/Breaking/23.06.98/12:34PM/London, England: Approximately a quarter of an hour ago, an explosion went off at One Canada Square in Canary Wharf. Police are evacuating the area, and while we don't have the numbers yet, casualties are likely to be high. Eyewitnesses report seeing a British Gas maintenance van near the ground-floor entrance of the tower; British Gas denies dispatching any workers to the site. Authorities are treating the incident as a potential case of domestic terrorism. As of yet, no group has come forward to claim responsibility for this tragedy.
They reached Chiswick without incident; even so, all four of them were wary as Eddie pulled into the alley behind the garden. Brigid kept an eye out for any sign of MI-6, thinking that Simon might be waiting for them there - but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The other three hurried across the garden. Brigid was the only one who had the sense to walk casually; neighbors might be watching. James unlocked the back door of the pub, Dillon and Eddie breezing in behind him.
"Pour us a drink, will you love?" Dillon asked when Brigid entered.
She took a seat at the bar and rested her chin in her hand. "Pour it yourself." How long was it going to take for Simon to get there? She wanted this over with, so she could get her amnesty. And she was starting to get hungry - she couldn't remember the last time that she'd eaten. Had she had anything at the hospital?
Dillon frowned at her, then stalked behind the bar. He found a bottle of whiskey and poured out four glasses. Brigid didn't touch the glass that he slid across the counter to her; alcohol clouded the mind and led to poor judgment. She had years of the proof of that. Eddie downed his whiskey in one toss, but James didn't touch his either.
"What happened with the bomb?" James asked quietly, seating himself in the chair next to Brigid. His face was nearly as bloodless as Eddie's.
"It blew up."
"I know, but -" he bit off the rest of his words.
Dillon was pacing up and down behind the bar. "Yes, it's a shame we didn't get the building evacuated," he said airily, with a wave of his hand, misunderstanding the question that James was trying to ask. "A mix up with the timing, no doubt. But we got the job done, that's what matters. As soon as Kelly gets here, we'll sort out that other little problem."
His words were quite similar to what he'd said after their last job together, when her bomb had gone off in the middle of a crowded bus station, rather than an empty one. A mix up with the time tables, no doubt.
Just then, the back door to the pub banged open. Eddie's hand went to the small of his back; then he relaxed when Kelly strode angrily up the hall and into the bar.
"Have a glass," Dillon said, passing Brigid's untouched drink over.
Kelly didn't take it. "What the hell happened? Special forces, anti-terrorist units? They knew we'd be there!" He slammed a radio down on the counter.
"It's amazing we got out," Eddie said, grabbing the glass that had been meant for Kelly and draining the alcohol.
Dillon shook his head. "But we did get out - not even a whiff of a tail. Obviously they were tipped off about the time and location, but they can't have known the details, or we'd've all been caught."
That was odd, Brigid thought. A slip-up on Simon's part? No…he would want to guarantee that as much credit as possible went to himself. He'd be at the pub shortly, in person, with a small team. All she had to do was keep Dillon there until he arrived. Her stomach gave a little rumble. She slipped off the barstool and headed towards the stairs.
"Bridey, where are you going?" Dillon called after her.
"I'm hungry."
"If you know what's good for you, you'll not let her out of your sight," Kelly said darkly.
"What does that mean?" Dillon asked.
"You know what it means! The last job she did with us ended the same way - someone tipped off the police, and it was her!"
The arguing voices floated up the stairwell behind her, but she didn't bother to respond. Once upstairs, she went straight to the kitchen. Brigid had just picked up an apple out of the bowl on the counter when Dillon came charging up the stairs and into the flat; Kelly and James were right on his heels.
"Bridey, talk some sense into this feckin' moron, will you? We have no way of knowin' how the word got out, not yet anyway. I know it wasn't you betrayed us," Dillon said, although she thought she could see a sliver of doubt in his expression.
"It wasn't me," she said, and bit into the apple.
"Like hell it wasn't," Kelly growled. "Patrick gets oh-so-conveniently ill last night, forcing you take his place; you just happened to faint, letting you leave the house during the curfew - who were you meeting with then? Police? SIS?"
James took a threatening step towards Kelly. "Christ, she was in hospital! You saw the ambulance take her - Gwen and Tim saw her there!"
"Yes, hours later!"
Brigid leaned an elbow on the counter and watched the argument, crunching her apple. She wondered who would swing a fist first.
Dillon stepped between the two men, holding up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Let's just calm down, shall we? We have no proof of anything. But I know one thing for sure - Bridey would never betray us. She didn't twelve years ago, she didn't today."
"You can't know that for a fact," Kelly said.
"I can know it for a fact!"
He sounded so positive…
"It was you who tipped off the police about the bus depot bombing," Brigid said suddenly.
Dillon looked at her, startled.
"It makes sense," Brigid mused. "You were trying to get noticed, up the ante. A splashy attack plus a confrontation with the police was a good plan." She was surprised that it had taken her so long to understand what had happened back then. It was so obvious now.
"Well," he began, clearly confused by how calmly she was taking it. She was a bit confused herself. The person who she had been twelve years ago - yesterday, even - would have been horrified by that realization. She knew that - yet she couldn't feel any sort of connection to that former self. Strange as it was though, she dismissed it; she still had MI-6 to deal with.
Kelly looked confused as well, his eyes narrowed at Dillon; but before he could react to Brigid's statement, James had slammed Dillon against the wall, the other man's shirt bunched in his fist.
"You were the one behind that attack?" James growled, his face red with anger. "Brigid ran away from everything she knew and loved because of that. Over a decade now, and it still hurts her too much to talk about - she's been blaming herself, the guilt eating away at her. And all this time, it was you!"
Dillon threw a punch into the side of James' ribcage; as James bent over in pain, his grip loosening on Dillon's shirt, Dillon shoved hard. James stumbled against the dining table. Dillon threw another punch, but James rolled to the side and Dillon crashed into the table, knocking it over. The two men went down with it, the canisters of gunpowder, plastique, and other bomb-making paraphernalia dumped onto the floor.
"I did what was best for my crew!" Dillon protested, choking in a cloud of gunpowder. "Bridey would've understood, if she'd stayed long enough for me to explain!"
James staggered to his feet, his lip bleeding again; he made a lunge towards Dillon, only for Kelly to catch his arms behind his back, holding him fast. Dillon rose, still coughing.
"Look, that was twelve years ago!" Dillon snapped. "We need to focus on what happened today. Sure, and they got wind of it somehow - maybe someone tracked the van, maybe someone higher up let it slip to someone as they shouldn't. I don't know. What I do know is, it wasn't one of us."
The door to the flat flew open with bang. The three men jumped in surprise; Kelly let go of James, who pushed off angrily. Brigid turned towards the entryway.
Eddie was standing there, wide-eyed and breathing hard. "Trouble," he said. "I just heard - on the radio - "
"Heard what?"
"There's a car - on the way here - SIS, they have this address!"
Kelly swung his gaze to Brigid. "So it was one of us."
"Never Bridey," Dillon said, stunned.
Kelly took a step towards Brigid, and for the first time all day, she felt as if she might be in trouble. She tightened her grip on the half-eaten apple; it was hardly a weapon, but there was a knife in the block on the counter, just to her right. Four men…even with a knife, she didn't have much of a chance. Maybe she could talk her way out of it.
But before she could say a word, James stepped in front of her. "Brigid had nothing to do with any betrayal," he said, his voice hard. "You know her - you know she wouldn't ever betray any of you."
"Of course it would never be Bridey," Eddie said in a shocked tone. "Bridey would never do anything to hurt us. She came back, after all these years - everything was fine. You're the only thing that doesn't fit." He pulled a revolver from the back of his jeans and aimed it straight at James.
James froze, staring at the gun.
"Let's just keep calm then," Dillon said - but his eyes were fixed on James. "Well?" he asked. "Was it you?"
"No," James said. His tone was even, but there was perspiration forming on his brow. "It wasn't me. I know I'm an outsider here - but I love Brigid, and I would never do anything to hurt her. She would never do anything to hurt you. We want the same thing here."
Eddie raised the revolver a fraction. "You want Bridey all to yourself - you'd be happy if we were all arrested, admit it!" His eyes were slightly wild; too much to drink on top of a stressful situation, Brigid thought. So foolish, letting emotions carry you away like that.
"I'd be happy if you put that gun down!" James snapped. "Why would I volunteer my own place as a rally point, if I was only going to betray you? Only one of us here has admitted to being a rat, and it wasn't Brigid or me!"
"He's got a point - I want to hear more about how you were the one who called the cops on us twelve years ago!" Kelly pointed an accusing finger at Dillon. "Did I hear you right? Did you admit it? How do we know that it wasn't you this time as well!"
"Dillon?" Eddie said in disbelieving tone. He turned to his cousin, lowering the gun slightly - and James lunged for it. The two men fell to the ground in a tangle, wrestling over the weapon; the explosives that had fallen when the table tipped went scattering across the floor. A canister of gunpowder rolled to a stop at Brigid's foot, half its contents trailing out behind it. Brigid tapped it idly with the toe of her shoe. As long as she stayed out of this until Simon arrived, she'd be fine.
"Damn it, that's enough!" Dillon waded into the fray and grabbed James' arm and jerked him away from Eddie.
James' hand closed around another can of powder. "This is all you!" he shouted and swung the can at Dillon, filling the air with a granular mist.
Dillon ducked, just as Eddie shouted, "Stop!" He brought the gun up to aim at James and cocked the hammer back.
Brigid's eyes went wide as she realized the situation - the gunpowder in the air, the flash of the muzzle - he was going to kill them all. Kill her.
"No!"
Overpowering all else was her need to survive. She stretched out her arm for the gun, but she was too far away.
And too late. Eddie pulled the trigger.
Brigid closed her eyes, refusing to accept the reality of what was happening. She heard the click of the hammer as it hit the firing pin.
No!
There was no gunshot. No explosion. No sound at all.
She opened her eyes slowly, lowering her still-outstretched hand, to be met with the most peculiar tableau.
Eddie still stood with the revolver pointed at James. As if caught in a frame of high-speed photography, the muzzle of the gun was surrounded by a puff of unmoving smoke, flames jetting out from the chamber. A trail of fire arced from the chamber across open space where the gunpowder hung immobile in the icy air, the head of it nearly - but not quite - reaching to the mess of plastique and other incendiaries on the floor.
Curious, Brigid reached into the impending explosion; the flames felt thick, like jelly, but there was no heat. She followed the trail backwards towards the gun and saw the bullet, a bare six inches from the muzzle - it was hanging unsupported. And unmoving.
Nothing was moving. The four men stood frozen, their faces twisted in attitudes of fear and anger. Dillon was leaning back in such a way that surely he must topple over, yet he didn't. Brigid prodded his shoulder with her finger - he was hard as stone. Not even the cloth of his shirt yielded to her touch. None of them were breathing.
She didn't fully comprehend what was happening, but at the same time, it felt natural. She didn't know how, but she was in control. She had time to get out - she wasn't going to die. That was all that mattered.
Brigid made her way to the door of the flat. It was laborious at first: the air was thick and gelid, and even the light was dimmer than it ought to have been. But as she moved, she noticed that a small bubble surrounded her - wherever she happened to be standing - where the atmosphere was more normal. She made a conscious effort and pushed out slightly; the sphere expanded and brightened, and walking became easier. The door was a little tricky, but she was able to enclose it within her bubble and then it swung open with little trouble.
It seemed as if she had all the time in the world, but she knew that that wasn't true. As she headed down the stairs, Brigid had the odd sense that…something…was slipping away from her. The longer she remained within this odd limbo, the more she lost. It tugged at the edges of her mind, but she ignored it for now. Getting out of the pub was her priority. She didn't look back; it didn't occur to her to take anything with her.
Brigid exited into the garden. The outside world was just as frozen as it had been inside the pub. The sunlight was weak; the air was cold; there wasn't a single sound or a hint of a breeze. There was her neighbor, Mrs. Broad, watering her vegetable garden. Water arced out of the hose in a perfect arch, the droplets as fixed in place as if in a photograph. The stillness was so complete that she thought it might shatter at the slightest touch.
She reached the gate; in the near distance a black sedan sat in the road - it looked parked, though it must have been driving. Brigid recognized Simon in the passenger seat, an irritated scowl etched on his face. Good, he was finally here and she could get her amnesty.
Brigid stepped through the gate, then turned back to the pub. She wasn't exactly sure how she had frozen everything in the first place, but she thought that she could start it up again. She closed her eyes, drawing on some nameless power within her. There.
Sound rushed back into the world with a roar. She opened her eyes in time to see the explosion rip through the second story flat, the shock wave staggering her as the building erupted into flames. A car screeched to a halt behind her. The fire was hot, too hot - and too late, she remembered the kegs upon kegs of flammable alcohol stored beneath the blazing apartment. Before she had a chance to react, the second explosion detonated, knocking her off of her feet and into darkness.