Fox In The Henhouse

by James Lawson

  “And it also leaves you out high and dry.”

  “Presumed dead, actually,” he said. They sat in silence for another moment, Max running over the thought in his head that he didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “I’ve been trying to figure something out,” Elizabeth said. “Why you? Why me? Why did Duncan choose us?”

  Max shrugged. “Probably because we’re nobodies. I was just pushing papers around a desk for a few years before this. Duncan probably figured it was easier to pin this on a couple of nobodies.” He took a sip. “No offense.”

  “Who do you give your allegiance to? Superior officer or the Crown?” Elizabeth asked.

  Max smiled. “Yesterday, I would have said both. Today… today, I’m more inclined to think of my own hide.”

  She laughed. “So what do we do?”

  “There’s only one thing we can do,” he said. “We go to Lisbon and we make contact with Keilor. Somehow we get around Keilor – he doesn’t know I’m still alive – and we find out exactly where the Sailor is. Only instead of telling the Hive triggers that he’s there, we tip off the Sailor that Duncan is cutting ties with the hybrids. That he’s going to roll them.”

  Elizabeth looked at Max closely. “So, you’re suggesting that we conspire with a group of hybrids to attack a senior member of the Ministry of Detection?”

  “If you want to put it like that,” he said. “If we let the Hive take out the Sailor, another hybrid will pop up in his place. And Duncan will still be in the Hive, rotting it out. At least if we let the Sailor take Duncan out, we purge the Hive.”

  She was looking down at the table, nodding, considering it. “For the greater good, I suppose…”

  “Look at it this way,” Max said. “If Duncan finds out I’m still alive, he’ll come after you. That, you can be sure of.”

  He slid his coaster across the table to Elizabeth. She looked at it and frowned.

  “What is this? A strip bar?”

  Max smiled. “Well if we’re not going to send Keilor and his boys to the Sailor, we may as well send them to that bar as a consolation prize.”

  She drained her drink. “He thinks he can walk all over us just because we’re nobodies? Alright then. Let’s toast him.”

  13

  Elizabeth hadn’t known what to expect upon her arrival at the Lisbon office for the Ministry of Detection, yet somehow she was still surprised by the frosty reception. When she announced who she was to the administration desk, the receptionist’s left eyebrow went right up.

  “All the way from Barcelona?” she asked, a heavy Portuguese accent soaking her English. “Long way to come.”

  Elizabeth pushed a smile out. “Yes, I’d like to get to business as quickly as possible.”

  The receptionist vanished for a moment, and upon her return said that Captain Keilor would be a few minutes. Elizabeth was directed to a row of uncomfortable chairs lining the far side of the room, and the receptionist returned to her newspaper crossword.

  Elizabeth waited, and she couldn’t help but feel how utterly strange this all was. Just a few days ago she had been brought down to the Madrid office as part of some sudden mole hunt. Now she was in another country, effectively conspiring with hybrids to bring down one of the Hive’s own men. What waited for her after this? Duncan Morrison was dirty; of that there was no doubt. But as the clock on the wall ticked, she couldn’t help but wonder how she fit into all of this. Max had been chosen as the patsy, but what of Elizabeth? For all she knew, Duncan had some insurance policy up his sleeve to ensure she would be taken down with him.

  The door behind reception opened, and a bulky bald-headed man came through. He had a hard face, and was dressed in a suit that seemed utterly contradictory to his garish manner.

  “Come on,” he grunted at her. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  From his accent, Elizabeth guessed he was Scottish. He led her through the door and down a long corridor with faded orange walls and a few office workers walking about.

  “Quiet time of year?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We tend to spend more time in the field than behind desks,” Keilor said, and gestured to her to enter an empty and cramped office with a small meeting table. He took a seat on one side, and Elizabeth took the other.

  “Couple things to get straight,” Keilor began. “Taking the Sailor is a Lisbon operation. We’re working on intelligence provided from the east, but this is our show. We’re allowing you to come along. Understand?”

  “Understood,” she said.

  “Good,” Keilor said. “We know the Sailor is in Alfama, but we don’t know where. One option is storming the entire district with triggers, but that could spook him away and we’ll lose our chance. While we don’t know exactly where the Sailor will be, we know that one of the Sailor’s agents will be at the Praça do Comércio at six o’clock to pass the meeting location on to the mole.” He narrowed his eyes. “The mole from the Madrid office.”

  She nodded, pushing past the tone as she jotted the information down into her notebook. “So we go to the Praça do Comércio, get the location of the Sailor, and proceed directly.”

  Keilor gave a slow nod and a smile. “Think you can handle this, missy?”

  “Mr Keilor,” she began as diplomatically as she could. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I’ve pursued a Hive mole from Madrid, encountering numerous hybrid attacks along the way, before I shot the mole dead in the desert. Would I rather be heading home right now? Obviously yes, I would. But Captain Morrison has requested I meet you here in order to take a valuable step in eradicating the Menace from the streets of Lisbon. Handle it? I think I can handle it.”

  Keilor smiled, and Elizabeth felt her hand twitch, wishing she could punch him in the face. “Good,” he said. “Because this is an opportunity to land a significant blow to the hybrid operation. One I don’t want to miss because you’re unable to handle a stressful situation.”

  “Once this stressful operation is concluded, what becomes of the Sailor?” she asked.

  “That’s beyond your purview,” he said. “You help us find him, and we’ll deal with him.”

  Elizabeth had to appreciate Keilor’s confidence. It was advantageous for him to think of her as an incapable woman. If he thought she was incompetent, he was far less likely to expect her to double cross him. But she also had to wonder what he would do when he discovered her betrayal. She decided then and there she couldn’t think about that. After this whole thing, she and Max would have to disappear, at least for a while. With any luck, the truth of Duncan’s treachery would come out and they would have a chance to explain themselves. But that was still relying on luck.

  “Any questions?” Keilor asked with an air of finality.

  “No,” she said. “Let’s get this done.”

  It occurred to Elizabeth that if she were in Keilor’s position, she would be planning the operation with the same amount of ruthlessness. She would be following Morrison’s orders with the same enthusiasm. That was the uniting power of fear; with the hybrids at large, people rallied behind the cause they believed in, even if it was a lie to protect corruption.

  Keilor jotted a few notes down himself, then put away his pen.

  Elizabeth was in the building for just another few minutes. They gave her a change of clothes – something to make her fit in as a local – and a small dart gun, meant to immobilise the Sailor’s contact. That would be Elizabeth’s only chance. She would switch out the address of the meeting for another one she had in her pocket.

  She, Keilor and half a dozen plain-clothes Hive agents and triggers left the back of the offices to get to Praça do Comércio, and she spied a man in a ratty leather jacket, crouched against the wall of an alleyway. He looked entirely unremarkable in the grubby context of the streets, and the Lisbon officers paid him no attention.

  The man in the leather jacket craned his head slightly to look in their direction, and Elizabeth reached into her pocket and quickly dropped a sc
runched piece of paper on the pavement. For a quick moment, she was seized with fear that the Lisbon officers would see. But none did, and it was soon metres behind them – just another piece of rubbish in the street.

  The man in the leather jacket pushed himself up, stumbling as though he were drunk.

  “Bloody scum,” Keilor muttered, seeing the man struggle to keep his balance. “If it were up to me, we’d ship every last one of these leeches out to sea and let them find their own way back to land.”

  Trust me, Elizabeth thought as they came to car, I feel the exact same way about you.

  14

  Praça do Comércio sat gleaming in the late afternoon sun, straddling the ground between a huge state building and the shimmering blue of the River Tagus. The square was large, so the crowds of people seemed dispersed and far apart. There were dozens of couples sitting and talking, a few food vendors pushing carts around, and one or two busking magicians.

  To Elizabeth, it looked like a typical European scene. But with Keilor and a team of triggers from the Lisbon Hive office by her side, she had never felt as uneasy.

  “Any sign of the contact?” Elizabeth asked under her breath, scanning the square.

  “Not yet,” Keilor muttered. He said something to his team, and they began to disperse through the square. Keilor himself didn’t leave Elizabeth’s side.

  She looked around the square once more, feigning to search for the contact, but was keeping an eye out for Max. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “There’s something you need to keep in mind,” Keilor said to her. She didn’t turn to him; she just waited for him to continue. “This whole mole hunt – the Spanish problem we’re dealing with right now. I’ll be including all of this in my report to the Crown.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Elizabeth said, still scanning.

  “The achievements of the Portuguese Ministry of Detection have gone unnoticed for too long by London. The Spanish office isn’t going to come off well.”

  Elizabeth turned to him. “Let’s not forget we’re all in this together, sir.” She fought to keep the smile from her face, and he glared at her. Despite his bravado, Keilor’s report to London would be a hell of a lot more humble than he predicted.

  Something caught Keilor’s eye, and he nodded towards the water.

  “That’s him,” he said, indicating to a young man wearing a white shirt.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, glancing around again for Max. “We’ve only got one shot.”

  “Would bet my life on it,” Keilor said, peering even closer. “Matches all the intelligence. It’s him.”

  Elizabeth knew he was right, but wished he wasn’t. She wished the entire thing was called off, and that she could just return to Britain. Europe had been a basket case for decades, who cared if some Spanish elections were meddled with?

  She shook herself out of that train of thought. Of course, she cared. That was why she had gotten into the Hive. And it wasn’t just saving the election – it was flushing out bastards like Duncan. But she still hesitated. It was because she knew she was risking herself, more than anything. Burrowing down, deeper into the hole that looked increasingly impossible to climb out from.

  “It’s happening,” Keilor whispered in her ear, and he walked away. A motorcycle rolled past her, en route to the young man in the white shirt. He didn’t move, and just kept gazing out at the water.

  Elizabeth began to walk towards the young man, slowly, as though she were going for a stroll. The motorcycle slowed even more near the young man – not quite stopping – and the driver reached out and dropped an envelope on the ground in front of the man. Then the motorcycle was off, puttering away from him. She walked faster, and he leaned forward to pick it up. The motorcycle rider would be picked up by Keilor’s men in seconds.

  She palmed the dart gun in her pocket and cocked it. The young man was sliding the envelope into his trousers when she turned to face him.

  Immediately he seemed alarmed, but Elizabeth put on her sweetest smile.

  “Ola, senhor,” she said, and the man’s face faltered for a moment. She opened her jacket slightly; he didn’t see the glint of the dart gun barrel. She fired and the dart punched into his gut. He grunted and moved to grab something from his jacket, but Elizabeth stepped forward and embraced him.

  At first his body was tense, but it only took seconds for the tranquilizer to weaken his muscles. He slumped forward and Elizabeth guided him down to the street, propping him up as consciousness slid away from him.

  There were the sounds of skids in the distance, and someone yelling. Keilor would have the motorcycle rider by now, which meant she had mere seconds before he was there with her. Her hand snatched into the young man’s leather jacket for the envelope. She pulled it out – thanking God it hadn’t been sealed – and pulled the folded piece of paper from inside.

  “Elizabeth,” came Keilor’s voice from over her back. She put the fake address into the envelope and scrunched the real one into a ball. “Let’s go.” He stepped in front of her, and two triggers hoisted the unconscious young man from the street.

  She held out the envelope and he snatched it from her, peering at her briefly. “Come on.”

  She stood and walked with Keilor through the square. People were looking at them, muttering to themselves. A few couples seemed to be packing up and leaving entirely, unsure if something else was going to happen. But nowhere could she see Max. Until…

  A homeless looking man stumbled off the ground a few metres away, and Keilor clicked his tongue in disgust. Max had been there the whole time, but had blended in so well he had only appeared at the exact moment he wanted.

  Elizabeth smiled, and dropped the scrunched ball of paper fall to the ground at his feet.

  That’s all I can do. The rest is up to you.

  15

  The Hive triggers vanished from the boardwalk, streaming off in the direction of the fake address Elizabeth had switched out, and Max smoothed the scrunched piece of paper against his leg. He consulted a pocket map and found the address was just a few blocks away.

  He broke into a walk. This is it. This is where it ends.

  He gripped Elizabeth’s pistol in his pocket and weaved through the winding side streets and alleys, slinking past old-timers relaxing with a smoke. They gave lazy but suspicious nods to him, which he returned.

  The address was like any other. A narrow three-storey terraced house, its tiled exterior worn dull by decades of neglect. Max looked up to the top window; that was where the meeting was taking place. He took a short breath, and stepped inside the building. It was dark, and much colder, with a faint smell of mildew.

  He went up the stairs to the top, and found a single door at the end of a hallway. The hallway seemed impossibly long, like a long walk to the end. But before he could even steel himself for what was about to happen, the door swung open and a furious looking man with a shaved head stepped out. He looked around and fixed on Max.

  “You’re late,” he said, before going back inside. He left the door open.

  Shit, they think I’m their contact. He took a nervous step forward, then picked up the pace. If he was going to use this as a way into the room, he’d have to play the part.

  But from the moment he stepped inside, Max felt his credibility fade. Standing in one corner of the room, beside a crackling fire, was the man with the shaved head, leaning back with his arms folded. In the middle of the room was an old woman sitting in a creaking wooden chair. In her lap sat a dossier.

  Max was taken aback by the sight of the woman, and she immediately narrowed her steely gaze at him.

  Was this old woman the Sailor? He glanced back down at the dossier. That was whatever they were going to use to disrupt the election.

  In that moment of hesitation, barely a second, Max knew his disguise was up. Before the man could come at him, Max pulled the pistol and aimed it right at him. The man’s eyes flared yellow, and he began to grow in height, slo
wly shifting.

  Max pulled back the hammer on the pistol, eyes locked with the hybrid, but the old woman’s voice cut across.

  “Wait,” she said. It was like a bucket of ice water dumped over them. She leaned forward, peering at Max closely, while the hybrid slowly shifted back to his human state.

  “You’re not one of Alejandro’s men,” she said.

  Max didn’t respond. He looked between her and the hybrid, not sure where to point his gun.

  “You’re from the Ministry of Detection,” she said.

  Max’s mouth ran dry. How the hell did she know that?

  “Yes,” Max said, and the hybrid’s eyes flared yellow. The woman barked a command at him in a language Max didn’t understand.

  “It’s not like the Ministry of Detection to send a single agent charging in.”

  “No,” Max said. “But it won’t be long until the cavalry comes.”

  She didn’t react. She merely leaned back in her chair and surveyed him.

  “They know you’re somewhere in Alfama, and they’re coming to get you,” Max said. “But they don’t know what I know.”

  “And what is that, young man?”

  “That you’re planning to pass on the information in that dossier to disrupt Spain’s first election in 70 years.” Her gaze narrowed, but she remained silent.

  “You were expecting someone else to come in through this door,” Max said. “Someone else from the Ministry of Detection.”

  “But instead we’ve got you,” the Sailor said. “How disappointing.”

  “There’s something very important you’ve got to understand right here, right now,” Max said.

  The Sailor cocked an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “This election sabotage you’re planning? It’s over. This Alejandro you mentioned? His contact in the Ministry of Detection has betrayed him. All your hybrids in Madrid will be locked up or dead by dawn. You have failed, and now your mole is tying up any loose ends that could implicate him. That includes you.”