"I still don't understand," said Pepper. "Who is this Red bitch?"
"She's a ghost," Anathema answered with a sigh. "An arms dealer to the elite terrorists and warlords of the world. Her fingerprints have been present in every major conflict in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for the last thirty years, but she's always gone before anything goes bad."
Pepper's eyes went wide. She looked somewhere between impressed and annoyed. "Wow," she said noncommittally. "And nobody's ever been able to get a shot at her?"
"We've tried," Anathema said. "Only one mission ever came close, and at that point we didn't know exactly who we were dealing with. Did we Crowley?"
Pepper, Adam, Brian, Wensleydale, and Warlock all turned in unison to look at Crowley, who gulped. The day he crossed paths with Carmine Zuigiber, had been on the same mission he first worked with Aziraphale.
"It's a long story," he said.
Ten Years Earlier
Crowley had been called into Anathema's office like any other day, exactly one week after an oil company executive had turned up dead overseas, his body found with an ominous note threatening death to people who "poison the Earth."
The man's company had recently been the cause of a major oil spill. A tragic mistake, no doubt, but hardly an act of gross negligence on the company's part: a tanker had been caught in a storm and capsized. Thousands of gallons of oil had spilled, poisoning a coral reef and untold aquatic life.
Crowley recalled being saddened by a photo of an oil-covered dolphin being hauled out of the sea by rescuers.
"Nasty business that," Crowley sighed when Anathema asked what he knew of the case.
"Indeed," she said. "Anyway, we've been asked to investigate the murder because the company board has reason to suspect this was the work of eco-terrorists, and that they may be planning to strike again."
"Eco-terrorists?" Crowley parroted. "Hardly my area of expertise."
"Agreed," Anathema said with a nod. "That's why you're taking this one on with a partner. You've got more field experience, so we want you on the job, but he's an expert on organizations who justify violence with claims of morality."
Crowley scoffed as she hit the intercom button on her desk. "Ms. Tracy, would you send in Agent Eastgate please?"
"Right away, love," Tracy's kindly voice answered.
The door opened a moment later and Crowley's brain stopped functioning momentarily.
"Anthony Crowley, meet Aziraphale Eastgate," Anathema said. "He moved to field work from analysis and psychological profiling last year..."
Crowley wasn't listening though. He was too stunned that the soft, pretty, blond in front of him (wearing a tartan bowtie of all things!) could POSSIBLY be a field agent. Sure, he looked like he might be strong, but something about his cherubic smile and halo of curls stood at odds with every other spy, soldier, and criminal Crowley had ever crossed in his career. He didn't know if he wanted to laugh or scold Anathema for the insane idea of sending this sweet-looking creampuff of a person into the field after violent terrorists.
He had settled on an inarticulate sound of greeting consisting mostly of consonants.
"Nice to meet you, Dear Boy," Aziraphale replied with a smile, surprising Crowley with a crushingly strong handshake. "Shall we get started then?"
Three weeks of early mornings, late nights, and interspersed bickering later, Crowley and Aziraphale had tracked the murder to a radical environmental organization headed by noted marine biologist Mako Dagon, heir to a vast family fortune of questionable origin and an outspoken critic of ocean polluters. Dagon had been on the record with extreme views about humanity's impact on the planet and they were known to have fixation with sharks.
MI6 surveillance indicated that Dagon would be meeting with a collaborator at their home in Italy, potentially to plan their next move. Aziraphale thought it would be the most prudent time to intercept them.(1)
The Bentley sped down the curving road towards the Mediterranean and Aziraphale squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, shouting as Crowley swerved the car to pull around a Vespa.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, clutching the dashboard. "I know you have a license to kill but I don't think that applies to vehicular manslaughter!"
"Oh relax!" Crowley huffed in irritation. "We've got to get there quickly if we're going to disrupt this meeting."
Another few turns and Crowley parked the car at the base of the cliff in an alcove he scouted the day before. Down the road was the gate to the estate property. The house itself sat perched on the cliff overlooking the sea.
"Nice view they've got," Crowley remarked as Aziraphale exited the car and straightened the collar of his dark shirt. He'd forsaken his signature bowtie for the first time since Crowley met him but had steadfastly insisted on his button-down shirt, much to Crowley's annoyance. They had to be stealthy, and as much as Crowley had to admit he found Aziraphale's strange fashion choices oddly suited to him,(2) he was convinced his own jet-black turtleneck and fitted trousers were better suited to the task. At least Aziraphale had worn something dark for a change.(3)
The trek up the cliff had been grueling. They had stuck to the road, hiding in the shadows of the rock face for as long as possible before they began scaling the actual side of the cliff.
Crowley was surprised by how well Aziraphale held his own on the climb. Yes, he was obviously winded now that they stood at the top, but the speed at which he'd scaled the rock made Crowley wonder just how much of the stocky exterior was actually camouflaged muscle.
He shook his head. Now was not the time to think about that.
"You ready?" he asked his still huffing partner. He didn't want to stay still too long.
"Yes, of course," Aziraphale replied, taking one last deep breath. "We had better get a wiggle on."
Without another word, the blond headed off towards the tree line, leaving Crowley to ponder what he'd just heard.
"Wiggle on?" he repeated incredulously under his breath. How could someone so clever be so stupid? he thought as he followed after the other agent.
Their plan was to enter from a veranda on the side of the house. As they got closer to their destination Crowley began to assess the logistics from their current location crouched in a hedgerow. He could see the guard post by the main gate which their cliffside entrance had averted. Behind it, he saw three motorcycles, two white and one fire engine red, parked in the cobblestone driveway alongside a black four-by-four. He assumed they belonged to Dagon's contact and their entourage. The contact was known to them only as "Red" and was assumed, but not confirmed, to be a woman.
"Alright, looks like security is focused on the door now that Red's here," Crowley said. "There might be one bloke up there watching the balcony. I'll go up first. You jam the camera signals, and I'll give you the sign to come up when the coast is clear."
Aziraphale nodded, clearly willing to let the other agent take the lead.
The blond pulled his fob watch out of his trouser pocket and tapped the top button. A light on the watch face illuminated and he nodded at Crowley. They had two minutes during which all surveillance devices in a 100-foot radius would be scrambled.
Crowley checked to make sure the guards' backs were turned and sprinted the short distance to the house. In a matter of seconds, he crossed the lawn and vaulted up to grab hold of the balcony railing, hauling his slender frame over the balustrade. As expected, he had barely gotten to his feet when the glass door swung open, revealing a guard in a grey uniform, wielding a rifle at Crowley.
The redhead sprang into action before the guard could respond, spinning on his heel to deliver a high kick to the guard's elbow, knocking the gun away, then hitting him in the jaw with a right hook.
As the man staggered, Crowley pulled him into a headlock and clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. The man went limp after a moment of struggle and Crowley checked his pulse; he was alive but unconscious. Good enough.
Crowley came to the edge of the railing and waved at Aziraphale, who waved back and began his own spring towards the house.
Crowley was in the process of removing the unconscious soldier's belt to restrain him when he was struck with an idea.
"Crowley?" Aziraphale asked as he came over the edge of the veranda.
Crowley turned as he finished buttoning the guard's shirt over his own black one.
"Oh, Good Lord," Aziraphale scoffed.
"What?" he said with a shrug, sparing a glance towards the half-naked man on the floor. "We're the same size. Bloody good camouflage if you ask me."
Crowley tightened the belt around the man's wrists and shoved a sock into his mouth before picking up the man's ID and discarded gun. Aziraphale simply rolled his eyes.
"Yes, well, lead on then."
They had made it well inside the mansion, passing a dining room, a library, and three bathrooms when the trouble arose.
They had just reached a cross corridor and it was a coin-toss which direction to go.
"Shit!" Crowley spat. "Now what?"
"Perhaps we ought to split up," Aziraphale posed, more a question than a statement.
"Oh yes of course," Crowley mocked, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Just split up and hope we find each other again. I can see it now, 'excuse me Sir, I'm a secret agent spying on your boss's terror plot and I've lost my partner, think you could help me find him again?'"
Aziraphale shot him a dirty look. "Do you have any better ideas? Or one, single, better idea?"
Before Crowley could respond footsteps were coming down the hall. Crowley shoved Aziraphale back the way they'd come and turned to face the newcomer, brandishing his pilfered weapon.
"Easy man!" the interloper blurted, looking startled. "What are you doing in here?"
Crowley gaped for a moment as he scrambled for an excuse when the man, presumably the head of the security team spoke again. "Who are you anyway?
Crowley pounced. He didn't want to risk the sound of gunplay in the hall disrupting the meeting.
The guard's eyes went wide as he was tackled to the floor.
The two men hit the ground with a grunt. Before Crowley could incapacitate him, the officer had pulled a radio from his shirt pocket and called into it.
"I need backup! We have an intruder in a security uniform!"
Crowley clocked him in the head with the butt of the rifle and the man went silent, but the damage was done. His camouflage was blown.
From both sides of the hall, footsteps came pounding. At least four sets to Crowley's ear.
"Aziraphale, run!" he called out, jumping to his feet.
"Crowley!" Aziraphale tried to protest.
"Just go!" the redhead snapped, firing off two shots down the hall. "They haven't seen you. Find the meeting!"
Aziraphale gave him a desperate look, biting his lower lip, then nodded and ran back the way they had come.
"Come and get me you bastards," Crowley muttered as the new guards came charging at him. He opened fire.
Crowley had taken out two guards and injured a third by the time the back-up had arrived from the second wing of the hall and outnumbered him.
Bruised and covered in blood that was only partially his own, Crowley had found himself with no sunglasses, no guns, and a left knee he was sure was sprained at best, being hauled down the hall by two burly guards, one holding each of his arms, while a third, the woman he had injured, held a rifle to his back.
The party made an abrupt left turn through a set of heavy, wooden double doors into a lavish office. The room was enormous, at least two stories high, and ostentatiously decorated with suits of armor flanking the doors and ornately carved bookcases smattered around the room. There were floor to ceiling windows on one wall behind a large mahogany desk where Dagon, a tall pale figure with stringy, almost wet-looking, brown hair and a pointed nose sat hunched across from a woman who could only be 'Red.' She was a striking figure with an attractive but harsh face and long hair almost as red as Crowley's.
Across the room from the conspiring criminals, was the room's most striking feature which momentarily distracted Crowley from his targets: stretching three-quarters of the way up the wall and running the length of the room was a massive fish tank filled with gorgeous coral structures and no less than three large sharks. Next to the tank on the far side of the room, a thin spiral staircase ascended to a metal catwalk over the crystal-clear water.
"Well, well," Dagon snarled, revealing a smirk of sharp looking, perfect teeth. "Looks like we have company Carmine."
"Thanks for the directions, guys," Crowley quipped through his split lip. "I got it from here."
He was answered with a swift elbow to the ribs.
"Sorry to interrupt, Boss," the guard on Crowley's right said. "He attacked Samm in the hall and he's got Seth's ID badge. I sent a couple of boys to check the veranda."
Dagon nodded and Crowley felt a spike of panic for Aziraphale.
"Thank you, Mr. Yama," Dagon replied coolly, before nodding to the woman holding the gun to Crowley's back. "Lilith, go clean yourself up,"
Crowley felt the rifle retreat before Dagon addressed him directly.
"So, do I get the pleasure of knowing the name of the intruder in my home?"
"I know who he is," Red chimed in. She sounded vaguely Eastern European, but her accent was impossible to place. "British accent, red hair, golden eyes, and a scar on his right temple(4)... He's Anthony Crowley of MI6. An associate of mine had the displeasure of running across him once. Mr. Crowley here put quite a crimp in his plans."
"I'm sure the pleasure was all mine," Crowley shot back. "Though I feel at a disadvantage. You know me, but I don't know you."
"Carmine Zuigiber," the woman said with a grin that looked nearly venomous. "You may have heard of me by my other name The Horseman of War, not that I expect you'll have need to know that information for long."
Crowley flinched. He'd heard reports of this person, but he never expected she was who Dagon was meeting with. This situation was more serious than even Aziraphale had realized.
"Indeed," Dagon interrupted his train of thought, flashing their frightening smile once again. "Carmine, why don't you finish telling me about your merchandise and then I can show you how we feed the fish."
"I'd love to," the arms dealer said, producing a small plastic tube from the pocket of her red leather jacket and placing it on the desk in front of Dagon. "In that canister are the detonator codes. Even I don't know them, and if you try to open them within the next six hours, a time bomb inside will destroy them, and you'll have wasted money on a dirty bomb you can't use."
Crowley felt his entire body go rigid. What would an environmentalist want with a dirty bomb?
Without thinking, he began to writhe against his captors, bringing his injured leg down as hard as he could manage on one's foot while wrenching his shoulder away from the other, managing to connect his elbow with the man's side.
He freed himself only a step when two more men he hadn't noticed before emerged from a shadowy corner of the room, guns drawn. Both were wearing leather jackets similar to Red's, one black and one white and Crowley assumed they must be the owners of the other two motorcycles outside.
The man in white had olive skin pockmarked with a combination of scars and blisters and cropped gray hair with a matching beard. The rider in black still wore their helmet and Crowley vaguely wondered what they must look like if the disfiguration on the other had not inspired him to keep his helmet on, but this person had chosen to continue hiding their face.
Crowley stilled and Dagon cackled.
"Nice try, Mr. Crowley," they said, rising from the uncomfortable looking desk chair and slipping the canister into the breast pocket of their grey blazer. "Carmine, if you and your associates would be so kind as to assist me, I think my babies need their next snack sooner rather than later."
"Of course," she purred, gesturing to the two, armed men. "Señor Corona, Monsieur Azrael, make sure Mr. Crowley doesn't get any ideas."
"WITH PLEASURE," the figure in the helmet said in a deep, rasping voice, before he and his companion advanced.
Dagon grabbed Crowley by the front of his stolen shirt and nodded towards the staircase.
"Yama, fetch the life vest," they ordered. "Mormo, prepare the hook."
The two guards scattered, the larger of the two darting up the metal stairs with a clatter while the other made his way to a panel of light switches near its base.
Crowley heard a whir and a loud clattering overhead as a winch he had not noticed before came to life in the ceiling above the tank and moved swiftly along a metal track towards the main part of the room.
As they both watched the machinery move, Dagon dragged Crowley with the aid of the two gunmen towards the base of the staircase.
When the mechanism was in position, Mormo flipped another switch and the winch began to lower. As it came closer, Crowley could see it was affixed with a large hook.
He began to fight again, squirming as best he could on his unharmed leg and pushing and clawing with both hands against Dagon's chest.
The shark expert's grip never loosed until he heard another banging set of footsteps from the stairs.
Yama had returned carrying what did indeed look like a slim black life vest.
Dagon released his shirt and he fisted his hand in theirs. He needed a way out and he was struggling to see one.
Crowley was kicked hard in the bad knee and flinched, giving Dagon the opportunity they needed to pull free. Crowley instinctively stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets but this bought him little time. Yama forced his hands up and Dagon pulled the harness' sleeves over his arms, fastening the device's buckles behind his back and sliding the hook through a metal ring attached to the garment half-way up the back.
Mormo received another nod from his boss and flipped another switch. The winch hoisted Crowley's feet a few inches off the ground.
"You see Carmine," Dagon said matter-of-factly. "The trick is to use live bait, and not to restrain them too much. The flailing limbs are the perfect dinner bell and remind them of hunting in their natural habitat."
"So if I don't move, does that spoil their appetites?" Crowley asked, unable to keep his snide comments to himself.
"They really aren't picky," Dagon answered, assessing his blood-stained clothes. "I imagine you'll smell good enough that it won't matter."
With that, they headed back towards their desk with Corona and Azrael in tow, guns lowered now, and Mormo flipped the switch back up.
Crowley felt himself being hoisted slowly upwards and wondered if Aziraphale was still in the building, obviously he hadn't found the terrorists, but maybe he had gotten away to call backup. Not like they'll be likely to get here in time.
"While we're waiting for the show to start, may I continue?" Red asked, kicking her feet up on the desk.
"By all means," Dagon answered.
Zuigiber produced a folder from a satchel on the floor and passed it over the desk.
"The photos," she said. "As we discussed, the bomb itself has enough power to level any structure it's in and would likely kill anyone in a half-mile radius instantly, but if I'm not mistaken your interest in is the fallout."
Dagon nodded. Their excitement was palpable.
Red continued. "The bomb is loaded with nuclear material from a decommissioned Soviet arms plant, enough to contaminate over 100 square miles of land for a decade, and all the oil that might have to move through it."
Dagon looked at her inquisitively.
"I never told you," they growled.
"And you shouldn't," Red cut them off. "But I'm not stupid. I need deniability, which is why you won't set the timer until I'm out of the country, but I know your cause and I know my pilot is making the delivery to your man in Riyadh. The math isn't hard."
Even in his desperate predicament, Crowley's mind boggled. Nuclear contamination of a major Saudi Arabian oil field would not just cripple any company that owned oil rights there but the whole energy industry. It would destabilize the economy overnight. It was absolute madness!
Suddenly the harness around his torso jerked to the side and he moved over the open water of the tank. His blood ran cold. At least he will have slowed them down, he thought grimly.
"Speaking of your pilot," Dagon continued.
"Yes," Red grinned. "If you find everything to your satisfaction, I'll give the signal to him to take off as soon as you give me my money and the coordinates."
Dagon nodded and reached beneath the desk, producing a canvas duffle bag and a slip of paper. Red glanced through it and Crowley noted with interest that he had stopped moving. Apparently, they wanted to give this their full attention, a horrible part of his stomach twinged at the thought. Waiting as he heard the sharks churning the water below him, hoping against hope for a miracle might be worse than just being dropped instantly into the feeding frenzy.
Across the room Red nodded, then produced a bulky satellite phone from her satchel. She dialed a number and spoke briefly into it.
"Payment secure. You're clear for takeoff," she said before rattling off a series of numbers Crowley was too busy panicking to remember.
Red hung up the phone. "When my helicopter arrives, your man will call you and you can open the canister. Give him the code and he will be able to set the detonation timer."
"Very well," Dagon said. "It's been nice doing business with you."
Their attention then turned from Red to Mormo. They nodded, but before Mormo could throw the final switch, a bang and a mighty crash erupted from the side of the room.
Crowley's head swiveled as fast as the terrorists' towards the noise. The grate of an air vent above a bookshelf had blown open and Aziraphale came tumbling out, landing gracelessly on the floor, gun drawn.
"No one move!" he shouted imperiously, and for a moment no one did as they all seemed too shocked to have found themselves suddenly staring down the dust-covered agent.
The door to the room opened again, breaking the spell of confusion and Lilith limped back in, clearly drawn by the noise, a bandage now wrapped around her bleeding leg. Her rifle was drawn, and it didn't take her long to identify the intruder and level it at him.
"Aziraphale look out!" Crowley called.
Aziraphale spun to face the woman and pulled the trigger. She dropped to the floor and Yama threw himself at Aziraphale from behind. Aziraphale dodged the attack but tripped over the prone form of Lilith as Azrael and Corona opened fire. A case full of salvaged shipwreck artifacts exploded in a shower of glass. Aziraphale's pistol flew out of his hand and was snatched from the floor by Yama as the blond crashed into a suit of armor.
Crowley, seeing that Mormo had abandoned his position by the switchboard to join the fray, began to flail his body wildly, deciding to take the chance that he could swim to the edge of the tank and escape now that the cavalry had arrived. Maybe, just maybe, we can both get out of here alive. But the hook held steady to his harness.
Yama stepped closer to Aziraphale, who seemed slightly dazed by his fall. He leveled the stolen pistol at the blond, and suddenly the agent no longer looked lost.
In a movement so quick and so fluid Crowley almost missed it Aziraphale was on his feet, the suit of armor's gold-hilted broadsword grasped firmly in his hand.
Yama was dead on the floor before anyone realized what had happened.
Another hail of bullets burst from the bikers' guns and Aziraphale threw himself to the ground, rolling out of harm's way, and regaining his feet as if it were nothing.
Another guard charged into the room, drawn by the commotion and was run through before he could react to the scene before him.
Now Aziraphale was advancing as the bikers reloaded their weapons.
Mormo had drawn a pistol but before he could fire, Aziraphale had snatched a marble bookend off the nearest shelf and hurled it at the man's head. The time it took him to dodge cost him his life.
Crowley, still struggling against his bonds, was enraptured. It was like watching a master ballet dancer move through a recital. All thoughts of Aziraphale as clumsy or soft were shattered as he watched the blond whirl around the room like a tornado of destruction. It was like he was born to wield a sword.
As yet another guard hit the floor, Red's somewhat amused look grew serious and the arms dealer rose to her feet.
Aziraphale was now fighting Corona, who had run out of ammunition and was wielding the suit of armor's shield with one hand and had pulled what Crowley guessed was a poison dart out of a pouch on his belt with the other.
As Aziraphale swung gracefully out of reach yet again, the sword crashed down heavily once more on the shield. Behind them, Red crept along the side of the wall, followed closely by Azrael, but instead of heading for the door, as Crowley expected, the red-haired woman made a swift move and pulled the sword free of the second suit of armor. She instantly began to wield it with the same easy strength as Aziraphale. In a second, she was behind the blond.
"Behind you!" Crowley yelled as loudly as he could, hoping his partner would react fast enough as the arms dealer lunged towards him.
Aziraphale ducked and swept his leg out, knocking Corona off balance.
Red jumped back to avoid the swing of her henchman's poisonous weapon and Aziraphale had the opening he needed to get back to his feet and bring the sword down on the other man's arm, his hand and the poison hitting the floor. Aziraphale grabbed the dart and drove it into its owner's neck and the rider crumbled to the floor.
Now it was just Aziraphale and Carmine fighting mono ȧ mono. Crowley looked around desperately for Dagon but there was no sign of the terrorist who he'd last seen diving behind their desk when the gunfire started.
Azrael had apparently retreated when his fellow biker had fallen.
Zuibiger was an excellent swordswoman. The pair sparred in what Crowley suspected was better form than the knight's whose swords they were wielding could have managed.
As they fought, they circled the room, drawing closer and closer to the shark tank.
Crowley couldn't take his eyes off the scene below him, his plan to jump for the water momentarily forgotten. More than once he had to gasp desperately for air, having forgotten to even breathe as he watched his fellow agent fight, his face set with all the righteous fury of an avenging angel.(5)
Aziraphale lunged and Red leapt back to the first of the stairs. She had the high ground now, but she was being driven backwards up the spiraling steps to a dead end. The woman seemed to realize her error and grew frantic in her attacks. Aziraphale ducked left and right, pushing her further up and back towards the top of the tank with each thrust of his sword.
Red's boot slipped off one narrow, metal stair at a particularly aggressive thrust from the blond and he seized on her mistake, slashing her across the arm causing the woman to yelp in pain, her jacket torn and her sword clattering through the open steps to the ground below.
Aziraphale drew back his blade, a silent offer to let the unarmed woman surrender. She stared over his shoulder and grinned viciously.
"Say goodbye to your friend," she hissed.
An alarm began buzzing from the catwalk and Crowley had only enough time to see Dagon standing before the hook's smashed control panel, a cannonball from the shattered salvage cabinet in hand, before he felt himself plummet.
He hit the water with a splash and a feeling like the stopping of a noose. The rope was just long enough to submerge him to the shoulders but not long enough to give him leverage to lift the vest's ring off the hook.
As he hit the water, he heard Aziraphale shout his name. Wrenching his eyes from the ominous dorsal fin approaching from the corner of the tank, he saw Aziraphale launch himself into action, throwing his sword like a boomerang over the tank and charging Zuigiber with the full force of his body. The blade whistled through the air, spinning 360 degrees twice before finding its target and slicing through the rope suspending him in the tank.
Crowley plunged fully into the cold water just as Aziraphale threw Red over the railing of the stairs and she tumbled through the air to the floor.
Crowley's eyes burned against the sting of the salt water and his heart pounded in his chest as they adjusted to make out the blurred, toothy shape of a shark's hungry mouth. Instinctively, he flailed, trying desperately to reach the surface as he kicked at the monstrous fish's gills. He made contact and it reared back as the second shark approached. Before it could close its powerful jaws around his limp leg, he felt himself being pulled as if by magic through the water towards the side of the tank.
His head broke the surface and Crowley was dumbfounded to see Aziraphale crouched on the edge of the catwalk, his right hand clenched in a fist and submerged in the water. His face was a picture of terrified focus.
"Swim, Dear Boy!" he shouted. "I can only pull you so fast."
Crowley did not need to be told twice. He could feel the shark's nose bump against his foot as he paddled towards safety, his injured leg slowing his progress.
Soon his hand found Aziraphale's in the water and the blond was pulling him from the tank as his feet scrabbled for purchase against the slick glass wall.
There was a sound like a roar as water was displaced behind him and the shark breached, snapping at his leg.
Crowley felt the edges of razor-sharp teeth tear the leg of his trousers and scrape across his skin as Aziraphale threw himself backwards with all his strength and hauled him out of the water.
Crowley lay on the catwalk bleeding and gasping for air as Aziraphale scrambled to his feet and peered over the railing towards the stairs.
"Damn!" he shouted. "They're both gone!" He hurried to Crowley's side and pulled him to a sitting position. Crowley startled as his partner wrapped his sturdy arms around him until he realized the other man was unfastening the horrible harness from his body.
"Crowley? Are you alright? Can you walk? We need to go! They've gotten away and we only have a few hours until that bomb contaminates half the Middle East's oil supply!"
The blond was fretting something terrible as Crowley patted down his own legs and struggled to find words though shaky breaths.
"M'fine, 'Ziraphale, 's fine. Jus' need a minute."
"I'm glad you're alright, Dear Boy, but it's most certainly not fine. Dagon and that woman got away."
"Let 'em," Crowley slurred as he stuffed a hand into the tight pocket of his wet trousers. "They're not settin' off that bomb."
He pulled his hand free and produced the detonation code canister.
Aziraphale stared at him in shock.
"Crowley?" He gasped. "When did you? How did you?"
"Nicked it off Dagon when they were strapping me into this kit," he laughed. "Figured at least if worst came to worst the sharks would eat it with me and slow 'em down."
Aziraphale stared at him in awe, his blue eyes blown wide. "You brilliant, wily fiend!" he shouted, pulling him into an actual hug. "That's amazing!"
"Not as amazing as that swordplay," Crowley deflected. He had felt the start of an inexplicable blush up his face and needed the praise to stop at once. "Where did you learn to do that?" And how did you get me out of the water?"
"I was on the fencing team at Oxford," Aziraphale said with a shrug as he released Crowley from the embrace. "I studied other techniques on the side. Once you learn, you never forget. As for the rescue, I'm afraid I owe that one to Q Branch." He brandished his gold pinky ring and explained. "When you twist the wings the right way it becomes a powerful electromagnet."
"Well you may owe Pulsifer, but I owe you," Crowley said earnestly. "Thanks, Aziraphale."
It was the blond's turn to look nervous. "Think nothing of it," he said modestly, "Though speaking of Q Branch I think it best we get out of here and get that back to headquarters," he said with a nod to the canister.
Present Day
"With the evidence we gathered, Dagon and their accomplice in Riyadh were apprehended the next day along with the pilot, but Red and her henchmen disappeared into the wind," Crowley concluded his story.(6) "We discovered later that Zuigiber's supplier was her cousin who had worked in a Soviet weapons factory in Ukraine. The Russians lost track of a lot of materials and nukes when their empire came apart and Red and her crew picked up the pieces. She implied she had a lot of the stuff, but we've never found much of it, so it seems safe to assume that's what Gabriel and Beelzebub just bought."
The young agents gaped at him in shock before Adam broke the silence.
"So they're going to make it look like Russia nuked a charity event with former U.S. Presidents so America will retaliate and they can finally see whose side is best?" the boy asked in apparent disbelief.
"It would appear so," Anathema answered, grimly. "Well done Crowley. At least we know what we're up against now."
"Yeah," he agreed. "The end of the world."
1 Crowley was inclined to agree. Despite his fussy attitude, and slightly foppish mannerisms, the blond's espionage instincts seemed impeccable.
2 He would NOT admit he also found them a little endearing.
3 Though Crowley was also fairly certain Aziraphale's shirt was navy not black, and was not convinced the choice wasn't made to needle him. (He had started to suspect the other agent liked getting under his skin now and then.)
4 The faint mark was another good reason for Crowley to constantly wear sunglasses. He had hidden the long, curved evidence of a nasty childhood fall with long hair in his teens, but with his professionally necessary shorter hair it was yet another distinguishing physical characteristic.
5 Somewhere in the back of his mind the single word beautiful seemed to linger, but he was too caught up in the heart pounding moment to properly analyze that thought.
6 He had left out some of the more personal details, but a part of him still squirmed inside at the memory.