Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (11 page)

“In this world,” Cassie said. “He’s dead in
ours.”

Smythe raised his eyebrows, and Callum
cursed under his breath that she’d given them away with the
ours
.

Cassie had her arms folded, elbows resting
on the conference table. She leaned into them. “This isn’t time
travel, you realize? It’s an alternate universe.”

“We understand that,
young lady
,”
Smythe said, though he couldn’t have been more than a few years
older than Cassie, a year or two younger than Callum, who was
thirty-five.

Cassie narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t
think you do.” She looked around the table at the men. “All of you
sit here with no idea what you’re dealing with or
who
you’re
dealing with. David is
the King of England
.” She pounded a
fist on the table. “You should not be keeping him here against his
will. He has a country to run, and many lives depend on him.” She
gestured to Callum. “His job is to act as David’s ambassador, to
advise him, and to keep him safe. David has been surviving death
threats since he was fourteen years old. He fought King Edward in
single combat at sixteen. How many of you would have run screaming
from the room if faced with any of the enemies either of them have
encountered in the Middle Ages? You people are petty and
insignificant in comparison.”

Even Callum was stunned by Cassie’s
vehemence. But proud, too, of course.

“Really!” Smythe stuttered his objections,
and the other men murmured their disapproval.

Lady Jane lifted a hand to end all
discussion. “I have changed my mind. Please clear the room.”

Coming hard on Cassie’s tongue lashing,
several more mouths dropped open, and nobody moved but Driscoll,
who went to the door like he couldn’t get out of the room fast
enough.

“Now!” Lady Jane clapped her hands. But when
Callum and Cassie started to rise, she added, “Not you two.”

With some under-the-breath complaining, the
men rose to their feet, fumbling with the items they’d brought, and
followed Driscoll out the door. Lady Jane moved down the table,
pulled out a chair next to Callum, and sat in it.

“The cameras are off; it’s just the three of
us. I want to hear what you have to say for yourself.” Lady Jane
held up the report. “This is the bare bones, and I want the
details. I trusted you to apprehend David’s parents. What
happened?”

Callum found Lady Jane’s demeanor somewhat
dismaying. She was speaking like a mother instead of a boss. “I
tried.” He just managed not to shrug, which would not have
done
in Lady Jane’s presence. “Coming on top of the shambles
Smythe made of the Aberystwyth situation, my team had a few
mistimings too, along with what I’m guessing was a too-helpful
custodian?”

Lady Jane nodded. “We interviewed all the
staff at Chepstow after you disappeared. While you and your men
were watching the castle’s front entrance, the maintenance worker
let Meg and Llywelyn into the castle right under your nose.”

Callum scowled. “I tried to stop them from
jumping, and they ended up pulling me over the balcony wall with
them. We went from 2016 Chepstow to 1288 Windsor in a blink of an
eye.”

Lady Jane’s brow furrowed. “Windsor? Why
Windsor?”

“Because, as Meg put it,” Callum said,
“that’s where she was needed.”

Lady Jane gave a very unladylike grunt, but
Callum couldn’t tell if she was dismayed or approving of what he’d
said. Lady Jane now eyed Cassie. “That was quite a speech you gave.
You are from Oregon, are you not?” Lady Jane pronounced the name of
the state as ‘Are-eh-gone’ which Callum knew from Cassie to be
incorrect. Neither he nor Cassie chose to mention it.

“Yes,” Cassie said.

“And you saved his life?”

“Yes.” Callum took Cassie’s hand.

“Hmmm.” Lady Jane looked from Cassie to
Callum. “What was it like for you?”

“I thought about how to return to the
twenty-first century every day,” Callum said, without hesitation.
“Until that could happen, I focused on continuing my mission, as
ordered.”

“You believe you have done that?” Lady Jane
said.

“When I discovered I had traveled with Meg
to the Middle Ages, I took it upon myself to do what I could to
learn of that time and serve my country as best I could, even from
there,” Callum said.

“And here you are, back again,” Lady Jane
said, “almost as if you’d planned it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Callum straightened in his
chair. “I did.”

“Tell me, what do you see as your
responsibilities going forward?” Lady Jane said.

“The same as they’ve been, from the moment I
joined the Security Service,” Callum said. “And I think it’s time
you told me your objectives in this. What, exactly, are you doing
with David?”

“What needs to be done,” Lady Jane said.

“No,” Callum said, and then overrode Lady
Jane’s protest. “I spent nearly a year working my way into David’s
confidence, and within ten minutes you have undermined the
relationship I’ve spent all this time building! Why is he in
interrogation? Why is he being treated like a criminal?”

“It was deemed appropriate,” Lady Jane
said.

“At least let me talk to him,” Callum said.
“He will be more cooperative if he sees me working with you.”

Lady Jane looked over the top of her glasses
at Callum. “I will take your suggestion under advisement. I believe
it has merit.” She almost sounded regretful.

Some of the fire left Callum. “You’re not in
charge, are you? Who is—the Home Office?”

Lady Jane’s eyes narrowed. “I serve my
government, as do you.”

Callum sat back; he could press her no
further. “Of course.”

“I’m glad to see you safe and sound. You’ve
brought us a very valuable asset indeed.” She straightened her suit
jacket with a jerk. “Your government thanks you.”

Callum dipped his head. “As I said, I was
only doing my duty.”

“And we will see that you continue to do so.
You will be reinstated, of course. Full back-pay.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Callum didn’t know what
else to say. He didn’t know that he could stomach working
underneath Smythe, but he needed to stay close to David, and this
was the way to do it.

Then Lady Jane took a mobile phone from the
side pocket of her suit jacket. Setting it on the table, she pushed
it with one finger toward Callum. “That’s your new mobile. Passcode
6631, same as before. The standard numbers have been inputted into
the directory.”

Callum looked at the mobile without picking
it up. Unlike Cassie, he had nobody to phone. “Thank you.”

Lady Jane pushed back from the table, and
Callum hastily stood to match her. “We’ll have to sort out your
living situation. You’ll be staying here for now.” She strode
towards the door, but stopped before opening it, wavering, and then
came back a few steps towards Callum. It was strange to see her
hesitant, after she’d appeared so confident before. “Callum, I must
tell you that this case has attracted attention from outside the
Security Service. Other parties—interested parties—might question
your allegiance.”

Callum swallowed hard. “I see.”

“You have been gone ten months, so you don’t
yet understand, but what faces us today is bigger than David.
Bigger than you can imagine. It may be that you are the only one
who truly understands our mission. Your ability to see the truth of
a situation has always been one of your greatest assets.”

“Ma’am—”

“In fact, I am counting on it.” Lady Jane
turned on her heel and departed.

Callum gazed blankly at the closed door and
then sat back down in his chair, absently picking up the mobile as
he did so.

Cassie leaned forward. “What was that about?
What is she counting on?”

“I think Lady Jane just gave me a new
mission,” Callum said. “Something is going on here, something that
has her running scared.”

“Director Cooke, you mean?” At Callum’s nod,
Cassie added, “Did she have to be so cryptic? What did she mean by
interested parties?”

“I don’t know.” Callum entered the passcode
and flipped through the screens. The mobile was an upgrade from his
old one, with many more bells and whistles.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come on so strong,”
Cassie said. “I keep seeing David with that hood over his
head.”

Callum rocked forward. “Not at all! What you
said was brilliant. I think it made all the difference, and I truly
enjoyed the look on Smythe’s face as you set him down.”

“Why was he promoted?” Cassie said.

“Rumor has it that he has connections on
high,” Callum said. “I don’t doubt it now.
Interested
parties
means politics and money.”

“So … what do we do next?” Cassie said,
looking around the room.

Before Callum could answer Cassie’s
question, Driscoll opened the door. As before, he paused, running a
hand through his hair and staring past them out the windows set in
the opposite wall. Several other men hovered in the corridor behind
him, but he closed the door in their faces.

As he did so, Callum’s phone vibrated with
an incoming text. He clicked on it and saw it was from Lady
Jane:

Don’t trust Driscoll. Don’t trust
anyone.

Callum stared at his phone and then up at
Driscoll, who slapped the leather tablet he’d been carrying on the
table and plopped himself into one of the vacant chairs opposite
Cassie and Callum. “David really believes it.”

“Believes what?” Callum hastily closed the
message and dropped his phone into his suit pocket.

“That he’s the King of England.”

“He is the King of England,” Cassie said,
“in 1289.”

Driscoll threw up his hands and then dropped
them onto the conference table. In yet another gesture of despair
or capitulation, he slouched further in his chair.

Callum leaned forward with his elbows on the
table. “Lady Jane seems to have no problem believing us. Why do
you?”

“Honestly, Callum. It can’t be true.”

“Then what’s your explanation for all this?”
Callum said.

“I don’t have one!”

Callum and Cassie exchanged a glance, and
then Cassie put a hand on Driscoll’s arm. “Imagine how I felt when
I arrived in that Scottish woods when a second before I’d been in
Oregon. It’s hard to accept, but everything becomes easier once you
do.”

“That’s what my parents told me about belief
in God,” Driscoll said. “What do you want me to say? That I believe
you have spent the last ten months living in the Middle Ages? It’s
a fairy tale.”

“I have spent the last ten months living in
the Middle Ages,” Callum said. “Whether or not you believe it
doesn’t make it less true.”

Cassie tapped her fingers on the table,
watching Driscoll. “Let’s put the truth of what we say aside for
the moment. Lady Jane said that we were to stay at MI-5 for now,
since we’re homeless. That’s all very well and good, but it seems
to me that nobody is quite sure what to do with us. You left the
door unlocked, and you aren’t holding us. Yet somehow, I get the
feeling that security isn’t going to let us walk out the front door
either.”

“We have nothing to hold you on, and Callum
is one of us,” Driscoll said. “Lady Jane has made that abundantly
clear. You are being reinstated.”

“That’s what she said to me too,” Callum
said, not sharing what she’d said afterwards—or her text. “Has she
said anything to you about what that entails?”

Driscoll pursed his lips. “That I don’t
know. Not head of Cardiff station, not right away.”

“I gather Natasha has been running things
since I left,” Callum said.

“She has done a credible job,” Driscoll
said. “She hasn’t put a foot wrong. I find it likely that Lady Jane
will transfer you somewhere else, rather than transfer or demote
her.”

“Why would Lady Jane do that?” Cassie said.
“Callum is a wealth of information about the Middle Ages. If they
want to continue this project, they need him.”

“They have David,” Driscoll said, “and
Callum is too close to this. Removing him is standard procedure.
It’s why he hasn’t been asked to join the interrogation.”

Cassie mouthed the word
interrogation
and scowled.

“So they do question my loyalty,” Callum
said.

Driscoll shrugged. “It’s going to take time
to know where anyone stands.”

Cassie pushed up from the table. “I need to
call my grandfather.”

“That can be arranged,” Driscoll said, “but
it’s just seven in the morning there. Do you want to wake him
up?”

“He’ll be up,” Cassie said. “And if he’s
not, he would want to be woken.”

Driscoll nodded. He went to the door, spoke
to someone beyond it, and then waved a hand to Cassie.

Callum stood too. “Do you want me to come
with you?”

“I’ll be all right.” Cassie squeezed his
hand and left the room.

Callum let her go. He didn’t want to be
naïve about all this, but he hoped this wasn’t an opportunity to
separate Cassie from him. So much still didn’t add up.

Don’t trust Driscoll. Don’t trust
anyone.

Driscoll returned to his chair, wrinkling
his nose as he sat. Callum wanted to laugh. He guessed that
Driscoll remained three seats away because Callum smelled as he
always did—of salt and sweat—but to Driscoll, he would smell a
little ripe. Callum had grown accustomed to living without modern
perfumes and deodorants, but it wasn’t as if he’d showered that
morning either.

“What’s happening with David, exactly?”

Driscoll coughed. “So far he’s asked for
fish and chips, a computer, and to speak to someone at the
CDC.”

“And what has he told you?” Callum said.

“That he’s the bloody King of England!”
Driscoll said. “You were on a ship bound for Ireland, chasing a
lord named Valence, when you were hit by a storm and
boom!
you’re here. It’s exactly what you wrote in your report.”