Chapter 3
The moment Caradoc looked into the mirror, he instantly regretted the decision. Although he still recognised himself, even the best surgeons Kingsman could find weren't able to fully restore his appearance. The glass eye, and the jagged scar just below it, was a testament to that.
His memory was blurry at most. He remembered a blue light, a flash, and the next thing he knew, Gawain was dragging him towards a transport helicopter. He'd fallen asleep, before waking up on an operating table.
He'd almost hoped he was dead when the doctor explained what had happened in the Alps.
"Mr. Beumers."
Caradoc jumped. "You scared me, nurse."
"There's someone here to see you."
He sat on the bed, exhaling sharply.
The nurse's form was replaced by Gawain's slender shape. "Hey there."
"Hi," Caradoc said simply, staring at the floor.
There was the sound of metal chair legs scraping across the floor, and then her sitting down. She was wearing standard issue Oxfords.
His one good eye traced the edges along her shoe, and back. And back again.
"I brought you a sandwich."
Paper crinkling, and a plastic bag being crushed.
"It's your favourite. Turkey Mayo, right? From your favourite place down the street as we-"
"I quit," he said, locking his eye with her left one. His hands scrunched the blankets beneath him, soaking it with his sweat.
Gawain said nothing. She put the sandwich back and the bag and set it down next to her chair, swallowing.
"Valerie, I want you to go back to Sagramore and tell him that I no longer want anything to do with Kingsman, okay?"
She didn't reply.
"Val?"
She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
"Oh my god." He touched her cheek with his hand. "I'm sorry, Valerie."
Gawain looked up at him, her eyes red and wet. She opened her mouth to say something, but choked on her own words.
"I can't do this any more. I just...I just can't."
"You're just going to stop?" Her voice broke at the last word. "You're going to just leave me like this?"
"It's not like I can go on."
"Then go to hell." She stormed out of the room, pushing past a nurse who was checking in on the commotion.
Caradoc sat in silence as the nurse picked up the plastic bag with his sandwich in it. "If you don't mind, what as all that?"
"I do mind. Get out of my room."
The nurse silently backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Caradoc laid back on his bed, pulling the sheets over his body. It broke his heart to admit, but Gawain couldn't handle the truth. He was done for. Kaput. Half-blind, he'd be stuck at a desk job like Oberon, and that wasn't a future he was content with.
He was on the brink of sleep when the distinctive report of a high-caliber sniper rifle from just outside the clinic.
Caradoc opened the door and ran out, ignoring the protests of the doctor who had done his surgery. He rushed past the glass doors out front, and looked along the roofs of building along the street. Two roofs down on the right, something glinted in the sunlight.
"Valerie!"
She was lying - no, she was crawling - on the pavement, a thin trickle of blood seeping from her stomach through her fingers. She had managed to throw herself against a car, denying the sniper a line of sight.
Armed men were moving down the street, submachine guns raised.
Caradoc neither knew who they were, or what they wanted with Gawain, but in five seconds flat he found himself sprinting towards them on the right side of the road, past the civilians and forcing his fist into the sternum of one of the gunmen.
He wrapped an arm around the man's throat, and flipped him between himself and the other men. Caradoc ducked behind a car. With a single twisting motion, he broke the man's neck.
The gun in his hands was an MP7. He poked his head out.
One of the shooters was coming towards him.
Caradoc took several steps back, and ran. At the passenger door, he kicked forwards with both legs, sliding along the road. He reached out with the MP7 in one hand and sprayed.
The gunman coming for him failed to react in time and was thrown back a few feet by the force of the bullets, leaving a red snail trail.
The man going for Gawain turned around and fired.
Caradoc ran along the sidewalk, firing back at the man, but at that range, nothing connected. He dove behind Gawain's Mercedes and checked his clip.
Three rounds left.
He popped out and squeezed one at the wall between Gawain and the shooter, causing the latter to duck around a corner.
With the last two rounds, Caradoc aimed at the window of Gawain's car, and fired. Although it was made of bulletproof glass, the twin armour-piercing rounds impacting the exact same spot shattered it.
He reached inside and grabbed her umbrella from the passenger seat.
Caradoc opened the umbrella, and emerged from the cover, bending low to block his entire body. Through it, he saw the gunman lean out of cover, and fire.
The bullets bounced off the canopy of the umbrella, and Caradoc twisted the handle, setting the launcher to "Lethal". He pulled the umbrella release button.
A 9mm bullet launched out of the hole in the umbrella's tip, smashing through the gunman's ribcage and into his heart.
Caradoc turned the umbrella towards the roof behind him, just in time for a .50 caliber-sized hole to appear in it.
The sniper retreated from the ledge.
He scrambled over to Gawain, her eyes half-closed, and pulled off her glasses, placing them on his own face. "Oberon!"
"Dirk? What are yo-"
"Val is shot! Call an ambulance!"
"On its way. What happened?"
"I'll tell you later." He whipped off the glasses, folding their legs and placing them on Gawain's lap. Out of the corner of his eye, a truck was heading towards them at a high speed.
He grabbed Gawain's lighter from her jacket, flipped it open and slid it down the sidewalk, towards the vehicle.
The explosion threw the car into the air, flipping it over backwards.
Caradoc pressed his hands to Gawain's stomach, applying pressure to stop the blood flow. "You're going to be okay, Val. It's gonna be alright."
The ambulance sirens drowned him out. A pair of paramedics rushed to Gawain's side, a third with a stretcher.
Caradoc liberated Gawain's pistol from her jacket, and turned to the overturned car. A man, sniper rifle in hand, had just managed to free his leg from the crushed door. At the sight of Caradoc, he dropped his gun and sprinted for the intersection corner.
Caradoc aimed and squeezed a couple of rounds off, earning shouts of surprise from the paramedics. His bullets took off small chunks of brick from the building.
"Get her to hospital!" he shouted at the paramedics, then took off running.
He emerged around the corner just in time to see the sniper disappear behind the policemen standing in a line, into a crowd of civilians.
"Drop your weapon!" an officer shouted at him.
Caradoc looked at the gun in his hand, and knelt, placing it on the concrete sidewalk. He raised his hand above his head as officers surrounded him, and a pair of gleaming silver handcuffs was secured around his wrists.
Jonas sat down inside the van, out of breath. he called Hekkers on his smartwatch. "I couldn't get her."
"What?"
"There was a second one. He was fast. Killed all the men. Almost killed me, too."
"You had one job."
"Fuck you, Klaas. Who are these people anyway? He had a fucking bulletproof umbrella!"
"A bulletproof what?"
"Umbrella. Even had a gun in it or something, shot one of our guys dead."
Klaas didn't reply.
"I almost fucking died. Your friend didn't tell you this? He trying to get us killed, huh?"
"He's not my friend. No, he didn't tell me. Shit, fuck, what am I supposed to do?"
"Kill him. He's probably one of them."
"If he was one of them you'd be dead already, Jonas. Dammit." There was a long pause. "At least you covered your tracks well. Locals?"
"Locals."
"Use the backup safehouse - they'll figure out our main one. I'll call you there."
Jonas exhaled sharply. "Alright." He hung up, and looked up at the van's ceiling. There was going to be a massive change of plans.
Caradoc had never seen Oberon so angry before, and now that he did, he wish he hadn't. The techie wasn't angry at him - that was beside the point - but rather at himself.
"After the UAV thing, I should have been watching her." He balled a piece of note paper up and flung it at the lab wall.
Caradoc picked idly through Oberon's new gear. "It's not your fault and you know it."
"I was playing around with the shoes. If I had even considered the possibility that she was going to be at-"
"It's not your fault!" Caradoc teetered a little at his own outburst. He shook his head to clear it. "Sorry."
Oberon slumped on a stool in defeat. "We're set back another month, aren't we? You…" He indicated his own left eye. "And now Val."
"I'm still fit for duty. You know that."
"No offense, but, with only one eye, your observation skills are pretty much down the drain. You can't be a Kingsman. A field agent, at least."
"And you want me to just sit here? Doing nothing?"
"What I do isn't nothing. Without an intelligence officer Kingsman is as blind as a bat."
Caradoc glared at him.
"Sorry, that was the first simile that came to mind. I didn't mean to."
The sound of the door opening made them both turn to see Sagramore, shadows under his eyes, standing there. A solemn look was plastered on his face. "Gentlemen."
"How is she?" Caradoc spun around on his stool.
"Valerie is fine. But you, Dirk, are not."
"I'm after them."
"And get yourself killed? What purpose would that serve? It's better if you wait for her to recover, and support her on the mission. You do know her best, after all."
"Did you read my report?"
"I haven't had the time."
"Well, they know what we're capable of now. And from the looks of it, they're not going to stop until we're all dead."
Sagramore shook his head. "Oberon, how's the plates?"
"A hundred euros says it's Phoenix," Caradoc said. "We fucked them us, now they're fucking us back."
"Dunno, sir, it's still running," Oberon said.
"Just let me do it, sir. If we wait any more, they'll have more time to strike against us. At least investigate Phoenix."
Sagramore frowned, but said nothing.
"Sir?"
He looked Caradoc in the eyes. "Alright. But investigation only. Any trouble and you come straight back here, understand?"
Caradoc let out a breath. "Thank you, sir. I won't get into trouble, I promise."
"Very well. Oberon, message me when you have the plates." Sagramore left the lab, heading back up the stairs to his office.
Sagramore disappeared out of sight. "Oh, no you didn't," Oberon groaned, his head slumping on the tabletop.
"I can't just leave this."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Find out who the sniper is. And beat the shit out of him. With or without your support."
After a long, drawn-out sigh, Oberon looked up. "Fine, I'm in."