“They’ll come after dark.”
The remark by the blond agent, Brooker, cut through the silence that had floated heavily above them for several minutes. The other agent, Kent, was at the back door, nervously watching for any approach.
“Someone would have heard the shots and called the police, surely?” Maggie sat on the floor, her Remington pistol on the stool beside her. It hadn’t been touched since it had been handed to her.
“Doubt it.” Brooker’s voice was calm, but there was an edge to it. “This forest is far from walking tracks or the lake. Plus, we’re only a few miles from hunting lodges, where the local aristocrats hunt ducks pretty much all day long. Gunshots aren’t exactly a rarity around here. Gave me the willies first few times, let me tell you.”
His plastered-on smile did nothing to lift the sombre mood in the room. A veteran of MI6, he’d been stationed in Berlin for eight years. His offsider, five. They were experienced, war-hardened men. And they were scared. It was always the eyes that gave it away.
They were cut off, no communications, no backup. Their debrief of Jayne was to be conducted in secret, so no one knew which safehouse they’d use. No one would miss them for days. They didn’t have days. They had hours at most.
Jayne was yet to appear. Brooker had gone to bring him out but after hearing the news of the siege he took that moment to have a shower. He’d advised Brooker that was when he had the most clarity of thought. Exactly what Jayne had to contemplate was unclear. The sound of running water had been going for ten minutes. The delay was infuriating. The reason they were all there seemed ominously absent from events of his making.
“Seems the men out there are very patient.” Maggie turned to Atticus, fire in her eyes. “Just wondering, as you seem to know everything in advance, exactly what time are they going to bust in and shoot up the place. Do I have enough time for a tea or should I just lie down now to get it over with?”
Brooker turned to Atticus with a semi-amused eyebrow. He stretched. “I think I’ll go check on Kent. He gets awfully lonely at times, you know.”
Brooker slunk out of the room quietly, leaving the three of them alone. When Maggie turned away, Atticus gave Oliver a quizzical shrug. He returned the shrug and added a frown. Buggered if I know.
“Is there something on your mind, Maggie?” Atticus enquired as evenly as he could.
She turned to him and folded her arms. “No, why ever do you ask?”
“Well, if you think I know even remotely what’s going on,” Atticus pointed for effect, “out there, I think you do have something on your mind. Let’s have it.”
She squirmed, scrunching herself down as if trying to make herself smaller. This was a conversation she apparently didn’t want to have, but the genie was out of the bottle now.
“Do you… do you know the men out there?” She seemed unsure of her words.
“No. Of course not.” Atticus raised his palms inquisitively. “Did you miss the bit where we were being shot at? Or the part where I put a bullet in the gentleman’s head?”
“I guess.” She poked the carpet in front of her. “But you took out that man, who was armed with a rifle,” she looked up; confusion creased her forehead, “with a pistol. That’s hardly a thing they teach you in the Navy, now is it?”
She had him there. He was about to throw in a comment to steer the conversation away from this line of discussion, but Maggie cut him off. She gazed directly at him, her deep blue eyes unwavering. “You’re not who you say you are, Atticus Wolfe.”
He was speechless. Atticus knew there had been something on Maggie’s mind for days, but he’d been expecting something else entirely. Instead, she seemed to have seen through him completely.
“What’s that?” Atticus swallowed. “If I’m not me, who am I?” He kept his tone playful, hoping vainly he could make light of the situation.
Maggie’s face remained porcelain still, not a flicker of merriment to be seen. “It seems a good place to start, I guess.”
Start? This can’t be good.
“Let’s talk about that, shall we?” Animated, Maggie sat up, staring him down. “Your name. You said, and I remember this distinctly, that your mother chose it after reading To Kill a Mockingbird. That book came out three years ago. Either you’re the most mature three-year-old in the history or you’re full of it.”
“That was a misunderstanding, I meant—”
“And what about before?” Cutting him off, her voice rose several octaves. “The way you shot that man,” she pointed outside, “the way you moved. They don’t teach you that on a boat. Or the bloke in Jayne’s flat. You were bantering with him like you were doing a music hall act. You were cold and calculating, but most of all, it was all effortless for you. Like you’d done it a million times. It doesn’t sit with Mr Naval Strategy guy. Nothing about you adds up. You’re not who you say you are.”
“Look,” Oliver’s voice nearly broke, “I think there’s been some confusion, my dear. Atticus is—”
“Is a fraud. I know.” Having started, she seemed unable to stop. “And then there’s all this stuff you didn’t even know. Basic stuff. Like how the Tube operates. I’ve seen children less confounded by a train station. Oh, and let’s not forget you didn’t even know how money worked. I’ve never seen a bloke so confused by shillings in my life.” She waved a finger at him. “You wanted to call in satellites to find those Cockneys in the car, like, I don’t know what. You didn’t seem to know we don’t have any satellites. Well, we had one but thanks to top British ingenuity it conked out. But the Soviets have plenty, don’t they? Then you called the city Saint Petersburg, not Leningrad, told me you’d been there before, even.” Her eyes narrowed. “It smells terribly Bolshy, if you ask me.”
“Ah, I can explain all of that. Let’s start at the top. My name—”
“Atticus.” Oliver’s voice was quiet, but forceful. “Tell her.”
Atticus turned to him, aghast. “But…”
“She’s too smart.” He shook his head with a knowing grin. “She’s already figured it out. We have to tell her.”
Aghast, Atticus gave a slight shake of his head. “We can’t.”
“I’m frightfully sorry, old boy, but we don’t have a choice.” He pushed his glasses up. “She won’t let this go, believe me. She’ll make your life hell. When this woman knows she’s right she can’t let it go, ever. She’ll hound you for the rest of your days. It is an undeniable and irrefutable fact.”
“Tell me what?”
Both men stared at her blankly. Where to start?
“Maggie…” Atticus inhaled. “I’m… this is going to sound really dumb…” He closed his eyes and turned his face to the ceiling. “I still don’t entirely believe it myself if I’m completely honest, but…” he took in a slow deep breath, “but I’m from the future. 2024, to be exact.”
There was no reply. Atticus turned to Maggie, who stared at him, all expression eradicated from her face. She tilted her head, as if spinning the idea around in her mind. Atticus hoped she’d link the statement to her observations and find some tenuous link worthy of further exploration, and apply a robust scientific rigour to explore the possibility.
“Get fucked.” Maggie pushed herself up. “Seriously. Both of you, get horse fucked.” She stood and paced. “Do you expect me to believe… that’s the dumbest piece of…” She turned to Oliver. “You’re honestly going to back him up on this? He’s a time traveller? Really?” Her arms flew up in disgust. “That’s the best you came up with? Like the bloke from that inane kids’ show that started the other night, Doctor Who or whatever it was? Stupid thing, if you ask me, won’t last. Like you, Atticus Wolfe.” She folded her arms. “If we survive the night, I’m walking into MI6 tomorrow and exposing you as the fraud you are.”
“Maggie, dear, don’t be—”
“Don’t dear me, Oliver!” Her hands flailed. “This is beyond preposterous! A man from the future. With a brain like yours, that’s what you went with? Hell, pretending he lost his memory after being hit in the head by a frypan is better than this.” She shook her head. “I thought we were friends.”
“Show her the watch.”
Atticus sighed. He still wasn’t sure, but nevertheless pulled back his sleeve.
“I’ve seen his stupidly large watch. Pretty, but pointless. Much like the man himself.”
Ignoring the compliment, if that’s what it was, Atticus pressed the button on the side of the watch to unlock it. Swiping the screen, the standard analogue watch face disappeared, replaced by icons for apps, most of which were useless without a network to connect to.
Maggie’s face morphed from icy cold anger to intrigue. Her eyes darted to Oliver’s in astonishment, and a flicker of possibility flashed across her face. Atticus swiped various screens across, searching for something, anything that would convince Maggie the device was not of this time. The screen alone seemed to have cracked her hard uncertainty, but he wanted to find something to force a definitive wedge, creating a gap wide enough to allow reality inside.
He chose a music playing app and selected the first song to appear. In seconds the annoying nineties earworm of We Like to Party filled the room. Maggie and Oliver stared at the device in awe. There was no room for a record on his wrist. No reel-to-reel tape. There was no current-day explanation for the annoyingly catchy and soulless Eurodance ditty filling their ears. He’d downloaded the song as an alarm to playfully annoy a co-worker months before and never got around to deleting it.
Atticus pressed stop. “That’s why I mentioned the satellites when we wanted to catch those blokes, because where I come from, when I come from, they’re ubiquitous. Everyone uses GPS, uh, global positioning systems, satellites, to navigate their cars, find shops, hell, you can track your pizza delivery.” That last one garnered a surprised gasp from the other two. “I work for MI6… I did work for… I will work for MI6 in the future. We use satellites to track Tangos… the bad guys. Using devices like this, we can communicate with virtually anyone instantaneously, anywhere in the world.”
Not taking her eyes off the watch, Maggie’s lips were parted in wonder. “Fuck.”
“Really, Maggie,” Oliver tutted. “I don’t think there’s a need for that kind of language.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Oh, I don’t know, criminy?”
Atticus and Maggie glared at him incredulously.
Shaking her head slowly, Maggie blinked at Oliver. “No, I think I can honestly say that my current disposition can be encapsulated by the word fuck in a way criminy just doesn’t seem to adequately capture.” She turned to Atticus. “Can you… can you do video calls on it, like Dick Tracy?” Curiosity had replaced ire, but only by a small margin.
“You actually can, with the technology of my day—satellites and wi-fi. The world is a much different place, believe me.”
“Tell me about it.”
There was a breathless awe in her words, all traces of anger dissolved. She wasn’t convinced though, not yet. She was far too intelligent for that, but she was listening. That alone was a breakthrough. Atticus carefully explained how he had been unceremoniously cast from his own time to this one. Well, as best he could without understanding exactly how it had happened himself.
“How is technology in the future? Is it like The Jetsons?” She kept her voice low, in case someone overheard their outlandish discussion.
“Well, kind of. Less flying cars, misogyny and robots, but there’s a big reliance on computers, for sure.”
“There’s computers? People, regular people, have access to them?”
“Everyone carries one in their pocket.”
Maggie blinked. “A computer… in your pocket?”
“My watch is one. I have a phone, a pocket computer in my flat, about the size of a pack of cards. It’s a hundred thousand times more powerful than anything that will be developed this decade. We have access to every piece of human knowledge, and are able to communicate with anyone on the planet at any time.”
Maggie’s mouth opened in awe. “You must live in a time of marvels. Humankind must truly be better and enlightened in the future.”
Atticus shrugged. “Not really, we just use computers to yell at strangers and send memes of goats.”
Her face screwed up in confusion. “What’s a meme?”
Atticus grinned. “Okay Boomer.”
Maggie no longer regarded him with scorn. Her inquisitive nature, her intellect, meant she had to know more. If he succeeded, if in the end Maggie believed him, then he had to accept the unfortunate reality of the turnaround: his life, his continued freedom in this timeline had been secured, but not by his or Oliver’s wily reasoned discourse. No, his fate had been saved by The Vengaboys.
After an hour, Kent and Brooker had established their patrols of the villa. They checked the perimeters to ensure all vantage points were covered, leaving the other three to their hushed but engrossed discourse. Even inside, the air had a chill to it; they could all feel the coldness of night encroaching. The dull sky hadn’t shown signs of nightfall yet, but they could all feel it advancing on them like a predator. The stillness wouldn’t last. They didn’t have long.
There had been talk of sending a runner, or all of them leaving en masse, but those ideas were soon dismissed. There was nowhere nearby where safety was guaranteed, nor could they safely assume that the direction they chose to run to wouldn’t be into the jaws of the enemy. They could just as easily get lost in the woods and later found by the enemy. They were in the unfortunate position where they had to wait for an attack, and defend their position as best they could.
The group had conducted a weapons inventory and their arms were meagre. They had five pistols, including the one Atticus had relieved from Montgomery, and two shotguns. It was hardly enough to ward off a legion of Spetsnaz shock troops. In all honesty, it was hardly enough to ward off a group of slightly annoyed girl scouts. On the plus side, they had some ammunition to replenish some of the weapons. Which sounded good in theory, but was rather pointless if no one was left alive to load it.
Silence descended on the house like fog. The inevitability of their fates cut down chatter. All but Atticus shared around cigarettes’ he’d never been a smoker, and was likely to barf up a lung if he tried now. Even Oliver tentatively took a few shallow puffs. Without a word being uttered, the old adage smoke ’em if you got ’em was made manifest. Even in the twenty-first century, a soldier facing down a likely death appreciated the noxious fumes of a cigarette. Some things hadn’t changed all that dramatically.
Putting his years as a tactical officer to use, Atticus roamed the house searching for architectural idiosyncrasies that could be used for some strategic advantage. Finding one near the fireplace, he explored the wooden trapdoor in the floor, where wood was stored. As Atticus crawled on his hands and knees in the dirt below the old villa, the first inklings of a plan began to formulate in his mind. Keeping the idea to himself until it was fully formed, he emerged and patted the grime from his knees.
On his return, Atticus noted that the mood had sagged even further. It was if the weight of the situation was crushing them all. There was no doubt they had little time left. Jayne had managed to make it through the wall but was about to be slain at his supposed safe haven. Maggie was the only one who seemed to have any spirit left. She bombarded Atticus with questions about the future, in part to allay lingering doubts about the truth of his claim, but also to fuel her insatiable inquisitiveness.
Maggie sat next to Atticus near the internal door of the lounge, while Oliver stood vigilant at the window.
“Does man live on the moon?”
“People.”
“What?”
“Do people live on the moon. In my day, we don’t say ‘man’ to represent our achievements because it’s intrinsically sexist. We try and be far more inclusive.”
Maggie’s face advising she took in the new information. Despite that, she bounced on her chair. “Well, do we? Live there?”
Atticus smiled. “No, we don’t live there, not yet. But humankind does make it to the moon. In 1969.”
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “This decade? Bloody hell.” Her bright eyes were wide. After a moment, her gleeful expression dissipated, and her gaze turned downward. “Was it the USSR?”
“No. They win the first few—first satellite, first person in space, first to land something on the moon and the like, but the Americans spend a fortune to make it there first. To be honest, I think the US loses its way a little after the achievement. They reach the pinnacle of human achievement and fail to figure out what should come next.”
By the window, Oliver hardly stirred. He was actively listening to what was being said, but seemed preoccupied with what was outside the window. Atticus had to wonder why he was being aloof. Was it jealousy, either at the rekindled friendship between Atticus and Maggie, or another kind? Then again, he could have been all-consumed with his likely impending demise.
“What’s it like for women in the future?” It seemed she had a million questions and was picking whatever came to mind. “You mentioned things are less sexist, so it gets better?”
“It really does. There’s still a lot of work to do, a hell of a lot, but there’s plenty more opportunities and equality than there is now.” He tilted his head. “We even had a female Prime Minister.”
“In England? You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not. She served for all of the eighties.”
“Wow. She must have been much loved.”
Atticus pursed his lips. “No. Not really.”
“Because she was a woman?”
“No, a whole mess of other reasons. Look, that one’s a bit complicated.”
She frowned, accepting the answer while not understanding it. “What’s music like in the future?”
“Fractured.” Atticus was happy to be on more comfortable ground. “Because everyone has access to pretty much any song in existence on their mobile phones, everyone listens to their own thing. But it’s a positive—whatever you like is always at your fingertips.”
With a shake of her head, Maggie tried to comprehend such a thing. Atticus guessed it would have taken a wild leap of imagination. In her time, she had access to a tiny sliver of recorded music, some of which had to be ordered from America. It could take months. What he was suggesting was pure science fiction.
“Do you think I’d like the music in the future?”
“Oh, no doubt. I’m just annoyed we’re living in a time when MI6 doesn’t conduct drug tests and we have to wait thirty years for a decent rave—and by then we’ll be too old to enjoy it.”
“Am I meant to understand what any of that means?” Maggie shook her head. She most likely had serious doubts about Atticus’s time-travelling story, as anyone would, but the more she grilled Atticus, the less cynical her tone became, and the more inquiring. Well, except perhaps the part about raves. Apart from that, he felt he might be winning her over.
That was until her face changed once more. In an instant it transformed from good-humoured to deathly serious. Atticus instinctively leaned back, so drastic was the shift in her demeanour.
With tight lips, she avoided eye contact. “Did you have anything to do with Henry’s… death?”
The abrupt change in conversation caught Atticus off guard. “No, of course not. That’s absurd. Henry was a friend.”
Clasping her hands together in front of her, Maggie seemed embarrassed to have suggested it. “You have to admit, your story is as flimsy as a King’s Road suit on a Saturday, but I know you liked him. It seemed far too coincidental though—you turned up and everything went to hell in a handbasket.”
It seemed to explain Maggie’s sudden standoffishness. No wonder their little group of misfits had felt so fractured after Henry’s passing. Atticus had to admit he would have thought the same if the situations were reversed. Though it didn’t account for everything. Her disappearing when they were at Carnaby Street, for one. That was a subject for another day.
“I’m not disagreeing with you, it seems odd to me too. I can’t think of anything I’ve done that would have caused this level of chaos. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure a murder of an MI6 staff member on our own premises would have still been remembered in my time.”
Maggie shrugged. “Would it though? The government is in a right mess. They’ve only just swapped PMs, to a bleedin’ Lord of all people. Philby, Profumo, JFK. Everything is on a knife edge. This could be buried so deep even our own organisation doesn’t remember it.”
“Maybe.” Atticus wasn’t convinced. “But that’s part of what’s driving me on. If I caused any of this, then I have to fix it. I can’t have my presence here disrupt the timeline. I don’t want to mess things up and have Russia win the Cold War or have England lose the World Cup.”
Maggie tilted her head. “Does… does it happen? Do we win?”
“The World Cup?”
Maggie’s face dropped, as if to say, very droll. “The Cold War, dummy. I think given our profession we’d be more interested in that than a bunch of idiots kicking a ball around a field.”
“Speak for yourself.” Oliver grinned.
With a smirk, Atticus addressed Maggie. “Remember what I told you about not wanting to screw up the timeline? Forget everything I just said.”
Nodding with a smirk of her own, Maggie obviously had no intention of doing any such thing. Atticus found it difficult to retain a detached air around her. There was no denying his sense of relief that she was no longer angry with him. He tried his best not to dwell on what that meant.
“It’s part of why we’re here, in Berlin. I have to find out what’s going on. If we can trace how Jayne leads to Henry, find the keystone, then we can see if I’ve caused any of this. I have to be sure.”
Maggie’s gaze went to the upper right; she was constructing thoughts. The faint clomp of footsteps could be heard from the hallway. Atticus assumed it was Kent or Brooker on patrol.
“If,” Maggie raised a finger, “we assume Henry’s passing is related, it happened after Jayne was captured. What would he know about who did it?”
“Less of who, more the why. Henry knew something, whether he was aware of it or not. Or he stumbled across something or someone he shouldn’t have. Knowing how Jayne ties into all this will narrow down what that something could be. It gives us an avenue of investigation, rather than stumbling around in the dark.”
“Then one may as well get on with it.” They both turned to see Jayne in the half light of the hallway. His slicked-back hair wet from the shower. “Brooker brought me up to speed on you lot. Seems you’ve come an awfully long way to talk to me. I suppose it’s the least I can do given the present circumstances. What?”
Atticus hadn’t expected Jayne to speak with such a plum in his mouth. Stepping into the lounge, his full aristocratic profile became visible. His back rigid, Jayne’s gaze swept the room casually, that was, until he saw Atticus. “Oh my. I wasn’t aware we were now hiring—”
“I’d choose the next word very carefully if I were you.”
“Irregular types.” His eyes darted between the three. “You have to admit, you lot aren’t standard-issue MI6, now are you?” Even with the highborn air about him, Jayne flashed a genuine smile, as if the fact amused him no end. “About time the stuffy old place had a jolly good airing, if you ask me.”
All three “irregular types” stood and introduced themselves. Atticus motioned for Jayne to sit in the lone armchair, opposite he and Maggie on the couch. Oliver resumed his role as sentry by the window.
“We have some questions.”
“No doubt.” Jayne leaned forward. “Shall we begin?”