Yesterday's Hero (38 page)

Clyde has his head cocked on one side. “Police are coming,” he says. “Five minutes.”

“You get wireless down here?” That stuff is bloody ubiquitous. I smile at Clyde. It is good to see him even if he still doesn’t seem himself. “And hey.”

“Hello.” Clyde sounds distracted. And even if I did just prove him totally wrong in a pretty grandiose way, I did hope for something a little warmer than that.

Next to him, Tabitha grimaces.

We stand. We wait. The water rises. I take the list of Russian safe houses out of my breast pocket just in case. I can hear Devon’s teeth starting to chatter.

“This man, Malcolm…” Felicity starts.

“He knows what he’s doing,” snaps Aiko. But she doesn’t look as if she has full confidence in her own words.

“Shouldn’t he have stopped the generator?” Clyde says abruptly, addressing no one in particular. “Your wires are frayed. If the water hits them there might be enough power to electrify it.” He tilts his head on one side. “And us,” he adds as an afterthought.

“Might be?” I ask.

“Willing to find out. You are?” Tabitha asks.

And she has a point. A sharp one.

I look at the wires. We’ve got about eighteen more inches before that disaster. By which point I’ll be swimming.

“It won’t come to that.”

The water continues to rise. I look at Felicity. She looks right back at me. I try to think of something to say, something to encompass the totality of what I need to express. Something more than, “How
you
doin’?”

“Nice sword.” Tabitha breaks my concentration.

“Picked it up at Chernobyl.” I try to play it cool. It’s not my strong suit.

“Good trip?”

I think about that. “Our plane got shot out of the air by a jet fighter.”

Tabitha nods. I was sort of hoping for a bigger reaction. I look to Felicity. She’s just shaking her head.

“It was bloody terrifying,” I point out. Still nothing.

“Speaking of terrifying things,” Devon cuts in to the witty banter, “I don’t mean to doubt Malcolm, but I’m treading water now.”

“Call him?” Tabitha suggests. She’s swimming too.

“My phone got wet,” Aiko says.

“Feck this.” Kayla starts marching towards the staircase.

“No!” I call after her. “If he’s up there with explosives then that’s both of you turned into meat wallpaper.”

Aiko looks at me. “Meat wallpaper?”

I shrug. “Sometimes I don’t think before I speak.”

“Sometimes?” Felicity sounds incredulous.

Not exactly an expression of desire for our continued relationship that.

“Can someone at least please do something.” Devon is hanging onto a shelf. The water is only twelve inches from the wires. It’s almost up to my chin.

“If I skewer Malcolm it’s his own feckin’ fault.”

“Police are three minutes away,” Clyde adds to no one in particular. He sounds like the talking clock.

Kayla sloshes towards the steps.

The explosion lifts her off her feet.

She flies back through the water. A great white spray swamps the room. Water slams over my head. I gasp in a great ugly mouthful. It laps against the back of my throat, and I gag, convulsing under the waves. My arms and legs spasm, driving me upwards. My head breaks the water. Chaos reigns once more.

I dive towards the spot where I assume Kayla must have gone under. I collide with something. A tangle of limbs. I head for the surface and for a moment I can’t find it. Waves slosh around me. I panic, kick. I break the surface. I’ve got one of Kayla’s arms. She’s unconscious. When I finally manage to get out of here I am going to give Malcolm a stern bloody lecture on the nature of tardiness.

And there he comes now… except why is he coming down here? Why is he coming down the stairs backwards? And who on earth is he firing that massive assault rifle at?

“B
ack!” Malcolm bellows, between bursts of rifle fire. “Fall back!”

Despite his urgency, this proves an unpopular suggestion.

Devon is the first to reach him, floundering through the sloshing water. She barrels into him and his shots go wide. Ricochets ping off the stair rail.

“Back!” he yells again.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” I surge forward, struggling to keep Kayla’s head above the water.

“What’s going on?” Aiko yells at the same time.

“The generator!” Devon is shrieking. “It’s going to fry us all.”

Malcolm keeps on firing, blocking the stairway, even as Clyde tries to pilot his angular body past him.

“Speak!” Tabitha barks at him. “Inform!”

“Sit rep, major!” Felicity’s voice slices through the madness like a flaming sword through a time-travelling Russian’s space-glove.

Malcolm comes up short, almost flinching to attention before hunkering down against the stair rails. “Russians,” he says. “Still engaged.”

Balls. That was not exactly the plan. They were more meant to flee in terror. Maybe I’m overly keen on the tactical withdrawal as a strategic option.

“Positions?” Felicity snaps at him.

“Ten, one, and two,” Malcolm barks back.

At that moment lightning arcs through the doorway. The concrete lintel sprays shrapnel. Devon shrieks.

We’re crowded in the mouth of the stairs. I’m treading water now. I glance back. The water is two inches from the wires.

“We better do this fast,” I say.

Felicity nods. “Malcolm take point. Suppressing fire. Clyde and I will flank out behind you. Arthur, can you use that sword?”

“Erm,” I start.

“He can’t.” Aiko apparently has no compunctions about eviscerating my pride.

“What I thought,” Felicity says.

Did no one else see me take out Punin? That was all me.

“Arthur, you and Aiko take a defensive position inside the stairwell with Tabitha and Devon. Keep Kayla safe.”

Another lightning bolt slams into the doorframe. Rubble flies. And I’m not about to turn down a job out of harm’s way. Aiko and I nod in unison. Devon is sobbing now.

“We move in five.” Felicity holds up her hand, fingers extended. “Four.” One finger down. “Three.” Another. “Two. One. Go! Go! Go!”

Malcolm charges forward, screaming, firing, the gun juddering and blasting in his hands. Felicity and Clyde follow hot on his heels. Felicity has her gun held out, Clyde his bare hand. The cavalry.

I heave Kayla up. Aiko heaves Devon back as she makes a leap for the stairway opening. The world in front of us explodes in noise and light. Fire blossoms. Lightning crackles. Figures flit back and forth through space.

We’re on top of the building’s roof. Malcolm brought the whole thing down—a jagged corrugated blanket over a thick layer of rubble. Our exit is a splintered hole punched through cross beams and metal sheeting by a small shaped charge.

I don’t know where it is Malcolm shops, but something tells me it isn’t the local supermarket.

Malcolm hunkers behind a large steel beam. He fires blindly across the Thames. His bullets chew up the
riverbank. Felicity squats beside him, head bowed. Clyde has scrambled to the far side of the building. He takes cover behind a chunk of collapsed wall and spits out batteries from beneath his mask.

Even the way he’s moved has changed.

“Where’s Jasmine?” Aiko is lying flat on the stairs beside me, eyes peeking above the top riser, water lapping against her shoes, peering over the lip of the bottom step. “She was up here with Malcolm. Where’s she gone?”

I scan left, right, trying to find her.

“Oh shit. Oh no.”

“What?” Aiko looks at me.

I point. At the far edge of the collapsed building, on top of the remains of the roof, Jasmine lies flat, hands over her head as bullets whistle over her head. She’s totally exposed. No cover. And her leg… Below the knee of her jeans, her left leg is a bloody ruin. I can’t even see the foot.

“Fuck!” Aiko brings her hand to her mouth.

It feels like my heart has stopped. It’s only a matter of time before the Russians hit her. Or we do by accident.

“Oh Jesus… Her leg.” Aiko seems overwhelmed.

She’s only seventeen. She’s just a kid pulled into this horrendous fucking mess. And this was my plan. I put her here. I brought her here. Her goddamn parents probably only live a mile away. And I brought her to a firefight.

“I’m going to go get her,” I say.

Aiko looks at me. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“I have to.” I don’t know how else to put it. This is a simple necessity. And I cannot live knowing I didn’t try to help here. I just can’t.

“You keep your arse right here and hunker down like a sensible—”

I don’t hear the rest. I’m busy running.

I
make it about six yards. Something flares past me, grounds to my left. A massive shock runs up my leg, lifts me into the air like a rag doll. I somersault in the air. The world spins. I come down on my back.

Corrugated aluminum does not a comfortable landing make.

I roll over, groan. Blood dribbles from my mouth. I don’t know what I bit. Maybe everything.

“Arthur, what are you—?” Felicity is yelling at my back. But I can see Jasmine. I have to get to Jasmine. I stagger up and forwards. I half hurdle, half dry hump another girder. I roll. Another blast of something or other. I’m bucked up into the air like a lightning-powered donkey kicked me in the gut. I fly with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.

That may be slander from the sack’s point of view.

I’m out of cover now, an open stretch of metal between Jasmine and me. Even the walls have dropped away. Jasmine’s shouting something, waving at me, but my ears are ringing, and I can’t hear a word.

I make it to my feet, stumble forward. A flash of white light to my side. A Russian appears. I spin. A fist comes at me, connects on my jaw, sends me sprawling backwards.

Not this again.

Another flash. A boot to my midriff, floors me properly this time.

God, I hate teleporters.

The air above my head is shredded by bullets. I turn, groggy. Felicity is emptying a clip into the air around me, buying me time.

Goddamn she looks hot right now.

I need to focus. Jasmine. I need to get to Jasmine.

I roll, get to my knees. She’s just yards away.

A flash of light. The Russian. Leo. His straw-blond mane wild. His face a picture of pure spite. He stands over Jasmine.

I launch myself at him, as hard and as fast as my shaking legs will propel me.

Lightning lances from a nearby wire, slams into Leo, through him, plunges down. Jasmine arcs her back, screaming. Her howl bubbles up out of frying lungs. I am in the air, caught in mid-air. Closer, closer, time a fraying piece of string. And I am going to kill—

A flash of light. The Russian, Leo, disappears. Nothing. Thin air that I sail through. My hands clutching no throat, tearing at nothing.

I slam onto the metal next to Jasmine.

Next to Jasmine’s corpse.

No.

No. No, it can’t be. I shake my head, try to negate reality.

She’s barely recognizable, blackened, twisted, caught in the final convulsions of agony.

No.

I pull the gun from its holster. And fuck these people. Fuck them all. Fuck my shitty shooting. Fuck water-soaked bullets. I am going to execute every last one of these motherfuckers.

I pull the trigger. Nothing. I slide back the action on my pistol, watch the sodden round spill down. I fire again. Nothing. I eject that bullet. Again. Again. Damp rounds litter the air around me. Lightning sears the air. The wail of sirens rise. Again. Again. One bullet flies out of the gun. I see the dust it kicks up against the wall some of the Russians are crouching behind. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

Fuck this gun. Fuck this shit. Fuck those fucking Russians.

I wrestle the sword from its sheath. I remember the howl of agony on Joseph Punin’s face. I am looking forward to seeing that expression again.

I stride forward, over the metal roof, over the mud, into the swirling, rising water of the Thames. And fuck cover. Fuck bullets. Fuck magic. I don’t care if they hit me, I am coming for them.

She was just a child.

Jesus, she was just… Jesus.

The police sirens are a banshee howl now. A keening wail of grief given up by the world for Jasmine. I am fighting the current, fighting reality, fighting for vengeance.

A policeman bellows, his message lost in my rage and the static from the bullhorn.

A flash of light. Another. Another. The Russians retreating, driven back, and away.

“No!” I scream at them. “No!” Stay and fight me, you fuckers. Stay and let me carve out your hearts.

But they’re gone. The police are here. Men and women in black, armed-response uniforms—thick padded vests and faceless helmets. They level rifles at me.

I stand in the river, and raise my hands, and I weep.

F
elicity takes care of it.

She shows the police ID cards. She speaks to the people in charge. She calls their superiors, wrestles with jurisdiction, fights in pissing contests.

To be honest I don’t really care.

They have to pry Malcolm off Jasmine’s body. He hangs onto her corpse, keening to himself. Tears streak his big face. They come to him quietly and he takes two policeman out, big fists plunging into guts and faces. It takes Aiko, struggling through her own tears, to let them move his arms away. He seems to have no strength for that.

I feel hollow. I stand there, staring at the little black bag they’ve sealed her up in. It doesn’t seem right. Nothing seems right.

We put the world back wrong.

Or maybe the world has always been wrong. And maybe we just didn’t fix it when we had the chance.

Maybe now is the chance.

I try to seize hold of that, to turn grief to anger, to light the spark that drove me into the river, that led me shivering and shuddering to here, wrapped in a silver blanket.

A shadow falls over me. I look up. Felicity.

“How are you?” she says.

Jesus. Felicity. I don’t… her and me… now, here, on top of this…?