The Pimpernel Plot tw-3

by Simon Hawke

  “I know because I’ve been watching you. Also because up until this moment, my sole responsibility on this mission has been to stay with her, to keep her occupied and away from you as much as possible. Not only is that unfair, it’s stupid. She’s an intelligent woman, Finn, though it wouldn’t take very much intelligence for her to see right through that ploy, as she did almost from the very start. I may be a woman, Finn, but I’m a soldier. My sex does not automatically qualify me to be an older sister or to heal a broken heart. I’m not very good at it. I haven’t complained about it up till now because I am a soldier and you are my superior in rank, but it’s reached the point where my company is doing her more harm than good.”

  “What do you mean?” said Finn.

  “I told you, Finn, Marguerite’s no fool. She knows I’m there to be a buffer between the two of you. She might not have liked it very much, but it might have been easier for her to live with that if she knew that you didn’t care for her. The only problem is, she knows that you love her.”

  “How could she know that?”

  “She’d have to be blind not to see it. Lucas knows that you’re attracted to her, but I don’t think he’s realized yet that there’s a great deal more to it than that. She knows you love her and she thinks you can’t forgive her because of the St. Cyr affair. She’s been on the verge of talking to me about it several times, but she can’t bring herself to discuss it. It’s obviously extremely painful for her. Also, she’s very proud. She’s determined to win you back without having to humiliate herself by begging your forgiveness.”

  “Before we go any further,” Finn said, “let’s just keep our roles straight. It isn’t me she wants, it’s Blakeney. And-”

  “No, it isn’t Blakeney, Finn,” said Andre. “It’s you. Marguerite loves you.”

  “You’re talking nonsense.”

  “Am I? Let me tell you about Marguerite and Percy Blakeney, Finn, I’ve become an expert on the subject. She talks to me because she has no one else to talk to. Marguerite was never in love with Percy Blakeney. She was in love with the idea of being loved by a man like Blakeney, a simple man as she puts it. She had convinced herself that there was something touchingly pure and romantic in being loved by a simple man. When I said that she wasn’t a fool, I didn’t mean to imply that she was not naive.

  “Blakeney was evidently pathetically clumsy in his courtship of her. In her own words, he followed her around like a little puppy. She found that rather sweet. Compared to the people she had associated with, he was a dullard. They were all much smarter than he was, far wittier and much more skilled in intellectual debate. To say that he floundered in their presence would be an understatement, but he kept trying because he wanted to impress her. I’m far more experienced in warfare than in love, but spending so much time with Marguerite has been an education. I believe that Blakeney aroused her maternal instincts and she confused them with affection. All that changed, of course, when Blakeney became cold to her as a result of her part in St. Cyr’s execution.

  “Do you recall that bet you and Lucas lost just before we clocked out on this mission?”

  Finn blinked. “What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

  “Not a great deal, except that it enabled me to understand a few things better,” Andre said. “I imagine that you and Lucas thought that I had spent the whole night rutting with that male whore and it amused me to allow you to believe that. In fact, I was far too drunk to have much interest in sex, though I did ask him to illustrate some things in a purely clinical fashion.

  We talked for most of the night. Thanks to the implant programming, I’m a great deal better educated than I ever dreamed I would be, but as I’ve already told you, my education was incomplete in some respects. He was an excellent teacher, though not in the way that you must think. He was very good at explaining the various physical and emotional aspects of love, something I knew next to nothing about. What I found most fascinating was something he called ‘chemistry.’ I understand that it’s a very old expression used to describe- ”

  “I know what chemistry is,” Finn said, irritably.

  “Well, I didn’t,” Andre said. “When he explained it to me, I found it a bit difficult to accept. Maybe it was because I had too much to drink or because nothing like that had ever happened to me, but the idea of two people having such a strong emotional response to one another with no real knowledge of each other seemed somehow improbable to me. Yet, I strongly suspect that that was what must have happened between you and Marguerite.”

  She paused, watching him.

  “Your silence tells me that I’ve guessed correctly. In any other circumstance, I’m sure it would be wonderful for both of you. However, in this case, the problem is that you know and understand what happened, while Marguerite is hopelessly confused. She thought that her husband had grown bored with her at first, then she believed that Blakeney came to hate her because of St. Cyr. Now, she knows that her husband loves her, lusts for her. What’s more, she suddenly finds herself loving and lusting for her husband, a man who had never affected her that way before. She’s also noticed that, in many ways, he’s changed. His taste in food is different. Suddenly he can hold his liquor better than ever before. Someone at the first party that we had here reported your verbal fencing match with Pitt to her almost word for word and she was both delighted and astonished at your newfound ability. Finn, do you know what she asked one of the servants yesterday? She was afraid to ask me because she thought it might get back to you, so she went to the gamekeeper, who’s served the family for years. I know about it because I’ve been following orders and keeping an eye on her. I eavesdropped. She asked the old man about your relatives.”

  “My relatives?”

  Andre nodded. “She said she knew that you were an only child, but she was curious if you had any cousins, perhaps, who looked a great deal like you.” She paused. “Of course, Algernon Blakeney didn’t have a brother or a sister, so Percy obviously couldn’t have any cousins who were his identical twins, could he?”

  She approached Finn and took the bottle from his hand. “I can’t really help you anymore with Marguerite,” she said. “She keeps asking questions and I’m running out of answers. l don’t know how you’re going to handle this, Finn, but you’re going to have to do it. I can’t do it for you. She’s just on the verge of believing the impossible, that her husband is an impostor. As Forrester might have said, she feels it in her gut. What are you going to do when it works its way up to her brain?”

  Taking the bottle with her, she left the room and softly closed the door.

  8

  They sat together amidships on board the Day Dream as Captain Briggs piloted the boat across the Channel. They had sailed on the morning tide. It was a clear day and the wind was brisk and cold, sending sheets of sea spray across the deck, the droplets pattering down like grapeshot. Finn held his short clay so that the bowl of the pipe was shielded by his hand from both the wind and spray as he stretched his legs out before him. The crew did not intrude on his and Lucas’s privacy and Tony Dewhurst and Andrew Ffoulkes were both below in their cabins, having no desire to remain on deck in such damp and windy conditions. For Finn and Lucas, it was an ideal opportunity to talk. En route to Dover, Finn had told Lucas all about his meeting with TIA agent Cobra and his talk with Andre the night before.

  “So she suspects that something’s wrong,” said Lucas. “That could be a real problem. I knew that you felt something for her, but I thought that maybe it was only sympathy or that she turned you on or perhaps a little of both, but this… You had to go and lose your head over a pretty face. Worse, you let her know it. Hell, Finn, you’re supposed to be a pro. Andre’s a rookie and she’s handled herself better on this mission than you have.”

  “You just don’t understand,” said Finn.

  “No, I guess I don’t.”

  “She’s not just another pretty face, Lucas. I’m telling you, this is the real thing. I know it proba
bly sounds corny, but Andre called it, there was something happening between us from the very start. I’ve just been refusing to admit it to myself. Hell, I’m not some lovestruck kid, I’m old enough to be your grandfather and then some, but I’m telling you, I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone before. It’s a revelation.”

  “It’s pathetic, is what it is,” said Lucas, dryly. “The problem is, what are you going to do about it? What can you do?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Finn said. “Blakeney’s dead. Even when this adjustment is over, when the Scarlet Pimpernel retires, someone is going to have to continue being Percy Blakeney. Forrester said that it might be indefinite, but since I’m already on the spot, why not make it permanent?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “Christ, Finn, I can give you several obvious reasons why not,” said Lucas. “For one thing, you’re in the First Division. Adjustment specialists are just too valuable to waste on temporal relocation. You ought to know that. Besides-”

  “They can’t turn me down if I request a transfer,” Finn said. “With my mission record, I’ve got that option.”

  “Technically, yes, you do,” said Lucas, “but you’re not thinking, Finn. You must really have it bad, because I can’t believe you’d be so stupid. To begin with, if Fitzroy found out about this, he’d probably put you in for reeducation when this was over, after which you wouldn’t even remember Marguerite, much less the fact that you wanted a transfer, which they wouldn’t give you anyway, at least not to the relocation units. In fact, that might not be a bad idea. It would certainly solve your problem.”

  “It wouldn’t help Marguerite very much,” said Finn.

  “Oh, I’m glad to see you’ve finally thought of how this would affect her,” Lucas said. “Have you thought of what would happen when you clock back to Plus Time and someone from the relocation units gets sent back to substitute for Percy Blakeney, someone she’d have to live with for the rest of her life? If the two of you got together, would somebody else be the same? Even if you were allowed to remain here with her, there’s one basic difference between you and someone from the relocation units. You’ve had antiagathic treatments and you’re far too old to have them reversed. She’d age at the normal rate and you wouldn’t. Leaving aside the fact that it would be a little difficult to explain to all your friends, how do you think she’d feel, watching herself grow old while you remained the same? How would you feel?”

  Finn nodded. He looked crestfallen. “You’re absolutely right. I’m being a complete idiot. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

  Lucas looked at him and smiled, sympathetically. “You’re in love,” he said. “It’s made idiots of better men than you before. I’m sorry, old buddy, I shouldn’t have been so hard on you, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you it would be really rough on you if you started caring about her, though this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. You know, it’s funny, but in basic training they run down just about every possible hazard you can encounter on the Minus Side, yet I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning the hazard of falling in love with someone who belongs to another time. You’d think they would include that.”

  “Maybe they don’t because there’s not much you can do about it,” Finn said.

  “Well, there’s certainly nothing we can do about it now,” said Lucas. “Besides, we still have another problem on our hands. What are you going to tell Cobra?”

  The corners of Finn’s mouth turned down in a grim frown. “I don’t know. I was going to ask you for suggestions. I know what I wont to tell him, but it’s not for me to decide alone. Besides, you’re the senior officer on this team.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “No kidding? God damn, someone record this for posterity, this is a first. Finn Delaney defers to the chain of command!”

  “Go to hell.”

  “After you, old friend, you’re not sticking me with this one. I’m not going to make any command decisions. I left my oak leaves back in Plus Time.”

  “All right, then, at least give me some feedback. What do you think our choices are?”

  “The way Cobra laid it out for you,” said Lucas, “it doesn’t sound like we’ve got much in the way of choices. We either play it his way or we don’t. If we do what he wants us to do, it’s hard to say whether we’d be disobeying orders or not. Technically, there’s nothing in our orders that says we have to go after Mongoose. In fact, Fitzroy was pretty specific on that point. Mongoose is Cobra’s responsibility. However, there’s nothing in our orders that says we have to back off and let Mongoose get away if we get a chance to stop him. If we do that, depending on who writes the report and how it’s interpreted, we might be brought up on charges. Fitzroy’s going to be submitting the report and he doesn’t like us, anyway. Now we could go to Fitzroy and report what Cobra told you. If we do, we’ll be forcing someone’s hand and Mongoose, Cobra, or Fitzroy might get killed. Or all three of them might get killed. Or we might get killed. Or someone blows the adjustment. God knows, it could go wrong sixteen different ways.”

  “If we don’t tell Fitzroy and he finds out about it,” Finn said, “we’ll probably be court-martialed.”

  “There’s that,” said Lucas. “There’s also the fact that Mongoose’s interference has already resulted in several deaths, courtesy of our overly zealous young friend, Jean. Given that those soldiers were killed by someone in their own time, Cobra might be correct in his assessment that temporal inertia will compensate for it. On the other hand, maybe it won’t and we’ll have another minor disruption on our hands. Plus there’s the possibility that Mongoose might inadvertently cause a more serious disruption. That’s assuming that Cobra’s right again and that Mongoose has no interest in interfering with the adjustment. He could be wrong.”

  “God, I hate those damn spooks,” Finn said.

  “Well, it took a while, but I think I’ve finally come around to your point of view,” said Lucas. “I’d like to send the whole bunch of them into reeducation and then put them all to work in waste disposal about a million miles from Earth, preferably even farther.”

  “It’s a nice thought, but it doesn’t solve our problem,” Finn said.

  “I’ve just been thinking that it would have made our job a whole lot easier if you had been a bit more on target with your sword cane that night.”

  “I was wondering if you’d get around to that,” said Finn.

  Lucas sighed. “I’m actually surprised to hear myself say it, but killing him would wrap things up rather neatly, wouldn’t it?”

  “I hate to be the one to bring this up,” Finn said, “but actually, it wouldn’t. The new director of the agency wants him alive so he can pump him dry. If we killed Mongoose, we’d be directly disobeying orders, we’d have both the TIA and the Observer Corps coming down on us and, last but not least, we’d be guilty of murder.”

  “I don’t think they could make a case for murder,” Lucas said, thoughtfully.

  “They could if they wanted to,” said Finn. “Manslaughter, at the very least. We’d be in it pretty deep.”

  “That didn’t stop you when you tried to stick him in the maze,” said Lucas.

  “Things weren’t quite so complicated then,” said Finn. “Besides, I had no intention of getting caught.”

  “What were you planning to do with the body?”

  “I hadn’t thought it through that far,” said Finn, “but there are several nice lakes on the estate. If I weighted him down, he’d sink very nicely and by the time he came up, if he ever did come up, we’d be long gone and no one would ever be able to recognize who it was.”

  “He’d have implants,” Lucas said. “There’d be the problem of the termination signal.”

  Finn gazed down at his hand, contemplating his hypo ring. He exposed the needle and stared at it a moment. “Fitzroy was kind enough to issue me some sedatives,” he said. “It would mean that we’d have to take
him alive, but then we could put him to sleep and do a little sloppy surgery.”

  Lucas exhaled heavily. “I can’t believe we’re talking like this,” he said.

  Finn shrugged. “It’s only talk. So far.”

  Lucas nodded. “Yeah. So far.”

  The three of them sat in a corner at a small and rickety table in a dark and unprepossessing inn called the Chat Gris, on the outskirts of Calais near Cap Gris Nez. The innkeeper, a surly, grizzled Frenchman named Brogard, did little to disguise his dislike for the Englishmen or his citizen’s contempt for their aristocratic status. However, they were paying customers and the times in France were such that Brogard could ill afford to turn anyone away much less rich patrons with healthy appetites who had also taken rooms in his establishment. He served them in a prompt, if perfunctory, manner and he kept his contact with them to a minimum, which suited Lucas, Finn, and Andrew Ffoulkes just fine.

  “I have found the perfect place,” said Ffoulkes in a low voice, so as not to be overheard, although Brogard had removed himself to the far corner of the room and was obviously totally uninterested in anything that Englishmen had to say. “It’s a tiny cottage belonging to a Pere Blanchard,” Ffoulkes said, “an old man of Royalist sympathies who was more than happy to allow us the use of his small hut with no questions asked, providing he received a very reasonable stipend to ease his final days. I think he suspects that I am a smuggler, though I’m certain he doesn’t have a clue as to the sort of goods I’m dealing in.” He grinned.

  “Where is this cottage?” Lucas said.

  “You take the St. Martin’s road out of town, in the direction of the cliffs,” said Ffoulkes. “At the crest of the road, there is a very narrow footpath, but you must watch for it or else you shall miss it. The footpath leads down to the cliffs, where you will find the cottage, securely nestled on the hillside and well hidden from the road and any prying eyes who would not know to look for it. Blanchard is old, as I have said, and a bit of a recluse. He has an arrangement with a local Jew named Reuben Goldstein to bring him supplies from town occasionally. Outside of that, he has no contact with anyone. It seemed ideal.”