Lancashire, UK, 6th March. 05:30.
The man on the bridge was about thirty, lean and serious with dark hair trailing down over the collar of his scuffed brown leather jacket. His beard straggled unevenly around the scar which crossed his mouth, his eyes reflecting too the hurt of some old injury. His pale skin and delicate hands lent him an aristocratic look, and his poise was that of a man who might equally dance - or fight.
He neither relished nor dreaded either idea, treating each new duty with the same calm competence.
The bridge itself suggested battle: a hundred feet long, and narrow, it constrained a dam at the end of an enormous reservoir. On one side, chill dark water slapped against the rough-hewn stones of the bridge. On the other, that same grey granite dropped away in a sharp sloping wall punctured by copper spouts, and streaked with moss and lichen where the outfall trickled away.
Athos felt inside his jacket for his pistol. It was there, heavy against his heart, beating in time, reminding him always that death followed life, with only work in between.
A whisper in his ear made him lean over the parapet and peer down into the valley.
"By the car park," came Aramis' voice in his earpiece, and Athos took out a small scope and sighted through it.
He saw a man, slightly built and dressed in the same dark denim and worn leather as himself, leaning against the Tourist Information sign at the edge of the forest and near the shore of another square-ended lake.
Aramis raised his gloved hand to Athos and Athos felt that slight easing of tension which comes from knowing your friends are with you, and ready to take on your foes. For a moment he thought of another man, young, eager, a soldier more skilled than any Athos had known, but he swept the memory aside. Aramis and Porthos were his only brothers now.
Aramis stood with his hand raised, but Athos, silhouetted against the thick sky, would not wave back for fear of being seen by other eyes. He was not here for leisure. These reservoirs formed part of a country park, but also part of Britain's vital water supply chain. The weekends in summer brought crowds, and would have made today's task impossible.
But at six a.m. in March, the only strangers Athos had seen were some keen mums in lurid lycra, jogging behind three-wheeled buggies. The last of them gave him a hard look as she passed, and pulled the rain cover further over her buggy as if she feared his stern face would terrify her baby. She had dyed blonde hair which emphasised her sallow skin, and a lot of eye make up. This much Athos saw as she gave him her forbidding stare. He looked calmly back. The infant was safe from him. Did he really seem like a man who cooed into prams?
He hoped the women were all far away by now, as there was certain to be trouble.
"Porthos," he said softly, and the response came back at once. Athos turned towards the control tower above the reservoir, a rusted metal building jutting up from the north end of this bridge. Through its Plexiglass window Athos' scope picked out a third man, stocky and wearing a motorcyclist's bandana, hefting an experimental rifle in his hands.
"They're here!" Aramis' light voice could not conceal his excitement as the confrontation approached. "I see them. They're coming in through the woods. You were right, Athos, they mean to attack the reservoir, not the substation."
"Being right will be no comfort if we can't stop them," Athos said.
"We're ready for them," came Porthos' gruff tones. "They owe us a fight after what they did to Treville."
Athos' mouth twitched. "Hush. They'll be on us in moments."
Aramis said, breathless in Athos' earpiece as he climbed the path up to the bridge, "There's something else. They're not on foot."
Athos whirled round, expecting armoured vehicles on the bridge.
Aramis laughed. "This will be interesting. They're on horseback."
And even as Athos absorbed this news, six men on six sweating horses broke out of the forest and thundered across the bridge towards him.
The horsemen made for the watchtower. Athos stood between them, gun drawn, outnumbered but calm as always.
"Stop!" he called. "We know your plan. We are ahead of you in everything."
The leader slowed as he neared Athos, his horse lifting its hooves in high, nervous steps. Athos dodged aside, and the leader turned, he and his horse presenting a sideways profile to the watchtower. Athos smiled.
The rider scowled, saying, "We heard great things of you, the special soldiers, the so-called elite. Yet we overran you yesterday and your captain lies dead."
"Your plan won't work," said Athos, sighting at the group over the muzzle of his gun. "And Treville lives."
Behind the group, his boots making no noise on the bridge, Aramis crept up, gun ready.
"He's alive?" The leader frowned, then shrugged.
"Unlike you," said Athos, and a rifle shot whistled past him and struck the leader full in the chest. He was thrown back, and slumped in his saddle. Athos fired at the second man in the group as Aramis took out the rear two in rapid succession.
Porthos stood at the door of the watchtower, rifle in hand, smirking at the surprise inflicted on the would-be terrorists.
Athos pulled the wounded riders to the ground, searching their pockets, answering their struggles with punches if they tried to resist. "Nothing," he exclaimed. "No toxin, no bioweapon. No proof!"
One rider still remained, wheeling round on his horse, which reared and whinnied. A green saddlebag bulged against the animal's side.
Athos, still crouching, ducked the flying hooves. "The bag!" he said. "We need that bag." He scrambled to his feet and sprinted after the rider.
Aramis was dodging between riderless, panicking horses. The fallen men lay on the bridge, screaming. The last rider was turning, ready for his escape.
"I can't shoot," Porthos said from his vantage point. "-I'll hit one of you."
Athos frowned, sprang forward and grabbed at the reins of the desperate horse. The rider aimed his weapon, point blank at Athos's face, and Athos gazed up at him, unblinking, his hand on the horse's neck.
He saw the kill readying itself in the man's eyes, that removal of all feeling which must come before such a terrible deed. He grasped the green saddlebag and wrenched at it, thinking, if this is my last act, it is doing what I must do.
He heard Porthos and Aramis yell a simultaneous, horrified, "No!"
Athos cast the bag away. The rider flailed at him and then regained his aim.
And a dyed-blonde woman in bright sports gear pounded up and flung a sack of orange powder at Athos, yelling, "No fracking at Anglezarke!" as the gun went off.
Author's note: I hope you like the start of my twenty-first century Musketeers imagining. I am doing this for fun so will take parts of Dumas, parts of BBC and my favourite, totally making it up as I go. Chapter Two is done too, with D'Artagnan discovering strange messages and that his charms are greater even than he supposed. Let me know what you think, good or bad: I am very thick-skinned and feedback of all kinds is always welcome. -Sef