The Intelligencer

by Leslie Silbert

  Thy wit will make us conquerors today.

  —MYCETES,in Marlowe’sTamburlaine, Part 1

  LONDON—EVENING,MAY1593

  The two figures moved slowly along the Strand. One limping, relying on a stout walking stick, the other deliberately slowing his pace.

  The man with the limp wore a dark gown and a matching flat cap. He had thick gray hair and a long scraggly beard and carried a wooden cross, painted red, in his left hand. His younger companion wore a white apron over simple attire and carried a stoneware jar.

  Reaching the stoop of the brick and timber mansion owned by Robert Cecil’s father, Marlowe used his walking stick to thump upon the door.

  It cracked open, and a young maid peered out. “Who are you?”

  “Physician, mistress,” Marlowe replied. “I received a summons this morning.”

  “Why?” she asked, alarmed.

  “A report of plague.”

  Terrified, the maid gasped.

  “I bring a cross for the door,” Marlowe continued, “and an apothecary with remedies so that the rest of you—God willing—may escape the disease.”

  “Mummy,” Helen chimed in, proferring the stoneware jar. “Dead man’s ashes. You stir four ounces into twice as much wine—”

  The girl darted back inside, then reappeared moments later with another maid at her side—her sister, by the looks of things—and together, they tore off down the street.

  Taking a seat on the stoop, Marlowe and Helen waited for the house to empty.

  “Seems he doesn’t keep written records of the alliance, Kit,” Helen said, pushing the drawer shut. Their visit to Cecil’s office earlier that evening had been equally fruitless.

  They’d searched every corner of Cecil’s bedchamber and had been scouring his study for the better part of an hour.

  “Perhaps not, but surely he still has that jade dragon given him by your captain.”

  Sitting back against the wall behind her, Helen nodded. “The way he spoke of it, I’d not expect him to have sold it. But a man of his position, mustn’t he have a country home? Which might be a safer place to—”

  “I’d wager he prefers to keep it close,” Marlowe cut in, peering behind a framed map of the world. He then began running his fingers along the wooden wall paneling. “Perhaps one of these conceals—”

  “Wait, stop,” Helen urged, excited. “Look down.”

  “They’re scuffed, I know,” Marlowe said, examining his boots. “I’ve been meaning to—”

  “No. Beneath them.”

  He was standing on a small, richly colored carpet. An Egyptian Mamluk, Helen thought to herself. “In the hall, the parlor, the bedchambers, the fine carpets are draped over benches and cupboards,” she pointed out. “They’re placed as if considered too valuable for walking upon. But here…”

  “Of course,” Marlowe murmured, kneeling to the floor.

  Together they rolled back the carpet, exposing three floorboards shorter than any of the others in the room. Taking her knife from her boot, Helen pried them up, revealing a compartment…and a small wooden chest.

  Resting on thick, inch-high legs, the chest had elaborate floral carvings on the front and sides. Lifting the smooth, polished lid, they saw nothing but bunched silk velvet in a bold blood-red hue. Marlowe reached in. The first item he unwrapped was a fan of peacock feathers encrusted with sapphires and emeralds. Lifting out a velvet parcel herself, Helen found a delicate box, carved from ivory, and a set of ivory knives.

  There were several pieces of Turkish porcelain—with intricate designs painted in royal blue, sea green, and ochre—a golden dish with a lotus design, a multicolored cloisonné spittoon, and, in several layers of velvet, the willow-green jade dragon with rubies for eyes. All resting on a bed of gemstones the size of robins’ eggs.

  “Infinite riches in a little room,” Helen observed.

  “Well put,” Marlowe replied, grinning. The line was one of his. “How did you…”

  “I saw your play February last as I was passing through London. Twice.”

  Marlowe’sJew of Malta had been performed at the Rose the previous winter. Helen was still marveling at what she’d learned that morning. Meeting at the locked, near empty Rose to fetch costumes, she’d assumed they would break in and was surprised to see that Marlowe had his own key. Had he stolen it? Or was he a player? she’d wondered. Then, once inside, she’d witnessed the reverence the theater’s owner had heaped on him and was stunned to realize that Kit—the spy she’d spent several days with—wasthat Kit: London’s most beloved playmaker.

  “Might not be an admission in his own hand,” Marlowe was saying, pleased. “But such treasures—with trading routes as limited as they currently are—will at least provoke questions.”

  He stood.

  “Greenwich?” Helen asked.

  Marlowe nodded.

  “It’s late.”

  “The perfect time to slip into the grounds.”

  “We’re not marching up to the front door, are we?”

  “It’s too soon to reveal everything. Too much remains…uncertain. In the meantime, I know just the place.”

  As they headed along Ivy Lane down to the river, Helen tried to ignore the fact that she was falling for a man who smiled at her with nothing but friendship in his eyes.

  DEPTFORDSTRAND—NIGHT

  Sword across his knees, Nick Skeres was sitting on a stump in the yard directly opposite Eleanor Bull’s home. He had been peering through the hedge for hours. According to Thomas Phelippes, when Marlowe arrived he would be carrying some form of evidence implicating Sir Robert Cecil in treason. Phelippes had offered Skeres twenty pounds to seize that evidence. For five minutes’ effort, it was an irresistible sum.

  Ideally he would creep up behind Marlowe as he approached the door and strike him on the head with the hilt of his sword. Skeres was hoping to preserve their friendship, as well as Marlowe’s life.

  Not so Ingram Frizer.

  Across town, in a lodging house near the opposite edge of Deptford’s green, Frizer was sharpening his sword. He’d assured Sir Robert Cecil that Marlowe would be dead before sunup, and he meant to keep his word.

  27

  SOUTHBANK,LONDON—4:48P.M., THE PRESENT DAY

  After stepping from their tour boat onto Westminster Pier, Kate and Medina did not go far.

  Thirty minutes later, they were just across the river near the London Eye, the city’s giant ferris wheel. It was a highly congested area, particularly popular with tourists.

  “We might have found our decoys,” Kate was saying. The three young Russian women she’d just introduced herself to were in their early twenties, and not one spoke more than a few words of English.

  Speaking quietly to them in Russian once more, Kate explained the offer in greater detail. At first they appeared to be confused, but when she had finished, they were nodding enthusiastically.

  In a nearby café, the five of them hashed out the details. Before the girls left, Medina handed each of them an envelope. A fifth now, Kate said, the rest later that evening.

  Based on the money as well as the simple nature of the task, she and Medina did not doubt that the girls would come through for them.

  “I’m terribly late,” Medina said, his hands gripping Kate’s hips. “Traffic looks dreadful and my meeting’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “If you take the tube, Mr. Fancy-pants, you should be fine,” she pointed out. They were standing near the entrance to the Westminster station. “This line goes straight to the City.”

  “Good idea. Hadn’t thought of it,” he admitted. “What are you going to do?”

  “I was awake most of last night. Deciphering reports, changing my appearance, traveling…I need a nap.”

  “But you can’t go back to—”

  “There’s a guest apartment in our office building,” Kate explained. “And as of yesterday, it’s free.” Gemma George, the receptionist at the local Slade’s office, had already collect
ed her things from the Connaught.

  “But if the Connaught’s under any kind of surveillance, you’ll be seen. Your office is just across the street.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve got a back entrance.”

  “You’re welcome to come to my place,” Medina offered.

  “Thanks, but you’re a distraction, and—”

  “A good one, though,” he said, pulling her up against him.

  “Which is why I can’t see you. I want to sleep till ten. You know, to prepare.”

  “We’re really going through with it?”

  “Cold feet, Cid?”

  “A bit,” he said sheepishly. “Arrest is an alarming possibility.”

  “Not when you’re with me. And keep in mind that as far as the park police know, they’re just guarding trees and dirt. Not priceless treasure.”

  “Good point. Call me when you wake up?”

  Kate nodded.

  “By the way, after this is all over, I’d like you to come on a holiday with me. It’d probably be a good idea anyway, what with this dodgy Italian after you.”

  “I’m flattered,” she replied. “And I’d like to, but my father is…going through something. I’m planning to go to Washington to stay with him for a bit.”

  Remembering her friend Jack’s invitation to go on a trip together soon, Kate made a mental note to ask him if he would settle for D.C. Jack had lived with them for a year during elementary school, and it might be a good time to fill her father’s empty house with a familylike presence.

  “Okay,” Medina was saying. “But when will I see you again?”

  “I’m here on business now and then. And in the meantime,” she teased, “I don’t imagine you’ll have a major problem finding another picnic partner.”

  Medina shook his head slowly. “It’s truly tragic,” he lamented.

  “What?”

  He sighed. “I think you may have ruined me for empty-headed women.”

  Kate laughed. “Cidro, let me tell you a little story. Remember how Marlowe used one of his poems for his final code?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, it was about Hero and Leander.”

  “The couple separated by a river or something?”

  “Yeah. In the classical version, there was a storm one night, and when Leander was swimming over to see her, the lamp in her tower blew out. Totally lost, he drowned, and his body washed up against the shore beneath her window. She leaped out, onto his corpse. Died when she hit the rocks below.”

  “I take it you don’t fancy long-distance romance?”

  Kate put her hands over her ears and winced, as if hearing nails scraping a chalkboard.

  “Vanessa?” Medina guessed, laughing.

  Kate nodded. “She just screamed she’d rather eat spiders.”

  “Then tell her to grab a fork and get ready. She might be tough, but my powers of persuasion are second to none.”

  Once part of King Henry VIII’s hunting grounds and stocked with deer, St. James’s Park was now open to the public and stocked with sunbathers, nannies pushing strollers, and civil servants quietly debating affairs of state. It was one of Kate’s favorite spots in London. Willows wept upon a lake full of swaying reeds and paddling geese, and the flower beds, though impeccably tended, were irregularly shaped riots of mismatched color.

  Heading west along the Birdcage Walk on her way to her office, Kate left a message for Max, asking if he’d had any luck with the genealogical research—if he’d found any potential candidates for Jade Dragon.

  The man Kate sought to identify was in his bedroom preparing for the evening ahead. With his family’s treasure in hand, he’d be leaving for Bangkok before dawn.

  As the means by which he’d built up his fortune were far from legal, he’d come under intense scrutiny recently. He’d successfully dodged the authorities for years, but now his accounts, including those offshore, were being monitored. He did not know which government entity had breached his security, but he did know they would soon freeze his assets.

  Fortunately the previous week, through a stunning, truly serendipitous call, he’d learned of the discovery of a manuscript that very likely contained information for which he’d been searching his entire life. In that instant, he’d resolved to steal it.

  According to an old family legend, Christopher Marlowe had stolen a chest of extraordinary riches from Sir Robert Cecil in May of 1593 and had written a report detailing its location shortly before his death. That report, it was said, had fallen into the hands of Thomas Phelippes, who had never been able to decipher it.

  The theft itself had not been a grave disaster for his ancestor. Cecil had recovered financially, and whatever illicit activities he’d undertaken to obtain his treasure had never been exposed. His political career had continued on its impressive trajectory. Queen Elizabeth I eventually named him secretary of state, and James I had granted him an earldom in reward for his dismantling of the Gunpowder Plot. He’d outfoxed all of his political rivals—had lived to see Essex beheaded for treason—but apparently, until his dying day, Cecil had lamented the loss of one particular item from that chest. A beautifully carved, gem-encrusted jade dragon.

  Feeling a twinge of regret about his friend Simon Trevor-Jones, Jade Dragon cursed aloud. He’d miss Simon. But time had been short, and he hadn’t known any other capable thieves in London. Not that he’d needed someone of Simon’s caliber, but he had needed a thief who, in a heavily patrolled neighborhood, could break into a home and crack a safe without setting off an alarm.

  Physically shaking off the dark mood, he continued with his packing. Simon was good, but no one was invincible. Simon would have been caught eventually, and as it seemed he’d intended to commit suicide the moment he was cornered, his premature death was inevitable.

  It had not, however, been in vain, Jade Dragon thought to himself. A stash of untraceable riches was hours from his grasp. It was also pleasant, he mused, that his ancestor’s embarrassing loss would shortly be rectified.

  Kate was crossing Green Park when Max returned her call. True to its name, the park was entirely green, with the exception of a single pink flowering tree and a few dozen dying daffodils.

  “Slade’s got me jammed, but I’ll be able to start tracking down descendants of those guys soon,” Max told her. “Robert Cecil, Ingram Frizer, Robert Poley, and Nicholas Skeres? That’s everybody, right?”

  “For now. I thought it made sense to start with the primary players in Marlowe’s murder, with the exception of Thomas Phelippes,” Kate said. “They’re the most likely to have had access to the relevant information and to have passed it down through the centuries…you know, quietly.”

  “Got it. Also, I’ve been meaning to tell you. That cell number I haven’t been able to trace?”

  “The call placed to the Cat last week?”

  “Right. Turns out the phone was only used one time, for that one call.”

  “Bought under the name of someone who doesn’t exist?”

  “Yeah. Probably disposed of by now.”

  “Fits Jade Dragon’s style,” Kate said.

  “Hey, about tonight. Think he had you followed to the park today?”

  “No. I didn’t spot a soul. If someone tailed Medina from his office, they must’ve fallen for my disguise—decided Medina was off for a lunch date with a new girl and could be left alone.”

  “And tonight, how will you…”

  “Medina and I will go to a dance club, then slip out the back.”

  “Sounds good. Even so, the idea of you going in without backup—”

  “If I get caught, it’s as Vanessa, New York bartender, with an authentic passport to prove it. I can’t ask anyone from Slade’s London office to break into royal property with me.”

  “True. Which is why you’re not supposed to put yourself at risk for a private sector case. No client is worth it.”

  “Max, tonight is for me, not Cidro. I stopped billing him when I got back to London. The c
ase is nearly over. As soon as we find out which of those descendants is desperate enough for money that he’d risk major jail time or, better yet, has a connection to Simon Trevor-Jones…”

  “Okay. But I want you on the first flight out in the morning. I told Slade I’d keep you locked up here in the office, remember?”

  “Not a problem,” Kate said, climbing the stairs to their local office’s guest room.

  “Call me with the information, and I’ll meet you at the gate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Having finished selecting the clothing he wished to take with him, Jade Dragon moved on to his study. Approaching his desk, he removed his favorite type of pistol from a locked drawer and attached a silencer. He did not tuck it into his travel case, however. He’d be using it that evening.

  28

  What strong enchantments ’tice my yielding soul?

  —THERIDAMUS,in Marlowe’sTamburlaine, Part 1

  DEPTFORD—NIGHT,MAY1593

  Nick Skeres smacked his forehead.

  No good.

  He tried again.

  Head still foggy, eyelids even heavier. Sleep was creeping in.

  Perhaps Phelippes was wrong, Skeres thought to himself. Perhaps Marlowe wasn’t coming to Widow Bull’s that evening. And even if he did, surely he would sleep well beyond dawn? Yes, Skeres decided. Dawn would be the perfect time to seize whatever evidence Marlowe had on Cecil.

  To the left of the stump on which he’d been sitting, a thick patch of soft grass beckoned. Settling on it, Skeres shut his eyes, confident that the sun would awaken him.

  As he drifted off to sleep, Skeres had no idea that Marlowe and the evidence were in a boat less than twenty yards away, moving swiftly along the Thames toward Greenwich.

  When Marlowe arrived at Widow Bull’s, the plump middle-aged woman welcomed him in and showed him to a spartan yet comfortable chamber on the second floor.

  He was alone. After burying Robert Cecil’s chest, he and Helen had parted. She was on her way to the village where she’d grown up, with a handful of Cecil’s gems for her family. She would not be back until morning. Marlowe patted the inside of his left boot. He’d taken a number of stones as well. He and Helen deserved payment for their services, he figured. Besides, who knew how long he’d have to survive without money from plays or spying? Who knew if he’d ever return to England?