“Shit!” Ayesha raised the mercenary’s Uzi. She stopped. Hydrogen, which had done for the Hindenburg, no longer fueled Zeppelins. But the image of that fateful day in 1937 was stuck in her brain. She didn’t want to cause a conflagration directly over the castle.
“We have to get that sword!” Danforth was on his feet, racing toward the rope ladder that still dangled. He discarded Niobe’s sword as he ran.
Ayesha sped after him. She flung the Uzi aside. She’d never be able to make the jump encumbered with it. Not that she’d make it anyway. Her mouth split into the rictus of a grin.
Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath. Shakespeare’s words ran through her head as, sprinting full out, Ayesha arrived beneath the rising Zeppelin slightly in advance of Danforth. She stretched for the ladder. It was feet away. Then inches. If they didn’t make it they’d hurtle straight off the battlements, to meet their death on the ground between the castle walls and the moat.
Laughing, she flung herself forward.
Chapter 51
All of the skill ingrained in Ayesha since her training with the fedayeen came to the fore. She found herself swarming upward, unconscious of the insanity of what she had just done. As she climbed, a sudden pull on the rope ladder told her that Danforth had also made the jump. She shut out everything and concentrated on the open door above her. Finally, she breasted the top of the ladder and squirmed into the cabin, rolling across the floor and rising to her feet in one fluid motion. Grunting and cursing behind her said that the big American had joined her.
A crewman entered the cabin, probably to close the door. He gaped at Ayesha, but only for second. He grabbed a pistol from a side holster and swung it toward her.
Ayesha rolled right. She slammed against a bulkhead draped in orange plastic netting. The Zeppelin crewman sent a bullet through the space she’d occupied an instant before. She had scant seconds before he adjusted his aim. Once more she looked at death down the barrel of a gun. Once more Danforth intervened, in the nick of time.
The big American had scrambled into the Zeppelin cargo bay behind her. Now, red-faced and panting from his exertions, he kicked out with both legs. One foot caught the crewman behind his knee; throwing him off balance. Just enough to send his next shot over Ayesha’s head, piercing the bulkhead behind her.
While Danforth occupied the crewman, Ayesha grabbed hold of the plastic netting with both hands. Pirouetting on her toes as she rose, she launched herself off the floor. Swiveling on the netting, using its flexibility as a gymnast might a rope, she swept her legs sideways across the cargo bay. She crashed into the crewman, her feet taking him full in the stomach. He bowed inward like a collapsing beanbag. His pistol flew from his hands. Ayesha, her feet now firmly planted on the deck, took a single step forward. She lined up the crewman as she would a football. Then she swung her leg. The kick took the crewman in the groin. He emitted a single bleat, like a dying sheep, and shriveled to the floor.
Ayesha swung round, hands raised to strike in the classic judo technique. The cargo bay was empty. Except for Danforth. The CIA man sat on the floor, his back to the bulkhead. One hand was clasped to his left arm, on which a spreading dark stain told its own story.
Ayesha squatted next to the big American. “How bad?”
“Flesh wound.” The words came through gritted teeth.
“We’ll get this thing on the ground and get you to the hospital.” Ayesha used her pocketknife to rip cloth from the unconscious crewman’s sleeve. Expertly, she fashioned this into an efficient field bandage that stanched the flow of blood from Danforth’s wound.
“No hospital,” he replied. “We have to get to London. To the House of Commons. We won’t find better transport than this.” Gingerly, he flexed his arm, then, using the netting for support, he pulled himself to his feet.
“Why do we need to get to the House of Commons?”
In a few words, Danforth gave Ayesha the gist of Balfour’s gambit to seize power and push through the vote to declare English independence. He started to explain the symbolism of Harold’s sword, but Ayesha cut him off.
“I know about that. I think I understand everything now.”
“What do you mean?”
Ayesha checked the passageway that led forward from the cargo bay. No sign of the enemy. Apparently, apart from the still unconscious crewman, no one was aware that they’d boarded the Zeppelin. “Balfour is Bebe Daniels’s Master. She’s his sub. She poisoned Susannah on his orders. Balfour himself killed Noel Malcolm.”
Danforth, his wound forgotten, gaped at her. “How do you know this?”
“Daniels told me herself. In the castle. Before your fortuitous arrival.”
“Do you have proof?”
“No—” Ayesha remembered the phone that the student, Matt, had thrust into her pocket. She extracted the phone. Found the audio play function. Her own voice came clearly through the tiny speaker. “Who then? Who are you working for? Why should Malcolm be dead?” Bebe Daniels’s voice answered. “Philip Balfour is my Master. I serve only him.”
Ayesha let it play until the end of the recording.
“We’ve got him.” The big American peered through the nearest window. “Is your phone in range?”
“In range?”
“Wireless. The Internet.”
Ayesha checked. “No. Why?”
Swiftly, Danforth outlined what he had in mind.
“There’s something we need to do first.”
“What’s that?”
“You know how to fly a Zeppelin?”
“Uh—”
Not waiting for an answer, Ayesha stepped into the passageway and led the way forward from the cargo bay. They encountered nobody. The remaining mercenaries must have descended to the castle. The presence of Ayesha and Danforth on board had still not been suspected. That would soon change.
They came to a row of cabins, their doors ajar. All were unoccupied. Past the cabins, a short flight of steps led down. Two more, smaller cabins opened off halfway down the staircase. Computer and navigation equipment were much in evidence. A table covered in charts in the port-side room lent an old-fashioned nautical touch. Then they were in the main control cabin.
“Incredible!”
Ayesha barely registered Danforth’s whispered exclamation. The view had snatched her breath away.
Floor-to-ceiling slanted windows surrounded the control cabin on three sides, giving the captain and his command crew a magnificent view of the East Sussex countryside, some five hundred feet below them. Rolling green fields gave way to densely wooded copses. Picture-postcard villages dotted the landscape. Quaint pubs adorned crossroads.
With an effort that felt physical, Ayesha tore her gaze from the view. She focused on the broad-shouldered man who stood with his back to them in the center of the cabin, next to a polished wood-and-brass wheel. He wore a dark blue uniform coat and a gold-braided peaked cap. The captain. A slight, black-clad woman wearing a backpack stood beside him. She held King Harold’s sword in her two hands. No one else was in the cabin. Ayesha raised the barrel of the pistol the Zeppelin crewman had dropped—a Belgian FN Five-Seven—until it covered the pair. Then she coughed, once.
Two heads swiveled as one.
The captain, presumably well paid for the job, but with no vested interest worth sacrificing his life for, stared briefly. Then he shrugged. He raised his hands above his shoulders.
Unlike the captain, Bebe Daniels was not magnanimous in defeat. With a snarl of pure animal rage she raised Harold’s sword. She held it like a lance—a lance aimed at Ayesha’s heart. Foam flecked her lips. Ayesha tensed, her finger on the pistol’s trigger. She didn’t want to shoot, but Bebe, apparently maddened beyond reason, looked as if she was about to charge, regardless of the consequences.
Ayesha stared into Bebe’s huge eyes. Brown flecked with gray. She frowned. Those eyes. Where had she seen them before? Bebe stared back. Ayesha saw the insanity take hold. Bebe’s legs tensed for t
he spring.
Ayesha’s finger tightened on the trigger. Then, with shocking violence, her feet flew from under her. She felt herself falling, the East Sussex countryside suddenly above her. She flung out her arms, lost her grip on the pistol. Then something smashed against her skull.
Ayesha fought desperately not to lose consciousness. Lightning shot through her skull. Thunder beat powerful drums. Dark mists threatened. Encroached. Then receded. A strong hand took hers in a powerful grip and pulled her upright. She looked into Danforth’s face, saw the strain—and the disbelief.
The control cabin had been attacked. That was Ayesha’s first thought. Glass had disappeared from most of the windows—it lay smashed in a million pieces across the cabin floor. In some cases the frames had gone as well—pieces of twisted metal lying amid the glass all that remained. She was conscious of a smell of burning, as from heated metal.
Ayesha focused on the captain. Incredibly, he was still at the wheel. He seemed unhurt, although, from his stance, the tautness of his shoulders, he was engaged in some desperate maneuver. This was confirmed a moment later. The angle of the cabin plunged steeply. The airship lurched hard to the right. Ayesha clung with a tenacity born of desperation to a brass stanchion. Beside her, Danforth struggled to do the same, impaired by his wound. Ayesha flung out an arm to brace him. Then she caught sight of Bebe Daniels.
The woman was on her knees, scrabbling frantically toward Harold’s sword. The ancient blade lay beneath one of the smashed windows. It appeared unharmed. But it was within inches of sliding into the void.
The captain heaved the wheel to the right. Amid a whine of engines, the Zeppelin leveled out. As it did so, Ayesha let go of Danforth and threw herself full length across the cabin. Grasping Harold’s sword by the hilt, just as it was about to drop through the open window, she swept it up, and out of Bebe’s reach. The woman tried to grab the blade but Ayesha thrust the point of the sword at her face, drawing blood from her cheek. Daniels stiffened. She froze, glaring hatred at Ayesha.
“What happened?” Ayesha demanded of the captain.
“Someone…firing at us. From the castle.”
Something flashed past the cabin windows. It left a trail of white smoke behind it.
Ayesha’s eyes widened. Then she remembered. “Miller!” That thing designed by the Norwegian navy. “Heated shot!” The ex-soldier didn’t know they were on board, she guessed. He was trying to bring them down, and he’d nearly succeeded. “Can it hurt the ship?”
The captain laughed mirthlessly. “This is not the Hindenburg. We’re not fueled by hydrogen. But a cannonball? Yeah, that would hurt us.” He ducked as another ball hurtled past the windows. A plume of white smoke trailed after it, its trajectory plummeting toward a thickly wooded area. “We’ll be out of range in a minute.”
The minute ticked excruciatingly by. There were no more shots. Ayesha turned back to Bebe. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
Bebe was looking up at her with the innocent smile of a child. In that second Ayesha knew who she was. Something tightened in her chest. She fought for breath; thought her heart would stop.
“Ghayda?”
Chapter 52
“After successful attacks last night, General Moore decided to press forward. The Argentines retreated. Our forces reached the outskirts of Port Stanley. Large numbers of Argentine soldiers threw down their weapons. They are reported to be flying white flags over Port Stanley. Our troops have been ordered not to fire except in self-defense. Talks are now in progress between General Menendez and our deputy commander, Brigadier Waters, about the surrender of the Argentine forces on East and West Falkland.”
Margaret Thatcher’s words rang in Imogen Worsely’s ears. She’d been barely out of her teens when she’d first heard them. Here, in this historic chamber of the House of Commons. Her father, a Member of Parliament, had brought her to hear the announcement of the Argentine surrender. Thatcher had inspired her. Not to a life in politics. But public service of a different sort.
Imogen stared down into the chamber from behind the woodwork barrier of the visitors’ gallery. Maggie Thatcher was long gone, but her spirit lived on in her successor, Susannah Armstrong. Thank God. Every few seconds, she turned to stare at the entrance to the chamber. Between watching the chamber and the doors, she checked the time on her watch. When she wasn’t doing any of those things, her mind was busy calculating times. Distances. It had been nearly ninety minutes since she’d first heard from Ayesha Ryder. Incredibly, she’d called from a Zeppelin, somewhere over the East Sussex countryside.
“Danforth is with me,” Ayesha had said, her tone oddly clipped. “We’ve got Harold’s sword. We’re on our way to London.” Then she told Imogen what Danforth intended. The exhaustion the head of MI5 had been feeling vanished in an instant. If Danforth and Ayesha succeeded, Balfour was finished. Imogen had tried to tell Ayesha about the prime minister, but they’d been cut off.
Imogen checked the time once more, then she flipped to her phone’s Web browser. Still nothing. Balfour was about to speak. If the vote was taken on Malcolm’s bill to break up the United Kingdom before Ayesha arrived, it wouldn’t matter if Balfour was ruined; the damage would be done. She looked down into the chamber and grimaced. Balfour was on his feet, approaching the wooden despatch box on the long table that divided government from opposition Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. The antique despatch box served as a lectern for ministers to deliver their speeches. Imogen gripped the railing in front of her, so tight her nails dug into the ancient wood. Knots tightened themselves in her stomach. Ayesha, where are you?
Chapter 53
Ayesha bounded down the stairs from the roof of the Houses of Parliament, jumping three and four at a time. It was the roof where, at Dame Imogen Worsely’s direction, the Zeppelin had been permitted to set her down—although not without an armed fighter escort of RAF Tornados. A platoon of the SAS had been waiting on the roof; their medics were taking care of Danforth’s wound. Their commander had wanted his men to accompany her to the chamber. She’d told him to stand down, knowing he had no choice but to obey her orders.
Ayesha carried Harold’s great sword, but she did not feel its weight. Her feet trod the bare stone steps, then the richly carpeted stairs, automatically. All she could see was Bebe Daniels’s face. All she could hear were Bebe Daniels’s words. Ghayda’s face. Ghayda’s words. Ayesha’s brain, her heart—were still back in the control cabin of the Zeppelin, over East Sussex.
“Hello, Sis.” Bebe Daniels’s voice had been totally calm. The rage had vanished. As if it had never been.
“Ghayda?” It can’t be. Ayesha was dreaming. She had to be.
The smile broadened.
“How? Why—”
“I met a man. The greatest man who ever lived. You knew him. You murdered him. Sis.” The hostility was back in Bebe’s voice. Ghayda’s voice.
“Murder—” A face cut into Ayesha’s thoughts. Close-cropped fair hair. He’d told Ayesha he’d killed her mother. Shot her. And Ayesha knew her mother had been shot in the stomach, so she’d die slowly. She’d shot Strenger in the head; dispatched him like she would a rabid dog. “Strenger?”
“Don’t you dare say his name!” Bebe spat.
“Stre— He said…” Ayesha struggled to get the words out. Ghayda. Alive. Here. With her. Impossible. But true. It was her sister. There was no mistaking those eyes. How did I not see it before? “He said that he killed our mother—” Our mother. Hers and mine.
Bebe laughed. The sound was cruel. “Not quite.”
“What do you mean?”
“My Master didn’t kill her.”
Ayesha recoiled in horror. She tried to close her ears.
“I killed her.”
Ayesha saw her mother’s face. It was lined and worn with the suffering of the last few years of her life—of being torn by the Israeli army from the family farm, which was then demolished by their bulldozers. Of being forced t
o live in a hovel in Gaza. Of being forced to beg for charity from family. Of losing her youngest daughter—killed without reason. Then for her mother to discover that Ghayda was not dead. Worse. That she had become one of the living dead; in thrall to the hated enemy, turned against her own people. How much more must their mother have suffered, how unbearable the pain of seeing her own daughter draw a gun on her. To see her beautiful, laughing child squeeze the trigger and put a bullet into her.
At that moment, when Ayesha’s brain was clouded with pain and despair, Bebe made her move. But not at Ayesha and Danforth. Springing to her feet with the agility of a cat, Bebe swiveled on her heel and dashed to the front of the control cabin. Too late, Ayesha realized what she intended. Bebe never paused in her stride. Before Ayesha could so much as take a step, her sister, with a cry of “Yisrael Lanetzach!” had flung herself through the opening.
Ayesha, Danforth, and the captain rushed to the windows. Her mind in turmoil, sick to her stomach, she fully expected to see Bebe’s body impacting the ground. Instead, she saw a small black parachute being steered expertly toward a landing in a field of barley. Only then did she realize the significance of the backpack Bebe had been wearing.
Vaguely, through a veil of tears, Ayesha had been aware of the captain asking a question. “Where would you like to go?” he repeated, when she didn’t respond.
“London,” Danforth replied. “The Houses of Parliament.”
Chapter 54
“I know the prime minister well.” Philip Balfour spoke in the same somber, measured tones in which he had informed the House of Commons and the nation that Susannah Armstrong was at death’s door, after he had first spared a few words for the brave, departed soul of Noel Malcolm, deputy prime minister and stalwart of his party and the nation.
“Susannah—” Balfour drew breath, manfully suppressing a sudden quaver in his voice. He was pleased with the effect, although of course it wouldn’t do to show it. “I have not the slightest doubt that Susannah Armstrong would not wish this House to interrupt its vital business because of the tragedy that has struck her down. I can assure the House that unrelenting efforts are under way to catch her assassin, and that he, or she, will be punished with the full force of the law.”
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