‘You should stop,’ Emily says quietly.
‘Tell me what to do young lady,’ Miri says, glancing at Emily, withering, contemptuous, full of furious energy.
Emily closes her eyes as the frantic thoughts whirling in her mind start to settle and find order. ‘You bugged us,’ she says after a time.
‘I bugged every damned room in the bunker. Are you surprised?’
‘No,’ Emily mumbles. ‘Safa is a good person,’ she adds, speaking louder.
Miri rolls her eyes, frustration showing at the agent for her emotional needs. Agents can’t afford emotion. She goes to snap, to voice the anger, but swallows it down. Be softer. Be easier. Emily is not you. ‘So are you, Tango Two, which is why you do not have a bullet through your skull. I heard every conversation. You had a half-assed attempt at cultivating, but Safa won you over. Gotta love that girl. Wish I had her years back. Half the shit wouldn’t have gone down if we had Safa.’
‘I didn’t cultivate,’ Emily says, needing to say it, needing to be believed. ‘I mean . . . I was going to. I was. I thought about Ben first, but the chemistry between him and Safa put me off. Then I got to like Safa and didn’t want to do anything with Ben, so then I thought about Harry. But it felt wrong . . . Then I thought about the doctor, but he’s so old and he squelches when he eats and . . . and I . . . I just . . .’ She trails off, quiet and thoughtful as Miri bites the frustration down.
‘I left the door open for you. I left the portal on for you. The only thing I didn’t factor was Harry being outside. Tell me, what made you stay?’
‘I like them,’ Emily says quietly. ‘I actually really like them. They’re so different to anyone else . . . I didn’t have friends before . . .’
‘Safa held off five of you on her own. She went into that house tonight before you, and I even blinked. You ever see anyone else do that?’
‘No,’ Emily admits honestly.
‘Me neither. I need Safa. Ben too. He’s smart. He doesn’t panic. I need that.’
‘Ben’s exceptional.’
‘I need Harry. The man is fearless. You see him throw those men?’
‘Tell me what you want, Miri. Tell me what to do.’
Miri smokes and looks over at Emily, then round at the beautiful English countryside, so different to what she is used to in California. Tell me what to do? Hell. She’s never heard an agent say such a thing. ‘You want to go?’
Emily thinks. She looks round at the field and the hedgerow and up to the blue sky that should all feel like home, but it doesn’t compare to the sterile bunker and the Cretaceous sky they have on the hill that looks down into the valley. She should be homesick for this, for here, but she sat outside on a balmy evening and ate strawberries and chocolate. She told Safa she would cut her hair. She smiles at the thought and being called fuckstick, spy, shithead and twat every five minutes. She’s laughed more in the last twenty-five days than the last ten years. She has introduced Harry Madden to Harry Potter, stood with him under an umbrella in the rain and played a game to see who could draw faster. She did that.
She can go back to her side now and claim the victory, but with a very real risk of being killed, and suddenly it’s so obvious. She is on an operation run by Maggie Sanderson in a team of Safa Patel, Ben Ryder and Harry Madden.
Miri rolls her eyes at the painstaking indecision in the agent. This is a no-brainer. Why is she even thinking about it? She puts the cigarette out and places it in the bag with the first. ‘You can take these with you. Mother will DNA test them and confirm you’re being truthful. It’s all I can do to help buy you back into your club.’
‘Thanks,’ Emily says.
‘Jesus wept. Pick a side, Tango Two, but I will win . . . And if I don’t, then everyone dies.’
Twenty-Five
Water pools on the floor. Dripping from bodies and hair. Soaked. Breathing hard. Faces flushed. Clothes drenched and tight against bodies. Harry pushes a hand through his beard to remove the excess moisture. Safa flicks her head to the side, spraying droplets from the strands worked loose from her ponytail. Ben shifts to free up his right hand to rub it down his leg in a vain effort to dry it.
‘Ready?’ Safa asks.
They stare at the Blue. Grim with determination.
‘Okay,’ Safa says, ‘on three . . . One . . . two . . . three!’
She goes first. Running through the blue light with her assault rifle up and aimed, sweeping round in a circle. She holds position, assessing the ground on all sides before sticking a hand back through the light with a thumbs-up.
Emily goes through. Her own assault rifle braced into her shoulder as she aims round.
‘Clear,’ Emily snaps. ‘Move out.’
‘Moving out.’ Safa paces further across the uneven ground and drops to a knee. The rain pelting into her face. A wall of water pouring from the sky. It’s hot too. The humidity is staggering. She shakes her head to rid the droplets of water going into her eyes. ‘Clear.’
Emily’s hand goes through the light. A thumbs-up to Harry, who comes running through. His right hand holding the heavy machine gun to his waist. His left hand holding the big metal box of belt-fed ammunition connected to the weapon. He moves out and drops to a knee with the butt of the heavy machine gun pressed into his stomach. ‘H clear,’ Emily reports.
‘B out,’ Safa says tightly.
Emily’s hand goes through to give the signal. Ben comes running into the rain and heat and humidity.
‘I’m out,’ he says.
‘On me.’ Safa starts moving ahead at a brisk pace while aiming and checking the front and sides. Emily runs past Ben and Harry to gain the front with Safa. The two side by side going forward to press the attack. Faces fixed. Eyes set and glaring. Water pouring down cheeks to drip from jaws. Hair slick to heads.
‘LEFT SIDE, LEFT SIDE,’ Emily shouts, opening fire into the figure looming from the tree line. The air erupts with gunfire. The figure drops back. The pace increases. The pressure on.
‘HOUSE AHEAD,’ Safa shouts, seeing the stately home through the driving rain.
‘RIGHT SIDE,’ Ben shouts.
Emily spins to seek the figure and fires a strafing burst to suppress anything coming. She twists back to the left and fires again. Safa presses on. Watching ahead. A figure moves. She fires a controlled burst.
‘CONTACT AHEAD,’ she yells.
‘LEFT SIDE,’ Emily shouts.
The air fills with gunfire from ahead, from the left, from the right. They run fast. Sprinting towards the house.
‘GRENADE,’ Safa roars, seeing the object flying through the air. They drop into the mud. All four landing on their backs to keep weapons clear of the gunge beneath them. A huge boom, a flash of light as the flash-bang detonates. ‘UP! UP!’ Safa screams out, vaulting on to her feet to strafe round from the right side to ahead. Emily a split second behind her, on her knees, then up on to her feet, strafing left side to ahead. Magazines come out. Magazines go in.