with automatic gunfire almost before he had even cleared the parking lot’s shadow. Panting and cries of alarm flashed by as his younger companions surged past in a blind bid for personal safety, under the protective barrage of fire being laid down by the Kevlar-clad men up on the compound’s walls.
Amidst the flurry and madness, he caught a few defined snapshots: a guard above his head, teeth bared over the flashing muzzle of his assault carbine; the enemy skyscraper, sporting a fresh gouge in its smooth glass walls on a lower storey from which dozens of gun barrels protruded, heedless of the returning fire; Marek, roaring in pain as he staggered along, clutching a leg that was spurting streams of scarlet; and straight ahead, Geoffrey Oppenheimer and six other figures, sprinting along the street towards them.
Oppenheimer was an old man, perhaps seventy. He had always been a dignified soul, just like the other ambassadors; a natural leader who believed in peace and justice. And just like the others, he was now covered in the blood of his family and friends, running for his life with wide eyes, his mouth ajar in a scream of naked fear.
Amidst the panic and frenzy, a single coherent thought flashed through Alexander’s mind.
How far we have fallen.
His lungs seared and his legs begged for mercy, but eventually he reached the gate. The others had already dived inside, and those in the courtyard beyond were braying out for him to follow. But he tripped to a halt on the threshold and turned back.
Three of Oppenheimer’s seven companions lay on the ground unmoving. The remaining four were close, but still thirty metres from the gate. Thirty metres of open ground, a straight shot from the enemy skyscraper. The cover fire being laid down by the guards had lessened the incoming volleys some, but this last stretch was the perfect bottleneck. They would never make it.
Alexander was running toward them before he knew what was happening. The anguished howls of those in the compound chased him, but to no avail. His feet carried him inexorably into a raining hail of ballistic metal. There was no room for fear, not in the scant moments it took for him to cross the distance to the bottleneck.
A curious certainty had fallen over him. For while the enemy was barbarous, it still had a master. And while most had no clue who could be at the helm of this scourge, Alexander did.
Then he was crossing the last few feet to Oppenheimer’s remaining four, passed by them—enduring the briefest and most intense expressions of bafflement he had ever seen from them—and then skidded to a halt, throwing his arms wide. Eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted until his jawbone crunched upon his skull, he came to a standstill in the dust of the Old World, and waited to die.
And then there was silence. Sudden, absolute silence. The gunfire had stopped dead.
He gasped, blinked in the midday glare, frozen with his arms thrown high, a static five-pointed star upon the crumbled tarmac of Canada Square. Even those crying out for him on the wall were silenced. For a time that seemed like forever he stood there staring ahead at the line of gun barrels, all trained upon him, but none firing a shot.
Then a single voice broke the silence. “Alexander!” Norman Creek bawled. “What are you doing?”
Alex peered over his shoulder and saw men and women he would have called friends lining the walls of the Canary Wharf compound in their dozens—no, hundreds—all staring without a mote of movement among them. Mouths hung ajar and eyes were wide, and Alexander couldn’t blame them. He should have been dead.
Even from so far away, despite the sun, he picked Norman out from their ranks. A crooked, slender silhouette propped up by a cane and capped by a crop of unruly dark hair, he stood upon the catwalk directly over the gate. Their eyes met, and Alexander suddenly felt very exposed, naked, and foolish.
Then he remembered all he risked by being out in the open. There was precious little between him and death. He had risked all his long years of strife, the lives of countless thousands who relied on him, and the mission itself.
The curious certainty that had overtaken him evaporated without ceremony, leaving him a lonely old relic stranded in No Man’s Land.
“Get back here!” Norman again, desperate and confused.
“Alexander,” Marek called from the open gate, the slimmest sliver of his face peeping from the lee