Down: Trilogy Box Set (112 page)

Cromwell nodded and said more gently, “Thomas Cromwell.”

“Sorry?” Trotter said.

“I am Thomas Cromwell,” counselor to the king.

“How extraordinary,” Lawrence said. “When I was at university I fancied myself a bit of a Tudor scholar. I almost feel I know you.”

Cromwell permitted himself a thin smile. “What will they do with the king?”

Lawrence said, “I’m quite sure he’ll be treated with the utmost respect and care, although I’m sure he’ll be as shocked and confused as we are.”

Cromwell took his captain aside and the two men discussed how they were going to transport all these people. The soldier dispatched some of his men to commandeer wagons and horses from Dartford and surrounding villages. In the meantime Cromwell bellowed at the curious villagers to bring out benches or chairs for the women and older men and while they were at it, wine and beer.

Duck and Dirk, ran inside their cottage and carried out all their chairs and Dirk reluctantly lugged out his barrel of ale he had brewed for John Camp.

“They’ll find it anyway,” he groused to Duck. “Don’t want to lose my ’ead.”

“I’ll help you make another cask,” Duck said. “Anyways, I feel bad for ’em. Especially the molls. It’s a frightening thing to get flung into a new world, believe you me.”

Henry Quint had lost a loafer in the mud and he dug it out with his hand. He came over to Trotter who was in whispered conversation with Bitterman, Lawrence, Smithwick, and Bates.

“Can I help you with something?” Trotter said testily.

“Whatever you’re planning, I thought I could be of assistance,” Quint replied.

“You’ve done enough,” Trotter said, spitting venom. “You’re the reason we’re in the muck. And by the way, you only have yourself to blame for being here today. I wanted you banished from the lab but Dr. Bitterman insisted we keep you on.”

Bitterman fingered his beard and said, “In science, you never know where the next good idea is going to come from. Henry was wrong to exceed the collider’s energy parameters but he’s an able physicist. He made a mistake.”

“It was more than a mistake. It was a goddamn calamity,” Bates said.

“I’ve done my mea culpas,” Quint said. “If you want me to go away, just say so.”

“Right, sod off,” Trotter said. “The grown-ups are talking.”

“For Christ’s sake, Anthony,” Lawrence said. “We don’t need any childish tiffs. We’re all in this together. Stay, Dr. Quint. We were just talking about our options.”

“I think our options are fairly limited,” Bitterman said. “We’re not fighters. We can’t resist. These are armed men.”

“We need to remain here,” Quint said. “When they power up the MAAC again, this is where the portal will be.”

Bates, a tall patrician-like American in his sixties with fine snowy hair and sunken cheeks, was about to say something when an insect buzzed his head. He swatted at it with both hands and his trousers promptly slid down his bony frame, taking his unelastized boxer shorts with them. Some of the soldiers pointed and laughed at his exposed genitals and Karen Smithwick looked away. Bates swore at the indignity and pulled himself together. “How are they going to do that?” he said. “The entire group of operating technicians is here.”

“They’ll bring in people from Geneva, from the Large Hadron Collider,” Quint said. “We were going to merge operations anyway. They know how MAAC works.”

“They’d be fools to do it,” Trotter said. “My recommendation was to shut the bastard down. They didn’t listen and now we’re here. They’ll listen now.”

“You don’t imagine they’re going to abandon us, do you?” Lawrence asked. Before taking the position as director of MI5 he had been the head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service and he still had the clipped speech of a copper giving a report.

“They won’t know what to do,” Smithwick said. “The prime minister will be cautious. He’ll convene a Cobra meeting. He’ll weigh all the options.”

“If you were there, what would you be advising him?” Bitterman asked.

“I really don’t know,” she replied stiffly.

“I’d say it depends on factors we’re unaware of,” Quint said. “Every time the collider’s been reactivated, the problem’s gotten worse with more point-of-contact nodes popping up. If there are more of them today then maybe Trotter’s right. Maybe they’ll shut it down for good and we’ll be trapped here forever. But if the nodes are stable then they’ll try to get us back. At least I hope so. But we’ll have no idea of when they’ll do it. So we need to stay right here for as long as we can. If that’s not possible, we need to escape from wherever we’re held and make our way back here.”

Smithwick’s eyes had gotten moist when she heard the word, forever. “Forever,” she repeated numbly, as if she hadn’t listened to anything else Quint had said. “I’d kill myself if I thought we were permanently trapped. Look at this place. It’s filthy and disgusting. Look at these people, if you can call them people. They’re all dead for God’s sake.”

“I’ll not listen to talk about suicide or giving up,” Bitterman said. “We’ll be fine. It might not be easy but we’ll be fine. There’s a lot of brainpower among us, especially from our young colleagues. They’ll be looking to us for strength and we’ve got to come through for them.”

“I really need to find a way to keep my pants up,” Bates said.

The MAAC scientists were huddled together, watching the VIPs confer. Brenda Mitchell, a spectroscopy technician in David Laurent’s group sat on one of Dirk and Duck’s chairs in the middle of the road and held her head in her hands. Matthew Coppens, the acting head of the Hercules Project who had stepped into Emily’s shoes in her absence knelt beside her.

“You all right?” he said.

“No I’m not. I’m not all right. I’m bloody awful.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she said, looking up with a glare. “Or rather, did you? Did you know that what we were doing was dangerous? Did you know we were at risk of getting sucked through the portal?”

“I don’t think we ever discussed it,” he admitted. “I mean we relocated the control room. We just assumed it was far enough away from the nodal activity.”

“Assumed. And here we are,” she said icily. “And my children have lost their mother, my husband has lost his wife, and I have lost everything. You assumed. Jesus, Matthew.”

“We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “I’ve got a family too, you know. We’ll make it back. You’ve got to believe that. It looks like Emily made it home. She’ll know what to do. We rescued her and she’ll rescue us. We’ll be okay.”

Brenda pointed at a couple of soldiers who were staring at her like starving dogs. “You’re not a woman. Maybe you’ll be okay, Matthew, but I won’t.”

Trotter separated himself from the other Earthers and under the watchful eyes of two soldiers found a less muddy patch of road to pace a circle. He had always been a quintessentially self-reliant man. His journey up the ladder of MI6 had been unconventional. The senior ranks of the Service were populated by well-connected public school types with a heavy helping of Oxbridge graduates. He had no such pedigree. His childhood in a council house and his weak second in economics from a middling university were hardly the tickets for a glittering career in the clubby world of MI6. But he was smart, pugnacious, had a facility for languages, and had distinguished himself in a series of postings in the Middle East, including a stint as station chief in Istanbul where he had set up a legendary network of assets in Turkey and Syria. Radical Islam came along just in time to propel his career forward. He was tapped to pull the organization out of its post cold-war doldrums and refocus it on non-state threats. By dint of his outsider’s chip-on-shoulder zeal, he rode roughshod over anyone standing in his way and rose to become acting chief of the service. He did it alone, his way. A confirmed bachelor, he didn’t even want or need the baggage of a spouse to accompany him on his journey through life.

Now he found himself in a stinking village in a hideous world in desperate straits. He suspected they were well and truly buggered. There would be no rescue. He saw a version of the future play out with icy clarity. The others were weak and they would perish at the hands of brutish men or by their own. He was strong and he was clever. He would survive. But he would have to act quickly.

A soldier drove an empty dray with a tandem of horses down the muddy road. Cromwell inspected it and approached Trotter to tell him that it would hold half of them. Another wagon would be along soon enough.

“Where are you taking us?” Trotter asked.

“Whitehall Palace in London.”

“You keep the same place names, I see,” Trotter said.

“It is a way for us to remember our happier past,” Cromwell said. “Do not expect it to look like the original palace. We suffer from a dearth of craftsmen and artisans. It is a pale imitation.”

“May I speak freely?” Trotter said, leading Cromwell away from the others.

“You may.”

“We were told by Camp and Loughty that you have a need for expertise in science and technology.”

“True enough. Every realm covets new arrivals who possess useful skills. We live in fear of subjugation by foreign powers with superior weaponry.”

“Those people over there are some of the finest scientists in the world.”

“Are they?”

“Yes they are. Camp brought books with him on his last crossing. Did he give them to you?”

“To the king, yes. Henry greatly valued them.”

“I think I can be useful to you, Mr. Cromwell.”

“Can you?”

“As you can see, I’m in charge of these people. I can get them to help you. I can get them to apply the knowledge in those books and help you build powerful new weapons.”

“I rather think we are capable of compelling their assistance,” Cromwell said dismissively.

“Persuasion will work better than threats with this lot.”

“And you can persuade them?”

“I’m sure I can. I can also discourage any attempts to defy you or to escape from your hospitality. I know the potential troublemakers.”

“And why would you do this?”

“I want special treatment. I want the best quarters, the best food. If we have the chance to go home, I’ll gladly go. But if we have to stay here permanently, which I see as a possibility, then I want rank, position, and authority.”

“You wish to feather your nest.”

Trotter smiled. “Exactly.”

“I will consider your offer.”

“Is this your decision to make?” Trotter asked. “Who’s going to be the decision maker in your king’s absence?”

“You may consider me to be his majesty’s regent until he returns.”

“I don’t know how things work around here,” Trotter said, lowering his voice to little more than a whisper, “but if Henry doesn’t come back, then perhaps you could do better than regent.”

Cromwell looked at the compact, mustachioed man holding onto his trousers and nodded curtly. “Please use your considerable influence to get half the people to climb upon that wagon, if you please.”

When Trotter returned to the knot of VIPs Bitterman asked him, “What were you saying to Cromwell?”

“I warned him that I am holding him personally accountable for all our treatment.”

Quint snorted, “Warning? It looked like you were begging.”

Trotter ignored him and told the others, “They want us on the wagon. We’re going to London.”

Malcolm Gough nervously crossed and uncrossed his long legs. He had been kept waiting for over an hour, the only one inside a patient lounge on a cleared-out floor of the Royal London Hospital. A month earlier he had been summoned by MI5 from his academic perch at Cambridge to come to this very hospital where he’d had the oddest meeting of his life. John Camp, recovering from surgery, had asked him questions about Henry the Eighth as if he were a living, breathing person. Gough had left that meeting, baffled and bemused, but having signed the Official Secrets Act he had not been able to share the experience with anyone, even his wife.

Earlier in the day he had received a call from Ben Wellington, asking him to come down to London that evening for an urgent consultation.

“It’s not really convenient,” Gough had said.

“I’m afraid it’s not optional,” Ben had answered. “It’s a matter of national security.”

“I’m a history professor,” Gough had reminded him.

“Yes you are.”

“Does this have anything to do with the problems in London we’re seeing on the news?”

“It does.”

“You don’t intend to further pick my brain on Tudor monarchs?” he had asked half in jest.

“We do. A car and driver will be outside your house at five. Please pack an overnight bag and bring a good suit. You’ll be meeting the queen.”

The lounge door swung open and Gough saw John Camp, clean-shaven for the first time in a month, striding in wearing a smart blue blazer, gray trousers and a striped red tie. Though his clothes were fresh his face was weary.

“I thought I might be seeing you again,” Gough said.

“How’ve you been, Professor?”

“I was perplexed the day I left you and I’m still perplexed.”

“We’re going to try to help you with that.”

“Are you?”

“I assume you’ve been watching the news.”

“Who hasn’t? It’s alarming. The complete and utter babble from the authorities hasn’t helped.”

John sat across from him. “With fairness, it’s not an easy situation to explain.”

“This chap, Giles Farmer, has been on the tele making wild claims about the MAAC collider, extra dimensions, portals, and what not.”

John leaned forward and said, “He’s pretty much got it right.”

A visibly shocked Gough exclaimed, “What?”

“I mean he’s got no idea what that dimension is. Are you ready for the truth? Once I tell you your life’s never going to be the same.”

“I presume you’re going to tell me regardless.”

John nodded and smiled. “Are you a religious man, Professor?”

“I’m not a church-goer but I believe in a higher power, yes.”

“How do Heaven and Hell fit into your belief system?”

“Well, I think they’re useful abstractions to motivate behaviors.”

“I don’t know about Heaven but I’m here to tell you that Hell exists. It’s not an abstraction.”