Crowley whipped through the tunnel into Newt's lab, spun the car into a parking space and staggered out of the driver's seat before the engine had fully quieted.
"Oi! Where is e'ryone?" he slurred at the assistant, Brian, his brain reminded him dully.
"In the lab," the boy, who appeared to be covered in motor oil and soot(1) answered.
"I might need a hand then," Crowley slurred. He staggered three steps before he collapsed, his adrenaline finally giving out.
When he next opened his eyes, Crowley found himself on a hospital bed with Newt and a middle-aged black woman with short hair styled in a bob and a gentle face standing over him. Judging by her lab coat, Crowley guessed she was a doctor.
"Good to see you awake, Mr. Crowley," the woman said in a very businesslike manner. "I can't believe you made it here awake. You lost quite a bit of blood, thankfully the wound wasn't very deep. No damage done to your internal organs. I was able to stitch you up in no time. Quite a nasty rag you had holding it together though. I've got you on an extra antibiotic for that thing. Might have had a bit of a concussion too."
Concussion, Crowley registered, thinking of the hits he took in the park. That could explain the voice…
"I see," he said simply. "How long was I out Doctor..?"
"Mary Loquacious," she introduced herself, before pressing right on with her story. "It was only a few hours. And some of it was because of the drugs. You should be back up on your feet by the end of the week."
"I don't have that kind of time," Crowley cut her off. He turned hurriedly to Newt, who appeared to have been trying and failing to get a word in. "Where are the others? We need to talk. We don't have much time!"
"They're in the conference room, I'll bring them in," the quartermaster replied before bolting from the room.
Crowley spent several stressful minutes receiving a health update from a constantly chattering Dr. Mary and extracted only one useful piece of information from her: that it was early Thursday morning.
"Yes, you were out for a good twelve hours or so, really lucky it wasn't worse, of course I still had to give you quite a few stitches. The wound on your hand we were able to just bandage, but your side was in quite a state…"
Behind her Crowley heard the door open and Newt attempted to interrupt.
"Excuse me. Doctor? Could we have a moment?"
She barely noticed him, apparently quite intent on giving her patient every gory detail of his treatment.
"Away wi' ya woman!" Shadwell bellowed. "We've got important business t' discuss."
Crowley blinked in surprise, but the outburst did the trick. Dr. Mary startled, then nodded curtly to the now assembled team of agents before giving Crowley a stern look. "Try not to get too excited," she said. "I'll check up with you later."
"Does everyone who works with you have to be barking mad, Pulsifer?" Crowley asked incredulously.
"She gets the job done," Newt said noncommittally. Crowley took it as a yes.
"Right. Well, we've got two days before a massive bomb goes off in Manhattan," Crowley said bluntly. "You lot got any idea how to stop it?"
"What's the target Crowley?" Anathema's stern voice piped up from thin air.
Crowley jumped. "Bloody Hell! Where is she?"
"For Heaven's sake," Pepper gasped, clearly exasperated. She snatched a phone out of Newt's hands and turned it to face the wounded agent. "She's on FaceTime."
Crowley took in his boss' face and was satisfied to see a hint of concern evident on it.
"Hi, A," he said, taking the phone from Pepper. "They didn't finish me off yet, sorry to disappoint."
"Glad to hear you pulled through. You know you can only die when I say so, Crowley."
"Well I might know just the time and place," Crowley said drily, with just a hint of a smirk at his boss before turning to the serious matter at hand. "This Saturday evening at a charity gala at the Ritz. Two former presidents will be there and a who's who of philanthropists and businesspeople from around the country."
Adam gasped. "That's why Aziraphale had that magazine!"
"Yep," Crowley said, popping the P. "He was onto the whole thing, which is probably why Gabriel, or whatever his name is, has kept him alive; they want to know what he knew."
"Eastgate is still alive?" Anathema asked, looking somewhat surprised, but pleased.
"Was as of last night," Crowley said, a feeling like a lead balloon dropping in his stomach. "Arkangel has him."
"Heralding," Shadwell interrupted.
"Wot?" Crowley asked. "Arkangel's real name is Gabriel Heralding, young Pulsifer and our men in Langley ran 'is face through the computer. 'e's had work done but those eyes are hard t' hide. A couple of our boys recognized 'im from back in the Cold War. 'E used to be one of ours."
"He's CIA?!" Crowley yelled, so startled he dropped the phone.
"I've read the briefing," Anathema snapped. "What I want to know now is how did everyone miss this?"
"Ah, well, tha' Ms. Device is rather simple," Shadwell answered. "E'ryone thought 'e was dead."
"Oh well, that explains it doesn't it?" Crowley drawled sarcastically. "What happened?"
"'twas before I came on," Shadwell said. "But from the reports I gathered 'e was crooked for a while."
From a wrinkled, brown satchel Shadwell pulled a folder that held what appeared to be several old newspaper clippings and printed out reports.
Crowley took the folder and flipped it open.
"From what we could find he was a good agent for years, but somethin' happened. We're not sure what, but he was stationed in East Germany for a coupl'a years and when he came back by all accounts he was obsessed with the arms race; and, from what one of the agents who worked with 'im said, not just with amassing weapons, with using 'em," Shadwell reported. "At the time he wasn't the only one, so his superiors put it off on too much time spent seeing the damage being done. 'E was working with anti-Soviet locals and a lot of 'em had criminal backgrounds. Everyone assumed 'e'd jus' got a bit over eager and decided to keep 'im state-side after that."
Crowley nodded, processing Shadwell's words as he continued to skim the file. He'd landed on a document outlining Gabriel's whereabouts during his years in the field and a spark of recognition flared. Gabriel had been stationed in Berlin at the same time Beezebub had been. He knew from his own experience that enemy agents often crossed each other in the field, especially in those days, and it wasn't uncommon to develop arrangements with a worthy opponent; usually nothing extensive: some overlooked sightings, a delay reporting an asset's findings in exchange for the name of a diplomat on the take, small favors between agents whose primary job was to cancel each other out.
Could Beelzebub and Gabriel have encountered each other like that? Had spending time with smugglers and anarchists, and working alongside-but-against a militant lunatic have corrupted an over-eager patriot into craving a war no one would ever win? The thought had merit.
"He'd been back over a year when the first red flag was raised," Shadwell continued. "'Parrently another agent, identified only as Smyth, requested an investigation because of all his grumblings. Then a fella in accounting discovered the embezzlement. Apparently, Heralding's reported expenses didn't add up. 'E'd been using mission assets for his own purposes for months in Germany."
"Doing what?" Adam suddenly spoke up. "I read the report but none of it's not very specific."
"Unclear," Shadwell answered. "Might have been smuggling, gambling, jus' livin' the high life. The investigation stalled before it could be finished 'cuz Heralding died in a car crash before he could be fired or charged."
"Rumor at the time was he knew he was about to be caught, got drunk, and drove the car into a river," Warlock suddenly spoke up.
Crowley startled; he had not even realized the dark-haired boy had come in with the others.
When Newt gave him a puzzled look, the young agent shrugged.
"My dad works in the government. He said it was quite a scandal at the time and everyone wanted to sweep it under the rug."
"Exactly," Shadwell confirmed. "Din't find the body for three days. Had to identify 'im by his clothes, and e'ryone was so busy hidin' the story from the public, the investigation was closed. People assumed what they wanted."
"And presumably in the scramble, Heralding used an alias, sneaked back to Germany and got his criminal friends to get him a new identity and face so he could use all his stolen money," Crowley surmised.
A nod of agreement went around the room.
"The earliest public records of Arkangel date three years after Heralding's death," Anathema added from Crowley's lap, causing the agent to jump. In the rush of information, he had forgotten his boss was there electronically.
"What I don't understand is how he fits in with Beelzebub and why they'd bomb a charity gala," Newt mused.
"They knew each other already," Crowley said simply, holding up the paper from the file. "She was in Berlin at the time he was. I traced her work history back when I was hunting her after the attempted mutiny. I tried to find all the contacts she might have had back in the day. There were rumors about an American she crossed paths with, but nobody had a name, and he was long gone by then."
"Arkangel," Anathema breathed.
"Yup," Crowley agreed. "My best bet is they reunited recently, otherwise why wait 'til now?"
"Why wait for what?" Wensleydale asked.
"To start the war they both wanted," Crowley replied.
There was a second of horrified silence before Brian, Pepper, and Wensleydale all shouted at once.
"What?!"
"Are you serious?!"
"No!"
"I don't understand," added Warlock, "How will this start a war? Won't it just look like a terrorist attack?"
"Not if they use a Russian bomb, Crowley said matter-of-factly. "And if they bought them from who I think they did, that's exactly what they'll do."
"Crowley, what are you talking about?" Newt asked. "Who are the bombs coming from?"
"Red," Crowley said with grim certainty, thinking back to the conversation he had heard in Beelzebub's flat; the faint, feminine voice that he could just detect coming through the other end. "Carmine Zuigiber."
The younger agents looked confused, but Newt, Anathema, and Shadwell all grimaced.
"The Horseman of War," Anathema groaned from the phone.
"Yep," Crowley said with a solemn nod.
1 No doubt the result of another one of Newt's ill-fated pyrotechnic experiments.