Snark

by William L. DeAndrea

  Bellman shook his head. “Welcome to the world of espionage. You stupid, stupid fool. You had a chance—the hell with it. You’re stuck now. Life in the shadows, no parole.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “I didn’t know,” Dave said. “I didn’t know...”

  “Now you know,” Bellman said. Dave kept murmuring.

  “Shut the fuck up before I hit you again. When’s the next time you’re supposed to get in touch with these people?”

  Dave looked surprised. “Why, tonight. They gave me a special phone number. A new one—not one of the usual phone boxes.”

  He told Bellman what it was. The doorbell rang again.

  “You are about to receive your first assignment. You are going to refrain from making that phone call tonight. Come on, let’s go.” Bellman pulled the dazed boy to his feet.

  He pulled the door open as the bell rang for the third time. Tipton was there. In person. There was an angry look on his face, and his skin was as gray as his hair.

  Dave looked at him and worked his mouth. “Mr. Tipton...” he said at last, but he couldn’t manage anything more.

  “I want to talk with you for a second, Tipton,” Bellman said.

  Tipton spoke to the agents with him. “Take him to my office. Wait with him until I get there.”

  They took Dave away. Tipton looked at Bellman and said, “What a bloody mess.”

  “I don’t make them,” Bellman said. “I just smell them out.”

  “Don’t expect me to love you for it.”

  “You may go directly to hell, Mr. Tipton. I’ve heard a lot of stuff about British pride out of you. I think you ought to save it until you’ve got something to be proud of. You are amazing. You give the kid a sensitive job, and you think because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s not a security risk. By the time he knows, he’s in too deep, and everybody is in a bloody mess.”

  “See here, Bellman,” Tipton began.

  “You see here. I want three things from you. I want a phone number traced.”

  “All right.” Tipton was still seething. “What else?”

  “I know you have to use the kid.”

  “You outlined the situation very nicely.”

  “Go easy on him.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Go easy on him, I said. He never had a chance. You set him up and sent him out there naked. Go easy on him. I mean it. The poor bastard never had a chance.”

  “Good Lord, man, are you crying?”

  “No,” Bellman lied, “I am not crying. The third thing I want is top-flight medical care for Hamilton’s brother.”

  “Oh?”

  “Don’t give me ‘oh.’ Just see that he gets it. Send the bill to the Congressman if you want, but see that Hamilton’s brother gets taken care of.”

  “The Congressman,” Tipton promised, “will hear about all of this.”

  “You got that right. You’ll tell him about it. And so will I.” Bellman nodded, like a notary stamping a document.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find out who that phone belongs to.”

  8

  BULANIN LOOKED AT HIS watch. Almost time. This absurd charade would soon be over.

  Bulanin was in Paddington Station, leaning against a glass case holding an enormous effigy of a bear. It looked altogether too friendly to represent the Russian Bear, but he approved of the symbolism, just the same.

  Aside from minor differences (like the bear), all of the railway stations in London were the same—huge, high-ceilinged, barnlike structures, with red-signed shops crouching against the walls like derelicts, or standing forlornly in the middle of the cement floors like bewildered travelers.

  All of Bulanin’s chosen observation points had been British Rail stations. They fit all of Leo Calvin’s criteria—they were large, so that the parties could see that the other was alone without having to come into premature contact; they were public, to make an ambush less feasible; and they were easily accessible.

  Also, they sheltered him from the snow. If Bulanin had wanted to run around in the snow, he could have asked to be assigned to Moscow.

  It seemed to Bulanin that he was choosing better places for Calvin’s purposes than Calvin himself was. The zoo had been deserted—if Bulanin intended to betray Calvin at one of the sightings, he could have done it there. The same with the Tower. It made no sense.

  Still, Bulanin faithfully executed his assigned steps in this little dance. Calmly, he watched the American and the ridiculously bearded Sir Lewis. (And it had better be Sir Lewis, Bulanin thought grimly. Not, he admitted, that it would make a difference to the fate in store for Calvin.) They walked calmly across the station, like a man showing his peasant grandfather the wonders of the metropolis. Calvin paused at a sweets machine about fifty yards away from where Bulanin stood, worked the machine, and peeled and ate a piece of chewing gum. He offered one to the bearded man with him, who declined. Then he looked directly at Bulanin, caught his eye, and nodded soberly, once. Bulanin returned the gesture.

  When the two men had walked far enough away from the machine, Bulanin walked quickly over to it. He found the note in the coin return slot. It read “LAST STOP—THE TOMBS. BRING THE MONEY.”

  Bulanin smiled. He’d been led on a day-long paper chase through the snow in order to be assigned a rendezvous at the usual meeting place. Leo Calvin had a sense of humor, it seemed.

  Bulanin rubbed his nose. As he did so, he spoke into a small FM transmitter concealed in one hand. “The Tombs,” he said. He would dispose of the transmitter before he arrived at the rendezvous. Calvin might insist on searching him before going through with the transaction, and the sight of the device might cause a problem.

  But by then, Bulanin wouldn’t need it anymore. His men would be in place. Sir Lewis and the money would be exchanged. Then the men would strike. The money would be retrieved. Bulanin would deliver to Borzov both the old man and the American. Leo Calvin would have tried to be clever once too often.

  Bulanin had a sense of humor, too.

  9

  MRS. PETTISON GROANED AND stirred. Felicity could see her eyes move under her eyelids. She’d come round soon.

  Stan grinned and nudged Mrs. Pettison again with his toe. “Come on, darling, wake up. I want you to be a good neighbor and help me convince the young lady to tell me where her boyfriend is.”

  Stan was no fool. He knew (or had been told) that Felicity was a professional. Physical duress wouldn’t make her talk; it was a waste of time even to try it. But the torture of an innocent bystander might just work. Even if it didn’t, the smile on Stan’s face said he’d enjoy it all the same.

  In a few minutes, Mrs. Pettison would wake up, and Stan would go to work. And Felicity would watch. And say nothing. She had to wait them out, had to let her trap work, if it was ever going to. It was the only way to get out of here alive, if not necessarily in one piece.

  Stan drank the rest of his umpteenth can of beer—bladder like a bloody camel, Felicity thought—then went through the gold-plated ritual of lighting yet another cigarette.

  Mrs. Pettison’s eyelids fluttered.

  Stan’s eyelids widened when he saw it. “That’s better,” he said. “Grunter?”

  Grunter looked up from one of Felicity’s BBC Basic computer language manuals, in which he had apparently been absorbed. “What, then, seven already?”

  “About twenty till,” Stan said. “But the old woman is coming around—we might still have something to tell Leo.”

  “Great. Let’s get started, then.”

  “In a minute. I’m off to the loo.”

  Felicity almost cheered. She tensed her muscles for action, then forced herself to relax. She didn’t want to tip anything off before the last second. His hand on the doorknob would be time enough.

  “After all,” Stan went on, “we don’t want any interruptions once we start to work, do we, now?”

  Grunter looked at him with disgust. “If you had any taste
in lager, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  Stan smiled. “Won’t be a minute. Just come sit here, hold the gun steady, and don’t let her try anything funny.”

  “There’s nothing bloody funny about any of it.” Grunter settled into the chair and glared at Felicity. He was not happy about the way she’d handled him in their earlier scuffle, and Felicity could see his hands twitch with the desire to even things up.

  Felicity watched Stan walk down the hall. When he was about two feet from the door of the loo, Felicity tensed and leaned slightly forward. She licked her lips.

  Grunter saw it, didn’t like it. Something in his shrewd, deadly brain put the observations together with an intuition and strong sense of suspicion and came out with one word—TRAP.

  “Stan!” he called. “Don’t go in the loo!”

  Mrs. Pettison threw her arm across her face, shielding her eyes from the light. Felicity died inside.

  Stan stopped with his hand on the knob. “How’s that again?” he asked.

  Grunter opened his mouth to repeat himself, but Stan didn’t wait for an answer before he opened the door.

  Stingley was ready to give up and go home. Actually, he was ready to go back to his brother-in-law’s home, just down the road a bit in Richmond, where he’d been staying the past few days.

  Two things were keeping him close to London—the Cyclops, and his conscience. He just didn’t want to go back down south while the man he’d been hunting had last struck in the capital. He knew it was foolish—what if he struck next in Cardiff, or Glasgow, or the Shetland Islands, or France? Stingley could spend the rest of his life chasing this bloody maniac and never see his wife again. But, Stingley thought, logic be damned—as long as the Cyclops seemed most likely to be holed up in London, Stingley would be, too.

  It was his conscience, though, that had him here, in particular, staked out on the block of flats where Jeffrey Bellman had been stopping. What the hell, he thought, there’s nothing better to do. It wasn’t as if the bloody Yard had any use for him or anything.

  And he’d meant what he’d said to the young American the other day, every word of it. Soon, bloody soon, he would have to make a fuss about what he knew. Unless, of course, someone showed him a damned good reason not to. So he was standing in the snow, walking around the neighborhood. It was even more ridiculous than staying in London trying to be near his quarry, but he was looking for something, just one little tiny something, that would either let him call it off or give him the push to do what he threatened.

  What made it worse was that Bellman probably wasn’t even there. Surveying the place when he’d first arrived about forty minutes ago (like a good policeman) Stingley had noticed that Miss Grace’s car wasn’t there. Since it was unlikely that she’d be on the road so soon after losing an eye, and in a blizzard besides, it was probable that Bellman was out, and the lights in the windows indicated that Miss Grace was convalescing quietly at home.

  Stingley toyed with the idea of paying her a call, but decided against it. To hell with it. Go back to Fred’s and let him brag about how good a cook his wife was. Stingley held his stomach, where the homemade black pudding she’d served him for lunch was resting uneasily, and reflected that Fred must be hopelessly in love.

  Stingley walked back to the car, and took one last look at the windows of the Grace woman’s flat. By way of a goodbye, he supposed.

  That’s when he saw the explosion. The noise followed almost immediately.

  “Jesus Bloody Christ,” Stingley whispered, and he sprinted for the entrance.

  Stan hit the floor blazing. He screamed four or five times, then stopped. Mrs. Pettison picked up where he’d left off, the result of going under because of a rap on the head, then waking to find herself in what must have seemed a circle of hell, complete with explosions, and fire, and flaming, tormented souls.

  Felicity had no time to worry about her. Two things had happened in the instant the coal of Stan’s last cigarette ignited the chlorine gas—Grunter had reflexively turned his head to see what had happened, and Felicity, who’d been watching for just that reflex, took the opportunity to jump him.

  And still, Grunter recovered in time to stop Felicity from finishing him off with a smash to the throat, as she’d intended. Instead, he’d ducked forward, and the blow landed on his nose. Felicity could feel the cartilage squash under her hand, but it didn’t slow Grunter for a second.

  It devolved into round two of their previous fight; the tall woman and the stocky man grappled around the room. Broken glass crunched under their bodies as they struggled. The smell of burning—carpet, paint, flesh—was growing stronger. Mrs. Pettison screamed repeatedly, without variation, like an air-raid siren. Grunter made his animal noises. Felicity was silent.

  Externally. Inside, her brain was screaming at her. Don’t let him go for your eye. Don’t let him hit you in the head anymore; the next one will knock you out from the pain. End this. Get Mrs. Pettison out of here. End it. Get out before the fire makes this all irrelevant. End it. End it!

  Then, as if in answer to a prayer she wasn’t aware of making, she saw a way to do it. They were almost in position; she almost had the leverage. If she could just get out from under and plant her foot...

  Felicity brought her right leg out to the side of her body. Grunter’s weight still pinned her shoulders. He was trying to control her enough to enable him to get a hand free to finish her. Now Felicity wanted him to succeed.

  She planted her foot against the carpet, ignoring the slivers of glass that sliced into her skin. That done, she stopped struggling.

  Grunter’s victory was warm on his face. Felicity could see him smile as he held her throat with his left hand and raised his right to smash her.

  Felicity moved. She arched her back, using her shoulders and right foot as supports. It lifted Grunter’s bulk only a little, but it was enough. With his hand in the air, he had a far less secure base than he’d had a moment before.

  Now, when Felicity lifted her body and turned inward toward Grunter, there was nothing to keep him from going over sideways. He hit the floor, sprawling. A dribble of blood appeared where a piece of glass cut his chin. He cursed under his breath, then aloud, as he started to scramble to his feet.

  He never made it. Felicity got up first. As Grunter rose, she grabbed his belt and collar like a chucker-out at a pub. She pulled the belt and pushed the collar to keep him off balance.

  Grunter’s best move would have been to go back down, but he was too angry to be smart. He tried to fight his way to his feet, which was just what Felicity wanted. He was still fighting when she ran his head through the broken front of the television set. Grunter’s scream turned into a gurgle, and a sheet of bright red washed down the front of the box.

  A voice said, “Jesus Bloody Christ!”

  Felicity looked up wearily. “Stingley,” she said.

  “Come out of it, before the fire cuts you off!”

  Felicity paused just long enough to find the gun Grunter had dropped when she’d jumped him and to take a piece of paper from his pocket. She made her way past a wall of flame to where Stingley stood in the doorway.

  “What the bloody hell is going on here?” the policeman demanded.

  “Mrs. Pettison,” Felicity said. “I’ve got to get Mrs. Pettison out.”

  “Relax, I’ve got her out at the head of the stairs. Bloody good job I got here when I did, or she’d have been roasted. She’s smoked like a bloody gammon joint as it is.”

  “Let’s get her out of the building.”

  “You’re bloody brilliant, you are,” Stingley said. He was already on his way. He slung Mrs. Pettison, who was too bewildered to protest, or even question, over his shoulder and started downstairs. Felicity pounded on doors and shouted fire; one neighbor had already noticed and called the fire brigade.

  Felicity acknowledged with a nod, and continued downstairs amid the increasing traffic.

  Outside, Stingley got Mrs. Pettison a saf
e distance away from the building and put her down on the seat of a car belonging to one of the other fugitives from the fire. The neighbor said, “Hit her head, poor thing,” and began taking care of her.

  “Do you have a car?” Felicity asked.

  “Where’s a phone box? I have to call the fire brigade.”

  “That’s been seen to. Where’s your car? I need you to take me somewhere.”

  Stingley was disgusted. “Don’t be bloody ridiculous. You’re bleeding. You’re scorched. You’re standing barefoot in the middle of a bloody blizzard. If I’m going to take you anywhere, it’ll be right back to hospital!”

  “You will take me to the Tournament Press in Bloomsbury. This is a vital national matter. I don’t have my credentials with me, but you remember them.”

  “What vital matter?”

  Felicity cracked. “The matter I set the fire and killed those two sods over!” She had hold of his coat with both hands. There was blood on the hands. “Now get me the hell out of here before company gets here and ruins everything.”

  Stingley grumbled and swore, but he took her.

  EIGHTH

  Erect and sublime for one moment of time,

  In the next, that wild figure they saw

  (As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,

  While they waited and listened in awe.

  “It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,

  And seemed almost too good to be true.

  Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:

  Then the ominous words, “It’s a Boo—”

  —The Hunting of the Snark

  Fit the Eighth

  1

  THE SNOW SCATTERED BELLMAN’S headlights, and the wind howled so loud he had trouble remembering he was supposed to be driving on the left.

  He was heading for the Tombs, a wax museum or something just south of the Thames, somewhat to the east of Putney. That, it seemed, was the phone number Dave Hamilton had been supposed to call. Some efficient fellow at Tournament Press had written out directions for Bellman; he’d find it.