CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Forgetting.
“The
white house has been secured. The bombs were found but there was no sign of
those who planted them,” Henn said with caution as he addressed the many agents
in his office. “Tanen also appears to have slipped the net, for the time being.
Vacily, Sepia meeting later on please, I have a disturbing report from our
agents in London. Mr. Tzavros...”
“Vass! Get a look see at this lot...”
“Mr Nutt!” shouted Henn raising his
paperweight but gently placing it back in its place. “Don’t interrupt...”
“Sh, they’ll hear you. Look what I
got, Vassy.” He carefully opened a large brown paper bag and turning around to
make sure nobody else saw his hoard, showed Sukoloff the contents.
“Oranges! Nutty, you’ve found oranges.
And bananas, what’s this? Nutty, where did you find fresh cream cakes...”
Sukoloff’s excitement was squashed by an embarrassed cough from Henn.
“Security for Mr. Henn,” spat the
intercom.
“Henn here.”
“Sir, I think we have a small problem.
One of your agents was seen... Well, he was seen taking food from the kitchen.”
“Weren’t me. Can’t have been. I was...
Where was I, Vass? Weren’t me, I never nick things, do I, Vassy.”
“No, it wasn’t Nutty, Alex,” he agreed
stuffing a whole banana into his mouth. “I bet you don’t pay your agents
enough,” he mumbled reaching for a cake. “You starve them.”
“What is going on?” Henn asked as
sniggers drifted up from other agents and Nutt wrenched an orange away from
Tzavros.
“Get your own! Here, Vass, have one of
these, I found em hoarded up by some greedy person.”
“My toffees!” shouted Henn running to
the small tin he kept on top of a shelf. “Those are my toffees.”
“They ain’t, I found em first. They’re
mine and Vassy’s,” Nutt said clutching them tighter in his hand as roars of
laughter began to fill the office.
“The scroll, Alex. Please remember
what I told you. Remember about how captives are treated,” warned Sukoloff.
“I forget,” said Nutt as he slowly
left the office frowning at the laughter.
“I see,” said Henn not really
understanding. “You can tell me later. Mr. Tzavros, take Jade Bird...”
“Niet.”
“What’s got into you people. Steele is
refusing to have his physical, Nutt is stealing and you’re disobeying. I said,
take Jade Bird and Alment over to Musshurren’s apartment. I want that place
stripped. Find me the location of whichever madman is causing people to change
character. Vacily, do something about Nutt. Your debriefing seems to have only
partially worked.”
“Seven years of hunger, Alex. I’ll
take him on a little holiday.”
“No time for that,” said Henn opening
drawer after drawer. “That does it!” he shouted reaching for the intercom.
“Nutt! If you’re in the building and I know you are, bring back my cigars!”
“They ain’t yours. I found em first,”
Nutt’s angry voice echoed through the whole building.
“Those cigars are mine and I want them
back.”
“They ain’t.”
“Leave him, Alex,” smirked Sukoloff. “He can sell them for food. I’ll take him on holiday. Before you say I can’t, I promise you won’t even know we’ve been gone.”
“This
anything, Sir?” asked Alment handing Tzavros another shapeless drawing.
“Keep it with rest,” he snapped uneasy
about working with anyone apart from Steele. He resented the constant
interruptions, Steele always knew without being told if conversation was
needed. At the moment this was the last thing he needed, all he wanted was to
think. It had been something Steele had told him about the young boy he had
shot and the wall behind him. Then there was the difference in Steele, his
anger, unusual untidiness and clumsiness. “That’s it!” he yelled. “Damn you,
Steele, why you not tell me?” He opened his small gold calculator and pressed
the symbol of pie enabling him to link to the vast Satcom net of PIA.
“Tzavros,
code thing-um-abobs, link to Net One.”
“Try again, Mister,” answered the voice on communications.
“Tzavros,
code... If Steele there, get him give me Puskin code, I remember that. It
urgent. I need Mr. Henn,” he said giving the Complink a shaking in the hope that
Henn would answer.
“Henn here, how come you remember your
code and not important base clearance codes?” said Henn disguising a snigger
with his usual cough.
“I made mine, someone stupid made base
code. Did Steele take physical?”
“I made the base code and no he has
not, why?”
“I know what with him is matter...
Just minute, I call you back.” Like a lightening flash in the dead of night
everything became clear. My God, he
thought clutching the recently repaired small brass cross he always wore around
his neck. That thing from hell watched
our every move. Then it reported everything to Ptah and set Vacily up so that
he would have to disobey Guardians. It removed ghost stopper lasers long enough
to kill Tremain after first replicating itself as Steele. Tremain said Steele
had collected bomb, Steele said different. It was one day out on scroll,
eleventh instead of tenth. Was that accident or deliberate? It knew about
personal information which Steele definitely not repeated, he couldn’t have
because I didn’t tell him. It was only other person to know that me and Alment
knew about Tanen and its got those damn sickening green eyes of a cat.
“Tzavros, quick-smart linkup with
Henn.”
“You again, well Henn’s not in and
you’re not getting passed me without your codes.”
“You make link or...”
“Or what? You’ll put the thumb screws
on?” said the angry voice. “You damn Russians don’t belong here and if I ran
Pia you’d be the first to go.”
“Clocking in,” shouted Tzavros as his
blood began to boil. “Code is clocking in.”
“Wrong!” was the last word as the line
went dead.
“Alment! Get in here,” Tzavros shouted
wishing Steele was with him, he always remembered the codes. Forgetting them
meant immediate return to base as neither Alment nor Bird were ranked high
enough to hold base codes. His anger was not improved when Jade Bird walked out
of the shadows and ran her long fingers down his spine.
“I sent him into the kitchen so we
could be alone. Your hair is so pretty,” she said twisting one of his blond
curls around her finger. With the snarl of a captured animal he swung around
and hissed, “Stop calling me pretty. I am man, women are pretty. Alment!”
“But you are pretty. I love the way
your eyes turn upwards and your hair falls over your face.”
“Stop it! Alment, get in here!”
“I love the way you always look as a
little boy who can’t have any more sweets. The way your mouth has a permanent
pout. I want you...”
“Get away from me before I do
something never have. I hit you. Alment!”
“Yes, Sir,” he said grinning as he
looked from Tzavros to Bird.
“Get maps and drawings,” he said blushing. “We have to go pretty smart back to Henn, I know who Cat is and I forgot codes again.”
It
was heartbreaking to look around the office at the once so special team. In the
short space of six months all had become so different. Most were absent, called
away to other bases on mundane assignments. Steele was the most worrying with
his complete change of character. Then there was Nutt, even though not
officially a member of Sepia, Sukoloff treated him as an equal. Henn had doubts,
other agents called him a coward and he showed every possible symptom of this
being the truth. He acted like two different people, once he had been
intelligent but now forgot the simplest of tasks and the infernal accent, he
had told Sukoloff not to worry about this, but one minute well spoken, the next
nearly illiterate, it didn’t seem to ring true.
“Steele, can you not smoke in here
today, the air conditioner is out,” said Henn sighing as he watched Steele’s
trembling hand reach for the overflowing ashtray and disappointed at Tzavros
for staring out of the window. He had not made the slightest attempt at a
clever comment about Steele’s reprimand. He had abandoned the game of
one-up-man-ship.
“Bayfield and Tretow have sent in
their report and with the recent happenings here and Vacily’s account of the
future, I think we should take this matter seriously. Mrs. Jermy has been having
vivid dreams about a desolate planet. To quote her, ‘English are slaves. The
people turned yellow and all animal life apart from the fish are dead.’”
“But that’s not how Vacily saw it. The
Changers were beginning to take over,” said Steele.
“That was in nine years time, maybe
she is seeing further ahead,” answered Sukoloff.
“Go forward and have a look,” Steele
suggested.
“At the moment nothing is out of the
ordinary because whatever it is that causes the disruption of the planet,
hasn’t happened yet. That’s why we can still stop it,” he said.
“Enough speculating... Steele, I did
say don’t smoke and that’s your third since I said so. She also sees people
becoming murderers, so that does tie in with what Vacily saw. She says that
many people are held captive right now and that they are begging her for
freedom... “
“Just a minute,” said Sukoloff
suddenly jumping up. “The people are turning yellow? That’s what Nutty said
when he was dying, ‘The people are turning yellow. The fish don’t die.’ what
else did he say? Something about going forward to the village of Dogs and...”
he looked closely at Tzavros and shuddered as he remembered the rest of Nutt’s
prediction. “Call Nutt in, then I’ll take him away for a couple of seconds.
Maybe I can get him to remember more.”
“Not back to Egypt?” Henn asked
horrified.
“Forward, I can do it from here and
you won’t even see us go,” he said giving a chuckle, then more serious he
turned to Tzavros and asked, “Did you have your physical?”
“He did,” interrupted Henn. “that
reminds me, everything checks out apart from Taylor want’s to re-run your blood
tests, something about your white cells. By the way, you called in to say you
knew what was troubling Steele, so what is it?”
Steele threw a look of anger at the
young Russian who just shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing important,” he said.
By the time Nutt had arrived Henn was
reporting the lack of progress on the young boy whom Steele had shot. “I’m
afraid he remains critical. Even though it appears that your bullet only grazed
the side of his head, either the shock of this or perhaps hitting the ground
has given him irreparable brain damage. His latest brain scan is flat-line. I’m
sorry but things are looking serious for us. There is a meeting being held to
determine if we can continue in law enforcement. Nutt!” Henn shouted as he saw
the young man pull a fish out of his tank. “Put it back. Don’t you dare eat
that!”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Sir, but a
creature of such magnificence has to be worthy of much closer analysis,
wouldn’t you agree?”
“What did he say?” asked Steele
laughing.
“He said he was just looking,” said
Sukoloff slapping Nutt’s hand to make him release the struggling fish. “He’s
been hobnobbing with the rich and famous and has forgotten which accent to use.
Excuse me while I take him away again. Haven’t had time to ask him the
questions yet.”
Shaking his head in disbelief Henn tried
to continue when Nutt suddenly sat on the floor laughing. “Blast! Don’t pour no
more of that gut-rot down me throat, I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“Dosbridania, Alex, my old comrade,”
chuckled Sukoloff swaying dangerously on the edge of the table. “Weren’t the
drink made you get with vomiting it was them meat pies you pinched, said they
were off, didn’t I?”
“Nope, you said,” he retched violently
and staggered towards Steele. “you said, go nick somat to eat,” he said sitting
on the floor again. “I feel sick, Vass!”
“They’re drunk!” Steele shouted as
Nutt tried to regain an upright posture. The statement was not answered as the
ghostly Woods appeared in the middle of the room and grabbed Sukoloff by the
collar. “How many times do you need telling? Go forward in time yes, but never
get so drunk that you don’t know where you’re going. Never make a human walk
the sky-train tracks...”
“I caught him,” muttered a very
subdued Sukoloff.
“Only Just, now go back and sober up.
Come on, Nutty,” he said and vanished at the same moment that Sukoloff and Nutt
reappeared causing everyone to jump.
“Pretty good isn’t it. I told you I
would have him back before you knew we’d gone. Trouble is my watch was a bit
out, I’m meant to arrive back here exactly two seconds before we left, other
wise there’s a blip,” said Sukoloff grinning. As Nutt slumped into a chair in
the furthest, darkest corner of the office and moaned about a mysterious
headache which had struck him out of the blue, Sukoloff whispered, “Not the
village of Dogs, It’s Cat’s, three legged ones, so put Alment on looking for
such a place. Also try Bayfield’s English lady to see if she can dream of the
same place. One important thing though, pictures with the theme of Orion or
Egypt are very often worm-holes and Nutty has locked in his memory the complete
users guide to them. If we can find which Isle it is and somehow which time, we
can get there, without me having to act as a transporter truck.”
“Right,” said Henn eyeing up Nutt who
still looked more than the worst for wear. “Alment has brought several maps and
papers back from Musshurren’s apartment. I suggest that Tzavros and Nutt go
back to the gallery where you say Nutt found the worm-hole, sorry, Steele, but
I have to have Tzavros backed up with firearms. Vacily, can’t you take Nutt
forward again until his hangover is gone?”
Despite watching as closely as possible Henn only saw Sukoloff walk over and sit beside Nutt, no blip or distortion, Nutt suddenly shot up saying, “I don’t think I should go. It might be dangerous, someone might fire at me, I don’t think it’s a good idea, do you?” he said hopefully.
