The Secret of Excalibur

Kruglov—

Nina struggled upright, legs wobbling as water streamed from her clothes. The limo was crumpled against the other side of the fountain, the driver’s door open.

No sign of the Russian. Or the metal case.

He had Excalibur.

‘Where’d he go?’ she slurred, staggering out of the pool. The man helping her looked bewildered, as if she were speaking in tongues. She pushed him away, groggily searching for Kruglov, and spotted a running figure shoving through the crowd, a flash of aluminium in his hand.

She tried to run after him, but dropped to her knees as her legs refused to co-operate. Pain overcame the brief numbing effect of the cold water, flooding in from all over her body. ‘Okay,’ she said, plaintively, ‘guess I’m not going anywhere.’

Shouting from behind her. She turned to see several policemen running at her.

‘Bad guy went that way,’ she tried to tell them, pointing after Kruglov - only to be thrown face first to the ground and rapidly handcuffed. One of the policemen shouted something, but the throbbing pain in her head reduced it to an incoherent garble. She was roughly hauled to her feet.

‘Oh, jeez, not again,’ she muttered as she was carried away.

‘Well, this isn’t entirely unexpected,’ said Peter Alderley, barely able to suppress his laughter. ‘You ending up in jail. Again!’

‘What the hell are you doing here, Alderley?’ Chase growled as the policeman brought him out of his cell. After being arrested, he had been taken first to Agar Street police station a quarter of a mile away, before later in the night being transferred to New Scotland Yard. Having only had a couple of hours’ sleep he was already irritable, and Alderley’s smugness did nothing to improve his mood. ‘I called Mac, not some tosser from MI6.’

‘There’s gratitude for you,’ Alderley replied, a smirk visible beneath his drooping moustache. ‘I’m here as a favour for Mac. C wanted him for a little chat about why someone he vouched for keeps ending up in the nick.’

‘It wouldn’t be a problem if the bloody woodentops ever arrested the right people,’ snapped Chase, shooting the policeman an annoyed look. ‘For fuck’s sake, how hard is it to spot a woman with green hair?’

‘Well, you’re out now. Personally, I would have left you there, but that would have been unfair to Nina, since you seem to come as a pair.’

‘Where is she?’ Chase demanded. ‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s fine. A bit bruised, I think, but nothing too bad.’

Alderley led him to a reception area. Chase saw Nina waiting on a bench and hurried to her, doing a double take when he got a proper look.

‘Don’t even start,’ she said, raising a warning finger. Her hair had been left unwashed overnight, and had dried into a crinkled frizz. Her clothes were also stained from the strong chemicals in the fountain.

‘I’m just glad you’re okay,’ Chase said, embracing her. He sniffed her hair. ‘Been swimming?’

‘I told you not to start!’

‘Well, this is all very romantic,’ said Alderley with a disparaging sigh, ‘but you have an appointment at the American embassy. Whatever this absolute balls-up is about, the Yanks want to talk to you about it.’

‘Yeah, well, I want to talk to them,’ said Chase. ‘About the fact that the bloke they put in charge of the operation was a fucking traitor!’

‘I still can’t believe it,’ Nina said, shaking her head. ‘He was working for Vaskovich the whole time? How did DARPA miss that?’

‘He’d just better hope that they find him before I do,’ Chase rumbled, clenching his fists. ‘Because I want to have words . . .’

Alderley took them to the embassy, driving through the building’s side gate to be met by Peach. ‘Well, so long,’ said the MI6 agent cheerily. ‘If you need SIS to do anything else for you in future, please . . . don’t. By the way, have you set a wedding date, Nina? I’m still waiting for my invitation.’

‘Goodbye, Peter,’ said Nina firmly, climbing out of the car. ‘Mr Peach, hi.’

‘Good morning, Dr Wilde.’ Peach looked more flustered than ever. ‘Mr Chase. I’m glad you’re both okay.’

‘Yeah, us too. What’s going on?’

‘Please, follow me.’

They headed through the embassy to the office overlooking Grosvenor Square. Nina’s heart sank: the first thing she saw after Peach opened the door was a line of newspapers on the table. ‘Not again!’ For the second time in a week she was front-page news, in one picture jumping on to the limo’s hood, in another clinging to the roof as it surged away from the Empire.

Several suited men were waiting for them, Hector Amoros stepping forward to greet her. ‘Nina! God, I’m glad you’re all right. You too, Eddie.’

‘I thought you’d gone back to the States?’ said Nina, surprised to see him.

‘I did. And then I came right back - I’ve been called to appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about everything that happened yesterday. Which could take some time. This operation didn’t turn out quite as we’d hoped.’

‘Understatement of the year,’ Nina said - then froze when she saw who was standing amongst the group of men.

Mitchell.

Face bruised, a bandage on his cheek . . . but not a prisoner.

‘What the fuck is he doing here?’ she shouted.

Chase’s reaction was more physical. He charged at Mitchell. It took three of the men to hold him back. ‘Oi! Twat! I’ll fucking kill you!’

‘Yeah, I kinda thought you’d react that way,’ said Mitchell irritably. ‘Hector?’

Amoros cleared his throat. ‘Nina, Eddie, there’s something you need to know. Eddie, cut that out.’ A commanding military tone entered his normally pleasant voice. Chase reluctantly stopped struggling and shrugged himself free of the men. ‘Yes, Jack was going to give Excalibur to Vaskovich . . . but DARPA knew all about it.’

‘DARPA approved it,’ Mitchell added. ‘Vaskovich thought I was a double agent. I’m not. I’m a triple agent - I was working for DARPA the whole time. Who did you think the “reliable source” inside Vaskovich’s organisation was? It was me!’

‘You mean this whole thing was a set-up?’ Nina gasped.

‘Yes. My mission was to put Vaskovich’s weapon out of commission. I would’ve taken Excalibur to Russia, used that as proof of my loyalty so he’d take me to his earth energy facility, and boom.’ He glanced at the newspapers. ‘Only now, you two have screwed everything up in about the most public way possible - Vaskovich has Excalibur, and I had to blow my cover to keep you alive!’

Nina’s own anger began to rise. ‘And why the hell didn’t you tell us this in the first place? People have died because of this plan of yours!’

‘If you’d known, there was a risk you would have given me away. Not that it made any goddamn difference, as it turned out!’

‘So why didn’t you just let them find the sword on their own?’ Chase demanded. ‘Nobody would have got hurt.’

‘You sure about that? They killed a priest in Sicily to get the first piece of Caliburn, they killed Bernd Rust, they would probably have killed Staumberg and his butler in Austria as well. These people aren’t boy scouts. And I had to be involved, because Kruglov didn’t trust me - if I didn’t personally give Excalibur to Vaskovich, there’s no way he would have taken me to the facility. Which meant I had to involve Nina so I could find it first.’ He gave Chase a hard look. ‘I’m sorry. But it had to be done - we couldn’t let the Russians find Excalibur on their own.’

‘If you’d told us what was really going on, I’d never have got Mitzi involved,’ Chase said bitterly.

‘If Vaskovich thought you were going to give the sword to him,’ asked Nina, ‘why the hell were Kruglov and the others after it too?’

‘Like I said, Kruglov didn’t trust me.’

‘So now what?’ said Chase. He pointed at the newspapers. ‘Kruglov’s all over the front pages; it’s not like he