Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

“So nobody is in charge? No – wait a sec – the penny’s just dropping. Everybody is in charge. I’m the senior intelligence officer, so I call the shots on intelligence matters, right?”

“Word to the wise, Peri. Never hesitate to play the ‘need to know’ card. I’ve gotten away with stuff for ages that way.”

“Good advice, Mr T.”

“Only if you’re still alive at the end of the day, Peri. Otherwise, this chat never happened and you got no advice from me .”

“Understood. Cheers, mate.”

Amanda stepped in front of her as she put away her phone. “I see you’ve got reinforcements,” she said. “Is the army in charge now?”

Peri frowned at her. “Why?” she asked.

“I need to go back over there, so I need to know who I need to sleep with to get what I want.”

Peri laughed. “Amanda, you’ve just seen what’s going on over there, and I seem to recall you were none too happy. But now you need to go back?”

“You think this is all tied up with Maxwell’s ‘dragon’, don’t you?”

“Maybe…” Peri was hesitant about where Amanda was taking this conversation.

“Come on, of course you do. It’s obvious. And if that’s true – hell, even if it isn’t – my friend’s in trouble, and, well, he’s my friend. That’s point number one. Number two is, if this is tied up with Maxwell’s work, then you would benefit from having a trained historian and archaeologist who’s fluent in first century history, culture and languages. Number three is – well, I’ll think of numbers three and higher later, just know that I’m coming over there with you.”

Peri grinned at her. “There’s more to you than meets eye, isn’t there? Anyway, who says they’ll let me go back over there?”

Amanda grinned back. “I’d love to see them try to stop you!”

“Okay, so to answer your question, if you want to go over there, you better forget any thoughts of sleeping with a dashing young hunky officer to buy your passage, and resign yourself to my company. I’ll get us over there.”

Amanda leaned in and gave Peri a quick peck on the cheek. “Will that do?” she asked with a grin.

“Is that it?” asked Peri with a mock expression of horror. “Come on, babe, you’re just not trying!” She laughed. “Get yourself organised, I’ll see you in a minute.”

Peri resumed her walk towards the operations tent, fishing out her phone again.

“Hey, Tommy, it’s me again. Can you check out whether we know anything against surname Booker-Smart, with or without a hyphen, first name Amanda? And while you’re at it, do we know anything about these people: Coupar, Maxwell; Bandra, Victoria; Baxter, Owain; Feinman, Gilda.”

“Hi, Peri, I’ll get the boys and girls here on it,” came Tommy’s voice in her ear/

“Best report by exception.”

“Okay, if don’t hear from me, you can assume no red flags.”

“You’re the man, Mr T.”

“I pity the fool what keeps callin’ me Mr T,” said Tommy. “Cheers.”

Peri hung up the call as she strode into the operations tent.

Four men in black battledress were standing round a map of the island, evidently discussing their plans. One of them turned to face her, and held out a hand with a broad smile. “You must be Miss Carlton,” he said. “I’m in charge of this rabble. Call me Mike.”

“Hello Mike,” said Peri. “So you’re the military operational lead.” He noticed the emphasis and his smile faded slightly. “Call me Peri,” she went on. “Just to be confusing, I’m wearing multiple hats today, as they say. I’m the intelligence operational lead, and as well as that, I’m representing the UN Security Council for the investigation and its ramifications. I’m also… ah, no, I’ll stop there, because I don’t believe you’re cleared for the rest. Anyway, I’ll be taking my team over with yours.”

“Your team ?” asked Mike. “No, I don’t want any civilians loose on the island until it’s been declared safe. I’ll let you know when that is.”

“So we need to coordinate before we set off,” she continued, as if he had not spoken. “The agreed strategy is to sweep and evacuate civilians – that’s your responsibility, and I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your plans for it. Meanwhile we need intelligence on the location and the nature of the alien entity, and…”

“No, I think you’ve misunderstood our roles…”

“…assess whether and how we can eradicate it, or contain it…”

“…there is no ‘agreed strategy’ to deal with this, that’s the first thing I need to establish…”

“…as the Romans were forced to do.”

“…and… Wait a moment! Did you say ‘Romans’? What are you talking about!”

“That’s right, they’ll have assumed it’s strictly need to know and won’t have told you all the facts,” said Peri as Mike’s face coloured. She continued talking over him. “So, my team with our SBS support will advance….”

“ Your SBS support?” She thought Mike was going to have a heart attack.

“Of course they’re my SBS support,” Peri said, with an innocent smile. She spotted Steve listening at the entrance to the tent. “Don’t tell me nobody told you that much? As I was saying, we move up to the dig site…”

“What dig site?”

“Mm. Need to know, Mike, sorry. All you need to know is that we’re going here .” She stabbed a finger at the centre of the island. She turned to Steve, and said, “Round up Gus and Amanda, would you please?” She turned back to Mike and flashed a smile. “We’ll be waiting on the ferry.”

Steve sent Troy to round up the others, and fell in step with Peri as they walked to the ferry.

“Why so keen to go back over?” he asked. “Oh – nice fast talking, by the way. I don’t suppose that Mike fella has worked out what’s going on yet.”

“My mouth is registered as a deadly weapon,” she replied with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. “I need to go back over because I can’t trust someone who is organising an operation without taking the trouble of talking to the only people with the experience of being over there, and who also happen to be the people with the skills to deal with it.”

“You’re annoyed because he didn’t invite you to his planning session.”

“Did he invite you? No? I rest my case, milord.”

“What skills, by the way? Do you think the beasties will succumb to your deadly conversation skills?”

“No,” she said. “But how many of those guys speak Latin? How familiar are they with Roman military practice? Have any of them ever fought a trans-dimensional alien entity? Do they have a trans-dimensional consultant disguised as a dog? Can they find their own arses in the dark?”

“You’re making this shit up, aren’t you? I have no idea what’s going on any more.”

“As you told me this morning, you’re not here to think. You’re here to do guns and muscles. So don’t sweat it, I’m doing enough thinking for all of us.”

They continued walking in silence.

Then Steve spoke. “Troy talked.”

“What?”

“About your name. He had no choice. I was on the verge of unleashing a devastating Chinese burn on him.”

“So now you know my darkest secret. Congratulations.”

“How did you come by it?”

“How did you come by yours?”

“My parents gave it to me.”

“There you go, then, you knew the answer already.”

“But Peppermint? Is that an old family name, or something?”

“My mother liked peppermint. And before you ask the obvious dumb question, yes, my father liked pastilles.”