Tempest grunted. “Positively the Easter Bunny over here.”

  This registered with the cop—not so much what she said as her demeanor. He had probably drawn his service weapon only a handful of times, and the reaction was never nonchalant, and it certainly was never aggression.

  Still, he persisted. “Get down on the floor⁠—”

  Tempest growled, “Screw this.”

  Chaucer raised his hands higher in the air. “No, Tempest, no!”

  The cop was nervous now. He cocked the hammer of the automatic and nervously shifted aim between Tempest and Chaucer.

  Chaucer pleaded, “We swear we won’t harm anyone, and we’ll get off the train at the next stop. I know your training. I know your rules. I’m begging you to break them this once, or people are gonna get hurt.”

  A shot rang out.

  For a millisecond, Chaucer thought he had misread the situation and that either he or Tempest had been shot. But then he saw the cop fall and blood spurt out of the back of his head.

  He was still processing what had just happened as Tempest tackled him into the seat to their left.

  The two operatives sprayed the car with automatic fire from Skorpion machine pistols. They were notoriously inaccurate weapons, but in the close-quarters tunnel of a train car, they more than did the job.

  They hit a dozen passengers in the first series of strafes.

  Tempest lay on top of Chaucer on the floor of the car beneath a bench seat meant for three. She drew her backup.

  The screams in the car were as deafening as the automatic fire—the screams of people who, in the blink of an eye, had lost loved ones.

  Tempest asked, “Where’s your piece?”

  Chaucer had no idea. The leap inside the train had spun him around completely, and his weapon was gone.

  Tempest frowned. “Goddamn it.”

  She rolled over, looking under the seats for her quarry. There was a solid partition two rows up that prevented her from seeing anything beyond. It also meant they couldn’t see Chaucer and Tempest.

  Tempest took aim at the point where their legs would become visible.

  Chaucer said, “Remember, we need one alive.”

  As if in response, Tempest fired twice, both bullets impacting the shins of the operative unlucky enough to have stepped down the train car first. The bullets hit with a sickening thwack as they ripped through strong but narrow bones, sending the operative to the ground.

  The operative screamed bloody murder.

  Tempest smiled ever so slightly. She saw the operative dragged back and out of her line of sight.

  She whispered to Chaucer, “Time to move.”

  She planted her feet and pushed herself backward under the chairs of the train. It was rough going for the first five feet, then suddenly grew exponentially easier.

  Chaucer looked down and saw why. The floor was coated with blood.

  Their progress stopped when they hit the legs of a ten-year-old girl, shaking and crying, clearly in shock.

  Tempest pushed the girl’s legs aside and continued on her journey.

  Chaucer stopped, his eyes locking with the little girl. The girl whispered, “Please, mister, please. Mommy’s dying.”

  Chaucer propped himself up, and sure enough, slumped over the little girl was her mother. She had a through-and-through, far enough down on her torso that there was an excellent chance her lung was pierced—but not for sure.

  The mother, a small Pakistani woman, was unresponsive and quickly bleeding out.

  Chaucer grabbed the woman’s coat and bunched it up in the front and the back.

  He pressed hard against the entry and exit points of the wound. “Like this. Can you do this? Press as hard as you can for as long as you can.”

  Prrat! Automatic fire filled the car again, bullets piercing the seat where her mother once sat.

  Chaucer pulled the girl lower, repositioned her hands.

  The remaining operative was pissed. He had more firepower, but tactically his position was weaker. He knew where the first shots came from, but where his targets could be was anyone’s guess.

  He jumped in, delivering a blast of automatic weapons fire into the quadrant of the car nearest the original shooting position.

  At the far end of the car, right by the door, Tempest popped out into the hallway to deliver a single shot.

  The operative saw the movement just in time and dove into the seats on the far side of the car.

  Tempest’s shot grazed his cheek.

  He landed hard on the double bench, marveling at the woman’s accuracy. But he knew his tactics. Static equaled dead.

  He popped up again and filled the back of the car with automatic fire, only to see the rear door to the car slowly closing.

  Tempest was in the wind. But where was the other target? Where was Chaucer?

  CHAPTER 34

  Chaucer was unarmed and just inches from the rear of the car himself, where the operative had just reduced five rows of seats to modern art.

  He pushed on, calculating that the last place the operative would select to fire was the very region he had just strafed.

  Chaucer knew that all the operative would need to do was look under the seats, and he would be dead to rights.

  He also knew why the operative didn’t. He was worried about a headshot. He still thought Chaucer was armed.

  Tempest wedged herself between the small conductor’s cabin and the passenger car she had just vacated and climbed her way up it to the roof.

  She flicked open her karambit knife and sliced a long strip of rubberized skirting that protected the two cars from the elements. Then she climbed through the hole she created and up onto the roof.

  She pulled herself up on the two-foot-wide grating on the train and quickly worked her way back atop the passenger car.

  Then she froze. She was duplicating their move. This was predictable. She hated predictable.

  She didn’t envy the operative’s tactical position. He had to cover two different points of entry on a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree axis. Even so, his firepower was too much of an advantage. With a Skorpion pistol, he didn’t need to be accurate. He just needed to fire first.

  With her coming in through the door, that was a likelihood.

  Then she saw it.

  A piece of loose glass flapping in the wind below. The shattered window. Their way into that car.

  That was the entry point the operative likely hadn’t considered. Or at least she hoped.

  Tempest quickly realized why it was unlikely for them to consider it. The side of the train curved gently, then ever more steeply until it reached the window.

  Tempest estimated the distance to be at least six feet, which made her position unattainable.

  She was determined to try anyway.

  Chaucer glanced under the seat, and he could see the man’s two legs. They were standing in the hall, spread wide.

  He knew instantly what the man was doing. He was covering both doors.

  Prrat!

  The operative took a guess at Chaucer’s location and filled the middle-right section with bullets.

  He was off by ten feet.

  Chaucer thought to himself, No, you’re not gonna sink my battleship today.

  Tempest hooked her toes into the edge of the grating and extended her body down the curving side of the train.

  She was upside down, and she realized that her head was still a good two feet from the edge of the window.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  She could possibly stick her arm out and get the gun clear of the window, but blind-firing into that car? She was likely to hit a civilian or even Chaucer.

  No, she had to have eyes.

  Just then she noticed something in her periphery.

  She turned her head to her right and saw a large tunnel heading their way fast.

  The makers of this tunnel took great care to make sure the height would be enough to accommodate a wide variety of trains, but the width?

  She saw the first car enter and realized there was less than a foot of clearance.

  Tempest tried to pull herself up, but with her belly against the train, it was an awkward motion.

  The train raced through the tunnel, chewing up car after car.

  Tempest did a reverse crunch, pulling with all her might on her abs and swinging herself to her side.

  She lashed out with a hand and missed.

  Her body swung back down again, the tunnel now just two cars away.

  Would she have time for one more swing? It was anyone’s guess.

  She swung hard, using the momentum of the first swing to aid her.

  She reached out with that first hand again, grabbed onto the edge of the grating with her fingertips, and hauled herself up just as the train raced through the tunnel.

  The inside of the train went dark for a millisecond.

  The operative was calm. He watched carefully for any movement in the shadows, and he saw none. But he heard a thump overhead. He aimed his machine pistol skyward and fired, a long, controlled burst that put relatively even-spaced holes throughout.

  Tempest lay flat on the grating as the bullets ripped through the roof. Fortunately, the grating absorbed the one bullet that might have hit her.

  As the train exited the tunnel, Tempest gritted her teeth.

  Now or never.

  She hooked her toes into the grating a second time and lowered her body down. She took three deep breaths, willing herself to do it. Willing herself to forget how crazy it was.

  Then she let go of her toes.

  Tempest fell off the roof of the train, her body sliding along its curved surface and down past the window. As her head reached the window, she stared at the situation in the cabin upside down.

  She had less than a tenth of a second to respond.

  She turned and caught sight of the operative, adjusting her aim right at him. She caught the satisfyingly shocked look on his face as she pulled the trigger.

  Bam!

  The operative went down.

  Tempest dropped the pistol and lashed out with both hands, grabbing for the windowsill below. She got it with one hand, but the momentum of her entire body flipped her around and slammed her into the side of the train. That hand broke free.

  But her second hand caught the sill with just two fingers.

  She dangled off the side of the train for a long moment, willing her fingers to hold on. Her fingers, strained to their limits, didn’t obey. She slipped⁠—

  Only to feel the warmth of Chaucer’s hand in hers. He appeared in the window, heaving her back into the train car.

  There was no applause. No recognition of what she had just done. There were only the cries and screams of civilians. The civilian losses were extreme. She spat on the operative she had just killed. She only wished she could kill him a second time.

  She said, “Chaucer, time to go.”

  She bent down over the first operative, the one with shattered tibias. He was unconscious now from the pain and shock. He was bleeding, but not enough to kill him.

  Chaucer helped her grab the operative. Chaucer’s entire body was covered in other people’s blood.

  Tempest asked, “Will this do?”

  Chaucer examined him. “Yeah. This will do.”

  Chaucer pulled the emergency brake on the train.

  CHAPTER 35

  The operative woke, disoriented. Before he even opened his eyes, he felt the movement of the train, but something wasn’t right.

  When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his legs, which had been dressed and bandaged. They were in pain, but not the agony they should have been in. Some type of local anesthetic, no doubt.

  But his legs lay on a wooden floor.

  He looked up and saw that he was in some sort of boxcar.

  Suddenly, he realized what was feeling so strange. He couldn’t move his body. Not a leg, arm, toe, or finger. Only his head seemed to be able to move, which made no sense.

  He could still feel his limbs. The dull pain in his legs proved that.

  What was happening?

  The woman’s voice spoke from the darkness. “He’s up. Means you’re up.”

  A blue-white emergency light flickered on. It was that odd light that turned everyone’s skin a sickly green.

  Chaucer sat down in front of the operative, who now realized his back was not against a wall, but a propped-up board.

  Chaucer stared at him with his owl eyes, portraying no emotion of any kind. Chaucer spoke slowly and softly, yet nothing in his demeanor was the slightest bit reassuring. “You’re on a two-hundred-car freight train heading back into the outskirts of London. There isn’t a human soul within a mile of us, so if you feel the need to yell, scream, or call for help, by all means do so. It’s part of our process. You and I—we’re about to go on a journey.”

  The operative shut his mouth tight, as if that act could keep him from talking.

  Chaucer continued, “My job is to learn all the things you don’t want to tell me. Your job? For a little while you will labor under the delusion that your job is to resist, but in the end you’ll realize that your job was always to tell me. You just have to go through your process.”

  Chaucer frowned. “Now, sadly, you’ve been trained. That is going to make this uncomfortable. The untrained civilian? I could get them to tell me anything using not much more than fear. But a trained operative—they need pain. A certain amount of breaking needs to happen. How broken you end up depends entirely on you. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

  The operative knew he should say nothing. Everything in his training said that. But he already felt the dread of inevitability creeping into his heart.

  And there was one thing he had to know. He said, “I—I can feel, but I can’t move. What happened to me?”

  Chaucer nodded. “I cracked your L5 vertebra. If I cracked it just ten percent more than I did, you would need machines to feed you for the rest of your days. But if it’s done just right, one can pinch the nerve that connects brain to muscle without severing functionality of touch and pain. That is what I’ve done.”

  Then the operative noticed what was so strange. He was facing a torturer, but he had no tools. Nothing of any kind.

  He suddenly realized that Malcolm Chaucer was a man who needed no tools whatsoever.

  Chaucer said, “I realize it’s a formality but I have to ask—are you ready to talk?”

  The operative said nothing.

  Chaucer nodded and moved over to the helpless operative, grabbing the back of his neck, his fingers moving nimbly up and down the bones there until they found what they were looking for.

  He kept one hand on the back of the man’s neck and placed the other firmly on the back of his head.

  “Many people have described the result of this adjustment as being burned alive. It mistakenly sends signals to the brain of heat, fire, pain, and the death of nerve cells. In the brain’s terminology: burning. Burning every inch of your body. Again, feel free to scream as much as you need.”

  Chaucer said it with less emotion than a doctor describing the possible side effects of a medication. He executed a short, sharp twist of the neck, turning the operative’s head only thirty degrees off axis. Then he stood back.

  The operative was surprised. He felt nothing at all. A defiant smile came onto his face.

  Chaucer simply stared at him and melted the smile away to nothing with just three little words. “Three. Two. One.”

  The first scream sounded inhuman as it echoed throughout the train.

  The operative lasted twenty-six minutes. Under many circumstances, that would have been shameful, but Chaucer was on a schedule.

  It was more than that, actually. Chaucer kept seeing that little girl applying direct pressure to her dying mother.

  This man had done that.

  This man had to pay.

  Chaucer could count on one hand the number of times emotion had ever played into an interrogation of his. It did not make him happy. He felt as though his art, his craft, was compromised.

  He said none of this to Tempest. She would never understand. But he had always consoled himself that he was an interrogator, not a torturer—a man dedicated to getting the most information with the least harm.

  This operative would survive. He would be arrested and tried for his crimes. And he would live a long life in some British prison somewhere.

  But Chaucer knew he had scarred him today in ways he possibly did not have to. He would have to live with that.

  Chaucer asked Tempest, “Did you make the call?”

  Tempest nodded. “The bobbies will meet the train. They’ll find him in no time.”

  The train slowed as it approached the large freight yard at Hither Green.

  Chaucer and Tempest hopped off.

  Chaucer stumbled more than a little. That bruised hip bothered him. But he straightened up, and he and Tempest headed off toward the city proper.

  CHAPTER 36

  After several hours of taking various trains, doubling back, exiting and reentering, and otherwise trying to shake any possible tail, Chaucer and Tempest got a room at a tiny hotel in Fulham. The furnishings were relatively cheap and unremarkable, but the room was spacious, an oddly shaped corner unit in an oddly shaped building. It also had the benefit of adjoining the firewall on one side and a stairwell on the other. As such, it was suitable and private for the video call Chaucer was about to make.

  Jefferson picked up on the second ring. He was seated at his desk in his modest office. He said, “Do you have any idea how hard we’ve been working for you?”

  Chaucer looked at Tempest, and Tempest at Chaucer. Neither had any idea what he was talking about. “Wanna fill us in?”

  Jefferson said, “Waterloo Station. Did you know you were minutes away from being designated terrorists?”