank trundles with that fresh hope now once again starting to fade.
Alpha falls through the main door into the hospital. Sprawling out before pushing up to his feet to turn with almost drunken motion, seeing the nurses and doctors giving aid to the injured dumped in the hallway, who lie screaming and bleeding on stretchers. Someone grabs his arm, but he tugs free to half run and half stagger through rooms full of beds, viewing the faces of the women and children that go by in a sea of distress. So many of them. So many people here.
‘Stop!’ a male voice calls out. An exhausted doctor who bellows at Alpha, ‘No soldiers in here . . . You! I SAID YOU!’
Again he starts to run, ignoring the calls as he mounts the stairs to find Kate. He has to find Kate. He will find Kate.
‘KATE!’ he roars out and staggers onto the landing. ‘KATE!’
Echo stands guard outside the door to Herr Weber’s office listening to the noises outside. Sustained gunfire and explosions that sound like they’re coming closer. Something has changed. He grimaces and holds still. They shouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t be getting ready to drop a nuclear bomb. A creak on the stairs snaps his attention over. Another one. The sound of someone coming up, creaking each step as they rise, and he blinks when the person starts coming into view, then keeps coming into view. A man mountain. Seven feet tall and huge with it. A monstrously big human being.
‘Closed. Go back down,’ Echo says in German, but the man keeps coming. ‘I said to go back down,’ Echo repeats, pushing his hand round his back ready to draw his pistol. ‘Stop now,’ he orders and the arm of the man who crept to his side whips out to whisper the blade across his throat while a hand goes over his mouth, pulling him back and down to die quickly and die quietly.
Inside the office of Herr Weber, Alpha shakes the hand of the Nazi scientist. ‘Tomorrow then. Have everything ready,’ Alpha says.
‘Of course, of course,’ Herr Weber says. ‘We are ready . . .’
‘Well done, old chap.’ Bravo grins, shaking hands, then steps to the door, gripping the handle. ‘And what a jolly day out it will be.’ He twists the handle and steps out in front of Alpha, who nods again at Herr Weber and moves across the threshold to feel a blade at his throat and an arm coming round across his forehead.
‘Easy now, Affas . . . Not a word, eh?’
‘What the . . .’ Herr Weber rushes out and stops dead from the blade sticking in his stomach and the cold hard eyes of Ria Cavendish staring through him. She twists the handle left then right and pulls it free to slice across his neck before kicking him away back into his office, then she turns slowly to look first at Bravo held off his feet by Oleg’s huge arms wrapped round his head and Alpha gripped by Jerry holding a blade to his throat.
‘Jerry and Oleg are special forces,’ Ria says, her voice dull and hard. ‘Or they were until they got their pensions. Now they own a café in what used to be Lambeth . . .’
‘Best fried locusts in London, Affa,’ Jerry whispers into Alpha’s ear. ‘Isn’t that right, Oleg?’
Oleg nods with a simple gesture that makes Bravo shake like a doll in his arms as Ria looks down at the German SS dagger she found in the remains of the bunker now dripping blood and steps to drive the blade into Bravo’s chest, staring into his eyes that go wide as the blood drains from his face.
‘You killed my mother,’ she tells him.
He tries shaking his head, but the blade twists and yanks, then drives in again while outside the gunfire grows closer. She pulls the knife out and watches the life drain from his eyes that grow heavier until he hangs limp in Oleg’s arms, who simply releases to let him fall dead.
Alpha squirms in Jerry’s grip, the hand over his mouth preventing him from calling out. Preventing him from begging or pleading.
‘A dinosaur crashed through the roof of the bunker,’ Ria tells him, moving closer. ‘It turned the portal off and I spent a year being hunted by packs of velociraptors. They’re clever too. Really cunning things . . .’ She stops to look at him, staring through him as the blade comes up and he squirms hard, desperately trying to call out. ‘Then I went after them,’ she says simply. ‘Now they fear me . . .’ Alpha grunts as the blade sinks in. ‘I’m not Miri. I will kill all of you if you come after my brother . . .’ The knife sinks deeper, pushed hard by a young woman with strength in her arms and shoulders. ‘This is for my mother . . .’ She twists and pulls the knife free, severing arteries that pump blood out as he slides from Jerry’s arms to lie dying on the floor with Ria Cavendish standing over him. ‘Guess what . . . this is a memory of you so that means I get to find you and kill you again . . .’
So close. They got so close. Ben ditches the empty sub-machine gun and takes the next one thrown at him by Charlie. All of them bleeding, all of them cut from bullets winging past. Safa’s face a mask of blood. Harry’s still on the tank, his arms bleeding heavily. Charlie’s limping from a gunshot winging his thigh, while ahead of them the soldiers run into the street in front of Arch 451, blocking their path while more come in from behind.
So close. Ben fires back down the street, sending them scattering, but the soldiers find cover and keep the return fire going. Emily screams out, caught by a round scything her arm, but she grunts, snarls and keeps going and it’s down to this. To the final two hundred metres that they have no hope of getting through.
Then the tank cuts out. The fuel gone. Delta tries turning it over, but it refuses to start. He works the machine guns inside the turret, but they’re broken and useless, so with no other choice he pushes the hatch, clambers and drops down at the rear as Harry scoops Miri into his arms.
‘No fuel,’ Delta tells the others as incoming rounds ping from the tank. They glance back to the s
oldiers running into the end of Bundesstraβe 2 behind them and forward to more coming, running in front of Arch 451.
Trapped. No way out. The last stand is now and with blood up and bullets flying past, Harry grabs Emily, pushing a hand round her waist to pull her in to kiss as the smoke billows and the bombs from aircraft drop to shake the ground. He kisses hard with fire all around them and Safa blinks when Emily’s left foot lifts from the ground as the others look on until Harry pulls back.
‘Ach, you’re a fine woman, Miss Rose.’
‘It’s Emily,’ she whispers, swallowing while looking up into his eyes.
‘I so knew they’d get it on,’ Ria tells Oleg and Jerry from the first-floor window of building number thirteen. ‘Shall we?’
They lift the three missile launchers taken from the armoury in the bunker just before the dinosaur crashed through the roof, and as one they aim and fire with three missiles slamming through the window to scorch bright trails down the street to hit the ground between the soldiers running in.
‘Holy fuck!’ Ben shouts out as the missiles detonate. Then he spots Ria, Jerry and Oleg ditch the bazookas to heft fifty-calibre Barret rifles and turn to aim down towards Arch 451. A look between them. From Ben to Ria. A smile shared. A nod given.
‘GO!’ Ben roars, taking Miri from Harry. ‘GO, GO, GO . . .’
They run out as the rifles start firing, with those huge booms filling the street. German soldiers fly backwards off their feet and Ben runs hard with Harry, Safa, Emily, Konrad, Harry, Charlie and Delta all around him, Konrad firing a sub-machine gun with a snarl on his lips and fury in his eyes. Not that he hits anything.
‘You said they’d come up here,’ Jerry shouts over the noise.
‘I thought they would,’ Ria shouts back, guessing Ben must have a reason for going that way. They keep the fire on, killing German soldiers and sending them flying while Ben leads them across that final two hundred metres with Harry charging ahead to batter the door in to see the green glowing portal.
‘Ah,’ Ria says, seeing the shimmering light. ‘There’s one down there.’
‘How many bloody time machines have you got, Ria?’ Jerry asks.
‘KATE!’
He will find her. He has a mission. He is Alpha and he will complete his mission. Kate is the mission. She gave him love and hope. She gave him forgiveness for the awful things he has done. She held him in her arms and soothed his head. She whispered sweet words like an angel sent to make his soul repent for the murders and tortures committed in service for the greater good.
Face after face. Bed after bed. Alpha takes another flight of stairs to the top floor and every shred of confusion vanishes the second he sees her through a doorway sitting on the edge of a bed and he grins a sick smile through a bloodstained, sweat-soaked face covered in grime and filth as the world stops spinning and all the pain vanishes. She is here. She’s alive.
‘Kate,’ he croaks.
She turns to look at him and he takes in the bandage round her skull and the bruises on her cheeks and arms, but she’s alive. She’s here and alive. He walks towards her, swaying and heaving for air. ‘Gotta go,’ he says, clearing his throat to speak clearly. ‘We’ve got to go . . .’
‘GET OUT,’ a doctor yells behind him. ‘No men and no more soldiers . . . GET OUT NOW!’
‘My wife,’ Alpha snarls in German, turning in the doorway to aim his pistol at the doctor, who wilts back in sudden fear. ‘SHE IS MY WIFE,’ he adds in a bellow to the nurses and orderlies gathering behind the doctor. ‘And she is coming with me . . .’
He is Alpha. He will keep her safe. He turns to Kate and moves into the room towards the woman he swore to protect only to see the look of confusion and fear etched on her face and her eyes darting to the side.
‘I’m sorry . . . I don’t know this man . . .’ she says in a timid pained voice in a pure Berlin accent of fluent German.
A click of a hammer being pulled back and the pressure of a gun pushed into the back of his head and in the reflection from the taped glass in the window he sees the black-uniformed officers waiting behind the door aiming Lugers at his back.
Thirty-Seven
The Complex
‘We shouldn’t be doing it,’ Roger whispers urgently.
‘Roger,’ Gunjeep whispers, his voice edged with warning. ‘I do not want a bullet through my head, so I will tell you again to shut up!’
‘It’s a nuclear bomb, Gunjeep,’ Roger hisses, tutting foully as Gunjeep simply walks off.
The chief technician stops at the operating control panel, reading the date and location. 6 FEBRUARY 1945. ARCH 451. BUNDESSTRASSE 2. BERLIN. The agents are on their last visit to Herr Weber now. After this they drop the bomb on London and it’s like they’re all careering towards a thing that cannot now be stopped. Mother is too scary. The agents are too powerful, so everyone just keeps going, not knowing what else they can do.
Up the corridor in Mother’s office, Kate stands in front of her desk, tutting and shaking her head. ‘You really do look awful, Mother,’ she says. ‘Are you even washing? It smells ripe in here . . .’
‘People need to think I am losing my mind,’ Mother snaps.
‘Objective achieved then, I’d say,’ Kate replies. ‘Right, I’d better go and get ready for my handsome lover’s safe return from Berlin . . . What’s that look for?’ she asks on seeing Mother’s head snap to the monitors showing the live camera feed.
Gunjeep sighs in the portal room. Wishing he’d never taken this on. Wishing he’d never signed up for it. All of this to catch and kill a bunch of people everyone knows are heroes. Harry Madden for god’s sake. Harry Madden isn’t a terrorist.
‘GET DOWN NOW,’ Harry Madden roars, striding into the portal room. ‘DOWN, DOWN, DOWN . . .’
‘GET DOWN.’ Safa Patel behind him. Emily Rose, then Ben Ryder carrying Maggie Sanderson.
‘Everyone stay calm,’ Charlie calls out, limping through the portal followed by Delta.
Mother swipes at the monitor in her office, flicking through the live camera feeds while her heart jack-hammers in her chest. ‘It’s them,’ she whispers. ‘They’re here . . .’
‘Konrad,’ Ben says in the portal room while the others gain control, herding everyone together with Charlie and Delta telling them to stay calm. ‘We need that portal reset to the island . . . Get the doc in here . . .’
‘Gunjeep,’ Charlie orders. ‘Do as they say . . . Tell him the coordinates,’ he tells Konrad.
‘We need to get Miri to the medical section,’ Ben says.
‘Mother needs sorting first,’ Charlie says.
‘Room clearance as we move then,’ Safa says. ‘Ready?’
‘You said they wouldn’t do this,’ Kate says in Mother’s office. ‘You said they wouldn’t attack now . . . What are you doing?’ she asks, seeing her mother grab a pistol from a drawer. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid . . .’
‘This is a memory,’ Mother mutters, yanking the slide back on the gun. ‘A memory . . . Don’t attack a memory . . . THIS IS A MEMORY . . .’
Kate thinks fast, watching her mother’s increasingly frantic state as she bubbles up into seething incandescent rage. Whatever the reasons are, this is happening, and Kate rushes round to open more drawers, knowing her mother always keeps two guns. She finds one in the bottom drawer, pulling it out to check and make ready. ‘We’ll take them . . . We can do it.’ She looks at her mother. ‘We’ll take them . . . me and you . . . we can do it . . .’
Mother nods, frantic and shallow. Her eyes bulging. Her skin grey and waxen, the lines so deep. She looks haggard and coming apart at the seams.
‘They can’t win,’ Kate whispers, her voice low and urging, her tone pushing the buttons with an insidious delve into her mother’s psyche. ‘They can’t win again . . . We won’t let them . . .’
Mother stares into the eyes of her daughter, seeing the girl she raised and trained to be embedded into covert ops and hidden from the world. Her daughte
r and the one person in here she can trust implicitly.
‘We’ll do it, you and me,’ Kate implores. ‘We’re the good guys . . . we are . . . They’re terrorists.’
‘Terrorists,’ Mother mutters.
‘They won’t be expecting a frontal attack. We hit from the front . . . We take them down . . .’
‘From the front,’ Mother parrots. This is a memory. It serves no purpose to attack now. It shouldn’t happen. It can’t happen. It is happening. ‘From the front . . .’
Charlie and Delta lead the way down the corridor, pistols up and aimed, with Emily and Safa behind while Ben brings up the rear having left Harry with Konrad.
‘Double doors on the right,’ Emily says, aiming at the point of danger.
‘That’s the canteen,’ Charlie says.
‘You’ve got a canteen?’ Safa mutters. ‘We don’t have a bloody canteen . . . We had a table in a grotty old bunker.’
Mother and daughter stride down the corridor side by side. Faces blazing with righteous fury and pistols held in double-handed grips. An energy between them, an understanding that can only come from a connection born of blood. This is Mother’s complex. This is her ground and they’ll defend it and win. They’ll kill the bad guys.
The two sides draw ever closer together. Charlie and Delta going forward at the head of their group while Mother and Kate march towards them.
A bend in the corridor ahead. Charlie and Delta turn to glance back at Ben carrying Miri as Mother lifts her pistol and sweeps round to lock her aim on Safa Patel.
‘GUN!’ Emily shouts the warning and a single shot rings out that sends a bullet spinning across the short distance into the centre of mass.
Screams fill the corridor. Ears ringing from the firefight in Berlin, then from the gunshots within this contained corridor. Everyone stunned and holding still as Mother staggers back into the wall, sliding along leaving a smeared wake of blood as she drops. She felt the bullet hit, watches as her daughter lowers her gun with a look of absolute coldness on her face that holds for several long seconds before she morphs back into the historian, bursting into tears and wailing. ‘Oh my god, oh my god . . .’