by Ward Wagher
“The margrave does not know about this.”
Eckert stopped walking again. “Oh that is really not funny.”
“I’m serious, Harmon. We are doing this on our own.”
“And if we get caught?”
“You had just better not get caught, then, right?”
“Oh, for Chr… I thought you were my friend, Cedric.”
“I am your friend, Harmon. You have simply fallen in with bad company. Get this out of the way and we will go have a cup of coffee and laugh about it.”
Eckert groaned and resumed walking again. “The things I do for my friends.”
“Okay, here we are,” Smith said as they got close to Shover’s house. Put on this ear bud. I’ll send three clicks if Shover comes this way.”
“He’s got a communications set of some kind in there,” Eckert said as he cradled the coffee cup in his hands.
“Funny we never heard about that,” Smith said. “Could you tell whether it was receive only?”
“No it looked like the Full Monty. Hard to tell in that dump. It wasn’t a home, it was a hovel. I couldn’t move without almost tripping over something. You can learn a lot about people by wandering through their houses.”
“Anything else of interest?”
Eckert sighed and set the coffee cup down. “You didn’t tell me he has kids.”
“Yeah, he has a slattern of a wife and a passel of kids. Why?”
“So, I’m making my way through this obstacle course and trying not to make noise. I mean, this place looked like they had simply dumped an end loader full of junk into the room. And I see this shadow move in the hallway. And I hear a little voice say, ‘Are you my Daddy?’”
Smith’s breath whooshed out. “What did you do?”
“Let me tell you, I thought my heart was going to stop. It’s the little things like that which scare you to death. So I said, ‘Yes, go back to bed, little one.’ I was about done then, so I got out.”
“I didn’t think about one of the kids hearing you,” Smith said.
“That is why this can be such a rush. This was the first time I’ve ever had anyone actually see me. I nearly befouled myself.”
They all laughed nervously. “I suppose we should see about getting you back to your house,” Smith said.
“I can find my own way back, thank you very much. I believe I have had enough of my friends for one night.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“And now for the question of the day: is Aaron Shover actively working for someone else, or is he simply interested in communications equipment?” Frank was leaning back against his desk with his arms folded.
Daphne was sitting in an easy chair in the corner of the room. “I say we pull him in and sweat him. I know how to do it and Hai knows how to do it. I’m sure Smith & Jones do too.”
Ciera sat in the sofa along the wall with his feet propped on the coffee table. “Certainly we can do this, but should we? There are a number of wrong decisions we could make. We still need to be very careful where the duke is concerned. I’d rather not let the duke know we know about his little birdie in Montora Village. His reaction would be unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable?” Daphne said. “I am getting tired of tip-toeing around trying to avoid upsetting Cambridge, or the Navy or the duke’s brother. We are the innocent parties here. Margrave, you have every right to defend your domain. I don't see what everyone gets so huffy about.”
Blakely stood near the doorway with his back to the wall. “There are forms to be observed, Daphne. The charter allows the margrave to do virtually anything he desires. If we follow basic rule of law, he at least has a fig leaf to cover his actions, if things don’t work out.”
“It is already not working out,” Wendy said. She was sitting in the chair behind the desk, doodling with the stylus on the computer screen. “We have been fortunate so far, but sooner or later the duke is going to get lucky.”
Frank snickered.
“Not that way, dolt!” she said. “We have a pretty good advance warning system in place here between the castle guards and the Regiment doing training exercises. We can hope the prime minister keeps us informed. But you know as well as I do that things cannot keep going this way.”
“We have done well so far, my dear,” Frank said. “I am hopeful we discouraged him with our little visit a while back.”
“There is still the problem of letting him get away with the killing he has done out here,” Daphne said. “I am really tempted to go after him myself.”
Ciera looked carefully at Daphne. “I am not sure I like what I am hearing, Daphne. You are not really considering this are you?”
“What if I am? You cannot stop me. I stopped being your business when I bailed out of the Navy.”
“But I can stop you,” Frank said. “Do not go there, Daphne. You are too important to Montora and to Wendy and me. I know you have your own reasons for getting back, but they are nowhere near as strong as mine.”
“So why have you not done something, Sir?”
Frank unfolded his arms, laced his fingers and cracked the joints. He looked around the room and then frowned as he braced his hands on the edge of the desk. “Unfortunately I am bound by the rule of law. There isn’t much of it out here on the fringes of the explored universe, and what there is of it must be preserved.”
“You're starting to sound like Admiral Krause,” Ciera said.
“Hai, shut up!” Frank glared at Ciera. “I do not like to be reminded of my own hypocrisies. The truth of the matter is that Krause is right.”
“It didn't sound like you agreed when you were talking to him.”
“It's not what he said that I had problems with. It was his sanctimonious lecturing that made me want to slap him silly.”
Ciera grinned. “It does kind of get under your skin doesn't it?”
“I don't have the ability to get my fingers around Krause's throat,” Frank said, “but you're within easy reach. So watch it.”
“And you have a neat way of dodging arguments, Darling,” Wendy said.
Frank shrugged. “Back to the question at hand, I simply cannot trot into Cambridge and off the duke.”
Daphne frowned. “So sewer rats like Guilietto Roma can indulge in murder and rapine without reprisal? That doesn’t sound like the rule of law to me.”
“I understand what you are saying, Daphne, but taking out the duke would be worse that what we have now. That would make it open season on anybody in authority. I’m sorry, but we have to find something so damning the Navy will have no choice but to remove him.”
“Is that even possible?” Ciera asked.
“You tell me, Hai. You spend more time in Cambridge than anybody else on this side of the mountains. If the duke has expended so much effort to take Montora, what has he been doing in his own sand box?”
Ciera shook his head. “There are lots of rumors, but nobody will come out and say anything. His secret police are not very good, but they are good enough to cow the population there.”
“We are talking around in circles here!” Daphne said. “What is the point of the discussion?”
“Quietly, Daphne. Quietly,” Frank said. “To answer your question, let’s get back to the original subject: what do we do about Aaron Shover?” Frank said. “Let's see if we can settle that. If I had the answer to our problems with the duke, I assure you we would already have taken care of him. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything about him right now. In many ways my hands are tied. But I can do something about a citizen of Montora who may be engaged in treasonous activities.”
Blakely cleared his throat. “But can we define them as treasonous if you are in liege to the duke? He could make a case that he is simply doing his duty to keep the Duke informed on the events in the village.”
“Are you playing Devil’s Advocate, Gerry, or is there legal ground here which would allow Shover to wriggle out of things?” Frank said.
Blakely gave a lopsided grin. “
I honestly do not know. The law has not been tested.”
“Well, you are not much help, Gerry,” Daphne said sourly.
“I do the best I can, Miss Locke.”
“I know, but we don’t seem to be doing enough. This is just so frustrating.”
“Okay people,” Frank said, “the reason we are in here today is we are facing an intractable problem. Let’s look at the bright side. The duke is not terribly intelligent, and his prime minister is working hard to keep him under control. The PM is feeding us information so we know, generally, what the Guilietto is doing at any given time. We have the Baltic Regiment here and they provide security as part of the arrangement for their basing in Montora. We have more resources in terms of money and military than the duke has. We are actually in pretty good shape.”
Daphne jumped out of the chair she was sitting in. “Why are we in here then? All we do is talk. Am I the only person in here who is man enough to do something?”
“That is enough, Daphne.” Frank said quietly.
She glared at him for a long moment and then snapped her mouth shut.
“I appreciate input from everybody, but I think we have analyzed the problem to death. We need to change our mindset and start looking for solutions. I plan to be here for the long term and I want to die of old age, not of lead poisoning.”
“Here, here,” Ciera said.
“Maybe we can go back to the duke’s reasons for wanting this place,” Wendy said. Frank gave her a warning glance and she stopped speaking.
“Why does he want this place?” Daphne said.
Frank looked down at the floor and then back up to the ceiling. He frowned and shook his head.
“I probably already said too much,” Wendy said.
“I don’t know Wen,” Frank said. “It is going to come out sooner or later. I’d prefer later, but…”
He waited with a small smile as the room grew quiet.
“Now you are really not funny,” Ciera said. “Don’t be playing the suspense game with us. I think I know where you are going, but I would like to hear it from you.”
“What?” said Daphne.
“Okay, okay. I may be wrong, and maybe I hope I am, but I have become convinced the Moody River is awash with gold nuggets. I believe Roma has become aware of this; in fact, there are some rumors he funded some kind of a mineralogical survey and there are tons of the stuff underneath us. There are certainly measurable amounts of gemstones in the hills.”
Blakely was nodding. “It explains much of what has been happening.”
Ciera was nodding too. “Carlo Roma has been keeping his brother on a short leash. The duke sees an opportunity for a major score, one which will get him from under his brother’s thumb permanently. It would explain this irrational spending on military teams, which he can ill afford.”
“And as long as this glittering little valley sits out here under our control, the duke can only sit in Cambridge Castle, drool, and machinate.” Frank said.
“Suppose you do a formal survey,” Ciera said, “and then sell out to the highest bidder, if things prove out.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. But that would leave the people here in an impossible situation. Plus, why should I? I have all the money I need. We bring a mining consortium in; it’ll ruin the valley, no matter what kind of conditions we put on it.”
“Which brings us back to Aaron Shover,” Daphne said.
Frank rubbed his chin. “Can we cause his comm to fail without his knowing it was purposeful?”
“I would have to see if there is a comm tech up at the Regiment,” Ciera said. “From what Smith & Jones said, getting somebody back in there again presents no major problems.”
“And who, pray tell, is the artist who can get in and out of there on little cat’s feet?”
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Do I?”
Ciera leaned back in the sofa and thought for a few moments. “It might be better if you didn’t know, Frank. I guarantee you would be surprised.”
“So surprise me,” Wendy said.
Ciera looked at Frank.
“If you think it might be to our advantage to keep me in the dark about this, let’s leave it at that for right now,” Frank said.
“But I want to know,” Wendy said.
Frank chuckled. “Me too, babe. But we are going to wait.”
“It’s Harmon Eckert, isn’t it,” Wendy said. The note of triumph was clearly in her voice.
Ciera leaned forward with a groan, and put his head in his hands.
Frank chuckled. “You forget there are some very bright people in this room.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” Wendy said. “He is on the lam, right? He’s a burglar and he messed up. I told you, Frank, you should have taken a closer look at him.”
“We are not going there,” Frank replied, “and neither are you.”
Wendy looked stubborn.
“Do you hear me Wendy? Do not talk to him about his past. We need him.”
“But it is not safe.”
“If Smith & Jones are letting him run around on the loose, we do not have anything to worry about.”
Jones stood in the interior of an empty house across from the Shover house. He stayed in the shadow, where he could not be seen from the outside, but generally kept an eye across the street. He had let himself in the back door – none of the empty houses were locked, but he had blocked the door behind him. The rooms showed evidence of the village children at play and he had no need for interruptions today.
Specialist Gorsline, a retired electronics tech with the Baltic Regiment stood with Jones in the house. After building the little device to disrupt Shover’s comm, he insisted on accompanying Sergeant Jones to watch the activities.
The Shovers lived in a gingerbread cottage just like the others in the village. The exterior of the house and the surrounding yard gave evidence of the same neglect the family gave the interior. Most of the residents of the village took some pride in the appearance of their home, but not in this case. Dead weeds protruded from the snow. Pieces of unidentified trash littered the ground. A piece of plastic sheeting roughly covered a broken window.
“What a trash heap,” Gorsline said.
Jones just grunted. He thought the margrave was going to have to enforce some kind of building code so as not to scare off the tourists.
He was still smiling to himself at the credulity of Aaron Shover. Smith had arranged for two of the retired regimental non-commissioned officers to meet for lunch at a small restaurant frequented by Shover. They sat close enough for him to overhear the conversation. When he heard them discussing the large diamond deposits supposedly discovered in the hills, he hurriedly finished his lunch and quickly walked home through the snow. His reaction confirmed his guilt in the minds of the watchers. They watched for the surprise awaiting Shover.
Jones and Gorsline had been waiting for about five minutes after Shover trotted across the yard and through his front door. Across the street there came a thump, followed by a shout. Jones raised an eyebrow – the noise was rather louder than he expected. He continued to watch, waiting to see what would happen next.
“What was that?” Gorsline asked suddenly.
The door slammed open and Shover’s wife ran screaming into the yard. “Fire! Fire!”
Looking in the house Jones could see flames begin to dance in the interior. Swallowing a curse, he quickly moved to the door and then ran across the lane to the house, Gorsline close behind. The neighbors were beginning to stream out of their houses and run towards the burning building. The woman turned and began to run back into the house. Jones quickly caught her. “You cannot go back in there ma’am.”
“My baby is in the house!” the panicked woman screamed. “My husband is on fire!”
The fire was beginning to roar, but they could hear a screaming child somewhere in the smoke and flames. Gorsline brushed past him and ran into the house.
&nbs
p; “Gorsline,” Jones shouted. “Wait!”
The elderly tech had to bend lower to stay under the smoke and hot gases. The fire was feeding on the trash and detritus in the house. It got hotter and hotter.
The neighbors began using buckets to scoop up snow and toss it into the flames. A couple of women held onto Mrs. Shover to keep her from running back into the burning house as she continued to scream. More people arrive to scoop snow on to the fire, but the house was fully engulfed. Gorsline never came out.