Day of Deliverance (18 page)

Nothing happened.

Jack was now at his side and they could both see the helicopter inching forward for the final kill.

“I think you need to switch it on.”

Jack flicked a switch on the side of the launcher and it hummed into life.

This time, Angus kept his eyes open and aimed. He fired and the rocket fizzed from the muzzle of the launcher and smashed into the housing beneath the rotor blades. There was an explosion, but then the smoke cleared and, incredibly, the helicopter was hanging in the air.

In desperation, Jack turned to Tony at the back of the cabin. “He’s still there!”

But then the tone of the engine changed and the rhythmic whirring of the blades seemed to falter and slow down. The machine hung for a moment longer and then dropped like a stone into the sea. Jack and Angus looked on as the two pilots struggled to free themselves from the water rising up inside the cockpit. As he looked down from the stern cabin of
The Revenge
, Jack clearly saw Pendelshape raging at them from the cockpit.

Sultan of Spin

Beneath his feet, Jack saw the shimmering eddies of electricity consolidate and then morph into the steel platform of the Taurus. The heavy metal struts that bounded the inner shell of the great machine gradually came into focus and the features of the control room beyond the thick green glass of the blast screen became clearer. The blast screen was lowered and a number of people in the control centre came forward – they were clapping and cheering. Jack blinked. He could see Inchquin, the Rector, Beattie and, right at the front, his mum, Carole, beaming from ear to ear. They were home.

Jack could hear the hum from the generators powering down as he and Angus made their way down the gantry from the Taurus. The medical team rushed forward to help down the injured Tony and Gordon, who were immediately dispatched to the underground surgery. Carole Christie rushed forward to hug Jack and seconds later Inchquin and then the Rector were shaking their hands. It was over.

Following a medical examination and a meal, they decamped to VIGIL’s Situation Room to debrief. The team sat round the same table where Inchquin had chaired the first war council, on hearing
the news leaked by Jack’s father following his bust-up with Pendelshape. They spent the next hour picking through their experiences in the sixteenth century – supported by analysis from the rest of the VIGIL team. Jack struggled to get his head round it all.

“So how do you know that our mission was a success? Is it just because you know we don’t have to go back and, kind of, do any more ‘tidying up’?”

Inchquin smiled. “I know it is difficult to understand, but it is self-evident. We are all still here and history as we remember it is the same before your mission as it is now – a very short time later.”

“But, but – what if Pendelshape had succeeded?” Angus said.

“If the Revisionist mission had been a success we would be living in a very different world. Perhaps we wouldn’t exist at all. We don’t really know for sure what the consequences would be – and for that reason alone it is extremely dangerous to meddle in history.”

“When we met Pendelshape, he said that the Revisionists’ modelling techniques were now so sophisticated that they would somehow be able to ring-fence themselves from the changes they made. So they’d, you know, make changes to history so the future was better, but kind of keep themselves and their Taurus separate and in control.” Jack looked at Inchquin with a furrowed brow. “Is that
possible
?”

Inchquin shook his head. “It’s called ‘lineage isolation’. They clearly
think
it’s possible – and it may be, perhaps with repeated interventions – but we think it would be utter madness.”

Jack’s brain was working overtime. “By what you’re saying then… does that mean we kind of know that the Revisionists will never be successful, because, you know, if they had – history would already be different?”

Inchquin smiled. “Very good, Jack. Indeed that is one theory – that history as we know it already reflects what has
happened, including any interventions that the Revisionists have made, and, in fact, interventions we have made to stop them.”

Angus moaned. “Sorry – I’m lost – this is a complete mindbender.”

“The point is, Angus, much of this time theory is conjecture. However clever the scientists are, we just don’t understand it well enough. We are on the edge of the unknown, but our position is clear: the human race is not some sort of experiment in a petri dish to fiddle around with.”

“Well one thing is for sure,” Joplin said breezily, “we now know much more about what did happen – including the plot to kill the queen.”

“What do you mean, Theo?”

“Well, as you know, the plot already exists in the historical archive; however, it’s practically a footnote. But we know from what we saw at Hampton Court that it was one of the most dramatic of the many plots against Elizabeth in the late sixteenth century. My theory now is that Walsingham suppressed much of the detail, including the death of Lady Sarah.”

“Why?”

“Although unearthing the plot and trapping the assassins so brilliantly at Hampton Court was a triumph for England, and a personal triumph for Walsingham, on reflection he clearly decided that the whole thing was too close for comfort – particularly the narrow escape in the wilderness. The queen could have been killed and the kingdom could have been thrown into turmoil. Walsingham must have considered it much better to perpetuate the image of the Faerie Queene – untouchable, inviolate, supreme – rather than publicise the reality of the plot too enthusiastically.”

“No decapitated heads were sent to Philip II?”

“Far too unsubtle. And remember Elizabeth’s speech in the hall…”

Jack nodded.

“Well, that must have been quietly suppressed too. Later it was re-used, of course. It is now remembered as part of her
famous speech at Tilbury, which was delivered more than a year later, actually as the threat of the Armada passed.”

“Elizabeth – the first sultan of spin!” Joplin chortled at his own joke. “She’d do some of our own politicians proud.”

“What happened to Marlowe?”

“A bit of a mystery. We know that the Spanish took him into hiding following the incident in Cambridge. When the plot fell through, there was no evidence for the Spanish to really pin the blame on him. We think Walsingham continued to use him as a spy, but may have finally lost patience a few years later. Marlowe was murdered – a dagger above the right eye – some say it was a drunken brawl, but others believe it was an assassination, as all three of the other men who were with him when he died worked for Walsingham and his brother.”

There was silence for a moment and for some reason the words from Marlowe’s portrait ghosted through Jack’s mind:

What feeds me destroys me.

“One thing, then…” Angus said, “what about a helicopter appearing in the middle of the Armada? I’ve never heard of that before – you’re not telling me that Walsingham hushed that up too.”

Joplin laughed. “Good point. My theory is that there was such confusion during the battle – the smoke, the noise – you saw what it was like – that few eye witnesses recorded the event. Remember, it was only there for a few minutes. Those who did see it, and survived, referred, glassy-eyed, to a ‘fiery monster descending into the sea’ or ‘a lightning bolt from the finger of God’ – all explanations that historians readily put down to the religious hysteria of the time or post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by the witnesses. Remember that many of the Spanish died and actually a lot of the English did too – but after the battle; there was no money to pay for their care. Anyway, the reports that existed were felt to be nonsense and were, rightly, treated as such later on by serious historians.”

“But we know better,” the Rector said as he stood up and
pointed to an electronic map on the wall. “We have already dispatched a salvage crew to the English Channel to determine if anything was left of the helicopter wreck at the bottom of the sea, even though four hundred years have passed since it sank. If we can identify bones or teeth in the wreck, it will prove that Pendelshape and whoever else was in that blasted contraption are gone for good – and with them, hopefully the entire Revisionist cause.”

By the time Jack and Angus climbed wearily into Carole Christie’s battered old VW Golf, it was nearly midnight.

“I rang your parents, Angus, to say you would be late and would sleep over with us tonight,” Carole said.

“Thanks, Carole.” Angus slapped his forehead. “Hey! I nearly forgot.”

“What?” Jack said.

“It’s the rugby final tomorrow.”

Jack grinned. “You’re going to walk it after what we’ve been through.”

Taser Town

It was a beautiful spring day. Jack cycled his mountain bike up the old driveway at Cairnfield and then onto the main road that led up the long hill into Soonhope High Street. It was a busy Saturday lunchtime and the world and his wife seemed to be out. Angus was waiting outside Gino’s with a big grin on his face. He saw Jack and waved something in the air. It was the rugby trophy.

“We won!”

“Good stuff – did you score?”

“Just one try.” Angus jerked his head towards the café. “Come on – chip butties to celebrate – then I’ve got to head home.”

Gino was delighted to see them. In fact he was so delighted, that he immediately closed the shop and turfed everyone else out, making some excuse about a gas leak.

“You’ve had a big adventure, eh?” he winked at them conspiratorially. “You are both big VIGIL heroes. What can I get you? It’s on the house.” He grinned. “Don’t tell me: double
Gino-chino
, extra shot, full fat, with caramel and extra cream…” Then Angus and Gino announced in unison, “And don’t forget the cherry.” Gino thought this was absolutely hilarious and his belly wobbled as he laughed uproariously.

“Chip butties too please, Gino.”

Jack and Angus settled into one of the booths and straight away Angus started fiddling with the large plastic tomato-shaped ketchup holder. He squeezed it so the sauce just oozed out of the top, before releasing his grip so that it was sucked back in again with a satisfying squelch.

“That’s disgusting,” Jack said after Angus had squidged the bottle for the third time.

“Sorry,” Angus replied. “Hey, have you still got it? You know, the ring or whatever it was old queenie gave you?

Jack smiled and reached into his pocket. He placed the ring on the table. It glinted up at them.

Angus looked agog. “It’s a whopper. What’s that green thing?”

“Emerald – stupid. That’s the stone. The ring is gold.”

“What do you think it’s worth?”

Jack shrugged. “Thousands, maybe tens of thousands…”

“
Awesome
. You going to keep it?”

“Of course. It’s mine. Queen Elizabeth I of England gave it to me – the Faerie Queene. I saved her life, her kingdom and the human race… though, granted, you did help,” Jack said, smiling.

Angus just laughed.

“Hey, I brought something else to show you,” Jack said.

“Really weird this… I mean almost as weird as some of the stuff we saw.”

Jack pulled from his bag the large history book that Miss
Beattie had loaned him.

“Remember Beattie gave this to me before we went back? It’s got all sorts of pictures and stuff about Queen Elizabeth and the sixteenth century…” Jack thumbed through the pages. “Check that out.”

Jack pointed at the small colour frame at the bottom of one of the pages. It was one he had noticed when he’d first leafed through the book, entitled ‘Elizabethan Troupe’. It was a simple colour plate of a group of actors in various costumes. There was one dressed as a court jester and next to him, in stark contrast, another dressed as a monk. There was a third who looked slightly more important – like a country gentleman with a fine cloak and a neat, pointed beard.

“No way!” Angus nearly slid off his seat. “It’s the Marlowe players at Corpus Christi and that’s got to be Fanshawe, Trinculo and Monk…”

“And?” Jack said knowingly.

Eyeing the picture more closely, Angus spotted two further figures off to one side. One was tall and broad with longish black hair. The other was shorter, more slender, and had a shock of blond hair. For a moment Angus could not place them – then he realised – it was the two of them: Angus and Jack.

“Didn’t really notice it before. But that’s not all. There’s a picture of the battle of Gravelines – you know, showing the ‘fiery god’.”

Angus was not impressed, “Doesn’t look much like a helicopter to me. Certainly not a WAH-64 Apache armed with a chain gun and CRV7 rockets.”

“Well, as Joplin said, that’s the problem with eyewitness accounts.”

“And historians – they’re clearly all rubbish.”

The shop was quiet for a moment. Gino broke the silence, humming behind the counter as he prepared the chip butties.

“I nearly forgot!” Jack said, pulling out his mobile. “Got a message…”

“Oh yeah? Who’s it from?”

“Dad.” Jack scrolled down the emails and waved the device in Angus’s face. “Look.”

Angus squinted at the text and read aloud:

“It’s that weird quote again – about the world being broken and someone having to sort it out. Wasn’t that what you said?”

Jack smiled. “Sort of – the verse from
Hamlet
.”

Angus read on.

Angus looked up. “Wow. What do you think he will do next?”

Jack shrugged. “No idea. He’s in a pretty desperate situation… a fugitive. Must be tough – on the run from VIGIL.”

Jack quickly pocketed the mobile as Gino brought over the Gino-chinos and the chip butties, taking his own place next to them at the booth, with a small espresso in front of him.

“You did very well, lads. The whole team is proud.”

Francesca, Gino’s daughter, emerged from the back of the café. She was burdened with large bags of shopping. Gino winced, and whispered to Jack and Angus, “Watch it boys – she’s in a bad mood.”

Sure enough Francesca marched up the aisle between the booths and dumped the shopping at Gino’s feet.

“Why am I the only one who does any work around here?” she demanded.

“Hi Francesca,” Angus said breezily. Francesca returned his greeting with a withering stare.

“I’m sick of this pokey little shop and I’m sick of this pokey little town…”

Gino looked hurt, “My dear…”

But the girl had clearly had enough. “There’s nothing to do here… nothing ever happens…”

Gino’s moody daughter could not have been more wrong. Around the booth next to them, there was a disturbance in the air, then a blinding flash of white light. In front of them appeared a tall man with a rich tan and chiselled features. He wore a fine black cloak. Next to him were two shorter, powerfully built men. One had a badly disfigured eye and a scar that stretched from his forehead, across the side of his eye and down his cheek. The last
time Jack and Angus had seen Delgado, Hegel and Plato was in a torture chamber underneath a house on the outskirts of Elizabethan London. It was just before Jack had tricked them with the time phone and zapped them into hyperspace. Little did he know that they would be transported to Gino Turinelli’s Italian café in the middle of Soonhope High Street.

Although they looked dazed and confused, it did not take long for Delgado to gather his wits. He had no idea where he was, but he recognised Jack and Angus and he drew his sword. Francesca screamed. Gino was the first to react. He leaped from the booth and dived over the counter of the café. For a portly man he moved surprisingly quickly. In an instant Plato was after him, sword in hand. He jumped up onto the counter and swung his sword around his head, dislodging great lumps of plaster from the ceiling and sending plates, glasses, bottles and jars flying around the café. Gino slowly got to his feet and raised his hands from behind the counter in a gesture of surrender. Plato stopped waving his sword around and from his position on the counter, lowered it menacingly so it touched the base of Gino’s throat. He looked back over his shoulder to Delgado and awaited his orders. Hegel grabbed Francesca from behind and held a dagger to her cheek. Francesca whimpered. Delgado approached Jack and Angus with his sword outstretched and they cowered back in the booth.

Jack glanced over at Gino who was trembling and had his eyes closed. But Jack noticed that in one of his outstretched hands he was grasping something… a mobile phone.

Delgado hissed at Jack, “Where are we – what kind of
witchcraft
is this?” He no longer spoke in the calm and collected way he had done in the cellar. He was confused and scared. This made him dangerous and unpredictable – he might do anything.

“You speak, my friend,” he glanced over at Hegel, who pressed the flat side of his knife to Francesca’s cheek, “or the girl dies.”

Suddenly, in the distance, they could hear the sound of a police siren. Jack’s heart leaped – somehow Gino had made the
emergency call.

Delgado heard the noise too and he became more agitated. “What is this noise?”

He left Jack and Angus unguarded for a moment, crept gingerly forward to the plate-glass window at the front of the café and peered into the street beyond. The good people of Soonhope, oblivious to the strange events taking place inside the town’s favourite Italian café, were going about their business – as on any other Saturday lunchtime. Jack could see the look on Delgado’s face as he gazed from one end of the High Street to the other. It was the same expression of stupid shock that Jack must have shown when he regained consciousness on top of the tower at Fotheringhay Castle. In a way, what Delgado saw was normal. There were people out there, walking, talking and going about their business. The large building at one end of the street looked oddly familiar – a church built not long after. But the people were dressed in an extraordinary way. There were no horses or carts. And why was the street strewn with large, coloured boxes… on wheels?

Delgado was still standing paralysed in front of the window when three distinctive metal boxes drew up outside – ones with flashing lights on the top. The people of Soonhope had no time to register that the most exciting event in their High Street’s history was happening right before their eyes. The plate-glass window of Gino’s café shattered and before Delgado could react, the two
dart-electrodes
from the taser gun hit him square in the chest. He screamed as the electric charge coursed through his body. Behind him, Hegel and Plato experienced the same fate, as police stormed in from the back of the café. Incapacitated, the three men were quickly bundled into the back of a police van and driven off at speed. Naturally, VIGIL’s reach also extended to the local police force. The café was quickly cordoned off.

Soon afterwards, Tony arrived; his shoulder was still heavily strapped from his injury. He looked around the café. Glass from the smashed front window had sprayed across the floor and
broken crockery was strewn everywhere. Policemen were inspecting the debris. In one corner, Gino tried to comfort Francesca, who sobbed in his arms. Jack and Angus had not budged from their position in the booth.

“I don’t know what it is with you two,” Tony said, “but you always make such a lot of mess.”