Snark

by William L. DeAndrea

  Finally, he said, “Felicity?” then scrambled sideways to spoil the angle of a possible attack.

  “Jeff? Thank God.”

  He scrambled over the sand to her. It was unprofessional, but he took her in his arms and gave her a quick but thorough kiss.

  The body of the third man was sprawled prone, head downward on the sand. The blood soaking into the sand was black in the mercury vapor light.

  “What do we do with them?” Bellman asked. His voice was rapid with unburned adrenaline. “Bury them in the sand pile?”

  Felicity said, “Jeffrey,” but Bellman cut her off.

  “No, I know better. Let’s just find my gun—here it is—and leave them here. I’m still hungry, aren’t you?”

  “Jeffrey—”

  “We’ll call the police from the restaurant. You do that—I’ll be in the gents trying to get the sand out of my eyes. Talk to Stingley and no one else. He was impressed with the little blue paper you showed him. Tell him this is wrapped up in the official secrets act, but that we’ll have a story for him by tomorrow. Which we will. Tell him—”

  “Jeffrey!”

  Bellman stopped short. “Sorry. What is it? I’m always like this. I don’t like to kill, I don’t like the way I feel high afterward. I get so—and here I am running my mouth again. At least we got out of it alive. Nice work you did on this one.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Sure you did. One shot, thirty-two automatic against a Magnum.”

  “I didn’t shoot him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Look at him, damn you. He was shot in the back of the head.”

  Bellman took a closer look. “So he was.”

  “I was ready for him. I heard him scraping the concrete and I had my gun up, but as soon as he appeared he pitched forward the way you see him now. I thought you’d shot him somehow.”

  “Not me. I was busy.”

  “Then who was it?”

  “Excellent question. Let’s go eat.”

  “Jeffrey, this is important.”

  “I know. I’ll think better about it with a fish inside me and the sand out of my goddam eyes.”

  “Who could it have been?”

  “I don’t know,” Bellman said. “Have you been to church lately?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Maybe it was your guardian angel.”

  7

  “JEFFERY?” FELICITY SAID.

  “Mmm?” He reached under the covers and stroked along her back.

  “What have we accomplished down here?”

  “I don’t know. We got somebody stirred up. Somebody who hires people who speak Russian when they’re angry.”

  She pulled herself up on one elbow so she could see his face. His eyes were strange—red around the rims, clear near the blue part in the center, where the contact lenses had guarded them from the sand.

  They’d made a strange picture in the restaurant, disheveled and sweaty on such a cold night, gritty with sand. When they walked they made a noise like a soft-shoe music-hall turn. Fortunately, the restaurant was nearly deserted (Brighton was a summer town), the lights were dim, and the lone waiter too bored to notice.

  DI Stingley had taken the news with less than equanimity, but a promise to call on him early tomorrow was at last reluctantly accepted. They’d eaten, come home, taken showers. Gone to Felicity’s room to make love.

  It had been remarkable, Felicity thought, truly remarkable. The best since Derek, and she had been in love with him. She was romantic enough to believe that that made a lot of difference. Maybe all the difference.

  She was not in love with Jeffrey Bellman. Intrigued, yes. Attracted to him. Irritated by him. That wasn’t much of a combination. But if it wasn’t the man who had reached her, what was it? The situation? Was it escaping death, was it the act of killing that had brought her body and mind fully awake again?

  The thought bothered her. It was good to be alive, yes, and enjoying a man was an important part of living, at least as far as she was concerned. But it bothered her.

  And the conversation always came back to death.

  “Bulanin sent them, then,” she said.

  “I hope so,” Bellman said.

  Of course he would, Felicity thought. Jeffrey had spoken to Bulanin about Sir Lewis, and not much else. If Bulanin had sent the joggers, it meant something about Sir Lewis bothered him. That was progress. It was an area to work in.

  “And,” Bellman added, “I got some great Dover sole.”

  “No luck on Leo Calvin, though,” Felicity said.

  “No. I was stupid. I’m not cut out to chase people. I’ve got to make him come to me.”

  Felicity couldn’t help a smile. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “I’ll think of something. Who killed the third Russian?”

  She kept smiling. “I’ll come up with the answer as soon as you think of what to do about your terrorist. And think of some way to find proof that he’s tied in with Sir Lewis’s disappearance.”

  The false-blue eyes narrowed at her. “You know something,” he said.

  “I know a lot of things,” she said. She bent her head and bit him gently on the chest. “For instance, girls with long noses make the best lovers.”

  “Mmm,” he said. He stroked her back again. “You know more than that.”

  Felicity was studiously not paying attention. She bit him again, a littler harder, began kissing his neck. Pressed the whole of her long, warm body against him.

  She heard him sigh, and looked up at him.

  “What the hell,” he said. “Were not under orders to trust each other, are we?” There was a surprising tinge of sadness in his voice. It could, Felicity thought, almost be genuine.

  “No,” she said softly. “We aren’t.”

  “No,” Bellman echoed. “All we have to do together is kill Russians and screw. Come here.”

  He pulled her close and took her with a fierceness that was almost suicidal. In total silence; Felicity stifled her own cries against his shoulder.

  It took a long time. When it was done, he kissed her softly and went back to his own room. Felicity lay awake and tried to decide what she was going to do about him.

  8

  IF SHE’D BEEN ASLEEP, SHE wouldn’t have noticed it at all. Even awake, she didn’t hear it at first, or at least it didn’t register. It just blended in with the winter sounds of the ocean outside, the wind, the thumping of the waves on the shingle, the hissing as the water filtered through the stones to rejoin the ocean.

  But this particular sound was out of rhythm with nature. Syncopated. Now that she concentrated on it, she realized it came from the other direction. Not the window, but the door. Someone was scratching on her door.

  At first she thought it might be Jeffrey playing the fool, but she dismissed it. He could walk right in, if he wanted. He could certainly knock. And if he did scratch, he would scratch on the connecting door between rooms, not the one that opened to the corridor.

  Then she caught the rhythm. One. Pause. Three. Pause. Two. Long pause. Then it started over. A simple agency code. In her earliest days with the Section, she had equated code knocks and passwords with secret handshakes and decoder rings and similar rubbish, but she’d learned the usefulness of being able to make the acquaintance of a fellow agent with no one else noticing, and the comfort of knowing that the person on the other side of the door was a friend.

  She was slipping into her robe when it struck her just who this friend might be. If she was right, then this was a happy occasion. Success for the Section, achieved by the Section, with the American present only to witness their competence.

  She had to decide what to do. She couldn’t call Jeffrey (not that she especially wanted to) without her visitor becoming aware of it. There was no telling what he might do if that happened. Mr. Tipton would not be pleased to hear that she’d come this close and then frightened her man away.

  If, of course, it was Sir Le
wis Alfot on the other side of the door.

  This was not the time to take chances. Of any sort. Just in case someone unfriendly had learned the code knock, Felicity got her automatic and jerked a round into the chamber. The click could be a key turning, she decided. It wouldn’t send him running.

  It didn’t. When Felicity opened the door and peeked, it was Sir Lewis she saw. He was disguised, but not enough to fool someone who knew him well and was expecting to see him.

  Especially when he grinned. Felicity saw that grin and could almost think that the old man was in complete charge, as usual. That he was his old sane self.

  Sir Lewis put a finger to his lips for silence, then gestured for her to come with him.

  “I’m not dressed,” she whispered.

  “No matter,” Sir Lewis said. “I’m just down the hall.”

  Felicity took one apprehensive look at the door to Jeffrey’s room, then took a tighter grip on her gun and followed Sir Lewis to a room five doors down and across the hall. It looked like an afterthought, or a converted closet. The walls all met at acute angles, and triangles of concrete jutted into what little floor space there was. One of them held a WC. The sink was visible just past the head (or foot) of a rumpled single bed. The window looked out at a small slice of the hilly street that ran alongside the hotel.

  “I’m conserving my money,” Sir Lewis said. “Haven’t much. Fortunately, the rates are much lower without the ocean view.”

  “It’s...it’s good to see you again, Sir Lewis,” she said. She nearly winced at the inanity of it. The next thing would be for him to offer her a cup of tea.

  “Good to see you, too. Of course, I saw you earlier. I’ve been following you from the Advance, in fact, trying to decide if I ought to talk to you. Who’s the American? The way you two were occupying each other, I was afraid I was going to have to give it up for the night. Must have listened at the door five separate occasions. Didn’t hear much, but enough. I could hardly believe it when I heard him go back to his own room. Who is he?”

  Felicity hoped to God she wasn’t blushing. That would have been inane. “He’s called Bellman. Washington sent him over to help.”

  Sir Lewis made a noise. “You mean take charge.”

  Felicity let it go. “Was that you this evening?” she asked. “At the marina?”

  Sir Lewis laughed. “I almost spoke to you on the bus. Then I saw you taking those wrong turns, and I didn’t know what the two of you were about. I was tempted to give you directions. Of course, I eat there fairly often, now that I live in Sussex. Don’t expect to get there this visit to Brighton though.”

  He laughed again. “Then I saw the Russians, though I didn’t know they were Russians at the time. I didn’t like the look of the bulges under their sweat suits when they ran by me, so I fired a shot past them into the sand pile to warn the two of you. I wanted to see the American in action.”

  He made a face. “I’m sorry, Felicity, I’m forgetting my manners.” He pointed to the bed. “Sit down, please. I’ll stay here by the door. Nothing improper, I assure you.”

  Felicity sat. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. She had known that Sir Lewis was...different, but she hadn’t expected him to be like this. All the moves were there, all the words and mannerisms. He still carried authority like a coat of mail, and she could feel the strength of his regard and concern for her. For the Section. For the Nation.

  But something was wrong (well, naturally, she thought, something is dreadfully wrong), something it would be difficult to put her finger on. Sir Lewis’s personality had always been...well, incandescent, but now he was burning too brightly, the way a light bulb that’s had air let inside it will flare into a new brilliance. Before it burns out. Felicity kept a firm grip on her gun.

  “Where was I?” Sir Lewis asked. “Oh. The American. Yes. I bloody well got my money’s worth on him. Formulated a plan in seconds, carried it out perfectly under less than ideal circumstances. Neat job he did on the leader’s back as well. Did you see that? No, I guess not. You were waiting for the one I shot. My apologies, dear. I just wanted to see if an old man who can’t use his right arm too well could still shoot. I know you would have handled him perfectly well.”

  “Where have you been all this time?” Felicity said.

  “Here in Brighton, mostly, I gather,” he said. “Some bloody American—not your fellow—kidnapped me and kept spouting nonsense about giving me to the Russians. He never got around to doing it, though. Had some other project in mind first, apparently. Anyway, they kept me drugged most of the time. I bided my time until I was able to escape.”

  He took a biro and some folded sheets of paper from his pocket. “I’ve been making some notes on it for Tipton. You can take them to him. I’m sure he’ll be interested. Maybe he’ll know what to make of this American. The one who kidnapped me, I mean.”

  He clicked the button of the ballpoint against his chest as he talked. “It was the Russians tonight that made me decide I wanted to talk to you. I thought at first the one who took me—the woman with him called him Leo—this Leo was just an amateur who struck it lucky, but if real Russian killers turn up in his wake, I just don’t know.”

  Click. Click. “So you show these papers to Tipton.” He held them up. “Don’t let the American—what is it, Bellman? Don’t let him know about them until Robert’s had a chance to think it over.”

  “Why—” Felicity began. Her voice sounded strange to her. She tried again. “Why don’t you just give them to Mr. Tipton yourself?”

  “I want him to have them as soon as possible. I assume you’ll be going back to London tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “Tonight, if you come with me.”

  Click. “That’s not on, I’m afraid. I’ve got things to do. Projects I’ve been working on, things that can’t be interrupted. Things I mustn’t tell even you about.”

  “Sir Lewis...”

  “If it’s the bloody labor report you’re worried about, don’t. I’ll get a copy delivered in time, revised and polite, if that’s what Tipton wants.”

  Felicity didn’t point out that the report was no good to anyone if it purported to come from someone universally believed to be dead, kidnapped, or a fugitive. Instead, she said, “Sir Lewis, we know.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “We know about your project.”

  Click: Click. Click.

  “Nonsense. You...you couldn’t.”

  “Since just after the third one, Sir Lewis. The prostitute in Hove.”

  “Just before I was forced out, then.” The old man’s voice was bitter. “I should have guessed. You think I’m an old fool, don’t you?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “You’re just tired. You need some...” Felicity’s voice dribbled away when she realized she had no idea what Sir Lewis needed.

  “How did you find out?”

  Click. Click.

  “You left your fingerprint on the ice pick. It came to us as part of the blanket bulletin, and someone in Identifications matched it up and brought the matter to Tipton. It checked with the partial print the police had from the first—the first one. At least it wasn’t inconsistent. Mr. Tipton made sure the identification never got through to the Yard or to Sussex.”

  “I see. Then he went over my head to force me to retire.” Click. “I knew he wouldn’t understand. Nobody would understand. I see. The bodyguard at the cottage was to keep me in, not to keep kidnappers out. No wonder it was so easy for them. I knew he wouldn’t understand.”

  “He might, Sir Lewis. Come back to London with me, and we’ll explain it to him.”

  “I’ll explain it to you! Can’t you see it? The country is going to hell. Strikes. Shoddy work. Violence! My God, violence! Decent people can’t even go to a bloody football match without having to fight for their lives, damned yobs making the name of England stink all over Europe, the world, bloody Libyans, Irish, make this country a battleground, Russians circling like vultures, all gone,
no pride left, no pride...”

  Felicity looked at him. The thought of shooting him crossed her mind. It would put the old man out of his misery; it would make things less complicated all around. His death might even be blamed on the Russians they’d (with Sir Lewis’s help) taken care of tonight.

  But she couldn’t do it. She gave herself no airs of transcendent humanity, she just couldn’t bring herself, at this time and in this place, to end the old man’s life.

  “And everyone turns a blind eye!”

  Felicity jumped. The light bulb burned even hotter. It was sad to watch a great man burning himself up.

  “A blind eye,” the old man said again. “No one can face it that if this country is going to survive, we need pride. In our work, and ourselves. And the nation. Nobody wants to see.

  “It was up to me to show them. My duty, you can see that, can’t you, Felicity? The message was plain as day—a blind eye can kill you! Kill all of us, dammit! Kill all...of...”

  He crouched down against the wall and started to sob. He pushed the heels of his hands so hard into his eyes that his fingers knocked his toupee awry. Felicity got off the bed and moved toward him. “Sir Lewis?” She took another step and said his name again.

  For the rest of her life she would curse her stupidity. Because Sir Lewis Alfot was a cunning and dangerous man, and she had forgotten that. Sir Lewis came out of his crouch like a tiger. His first blow knocked her gun away, the second was a left to the jaw that stunned her and sent her reeling.

  She tried to gather herself to fight back, but he was on her again, choking her, hitting her. He was strong in spite of his age, hideously strong. Strong as a madman. She clawed at his hands on her throat. She went for his eyes, his groin. But Sir Lewis had been the brain behind all her training, and he knew how to counter every move.

  As she was pulled from consciousness, her mind raced. I respected him, I felt sorry for him, I’m going to die because I like this old man, and he went mad, and I forgot everything he taught me and now he’s going to kill me...

  She heard a sound through the red haze. A click.