Yesterday's Hero (34 page)

Kayla stares at me a moment longer, then drops her eyes. We all stand for a few moments longer. A frozen tableau.

“Come on,” I finally say to Devon. “Let’s go.”

Devon hesitates then steps away from Kayla. Kayla makes no move. We walk away. We’re almost back to the bench when Devon looks over her shoulder. Kayla is still standing there, frozen.

“You couldn’t save your daughter,” Devon calls, “but now you have the chance to save the whole world.” She stands and watches for any effect the words have. If they have one, I don’t catch it.

“Waste of time.” Devon shakes her head.

The Lamb and Flag, 9:17 pm

“Well now we’re proper fucked, aren’t we?” Aiko counts off the ways on her fingertips. “Can’t get into MI6. Can’t get the aliases. Can’t find the Russians. Can’t stop them.”

At least she didn’t have to use both hands.

“What if we gave the files to Shaw?” Devon asks.

“No.” Aiko slaps her hand down on the table. She looks around the rest of the group, eyes coming to rest on me. “No, right?”

I want to agree with her.

I want to disagree with her.

I…

“We still can’t trust them,” I say. In the end, that’s the heart of the problem. “Not to do the right thing. And not to do the right thing right.”

I put my head in my hands. “No one will let us into MI6.” I talk at the table. “So we have to break in to MI6.” It’s an absurd thing to say.

“Well that’s just being plain silly,” Devon points out.

Except, God, I don’t know another way. I think it’s what we have to do.

We have to break into MI6. A mad plan. God, I don’t even know where to start. We’d need… An ID badge. A disguise, probably.

Wait… Is that it?

Balls, I suppose. We’ll need really big ones of those.

I look up. Nobody is looking as if a lightbulb has gone bright in their mind.

“Who could we steal an MI6 ID from?” I ask.

Aiko’s eyebrows perform a quite athletic leap up her forehead. “Seriously?”

“Our timeline runs out at 6pm tomorrow. That’s less than twenty-four hours. At this point I’m willing to try anything.”

“What about, like, your girlfriend?” Jasmine says. “Couldn’t you go, be all like, ‘take me back’ and swipe the ID out of her pocketbook while—”

“—she’s calling for back-up?” I complete. I shrug, trying to ignore the fact that Aiko is giving Jasmine dirty looks. “I mean, maybe. But she’s pretty sharp. And I don’t know if any of us could really pass for Felicity even with a disguise.” I scan the table. “Wrong body types.”

“Disguise?” Malcolm contemplates this.

“What about that unutterable shit, Clyde?” Devon asks. “Just put on a mask and try to shag every little whore that comes within six feet of you and nobody should be able to tell the difference.”

“Clyde’s seven feet tall,” I point out, “and capable of hiding behind broomsticks.”

More silence. More contemplation of the wood grain.

“You’re about Coleman’s height,” Devon says into that silence.

“I’m nothing like that arsehole.” It’s a knee-jerk verbal response, but I’ll stand by it.

“No.” Devon apparently won’t. “You’re actually fairly similar builds. I mean he’s got a bit of a paunch on you, and that godawful mustache, but it’s fairly obvious Shaw has a definite ‘type.’ Like me and men who look exactly like Patrick Swayze. Except I’m never their type it seems.”

A type? Coleman and I are the same type? Felicity’s type? Even Devon’s waffling at the end didn’t take the sting out of that one.

I take a drink and try to let the red drain from my vision.

Flop, flop, flop.

I take a few more sips for good measure.

“But,” Aiko says to me, “don’t you and Coleman sort of despise each other from the bottoms of your souls? He’s not going to just give you his ID.”

Which is very true. Except…

I look at Devon.

“Oh no,” she says. “Me and my bloody mouth.”

“What?” Jasmine looks from me to Devon and back.

“Coleman doesn’t hate everyone in MI37,” I say.

Aiko’s eyebrows bounce back up. Jasmine’s join them.

“I won’t do it.” Devon is shaking her head, waving her hands, physically leaning away from the suggestion. “I can’t. There is no way on earth.”

“The greater good, Devon,” I say. “The fate of the very world.”

“You made me sacrifice my headphones,” Jasmine adds, apparently unafraid of the more personal guilt trip. And more power to her for it, I say.

“All you have to do is flirt a little bit with him.” I emphasize the word “little,” try to make the pill easier to swallow.

“He keeps his ID in his pants pocket.” Devon can’t keep the horror out of her voice. “How am I meant to get that?”

I try to suppress any sort of visible blanching at that thought, but I’m not sure how successful I am, because Devon throws up her hands and says, “See!”

“The greater good,” I say weakly.

Devon looks at me. “First Kayla. Now this? You know, Arthur, I think there’s a chance you’re no better than Clyde.”

One hour later

A
s unrealistic as it may be, I did sort of imagine that Coleman would live in some sort of fetid swamp alone with other bottom feeders and amphibious scum.

On the other hand, a flat in Knightsbridge seems relatively close.

I was a little worried we’d have to go through the phone book looking up every Coleman in London, but fortunately the arrogant arsehole had given Devon his card. On it he wrote, “Any time. Any position. xxx.” I am again reminded of my loathing for this man.

“I hate you all,” Devon tells us. Which seems a little unfair considering we splurged on a new dress for her along with new shoes and a bottle of dubious champagne.

Jasmine picks a rogue tag free from the dress.

“OK.” Aiko holds Devon by her newly bared shoulders. “Remember. Get the key card, get the card out of the apartment, however you can. Dropping it out of a window is preferential.”

“You do realize you’re asking me to remove his pants.”

Aiko shakes her head. “Not necessarily, no.”

“You want me to reach into his pants pocket while he’s still in them?”

I throw up a little in my mouth.

“Yeah,” Aiko nods, “get him to take them off.”

“Then leg it,” Jasmine adds.

“If I end up having to Bobbitt him,” Devon says, “I want you all to swear you’ll defend me in court.”

“To the ends of the earth,” I promise.

“I still hate you.”

She steps out of the car and marches toward the door as purposefully as her new heels will let her.

We sit tensely across the street, watching as she rings the bell. She speaks to a grate. She pushes the door open.

“Must have buzzed her up,” Aiko says.

None of us say a word.

Devon disappears through the door. Extra lights come on brightening the third floor. Coleman’s floor. The lights having flared, dim but do not go out.

“I feel like we’ve done something awful.” Jasmine is squeezed into the back seat between Aiko and Malcolm.

“Me too,” I say.

“Me too,” Malcolm rumbles.

We all turn to stare at him.

“What?” He shrugs. “I do.”

I look at the three of them cramped together in the back of the car.

“Does one of you want to sit up here in the front? We could be some time.”

There are some very rapidly exchanged looks. The amount of subtext to seemingly everyday interactions is getting out of hand.

“It can be Aiko,” I say, because it’s easier to just do that at this point.

Jasmine arches one eyebrow very high indeed. “Did you two—?”

“No,” Aiko and I say at the same time.

“You didn’t know what I was going to say.” Jasmine looks forlorn.

“Yes they did,” Malcolm rumbles as Aiko gets out of the car and comes up to sit beside me.

“You know she likes you though, right?” Jasmine says.

“Jasmine,” Malcolm rumbles.

“Jaz!” Aiko snaps.

I close my eyes. The more things change…

“Yes,” I say. “I know.”

“And what?” Jasmine asks. “You don’t like her back?”

My eyes stay closed. “No,” I say. “I like her very much.”

“So what’s the problem?” she asks. “Why haven’t you—”

“Jasmine.”

“Jaz!”

“I have…” And how do I put it into words? “I have a… prior commitment.” That doesn’t sound right.

“To the ice queen?” Jasmine is incredulous.

“Let it go, Jaz.” At least Aiko sounds as embarrassed as I feel.

And why won’t I let Felicity go? What is the problem? Even if I don’t have an answer for Jasmine, or even one for Aiko, shouldn’t I have one for myself?

I miss her.

That’s it. In a nutshell. I miss Felicity Shaw. She made me happy. Making her happy made me happy. I miss that.

God, I didn’t just leave because she was making me unhappy, but because I was making her unhappy too, and it was killing me.

Shit. I think I really like Felicity Shaw.

What a stupid bloody time to realize that.

“Just seems stupid is all,” Jasmine grouches from the back seat.

“The heart is stupid all the time,” I say. Not loudly. Not really for her. For myself. A little bit for Aiko.

“That’s what I keep hoping.” She gives me a soft smile.

And here and now is really not the time for this conversation.

I look up at Coleman’s flat. At the clock in the car. Five minutes elapsed. Jesus, only five. It’s going to be a long night with this crowd.

Which is when one of Coleman’s windows suddenly flies open. Devon is there waving frantically. A tiny white rectangle flies out of her hand and away into some bushes below. She waves twice more, and then suddenly, violently, disappears back inside.

We all stare.

“What the hell?” Aiko bursts the silence.

“She got it,” I say, staring disbelieving at the closed window. “She already got it.”

“His pants are down already?” Jasmine seems caught between disgust and admiration.

“We should get her out.” I’m worried. That is not a healthy timeline for pants removal.

“No,” Malcolm is definitive.

“She could be in trouble up there.” Malcolm is too big for me to add, “you bastard.”

“We have a signal,” Malcolm says. “If she’s in trouble she’ll let us know. That wasn’t the signal.”

“She’s not a trained field agent!” I snap back.

“If you’ll forgive me,” Malcolm studies his hand momentarily then meets my eye square on, “I think she can handle herself as well as some trained field agents I’ve met.”

Ouch.

There again…

“Just go and get the bloody card already,” Aiko says. “Quicker we get you to MI6, the quicker we get back here for any necessary extraction.”

I hesitate, hand on the door. They’re right though. We’re committed. If we don’t pull this off, the world ends tomorrow. Time to go all in. I open the car door and go to get the bloody card already.

85 Vauxhall Cross

The biggest chance of disaster, it seems to me as I cross the lobby of 85 Vauxhall Cross, is that I’m going to sneeze this ridiculous fake mustache off. It itches like a bastard.

The paunch is a little better. Some of Malcolm’s old socks held in place by reams of gauze to give that natural, I’ve been drinking pretty solidly for twenty years sort of look. The effect isn’t exactly flawless, but it is frightening how little else needed to be done to make me stand up to at least a cursory glance.

Which is all the guard gives me. Though that isn’t as relieving as I thought it might be. Defense of our realm and all that.

Sweat coats my palm as I swipe the ID before the metal scanner. There’s a dish for me to empty my pockets into. I do so. Keys. Spare change. The flash drive Jasmine gave me to copy the files onto. My wallet.

Oh Jesus, my wallet.

My wallet with its clear plastic pocket and my Arthur Wallace driver’s license on fully bloody display. I turn it over carefully, place it facedown in the tray. I glance back at the security guard at the door. And fortunately the whole eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head thing is still an unrealized security feature.

But he must have some MI-sixth sense, because he looks back at me as I look back at him.

“Let me help you with that.” He takes a few steps over.

“Oh,” I start, and realize I sound nothing like Coleman. I try again. “Oh,” I say in the new voice, then realize this guy doesn’t know what Coleman sounds like and talking to him in two voices is probably not increasing my chances of looking like a regular employee. So then I just say nothing, which I’m not sure helps anything either.

The guard takes the tray. The wallet rocks slightly on the bulge of change. I watch the lip of the driver’s license. Don’t drop it, I pray as the guard transfers the tray from one side of the gate to the other. Don’t spill a thing. Don’t try to hand me anything. He lays it down. The wallet rocks one more time and lies still.

I let out a sigh of relief and then try and stifle it. The guard is still right there, looking at me.

“Thank you,” I say in my Coleman voice. I figure I’ve committed to that now, and take a step towards the metal detector before catching myself.

My gun.

God the last thing I need is the guy to wand me, to detect the strange unwashed sock odor emanating from beneath my shirt.

I pull my pistol from my shoulder-holster and hand it to the guard. I compose myself, straighten for the metal detector.

I glance over at the guard. He is looking at my gun. A quizzical expression is on his face.

“Is there a problem?” I really don’t want to know the answer to that question.

The guard drums his fingers on his radio.

“This gun, sir,” he says. “Not exactly standard issue is it?”

O
h crap. And no. It’s not a standard-issue pistol at all. It’s the dodgy black-market pistol of dubiousness Malcolm gave me. Something to do with the bullets being difficult to trace and filed off serial numbers. Not something that sounded astoundingly legal.

“No,” I say to the guard, unable to bluff in the face of such overwhelming evidence. “Not standard issue at all.” I have an urge to plunge through the gate and just see how far I get. I manage to suppress it, though.