Kingsman: The Golden Circle E-Book

Tim Waggoner

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 393

Beschreibung

With their headquarters destroyed and the world held hostage, members of Kingsman find new allies when they discover a spy organization in the United States known as Statesman. In an adventure that tests their strength and wits, the elite secret agents from both sides of the pond band together to battle a ruthless enemy and save the day, something that's becoming a bit of a habit for Eggsy...

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Kingsman

THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

THE

Official Movie

NOVELIZATION

Kingsman

THE GOLDEN CIRCLE

THE

Official Movie

NOVELIZATION

By Tim Waggoner

Based on the screenplay written by

Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn

Based on the comic book The Secret Service by

Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons

Directed by

Matthew Vaughn

TITANBOOKS

Kingsman: The Golden Circle – The Official Movie Novelization

Print edition ISBN: 9781785657320

E-book edition ISBN: 9781785657337

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 2017

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

© 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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This one’s for Sean Connery, Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Dean Martin, James Coburn, Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Patrick McGoohan, and Roger Moore—the spies of my youth.

Chapter One

Savile Row, London. Night

Eggsy Unwin, looking dapper in a navy double-breasted pinstripe suit, woven-silk tie, and black leather Oxford shoes, exited the Kingsman tailor shop. The establishment was exactly what it appeared to be from the outside: a sophisticated clothing boutique where well-to-do customers were able to obtain the finest bespoke suits money could buy. But that’s not all it was, of course. Nor was Eggsy a mere tailor.

A black sedan was parked in front of the shop, the driver waiting patiently for him. Eggsy had already turned off all the lights inside the building and activated one of the deadliest security systems on the planet. Now all he had to do was lock up, and he’d be off—and glad of it, too. Working as an operative for an elite intelligence organization could be a real kick, but sometimes it was as interesting as watching paint that had only just started to think about getting round to drying.

Today had been one of those days. He’d just gotten back from a mission in Australia, where he’d been investigating a group that called itself rEvolution. They presented themselves to the world as a Scientology-like religion, but in truth they were an organization of renegade scientists who conducted all manner of bizarre—not to mention highly illegal—experiments on unwitting church members. Eggsy had managed to infiltrate one of their facilities located in Perth and “take it off the board,” which was Kingsman-speak for “blow it the fuck up”—after rescuing the scientists’ human guinea pigs, of course. All quite satisfying. But as with any mission, it was the subsequent debriefing session, along with the attendant reports he had to write, which came near to driving him as mad as one of rEvolution’s scientists. He’d spent most of the day tending to these tedious duties, dragging his heels so badly that it had taken him forever to finish. In fact, he was the last one out of the shop tonight. But after this, he was due for a few days off, and he was looking forward to going home and getting out of this suit and into something more comfortable.

Grinning, he put a key into the front door’s lock, turned it, and was rewarded with a soft click, along with a nearly inaudible hum that told him the security system was online and functioning properly. The shop served as Kingsman’s London headquarters, but it was also an access point for the underground shuttle system that led to the organization’s country house training facility, and it wouldn’t do to have someone break in and stumble across secrets that had remained secret since World War One. Kingsman was an independent international intelligence organization, with ties to no government. The world was utterly unaware Kingsman existed, and that’s just the way its agents liked it. And they hadn’t kept their secrets all these years by not being thorough.

Eggsy reached up and touched the side of his square-framed eyeglasses. Like all Kingsman equipment, these glasses had several hi-tech modifications, chief among them being augmented-reality displays on the inside lenses. A simple touch activated the glasses, and Eggsy directed his gaze first at the door and then at the shop’s front window. His lenses revealed red lines of crisscrossing energy covering both, and once he’d confirmed the security system was doing its job, he touched the glasses again to deactivate the sensor readout. Now that all was right with the world, Eggsy turned, descended the steps to the sidewalk, and headed for the Kingsman taxi that awaited him.

On my way, babe, he thought.

He was about to pull open one of the taxi’s rear doors and slide inside when he heard someone behind him say, “Eggy.”

The word took him by surprise for two reasons. One, it was spoken in the cold tones of an electronic speech-generating device, and two, there was only one person on Earth who had ever called him Eggy, and that sonofabitch was dead.

Eggsy spun around, but before he could do anything, he felt the hard metal of a gun muzzle press against his chest. A pistol, he guessed, 9mm most likely. But having a weapon jammed against his body didn’t bother him all that much. Occupational hazard, really. No, what disturbed him was who was doing the jamming. He found himself looking at a man with a buzz cut, wearing a dark hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, someone who by all rights should’ve been a long-moldering corpse by now, and a headless one at that.

“Mind if I share your cab?” Charlie Hesketh said in his synthesized voice.

Even after everything Eggsy had experienced since joining Kingsman—and he’d come across some astoundingly weird shit in his brief tenure as a spy—he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Charlie had been recruited to try out for Kingsman the same time as Eggsy, but when Charlie had failed to make the grade, primarily due to his being a self-centered coward and a complete bastard, he’d thrown in his lot with Richmond Valentine as one of the chosen few the megalomaniacal billionaire had selected to survive his self-engineered apocalypse. When Eggsy, Merlin, and Roxy preempted Valentine’s doomsday, those “chosen ones” had quite literally lost their heads when the small electronic devices Valentine had implanted in their necks—designed to protect them from the tech he used to initiate the end of the world—had been used against them, resulting in a series of impressive, not to mention extremely messy, explosions.

But here was Charlie, head and all. Although it seemed he hadn’t gotten away entirely unscathed, if his voice was any indication.

Charlie looked him up and down.

“Ironic, isn’t it? You look like a gentleman, and I look like a pleb. My parents and mentor would be turning in their graves—which you put them in.”

Charlie’s lips formed a cruel, smug smile. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, Eggsy supposed, but when he smiled like that, he looked like a mean little kid who couldn’t wait to catch and torture the first small, defenseless animal unlucky enough to cross his path.

Seeing Charlie risen from the dead had knocked Eggsy off balance, but his training kicked in, and he quickly recovered.

“What’s with the voice? You gonna shoot me or tell me your new theory on black holes?”

“Very funny. Just open the door… Unless you want a black hole in your gut.”

Charlie nodded toward a trio of gold-colored SUVs approaching fast from the far end of the street. His message was clear: I’m not working alone, escape isn’t possible, and you have no choice but to do as I command.

Who was Eggsy to argue with logic like that?

He gripped the door handle, the built-in biometric reader scanned his prints, and the door opened. But instead of trying to get away from Charlie, Eggsy grabbed hold of the fucker and shoved him into the taxi. Charlie was so surprised that he didn’t resist, and Eggsy climbed in after him and yanked the door closed. Before Charlie could recover his wits, Eggsy grabbed hold of his former rival’s gun hand by the wrist and pressed it down against the brown leather seat. He saw Charlie was indeed holding a 9mm—a Glock to be specific—and he didn’t intend to give him a chance to use it.

The front and rear seats of the taxi were separated by a glass partition, and through it Eggsy caught the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror. The man looked worried, but he was a Kingsman driver, trained to remain calm in the most stressful situations, and he wouldn’t react until given an order by a superior. So Eggsy gave one.

“Drive! Lose them!”

Without hesitation, the man hit the ignition and the sedan’s engine roared to life. He stomped on the gas pedal and the vehicle shot away from the curb, tires squealing in protest. Eggsy glanced out the back window and saw the three SUVs had caught up to them and were following close behind.

Charlie wasn’t about to simply lie there, though. With his free hand, he punched Eggsy in the ribs, driving the breath out of his lungs. Eggsy returned the favor by head-butting Charlie, who followed up by kneeing Eggsy in the stomach. Eggsy used his free hand to give Charlie three quick blows to the jaw. But all this was really just a warm-up, and soon the two men began fighting in earnest, hurling rapid punches and throwing each other around the taxi’s back seat. As they fought, one of them struck the stereo controls, and Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” blasted from the sound system, providing a soundtrack to accompany their battle. At one point, Charlie’s Glock fired and the shot ricocheted around the taxi’s interior for a few heart-stopping seconds before striking the glass partition and shattering it. The driver flinched, but he didn’t slow down. If anything, he increased their speed.

Pete, Eggsy suddenly thought. The man’s name was Pete… something. Gallagher! That was it! And he’d been driving for Kingsman for seventeen, no, eighteen years. The better part of Eggsy’s life. He was an experienced driver, one of the agency’s best, and Eggsy knew he could count on him.

Eggsy kicked Charlie in the chest, knocking him back against the passenger door. The impact caused the door to open, and Charlie fell out, but he caught hold of the door frame with one hand before he could tumble to the pavement. His free hand hit the road and created a shower of sparks as it was dragged along.

What the fuck? Eggsy thought.

In the confusion, he hadn’t gotten a good look at Charlie’s hand up to this point, but he did now, and he saw that the man’s flesh-and-blood arm had been replaced by a robotic one.

Eggsy pressed a control on top of the back seat, and a panel opened to reveal a Kingsman pistol. He grabbed hold of it and spun toward Charlie, intending to empty the clip into the bastard. But before Eggsy could fire, Charlie pulled himself back into the cab, grabbed hold of Eggsy’s gun hand with his robotic appendage and twisted. Charlie’s fingers were cold and hard, and they squeezed Eggsy’s hand like a vice. He grimaced in pain and fought to get a shot off, but Charlie had angled the gun away from him, and Eggsy knew that even if he managed to pull the trigger, the round would miss.

Charlie increased the pressure until Eggsy was forced to let go of the gun, and it fell to the floor of the cab. The cab door was still open, and Charlie pressed his metal hand against Eggsy’s face and pushed him. Eggsy grabbed hold of the door frame to prevent Charlie from shoving him out of the cab, but Charlie continued pressing Eggsy downward until his face was mere inches from the pavement rushing by. Eggsy saw a car approaching fast in the other lane, and he knew he had to do something fast if he wanted to avoid being decapitated. He drew back his leg and kicked Charlie hard in the chest. The blow knocked Charlie backward, and once his hand was removed from Eggsy’s face, Eggsy swiftly pulled himself up, caught hold of the door frame, and hauled himself onto the roof just as the approaching vehicle roared past. He flattened himself against the roof, arms spread wide, fingers gripping the roof’s edges in a desperate attempt to hold on. There was a loud whump and Eggsy felt the roof shudder beneath him. A fist-sized section of metal bulged upward only a few inches from his head, and Eggsy realized Charlie was striking the inside of the roof with his robotic hand. Eggsy rolled to one side and then the other as Charlie repeatedly punched the roof, trying to hit Eggsy and dislodge him. He knew it would only be a matter of time until Charlie succeeded, so he slid toward the edge of the roof, and swung in upside down, holding onto the open door to steady himself. He grabbed a decanter of scotch from the back seat’s mini-bar and smashed it against the side of Charlie’s head. But before he could swing all the way inside and attack Charlie anew, the door gave way and Eggsy fell to the street.

He managed to land on top of the door, and he stood up in a half-crouch, gripping the door frame with his right hand and riding the metal panel like it was a makeshift surfboard, sparks trailing behind.

He was done mucking about. He abandoned the detached door and pulled himself back into the cab. Charlie immediately came at him, but before the fucker could lay a hand on him, Eggsy jammed his signet ring against the side of Charlie’s neck and released an electric charge into the man’s body.

Charlie grinned, unaffected.

“That shit won’t work this time,” he said. “I had a circuit breaker fitted.”

Eggsy threw a wild haymaker at Charlie, putting all the strength he had behind the punch with the intent to put the asshole down for the count. Once the sonofabitch was unconscious, Eggsy could concentrate on escaping the pursuing SUVs, and then he could get to work figuring out just how the hell Charlie had managed to keep his head when the rest of Valentine’s friends had lost theirs.

But Charlie managed to move before the punch could land, and he took the blow on his shoulder. The impact didn’t come close to knocking him out, but it jolted him enough so that Eggsy could snatch the Kingsman pistol from the floor. He pointed it at Charlie and fired, emptying the clip. But Charlie’s robotic hand moved lightning-quick and blocked the rounds.

As fast as Charlie had moved his robot arm, Eggsy knew that he had been toying with him up to this point. The fucker wanted revenge, sure, but he intended to take his time and enjoy it.

“Another upgrade I owe to you,” Charlie said. “Dunno if I should thank you or kill you.” He paused. “Actually, I do.”

Eggsy dropped the useless pistol.

“Pity they didn’t upgrade your tiny balls,” he said.

He grabbed hold of Charlie’s crotch and squeezed as hard as he could. He might not have a tricked-out robot arm, but he didn’t need the aid of biomechanical technology to accomplish this job. Charlie screamed and pushed his robotic hand forward. The impact sent Eggsy tumbling out of the speeding cab. As he fell he reached out and managed to grab hold of the door frame, and he held on for dear life. His feet slid across asphalt, and while the special material of the Kingsman shoes provided some protection from the friction, the heat still hurt like hell.

Seeing Eggsy helpless, Charlie lunged forward, but Eggsy wasn’t about to give up that easily. He released his grip on the door frame and, keeping his hand pressed against the side of the cab to steady himself, slipped backward until he was holding onto the vehicle’s back bumper and foot-surfing asphalt. The SUVs were still close behind, and one of the drivers gunned his engine and surged forward, clearly intending to smash Eggsy between the two vehicles.

He quickly raised his watch to his mouth, pressed one of the controls against his teeth, and sent an electronic signal that opened the boot, climbing in a split second before the SUVs smashed into the rear of the cab. Shaken but unharmed, he clicked his heels together and a poison-coated blade jutted from his right shoe. He used the blade to slice an opening in the back seat, and as he climbed through, he saw that Charlie had leaned his head out the open doorway, no doubt looking to see what had happened to Eggsy.

Once he was all the way inside, Eggsy lashed out with his foot, intending to slash Charlie and allow the fast-acting poison to take the fucker out once and for all. But Charlie managed to bring up his robotic arm in time to block the strike. The blade broke and flew toward the back of Pete’s head. It buried itself at the base of his skull, and the poison did its work. The man died instantly, but his hands continued gripping the sedan’s steering wheel, and when his body started to slump to the side, the wheel was yanked to the right, sending the sedan off course and careening toward a post box on the street corner.

Charlie saw what was coming, and he let go of Eggsy and grabbed hold of the window pillar with his robotic hand to brace himself, his mechanical fingers digging into the metal. Lacking such technological enhancement, Eggsy opted for a simpler tactic: he ducked behind the driver’s seat, and hoped for the best.

The cab slammed into the post box with the sound of shrieking metal, and Eggsy, Charlie, and the newly deceased Pete were all thrown forward. The back of the driver’s seat cushioned Eggsy from the impact, but Charlie and Pete had no such protection—not that it would’ve made any difference to the latter at this point. Pete’s body flew forward and smashed through the windscreen in a shower of glass. Charlie followed, sailing through the now open space where the partition had been and taking out the remainder of the windscreen as he passed through. Unfortunately, his robotic hand’s grip on the window pillar had been too strong, and the arm remained behind while its owner made a hasty and not particularly dignified exit from the vehicle.

Hope the fucker lands on his head, Eggsy thought. He sat up, hoping to see that Charlie had joined Pete on his journey to the great beyond, but then he heard the sound of engines approaching, and instead he saw the three SUVs pull up, surrounding the taxi.

Shit.

He climbed into the front seat, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and hit the ignition. The vehicle had stalled out when it struck the post box, and he was relieved when the engine returned to life. He then flicked a switch on the dashboard. He hoped the sedan’s systems were still online, because if they weren’t, he was well and truly fucked. Nothing happened for several long seconds, but then he felt the vehicle shift subtly beneath him, and he knew the battered cab still had some life in it. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything Kingsman made, from cufflinks to customized weapons, was always top of the line. He threw the sedan into reverse and pulled away from the post box, and when he had enough clearance, he put the vehicle into drive and floored the accelerator. The switch he’d thrown had caused the cab’s hubcaps to blow off and the tires to widen, transforming them into racing slicks. He spun the vehicle on a dime, and executing a spectacular—if he did think so himself—drifting maneuver, he looped around the SUVs and sped away.

A quick glance in the rearview showed him Charlie, one-armed and disheveled but far from dead, rising to his feet. He touched the side of his neck, and his electronic voice boomed out at deafening volume.

“STOP FUCKING AROUND AND GET HIM!”

Air blew in through the opening where the windscreen had been, buffeting Eggsy. Good thing he had his eyeglasses on, otherwise he’d have had a hell of a time seeing. He checked the rearview and saw the SUVs were in pursuit and close on his tail. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, hatches on the roofs opened and Gatling guns began to emerge. The weapons rose up, locked into place, and an instant later three men stood up to operate them. The men were dressed in black and wore military-style VR goggles and head mics. No amateurs these.

Fuck me.

Eggsy touched his eyeglasses, activating the device’s comms system.

“Merlin, we have a code purple. My driver’s down.”

He wasn’t worried overmuch about the guns. Kingsman taxis were built to withstand gunfire, and even Gatling guns… His thoughts were interrupted by a message that came up on the cab’s dashboard monitor. ARMOR-PIERCING ROUNDS DETECTED.

Well, isn’t that just lovely?

“Permission to use anti-weapons?”

A transparent image of Merlin, Kingsman’s tech wizard and chief of ops, appeared on the inside of Eggsy’s glasses, the middle-aged Scotsman’s narrow face displaying a stern expression. He was bald, wore a pair of regular eyeglasses, and was dressed in his usual wool military sweater over a white shirt and black tie.

“Denied!” Merlin said. “Cannot be contained. Head south. I’m clearing the route.”

Right. The whole innocent bystanders thing.

Eggsy weaved through traffic and around parked cars. He was coming up fast on an intersection, and the light was red. He’d have to run it and hope—

The light turned green, as did the light at the next intersection, and the one after that. Eggsy grinned. Merlin was working his magic.

Eggsy roared through each intersection, weaving back and forth to make it more difficult for the SUVs’ weapons systems to get a lock on the cab. The Gatling guns roared as the gunmen started firing. Bright bursts of light issued from their muzzles, sending a hailstorm of bullets streaming toward the sedan. Most of the rounds zipped past harmlessly, but a number struck the cab, tearing through the vehicle’s reinforced metal as if it were papier-mâché. Eggsy executed a drifting turn around Hyde Park Corner, hoping to evade the rounds, but despite his efforts, a bullet struck one of the sedan’s rear tires. The tire blew, and Eggsy found himself fighting to retain control of the cab.

“Shit!”

A glance at the sideview mirror showed sparks shooting off the tire rim as it ground asphalt. No way in hell was he going to outrun the SUVs now, not with only three good tires. It was a matter of moments until the armor-piercing rounds shredded the cab—and him—into confetti, and without the ability to fight back, there was nothing he could do about it. But then he saw Hyde Park ahead of him, the gates shut, and beyond them darkness.

That’ll do.

“Merlin! Going into a dark zone!”

Eggsy smashed through the gates and entered the unlit park, the SUVs still close on his tail and firing at him.

“Dark mode confirmed,” Merlin said. “Permission to fire.”

“Thank fuck for that.” Eggsy flipped a switch on the dashboard, and a compartment slid open on the back of the taxi. A single missile whooooshed straight upward, the fire from its propulsion system illuminating the night. When the missile reached the zenith of its flight, it paused, almost as if it were temporarily frozen in space, before separating into three smaller missiles. Propulsion systems activated, targeting systems engaged; and each of the three mini-missiles screamed toward an SUV with uncanny precision. Neither the drivers nor the men manning the Gatling guns had time to react, and each of the vehicles disappeared in flame and thunder.

Eggsy grinned. Easy-peasy. But before he could congratulate himself on escaping certain death (which was, after all, a Kingsman specialty), Merlin appeared in front of his eyes once more.

“No time to relax; the police are behind you. You have thirty seconds before they reach your position. Go directly to rendezvous Swan.”

Of course the bloody police were coming. A car chase, gunfire, explosions… He wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile tonight. And it wasn’t as if he could simply explain what had happened. Strictly speaking, none of what Kingsman did was legal. That was part and parcel of the independent part of independent intelligence agency. So he needed to get out of here before London’s finest caught up with him. But, rendezvous Swan?

“You do realize I haven’t got a windscreen right now?” he said.

Merlin gave Eggsy a wry smile. “I seem to recall from your training that you were rather good at holding your breath.”

Eggsy had continued driving during their conversation, and now he approached The Serpentine. The curving body of water separated Hyde Park from Kensington Gardens, and it was a popular destination for Londoners and tourists alike. Of course, that’s not all it was, and since it seemed like he didn’t have much choice, Eggsy took several deep breaths and drove straight into the lake’s black water. Within seconds, the cab was fully submerged, and when a few moments later the police arrived, all they saw was the calm, undisturbed surface of the lake.

* * *

Eggsy steered the sedan through cold, dark water, the vehicle’s headlights doing their best to cut through the inky blackness. The windscreen might be history, but the cab’s underwater mode functioned just fine, and the vehicle glided easily across the lakebed. The ride would’ve been pleasant enough if he’d been dry and could take a sip of oxygen now and again. As it was, his lungs were soon burning with the need for air, and when he saw the trapdoor open on the lakebed in a cloud of mud and silt, it came as a huge relief. He guided the cab through the opening and into a room that was scarcely larger than the vehicle itself. Overhead lights came on as the sedan settled onto the floor. The trapdoor shut, the airlock sealed, and water began to flow into the floor drains. But Eggsy couldn’t wait any longer. He swam through the open windscreen and up to the top of the room. Enough water had drained to create a pocket of air, and as soon as he broke the surface he began taking great gulps of the life-giving stuff. He trod water while the room continued to drain, and by the time he was standing on the floor next to the cab—absolutely drenched—his breathing had returned to normal.

Cut it a little close there, bruv, he thought.

Merlin appeared once more on Eggsy’s eyeglass lenses. He was seated in his office at Kingsman headquarters, and although his face showed little expression—the man preferred to maintain a strict veneer of professionalism when he was working—Eggsy could tell by the slight softening around his eyes that he was glad his young friend was all right.

“That wasn’t a revenge mission,” Merlin said. “Charlie could have just killed you immediately. No boasting, but I trained him well enough that even he wouldn’t make such a mess of it.”

Especially not with the help of that arm, Eggsy thought. “What did he want? And more to the point, how the fuck is he alive?”

“Good questions. We’ll have time to ponder them while we wait for the police to clear the park.”

Eggsy felt a flare of panic at the thought of any further delay. “No can do, mate. I’ve got a dinner tonight. If I miss it… let’s just say Charlie might as well have killed me.”

Merlin hesitated before speaking again. “Well… there is one other way out. Three o’clock.”

Eggsy turned in the direction Merlin indicated and saw a hatch set into the floor. A wave of relief washed over him, one even more powerful than he’d felt when he’d gotten his head above water again.

“You’re the guv’nor, Merlin.”

Merlin didn’t respond verbally, but his knowing smirk made Eggsy suspicious.

He frowned. “What’s so funny?”

When Merlin didn’t answer, Eggsy walked over to the hatch and opened it. He immediately recoiled at the stench that wafted forth, and he felt his gorge rise. Fighting to keep from vomiting, he leaned over and peered into the hatch. He saw a ladder that led down into London’s Victorian sewerage system, and beyond that he saw—and more to the point, smelled—a winding river of human shit.

“How important is that dinner?” Merlin said, sounding amused.

“Let me show you.”

Ignoring the ladder, Eggsy dropped down the hole and disappeared into the brown morass with a sludgy splash.

* * *

After Eggsy’s hasty—and more than a little disgusting—departure, the chamber was quiet for a time. The cab’s systems had powered down automatically once the vehicle was settled and secure, and now it sat, battered and waterlogged, but still essentially intact. A few days in Kingsman’s motor pool, a week, tops, and the agency’s mechanical engineers would have it ready for action again. But the cab wasn’t the only thing Eggsy had left behind in the chamber. Charlie’s robotic arm still clung to the window pillar, hanging lifelessly, fingers embedded in the vehicle’s metal with a death grip. Until, with a sudden motion, the fingers disengaged from the metal, and the arm dropped to the cab’s floor. It began crawling up the back seat, fingers moving with inhuman precision, as if the hand were some sort of mechanical insect. The arm crawled through the broken partition and flopped into the front seat. The elbow flexed, and the hand was lifted toward the dashboard control system. Despite the interior of the vehicle having been flooded with lake water, the system remained operational, and it took only a quick manipulation of the controls to activate it and bring it online. Once this was accomplished, a small compartment opened on the tip of the index finger and a USB drive emerged. The hand inserted the drive into a port on the dashboard, and within seconds, the arm’s internal computer had not only accessed the cab’s system, it had linked to Kingsman’s mainframe through that system.

If Eggsy had been present, he would’ve noticed a logo on the back of the robot hand: a circle wrought in gold metal. But he wasn’t there, and so the arm went about its work unimpeded.

Somewhere deep in the jungles of Cambodia

A beautiful redheaded woman in her fifties wearing pearls and a puppy-patterned apron over a vermilion dress stood at the counter of what appeared to be a 1950s-style American diner. The tiled floor was laid out in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, the tables were chrome with a slight art deco feel to them, and the chairs were upholstered in sparkle-flecked ruby red. There was a long counter with stools in front of it, along with booths against the walls. Old-fashioned salt and pepper shakers and metal napkin dispensers sat atop the tables, and the entire place was brightly lit by fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The overall effect was kitschy while at the same time warmly nostalgic. At least, that’s what Poppy liked to think. She had to admit that without a crowd of customers—families with young children, teenagers on first dates, older couples who came here to remember what it was like to be young—the diner had an empty, almost depressing feeling. She supposed the sight of jungle foliage through the diner’s windows fought against the atmosphere she was trying to create. Maybe she could see about having some kind of holographic projection system installed in the windows to create the illusion of a 1950s small-town street outside. That might help. Then again, it might look too… what was the word she was searching for? Too staged. Ah, well. Money couldn’t buy everything. And that, really, was the entire point of her current project, wasn’t it?

The diner might be mostly empty, but Poppy wasn’t alone. Two men sat in front of her, one wearing a beige jacket and peach shirt, the other a light blue jacket and dark blue shirt. Both of them looked dangerous, as if they’d be just as happy slicing their grandmother’s throat as they would kissing her cheek. But Poppy wasn’t intimidated. After all, she could be rather dangerous herself when she wished. Charles and Angel might be of the same rough type—cold-eyed and cold-blooded—but Charles was clean-shaven while Angel sported a neatly trimmed black beard.

Angel was a new recruit, and he kept glancing around the diner, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Poppy couldn’t blame him, really. She supposed it was something of a shock to walk in here after trudging through the jungle. But if the man was having trouble dealing with this, she wondered what he thought about the rest of her compound. It wasn’t exactly a stereotypical jungle camp.

Laid out on the counter in front of Poppy were immaculately prepped ingredients: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickle slices. Behind her was a huge industrial-sized meat mincer, which looked quite out of place in the diner, and—truth be told—that did bother her. But sometimes aesthetics had to give way to practicality. This really was the best place in the compound for the mincer. The tiled floor made it much easier to clean up after the device had been used.

“I never enjoyed drugs myself, but here I am, running the biggest drug cartel in the world,” Poppy said. “The only downside is living in the middle of nowhere. These ruins are actually undiscovered, and I made a few changes to make them more homey. I grew up in the fifties, and I loved TV shows like Andy Griffith and Happy Days. It reminds me of home. Nostalgia, y’know?”

As she addressed the two men, she did her best to sound both friendly and professional. In her experience, employees responded best to a boss who was firm and direct, but who also demonstrated she had a human side. To help create this effect, she strived for a Martha Stewart meets Margaret Thatcher vibe in both her manner and dress. An odd combination, perhaps, but one she thought suited her nicely.

Poppy went on. “But I digress. As I said, I have a global monopoly on the drug trade. And for that, I owe a debt to Richmond Valentine. Do you know how many drug barons around the world died on V-Day? People may have only gone nuts for a few minutes, but if you were in a room full of bodyguards with guns… Good night, sweetheart.”

Poppy had not been invited to attend Valentine’s apocalyptic shindig, a fact that privately galled her. Evidently drug lords hadn’t rated high on the insane entrepreneur’s personal social registry, no matter how wealthy they were. And Poppy was among the wealthiest on the planet, if not the wealthiest. But considering what had happened to those he had invited, she wasn’t too upset over being left out. She’d much rather be snubbed than have her head explode. And as for the sim cards Valentine had given away for free—cards that, once inserted into a cellphone or other device, broadcast a signal that turned everyone in the vicinity into a homicidal maniac—neither Poppy nor any of her guards had gotten one, so they’d been in the clear when the madness of V-Day struck. It seemed there were some advantages, however few they might be, to having one’s compound located deep in a secluded Cambodian jungle.

“I used to run the Golden Triangle,” she continued. “But so many of my rivals died that day—turning the Triangle into a Hexagon was easy!” A pause. “The important thing to understand is the hard work and ingenuity that went into turning that Hexagon into a Circle… Taking over the whole industry, worldwide. Not to toot my own horn! I just think it’s so important for new recruits to fully understand the history of the Golden Circle.”

Both Charles and Angel nodded enthusiastically. Poppy looked from Charles, to Angel, and then back to Charles.

“So the two of you are lifelong friends, huh?”

They nodded.

“And you… It’s Charles, right? You think your buddy here is worthy of joining us?”

Beads of nervous sweat clung to Charles’s brow, but his voice was steady as he answered in an English accent. “I would not have brought him all this way to see you, if I did not, Ms Poppy.”

“Hmm. Okay, gentlemen. I have questions. Do you understand that in the Golden Circle, my authority is never to be questioned?”

They nodded again.

“And do you understand the importance of following orders?”

Again, they nodded.

“And… the value of loyalty? Is that something you understand too?”

One last pair of nods.

She looked at the men for a long moment, then said, “Easy to nod, isn’t it?”

Charles and Angel exchanged uncertain looks. Then, evidently unable to decide on a different reply, they simply nodded one more time. Poppy considered herself an extremely patient person, but the needle on her patience tank was beginning to dip dangerously close to E, and when she next spoke, her voice had a hint of steel in it.

“Unfortunately, I don’t like easy. I like proof.”

She turned away from the men and flipped the switch that turned on the mincer. The machine came to life instantly, blades whirring loudly. She turned back around in time to see Charles and Angel exchange concerned glances, but neither man spoke.

Poppy looked at Charles’s friend. “You. What’s your name?”

“Angel, ma’am.”

“Okay, Angel. Listen carefully: your old pal Charles here has screwed up. That’s all I’m gonna say, because that’s all you need to know.” She paused, then added, her voice cold as ice, “Put him in the mincer, please.”

Charles hadn’t really screwed up—not as far as Poppy knew, anyway. Although given how hard it was to find good help, the possibility was always there. But as someone who enjoyed cooking, she knew that sometimes you had to crack a few eggs—or hurl them to the ground and stomp on them repeatedly—if you wanted to make an omelet.

For an instant, neither man reacted, both too stunned by Poppy’s command. But then Poppy laughed, and Charles and Angel followed suit, although their laughter held a nervous edge. But when the laughter died away Poppy fixed Charles with a cold, level gaze. Charles realized he was in deep shit, and he jumped up from his seat and ran like hell for the diner’s entrance. Poppy sighed, then put two fingers in her mouth and blew a loud, high-pitched whistle. In a hidden corner of the diner, two kennels sprang open, and a pair of large dogs—or at least, what at first glance looked like dogs—ran toward Charles at amazing speed. The creatures bounded over tables and knocked down chairs in their rush to reach him, and Charles shrieked in terror and froze, knowing he couldn’t possibly hope to outrun these things. They were robots, constructs of metal, plastic, and programming, and while outwardly they possessed the basic shape of dogs—like oversized Dobermans—they were faster, stronger, and deadlier than any flesh-and-blood canine could be. Poppy loved her doggies, and she was especially fond of their wickedly curved steel claws and their razor-sharp steel teeth. She liked the way the light glinted off the metal as they tore someone to shreds.

The dogs made no move to attack Charles, though. The whistle Poppy had used to summon them had also been a specific command: herd, not kill. The two robots stopped in front of Charles, and then began closing in on him slowly, optical scanners glowing an eerie red, speech synthesizers producing tinny barking sounds, metallic claws clicking on the tiled floor. As they approached, Charles backed up until he was standing next to Angel once more. Charles, trembling and covered with sweat, didn’t take his gaze off the robot dogs. Now that Charles was back where Poppy wanted him, the dogs stopped advancing, but they continued keeping watch on the man, optical scanners fixed on him in case he tried to bolt again.

Poppy ignored Charles and spoke to Angel. “So, you want to join the Circle? Or follow your friend into the mincer?”

Angel didn’t hesitate. He stood, and punched Charles twice in rapid succession. Charles went limp, but he didn’t fully lose consciousness. Angel caught him before he could fall to the floor, and tossed him over his shoulder. He carried Charles behind the counter, lifted him up, and without so much as an instant of hesitation, fed him head-first into the whirring mincer.

“Oh my God!” Charles said, and then shrieked again as the mincer went to work. The machine was huge and powerful, and it reduced Charles to tiny pieces of meat quickly and efficiently. Poppy watched Angel’s face throughout the process to gauge the man’s reaction, but his expression remained stony the entire time. She nodded with approval.

When Angel was finished and Charles—with the exception of his legs protruding from the mincer—had been transformed into a substantial pile of fresh meat sitting on the mincer’s large metal tray, she placed her hand on Angel’s back, just for a few seconds. She knew that, strictly speaking, she shouldn’t touch him. The last thing she wanted to do was create a sexually threatening atmosphere in the workplace, but she believed that a literal pat on the back could go a long way to making an employee feel appreciated. And since she had no human resources department to get on her ass about it, she figured: what the hell?

“Good job!” she said, then pointed toward one of the windows. “See my salon across the way?”

Angel nodded.

“Head over there.”

Angel left, and Poppy stepped over to the robo-dogs and patted them on the head, first one, then the other. Their names were Bennie and Jet. She actually couldn’t tell them apart, but that was okay. They never seemed to mind. Maybe she could paint the first letter of their names on their sides or something. That would help, but the letters would mar their sleek futuristic design. No, she decided. They were fine the way they were, interchangeable names or not.

She went behind the counter, picked up a handful of minced Charles, and began cheerfully shaping it into a patty.

Chapter Two

Despite the mask of indifference Angel had worn for Poppy, he was shaken by killing Charles. Charles had overstated the case when he said the two of them were friends. More like casual acquaintances who’d worked for some of the same drug lords in the past. The work paid well, it was easy enough, and it was far less hazardous than most people would’ve believed, especially when you were one among a cadre of henchmen and guards. Most of the time, all you had to do was stand around holding a gun and scowling, and that—plus the presence of so many others who were doing the same—was enough to deter most people from trying to start trouble. And on those occasions when trouble did come, a few well-placed bullets usually took care of the situation.

But just as Poppy had said, during V-Day most of the drug lords and their employees had slaughtered each other, not just in Cambodia, but all around the world. Angel had been lucky. When Valentine triggered his aggression-causing signal, Angel had been nursing a truly epic hangover from the night before, and he’d remained in bed, head pounding, room spinning, blissfully unaware of the chaos taking place across the Earth. When he recovered, he learned the man he worked for was dead, which meant he no longer had a job. He looked for another, but all the drug lords were dead—all, that is, except for Poppy Adams. At first Angel had considered trying another line of work, but he knew he was kidding himself. Working as hired muscle was all he knew, and he was good at it. He didn’t want another job. And so when he’d learned that his good “buddy” Charles was working for Poppy, he managed to convince him to introduce Angel to his employer.

That didn’t work out so good for you. Did it, amigo?

So now he had a job. That was good. But it appeared his new employer was a crazy woman who didn’t mind sacrificing one of her workers during the course of a job interview. That wasn’t so good. He’d worked for sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, sadists—people who were, not to put too fine a point on it, bad to the fucking bone. But Poppy was unpredictable. Volatile. And, from what he had seen so far, absolutely ruthless and merciless. But the job came with decent benefits—both health and dental—so Angel figured he could put up with the rest of it.

One thing that was going to take him some time to get used to was Poppy’s compound. That it was located so far away from even the merest hint of civilization was no surprise. You could hardly conduct her sort of business in a corner shop somewhere. But her architectural tastes were… well, eclectic was a kind way to put it. Batshit crazy was more accurate. She had constructed it using ancient ruins as a base, but the main gate was a large metal wall with the word POPPYLAND