There is work to do. Work that has to be done now, but Miri doesn’t want to move. Her body hurts like hell. Old injuries that remind her how battered her body is. She summons the fortitude to finish what has been started. The situation has to be made safe.
Focus slowly returns. Her hand goes to her hip to check her pistol, and it takes a second or two for her mind to catch up that it’s back in the house on the floor of the bedroom. Did she drop it? No, the female agent took it. Her head snaps over to see the female agent face down on the floor with Ben on top, holding her hands behind her back.
‘Hold her tight,’ Safa orders, her voice hoarse, blood dripping from her bruised face. ‘Harry . . .’
‘Yep,’ Harry groans, rolling from his back to his front then up to all fours. Blood drips from his nose on to the concrete floor, his right eye swollen, a deep cut on his upper arm bleeds freely down his elbow.
‘Why were they trying to kill you?’ Ben asks, his voice rough and low.
‘I don’t know!’ Tango Two says quickly.
‘Not now,’ Safa says.
‘Mum?’ Ria looks up. Huddled at the edge of the concrete room having crawled to grab and hold her brother. Roland lies nearby, curled up in a ball, whimpering in fear. ‘Where’s Mum? Where is she? MUM?’
‘Harry, you fit?’ Safa asks.
‘Aye,’ the big man says, coming to his feet wiping a swollen hand across his bloodied nose.
Ria spots her dad, the older woman, the doctor and the others. She sees one of the attackers on the floor being held down, but not her mother. ‘MUM? WHERE’S MUM?’
‘I’m not resisting,’ Tango Two says.
‘Shut up,’ Safa says, her voice weaker than normal, the back of her skull pounding. Her legs feel heavy, and she keeps blinking to stay focussed.
‘DAD?’
Roland stirs and lifts his head. His face ashen and drawn. His eyes red from crying. He swallows and stares blankly for a second before his brain starts processing exactly where he is.
‘DAD? WHERE’S MUM?’
‘What?’ Roland says weakly, looking round. ‘She, er . . . Susan was . . .’
‘Take this,’ Safa says, nodding at Harry to take the pistol. ‘You move and you die,’ she tells the agent.
‘I am not resisting,’ Tango Two says in the same rough voice as Safa. Her own head spins, pain in her skull, flashes of light in her vision, but she stays still despite the pain of Ben’s grip on her wrists.
‘Mum . . . She . . . She . . .’ Ria gasps the words out, her voice breaking with emotion as Safa glances at her then goes back to the woman pinned down.
‘Where’s Susan? What’s going on?’ Roland asks, his voice growing firmer as the risk of immediate peril starts to abate.
‘CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . . I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . .’ Bertram screams out with sudden panic. His shouting voice adding to the bedlam in the room.
‘It was the flash-bang,’ Safa says, blinking as she looks over at him, then realising he can’t hear her. ‘You . . .’ she shouts at Ria. ‘Comfort him . . . The effects pass . . .’ She shakes her head again and looks down at the woman being held on the floor. ‘Weapons?’
‘Knife on my belt,’ Tango Two says.
‘Firearms?’
‘Pistol only . . . I dropped it when . . .’
‘Keep her hands held . . .’ Safa cuts in, working down one side of the agent’s body to check for concealed weapons.
‘What we doing with her?’ Ben asks, his voice strangely muffled in his own ears. He stretches his jaw and blinks to try and rid the flashes of light in his vision. ‘Why were they trying to kill you?’
‘Ben, not now. Do this first . . .’ Safa says. ‘Move your head back a bit, you’re dripping blood on my hands.’
‘Sorry,’ Ben mumbles, leaning away to rub his cheek on his shoulder.
‘Go back,’ Ria says. ‘We have to go back . . . Get Mum . . . Mum’s there . . . She didn’t get through . . .’
Roland takes it all in quickly, with a sense of instant shame that he ran off and left his family behind. He crawls to Bertie, extending a hand to his son’s shoulder.
‘GET OFF HIM,’ Ria screams, pulling her brother away. ‘You left us . . . You bloody left us . . .’
‘Ria, I . . . I . . . I was trying to draw them away,’ Roland says, forcing belief and sincerity into his voice.
‘WHERE’S MUM?’ Ria screeches the words out. Panicked and terrified.
‘Stop shouting now.’ The glare from Safa robs the air from Ria’s lungs. The sheer intensity coming from her. The bruises and cuts on her face shining with sweat and blood. ‘Open the portal,’ Safa says, still breathing hard as she looks round at Miri. ‘We’ll throw the bitch back out,’ she adds, pointing down at Tango Two.
Miri clambers to her feet, swaying on the spot as she tries to look round. ‘She stays,’ she whispers hoarsely before staggering towards the door.
‘Where you going?’ Ben calls out.
Miri doesn’t reply, but puts her hands out on to the walls to steady her balance as she walks down to the last set of rooms in the corridor. She goes through the middle room, past the blue chairs and into one of the bedrooms to pull the black bag out from under the bed. She pauses, blinking and breathing, before setting off back towards the portal room.
‘Get up,’ she tells the doctor as she walks back in. He nods dumbly, with shock etched on his face. ‘Get sedatives ready . . . Do it now . . .’
‘I demand an explanation,’ Roland says, mutating the anger at his own cowardice into something resembling an attempt at authority. ‘What the hell were you thinking? Where is my wife? You put my children in danger and . . .’
‘I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING . . . MY EYES . . . RIA, MY EYES . . .’ Bertram screams out again and again, clutching at his sister. His vision strobing with flashes of light. Pain in his eyes, ears and skull. His hearing muffled.
‘YOU LEFT US,’ Ria shouts at her father. ‘WHERE’S MUM? GET MY MUM . . .’
‘Jesus,’ Safa mutters, wincing at the noise coming from the Cavendish family. Her own head hurts. Every muscle in her body hurts. Her head is swimming. Her vision is strobing, but this noise is too much. ‘SHUT UP . . . ALL OF YOU . . .’
Tango Two stays passive and still as Safa methodically works down her body searching for weapons. She feels the same as they do. Confused. Hurt. Shocked and stunned. Too many things have just happened in too short a space of time. Training kicks in as she works to gain what information she can. She isolates voices. Attaching each to a name and already gaining a sense of the dynamics.
‘Clear,’ Safa says, staggering back from the female agent. ‘Harry, keep that pistol aimed at her. Miri? What now?’
Miri stops next to the inert machine. ‘Need coordinates for the basement.’ She unzips the bag, reaches in and pulls out a lump of C4 explosive fitted with a detonation timer.
‘Blowing it?’ Safa asks, unaware of the sway in her body.
Miri nods.
‘Good. He had plans all over the place down there.’
‘Mum didn’t get through,’ Ria says with tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘She didn’t get through. Go back . . . Please go back and get her . . .’
‘We can’t,’ Ben says, softening his voice as he speaks to Ria. ‘Listen to me, Ria! Listen to me. You have to stop shouting. Comfort your brother . . .’