‘This way.’ Ria runs on through a games room, past a billiards table as Ben tuts and casts a withering look at Roland. She reaches a discreet door at the back and heaves it in, pushing the handle down as she goes. The difference is immediate and stark. Old peeling paint on the corridor walls. Worn floorboards underfoot. The old servants’ access routes and walkways. She runs fast, staying ahead of Safa and the rest, who crash through the door and down the corridor. Explosions are heard. Flash-bangs and stun grenades being thrown into rooms before the attackers charge in. That tells Safa and Miri the house is breached. Harry just ploughs on, still feeling the thrum of the drugs running through his body.
‘Down there,’ Ria pants, coming to a wooden door that she goes to open.
‘WAIT.’ Safa pushes forward to gain the door. ‘Move back.’ She shoves Ria away, creating room to open the door and surge in. ‘BERTIE?’ Safa yells, rushing down an old set of wooden stairs. Music sails up at them. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in a wall of noise pumped from speakers that render her words unheard.
She barrels down, with Ben behind her. Miri grabs Roland and Susan, forcing them to wait, then checks behind to see Harry staring back the way they came.
Safa turns sharply at the bottom of the stairs into a wonderland of light, of machines, of stripped-down electrical devices. Of posters of heavy metal bands, pop groups, Japanese anime illustrations and reproduction prints of Monet and Constable. Colours everywhere. Vibrant primary shades daubed on the walls. A drawing of the time machine etched on a huge piece of paper pinned to the wall. Schematics, blueprints, diagrams, hand-drawn sketches and piles of books stacked everywhere. Tools litter the sides. Old hand tools with worn wooden handles next to tiny, surgical-style scalpels and grips.
She spots the man sitting at a desk swaying side to side as he drums his fingers over the wooden surface in front of him in mimicry of the music. She shouts out, but the music blares too loud. She runs forward, veering round an old shop store mannequin fitted with robotic arms and legs and camera lenses for eyes.
Bertie plays the music, and for a few wonderful seconds his mind is full only of the chords. A hand on his shoulder that grips hard and twists him round. He turns smiling up into the face of a person he recognises as Safa Patel screaming something at him. Bertie lifts a hand in greeting, then smiles wider when he spots Ben Ryder behind her.
‘Hi, Bertie,’ he shouts, his words as unheard as Safa’s.
She says something and wrenches him off his feet as Ben moves in to grab his arm and start dragging him towards the stairs. The same height as his dad but leaner. The same dark hair, but whereas Roland’s is neat, Bertie’s is unkempt, shaggy and sticking up in clumps.
With Beethoven filling his ears, Bertie is dragged across his workshop to the wooden stairs. He looks up as he goes, seeing his sister at the top beckoning him to run faster. Another woman too. Older, with greying hair. Ben runs behind him, pushing him to go faster. Safa coming up last. Bertie reaches the top and finds a huge hairy gnarled hand gripping his wrist as he flies off his feet to look up into the bearded face of Mad Harry Madden.
‘Hi, Harry,’ Bertie says, grinning widely while being awe-struck at the sight of him. ‘You’re, like, totally huge . . .’
‘Go now,’ Miri shouts.
‘Roland,’ Safa says, grabbing his arm to spin him round, ‘is there another way up to the top floor?’
‘What?’ Roland gibbers in confusion and fear.
‘Servants’ stairs,’ Ria blurts.
‘She’s so pretty,’ Bertie says, staring at Safa. ‘You were right, Dad . . .’
‘Please, will someone tell me what’s going on?’ Susan asks, clutching to pull Ria and Bertie closer.
‘PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE . . . LIE DOWN WITH YOUR ARMS OUT . . . PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE . . . LIE DOWN WITH YOUR ARMS OUT . . .’
The voice is enormous. Amplified through a loudspeaker fitted to the helicopter. It hovers metres from the front of the house. The pilot’s words boom clear and deep.
‘We should do as they say,’ Roland says quickly.
‘Go,’ Miri says to Ria. ‘Back stairs . . .’
‘We have to get into the drawing room,’ Ria says, gripping Bertie’s hand.
‘Which one is that?’ Ben asks.
‘We came through it,’ Ria says.
‘The ivory room?’
Ria nods quickly. ‘There’s a door next to the fireplace . . . Goes to the middle floor, then out on the landing and up the next flight . . .’
Alpha holds his arm up. Fist clenched. Hold. His submachine gun gripped in his right hand as he listens to the radio traffic.
‘White side breached . . . We’re in through the main doors in the lobby.’
‘Black side breached . . . We came in through the dining room. We saw them running out the room.’
‘Green breached. Negative contact. We came through a games room and drawing room . . . We can see the other agents in the lobby.’
‘Red side breached . . . We can hear you in the lobby . . .’
‘This is Alpha. Commence room clearance to search ground floor. Alpha to pilot. See anything?’
‘Pilot to Alpha. Negative.’
Tango Two conjures an image of the house in her mind and the four groups of attackers all sweeping through to meet in the lobby. She leans over the railing to look down at the operatives kneeling next to the now open front door. The red lasers glowing bright and straight from the weapons held ready as the operatives get ready for a game of hide-and-seek.
‘Keep your mask up,’ Bravo whispers at Tango Two. ‘If we find them, you will communicate. We are here to help them. We are here to assist. We do not want to hurt them. Understood?’
‘Got it,’ Tango Two says with the bitter thought that she is only here because she is female.
They have to go fast. There is no option. Speed and daring is all they have now.
‘PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE . . . LIE DOWN . . .’
The amplified voice continues as Ria leads them back through the servants’ corridor to the door into the billiards room. She stops when she reaches it. Already breathing hard from the running and the fear.
Safa goes to the front again. Not speaking this time, but gripping Ria’s arms to pull her away. She listens closely, leaning in towards the closed door. Her pupils huge. Her whole body still buzzing. Silence on the other side. Maybe they haven’t got this far yet. Doesn’t matter anyway. In her head, she plots the route ahead. Out of this door, across the billiards room, into the drawing room and through the next door to the flight of stairs. Not a big distance to go. They can make that at least.
She turns to look at the others. Harry at the back and everyone else between them. She locks eyes on Miri, who nods the order to go.
Safa draws a deep breath, grabs the handle and bursts into an empty room. Pistol up and aimed. She strides clear of the door as the others come out behind her. Scrape of shoes. Whimpers of fright from Roland and his wife. Ria telling Bertie to shush.