‘My agreement with Roland confirms I have authority. Roland and his son need extraction. That will happen now. If not, this will go to the US military. This is too big for you. Too big for Roland. We have to react to that timeline in real time. None of this is tested. None of this is known. We cannot take the chance on a system we do not know. Do not take what you think you know from science fiction and apply it now, Mr Ryder. Do not assume a thing because you think you know.’
‘It’s common sense,’ Ben says, frustration showing.
‘It is common sense formed from opinions of a subject you think you know, but we are dealing with an unknown entity. We will react accordingly to negate any and all risks, no matter how slight or negligible you perceive them to be. I understand your concerns and views, Mr Ryder, but they are just that: they are opinions. There is risk, and we will negate that risk. We will deploy now to absolutely ensure the safety of Bertram Cavendish. Failure to comply means the whole mission goes to the US military.’
Ben thinks to argue. To counter and persuade the woman she is wrong, but as much as he holds his beliefs strongly, so he can also see the validity of her argument, and the thought of a time machine going to any government, let alone the US government, is more a risk than anything else. He concedes and backs down, nodding to show supplication to her command. ‘Safa, I’ll be in and out. Like, super quick and super safe, and if it goes bent, then you and Harry can come rescue me . . . yeah? Good plan?’
‘Shit plan. No. I didn’t understand a word of what you both said. Is she being real? Does it need doing now?’
‘Yeah, yeah, it does, but you and Harry have been in bed for . . .’
‘Doc, give me and Harry a shot,’ Safa says firmly.
‘A what?’ the doctor asks.
‘A shot. Give us a boost.’
‘A boost? No! You need rest, not . . .’
‘We’ll be manning up then. Harry, you fit?’
‘Aye.’
‘Safa,’ Ben says carefully.
‘Safa, my arse,’ Safa says. There is no way she is letting Ben out on his own. He can handle a pistol and knows how to fight, but tactical awareness is an altogether different thing. ‘Get ready, we’ll deploy soon as we can. Doc, what can we take to help?’
‘Safa, I just said . . .’
‘I asked you a question,’ Safa snaps, switching the glare to the poor doctor.
‘Vit B make advances?’ Miri asks, earning a frosty look from the doctor.
‘They need rest,’ he asserts.
‘What’s vit B?’ Ben asks. ‘Like, B vitamins?’
‘Trials in my time,’ Miri says. ‘Natural energy boost. Does it work?’
‘They do not replace the healing process a body requires,’ the doctor says.
‘Do it,’ Safa orders. ‘We’ll get kitted.’
Three
To take five men out of a city in lockdown from what the public think is a terrorist incident, but what every intelligence agency, government and interested party believe to be the focal point of the hunt for the device, takes resources and power.
‘We have a lead on the device inventor.’
That single phrase gives Mother more resources than she has ever had before. It gives her all the resources.
Every agent deployed throughout the world is suddenly at her disposal. Every researcher. Every asset. Every snitch, mole, hacker and back-office worker are made available and ordered, without excuse or failing, to focus on a large, detached manor house an hour south of London.
Commercial flights are out of the question. The five have literally just walked out of a gunfight and will be covered in trace chemicals that will register in the heightened airport security screening processes. That means a private jet has to be used, but filing a flight path with the aviation authorities creates an audit trail, and still does not circumvent customs and security services.
What it takes is a visit to the famous owner of a brand-name chain of fashion stores. An old-school visit with a brown envelope that contains original, high-definition time and date-stamped prints that show said married famous owner of the brand-name chain of fashion stores naked with a young man in a hotel room in Mumbai. That image, along with the passport of the young man showing his date of birth that puts him below the legal age of consent, means the famous man is only too willing for his private fast-jet to be used for a quick round trip to Berlin.
It takes off within fifteen minutes of the call from Alpha to Mother, and it takes fifty minutes for the jet to reach Berlin. During that time, the van containing the bodies of M and K is driven to a disused industrial estate, where a waiting operative sets it on fire and provides the five men with clean clothes.
They are taken to the airfield in time for the private jet to land and the famous owner to get out, shout at a poor, unwitting subordinate from the Berlin office of his fashion chain stores and get back in for the take-off. The owner does not say a word to the five men in his jet, but discreetly goes to the rear of the plane to stay out of sight.
That process gets the five out of Berlin, but it does not get them into London, and anything coming out of Berlin right now is subject to intense scrutiny.
So another jet is sent to Berlin from Paris. Another from Zurich. Another from Istanbul. Another from Barcelona, from Krakow, Moscow and five more from various cities within the continent. They file incorrect flight plans and cause chaos within the aviation authority’s offices, and more at the private and commercial airfields they land at. Some wait a few minutes before taking straight back off. Some taxi about to draw attention. The pilot of the jet from Moscow gets out, pisses on the tarmac, then climbs back in and takes off. Attention is drawn and diverted, and every single one of those jets then aims for London.
Security services go into meltdown. The police are overwhelmed with reports of aircraft coming into the city with incorrect flight plans. The pilots on board those jets argue and bicker with each other for the right to land first. Air traffic controllers throw fits of panic, and, in the middle of it all, Mother’s hands blur through the icons and programs hovering above her desk.
A mass brawl starts in the bar at Gatwick International Airport. A suspicious package left inside Terminal 7 at Heathrow. A truck fire outside the main doors to Stansted. A bomb hoax dialled into the police offices at Luton Airport. All of these things create enough of a distraction for the jet containing the five to land unobserved at Farnborough airfield in the north-eastern edge of Hampshire county in the south of England, as every airfield near London big enough to take commercial flights is put on standby to receive emergency landings.