Napoleon's Gold: A Jack Starling Adventure

by Guy Roberts

  ‘Wait, what’s a 1 to 50 search pattern?’ Brice looked confused.

  Sir Johnathon leaned forward smoothly. ‘Andrew means the search parameters in the facial recognition software used in the metropolis. Most search patterns are based on a 1:5 error ratio – monitoring the distance between eyes and nose, width of mouth, angle of forehead, shade of skin – and comparing close matches with the given search parameters. Moving it to a ratio of 1:50 loosens up the parameters, meaning more people will be identified as possible matches – even if they are wearing hats or a ‘hoodie’, as Starling did at Aldershot. A broader search pattern means more human eyes will be needed to confirm or reject matches, but I think it’s essential, given Jack Starling’s experience in counter-surveillance techniques.’

  ‘So why can’t we do that for the whole city?’ Brice asked. ‘Why focus on the exit arterials?’

  ‘Because a broader search ratio means more potential matches. Keeping it focused on Brixton and traffic avenues is a balance between real-time surveillance and useful coverage of sites. It means a far greater chance of identifying the target if they are on the move – by planes, trains or, ahem, automobiles. The result is that they are forced to remain out of sight – stationary – allowing traditional methods of detection to track them down in situ – whether in Brixton or elsewhere in London.’

  ‘But still, surely we can use it just Brixton and the surrounding suburbs?’ Brice persisted.

  ‘We are doing that.’ Sir Johnathon said firmly. ‘But applying that ratio to anything more would mean the analysts would be flooded with potential matches – millions of them. Our staff are already sorting through hundreds of matches per minute, just from Brixton and the transport lines. Applying a 1:50 ratio to anything larger than that would mean up to one million matches every sixty seconds – there is no way our staff could search through that data effectively – which would actually make it easier for Jack and his partner to escape.’

  ‘Well…’ Brice subsided reluctantly. The old fool had been well-briefed, clearly. That meant COBRA would have to wait until the two fugitives were smoked out of their unknown Brixton lair. Something else occurred to him.

  ‘Put around the clock security on the Russian embassy,’ Brice ordered. ‘We don’t want them getting in and claiming diplomatic immunity.’

  ‘Anything else we can do, Mr Brice?’ Highgrove spoke coolly from the far end of the table.

  ‘Anything else?’ Brice flushed at the implied criticism. ‘No, nothing else for the moment; just watch, wait and bloody well find them!’

  0350 hrs 16 June 2015, Loughborough Housing Estate, London.

  GR 510469963, -0.106410

  The door to the child’s bedroom opened gently and Cleo Draycott slipped through without a noise. She stood for a moment, letting her eyes accustom to the darkness as she identified the sounds and shapes of the unfamiliar room.

  The eternal hum of London traffic was audible from the window and a single beam of street light cut through a gap in the curtains, throwing a line of illumination down across the Thomas the Tank Engine blanket covering Jack’s body on the floor. A dull rumbling indicated that the former soldier was asleep, snoring gently with a sound like a distant sea. A lighter snore from the bed in the corner of the room showed where the room’s four year old occupant was asleep as well, tucked under his own blankets.

  Since escaping the British Library that morning, Cleo had spent the day carefully reading through David Starling’s hidden note, preparing for her search of Apsley House and readying the escape routes needed afterwards. She hadn’t been sure that Jack would turn up at Apsley House, but she had planned for that contingency nonetheless – managing to spirit both of them away from the eyes of the authorities had been an exhilarating testament to her planning. Prior preparation and planning prevents piss-poor performance. Her teeth gleamed as she smiled. Thanks Dad… I know you’d be proud.

  Now Jack lay sleeping on the floor before her, his sizable frame tucked up beneath a child’s blanket. The rumbling of his snores was soft and irregular – an indication that he was deep in the middle of a sleep cycle. Satisfied that all was well, Cleo paced forward like a cat, her socked feet soundless on the carpeted floor. In one stealthy movement she knelt by Jack’s head, ears monitoring his breathing as her hands confidently slid his rolled up jacket from beneath the blanket without disturbing him. A moment later she had sorted through the pockets and found the bundle of papers she had been looking for.

  The poem… Bingo! She glanced down at the sleeping man for a moment and smiled in triumph. I told him that gold was mine. She wasn’t concerned about his possible reactions when he woke up the next morning and found her and the information gone. She’d seen enough of Jack Starling already to know that his rage would be turned inward. He would blame himself, not Bethany, the woman who had given them shelter in her tiny council flat home. Cleo smiled happily and slid the rolled up jacket back where it had been.

  ‘David, I want to protect her.’ Jack’s voice was calm and conversational, as if chatting to a friend over dinner. Cleo went still, one hand still under the blanket. He’s talking in his sleep…

  ‘Protect who?’ She spoke at last, her voice low and soothing.

  ‘Cleo Draycott.’ Jack declared. Cleo felt a frown appear on her forehead. She didn’t need Jack Starling playing Knight Errant.

  ‘Cleo can protect herself,’ she whispered firmly.

  ‘Oh, good,’ Jack sounded relieved. ‘David, I like her.’ He rolled to one side and drifted back into the depths of slumber.

  Cleo leaned back on her haunches for a moment, staring at him furiously. He likes me? I can take care of myself! For a moment she fought the urge to hit him. A few seconds later and her rage had subsided and she had stood up, pacing to the doorway as silently as she had come. She paused, hand on the doorknob.

  ‘David, I like her…’

  Cleo shut her eyes, a moment of indecision twisting her in two. You don’t owe him anything… Her hand tightened on the doorknob for a moment. Get out of here now!

  An image of Pierre Deschamps flashed into her mind, strong and bare chested, wrapped in sweat-drenched silk sheets in his Parisian townhouse. It had been less than two weeks ago, when she had been working her way into Deschamp’s organisation to uncover the information that David sought. She had woken Deschamps from a nightmare and he had responded by slapping her with enough force to knock her from the bed. She could still remember the look of hatred that had flashed into his eyes. She had seen him at a moment of weakness, and he had hated her for it. The look in his eyes had been enough to make her feel afraid. Cleo hated to feel afraid. Cleo had always valued her independence, her ability to survive in a world that was always tough, and sometimes vicious. People like Pierre Deschamps had only sharpened her outlook on life. Play hard, party harder… don’t ask for favours and always pay your debts… Until David Starling had appeared, and for the first time in a long time she had seen a future which didn’t mean living on the knife edge of danger.

  Despite herself, Cleo turned and looked back over one shoulder. Jack lay on the floor like an oblivious log. Cleo ground her teeth for a moment. Damn you, David Starling. It wasn’t Jack she was thinking of… it was his dead older brother.

  David Starling had given her a chance… and been killed before she could repay the trust he had shown her. Now his little brother Jack was lying asleep on the floor in front of her, not knowing of the dangers he was tempting in his pursuit of Napoleonic gold.

  Cleo hated to owe someone a favour, but no matter how she cut it, she owed one to David. Cleo’s mind raced forward, striving against itself. Keeping Jack alive might be the only way that debt could be repaid. Which meant she had to stay by Jack’s side… and not go for the gold herself… not till Deschamps was taken care of, at least. She slumped forward for a moment, resting her head against the door, trying to think of some way she could outsmart her conscience and walk out the door without a backward glance.
<
br />   Dammit… I can’t go just yet. She cursed herself a final time and let her hand fall from the door knob then squared her shoulders and turned back into the room.

  Without hesitation she slipped back to Jack’s side, pulled out his jacket and returned the handful of papers to the inner pocket. The entire operation took mere seconds. Jack lay snoring gently the entire time.

  Cleo looked up, sensing another consciousness in the room. The child lay in his bed, his eyes shining in the darkness as he stared at her watchfully. Cleo swallowed carefully, thinking through the situation as her hands tucked the jacket back under the blanket for a final time. After that, she smiled warmly, then lifted a finger to her lips in the universal gesture for silence. There was a gleam of teeth in the darkness as her smile was returned. The boy turned over and was asleep within seconds. Cleo watched for a moment longer, then slipped from the room as silently as she had arrived, leaving the two sleepers to their dreams.

  0700 hrs 16 June 2015, Loughborough Housing Estate, London.

  GR 510469963, -0.106410

  Jack awoke with a start. He was lying stretched out on the floor of a child’s bedroom, a pillow stuck under his head and a Thomas the Tank Engine blanket keeping him warm. The sun was streaming in through a window and the sound of children playing outside carried through the air. He looked around carefully. He was clearly in the bedroom of a little boy, with Lego monsters in various states of repair scattered across a messy desk. Posters were plastered across the wall, with Transformers and Manchester United battling for supremacy. Jack sniffed the air. There was the smell of pancakes. The door to the room swung open to reveal a small child staring at him impishly with large brown eyes.

  ‘Breakfast is ready, Mr Sleepyhead!’ the boy chirruped in a happy Jamaican accent. Jack grinned at the name calling and followed the boy into the kitchen of the council flat, pulling his jacket on and running his hands through his hair as he went. Cleo was sitting at a table in the well-stocked kitchen, nursing a baby on her lap and chatting happily to an older woman standing by a cooking range. A tiny TV in the corner showed a couple of cheery breakfast hosts, their banter thankfully muted.

  ‘Ah, Mr Sleepyhead,’ the woman turned toward him, a frying pan in one hand and a smile on her face. ‘Your breakfast is well and truly ready!’ Without further ado she slid a final pancake onto a large plate on the table. Jack was pleased to see it was piled high with golden pancakes dripping with a rich maple syrup sauce. His mouth watering, Jack nodded a heartfelt thank you to the woman and immediately began tucking into the plate of steaming food. After a moment, he noticed the young boy was staring at him in fascination, peeking from behind his mother. Jack gave him a friendly wink and the boy hid with a smile. Jack looked up to see Cleo watching him with an amused expression on her face.

  ‘So, you have been in trouble again.’ The woman’s rich Jamaican voice was indulgent as she turned toward Cleo. Cleo hunched her shoulders and tried to look innocent. ‘But at least this one is well-dressed, even if his dinner jacket is creased!’ the woman’s face creased into a welcoming smile.

  Jack grinned in return, remembering the smile on her face when she had opened the door to her council flat the night before and seen Cleo standing by his side. The two women had shared a whispered conversation and then Jack was led into a tiny, well-kept apartment. Jack had been grateful to accept the sanctuary, wondering at the help that Cleo had given him. She seemed to have a friend or contact behind every door and was as poised and self-controlled at a cocktail party as she was standing outside a fifth floor council flat in Brixton. Now she sat with the woman’s baby on her lap, twining her fingers through the child’s curls as if without a single care in the world.

  ‘Bethany, this is Jack,’ Cleo introduced them.

  The woman smiled warmly. ‘A good name. It suits you!’ she exclaimed. ‘But I hope you’re not planning to cause any trouble to my Cleo!’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare!’ Cleo declared as Jack attempted to reply.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Bethany gave Jack a weighing look. ‘At least he has an appetite! If he does cause any trouble with you, I hope he is tough enough to survive it!’ A brilliant smile flashed across her face, taking the sting from the words. ‘But I must take the boy to school.’ She gestured at the child hiding behind her apron. ‘Do not even think of washing those dishes, or I shall bring the police to you in person! Until then, you are my babysitters. Keep an eye on the young one.’ She gave them both a glare, then swept out with majestic aplomb, the little boy ducking after her with a peal of laughter. Cleo sat back and rocked the baby to sleep, watching Jack patiently as he ate his way through the rest of the generous breakfast Bethany had prepared. Despite her warning, Jack felt obliged to clean up the frying pan and plate, though he had to leave the putting away to someone who knew their way around the tiny kitchen. Every cupboard he opened was already packed with rows of food, dishes or pots and pans. Eventually Cleo put the sleeping infant into a cot and returned to the table with two mugs of steaming, aromatic coffee.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked.

  ‘Like a log.’

  Cleo smiled. ‘Apparently little Idris told Bethany this morning that you snored like a chain saw!’

  Jack grinned, embarrassed but somehow pleased.

  ‘So last night’s deal still stands,’ Cleo resumed. ‘You help me find the clues and I’ll explain to you what they mean.’

  Jack nodded slowly. It was about need, not trust. Without her help he doubted he would have gotten this far. That was a point in her favour and at the back of Jack’s mind was the photocopied poem taken from the man in the cellar. If Deschamps had the same access to the other clues, then Jack had to move as swiftly as possible. And that meant working with Cleo.

  At that, he pulled out the wooden box taken from the pillar and put it on the table. It sat between them, no larger than a packet of cigarettes. Cleo took a sip from her coffee and looked at him expectantly. ‘Well, go on…’

  Jack smiled, then picked up the box and examined it closely. The fine-grained wood felt good under his fingertips. A moment later he had managed to gently prise the box open, a single piece of paper slipping to the table between them. Jack moved to pick it up but Cleo’s fingers were there first, whisking it up to examine it closely.

  ‘M-6-1-3-4-9-7-9,’ she read out, then passed the paper back to Jack.

  Jack took the paper gingerly, holding it by the corners. The paper was brittle with age, the letter and the numbers written in an elegant script. The ink had faded to a pale blue. There was nothing else on the paper, or in the box, apart from the mysterious code.

  ‘Two down,’ Cleo declared, ‘three to go and then I’ll tell you what the code numbers mean.’

  Jack nodded slowly, staring at the piece of paper in fascination.

  ‘I wonder who wrote it.’ He spoke quietly, feeling a sense of history emanating from the little scrap of paper.

  ‘We’ll never know.’ Cleo’s voice was quiet too. ‘Perhaps the Duke of Wellington himself.’

  ‘Do you think?’ Jack looked across at her in surprise.

  ‘Probably,’ Cleo said thoughtfully. ‘The Duke was a keeper of the secret, it was hidden in his home. Who else would have written it?’ Jack smiled for a moment, rubbing the brittle paper between finger and thumb, savouring the contact with history.

  ‘Now then, Jack.’ Cleo was looking at him expectantly. ‘We’ve got the second clue, but we need to keep moving. The next piece of the poem. What is it? What sort of a clue are we looking for now?’

  Jack nodded, then slipped the poem from the inside pocket of his jacket. It was becoming somewhat the worse for wear, but David’s words were still readable. Jack had already memorised the entire poem, but he folded it carefully to ensure only the selected stanza was visible. Cleo leaned forward to study the text intently.

  ‘Bold Cyclops, master now the air

  Victorious death became your share

  Upon no land your battles foug
ht

  Their order is the key so sought.

  Their order is the key so sought,

  If taken seventh, eighth, fifth and nought.

  Four times less one your visage found

  And this will let her be renowned.’

  Jack took a drink of the coffee, savouring its taste as Cleo digested the words.

  ‘A Cyclops,’ Cleo declared at last. ‘Some sort of one-eyed monster. Big Ben?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Big Ben is the bell inside the clock tower, not the tower itself – which has four faces, not one eye.’

  ‘The London Eye then? It’s up in the air – it has one eye… that fits, right?’

  ‘No,’ Jack shook his head. ‘The secrets were all built into the City in the 1800s, after the defeat of Napoleon. We’re looking for something built in the 1800s – not anything built recently.’

  He leaned forward to share what he had thought out already. ‘Look, the poem says: Bold Cyclops, master now the air, Victorious death became your share. I’d say we’re looking for a battle monument, but for someone killed high up – maybe someone killed in the retreat from Kabul in 1842.’

  ‘No, wait.’ Cleo became excited. ‘Upon no land your battles fought. A flying ace from World War 1 perhaps? It must be! I know its 100 years later, but it fits the description!’

  ‘Ok,’ Jack conceded the point. ‘But where in London will you find a memorial to a flying aces? A church? Is there a monument?’

  Cleo frowned. ‘David wrote this entire poem for you. Did he ever take you to one, or mention something about it?’

  ‘No,’ Jack shook his head. ‘He was always interested in the Napoleonic War.’

  ‘But they didn’t have planes,’ Cleo protested. ‘They only fought on land and by sea.’

  Jack’s eyes widened and he suddenly burst out laughing.