Reign of Evil - 03 (32 page)

“This had to have been part of the greater plan. It makes you wonder how many people in high places are involved.”

“It could only be a few if they have the right access. After all, it’s Christmas Day. No one’s paying attention to anything except their families.”

Genaro had another idea. “What about friends from outside England? Help from America is too far, but what about France or Germany?”

Preeti felt a well of hope. “Or Ireland. Trevor and Ian worked with a couple blokes from the Irish Seventeenth Army Ranger Wing. On paper it doesn’t exist, but much like Section 9, they’ve been around for quite a while.”

She tried to call out but wasn’t able to connect. Which made sense, since GCHQ controlled all of Great Britain. She called back Musso and asked him to contact Conor McGinty and to give him a time to connect, which was thirty minutes from then. Musso said he would, and in the meantime she logged onto Facebook and pulled up a popular application used to play word games.

While she waited, Genaro made them another pot of coffee. She was on the third pot. Her stomach was torn up from the stress and the acid. He urged her to eat and she finally chose a slice of bread with some butter on it. She couldn’t bring herself to try anything else.

Two of her Facebook friends saw her online and tried to initiate a game, but she ignored them. Finally, thirty-seven minutes after she began waiting, she saw the word
Laith
pop into her box. She replied with
Luachra
. Laith Luachra was the mother of Finn mac Cumhaill, better known as Finn McCool. Not only was he a great Irish mythological warrior, but it was also the nickname of the Irish Seventeenth Army Ranger Wing—the Finn McCools.

Then they opened a chat window.

Conor:
Merry Christmas. What’s up?

Preeti:
Nothing merry about it.

Conor:
Uh-oh. Tell me.

Preeti:
Jerry’s dead. Trevor may be too. Lost three others last week. Might lose the Queen. Need help.

There was a long pause.

Conor:
Sorry about loss. Terrible. What news with Queen?

Preeti:
All other coms are hijacked. Highest-level bad guys. Want to overthrow Queen.

Conor:
We’ve been tracking something. Bad day to get help.

Preeti:
Can’t help it. Do you have anything?

Another long pause.

Conor:
Have two choppers at Culdros. Two men. Not going to be happy, but looks like you need it.

Preeti:
You have no idea.

Conor:
It must really be bad. How’s Ian?

Preeti:
You can guess.

Conor:
Yeah. I can. Listen, Patrick Kelly and Keith O’Reilly will be in contact. Keep lines open.

Preeti:
Will do. And thank you, Conor.

Conor:
As always, payment in beer.

Then he signed off.

Genaro, who had been following the conversation over her shoulder, straightened. “Ingenious. I read a book once about spies communicating during MMORPGs. What was your plan B if this didn’t work?”

She frowned and hugged her sweater around her. “Carrier pigeon.”

“I think they’re extinct.”

“That says it all.” She sat back in her chair. England had a long history of kings and queens and not everyone found the throne through peaceful means. What was that mnemonic they’d made her learn in order to recall the long line of English monarchs?

First William the Norman

Then William his son

Henry, Stephen, Henry

Then Richard and John

Next Henry the Third

Edwards One, Two, and Three

And again after Richard

Three Henrys we see

Two Edwards, Third Richard

If rightly I guess

Two Henrys, Sixth Edward

Queen Mary, Queen Bess

Then Jamie the Scotsman

And Charles whom they slew

Yet received after Cromwell

Another Charles too

Next James the Second

Acceded the Throne

Then good William and Mary

Together came on

Not till Anne, Georges Four,

And Fourth William all passed

Came the reign of Victoria,

Whose longest did last

Then Edward the Peacemaker

(He was her son)

The fifth of the Georges

Was next in the run

Edward the Eighth

Gave the Crown to his brother

Now God’s sent Elizabeth

All of us love her.

Then Preeti added two lines:

But now Arthur is here

And if you’re not white.…

She struggled to find the right word, but all she could think of was:

Then your life is shite.

And to think two Irish helicopters, five Americans, a Belgian dog, and Ian were all who could possibly alter this path. She began to cry, big, choking sobs. She cried for herself, she cried for Jerry, she cried for Trevor, and she cried for England … an England who’d embraced her family and every other family, regardless from whence they came.

CHAPTER 49

CULDROS ROYAL NAVAL AIR STATION, ENGLAND. 1115 HOURS.

Lieutenant Patrick Kelly cursed loudly in the cockpit of his Superhawk helicopter. “Seriously? Christmas Day we have to pull some English nit’s balls out of the fire?” He’d planned on a nice afternoon with a gal he’d met off base. She was single. He was single. He imagined getting some ribbon and wrapping himself up as a present so he could gift himself to her.

But then Conor had contacted him through flight control. It was strange at first that Conor hadn’t called him on his cell phone, but he’d explained that there were
issues
with communications at the current time, which was why Patrick had stood in flight control wearing a headset with an on-duty noncom staring at him while Conor gave him the rundown.

“Get Keith. You two have to meet some friends at Cadbury Castle. You’ll take your orders from Ian Waits. Do what he says until this is all over.”

Keith stumbled out of the hangar, zipping up his flight suit. He gave Patrick a quizzical look as he made his way to his own helicopter.

Patrick shrugged with his hands. He watched Keith’s walk. The kid had been in his pints last night and it was possible he could still have alcohol in his system. He waited until Keith put on his flight helmet and jacked in. Then he called over.

“You okay, brother?”

“Always.”

Patrick paused for a second, then asked, “You sure had a good time last night?”

“Fuck you very much.”

“Keith, I—”

“Forget it. I’m good. Let’s get spun up and over there to see what the hell is going on.”

Patrick had done everything he could. Keith was probably okay. He had the metabolism of a twenty-year-old and could fly circles around most pilots. Actually, he was lucky to have Keith with him. They were to fly Nap-of-the-Earth to avoid detection. Although NOE was unusual outside a combat zone, Patrick had gotten the impression from Conor that England had suddenly become a combat zone. Patrick was eager to find out why.

He’d already prepared the flight plans for their return home to Casement Aerodrome in Dublin. So he’d filed those, which meant they’d have to head north over the Celtic Sea, before heading east to Cadbury Castle.

He glanced over at Keith again and watched him go through preflight. They were more alike than different. They’d both lost family in Northern Ireland and had grown up with war all around them. So when they had the chance to spend time in the south of England, even during the cold, blustery month of December, it was a luxury they didn’t take for granted.

Both Keith and he had been enlisted soldiers prior to becoming officers. They hadn’t known each other when they’d transferred to helicopters, but they’d formed a fast and lifelong friendship in flight school, even if it felt sometimes that he was the older brother in their relationship.

Then they met the Finn McCools. Something in Keith’s and Conor’s files had made the McCools interested in them and they soon found their missions filled with odd creatures and cryptids they’d previously only seen on badly made movies on the cable TV channels. Part of him believed it was just this sort of mission that he was about to embark upon, which went a long way to ameliorate the disappointment he felt at missing his much-anticipated assignation.

The sky was overcast with a ceiling of five hundred meters. Visibility was at five kilometers. It had snowed lightly early in the morning, but the day was now crisp and clear, so flying shouldn’t be an issue.

With preflight done for both helicopters, he called flight control. The engines whined and the blades spun clumsily. But as they gathered speed they took on a slick appearance and the sound rose in pitch.

“FM One, this is Control. All flights are grounded. Repeat. All flights are grounded.”

“Control, this is FM One requesting clearance.”

“Negative, FM One. All flights are grounded.” The voice had been friendly but firm.

Interesting.
“Control, we are en route for Baldonnel. Please grant clearance, over.”

“Negative. Stand down.”

He toggled to craft-to-craft mode. “Keith, looks like we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

“What are they going to do, shoot us down?”

Patrick laughed but hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. It couldn’t. Or could it? “Ready?”

“You lead, I’ll follow.”

“Control, this is FM One. Request permission return to home base.”

“Negative. Stand down.” This time the voice was anything but friendly.

“Affirmative, Control. Thanks and Merry Christmas.”

He punched the throttle, lifted the collective, and pushed the stick forward. He roared across the tarmac, his ears suddenly filled with commands to stand down and return to base, but he ignored them like he did most things English.

“Patrick?”

“On your six.”

He reveled in the power of the new Sikorsky H-92s. The military variant of the S-92 and an upgrade over the S-70, the Superhawk boasted more than 3,000 shaft horsepower. Nominally assigned to the Irish Coast Guard, as was his cover status, they were meant for search and rescue. Of course the Ministry of Defence had ordered two extras for the Finn McCools to use. The delivery last year of these aircraft eliminated the need to keep the older ones aloft with spit, bailing wire, and prayers to all denominational deities. Patrick loved the feel of the craft.

The pair of green and white Superhawks flew at an elevation of thirty meters over the windswept empty grounds of Flambard’s Themepark. The Skyraker thrill ride towered over them for a moment; then they were moving on. Patrick switched off his Identification Friend or Foe transponder and had Keith do the same.

They soon passed Helston and turned northeast past Treswithian in order to stay away from the radar present at Nancekuk. When they hit the coast they kept going, then made a slow turn to the northeast. They crossed back over land at Bideford and reduced their elevation to twenty meters. At Tiverton they were forced to head south to avoid yet another radar.

Then they were at Chard.

Then Crewkerne.

Then Yeovil.

Cadbury Castle lay five kilometers to the north and they were on it in a matter of seconds. Rising 140 meters, the hill was surrounded on all sides. A road ran up one corner. Opposite this was a stair-stepping of land leading to the valley floor. It was a beautiful place, but that’s not what made both helicopters pull up.

Patrick wasn’t exactly sure what he was seeing. It looked as if a line of men had their backs against a drop-off and were defending against grayish hound-like creatures while red-robed figures stood in a line behind the beasts.

“What the hell? Is this some
Lord of the Rings
shite?” Keith asked. “Which side are we on?”

Patrick thought that was a good question. Then he saw one of the men in line waving for them and pointing to a flat of land just below them on the stair steps. The LZ was only large enough for a single chopper, but another stair several steps down was large enough for another. He ordered Keith to take the lower one and he took the upper. He was wary of his blades. Although they were five meters away from the edge of the hill, a person would have to be careful when descending to them.

CHAPTER 50

CADBURY CASTLE, ENGLAND. A FEW MINUTES EARLIER.

Laws scrambled up the second to the last step before the plateau of Cadbury Hill. Holmes was to his left with Yank. Walker and YaYa were to his right with Hoover. The witch was behind them carrying her thousand-year-old Viking wand and was madder than a wet cat inside a hornet’s nest.

Magerts and Ian and their men were posted at the road. They were to arrive on command, based on the lay of the land on top of the plateau. There could be nothing. Or there could be a whole mess of
beegees
just waiting for them to arrive.

When the men were in line, Laws pulled a peeper cable from his pocket and slid it over the edge of the hill. Nothing but grass. He moved it around but couldn’t see anything. Whether it was the lay of the ground or that nothing was there, he couldn’t see anything, which could be good news or bad.

A moment from when he was a child flashed into his mind. He’d been waiting for his father to come home, but it had gotten so late his mother had made him go to bed. She’d left the door cracked, so light came in from down the hall where she sat watching Johnny Carson. Little Timmy Laws could barely make out the words, but whenever Carson said something funny the audience would roar. He’d sat on the edge of his bed for an hour, eager to tell his father about the story they’d read in school that day—one about butterflies and dinosaurs and time travel and how the strangest things can affect the universe. Then the Carson show had ended and his mother had turned off the television and she’d put on a Burt Bacharach record. He must have fallen asleep, because he next heard yelling, his mother hurling epithets toward someone. The sound of a shriek was followed by footsteps thundering down the hall. Was it his father come home? Then a creature with the face of a mad ape sprang into his room and beat its chest and howled. Little Timmy Laws had screamed. Pee soaked his Spider-Man pajamas. He held trembling fists out, wishing so hard that his father had been there to protect him. Then suddenly the ape became his father as he removed a prop mask from one of the sets. His father came in close, smelling of whiskey and perfume. He whispered to his son that he was sorry, hugged him, then staggered out of the room. A week later his mother made his father move out, and Laws saw him less and less until it was only major holidays when he’d make an appearance, even though he just lived across town.