Across the Bridge

Peebles, thought Agent Jack Monroe, is a ridiculous name for a town. He shivered in the early January light, his hands deep in the pockets of his navy peacoat. An hour south of Edinburgh, the Scottish town was far more peaceful than the places he was normally deployed to, with its snow-dusted hillside and picturesque cobblestones. He’d driven in the day before, under the gloomy cover of twilight, and seen children with colorful scarves skating on a frozen pond. At the sound of their laughter, his only thought was to wonder if they knew how precarious it was.

***

“It’ll be good for you,” Agent Riley Armstrong had told him before giving him the assignment. She was the head of the CIA’s Virtual Security Unit. “A chance to reset.” He nodded, accepting the case file. He knew he was under close watch after his last mission, the assassination of a rising Yemeni warlord. He and his partner, Agent Grace Marcu, had infiltrated a training camp for child soldiers. His superiors at the Agency thought he might be broken now. A weapon in need of fixing.

***

Jack did his best impression of a mourner, shuffling forward with the rest of the procession. The funeral service of Richard Dorne had just ended, and the attendees were walking from St. Mary’s Funeral Home to the crumbling cemetery at the edge of town.

Richard Dorne was the CEO of Dorne Industries, the progressive, London-based tech giant that had its hand in every emerging and controversial cookie jar. AI, cloning, biotech. According to his case file, Dorne also ran private experiments in his spare time. He’d made a discovery so terrible in his private lab that he hung himself in his London penthouse, leaving instructions that he be buried with his research; it lived on a hard drive so secure that the combined might of the NSA and CIA couldn’t hack it.

***

“The official funeral is going to be in London, but our sources say there’s going to be a service in Dorne’s hometown three days prior, where he’ll actually be buried,” Riley had said.

“Along with the hard drive.”

She nodded. “Your mission is to go to the funeral and retrieve it without anyone noticing.” He turned to leave. “And Jack? The Russians and Zuckerburg will both send someone. Maybe others too.”

She said something else before sending him off, words of comfort that he swallowed like razor blades and refused to think about again.

***

The service had been a depressing affair. Dorne’s cousin gave the eulogy. Jack blocked out the words about loss, instead scanning the room for signs of danger. A group of young engineer-types crowded the sad spread of refreshments in the back. Jack smiled to himself as he imagined that one of them was KGB; Putin’s finest standing around, sipping aged whiskey and eating ice cream cake.

The walk to the cemetery took the group down a quiet street. The town of Peebles was built along a river, and they would have to cross a bridge to reach their destination. The mourners walked towards it beside a lone hearse, a grim omen leading them past townhomes, a butcher’s shop, a bakery.

Jack caught a glimpse of Dorne’s famously beautiful daughter, Delilah, crying at the front of the procession, holding her two children’s hands. They were little, no older than ten, with glowing white hair like their mother’s and cherubic, round faces.

He shut his eyes, trying with every ounce of his discipline to stop the onslaught of memories that followed. Other small faces, ripe with innocence despite their circumstances. A different woman, blonde-haired too and just as lovely, her tear-filled gaze unmoving.

The procession was nearing the river and, unwittingly, the brink of chaos. Almost time. Jack’s heart began to beat loudly in his chest like a war drum.

***

It had been Jack’s first day working in the field.

“Hear that?” Grace said, resting her hand on his chest.

“Adrenaline,” Jack whispered.

“Exactly. That sound, of blood pumping through your brain, of adrenaline - it can be one of two things for people like us.” Jack hung on her every word. “It can be the sound of fear, or the rhythm of focus. It can own you, or it can drive you.”

“What happens if it owns you?” he asked. She tossed her light, long hair over her shoulder and fixed him with a look that said it all.

***

Blocking the end of the charming stone bridge was a group of radical anti-surveillance protesters from the University of Glasgow. Jack had tipped them off anonymously and given them the idea to barricade the bridge. Their self-righteous shouting broke the somber silence. They began throwing things. Jack knew, more than most, that cruelty took many forms. Desensitized to it as he was, he certainly recognized it as the crowd aimed eggs at the grieving family. Yolk splattered fur-lined coats, shock becoming outrage.

It was chaos, just as he had planned. Bloodless chaos, too - Riley would probably worry he’d gone soft, although she had instructed him to remain unnoticed. Jack made his move towards the hearse, where the coffin and, thus, the hard drive, lay temporarily unprotected. Hired security had surrounded the car, but most of them were now preoccupied. Jack was confident he could take out the remaining few with ease.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw something he hadn’t planned for. A man in a dark suit emerged from beneath the bridge. He carried a heavy-looking silver case of a sort Jack recognized all too well. The man ran like hell for the nearest alley, placing bright orange balls of wax in his ears. Bracing himself. Everything sped up and slowed down at once, Jack’s training allowing him to survey the entire scene in a flash.

Delilah Dorne ran onto the bridge, her little son in tow.

An undergraduate protester yanked a carton of eggs out of her companion’s hands, a lone advocate for human decency.

A sleekly dressed woman with sharp Russian features rushed towards the hearse, and Jack knew her to be like him by the certainty of her movements.

Jack looked between the hearse and the bridge, and he knew in his thumping heart that he would only have the chance to reach one.

From the roof of the bakery, a sniper’s shot fired, and the largest of the three guards still protecting the hearse crumpled.

The hearse or the bridge.

Jack could see the path to each in his mind’s eye. No hesitation, Jack. And no regrets. Grace’s final words to him. They swung through his skull like a pendulum.

He ran for the hearse. Moments or lifetimes later, the bridge turned to ash behind him.