Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (16 page)

The men stood in the main room of the house,
gathered around a table upon which a map of the city of Windsor had
been laid flat with weights at the corners. Anna recognized most of
the men surrounding Math. Many were of noble birth, but some had
been given a place because Math, or more likely, Ieuan, believed
them to be worthy of it, regardless of their birth.

Anna looked from one face to the next,
wondering who among them she needed to fear or David, in the end,
would need to call out as a traitor. Her brother had drawn the best
of the English nobility to him, many of them men as young as he or
younger, with the cast of hero-worship in their eyes and without a
shred of cynicism. In David, they’d found the intersection of life
and legend. The adulation was annoying at times, and Anna made a
point to tease her brother as much as she could about it.
Fortunately, he (mostly) hadn’t allowed it to go to his head and
found it more of a burden than a benefit of being King of
England.

Math looked up at their approach. His eyes
narrowed at the bow in Lili’s hand, and she raised it in salute.
With a nod at his men, who continued to talk around the table, Math
came to where Anna, Lili, and Roger Bacon stood to one side of the
main doorway. “What are you doing here?” Math put his arm around
Anna’s shoulders and kissed her temple.

“I have some words of wisdom for you, young
man,” Bacon said, without waiting for Anna to answer.

Bacon sounded so much like a pompous
professor that Anna couldn’t help smiling.

Math gestured towards the table and the map
of Windsor that took up three-quarters of it. “I would be pleased
to hear you out if you will give me a moment with my wife and
sister-in-law.”

Bacon put his heels together and bowed, and
was soon absorbed in conversation with Sir George, the steward of
Windsor Castle, who was among the men looking at the map. Anna’s
first impression of George had been that his personality consisted
of bluster and little else, but he seemed to know how to talk to
Bacon, which was more than she did.

“So.” Math looked from Anna to Lili. “Tell
me what you’re doing here.”

“I brought you Roger Bacon,” Anna said.

A smile twitched in the corner of Math’s
mouth. “Am I supposed to thank you?”

“You can thank me,” Lili said. “I brought
you archers. Where do you want us?”

“Us?” Math ran a hand through his hair. He
had the look of a man about to argue.

“Yes,” Lili said.

“I’d tell you ‘no’, but the truth is, I need
you. It’s tragic how few Englishmen know how to shoot, even after
working with Ieuan for three months.”

“Ieuan has shot a bow nearly every day since
he was nine years old,” Lili said. “It’s going to take time to
train the English.” And then she laughed. “I can’t believe I just
said that. Who would ever have thought we would have
wanted
them trained.”

“The Welshmen we brought should help,” Anna
said.

“That’s certain. Ieuan left me the best
archers among them,” Math said. “But fifty archers can hardly cover
the entire circumference of the city and the castle. We’re going to
be spread thin.”

“Our chances improve if Valence didn’t bring
many archers with him,” Lili said.

“Right now, I can think of few things that
would please me more,” Math said. “But you know as well as I do
that if Valence pays them enough, he can find Welshmen to fight for
him.”

Anna made a face. “I hate that.”

“It’s the way of the world.” Math still
hadn’t let go of Anna, and now he moved his arm to her waist. “Why
is Roger Bacon here, really?”

“For exactly the reasons he said. He wants
to bring you the wisdom of the Romans and Greeks,” Anna said.

“What is the phrase you all use?” Math said.
“
You’ve got to be kidding me?”

Anna couldn’t help smiling. “Give him two
minutes of your time, that’s all. David thinks he needs him, and I
don’t want to be responsible for driving him away. How soon will
Valence reach us?”

“It won’t be long now,” Math said. “By
nightfall, he’ll surround us. We don’t have enough men to stop him
from doing whatever he wants outside the walls.”

“Send the wounded to the middle bailey,”
Anna said. “Bronwen and I will see to their care.”

“Any chance the penicillin will be ready by
midnight?” Math said.

Anna raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I
guess it will have to be.”

September, 2017

Callum

W
ithout asking any
questions, Cassie took the hand Callum offered and departed with
him, not out the door they’d come in or in the direction Driscoll
had gone, but through the French doors that opened into a courtyard
adjacent to the cafeteria. Enclosed on all four sides, it had been
intended to provide a moment of greenery and peace to the
often-harried Security Service personnel, though Callum had never
seen anyone sitting on the benches set there for that purpose.
Senior staff ate lunch elsewhere, and any underling with a desire
for promotion ate at his desk. The rest of the time, as this was
Wales, it rained.

Callum and Cassie walked casually in the
late-afternoon sunshine along the grass-lined concrete pathway,
heading for a door that would take them back into the building,
except on the opposite side of the courtyard. They reached it just
as someone came through it.

“Ta,” the man said as he held the door for
them.

Callum knew him. He was one of the
technicians in the research library, but for the life of him,
Callum couldn’t remember his name now, so he just said, “Thanks,”
and gave the man a quick smile.

There was an awkward moment as Callum urged
Cassie past him and into the building, and then as Callum turned
away, the man said, “How are you?”

“Good. Very good,” Callum said.

“What are you—?”

But Callum didn’t want to take the time to
field questions he couldn’t answer, and strode away down the
corridor, Cassie at his side. As he led her up flights of stairs
through the levels of the building, picturing the floor plan in his
head and seeking privacy, he was strongly aware of the badge in his
pocket, next to his mobile phone. He forced his brain to work like
an agent instead of the Earl of Shrewsbury. David’s future might
depend on it.

Walking through the Office, he felt almost
like a ghost of his former self. He’d been the commander here, and
whether or not that might be his job again, for now others had
taken over. That ass, Thomas Smythe, who’d bungled the initial
pick-up of Meg and Llywelyn, had somehow been promoted to Lady
Jane’s second-in-command. The promotion stank of corruption, and
Lady Jane’s words implied that other things had changed as well for
the agency in his absence, and not for the better. He knew he had
changed, as Lady Jane had noted, and he hoped that distance would
allow him to see clearly. It was what she wanted. Callum just
hadn’t yet figured out what he was supposed to be looking at.

“That was a very strange conversation we
just had with Driscoll,” Cassie said. “Are you wondering what’s
really going on?”

“It was almost as if he was trying to trap
me in a lie, or get me to admit that I’m considering breaking David
out of here.” Callum went over their conversation word for word in
his mind. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t admitted to anything
Driscoll didn’t already know. On impulse, he felt in his pocket for
his mobile phone and powered it off.

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

“Up until three minutes ago, I thought Lady
Jane meant for me to work within the parameters of the Security
Service,” Callum said, “which is why I remained so open and civil
with Driscoll. But if David is being moved to London tonight, we’re
going to lose him. He’ll be out of Cardiff and possibly out of the
Security Service’s jurisdiction. The Home Office is a black hole
that not even David, with all his gifts, can climb out of.”

“Maybe Lady Jane has already fallen in,”
Cassie said.

“There are enough cameras in this building
to ensure that we’ve been watched everywhere we’ve gone,” Callum
said. “Plus, technology has improved in the five years since you
were here last. Some of what you may have seen in movies has become
real. All anyone would have had to do to tag us was to pat my
shoulder. The tracking device is the size of a tick. It doesn’t
give out as strong a signal as for a mobile phone, but if we stay
in range, we’re an open book. Did anyone touch your skin? Did
someone pat you on the back or on the hand?”

“I definitely shook hands with several
people, including Natasha and Driscoll, who also clapped you on the
shoulder.”

Callum pulled up, cursing. “We’re wearing
clothing acquired for us here. I’m an idiot.” He’d halted in the
middle of the corridor and now stepped to one side to allow several
people to pass them, briefcases in hand and jackets slung over
their arms or shoulders. The end of the working day had come.
Callum let several more people who’d come out of nearby offices
disappear around a corner, and then he tugged Cassie into the loo.
He locked the door behind them.

“I suppose it was too much to ask that you’d
choose the women’s bathroom for this?” Cassie said.

Callum was glad to see the amusement in her
eyes. “I was convinced at one time that IT had put cameras in here,
but I’m taking it on faith today that they haven’t.” Callum slipped
his arms out of his suit jacket and shook it out.

Cassie unhooked her cloak at the throat, and
they took turns inspecting each other’s clothing. Neither found
anything that raised their suspicions, not even a slight
discoloration indicating they’d been sprayed with an ultraviolet
tag.

Cassie set her folded cloak on the counter
and studied Callum. “You look very dashing. I’ve always loved a man
in a suit.”

Callum looked down at himself. He’d grown
used to medieval clothing, but this suit fit him like no clothing
had in a long while. The coat was a little tighter in the shoulders
and arms than he remembered, and the trousers were looser in the
waist. He had to admit, too, that it felt odd not to have his sword
resting on his left hip.

“Let’s wash our hands,” he said.

“Why?” Cassie said, going to the sink and
turning on the water.

“I haven’t worked here for ten months,”
Callum said. “But I know what my colleagues are capable of. I’m
being paranoid on purpose.”

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean
someone isn’t out to get you,” Cassie said, laughing.

Callum laughed too and dried off, marveling
to himself at how far he’d come from the man who’d returned from
Afghanistan with an obsessive need to wash his hands. Then he went
to the door, unlocked it, and peered into the corridor. It was
empty. He’d chosen a loo on the top floor on purpose, assuming that
as the offices emptied, this corridor would have the least amount
of traffic. It might be all hands on deck for a certain percentage
of agents involved in the time travel project, but most of the
secretarial staff would still have been given leave to go home on
time.

He looked back at Cassie. She hadn’t put her
cloak back on, and with regret in her face, she shoved it in a
corner underneath the sink counter. She then joined him in the
corridor. “I really love that cloak, but I’m too noticeable when I
wear it here.”

“We’ll come back for it,” he said, knowing
even as he spoke that they might not get the chance, and that
Cassie was noticeable here no matter what she did or did not wear.
She was stunningly beautiful, and not for the first time he found
himself marveling that she’d agreed to become his wife.

Cassie shrugged. “All I have is what I stand
up in. I’ve been in that position before and may be again. Tell me
what’s next.”

“I have yet to see one member of my former
team,” he said.

“Who’s that?”

“Mark Jones. He didn’t work for me for very
long, but I thought he had the most potential of any of my staff.”
He shot her a grin. “He had the typical computer bloke’s disrespect
for authority that was sometimes a pain in the arse when I was his
boss, but makes me think now that he might be of use to us.”

“
Might.
” Cassie said.

Callum shrugged. “It seems worthwhile to
feel him out before I come up with a plan for getting to David.” He
set off down the corridor towards the last door on the left.

“Or he could turn us in before we even
start,” Cassie said, hustling after him.

“At this point, we have so many problems, it
would hardly be worse.” He stopped and looked at her. “Let’s
pretend I didn’t just say that.”

When they reached the door and its scanner,
Callum hesitated. He would have preferred a more anonymous
entrance, but there was no way through the door without leaving a
trail. He put his eye to the box and let it scan his iris.

“Most everyone has gone home. Do you think
he will have left too?” Cassie said.

“In the seven months I knew him, Jones never
went home before eight in the evening.” Callum squared his
shoulders and went through the door into the strange inner sanctum
that was the Security Service’s secretive technology department.
Faced with an all-white corridor, with no windows or adornment
other than a red fire extinguisher in a glass case in the corner,
he took the passage to the left. He and Cassie walked quickly but
steadily, trying to imply deliberation but not haste. They reached
Jones’s lab, and with a wink at Cassie, more for luck than because
he was feeling that optimistic, Callum opened the door.

Jones sat on an ergonomic ball instead of an
office chair, facing a bank of computers and monitors that took up
a ten-foot table on the far wall, and an equally long table on the
adjacent one. The room had no windows, and the air conditioning was
set to arctic temperatures. Jones had at least twelve computers
running simultaneously in various places in the room. He had been
focused on one screen when they entered but looked up from what he
was doing at the sight of Cassie and Callum.