Snark

by William L. DeAndrea

  7

  NOW THINGS WERE GETTING spooky. Someone had put the lights on a few seconds ago, and Bellman was seeing the waxwork the way it was meant to be seen. The dim, yellow-tinted light raked the displays, so that things that had looked phony before were now hidden in ominous shadows, and the things that looked real were highlighted.

  Bellman had heard gunfire behind him as he’d sprinted from the foyer. Undoubtedly the cavalry shooting it out with Benton. The reason he hadn’t stayed where he was and caught the man in a crossfire was that the minute the door had started to crack, Sir Lewis Alfot had taken off on a sprint down another wing. Since (Bellman was almost proud of himself for remembering this) the original object of the exercise had been to retrieve Sir Lewis, Bellman had cut across and taken off after him.

  He hadn’t cut across fast enough, it seemed. Leo Calvin said, “Bellman,” and, disregarding Bulanin’s rapid demands for explanation, had taken off in pursuit.

  Bellman wasn’t going to make it easy for him. He kept pulling things over behind him, blocking the path as he ran by.

  It was easy enough to follow Sir Lewis by sound. An old man runs, if he can run at all, heavily. An old man with his hands cuffed behind his back runs very heavily. Bellman followed through the Witch-Burning Room (upsetting a cauldron into the path) and through the Spanish Inquisition Room, where he pulled over a rack.

  Then the lights went on. And everything else. Bellman had been running too close to an animated headsman when the power cut on; he almost lost his nose to the upswing of an executioner’s ax. Bellman jumped away, but he managed to stop himself from crying out. He looked behind him. He saw nothing, but heard the metallic clang and the curse as someone tripped over the cauldron. That gave him some idea of how far behind him the pursuit was. Unfortunately, it was the last time it was likely to happen. The lights were dim, and brought no comfort—the opposite of comfort. But they gave enough light for a man to avoid an obstacle in his path.

  The place was haunted with sound, now, too. Groans and screams and demonic laughter. Angry questions in Spanish about renouncing heresies. Too much noise, too loud for him to hear Sir Lewis anymore.

  Bellman fought panic, forced himself to think. Leo Calvin and Bulanin were getting closer and closer, and he was accomplishing nothing. He thought of laying an ambush, and looked around for a good place, but found nothing. Nothing he could climb on, or under, or hide behind.

  He decided to press on. He’d seen lots of good places before; there had to be something farther along.

  And there was. Not an ambuscade, but a signpost, a little more elaborate than the usual arrows. This one offered a choice—THE WORLD OF FAERIE OR MODERN WARFARE.

  It was to easy to guess the choice of the man who’d kept that little silver cup. Bellman headed toward Modern Warfare on the run. He might catch up to Sir Lewis yet.

  8

  SIR LEWIS ALFOT HAD known it was going to come to this. He must have known. Why else, in what he thought was his moment of triumph, would he have kept the foolish spectacles when he’d shed the false beard? Why had he even prepared the spectacles in the first place? True, he had been about to use them on the enquiry agent, but when an alternative had presented itself, he had used it gladly. It was almost as if he had been saving them for something.

  He knew why, now. The Sussex Cyclops had been born to show the nation they had lost their vision, that they had turned a blind eye to the real cause of their problems. And the spectacles were symbolic of that. But why, then hadn’t he used them?

  And why, he told himself angrily, now that he had decided to use them, didn’t he bloody well get on with it? Why did he keep lumbering down this bloody waxwork, with the yellow lights leering at him, and the moans chasing him?

  Because he was looking for the right place.

  And all at once he found it. He found it by sound, a sound anyone who’d been in London toward the end of the war knew, a rude, buzzing noise. A doodlebug. A buzz bomb. German V-l. His father had died under one. As long as the buzzing went on, you were all right. When it stopped—

  It stopped now, and Sir Lewis nearly dove for cover. It was another noise that stopped him, a whistling sound, the stereotypical falling bomb. They hadn’t sounded like that. There was the buzzing, then an ominous, horrid silence, then the explosion. There it was now, the blast, and a lighting effect of smoke and flame that was quite good. But they’d tried to be dramatic, with that whistling sound, and had ruined it.

  Sir Lewis looked around him. It was familiar, and well done (a shame about that bloody whistling). There was the rubble, and the distant flames. People, weary after five years of war and more, going about their business with a grim determination. The sirens. The buzzing.

  A placard placed unobtrusively in a corner told him where and when this was supposed to be, but Sir Lewis didn’t need to be told. He knew. He knew firsthand.

  Then, as if in mockery of the thought, he saw the hand. A waxwork hand, crusted in artificial grime, sticking out palm up from a pile of fake rubble. And Sir Lewis started to weep.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He was not apologizing to a wax hand, but to the people it represented. A people who stood alone against Hitler for a long, tough time. Who persevered. Who won—and knew they would. He apologized to them on behalf of a people who now lived in the ruins of a broken Empire and a decaying Welfare State, who felt—and acted—second-best. Who killed each other over played-out coal mines.

  Sir Lewis wept because he knew now he had somehow passed from membership in the first group to the second. He had tried to awaken something in his countrymen, and had failed. Then he had tried to take symbolic revenge on the jackals that fed on his country’s misery, the buzzards that flew about, pecking at the Lion’s eyes. And he had failed.

  There was only one thing left he could do—sacrifice himself to the Spirit of the Nation. Here, in front of a tawdry tribute to it, he could give the last thing he had to give. Because the spirit still lived. He knew it did. It had to. The reason he had failed to fan it in the people was that he no longer had it himself. He could be of no more help in the necessary—the inevitable rebuilding of the nation. After a lifetime of serving his country, the only thing he had left to do was to get out of the way.

  Sir Lewis knelt near the wax hand. He bent as far forward as he could without being able to use his hands for balance, and shook his head. The spectacles came loose and skittered along the false paving. Sir Lewis made his way over to them on his knees. He bent over once more, and took the glasses in his mouth by the end of the mended sidebar. A few more shakes of the head, and the mend came apart. Sir Lewis spat out the useless earpiece, and made his way again toward the spectacles. It hurt his knees, but the pain would be only temporary.

  Sir Lewis was glad to see that the spectacles had landed lenses down, with the sidebars unfolded. The point gleamed in the dull light, the point he had carefully made himself with a penknife and piece of sandpaper. It was sharp enough to have drawn blood from an experimental fingertip. It was plenty sharp enough to do the job now.

  All it took was the courage. Which, he found to his shock, he seemed to lack.

  He had never hated himself so much as he did in that moment. He had done it to others, now he was too much a coward to do it to himself. Coward, he told himself. Hypocrite. And still, he looked at the point as if it were the fang of a snake. And he would not embrace it.

  Then the American came in. Sir Lewis looked up and saw him. What is he doing here? Sir Lewis thought irrelevantly.

  The American said his name.

  Lewis Alfot was damned if some bloody American would see him in his shame. That would not be allowed to happen. The old man managed a smile, looked the American in the eye, said, “Thank you, Yank,” and threw himself forward.

  At the end, Lewis Alfot’s aim was true.

  9

  IT WAS OVER BEFORE Bellman could stop it, before he even knew there was anything to stop. The old man lay t
witching for a few seconds, then he lay still.

  “Son of a bitch,” Bellman said. He wasted a few seconds thinking. “Son of a bitch,” he said again.

  This was probably the best solution as far as the Section was concerned. And it also opened up some interesting possibilities in regard to the Russian, and the other American. Especially the other American.

  First, though, he had to keep them from killing him. He turned his back on the fallen knight, and started back toward his pursuers.

  Leo Calvin shot him.

  Triumph. At times like this, it was hard for Leo to remember he had ever been afraid of anything. It was going his way, now. He hadn’t even wanted to shoot from this distance; he never had been a very good shot. But Bellman probably was, and Bellman was turning; he’d see Leo in a second, better shoot now, if only to keep him from getting off a shot at you.

  And to Leo’s amazement and delight Bellman had grabbed at his thigh and gone down, and, under buzzes, whistles, and explosions, there had been the, clatter of a gun skittering across the floor. Of course, the femoral artery is in the thigh, and if Leo had hit that, there was nothing more to worry about. If he hadn’t, though, there was no time to waste. He hurried toward the spot where the American had fallen. Even if he had hit the artery, he wanted to hurry. He wanted to be there in time to see Bellman—or Driscoll—bleed to death.

  When he got there, Leo was glad he’d hurried. The blood was oozing from his leg, not spurting, which meant that so far as that particular wound was concerned, Bellman might live for years.

  Bellman was, in fact, dragging himself across the floor toward the gun. Leo ran to it, kicked it away. He could feel the smile on his face.

  He raised his own gun, pointed it at Bellman’s head.

  “Beg, Driscoll,” Leo said. “Come on, beg.”

  Bellman said nothing.

  It was foolish, Leo knew. He was never emotional about his work before. But he was proud of it, and Driscoll had been the only one who’d ever thwarted him. Leo tightened his grip on the gun. That close, he couldn’t miss.

  “No!” Bulanin said. He fired a shot to make sure he had Leo’s attention. He wanted to see how far this terrorist maniac would go, or, rather, he didn’t want to interrupt him if he was going in the right direction.

  But he was not, and Bulanin, who had arrived just as Leo was kicking away Bellman’s gun, had decided to intervene.

  Leo Calvin looked at Bulanin. Bulanin leveled his gun at the terrorist.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Leo said.

  “Of course,” Bulanin said. His irritation showed in his voice. He had had quite enough of Leo Calvin by now. “But I do not propose to have run all the risks I have run for nothing. That knock on the door means nothing. Men from Alfot’s Section have apparently arrived already. To say nothing of the Special Branch, or even the CIA for all I know.”

  “Then I’ll kill him, and show you the way out of here. Right away.”

  “I said no. We will make him tell us where Alfot is, or make sure he doesn’t know. Then we will kill him. Then you will show me and Alfot a safe way out of here.”

  Bulanin spoke to the figure on the floor, who had lain silent through all this, except for an occasional grunt of pain. “There will be much more pain before it’s over, Mr. Bellman. Unless you talk. Then it will be painless, I promise.” Bulanin looked at his watch. An American-made watch. “You have ten seconds before we begin.”

  Bulanin listened. He heard a buzz. Then a whistle. Then an explosion. Then laughter.

  Bellman laughed while he got himself propped up on one elbow. The situation was such that he would have laughed anyway, but it turned out to be the right move. It unsettled Bulanin and Calvin. It gained him an extra seven or eight seconds. And during those seconds, two important things happened—Felicity Grace showed up, and Bellman figured out what he was supposed to do.

  Felicity stood in the doorway. She looked beautiful—a wild, one-eyed warrior princess. She had her gun up, leveled at the back of Bulanin’s head.

  Bellman was the only one in the room who could see her. He looked at her significantly, chuckled, and slowly shook his head.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “No need to get nasty. I’ll tell you where Alfot is.”

  “Tell me, then,” Bulanin said.

  “Over there.” Bellman gestured with his head toward the pile of rubble farther into the room. “That’s no wax dummy. Not a victim of the blitz.”

  Buzz. Whistle. Explosion. “There it is again,” Bellman said. “If Hitler could have brought them over this fast, he would have won. Anyway, that’s the mortal remains of Sir Lewis Alfot. He’s the last victim of the Sussex Cyclops.”

  Leo said it was a lie, and began to elaborate, but Bulanin told him to shut up. He walked over to the body, his gun trained on Leo the whole time. It was like a broken daisy chain. Leo covered Bellman, Bulanin covered Leo, Felicity covered Bulanin. He still hadn’t seen her. From the corner of his eye Bellman could see Felicity’s arms swing to keep the gun centered on the Russian.

  Bulanin turned the body over with his toe. He grimaced as he saw the eyeglasses sticking out from the man’s eye, like a surrealist joke.

  “He is dead,” Bulanin said.

  Bellman nodded. He tried to ignore how much his leg hurt.

  “Changes everything, doesn’t it?” Bellman said.

  Indeed it did, and Bulanin knew it. He had to think. He thought for the space of two buzz bombs. The noise didn’t bother him. Leo Calvin’s screaming that it was all Bellman’s fault didn’t bother him. He simply filtered it out. Besides, it didn’t matter whose fault it was. All that mattered was what Bulanin was going to do now.

  He couldn’t filter Bellman out, somehow, but that didn’t matter, because Bellman only echoed Bulanin’s own thoughts.

  “Sure, you could kill me,” Bellman said. “And diplomatic immunity might get you out of it. But you’ll never escape detection. Too many people know you were here, and more will be told before you can get away. The folks back home might throw you to the dogs, turn you over to British Justice, just to avoid an international mess. That wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. You might be sent home to Moscow. Want to bet what will happen then?”

  Bulanin did not need to bet what would happen then. He would be brought to Borzov. Borzov would not be pleased. He would, in fact, be disappointed. Even angry.

  Bulanin wished he had a cigarette.

  Bellman spoke again, again echoing Bulanin’s own thoughts. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can he the man who caught the Sussex Cyclops. Tragically, too late to prevent the murder of the beloved Sir Lewis, but...”

  Bulanin knew nothing of the Sussex Cyclops aside from what he read in the newspapers, but the rest of what Bellman said made undeniable sense.

  “You have a candidate perhaps?”

  Bellman raised himself up a little higher, wincing with pain as he did so. “Well, the Sussex cops are already looking for a certain American—not me—in connection with a murder...”

  Leo Calvin made his way back into Bulanin’s consciousness by the very volume and desperation of his screams. “No!” he screamed. “No, you slippery bastard! Not again!”

  Calvin’s finger began to tighten on the trigger. Bulanin wasn’t through thinking yet; he was quite through with Mr. Calvin. He fired.

  Calvin stayed on his feet a remarkably long time. Bulanin, preoccupied as he was with casting a whole new plan for his future, facing the fact that he would now never be Chairman, would never, in fact, see his homeland again, was impressed. He fired four times before Calvin fell, and even after he fell, the terrorist was. still making noises. Bulanin walked over and planted one more in his head.

  Part of Bellman wanted to be elated that Leo Calvin was out of his hair for good, but there were still too many things to worry about. He thought of reaching for the gun in Leo’s hand, but decided Bulanin was likely to take it the wrong way. The Russian was dazed,
acting on instinct.

  Bellman said, “Again.”

  Bulanin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Shoot him again.”

  “Oh,” Bulanin said, and obliged. Leo’s body jumped. “I don’t think that last one was really necessary.”

  “I do,” Bellman said. “It’s empty now. Felicity, come in here and tie him up, in case he gets second thoughts.”

  Felicity sprinted over and went to work on the Russian. As she searched him, she looked at Bellman. “You’re bloody amazing,” she said.

  Bulanin asked her for a cigarette.

  10

  FELICITY TALKED TO STINGLEY while Bellman, listening to no counsel but his own, limped off into the control room to use the telephone. Bulanin, who had apparently said all he’d had to say in a whispered conversation while he helped Bellman back to the foyer, stood silent beside her while she explained to Stingley that for the record, he had worked with Bulanin and had cracked the Sussex Cyclops case. He was to tell the Special Branch as much when they arrived.

  “Right,” Stingley said. “I don’t know what any of this is about—”

  Felicity said, “The Cyclops was Leo Calvin, the international terrorist. He was in the pay of an as yet unknown terrorist group. The Soviets learned about his activities, but for reasons of their own, decided not to tell us—

  “But Mr. Bulanin here had his conscience bother him, and came to me, and we tracked him here and found him with this Benton, who was also a member of the terrorist group, and together we fought them. Bulanin shot Calvin, but not before he did for Sir Lewis Alfot. Though why he was here, nobody knows. Right so far?”

  Bulanin offered a smile. “Perfect,” he said.

  “Bulanin has now gone off with a high government official, and more will be expected later. All right. I’ve given more reports than you’ve had hot dinners, my girl.”

  Felicity was tired, and her head hurt. “Then what is it you don’t understand?” she asked.