‘I already am . . .’
In the same bunker she secured the then Prime Minister in nearly forty years ago, Safa Patel appears from a shining blue light. The current Prime Minister, Veronica Smedley, flinches at the sight. Aides scream out. A uniformed guard goes for his sidearm and is shot dead with a double-tap to his centre of mass.
Emily, Harry and Ben surge in behind Safa. Pistols up and aimed. Eyes tracking for threats. They trained for this. They drilled for hours and hours in every room in their bunker, and even Bertie’s shack, to make this go right. Soldiers and police officers are killed. Veronica stays frozen at the head of the table. Frozen in fear and resignation. Harry shoots into the doorway of the emergency planning meeting, killing the armed man running in.
They gain control of the room in mere seconds. Bodies lie dead and bleeding. Ears ringing from the shots inside the confined place.
Miri strides through the Blue and heads straight towards the Prime Minister. A uniformed man rises to block her. Older, military. His hair greying. His eyes hard. She draws and aims at his head. He lowers back to his seat with his hands up. She moves to the PM and glances at the screen on the wall showing the satellite feed of Cavendish Manor.
‘MAGGIE? MAGGIE?’
Mother’s voice screeching through the speakers in the room. Miri stops at the side of the PM and stares down at the woman with those cold grey eyes so unreadable.
‘My name is Maggie Sanderson. I will complete my mission, then destroy any and all devices. If you interfere with my team again, I will find you and I will kill you. Do not take any action against any other country. What we are doing does not concern you. Do you understand? I need you to understand.’
The PM nods, once and firm.
How do you stop a government?
The Blue comes on. Safa goes forward.
‘Maggie! This is Mother . . . Don’t you fucking dare . . . For the love of god, don’t do it . . .’
‘I already am . . .’
Sarah Conway, the US President balks at the sight and dives from her chair to the floor. The reactions from the Secret Service are fast. Safa fires, killing one instantly, as Harry, Emily and Ben come through to shoot down the others still trying to draw pistols from holsters.
Aides run screaming. More armed men and women run into the room. More shots are fired. More death is given. An aide rushes at Harry and drops unconscious with his nose broken from the punch given by Emily.
Miri strides from the Blue with her pistol already out and gripped. She told the others the Secret Service are good. She spots the same feed on the screen showing the same view of Cavendish Manor engulfed in flames.
‘MAGGIE? MAGGIE?’
Mother’s voice on the hacked radio system. Miri crosses to the cowering Sarah Conway and drops to kneel at the woman’s side.
‘My name is Maggie Sanderson. I will complete my mission, then destroy any and all devices. If you interfere with my team again, I will find you and I will kill you. Do not take any action against any other country. What we are doing does not concern you. Do you understand? I need you to understand.’ Miri drops lower to speak softly. ‘If I need help, I will come to you, but stay the hell out of my way until I ask you.’
The Blue comes on. Safa goes forward.
‘Maggie! This is Mother . . . Don’t you fucking dare . . . For the love of god, don’t do it . . .’
‘I already am . . .’
Moscow is worse. More guards. More men and women with guns. More death. Safa kills two before Harry, Emily and Ben can get through. The emergency room is bigger too, with more people screaming and running in panic. More angles to cover.
Cavendish Manor on a screen. Mother screeching into the radio. Men and women diving on top of the Russian President trying to cover him with their bodies. Control is still gained. Albeit short-lived while the alarm sounds to summon more guards and soldiers.
Miri speaks in Russian this time. Fluent and perfect.
‘My name is Maggie Sanderson. I will complete my mission, then destroy any and all devices . . .’
As she speaks, so her team commence firing at the doorways to hold back the arriving reinforcements.
The Blue comes on. Safa goes forward. She leads them each time. The first through and the last back. Her instincts and reactions save them time and again.
‘Maggie! This is Mother . . . Don’t you fucking dare . . . For the love of god, don’t do it . . .’
‘I already am . . .’
Cavendish Manor on a screen. Mother screeching into the radio.
‘My name is Maggie Sanderson . . .’
Again and again they deploy to arrive at the exact same time in bunkers and emergency rooms the world over.
North Korea is the hardest. That’s where Harry is shot, and it’s the only time they need to throw a grenade to gain space to get back through the Blue, with Emily clamping her bare hands on Harry’s bleeding arm.
Emily stayed on Harry, screaming for a medic, as they landed in the portal room. Straddling him, with blood pushing between her fingers, coating her hands. It was only a flesh wound in the end, but there was a lot of blood. Harry didn’t flinch. The dressing was applied and he carried on as if nothing happened.
‘Maggie! This is Mother . . . Don’t you fucking dare . . . For the love of god, don’t do it . . .’
‘I already am . . .’
Cavendish Manor on a screen. Mother screeching into the radio.
The same words spoken by Miri. Emily speaks twice. Once in German and once in French. Languages learnt via an intracranial device she wore as a child that she told Miri about in Berlin when a plan was forming.
How do you stop a government, Mr Ryder? You show it a power beyond its own. You show an ability to come back and kill it whenever you wish.
They ate because they knew the day would be long, ferocious, savage and unforgiving. Between each deployment, they gulp fluids and take pain relief.
There is no time to rest. They have a time machine. It could be staggered and done over days, but they go while the energy is high, while the ferocity of the fight is still in them. To take that energy with them into each place to do what must be done.
When the final one is finished, they go back to Berlin to a time before the staging area was ever established. They go back to hide explosive charges to blow the street and make the first statement when Alpha leads his team away.
A plan formed. A plan executed.
A hundred million years in the future, in a glade just in front of a shimmering blue light, Miri kneels next to a young soldier, while in the distance Cavendish Manor burns from the aviation fuel of the gunships.
Two minutes for all of them. Months of planning and a whole day to achieve perfection of execution.