‘We are,’ Safa says, giving her a withering teenager’s look and even adding a tut before heading towards the stairs.
‘Maybe we should just call out?’ Ben suggests as they start descending, and feeling left out by everyone else holding a pistol while he is strolling down with his hands in his pockets. ‘Harry’s got a loud voice.’
‘Aye,’ Harry says.
‘No,’ Miri says from the rear. ‘Go faster. Stay quiet.’
‘Go faster, stay quiet,’ Safa mimics in a voice that she thinks is under her breath but instead comes out really quite clearly and leaves a very awkward silence hanging in the air.
They reach a landing and establish the portal was on the top floor of a three-storey house. Again, the main wide corridor leads in both directions, with rooms going off. Light and airy, with paintings and pictures hanging from walls. Bespoke tables stand nestled here and there with vases of perfectly arranged flowers on the top. Safa focusses on trying to widen her eyes and stretch her jaw while craning her head over side to side. She blinks constantly; her whole body feels full of energy. Harry is the same, and has to physically stop himself from whistling a jaunty tune.
The descent continues as they move down the last feature staircase, which widens at the base directly opposite the double-sized entrance doors. Miri holds position at the back, watching the others intently, studying everything they do.
Ben stays in the middle, casting an appraising eye over the fixtures and fittings. The signs of affluence are everywhere. Roland is minted. His house is just incredible, and Ben knows the price of property in Hampshire even back in his time was astronomical. As they reach the bottom, so the first sound of voices is heard from the ground floor somewhere at the rear of the house.
Safa pauses at the bottom, holding still with her head cocked. Harry taps her shoulder, indicating a hallway running off at the back of the huge, atrium-like lobby.
‘Faster,’ Miri mutters from behind them.
Safa speeds up, striding into the inner hallway. Harry close behind. Both with pistols gripped and held down. Ben rushes after them.
Safa stops with a hand held up in a closed fist. She waves it once, then turns it into a flat palm and points towards an open set of doors ahead on the right. Voices within. Male and female. The clink of cutlery on a plate. A chair scraping on a wooden floor. Safa peers back to nod at Harry and Ben, and catches the wave from Miri urging her on.
Hundreds of hours of drill and training kick in as Safa surges through the door into the room. The pistol lifts automatically as her eyes take in the three people at the table.
‘POLICE OFFICERS,’ she shouts, ‘STAY STILL, STAY STILL . . . DO NOT MOVE . . .’
Roland and the two women freeze with forks raised to mouths, eyes wide with fright.
Harry strides past her to the French windows at the back of the dining room giving a view of the perfectly striped lawn beyond.
‘What the . . .’ Roland mutters, food falling from his fork. Ben takes in the room. The gorgeous hardwood dining table. The fine china plates. The gleaming silverware. The expensive ornaments and artwork dotted about the room. The sheer luxury in which Roland lives while they were cooped up in a sterile bunker and ate fruit and eggs listening to him moan about the cost of everything and how hard it was to get money.
Two women at the table sitting either side of Roland. Both dark-haired. One older. One younger. Ben takes in the older woman’s dyed hair and smooth skin that speaks of cosmetic alteration. The year here is 2061. Roland died in 2046. Ben looks again to the younger woman wearing glasses. Black hair and blue eyes, pale skin. She must be Roland’s daughter. The older one must be his wife.
‘BEN!’ Safa snaps at what her drug-addled mind takes to be him gawping. ‘Get them moving . . .’
Safa’s voice brings sense back to Roland, who drops his fork. It lands with a clatter on the fine china plate as he rises from his hardwood, antique dining chair.
‘What the hell is going on?’ he demands. ‘Miri? What the . . . Safa, put that damned gun down . . . Why are you here?’
Susan rises quickly to move closer to her daughter. Protective, while clearly very frightened. ‘Roland? What’s going on? Why are they here? You said they wouldn’t come here . . .’
‘Hi,’ Ben says quickly, seeing the worry on Susan’s face. ‘Sorry for the intrusion. I’m Ben. You must be . . .’
‘What the fuck?’ Safa growls. ‘Stop chatting . . . Move!’
‘Extraction now,’ Miri says from the doorway.
‘Extraction?’ Roland asks, looking from Miri to Ben. ‘What?’
‘Attack on the warehouse . . .’ Miri says.
‘Roland, please ask them to put their guns away . . .’ Susan says, her voice quavering.
‘I can explain,’ Roland says, glancing at his wife. ‘Miri, what . . . Why are you here? I gave no authority for you to . . .’
‘NOW,’ Safa shouts. ‘Up . . . Get moving . . .’
‘You must be Safa?’ the younger woman says, staring in awe.
‘You must be deaf. MOVE NOW,’ Safa retorts. ‘Ben, get them fucking moving . . .’
‘BOSCH INCOMING . . .’ Harry’s eyes take in the tree line bordering the perfectly striped lawn that disgorges heavily armed, black-clad figures. His huge voice booms, making Roland yelp.
A wall of noise thunders towards them. Harry steps back, suddenly unsure at a sound he thinks he knows. Like propellers on an aircraft, but different. Everyone else instantly connects the sound to helicopter rotor blades creating air displacement as a chopper goes overhead to drop down over the perfect lawn. It holds for a second. The pilot inside easily visible. The chopper lifts a bare second later. Ropes thrown out from the sides unfold as they drop, with black-clad figures already positioned on the landing skids ready to rappel.
More rotor blades thunder in. Heavier, deeper, more solid and serious. Safa goes with Miri to look out of the windows. Both of them catch sight of the gunships coming in low and the figures now sprinting across the lawn. Black-clad. Balaclavas. Submachine guns. Professionals. Further back, they spot the motion of more forms and catch sight of camouflage-wearing soldiers close to the tree line.
‘Son,’ Miri says, noting the time on her wristwatch. ‘Where?’
Roland balks, unable to comprehend the noises outside and the questions being thrown at him.
‘Bertie’s in the cellar,’ Ria says, rising from the table to look out on to the grounds.
‘Sir! Sir!’ A man runs into the room from a door on the side leading to the kitchen. A smart black suit, white shirt and white gloves.
‘Is that a fucking butler?’ Ben asks. ‘Have you got a butler?’
‘Men coming, sir,’ the man blurts. ‘From the front, sir. They have guns, sir.’
‘An actual butler,’ Ben mutters. ‘You cheeky sod . . .’
‘I SAY, MIRI?’ Doctor Watson shouts down the stairs. ‘GOT SOME CHAPS RUNNING ACROSS THE GRASS. ALL DRESSED IN BLACK AND CARRYING GUNS . . .’