Time Travel in Rock: 1984, page 25
Chapter 46
Number 10, Downing Street.
Residence and office of the prime minister.
Even I’d heard of it, growing up.
It was just a normal street, open to the public. I couldn’t believe it. There were even cars parked on the opposite side of the road beside a forest of stainless steel parking meters. Tourists thronged the place, all politely observed by a policeman stationed by the front door.
No wonder this version of Britain had succumbed to a foreign-backed coup. Didn’t they know there was a cold war on?
I was fed up with observing. I’d never make a good spy. I was made for doing things. Unsubtle things.
So when the Japanese couple walked off, after taking photos of the policeman by the famous door, I made my move.
I itched.
I felt hidden snipers train their rifles on my back.
I imagined the family of portly German tourists headed my way were really special forces psychopaths, waiting for me to cross an invisible line that would unleash them to drag me down to the asphalt and beat the shit out of me.
Surely it couldn’t be so easy?
But I made it to the sidewalk alive. I was within touching distance of the policeman.
“I’m allowed here?” I asked him, incredulous.
“You’re not allowed on the step,” he replied. “But the pavement is fine.”
I nodded. “I need to send a message to your intelligence services.”
The policeman regarded me blankly.
“Special Branch and MI5,” I explained.
“I do know who the spooks are, sir. I’ve watched all the Bond movies.”
“I’m a KGB colonel,” I blurted out, hoping this might make him take me seriously. “Colonel Ivan Sergeyevich Petrov.”
“Are you quite certain, sir? You don’t look very Russian to me.”
“Not all KGB agents look obviously Russian. Otherwise they would be too easy to identify.”
“Well, blow me down. I never thought of that, sir. I stand corrected. So, Colonel Petrov, what brings you to London?”
“Operation Bulldog.”
Nothing.
I’d pinned my hopes on that phrase, but the only reaction in the policeman’s expression was the emergence of a smirk. Any moment now, he’d tell me to move along. So I explained in a whisper. “Bulldog is a KGB operation designed to infiltrate your government. When our assets are in position, they will launch a silent coup to ensure that Britain declares loyalty to the Kremlin.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“MI5 and Special Branch will know of Bulldog. They’re trying to fight it.” I passed on the portraits Simmons had drawn. “These two are part of it. Your people need to know.”
The policeman inspected the drawings. “Operation Bulldog. Pass it on. Right you are, sir. Now, if you don’t mind, could you please move along? Only there are other members of the public wishing to take a photograph and you’re in their way.”
I did as he asked, giving way to the German family armed with Instamatic cameras.
The policeman had folded the drawings into his breast pocket. He obviously thought I was a lunatic, but would he pass any of that on?
I had no way of knowing.
Chapter 47
“You did the right thing,” Petrov told me. He chortled. “Literally going to Number Ten. Only you could do that, Comrade Stiletto. Being so open could have fatal complications, of course. But on balance it was the right thing to do. Here, have some of this.”
He handed me a Tupperware flask.
I took a swig. It was… different. Alcoholic for sure, but the blend of sweetness and peppery spice was delicious. “Is this gin?”
“Imbecile! It’s vodka. In this country they sell only industrially distilled gnat’s urine. So I have infused the English so-called vodka with traditional flavorings.”
Petrov took the flask back and took a long swig. He sighed with delight and licked his lips loudly in a decidedly non-English fashion.
Then he noticed that we weren’t alone.
I had met Petrov under the railway arches a short distance from the Circus. He wouldn’t come into the house, and he wouldn’t come near at all in daylight. Outside of its showy center, London was a place of deep shadows due to an energy crisis. Many streetlights were switched off to save electricity, and that was especially true here in the confluence of railway, canal, and gas holders.
After your eyes adjusted to the dark, this part of Bethnal Green had a patchy wash of ambient orange light from distant sodium streetlights. Even my enhanced eyes played tricks with the limited flow of visual data, my paranoid fantasies twisting the orange shadows into threatening shapes.
Though the girl who’d approached us offered a different sort of fantasy. The low light flattered her with a soft, elfin glow. She wore a thick quilted raincoat, black microskirt, and white go-go boots almost to her knees.
“Looking for a good time, love?”
“If I were looking for a good time,” I answered, “the last place I would come is the 1970s.”
“Alright,” she said. “Keep yer hair on. Fuckin’ weirdo.”
“You know,” Petrov said as we watched her move off. “She was actually asking me.”
Maybe she had. In the gloom, I couldn’t tell and didn’t care anyway. I felt a little guilt at my harshness. England in the 1970s was tired and it knew it. But it was still better than the EPDR. “Let’s walk. Walk and drink good vodka. You are a man of surprising talents, Ivan Sergeyevich. Your homemade hooch is a triumph.”
We strolled down the footpath along Regent’s Canal, Petrov interspersing our mutual progress updates with a heartfelt discussion of vodka. For the first time since I’d met him, Petrov approached a state of contentment. I almost felt affection for the man.
I couldn’t say the same about our surroundings. As we rounded a bend in the canal, the darkness seemed to engulf us. The buildings on either side were tall and decrepit, casting impenetrable sludgy shadows between them. In the dim wash of sodium orange, my unreliable mind tried to convince me that the buildings were rushing in to crush us. Telling myself that it was a stupid illusion was no help at all. My stomach was still a knot of worry.
Suddenly, a couple of lads stepped out of an alleyway and headed our way along the canalside towpath. There was a testosterone swagger to their stride that made my pulse quicken.
My eyes started to resolve their details. One was dressed all in leather, the other denim. Both sported shaven heads, which in this era was a signal for trouble. Their eyes glinted with malice. I sensed Petrov stiffen, but he took another long swig from his flask.
“Alright, grandpa?” said one of the young men as they passed, giving him a shoulder shove.
The other lad sniffed loudly. “Jesus! Old geezer stinks like a fuckin’ brewery.”
Petrov stopped. “Distillery.”
“You wa’, grandpa?”
“It’s vodka,” I said turning to face them. “The old man smells like a distillery, not a–”
“Get ’em!”
Chapter 48
At this close range I could see the violence in their eyes and knew instantly that Petrov and I had called this correctly. The pair were always going to attack us. They were opportunist muggers who would beat us to a pulp just on the off chance we had a half packet of cigarettes and a few pound notes.
The thugs based their attack on surprise, and our reluctance to fight back.
But we weren’t surprised. And we hit back hard.
The leather-clad thug lunged at me, but I sidestepped and landed a solid punch to his jaw. He stumbled back, dazed, and I seized the opportunity to sweep his legs out from under him. He hit the footpath with a sickening thud, and I kicked him in the ribs for good measure.
His friend aimed a blow at Petrov’s head. But the old KGB colonel was quicker than he looked, and he dodged the punch with ease before landing a series of jabs to the man’s face and stomach. The thug grunted with pain and staggered back, but Petrov was relentless. He followed up his punches with kicks, sending the weasel reeling.
I was about to step in and finish off Petrov’s opponent, but the leather-clad tough was back in the game and aimed a punch at my face. I ducked, catching only a glancing blow, and landed a punch of my own on his ribs. He grunted in pain, and I followed up with a jab to his eye that sent him sprawling on the ground.
Petrov joined me, and we circled the two thugs, ready for their next move. But they didn’t get up. They lay groaning on the path, clutching their wounds as blood streamed from their noses and mouths.
Petrov and I stood over them, breathless but victorious.
The old man wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth and grinned at me. “Well, well, well, Comrade Stiletto. Who would’ve thought? Maybe we’ll make a man of you yet?”
“And you,” I said, still catching my breath. “Not bad… for a decrepit old man… who was already past it... during the October Revolution.”
Petrov’s chuckles turned to a disapproving clicking sound as he inspected the two defeated men.
“This area must remain secure for us,” he declared. “We cannot afford to have enemies here. Dump these two into the canal.”
I took a moment to steel myself, then I grabbed the one with the most fight under his armpits and began dragging him to the water.
“Next time I’ll bring a zapper,” I said to myself. “I’ll be writing a strongly worded memo to Laz Cohgun on the matter.”
I hesitated on the threshold of throwing the man in the water, my mind concocting vivid images of a splash followed by a few bubbles in the gloom, and then… gone!
My imagination forced through an even more horrific version – the cold water revived him, and he needed a little encouragement from me before he would drown.
This was the Time Dog moral circle that I had yet to square, and it seemed I could never escape. ‘Correcting’ timelines meant I had already been responsible for the termination of countless billions of lives.
If Zudge and I succeeded in London, the Spanish spies we’d met in 2029 would never have existed. I felt sorry for them.
I didn’t feel sorry for the bastard in my arms, though, and I wondered if I would feel any different if he looked as pretty as Lidia Vasquez. I told myself I would kill anyone without hesitation if doing so helped to bring back Merrygold, the Ox, and all the others.
I told myself that, but it wasn’t true.
“No,” I said firmly and let the thug drop to the path. “This isn’t the right way.”
“The mission must succeed,” Petrov said. “Or else you and all your friends will die.”
“That’s true. But if these lowlifes drown in a canal, there will be a murder hunt. And that’s even worse than having them hanging around plotting revenge. I’ve a better idea.”
“Excellent. Excellent. You are learning, my friend.”
I couldn’t decide which astonished me more. That Petrov had called me his friend, or that he seemed pleased that I wasn’t dumping this man into a watery death.
“I am delighted with you,” said Petrov, “because you have shown first the backbone to kill these men but then the intelligence to realize that is not best for our mission. The more sense I can drill into your stubborn skull, the longer I can postpone my inevitable ugly demise. Now tell me your plan.”
I jogged back to the Circus – only a few minutes away – and returned with a dart gun and med pack.
By the time I got back, the hoodlums were coming to, one sitting up and throwing threats at Petrov.
I shot them both with quarter-strength tranq darts. Then we stripped them naked and revived them with a powerful stimulant.
We propelled them along the towpath and pushed them into the lights of Cambridge Heath Road. They staggered along the street like naked zombies, the slow-moving kind.
I had planned to get inside one of those little red telephone boxes and call the police, but the screams of women pierced the night, and we decided to leave that task to someone else.
“One more thing,” said Petrov as we watched our zombies meander in the direction of Whitechapel. “I presume you are planning to help out at Thurrock.”
Thurrock. I know that name…
Facts came into my head.
District of Essex. Just to the East of London. Tilbury Fort. Elizabeth the First and the Spanish Armada. On 15th July, 1976 there was a…
“By-election,” I said. “Everyone’s talking about it. Labour caught a drubbing at the last one. If they fail to retain this seat, they lose their majority in the House of Commons.”
“We lose our majority. Remember to keep in character, boy! Naturally, I shall be there. Knocking on doors. Handing out leaflets. Making the English socialists their pots of tea.”
“And you think we should too?”
“You will meet plenty of contacts. And be seen. That’s important if you want people to trust you. And, yes, I believe it is all right for me to be seen with you three again.”
We had been pretending that we hadn’t known Petrov before our arrival at the Golders Green party. We’d just happened by coincidence to turn up at the same time and had introduced ourselves as we walked up the driveway. Avoiding each other since then had helped to sell that lie.
“Okay. We’ll be there.”
We walked back along the towpath, stopping under the railway arch where we’d met the prostitute earlier.
Petrov gave me an appraising look that ended with a nod. “I think you’ve earned the right to intelligence I haven’t previously revealed. We’ve been infiltrating the Labour Party, but that is only one part of Operation Bulldog.”
“What the Devil?”
“In British democracy, the citizens believe that the candidate who receives the most votes will win the seat in parliament, but that is not quite so.”
Death and torment! In a flash, I saw what he was driving at. “No, it’s the candidate who is awarded the highest vote count.”
Petrov’s grin was slyer than the most cunning urban fox. “There are returning officers, deputy returning officers, supervisors, and lowly counters. The English do not always trust their politicians, but it doesn’t occur to them to distrust their election officials. Electoral fraud? Such a thing would be an outrage. Unthinkable! The English electoral system is made from stiff upper lips and cups of tea with the pinky out. God save the Queen!”
“And you’ve flooded the electoral system with KGB assets.”
“They’ve been in place for years. Sleepers. Scores of them, and every one rigorously trained in electoral fraud. Don’t forget that I not only helped to plan and coordinate Operation Bulldog, I also saw it play out. The 1979 general election will launch a flood of complaints about electoral irregularities, but far too little and too late to change the fact that the right people won crucial seats, and several key enemies will unexpectedly lose theirs. It proves decisive. When communists overturn democracy from within, we only need to win at the ballot box once. After that, there will never be a meaningful election again.”
“Why tell me this now?”
“Because I trust you, Stiletto. You’ve demonstrated tonight that you’re smart enough to realize none of you will be able to infiltrate the ranks of electoral officials, that most respectable bastion of the English bourgeoisie.”
“You are proud of your coup, aren’t you?”
“Enormously.”
I considered the various histories of this island of Britain. The EPDR that resulted from Petrov’s coup was a gray and defeated land, utterly dismal, but it was no worse than the history of my own timeline and we hadn’t needed communists to ruin the place. If Peterborough was anything to go by, the 34th century was even worse than the EPDR. Twenty-two centuries of progress and there had been no progress at all.
“Now I understand why you Russians are so into your vodka. Anything to numb the pain of history.”
“Good. You do understand.”
* * *
Zudge and I had a house rule about life at the Circus. No take homes.
After the depressing talk with the colonel, I couldn’t help myself. I went alone to the Duke of Sussex pub on Goldsmiths Row and came back two hours later with Hannah.
I never did learn what kink Hannah had needed straightening out of her that night, but we were each the perfect therapy for the other to sooth our troubled souls.
After we made love the first time, she rested a coffee mug on my chest tattoo and used it as an ashtray.
We considered smoking a disgusting habit in the Nordic Cooperation Zone, but cancer nails were near universal in this era, and it got her talking. She’d been cagey about what she did but now she admitted she was a traffic warden. Immediately, she glared at me, looking for validation.
“You’re a canary,” I said, remembering Terry Fisher’s explanation.
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“Stub out that ciggie and I’ll show you.”
She did but regarded me with suspicion. So I put her at ease by declaring my honorable intentions. “The only thing better than a woman in uniform,” I said, giving her my rendition of Jean’s lustful stage pout, “is a woman out of uniform.”
I got to work, but in my head I was cursing Jean Simmons all the way. Sub-grade Kiss innuendoes were seeping into my every conversation. I couldn’t help it. I’d almost stuck my tongue out at the poor girl. I could only pray there was a cure.
Afterwards, Hannah and I swapped numbers, but neither of us called the other. We were just being polite.
“Did you learn anything important to the mission?” Zudge asked the next morning, appearing in the hallway the instant Hannah left through the front door.
She was angry with me. I could tell by the way every feature on her face had narrowed and pinched.
The problem was, she looked so cute when she got angry that I just stared at her with a happy puppy grin.
This made her crosser. And therefore cuter.
Which meant I found Zudge even more adorable. Which …
