Fragments (Out of Time) Read online

  Simon managed to roll on top of Blake and pressed his forearm into the other man’s neck. Blake tried to shove Simon’s arm away and reach for his gun, but Simon grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the floor. With his other arm, Simon used all of his strength, all of his weight to cut off Blake’s air supply. Blake’s free hand pushed at his face, tried to gouge his eyes and then Simon was swiftly pulled back and lifted to his feet.

  Several men in the pub had jumped into the fray and pulled the men apart.

  “He’s got a gun!” Elizabeth cried, pointing at Blake. “In his coat pocket.”

  Blake struggled, but the men held firm. One of them reached into Blake’s pocket and pulled the gun out.

  “I’m MI5,” Blake said, a trickle of blood falling from his lip. “He’s a spy. He’s threatened our children if my wife doesn’t play along with his twisted game.”

  “He’s lying,” Elizabeth said, coming to Simon’s side. “That man is not my husband.”

  “It’s all right, darling,” Blake said in a sickly sweet voice. “It’ll be all right. Please, you have to believe me. That man is a spy.”

  No one in the room knew quite what to do or whom to believe when Simon realized how to convince them.

  “The rings,” Simon said, trying to step forward, but held back by the men still restraining him. “The wedding rings. What do the inscriptions say?”

  Startled, Elizabeth looked up at him. She had no idea he’d had them engraved. Thankfully, she kept her surprise to herself.

  Blake’s mouth twitched.

  One of the men holding Blake pulled the ring off his finger and held it up to the light.

  “If she’s your wife, what’s engraved on your rings?”

  Blake had nothing to say.

  “Ours is a love beyond the limits of time,” Simon said. “SC. Hers will match but with EC at the end.”

  “He’s right,” the man with the ring said. “That’s what it says.” He turned to Blake. “How is it you didn’t know that and he did?”

  “It’s a trick,” Blake said weakly.

  “He’s a German spy,” Elizabeth said. “Didn’t any of you hear him cry out?”

  A man with an eye-patch who had been sitting at a table nearby stepped forward. “I did. I learned a little German in the last war. When they took my eye. Scheisse, he said. Scheisse.” The man glared at Blake and then spat at his feet.

  Slowly, the entire bar crowded closer to Blake who looked around anxiously for an exit or an ally. Neither of which he would find.

  “A German. Here?”

  “Give me ten minutes with him. That’s all I ask.”

  “Wait your turn.”

  “Gerry scum.”

  The man with the ring tossed it back to Simon. He slid the ring back onto his finger and took Elizabeth by the elbow. “We should go.”

  “Wait,” Elizabeth said. “He’s got something else of ours. In his pocket. It’s wrapped in leather.”

  A man pulled it out and handed it to Elizabeth. “There you are, lass.”

  “This isn’t the end,” Blake said.

  Simon had waited for this moment. “It is for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was past two in the morning when they finally arrived at the cottage in Hastings. Elizabeth had tried to sleep on the way, but couldn’t. It wasn’t every day she got to fork a Nazi spy.

  Every ounce of adrenaline in her body had been spent and she was running on fumes, exhausted, but too tired to sleep. She was stuck in a perpetual twilight where everything had a slightly surreal cast to it. The only thing that felt real was Simon.

  She leaned against him as they walked to the cottage. They’d expected Evan to be asleep, but smoke filtered from the chimney and a small sliver of light escaped from the edge of the blackout curtain.

  Simon knocked gently before opening the door. “Mr. Eldridge? It’s Simon and Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth could see a pair of legs half covered with a blanket stretched out on the sofa. “Mr. Eldridge?”

  “Not quite,” a voice said from behind the door.

  Simon and Elizabeth spun around in surprise. Simon’s arm raised, his hand balled into a fist as he tried to move her behind him. Elizabeth grabbed a walking stick leaning by the doorway as the man pushed the door closed and stepped out from the shadows.

  “Jack?” Elizabeth said. Her eyes fixed on the gun in his hand. She really had had enough of men pointing guns at her.

  “Sorry,” Jack said and then put the gun back in his shoulder holster. He gave them an appraising look. “You two are wound tight.”

  Elizabeth let out a long breath. “You have no idea.”

  “What are you doing here?” Simon said stepping away from Jack and toward the sofa.

  Elizabeth let the walking stick slide down her hand and leaned it against the wall. Even though Blake had said he hadn’t killed Jack, she was incredibly relieved to see it for herself.

  “You look like crap,” Jack said with a grin.

  “Mr. Eldridge?” Simon said as he eased back the blanket. But it wasn’t Evan Eldridge underneath it. It was the Russian spy they’d seen at the hotel, gagged and bound. “What’s going on?” Simon demanded. “Where’s Eldridge?”

  “Relax,” Jack said. “He’s safe.”

  “What happened?” Elizabeth asked.

  “After you gave us the slip, Blake and I agreed to split up. By the way, loved your note,” he said with a smile for Elizabeth. “Anyway, he tried to find your trail and I tried to find Eldridge.”

  “So you were working with Blake,” Simon said angrily.

  Jack shrugged. “Yeah, you knew that.”

  Elizabeth went to Simon’s side and put a placating hand on his arm. “I think he means he was working with MI5.”

  “Well, yeah,” Jack said. “What do you mean?”

  “Blake is the mole,” Simon said. “Your partner was an SS officer.”

  “No,” Jack said. “Come on. Andy? On the level? I worked with him for months.” Jack waved a dismissive hand.

  “You mean he worked you for months,” Simon said. “Where is Eldridge?”

  “He’s in London. Safe,” Jack said, still trying to process what they’d told him.

  “Jack, it’s true,” Elizabeth said. “Blake tortured a man and then killed him. He would have killed us too.”

  “You’re sure?” Jack said.

  “He even said something about your grandmother being Jewish.”

  Jack’s expression shifted from disbelief to anger. Something dark and dangerous settled in his eyes. “That son of a bitch.” He closed his hand into a fist and looked for something to hit, but stopped himself. “Where is he?”

  “Cornwall,” Simon said. “But I don’t think he’ll be a problem any more. There is something else though. He was planning on taking us to a U-boat off the coast just after dark. It might be too late now, but someone should be notified.”

  Jack nodded. Elizabeth watched as he worked through everything — his anger, the betrayal, his shame at not realizing it. He didn’t seem the type of man who often doubted himself or lost. The experience left him reeling a little. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I promise you, if I’d known I never would have…”

  “I know,” Elizabeth said. “He found us just as we found the Shard. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. Add it to our list,” Elizabeth said and was happy to see Jack smile even if it didn’t touch his eyes.

  “You’re all right?” Jack asked, his voice rough with regret and concern.

  Elizabeth nodded. She would miss Jack when this was all over. They hadn’t really spent that much time together, but it definitely felt a little like he was the big brother she’d never had.

  Simon gestured to the unconscious Russian. “You were telling us what happened here?”

  “It only took a few days for me to find your little hideaway, and if I could…I convinced Eldridge you’d sent me so I moved him back to my suite at St. Ermin’s. N
o one else knows. He’ll be safe there,” Jack assured them. ”So then I came back here, figuring you two had to come back here. But Lushinkov showed up instead. He made a nuisance of himself,” Jack said as he rubbed a red spot on his jaw, “and ended up camping on the sofa.”

  “That all sounds plausible,” Simon said. “But after what we’ve been through I’m not exactly inclined to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Jack said. “Here.” Jack unholstered his gun, spun it on a finger so that it landed flat in his palm. He held it out for Simon to take.

  Simon looked at the gun and then Elizabeth. She believed Jack and she could tell from Simon’s expression, despite his protests to the contrary, he did too.

  “Keep it,” Simon said.

  Jack turned to Elizabeth. “He always this hot and cold?”

  “It’s been a long day,” Elizabeth said, rubbing the grit of being awake far too long from her eyes. “How far is it to London?”

  Simon rolled his shoulders to work out the kinks. “Four hours.”

  It might as well have been twenty. Simon was as bleary-eyed as Elizabeth.

  “I’ll drive,” Jack said. “You two can catch some shuteye in the back.”

  Simon frowned, but he was too tired to protest.

  “What about ?” Elizabeth asked pointing at the Russian.

  “I’ll send somebody for him later,” Jack said. “He’ll be fine. Trust me?”

  “Do we have a choice?” Simon said.

  Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “You always have a choice.”

  ~~~

  Sometime after dawn, they arrived back in London and Jack pulled up next to the St. Ermin’s hotel. They all got out of the car and stretched after the long ride. Elizabeth had had her fill of country roads and cramped quarters. And Nazis. And surprises. What she wanted was for this to be over, for the white hats to win, and for Evan to receive his just reward. And a bath. A long bath.

  “Why don’t you go up first,” Simon said. “We’ll join you in a few minutes. I’d like to talk to Elizabeth in private, if you don’t mind.”

  She’d expected as much. Simon had been giving her looks for the last hour of their trips, and not the fun ones either.

  Now, it was Jack’s turn to hesitate. Slowly, he nodded. “Fair enough.” He started across the street. “How do you like your eggs?”

  Simon waited until he was on the far side of the street before turning to Elizabeth. “What do we do if Wells demands the Shard?”

  Elizabeth massaged her neck. She’d fallen asleep wonky and her body was making her pay for it. “He won’t.”

  Simon’s expression told her exactly what he thought of that sentiment. “That was his mission, wasn’t it? To find it and take it back to America?”

  That was true. Elizabeth hesitated, weighing her belief in the goodness of man against all the badness they’d seen in the past week. Goodness won by a hair. “Maybe it would be safe there?”

  “Are you willing to potentially risk thousands upon thousands of lives on a maybe?”

  Well, when he put it that way. “No,” she admitted.

  “We have to take it back with us to the future,” Simon said, lowering his voice. “We can find a way to destroy it there.”

  “Won’t that be changing the timeline though?”

  “Technically,” Simon admitted.

  “Is there an untechnical way to do it? The whole point of this was to put things back the way they were supposed to be, right?”

  “Yes,” Simon said stretching out the word into two skeptical syllables.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. Give it to the person who had it when this whole mess started.”

  ~~~

  “Me?” Evan said.

  Jack surged out of his chair. “Him?”

  Elizabeth gestured for them both to calm down. “Simon and I agree that it’s the right thing to do. It was your—” She almost said “mission”, but stopped herself. “Mr. Eldridge, you found the Shard; you should decide what’s to be done with it.”

  Evan frowned. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “I’m with him,” Jack said. He rubbed his face in fatigue and frustration. “Look, this isn’t finders, keepers. I risked my neck for that thing, for all of you. Let me take it back to the States. It’ll be safe there.”

  “You could always just take it from us,” Simon said.

  Jack frowned. “Yeah, I could, but I don’t want to play it that way.” He paced across the room. “Look, I don’t know who you people are. Where you come from, who you work for. I just know my gut says to trust you. It’s usually right, except for that whole Blake thing; that was a big swing and miss.” He stopped pacing and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Still, I’ve gotten this far trusting my instincts and I’m not gonna stop now. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna roll over either. That thing needs to be locked up, tight.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I can do that.”

  “I don’t know,” Evan said. “I need time to think.”

  “Don’t take too long,” Jack said, his patience wearing thin. “Blake might be gone, but he’s not the only one who wants that thing.”

  There was a knock on the door. Everyone tensed. “Room service.”

  Simon frowned.

  “I told you I was hungry, but, just in case…” Jack motioned for them to move into the hall and pulled his gun.

  Evan, Simon and Elizabeth took shelter in the hall.

  “Be right there,” Jack said before looking back and gesturing for them to move further out of sight.

  They moved back deeper into the hall and listened. Elizabeth heard the door open and then Jack sighing.

  “Aw, crud.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Party’s over.” Jack opened the door the rest of the way. “Mother’s here.”

  A tall, broad shouldered man with a square jaw and silver hair took off his hat as he entered. “Wells,” he said with a Scottish accent. “Must you call me that?”

  Three other men followed him into the room. One of them pushed a room service cart.

  “That’s something anyway,” Jack said. “You don’t mind if I…” He gestured to one of the silver cloches covering the four plates.

  “Not at all,” the man said.

  Jack took one of the plates and a fork and sat down with it at the table. “You can come out. This is Mother. Also known as Sir David Petrie, Director General of MI5. The Big Cheese.”

  Simon, Elizabeth and Evan stopped peering around the corner and came into the room.

  “Sir David,” Simon said.

  Elizabeth felt a curtsy coming on, but managed to stop it.

  Sir David smiled amiably. “Please, sit.”

  “You’re here for the Shard?” Evan said, looking completely at ease, as if he were talking about new wallpaper.

  “Yes, I’m sorry for all you’ve had to endure, Mr. Eldridge, all of you. But rest assured my country is deeply grateful for your service. And the item will be well looked after.”

  Jack shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “How’d you know we had it?”

  Sir David took a seat, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “We’ve been watching all of you for some time. Your hospital stay, Mr. Eldridge, drew the attention of some very important people. It seems that when you were suffering from pneumonia, not only did you say some things in your delirium that, shall we say, aroused our curiosity, but when you had an x-ray taken, it revealed something rather remarkable.”

  Evan touched his heart.

  “There appears to be a small machine with wires attached to your heart. Well, our doctors had never seen anything like it and couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but it certainly got everyone’s attention. That and your involvement with the Shard were enough for us to grow quite concerned.”

  “I can imagine,” Evan said, leaning back and crossing his legs.

  “You were waiting for someone to ma
ke contact with him,” Elizabeth said. “That’s what Blake said.”

  “Yes, that’s true. We were keeping him in the front window, so to speak.”

  “Did you know he was the mole?” Elizabeth asked. “Blake, I mean.”

  “We’ve known for quite some time.”

  “You could have shared that bit, ya know?” Jack said. “I could have kept a few people alive.”

  “It was a risk we couldn’t take,” Sir David said. “We kept close watch over him, but after Cirencester, we lost him, I’m afraid.”

  Elizabeth tried to make sense of it all. “You were following him following us?”

  “In a way. We had a man following Blake, but we also had several operatives watching over you as well. We have dozens of men stationed along the railway lines and in various locations around the country. We gave them orders to keep an eye out for you. The old soldier at the train station in Cirencester. The concierge at the Royal Hotel. We were never far.”

  “Except when Blake kidnapped us,” Simon said.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about that,” he said, his brow furrowing with regret. “Shortly after he killed Professor Morley—”

  Elizabeth gasped. “He killed the professor?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. After that our man failed to check in. His body was found a few hours ago in the river near Bath.”

  “If you knew all of this, why didn’t you just go get the Shard yourself?” Elizabeth asked. Was anyone in England who they seemed to be? She’d been the Council’s pawn and now she was MI5’s?

  “That was the one piece of information we didn’t have. We didn’t know the location of the Shard and we couldn’t do anything more without revealing to Blake that we were on to him. We let him think he had the upper hand and hoped he would eventually lead us to the rest of his contacts. We needed to dig out the rest of the cancer, you see. Since his…capture last night, we’ve arrested six men, seized some very important materials and sunk a Nazi submarine.”