Yesterday's Hero (17 page)

The bark of my pistol cuts him off. I aim for the lion’s eyes as best I can. I have no idea if it needs them to see, but it’s the most annoying place I can think to target.

“Come on you, big bastard.” I know it can’t hear me, but saying it makes me feel better. “Come to poppa.”

My knees still feel weak. I would feel much better about this plan if I had, say, dedicated the past thirty-four years of my life to actually exercising on a regular basis.

The lion roars once more.

I put a shot down its throat.

And that does it.

It comes at me. No warning. No final growl. Just uncurls into action.

“Fuuuuuuuuuu…” I never make it to the end of the expletive. I turn and flee, fast as I can. I can feel the ground shaking beneath me. Can feel the thing a yard behind me. Gaining. Eating up inch after valuable inch. Just like it’ll eat me.

Save me, Clyde. Please. Take this moment I’m trying to buy you and save the crap out of me.

A noise from behind me, vast, squealing, but still that rhythm of metal paws doesn’t cease. Head down. Push on reserves of adrenaline that I’m not sure are there. A breathless ragged push to flee. To get
away.

Everything around me disappears. Even the sound of the lion. Everything narrows down into the action of placing the next foot, the next one, pumping my legs that little bit harder. My whole world reduced to a single action.

And then I trip, I sprawl. Hands out, too late. I grind my chin on concrete, bite my lip, spit blood. I roll. Arse over head. Feet over arse. Crashing down. Arms splayed. Wrist slamming down. Skid and stop.

And this is it. This is—

—I don’t die. I lie on my back, puffing, wheezing, trying to desperately suck air back into my lungs. Trying to widen my vision from the two narrow points it’s become.

I am not in Trafalgar Square any more. I am in a dull back street. All brown brick, and black, wet asphalt. Somehow in my mad dash, I have managed to fully clear the field of engagement. I must have looked like a lunatic, sprinting madly away.

Jesus, I have to get back there.

I check my gun. My hands are shaking almost uncontrollably. Too much adrenaline in the system. Too much having my life threatened by things that shouldn’t be. I am going to go back to that square and I am going to execute me some Russians. Shock and bloody awe.

“What’s Katerina’s situation?”

Who the hell? I spin around. But the street’s abandoned. No one here.

“Pardon?” The voice again, quiet and bland, barely audible. “Is she on location?”

A little voice that seems to be coming from my pocket. I reach in. What the hell do I have…?

Coleman’s phone. It’s still on, still translating.

“She’s at Big Ben now.”

Russians. Russians are talking. Near me. Audibly.

“And they’re all here?”

Russians talking about Big Ben. I was just talking about Big Ben the other day. Something to do with all this. What was it?

“The MI37 goons? They haven’t a clue.”

I spin round in the street. And there’s no one here. A couple of parked cars. An empty Fiat. An empty Ford. Some worker men’s white van.

Wait… the van. The window is rolled down. I take a step towards it. I hear a voice. Syllables I don’t fully catch.

“Ivan has given his performance?”

I look down at the phone. Take another step.

More mumbling.

“What was that?” asks the phone.

I look at it. What was what?

“Do you hear that?” asks the phone.

I waste about half a second wondering how on earth I triggered paranoia mode on Coleman’s phone before I realize I’m rumbled. The Russians know I’m here. I back up ten fast paces and flatten myself against the back of the van. My breathing is coming fast. I put the phone away, slip it into the inside pocket of my jacket. Time to concentrate on my other hand and the gun in it.

I hear the van door open. A heavy foot falls.

Breathe slow. I make my mouth a little “o,” concentrate on controlling each exhalation.

Footsteps move away from me. Four, five, six. They stop.

I grip my gun in both hands, the cold wet barrel pressed to the tip of my nose. Like I’m praying to the god of gunslingers.

The footsteps stop, reverse direction, come closer. Four, five, six. As quietly as I can, I thumb back the hammer on the pistol. More steps. Seven, eight, nine. Still coming. I can hear a slight motorized whine with each one. Ten, eleven, twelve. They stop.

I stop breathing. Slowly, so slowly I stretch out my arms, point the gun at the corner of the van.

Get back in, bastard. Get back in.

A woman’s voice comes from the van. Someone calling to the figure in the street. An incomprehensible stream of Russian syllables.

“Come back, Leo. There’s no one there.”

I stare in horror at my pocket. What sort of hellspawn put a microphone with the sensitivity of a hummingbird in this bloody thing? Who would do that?

I hear the scuff of the man’s heels. I take a step backward, brace to pull the trigger.

A flash of light, like a camera going off. Then my world spins. I stagger.

Behind me. Someone just hit me from behind. But he… Did the woman climb out of the van?

Groggy, I spin, bring up the gun. But I’m just staring into a flash of light.

Another blow. From the right this time. From down back the way I’d come. And how many of the bastards are there? How long have they been watching me?

I spin again. A foot crashes into my kidneys. I stagger, go down on all fours. I try to hold onto the gun but it spills from my hands. I watch it scatter uselessly away.

A cold hand grabs my chin. Cold like the barrel of my gun against my nose. It heaves me up, an unforgiving grip on my jaw, lifting me to my knees, my feet.

A man in his forties. Good-looking. Elegant Slavic features. Straw-blond hair matted to his scalp by rain. Disgust in his eyes.

He pushes me back, and I fall. I land on my arse in a puddle. My hands grind against the blacktop. Everything is spinning.

The Russian, Leo I heard him called, says something I don’t understand.

“You think you are clever?” asks the phone.

Not particularly, no.

Another question in Russian.

“You think you have us now?” the phone translates. “I do not think you are clever, little British man. I do not think you have us, little spy.” The Russian takes another step towards me. Still talking.

I scrabble towards my gun.

“I think you are dead,” says the phone.

I’m beginning to think that Coleman’s phone is as big an arsehole as he is.

T
he Russian reaches me before I reach my gun. His boot in my gut once more. I grab onto the limb, try to haul myself up. He shakes me off—a deft punch to my sternum that makes me wheeze. I stagger back. My gun is still yards away. The Russian steps between me and it. I ball my fists.

The Russian grins, takes a step back, beckons to me with one hand. And I don’t need the phone to translate that cocky little gesture.
Come on then, if you think you’re hard enough.

And screw this guy. Screw all these Russians, and their superior fucking attitude. Winston trod on one of you bastards. I’m going to do the same.

All the fear, and pain, and exhaustion of the day, I ball it all into my fists. I crush it between my hands. And I swing. Because, yes, you Russian bastard, I think I’m hard enough.

And I swing. And I miss.

He’s not there. There’s a flash of light and my fist flies through empty space. He’s simply not there. I stumble forward into abandoned space.

And then a blow out of nowhere. Hard knuckles colliding with the side of my head, sending me staggering.

I spin, and he’s there. Where he wasn’t. Grinning at me. And fuck. This. Guy. I lower my shoulder, charge.

A flash of light. A bright-blue line from van to man, and then I’m sprawling through empty space, tripping and slipping. I splash down, grind my chin against the blacktop. He’s not there.

His foot crashes into my ribs. I fold in around his boot, fail to absorb the blow. Another. Another.

I manage to pull myself together enough to spin my legs at him. Not really a kick. A kick’s inbred cousin. But again—an electric blue flash, a spark from car to man, and I strike air.

His boot comes in again, again. I make it to all fours. I can’t see. Water and blood in my eyes. His foot catches me in the gut. I’m off the ground. Smacking down. Hands and knees. My head down. Water filling my nose. Grunting. Waving my arm. Not really a punch. Not much of anything. All I’ve got left is hurting. A flash of light, and the boot comes from the other side. There’s a rhythm to it. Pain. Pain. Pain.

I collapse. The road pressed to my cheek. An unsympathetic shoulder to cry on.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

“Leo,” I can hear the phone in my pocket saying. “Leo. Leo.” Damn thing isn’t even talking to me any more.

“Leo you’ll hurt yourself.”

Wait.
He
’ll hurt
himself
? But I’m too concussed to be truly indignant.

“Leo stop it.”

More of that please.

The world has become a very small place. A tiny point of rain and pain that swirls before me. It seems very far away. Each kick knocking me further away, further darkness, until, finally, everything goes black.

C
onsciousness returns in strobe flashes. I see the street. It fades. Rain falls. It fades. Hello world. Goodbye world. See you soon. Even the pain sinks into darkness for a while.

Next time I come to, the world is bleached away. Everything brilliant and white. I try to get away from the brightness, but my body won’t respond.

Should I go into the light? Has it come to that already?

“Not as dead as he looks,” says a voice.

Probably stay away from the light for now then.

“Arthur? Arthur?” It sounds like Felicity. It’s nice to know she’s here.

“Alright, alright. Hold your bloody horses.” It’s the first speaker, the one so keen to shine light into my eyes. He sounds familiar but I can’t quite place the voice. “I’ll give him a shot of the jolly juice.”

There is a pinch in my neck. And then the world suddenly grows very bright and very light. My body grows light. I gasp and air, cold and sharp, rushes into me. Fills me. Makes me buoyant. I sit up. Blink. I feel like I’m in the middle of a bubble.

“Calm down. Calm down.” A hand on my chest. “Don’t get bloody carried away.” I look over. A man in a paramedic’s uniform. A tight little face pinched around a needle-like nose.

I’ve seen him before. At the British Museum. The connection feels simple, easy to make. I laugh. “The cleanup crew.”

Felicity is there too. The others. I go to stand up. The hand on my chest grows heavier. I push against it but I can’t make it move. I look quizzically at the cleanup man.

“Look,” he says, “I know you’re all special and a field agent and what have you, but right now you’re on quite a lot of morphine, a fair few amphetamines, a little bit of caffeine, glucose, and a lot of stuff for the swelling. And I know you feel more like superman now than ever, but when you crash it’s not going to feel any better than when this was done to you the first time.

“The jolly juice’ll get you off site and through the debrief. It’ll speed up the healing but it’ll suck you as dry as an ex-wife. Take it easy.” The needle-nosed man rolls his eyes. “Not that you’ll bloody listen to me.”

To be honest I just didn’t. I feel kind of spacey right now. But I nod.

“Alright,” he says, “on your feet.” He reaches out a hand to me. So does Felicity. She looks pensive. I try to give her a reassuring grin.

“I’ll be OK,” I say. She doesn’t reply.

“Oh,” says a loud voice from behind me, “there he is.” Coleman. He doesn’t sound overly pleased to have found me.

I turn round, look at the little shit. I sneer my contempt at him, but I think the effect is hampered by the dizziness. No matter.

He stands in front of me, chest puffed out. “Well?” he says, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

I blink at him, trying to work out exactly what he means. “Ouch,” I say. In case he is talking about the beating I received.

“Probably want to give him a minute before you start—” the cleanup man says. But Coleman waves a hand at him.

“Hmm?” He peers at me. “What happened,
’
ey?
’
Ey?”

“Russians,” I say. I say it like he would say it, loud and pompous. See how he likes.

“I know fucking Russians, you imbecile,” Coleman seethes. Apparently he doesn’t like it very much.

“No, no, no.” I shake my head. Then I do it again more gently, because that makes me feel dizzy too. “No. Just one Russian. Leo. Leo the lion. Except he wasn’t a lion. He was just a chap.”

I’m vaguely aware I sound like Clyde, swimming around my subject. I should probably be concerned but it’s kind of funny, and thinking about how it’s funny when it should be concerning is funny too. I snort.

“Might have given him a tad too much,” says the cleanup man.

“Leo,” I say again. “Teleported about. Jumpy, jumpy, jumpy. And he hit me.” I frown. It is not a pleasant memory. “Quite a lot actually.”

Coleman leans in close. His breath is not lovely. “I don’t give a flying fuck what happened to you in this alleyway. Anything that did, you had fucking coming. I want to know what passed between the two neurons you pass off as a functioning brain when you ran from the field of fucking engagement and left your fellow agents to die.”

It feels like someone just burst a balloon in my head.

“You,” I say, looking him right in the eye, “are a shit.”

For a minute I think he’s going to punch me, right there in the street. I’d go down too. I know that much.

Instead he just jams his finger into my chest. Hard. I rock back a step.

“I’m a shit?” he asks. “I’m a shit? Then I’d rather stay one than be a fucking coward.” His finger strikes me again. Pushing me back. “I’d rather be a shit who stood with his men. I’d rather be the shit who didn’t turn and run.” Each statement punctuated with a finger push, with a step backward. “I’d rather be the shit with honor and spine. I’d rather be a shit with agents at his side when the Russians come so I don’t end up alone and bleeding in a London street.”