Now, though, with Mr. Selwick nearing seventy and ready to retire, and no one interested in taking over the business (because no one cared about quality anymore, as Mr. Selwick frequently lamented), Frances Pettison had been made redundant. Terrible word. Made you sound like an extraneous clone of someone who was actually useful.
Terrible fate, too, for a woman who was used to being busy. Not that she’d have to eke out an existence on the old age pension. Mr. Selwick had been quite generous, and she had some money put by. But she was stuck in the flat all day. She liked to travel, but there was only so much traveling you could do....
More noises from upstairs. Good heavens, a firework or something, and two months and more past Guy Fawkes Day. She really should go see if Miss Grace was all right.
She hated the idea of becoming an old busybody. That young American, Mr. Bellman, seemed to take excellent care of her, and Mrs. Pettison didn’t care that they had begun to live together. Of course, it would look as if she did, if she kept going up there.
But didn’t she see Mr. Bellman leaving an hour or two ago? Yes, she did, or at least heard his step on the stair, recognized his whistle—it was amazing what you became familiar with, home all day.
Miss Grace was probably alone up there. How could she be making all that noise? Mrs. Pettison listened. No more glass or fireworks, but plenty of thumping. After her terrible accident, she shouldn’t be exercising. She herself had told Mrs. Pettison that what she needed was rest.
Perhaps it was drugs. None she shouldn’t be taking—Miss Grace wasn’t at all the sort for that—but something the doctor had prescribed. Something she’d had a bad reaction to. The poor thing could be rolling around in a convulsion or something up there.
It was the sort of thing a neighbor should look into. Mrs. Pettison resolutely climbed the stairs and knocked on Miss Grace’s door.
It hadn’t been latched. It couldn’t be. Mrs. Pettison saw the scorch marks around the lock. The door swung open. The noise was louder, now.
Mrs. Pettison poked her head around the door. “Miss Grace...”
Felicity was angry. She was breathless and in pain, too, but mostly she was angry. These two villains were nothing, or should have been, no matter how they’d got into her flat. Gun or no gun, she should have been able to handle them in no time at all. And she would have.
But she had no depth perception. She wasn’t used to living with the one eye. The same flat field of vision that caused her to knock over the pepper grinder at dinner caused her to kick the man with the gun in the chin and stun him, instead of in the throat, to kill him, the way she planned.
Now she had to deal with this pig, the stocky one. And it wasn’t working. Her blows would land, but not in the right spots. She’d claw at him and hurt him, but never enough to put him out of action.
And he was no fool. When he hit her he went for the left side of her head. Several of the blows had landed—her vision was no help to her there, either—and now there was a dull ache in the depths of her head. Visions of hemorrhages or of God knew what else came to her mind, and she fought the fear and the cold tightness in her stomach.
And the man went for her good eye. Again and again.
The fear of blindness, of being violated in that way again, was too big to fight. Instead, she channeled the impulse to panic into fury, and increased the pace of the fight. As they grappled and spun, Felicity saw the room as a collection of blind eyes. The curtained windows. The bullet hole in the ceiling. The jagged, gaping hole in the television screen.
The man grunted, and clawed for her eye again. Felicity, this time, was ready for him. As he reached high, she pulled back and reached for him low. Again her aim was off, but she kept her hand on his body until she found the right spot. She squeezed. Hard.
The man stopped grunting and squealed. He doubled over and clutched at himself. Felicity knew she had him now, and she could feel a grin of animal malice on her face as she moved in for the kill.
A voice said, “Miss Grace...” There was a small scream, a crunch, and a thump. Felicity looked up to see the smaller man holding a gun over the head of a dazed Mrs. Pettison.
“Come out of it,” he said. “Come out of it right now, you bitch, or I’ll crush her skull like a box of raspberries.” He raised the gun higher. A trickle of blood ran down Mrs. Pettison’s face.
Felicity came out of it.
“Over there,” the man with the gun said. “No, not the couch. The chair. I know you’ve got a bloody gun hidden in the couch. You all right, Grunter?”
The stocky man wiped tear-streaming eyes. “Shoot her, Stan,” he said. “The bitch.”
The one called Stan wiggled his jaw. “Not yet,” he said. “Not for a while.”
Stan held the gun aimed straight at Felicity’s eye. “What the bloody hell do you want?” she asked.
Stan smiled. It made him wince. “I want,” he said, “a lot more from you than I did when I came through that door. And I intend to get it. But first things first. Where’s Bellman?”
3
BELLMAN WAS ON THE CARPET in the office of Robert Tipton.
Tipton was standing. He was leaning over the desk on his knuckles. He was not yelling. Tipton knew that if he began yelling, he would follow with screams and violence.
The American sat in his chair in an attitude of respectful attention—feet together, back straight, eyes on Tipton’s lips. He’s probably bloody studied it, Tipton thought. The bloody Congressman probably stuffed it in the heads of all his men—Appropriate Body Language to Adopt When Receiving a Deserved Dressing-Down. The whole attitude seemed to be I-listen-to-your-opinions-with-respect-sir. It made Tipton want to puke.
Bellman had listened with respect while Tipton told him that the body of the man they’d had tailing this Leo Calvin character had been found in an alley earlier that afternoon. He listened with respect when Tipton told him that he had been a good man, one of the best.
When Tipton had announced that as far as he was concerned, it was all Bellman’s fault, the American had disagreed. Respectfully.
“I don’t think so,” he’d said. “Calvin is a dangerous man. I told your man that.”
“Oh,” Tipton said. His voice was getting hoarse from repressed rage. “Did you, now? How kind of you. It’s the only bloody thing you did tell us, though, isn’t it?”
Tipton slammed a fist into the desk, knuckles down. He ignored the pain.
“You come in here, and you take over the whole bloody section. Co-opt my people, cost my best agent an eye—”
“Oh,” Bellman said, “come on, now.” The respect was getting thin. Childishly, Tipton was glad. He didn’t want this arrogant bastard’s false respect. He wanted a no-holds-barred fight, to use up some of his anger and frustration.
“You come in with your American money and power and arrogance and lord it over us without even the simple courtesy of telling us what you were doing.”
Bellman leaned farther forward, and his eyebrows went up. A total movement of perhaps three inches, maybe half an inch for the facial muscles. It changed the body language completely. Tipton got the message—hostilities begin shortly. He welcomed it.
“I tried telling you what I was doing,” Bellman said. “And your best agent lost an eye.”
“What are you—”
“I asked you for a surveillance team, told you the subject and where to find him, and your man was killed. And the subject, who kidnapped Sir Lewis and started this whole mess in the first place, got away.”
“What are you saying, Bellman?” Tipton could feel the muscles in his arms shake. His voice was cold.
Bellman’s was bland. “I’m telling you what happened when I had the simple courtesy to tell you what was going on.”
“You are accusing me of treason.”
“I am telling you there is a leak in your organization.”
Tipton took his fists off the desk. He sat down, massaging his knuckles. He looked at the American. The one secr
et Tipton had kept from Bellman (after he’d learned the reason for the old man’s retirement, that is) was something Sir Lewis said about their being “something wrong in the Section.” Tipton had chalked it up to the vaporings of a madman, but mad or not, Sir Lewis was an expert at this sort of business. His intuitions weren’t something you could laugh off.
Apparently Bellman had intuitions, too.
“Nonsense!” Tipton said. He was rather more vehement than he’d intended; he wasn’t entirely sure whom he was arguing with.
“Don’t tell me nonsense,” Bellman said. “There’s a leak. There’s no other way around it. Wherever I go, Calvin or the Russians turn up. Too goddam many coincidences.”
“Then you must think I’m the traitor.”
Bellman smiled. “You and Hollis, right? Not necessarily.”
“But you’ve seen the reports! Everyone’s been checked, double checked. Followed. Interviewed. Family and associates vetted. It can’t be. This is a small Section. I know, within reason, every contact every one of my people has made.”
“Within reason,” Bellman echoed. “You know as well as I do, you can only reason with the facts you start with.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means someone is doing something you haven’t thought of.”
“They don’t speak to anyone. They don’t correspond or talk on the telephone. Not to anyone we can’t vouch for. What do you suggest, telepathy?”
“I suggest you get off my back. It’s not really my problem. I was just explaining why I’m reluctant to share my plans with this Section.”
“I suppose you expect me to feel honored you came in when I summoned you this afternoon.”
“No,” Bellman said. “Not honored. Look, Tipton. You know what kills you in this business. It’s the dead dreams, that lack of illusions. Trust is tempered and temporary. You can never be a hundred percent sure of anything.”
“I know my people,” Tipton said. He sounded like a fool to himself as he said it. The history of espionage, especially the recent history of British espionage, made that statement a bad joke.
Tipton admitted as much to the American. “But,” he said, “I have been doing this sort of work since before you were born, and I couldn’t go on if I didn’t resist what you were saying. I have to resist it with all my might, or I will be lost. Perhaps we all will. I...”
He stopped because Bellman wasn’t listening to him. He was leaning back with his eyes closed; his face was clenched in pain.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
“What is it?” Tipton demanded.
“Resist,” Bellman said.
“What?”
“Mr. Tipton, I need young Hamilton.”
“You do?”
“Now. I’ll tell you why in one hour. Maybe less. All right?”
Tipton didn’t notice that he’d said anything, but Bellman was thanking him and bolting from the office before the Action Section Chief could say a word.
4
WHAT WITH THE SNOW and the wind, Sir Lewis was even more grateful for the false beard. It kept his face warm (perhaps a trifle too warm), and it kept the snow from getting down the front of his topcoat.
It had been snowing ever since Leo Calvin had hauled him out of the hotel (the last cloth-walled hotel room, Sir Lewis reflected, that he would ever stay in), and began this bloody Eskimo trek of tourist’s London. The Tower had been cold, but at least he could get out of the elements. The Abbey had been fine, of course. But now, here at the zoo, Sir Lewis was beginning to wonder if he was going to make it through the day to the completion of his plan.
He knew why they were doing it, of course. It was a flirtation between the American and the Russian, a peeping at each other from behind fans. Leo would see Bulanin (it was Bulanin, much to Sir Lewis’s delight); Bulanin would see Leo. Bulanin would be able to tell if Leo had other people with him, people who might spring a trap. Leo was supposed to be able to tell the same thing, but with the communications capabilities a fully funded organization could command, Bulanin could have hidden away a Red Army division in another part of Regent’s Park, and arranged to call them in with one word into a microphone hidden under a flower in his lapel.
Lord, it was cold. It never seemed to get this cold before.
The animals didn’t seem to mind. Some of them seemed to be reveling in it. The polar bears, of course, but the rest of the bears, too. Tigers. A cute little creature called a red panda, much more attractive than the great lumbering black-and-white kind. Sir Lewis hadn’t even known it existed. About the size of a raccoon, fur about the color of Felicity Grace’s hair (and how was she doing, the old man wondered) with a white face, feet, and bands on the tail. It would come out of its little house on the tree, walk around the stone circle that penned it in a couple of times, grin at Sir Lewis, then climb back up into the treehouse. Soft life, Sir Lewis thought.
A particularly nasty gust of wind chilled the back of Sir Lewis’s neck, where the beard didn’t cover. He pulled his head down deeper into his collar and thrust his hands down into his pockets.
As long as he was feeling around down there, he decided to feel through the coat lining for the Device. For a few seconds it eluded his fingers, and Sir Lewis felt a flash of panic until he caught hold of it in the corner of his front pocket. Sir Lewis chided himself for a fool. He had deliberately worn loose pants, huge and baggy with pleats, of some hideous purplish-gray material. He had practiced, both before he rejoined Leo and after, twisting them around on his body, pulling them up or down or whatever, to make it possible for him to get into the pockets no matter what. Sir Lewis was now certain he could get hold of the Device, when necessary, no matter how he was bound. Unless they tied his hands to the top of his head, or something equally bizarre. He doubted they would.
The Device itself was quite simple. It was about the size of a golf ball, and resembled a blob of gray plasticine. It was similar to the substance Sir Lewis had given to Leo, except that this particular material was designed to explode rather than to generate any great heat.
Sir Lewis’s greatest risk had been keeping it concealed. He couldn’t go without sleep, after all, and he knew that Calvin was going to take the earliest opportunity to search him, his case, his clothes. Sir Lewis had bet that Leo would not think to search his disguise. The explosive had been concealed under the adhesive-coated burlap that attached the beard to his face. Sir Lewis made a great show of removing the beard whenever he was ready to go to sleep, and putting it on again, after shaving, next morning in the loo. This morning, he had peeled off the burlap, removed the layer of explosive, formed it into a ball, placed the detonator in it, and tucked the Device neatly away in these ridiculous trousers.
The detonator, simply a small device capable of making a spark, had been concealed in Sir Lewis’s mouth, tucked away between his cheek and gum like some of that vile American sucking snuff. The story of the cyanide tooth had effectively forestalled any search there. There had been one anxious moment when it had come free in the night, and Sir Lewis woke up choking on the bloody thing, but he had coughed it up and managed to keep Leo from seeing it. The coughing fit itself had aroused no suspicion—he was an old man, wasn’t he?
Yes. He was old. He was cold. He was tired. And he was, in large measure, a failure. His campaign to awaken the Kingdom to the dangers of turning a blind eye on the things that were wrecking society had not worked in the slightest. And it rankled.
But this, Sir Lewis reminded himself, was no time to brood. He had one last task left. He had the Device. He had Leo Calvin. He had the determination, but then he had always had that.
All he asked was that he be brought into the company of the Russian, Bulanin. He’d show them yet. He’d take a couple of deadly bastards with him.
Lewis Alfot would go out, by God—literally—in a blaze of glory.
5
FELICITY SAT ON THE chair, forcing herself not to look toward the door of the loo.
&
nbsp; She looked at other things—she took a tour of the blind eyes she had noticed during her scuffle with the stocky one. Grunter, his friend called him. The friend’s name was Stan.
She looked at the two of them, as well. Studied them. Memorized their faces, not that she expected it would do any good. These bastards had no intention of leaving Felicity or Mrs. Pettison alive to remember anything. They were talking too freely.
Felicity looked at them anyway. It was good for her resolve to see them punctuating every sentence with a waving gun, see Grunter’s face attacking a sandwich cobbled together from the contents of her refrigerator, watch his jaws work with a rotary bovine grinding that alone would have been enough to make her want to kill him. She wanted to watch Stan’s face go through its repertoire of smug, nasty smiles behind the constant curtain of cigarette smoke.
And she watched them guzzle beer. Grunter drank more, but Stan drank his share, putting the can down from time to time to light a new cigarette with a fancy gold lighter (the other hand never let go of the gun), but he always picked it up again. That was good. It was important than Stan drink enough beer.
Grunter drained a can and clinked his gun against the empty. It was Bellman’s gun, or one of them. The one he slept with. He’d been sleeping on the sofa. He’d been perfectly welcome to sleep in the bed with Felicity if he wanted, but he hadn’t wanted. Bellman slept on the sofa, with a gun tucked down in the cushions near his head. If Felicity had been able to reach the gun in time, the situation would be considerably different.
But she hadn’t, and Grunter had the gun, and he tapped it against an empty beer can.
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