Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (8 page)

When they reached the SUV, Natasha opened
the rear door and gestured that they should get in. Cassie glanced
at Callum, not willing to do anything Natasha said without his
approval, but he jerked his head in a nod. With every fiber of her
being screaming at her not to get in the car, Cassie ducked inside
and scooted over so Callum could sit next to her. He didn’t follow
her immediately, though, instead stopping with one foot in the car
and the other still on the ground.

“Natasha.” He said the agent’s name not as a
question, but as a command, like a mother might bark at a child
she’d caught doing something wrong. “Where are they taking
David?”

“It’s fine, Callum,” Natasha said.

Cassie leaned forward and peered through the
window at Natasha, who stood on the other side of the car door. One
of the riot troopers stood next to Callum. From their stance and
the way they were preventing Callum from backing out of the car
door, it obviously wasn’t
fine.
Natasha was lying, and from
the determined set to her jaw, she wasn’t going to back down about
it either.

“David!” Callum pushed at the doorframe, and
it was only then that Cassie saw what had disconcerted him: the
agents had herded David toward a second SUV, one Cassie hadn’t
noticed before because it was parked on the other side of the
bigger van.

“I’m just following protocol,” Natasha said,
“which I’m surprised you don’t remember.”

“If this is protocol, why haven’t you
separated me from Cassie?” Callum said.

“I will if you don’t get in the vehicle
right now,” Natasha said. “We’re taking you to be debriefed. That
is all.”

Callum stared at her for a count of ten.
Cassie honestly didn’t know if his glare was a precursor to
fighting, or if he was going to capitulate. He clearly didn’t want
to give in. His hand twitched towards the small of his back where
his gun was holstered underneath his tunic, but then he let it
fall. While it was better than a sword, one gun wasn’t going to get
any of them very far against the hail of bullets Natasha’s men
could direct at them. Finally, Callum nodded and got in the SUV. At
the same moment, the agent in charge of David put a hand on top of
his head so he wouldn’t bang it as he ducked inside the rear seat
of his SUV. Then all the doors slammed closed.

For a moment, Cassie and Callum were alone
inside the vehicle. One agent still stood outside Callum’s door,
while a second held the driver’s side door handle. Both were
listening to Natasha and didn’t get in the vehicle immediately.

“I shouldn’t have called them,” Callum said.
“I miscalculated.”

“David said the same, but he was right, too,
that by the time the cutter was approaching the cog, it was too
late to do anything else,” Cassie said. “Since we have no
passports, the coastguard officer would have held us somewhere.
Once they discovered who you were, we would have ended up with MI-5
anyway.”

Callum put a hand on Cassie’s knee. “Thank
you for not being angry.”

“Anger is pretty much the last emotion I’m
feeling,” Cassie said. “Despair, maybe.”

“I thought I’d have some measure of
control.” Callum curled his hands into fists for perhaps the eighth
time in the last twenty minutes. “I didn’t think Natasha would send
the news of our arrival up the chain of command so quickly. I was
naïve.”

“Possibly she had no choice. She seems very
by-the-book,” Cassie said.

“She is. I should have taken that into
consideration.” Then Callum shrugged. “Admittedly, you’re right
about the lack of choice. The scientists would have recorded the
flash of our entry into this world, whether or not we phoned anyone
afterwards. They could have sent out the news within ten seconds.
That coastguard cutter got to us quite fast. I neglected to ask why
they responded so quickly, and for all that Timmons looked twice
when I held up my badge, he was more uncertain than surprised, like
he expected more resistance than we gave him.”

“Even though I think we should have
resisted,” Cassie said, “being the object of a manhunt throughout
Wales while we tried to get to Chepstow’s balcony wouldn’t have
been fun.”

Callum laughed. “I suspect they won’t be
accommodating if I ask to take you there. Half of them were with me
the last time.”

Cassie laughed too, which was a nice change
from anxiety. Then she sobered. “Just tell me what to do, and I’ll
do it.”

Callum looked over at her, a flash of a
smile still on his lips, before he focused again on his
surroundings. “We can’t fight this many men. There’s a reason
swords went out of fashion, you know, and so far nobody’s patted me
down to look for the gun.”

“So we play along?” Cassie said.

“That was David’s plan, and that’s what
we’ll do,” Callum said, “up until the point we decide otherwise.”
Callum held her hand in his, absently rubbing the back with his
thumb until Cassie made him stop.

Callum moved a few inches closer to her.
Sometimes when Cassie was struggling with something in her head,
she didn’t want to be touched, but she was grateful to know he was
here. Cassie’s heart kept beating hard as the driver and the man
who’d met them at the pier—Callum’s colleague, Driscoll—got into
the SUV. A minute later, they pulled out of the parking lot and
started driving through the streets of Cardiff. Callum appeared to
settle into a state of semi-alertness to wait for something to
happen. Their doors had locked automatically, and she didn’t try to
unlock one. With David riding in the car ahead of them, out of
earshot and out of reach, there wasn’t any point.

Driscoll had shot a quick look at Callum
when he’d entered the SUV, but then faced resolutely forward. He
held himself stiff, clearly under pressure, but since Callum didn’t
say anything, Cassie didn’t either. She’d lived alone in the woods
for many years and had felt comfortable with silence even before
then. Hunting with her grandfather, she’d learned to still herself
to listen to the forest. This was a city, however, and was so
typically modern that she could have been in any country in the
world. There wasn’t anything about it, other than an occasional
street sign in Welsh, that told her she was in Cardiff.

She studied the streets and buildings with
intensity, trying to memorize where they were going. Callum would
know all that already, of course, but she needed to face the fact
that they might separate her from him, as they had David, and she
might have to figure some of this stuff out on her own. She needed
a lot more information about who these people were and what they
wanted before she could even formulate the right questions to ask.
Until then, she would do her best to help Callum, or at the very
least, not get in his way.

She half hoped they’d end up in an
underground bunker like in
Torchwood
, but after twenty
minutes, they pulled up in front of a nondescript office building,
gray, with five floors of windows above a lobby and a massive
antenna array on the roof. For a minute, they waited in the street
at the entrance to the building, double-parked, and then they took
a sharp left and rolled down a long ramp into an underground
garage.

“Is this where you worked?” Cassie said.

“Yes.” Callum sat straighter in the seat.
He’d had to adjust his sword to an awkward angle in order to sit
next to her, since modern SUVs weren’t designed to accommodate
medieval weaponry. Like Cassie’s, his linen shirt and wool cloak
were still damp from the sea. The humidity was steaming up her
window, since the driver had turned on the heat.

“If they keep us separated for long,” Callum
said, “I’m going to be very unhappy.”

Cassie was already unhappy. The van with the
riot squad had pulled into a space ahead of them. Beyond it, the
SUV into which they’d put David parked across three spaces. Nothing
happened for a few seconds, and then the doors opened. One of the
agents hauled David out. He was wearing handcuffs and had a bag
over his head.

“Callum!” Cassie surged forward in her seat
and then sat back, having forgotten that she was still seatbelted
in.

“I see him.” Callum ground his teeth.

“What could they be charging him with?” she
said.

Nobody in their vehicle gave any sign of
getting out. Driscoll was completely focused on the computer tablet
in his lap and hadn’t looked up. All Cassie and Callum could do was
sit, watching Natasha march David across the garage, heading
towards the elevators.

“They don’t necessarily have to be charging
him with anything,” Callum said. “Since 9/11, there’s been some
leeway in the timeline for arrests. Especially considering his lack
of papers and the way we came here, I’m sure they could easily
trump something up having to do with terrorism.”

They’d been speaking in medieval Welsh, even
though Cassie’s spoken use of it was still pretty poor, but Callum
had said the last sentence in English. That distracted Driscoll
from his tablet enough to turn around in his seat. “You think that
little of us, do you, Callum?”

“You tell me, Driscoll,” Callum said. “Do
you see what they’ve done to David?”

Driscoll’s brow furrowed. “What are you—”
But then at the look on Callum’s face, he turned to the front in
time to see David disappearing into the elevator, his arms locked
behind his back and Natasha holding his arm since he couldn’t see
anything through the bag. Driscoll sat back in his seat. “Huh.”

Callum leaned forward. “What’s going on,
John?”

“I don’t know. But I promise you I will find
out.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Cassie said.
“Why don’t we have bags on our heads?”

“My orders were to provide you with
necessities and space in a conference room to write your report.”
Driscoll looked back at Cassie. “Together.”

Callum pointed at Driscoll’s tablet. “What
are they saying about me?”

“Nobody’s saying much of anything yet,”
Driscoll said. “You’ve just arrived.”

“They’re saying something,” Callum said. “I
caught a glimpse of what you were writing on your tablet. What are
they passing my disappearance off as—some sort of PTSD mental
break?”

Driscoll grunted. “It’s one option. You were
with the Security Service long enough to know how this works.”

“I was,” Callum said. “That’s why I’m
asking.”

“Some have wondered if you’re safe on your
own, or if you should be moved to a psychiatric facility.”

“I can guess who might have asked that,”
Callum said.

Driscoll tsked through his teeth. “He’s not
the only one.” He held up his tablet so both Cassie and Callum
could see it. It showed a message board with comment after comment
appearing and then being superseded by another.

“MI-5’s very own Facebook,” Cassie said.

“And just as useless,” Callum said.

Cassie leaned forward to match Callum. “They
ask about Callum’s mental state, while dragging David off for
interrogation? How does that make sense? If they believe David came
from the Middle Ages, they have to believe it of Callum too.”

“Humans are quite capable of holding two
contradictory viewpoints simultaneously and believing them both,”
Driscoll said.

“What about me?” Cassie said.

“I have no information on you, but judging
from your accent, you’re American, yes?”

Cassie nodded.

“Then I imagine you will be deported to the
United States in due course, unless something can be worked out
with your embassy,” Driscoll said.

“Callum and I are married!” Cassie said.

“Where is that recorded, again?” Driscoll
said.

Cassie’s mouth dropped open, and she
stuttered, “But—”

Callum pulled on the handle to the door
beside him; it didn’t open. “Driscoll—”

“Right.” Driscoll opened his door and got
out and then opened Callum’s. “I’m not telling you what
I
think, but what others are saying, Callum. You need to be prepared
for questions.”

“I can answer any question,” Callum said,
his voice a low growl.

Leaving the driver to park the SUV in the
back of the garage, the three of them followed the path David and
his captors had taken. Driscoll provided their only escort since
all of the men in riot gear, plus Natasha, had gone with David.

Cassie caught Callum’s hand. “They really
don’t
view us as a threat,” she said in Welsh.

“It seems not,” Callum said.

“What do they think David is, though?”
Cassie said. “A nuclear bomb?”

Cassie had to say the last two words in
English, since they didn’t exist in medieval Welsh, and Driscoll
overheard. “You don’t want to say that out loud. You two need to
keep your heads down and your stories straight.”

Callum tightened his grip on Cassie’s hand.
“If it’s all right with you, Cassie, I’ll do the talking.”

Cassie nodded, thinking how odd it was that
in the Middle Ages she’d fought so hard for her right to be treated
like a human being. She’d seen the mistreatment of women—and the
assumption that they weren’t as intelligent or as competent as
men—as something to be fought against. And yet, her first hour in
the twenty-first century had already reduced her to the status of
non-person, to be seen and not heard. And this time, it wasn’t men
as a class doing the dehumanizing, but a faceless bureaucracy that
had decided David was a threat to the British state.

She bit her lip, finding amusement in the
thought that MI-5 wasn’t far off in thinking that. David might be a
twenty-year-old kid, but he’d grown from a high school freshman in
a little town in Oregon to the King of England in less than seven
years. While she and Callum were smart and resourceful, and she had
faith that as long as they worked together, they could figure any
problem out, David was a different animal entirely. He was smarter
than anyone she’d ever met. He was analytical, a creative thinker,
and
driven
to a crazy degree. MI-5 really had no idea what
they were in for.