Orlando Florida

21st JANUARY 2017

An hour later we were back in the Rolls, I was wearing my own clothes and had the taste of terrible FBI coffee in my mouth. For someone who was technically a foreign intelligence asset they’d treated me surprisingly well which meant somewhere a deal had been struck.

“What happened?” I asked Natalie. The antidote to whatever my abductors had given me was kicking in and my head no longer felt it was filled with cotton wool. I was pretty sure I’d be able to walk in a straight line very soon.

“They darted you when you went to get us brunch. As soon as I realised you’d disappeared I called James.”

“What did he do?”

“He said he’d call in some favours.” I nodded wondering who James, even with his contacts, had called to get such an instant and overwhelming response. Not that finding me had been hard as the idiots who’d abducted me had forgotten to turn my phone off.

“Did anyone say who they think is responsible?” I asked.

“They didn’t want to say anything to me, but I heard them saying it was another Agency, they seemed very pleased about catching them.” I laughed. In the cut and thrust of every day intelligence gathering, publicly catching out another Agency doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing was the espionage equivalent of winning the lottery.

“I bet they were. Are the guys here yet.”

“They landed a couple of hours ago; they’re waiting for us at the park.”

It took us forty minutes to make our way through the Orlando traffic to the abandoned theme park that we were using as our base. It had been closed down a decade ago and I doubted, even when new, it had given Disney any headaches. There was one remaining skeletal rollercoaster, lots of weed encrusted concrete where smaller rides had once stood and a few rotting buildings. When we’d arrived three weeks ago there hadn’t even been a creepy security guard or unhinged janitor to greet us.

At the back of the lot, set apart from the park itself was a large house built in the Victorian Haunted House style. It looked abandoned and badly in need of a coat of paint. It was this building Natalie aimed the Rolls towards and parked in the third bay of the three-car garage. Five people piled into the garage to meet us.

“Afternoon, how was Disney?” Mode, a compact, capable man who in a former life had been an SAS medic, greeted us as we got out.

“Practically perfect in every way. Apart from the walking. And the queues.” Natalie said smiling. I glanced at her. She obviously hadn’t informed them about this morning’s excitement.

“Yeah, Nat loved it.” I added, unwilling to admit that I’d enjoyed visiting the parks too, mostly due to Natalie’s almost childlike enthusiasm for everything Disney.

“Nice car, where did you find it?” Blue, the large, tattooed Māori, a former Marine asked.

“It was left here in the garage by the former resident. How’s the head?” I asked

“I’m fine, I was fine a few days after it happened.” Blue answered as if he were tired of the question.

“I haven’t seen you since you started Sheriffing in Dragons Landing.” I reminded him.

“Come on boss, it was only his head, it’s not like anything important was damaged,” Tommy said. Every squad has a Tommy, the one with the big mouth who’s always in some sort of trouble, unsurprisingly he’d once been a Para.

“I’m not the one who thinks that wearing that piece of shit on my head is a good idea,” Blue bit back, gesturing to Tommy’s red MAGA baseball cap.

“You told me to blend in. I’m blending in.” Tommy protested.

“Where did you even get it?” I couldn’t help myself from asking.

“Found it.” Tommy replied unhelpfully.

“You’ve been in the States for what? Three hours?”

“Yeah, about that,” Tommy replied and disappeared into the house before he could be questioned further. I sighed and turned my attention to the last two members of our entourage

“Any problems?” I asked them.

“Lots of tiresome questions, but no problems,” Juan, a Hispanic man with an air of command, replied with a formal nod before he went back inside. He looked tired and stressed and I guessed now we were so close to our goal the reality of what I was asking him to do was starting to hit home.

“Is he okay… Are you okay?” I asked Ren, dark haired, dark skinned, androgynous person, possessed of an inner calm, and very hard to read. I needed Ren for this mission, possibly even more than I needed Juan. Ren smiled at me and put their hand on my arm.

“No one ever asks me if I’m okay, but I am fine. Lord Juan’s worried of course. He can’t see what the few of us can do, nor can I, but I know you’ve been planning this for more than a season. Are you okay Governor? You don’t seem yourself”

“I’ve had a rough day.” I admitted as I followed Natalie through to the large kitchen/diner where the rest of the party had congregated. In contrast to the outside that was tatty and badly maintained, the interior of the house was clean and comfortable albeit in a beige and dark wood style that had last been fashionable in the UK back in the early 1990s.

I wasn’t surprised to find Tommy and Mode were raiding the cupboards and there was already a fry up on the go. Blue had found the mugs and poured me a coffee.

“This bread is sweet.” Tommy accused, a half-eaten buttered slice in his hand.

“That’s American bread, the proper stuff is in that cupboard on the left,” I told him.

“Why did you even buy it?”

“We didn’t want to waste time shopping, so I got the cleaner to do it for us.” Natalie replied.

“Is this an Agency safe house?” Blue asked.

“This was our late friend Clive Bonner’s personal residence. After he lost access to the Gateways the Agency made sure they snaffled all his assets up.”

“What did he actually do on this side of the Gateway,” Mode asked.

“Oh, lots of dodgy stuff through several front companies, the CIA taught him how to stay under the radar. There are a couple of mines out west, there’s an army surplus store, a chandlers and boat broker, a logistics company… He was basically selling gold to buy stuff he couldn’t make on the other side… And he had a nice line in people smuggling.” I explained

“I take it that none of the people he smuggled ended up where they thought they were going?” Blue said.

“I doubt it, and if anyone complained there’s a couple of big fat alligators in the lake out back. Also, when this place was cleared out they found a load of human sized cages in the garage.”

“That was for his house slaves, he liked to be attended,” Juan said, with a note of distaste in his voice.

“He was evil. He enjoyed making people suffer.” Ren said, taking an experimental sip of coffee.

“Definitely one of the more unpleasant people I’ve encountered over the years. Not that I ever actually met him in person.” I said.

“You went to a lot of trouble to obliterate someone you never met, and now you are intent on destroying his legacy no matter what the cost.” Juan said and I turned on him.

“You of all people know how Father Callis died. You know what they did to Sebastian. In my nightmares I have lived the deaths of a thousand of my predecessors and his death was the worst. The Spirit didn’t choose me for my laid-back attitude and sunny disposition. I was chosen to make sure Bonner never had a legacy.” I told the renegade Iron Brotherhood commander, who to my shock and horror was cringing back from me. I looked at the others who were staring at me in shock, all except Natalie, who was looking at me with a slight smile on her face.

“I’m sorry, Governor, I spoke out of turn. I hate the man as much as you, well maybe not quite as much as you. I… I am merely worried about what you have planned for the population of the Iron Mountain. Whatever Bonner did, I do not want to be party to another wholesale slaughter, most of the people there are not bad people.” Juan said and I saw how much it had cost him to say it. I took a deep breath.

“Your people named you Lord Protector for a reason. Don’t worry, if things go to plan hardly anyone will get hurt. After dinner we’ll go down to the dungeon and go through the plan.”

“This place has a dungeon?” Tommy asked excitedly.

“It’s more of an extended basement, but as the water table is so high here it’s as dungeony as you’re gonna get in Florida.” I replied.

So, we had dinner, a full English breakfast, because as Tommy and Blue argued, it was morning somewhere. There was much debate of what this traditional British dish actually consisted of. Bacon and sausages, definitely. Fried eggs were compulsory, although it was allowed that scrambled or even poached eggs could be substituted if you were a health-conscious wimp. Baked beans, fried bread and fried mushrooms were permitted additions, although what brand of baked bean was up for discussion. It was after that the arguments started.

I kept diplomatically silent as my stomach was rumbling and I hadn’t had a proper home fried meal for a while. After stuffing my face, I felt a bit more human and could have quite happily fallen asleep. I also knew I really should talk to James about the morning’s events.

The guys however were keen to get on and showed not a bit of fatigue despite having just endured a 10-hour flight, persuading the Agency to upgrade them to business class had obviously been worth it. I made them clean the kitchen up while I changed into my combats, then called everyone into the garage.

Two of the three bays were empty apart from a new electric car charging point I’d installed. “I get to do the thing,” Natalie said with an almost childlike enthusiasm, waving us to stand by the Rolls, she got out her phone and opened an app. Even though I knew what was going to happen, there was a moment of disorientation before my brain caught up with reality and we started to descend, Rolls Royce and all. The others made murmurs of appreciation.

“This one of your builds, boss?” Mode asked me.

“No, this was put in by Bonner, no doubt to cause shock and awe in his minions. I just installed the wireless operation.” I replied.

The basement mirrored the upper floor plan of the villa. Brick arches supporting the house giving it a Spanish feel and I wondered how long a building had been here. The basement looked far older than the house above, I suspected it dated back to Conquistador times.

Along the walls there were empty metal shelves and lockers that could have come from anywhere, interesting looking crates were piled neatly up against the walls. In the centre of the room a tiny forklift was dwarfed by a wide pallet of large blue plastic barrels with ‘Drinking Water’ stencilled on them. A couple more identical pallets were stacked neatly, obscuring one of the alcoves.

Parked at an angle facing the water barrels sat a 1990s Ford Ranger truck hand painted a vile khaki colour. Despite being relatively low to the ground it had chunky off-road tyres, a winch and looked like someone was trying to get the Technical look on a budget. It wasn’t very convincing until you looked at the loadbed where a Browning M2 heavy machine gun was fixed below the roof line in the truck bed on a stand designed to rise and swivel. It had taken me ages to construct the stand, and I was rather proud of it. There was also a power cable plugged into where the fuel filler of the truck should have been.

“Did you manage to build an electric Technical in just three weeks?” Blue asked in delight, running over to inspect the truck.

“Not me, I found this on eBay, minus the gun of course. It uses Tesla motors and battery packs. You won’t believe how fast it is.”

“Where did you get the gun?” Mode asked.

“Army surplus.” I replied.

“Did the army know it was surplus?” Tommy asked. I just looked at him and he grinned unapologetically back at me

“Behind those crates is the Gateway that takes us directly to the Iron Mountain, the last remnants of the Iron Brotherhood hold the settlement and the planet’s only easily accessible source of iron ore.” I said.

“And you want to claim this source of iron for yourself?” Juan asked.

“Nope, I’m leaving that economic shitstorm for the new Emperor. I’m purely in it for the vengeance. The voice in my head wants me to make an example, well, more of an example than I’ve already made.”

“Way to go with the reassuring explanations boss.” Tommy said. The others laughed, even Juan cracked a smile.

“Stop fannying around and get your kit sorted, we’re going through in ten.” I informed them.

There was the usual moaning about lack of notice as they got ready while I moved the water barrels back from the Gateway. In well under ten minutes, we all stood around the seamless, thick, black, rectangular frame of the Gateway, guns at the ready.

I looked around to make sure everyone was paying attention.

“Nat is about to open the Gateway to the Iron Mountain. They used this Gateway for years so there’s no way they’ll have forgotten it exists, and they have been expecting a visit from us since Beltane, although every bit of intelligence we have says it’s not guarded.

“Mines… or IEDs, I bet.” Tommy sighed.

“Possibly. I hope they’re not that sophisticated. Anyway, I'm going to send a drone in first. You ready Nat? I asked putting on my smart glasses and checked if the drone was ready.

“Yes honeybum,” Natalie replied to a few chuckles. There was a whine, and I flew the small drone across the room trailing a wire. A screen came up on my smart glasses showing the drone’s camera view. In front of me, the area between the black frame turned a pure reflectionless black and the drone disappeared.

Several galaxies away the drone entered a cave with rough stone walls, I spun it around slowly, night vision making the view monochrome and spooky. The entrance, a bright area where I could just about make out stars and an outline of vegetation.

“It’s about midnight there, we have roughly six Earth hours before dawn. No sign of any recent human activity… yet,” I said, almost to myself.

“It’s a pity there’s no moon over there,” Mode commented.

“Not a good place to be if you’re a werewolf, The stars are brighter than Earth though.” Tommy muttered.

“Quiet. Anyone see anything…?” I asked. Before anyone could reply there was a massive crash from the back of our side of the Gateway and I swear the wall I was leaning against shuddered.

“CLOSE IT,” I yelled, the infinite blackness of the Gateway was replaced by the friendly reality of the brick alcove and the video feed from the drone flickered off. In the alcove, blinking in the bright lights, stood a massive bear looking around the cellar in confusion.

“I always wondered what would happen if something entered the Gateway through the back.” Natalie said, unconcerned. The alien bear turned to her voice, sniffing the air. It didn’t look happy and if I didn’t do anything very soon it was going to spread its unhappiness around.

The others raised their assault rifles.

“Don’t shoot,” I said as calmly as I could, and walked over to where the bear was standing, reached up, grabbed the scruff of its neck and pulled it towards the Gateway. To my surprise and probably the bear’s, it allowed itself to be manhandled.

“Open the Gateway.” I commanded.

“A please would be nice,” Natalie replied, waving her hand, the blackness returned. I turned the bear’s head towards the darkness and slapped it on its rump, raising a cloud of dust.

“Go on, git.” I said, and the bear disappeared into the darkness. We all breathed again as Ren swore in a language that sounded like Russian.

“Thank you, smoochums,” I said to Natalie.

“Who needs IEDs when you’ve got a BFB guarding the Gateway,” Tommy said.

“BFB?” Mode asked.

“Big Fucking Bear” Tommy replied.

“Let’s go see what’s on the other side.” I said and stepped into the blackness.