by DarkMark
"Wake up, Scotty."
One eye in Alexander Scott's face opened, warily. He'd been partnered with this man long enough to read his voice tones. There was nothing there that told him to get out of bed and grab his gun before he grabbed his drawers.
"Y'know, Kelly," said Scott, "you've really got to work on your wake-up lines. I mean, like, when I was a kid, back in wherever it was I was a kid in, my mom, she was beautiful, she'd always do this routine..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Kelly, impatiently. He was sitting beside the bed, his foot near the Head tennis racket that Scott had dropped there last night, just before he collapsed and snoozed ten hours straight. "I've heard that. Scotty, I've got word on what happened last night."
Scott raised himself to a sitting position. "Oh?"
"They want us off it."
"What?"
"They want us off, Scotty. They want us to come home."
"Come home?" Scott swung his long legs out of bed. "Now, listen, Kelly. Here we are, in Hong Kong, we've busted into an operation by the Hong Kong Tong or whatever they call themselves..."
"Yeah."
"...we've even learned there's something behind it bigger than the Tong itself, maybe, we've just got the tail end of it..."
"I know. And it looks like the tail's all we're gonna get."
Scott spread his hands. "Why?"
Kelly scratched the back of his neck. "They say it's being handled by another agency."
"What?"
"That's all I got out of them. By another agency."
"Oh, now, what is this, Kelly? Are we facing competition, now? Is it, I mean, do we have to go around playing, 'I'm Hertz, I'm Avis,' with somebody, and all that?"
"I. Don't. Know."
"Kelly, look. A couple of nights ago we got shot at, for cryin' out loud. We shot back. I got one of the guys, too."
"Thought I got him."
"Betcha five to one he's got my bullet. You wanna bribe the coroner's office, or me?"
"You're starting to sound eager about this. That scares me." Kelly grinned.
"Me? Eager? Heck, no! But if I gotta do it to save our all-American hides, you ought to know that I can shoot just as well as I volley."
"Point being?"
"Oh, you're walking on dangerous ground now, let me tell you!"
Kelly's expression sobered. "We both are, Scotty. Apparently too dangerous."
Scott looked serious as well. He hung his wrists over his knees. "Hey. Whatever it is, we can handle it."
"Apparently we're not going to be allowed to handle it. I've got us a flight booked out in a few hours. Get dressed." He slapped Scott's calf through the covers.
Grumbling, Scott emerged from the bed. "If this keeps happening, maybe it's time to quit and get married."
"Not for a couple of years, I hope."
"Yeah."
-L-
"Good God!"
Bond wasn't sure which of them had said the words, or if it was himself. It was the least important thing in the world, at the moment.
Above them, by a number of stories, something had hit the blasted building. A bomb? Most likely. But of what nature, and how delivered? Didn't matter. Survival. That was all that mattered now.
He had taken a place under the table, feeling a twinge of pain in his wounded arm, and noted that Flint, Illya, Solo, and Emma had done the same, individually. A gun was in his hand. The reverbrations of the explosion were deafening. He glanced up, through the front window of the restaurant, and noted great chunks of debris, stone and steel, falling to the street. And, he knew, crushing some pedestrians and cars.
The bloody bastards. The bloody bastards must have hit the very
level the League functioned on. The doctor who attended him, the
assistants that were support troops for their endeavor, all dead.
John Steed.
John Steed had to be dead.
Crawling forward, Bond smelled the acrid odor of smoke and took a look at Emma Peel, who was hugging carpet between Illya and Flint. She caught his eye and he saw the terror in her gaze. It seemed foreign to her very nature, but she knew why she was afraid, and it was not for herself.
Damn Steed. Why did he have to be here? Why did he have to be the one to die?
Solo was at his side, UNCLE Special in his hand. "Bond. They may be waiting for us to come out."
He whipped his head around to face Solo, his face reddened with anger. "Then we won't disappoint them. You want to stay and let 20 stories collapse on you?"
"I just suggested it to let you know," said Solo, tersely, and looked aggravated.
"Napoleon," said Illya. "Let's go ahead. Are you with me?"
"We're all with you, Illya," said Flint, a rather conventional gun in his hand. "Come on."
Mrs. Peel looked at them and, in a tone icy with agony, said, "Incorrect, Mr. Flint. Not all of us...are here...to be with you."
The waiters and the rest of the restaurant staff were reacting with predictable horror. God knew what was going on up in the rest of the building. How many men, how many women, had died just because some idiot had decided to make a San Francisco office building his personal war zone?
Bond said to Emma, "We understand, Mrs. Peel. Now, let's be on with it."
She nodded, once, from her crouching position, like an ice sculpture. The five of them began to move towards the front door and window.
The maitre-d of the place ran forward from the back, a covered metal dish on his arm, probably not even aware it was there. He was screaming about a bomb, which was understandable, and the rest of the personnel weren't too far behind him in panic. Solo stuck out a leg and tripped him. He went flying, kissed carpet, and scattered a platter of eggs, hotcakes, coffee, sausage, toast, and syrup all over the floor before him for a good ten feet.
Solo grinned. "You prefer over-easy, Illya?"
Flint was on his feet, turned to the waiters, waitresses, cashiers, and few patrons still left. "If there's a back way out of here, take it. In an orderly fashion, please. We'll handle this situation."
One of the waitresses said, "But, sir, a--"
"We'll handle it," Flint repeated.
One look at the faces on the phalanx of five was all the hoi polloi needed. The uniformed people made their way quickly out the back.
Bond led the way to the front window, smashed it with a blow of his gun, kicked down glass along the bottom edge. Illya was doing the same on the other side. Mrs. Peel kicked open the front door and Flint nudged through the opening, gingerly, gun at the ready.
Outside, it was hell. Burning material in the street, some of it probably human, most of it remains of cars and furniture and God knew what. People. Screaming people. Men and women and kids, just driving, walking, whatever, interceded by an act of fate. No, of fatality.
"We have to help," said Illya, decisively.
"Help?" Bond was scanning the skies and the crowds who were forming. "Help what? We're not the bloody Red Cross. There's more here than we can deal with."
"Then we shall deal with what we can," said Mrs. Peel, and trotted over to a screaming man who was holding a bloodied left arm. Within a few minutes, he had a torn-up part of his shirt to bite down on and another part of shirt forming a tourniquet.
Bond had his gun holstered again--he considered he might be an idiot for that, but no one had followed up on the attack and their weapons would cause too much attention. He hesitated. Of course, he knew about emergency medicine, but damn it all, these were civilians...
These were the people that people like him were supposed to protect.
Before he knew it, he was directing a group of five people getting survivors out of a car that had been mostly demolished by a falling bit of building. He smashed in the window with his gun, again. A woman and her child were the only ones left of a family of four.
Solo had activated his pen. "Open channel D," he said. In quick, clear tones, he explained the situation to his superior and got them to contact the local Red Cross and emergency services. Sirens were already audible. He, too, joined the others.
Flint seemed most expert of them all at tending to wounded, even at calming down children. Emma worked like a machine--no, Bond considered, like a World War II-era nurse taking care of buzz-bomb victims. The five of them were open targets for any of the enemy, if enemies were present. But if there were, none had shown themselves.
Lucky for them, Bond thought as he tied up a man's wounded arm. Just then, if anybody had taken a shot at any of them, he would have physically ground the attacker to atoms on the asphalt.
The fire engines had arrived by this time, along with the ambulances. Specialized personnel with better equipment than the five of them had to hand. The five of them gave way to the professionals, and reassembled on the sidewalk across the street from the stricken building. A great fiery wound had been carved in it, and they could see the ceiling sagging from a floor above through the hole. There was smoke, and blackened material, and little else.
Emma Peel turned away. Illya tried to put an arm about her, but she slapped it aside. He rubbed his bicep, wincing.
Bond spoke up. "Emma. I'm sorry. Believe me."
She wasn't facing him. She was looking at the ground, her eyes closed, and Flint and Solo looked as though they were glad Bond was doing the talking, not them.
"He was a brother in arms," Bond continued. "We were not the greatest of friends, but I knew of his work."
Emma looked up at him with blazing eyes. "Will you kindly stem the flow of your crocodile tears, Mr. Bond? I do not wish to speak with you at this time!"
Solo cleared his throat. "Emma," he said, softly. "All we can do at this point is--avenge him. And we will."
Flint was behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, and, for whatever reason, she did not shrink away. "John Steed was a great man," he murmured. "And he left us a great job. If you wish to stand away for awhile, Emma, we'll understand."
"You do not understand a solitary thing," she said, and the break in her voice was clear. "You do not--understand--a singular--solitary--thing--"
Illya was the first to perceive the persons approaching them. He had his Special out as he turned.
Four men, one woman, all of them persons whom the five of them had met in the League's office just a day ago. And one other, in a bowler hat, carrying an umbrella, and looking as grim as Emma had ever seen him.
"Perhaps I understand, Emma," he said. "Now, shall we find a place to do business?"
For a long moment, Emma Peel could not speak. The clenching and unclenching of her hands was as much of an emotional tell as Bond had seen from her in their short association. The look in her eyes, though, was unmistakable. With but a nudge, Bond felt sure Emma would have run into the man's arms.
Instead, she managed to compose herself reasonably, and said to John Steed, "Welcome back to the living, Steed."
Steed looked out at the scene on the street before them. "Not for all of us, Mrs. Peel. Not for all of us. Gentlemen, you see what we're up against." He looked at them, inquisitorially.
Bond stepped up to him, and offered him a cold expression and an open hand.
Steed took the hand, shook it, and gave him the expression back.
Then Bond smiled, tightly. "Good to have you back, John. Shall we find our schoolyard bully, now?"
Steed replied, "With all due haste, Mr. Bond. With all due haste."
To be continued...
NOTES FOR PART 3:
"One eye in Alexander Scott's face opened, warily." Alexander Scott is a Rhodes scholar and top American agent, whose cover is as a traveling tennis pro. He appeared in the I SPY television series.
"'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' said Kelly, impatiently." Kelly Robinson
is Alexander Scott's fellow agent, who poses as his tennis trainer.
He appeared in the I SPY television series.