by Ted Bell
She would literally go through walls to achieve her objective.
Hu Xu placed the squirming rat inside the hole. The animal paused on its haunches, pawing the air, sniffing the dank odors within the ancient walls, her wet black nose held high and twitching feverishly. Then, she rocketed away with a hum of wire, the spool on her back spinning furiously as the C4 unwound. The rodent raced through the dark, compacted rubble of centuries in search of her supper.
“Pauvre petite Chou,” he whispered to himself. Poor thing. The rodent would soon be suffering grievous constriction and spasms in her circulatory system. He had spiked the cheese with just enough rat poison to kill a small dog. Don’t want her retracing her steps now, do we?
No. Covered in soot, dust, and debris, the rat finally reached her target. She ripped the foil aside and began gnawing furiously at the pungent supper, wolfing down the pride of Roquefort. Her spool was empty. A hundred feet of high-velocity explosive wire now encircled the room. There was enough plastique C4 in these walls to bring down a good-sized building.
Chou expired on the spot.
The assassin carefully replaced the last bit of baseboard and meticulously erased any trace of his alterations. Only then did he look at the new Tank watch on his wrist. It had taken him only twelve minutes to set the “rat trap,” as he called his new technique. Hu Xu unzipped and stepped out of his coveralls and doffed his hat. Returning that wardrobe to the tool case, he stood and straightened his tie, inspecting himself in a large gilt mirror.
His blackface needed a little touch-up, which he did, but otherwise this new being he inhabited would serve him well for a day or two in London. He’d booked a suite at the Dorchester, a luxurious hotel he found conveniently located just across Park Lane from Hyde Park. Because General Moon’s daughter had failed yet another assignment, he had an appointment with a certain Lord Alexander Hawke. This British gentleman, codenamed “Pirate.”
And so to England!
When he unlocked the ornate anteroom door and stepped outside into the corridor, it was as if he had boarded a sinking ship loaded to the gunwales with human rats. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. The stink of panic was upon the place. Diplomats and secretaries, staffers and military personnel, all running through the palace halls, whispering into their cradled mobile phones and into each other’s ears in a rising cacophony of fear:
What is the president going to say to the cameras?
Is Bocquet to step down? There are riots in Toulon!
And what of Bonaparte? He says we are weeks away from sending troops into Oman? Are we no better than the fucking Americans?
Hu Xu turned a corner into a wide corridor and swam upstream in the onrushing river of bureaucrats. Here were more shouts than whispers:
Who will stop the carnage in the street?
We’re on the brink, I tell you! A second Revolution!
Can you get me on a plane? How should I know!
Any fucking plane, you idiot!
MON DIEU!
Après moi, le grand déluge, Hu Xu whispered to himself.
The cowards, chewing pencils and dropping papers, scurrying by with their nervous, frightened eyes, didn’t even notice him.
He made his way down a narrow set of stairs leading to a vestibule and a small side door. This was the very door to the side street used by the late unlamented Honfleur and the sultan of Oman only yesterday. When last seen around midnight, the once-mighty sultan was still alive. But he had been bound and gagged, loaded into the back of a limousine, and was on his way to the airport. A small chartered jet would return him to Oman. There, he would be secreted away, a prisoner in his own palace.
Just as he was being bundled into the car, Madame Li had bent and kissed him on the lips. Poor old dear. He looked so frightened.
Stepping lightly out into the street in his highly polished shoes, the elegant black gentleman motioned to a big black Peugeot idling on the opposite curb. The liveried driver, one of General Moon’s Te-Wu policemen in Paris, smiled his recognition as he swung open the rear door. Hu Xu entered and they slipped into the heavy traffic, honking its panic.
“Vive la Nouvelle Napoleon!” the Chinese driver said over his shoulder as he placed a flashing blue light on the dashboard.
“Screw Napoleon,” Hu Xu replied with a laugh. “Vive les Chinois!”
Hu Xu relaxed back into the leather seat. The assassin had the satisfied and reverent air of one who had successfully completed his mission and learned much from his sojourn. The savior of France was in fact an inspiration. Before this trip, Hu Xu’s god had been Moon. Now, there were two all-powerful deities whirling in his heavens. Two giants would soon be standing astride the world. On their shoulders, a chameleon whispering evil deeds in their ears.
Two hours later, as Hu Xu stood on the tarmac beside the small Citation V that would ferry him to England, his mobile silently vibrated. He flipped it open and said, “Yes?”
“Is there cheese in the trap?” a voice asked in Chinese. It was the general’s PR man, Major Tony Tang. The man in the grey flannel suit.
“Indeed there is.”
“Spring it.”
“As you wish, Major.”
“One more thing. Developments in London mean your presence is no longer required there. Your appointment with the Lord of the Manor is postponed, unfortunately. There is a problem at the New York office. An unfortunate blemish on Monsieur Bonaparte’s record that needs to be erased immediately. I’m afraid you shall have to fire two of his former employees. Terminate them as quickly as possible. Bianca will explain it all to you when you arrive in New York.”
“Bianca is no longer with our London office?”
“It was Bianca who discovered the CIA’s sudden interest in the two old employees. She will contact you when you arrive in New York,” Tang said, and hung up.
Hu Xu looked at his phone, savoring the moment, and once more keyed in the talismanic number. History, once reminded of this number, would never again forget it.
One…seven…eight…nine…
Send.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The Cotswolds
“WHO FOUND HIM?” CONGREVE ASKED THE HEAD GARdener, Jeremy Pordage. Mr. Pordage was a stout, wheezy fellow. His cheeks were flushed bright red and he smelled faintly and not unpleasantly of manure. Panting mightily, he produced a pleasant two-toned whistle as he inhaled and exhaled. He placed a rough red hand over his heart as if to calm it, and Ambrose was startled at the sheer size of the hand. The mud-caked fingers were horny, twisted and gnarled like the roots of an old elm.
Diana stood right behind the man, peering round his shoulder. She was striving mightily to give the impression of not staring at the thing hung up in the river. Death is absolute, Congreve had long observed, but there is nothing more dead than a floater. He raised his eyes to escape the sight. On the farther bank, timid willows stepped daintily down to the stream. They seemed to be testing the ochre waters with their delicate wands before fully deciding to take root.
The body was hanging face-down underwater, near the edge of the muddy riverbank. The head had fouled in the crook of a partially submerged tree. The arms and legs were dangling down, animated by the swirling current. A grey hand broke the surface of the water, then slid back down into the murk. A second gardener, a sturdy boy of about ten or twelve, was standing atop the half-rotted and uprooted trunk, trying to pull the body ashore without falling in himself.
“The boy and me, we did, sir,” old Pordage said. “Found him just as you see him, we did. Here, Graham, use this. I’ll help you haul him out.” Pordage handed the boy his long-handled rake. After a few tries, using the rake as a gaff, the boy was able to hook the corpse under one arm and pull it away from the fallen tree. The head popped free and bobbed to the surface, the face grotesquely swollen, slick and grey with fat rubber lips.
“It’s Henry,” Ambrose whispered to himself, although he was not entirely sure.
Pordage and the boy st
ood impassive. After the excitement of discovery, the corpse seemed of no more consequence than the perpetual forest deadwood that needed clearing.
“Oh!” Diana said, and then she was silent.
“I’m Chief Inspector Congreve, Scotland Yard,” Ambrose said quietly to the gardener. Old Pordage gravely nodded his white head and took Congreve’s measure. The dead were not impressive, but policemen were.
“I know well enough who you are, sir,” he said, lifting his cap. “Honored to meet you. The boy there is my grandson, Graham. He’s a groundsman, now.”
“Hello, Graham,” Congreve said to the boy, who was now looking at him, making his own appraisal. Graham Pordage had his gumboots planted firmly on either side of the old stump and was grappling with the body, carefully working the corpse in close to the bank. The victim was not a large man, Congreve could see now. Medium height, slender. Expensive shoes.
“Are you really a policeman, sir?” the boy asked, over his shoulder. He had a grasp on the head and torso, the body face-down, almost halfway up the steep muddy bank. Just then the boy lost his tenuous grip and the corpse slipped back under.
“I am indeed,” Ambrose said.
“Scotland Yard, Graham,” the grandfather added as he bent to help his grandson with his awkward burden. They had him firmly now, half in, half out of the water.
“Mr. Pordage, think back for a moment, please. To that instant when you first observed this body. Before you disturbed the scene in any way. Did you see any signs of a struggle here? Were there any tracks here along the bank? Footprints? Tire treads in the woods?”
“None at all, Inspector. We believe this gentleman must have floated downstream. Snagged up in that fallen tree there maybe sometime late this afternoon. We were by this way twice before. Once at noon, and once again around four o’clock, and there was nary a body in sight then, sir.”
“No trace of blood anywhere, I don’t suppose.”
“None that I could make out, sir. Getting on dark already when we first spotted him. We were just trying to free him up when we saw you and her ladyship up there on the hill.”
“Don’t put him on the ground,” Diana said, seemingly unperturbed by the sight of the dead man. She quickly shed her oiled all-weather coat and spread it on the mucky ground. When she was finished, Pordage and his son carefully lay the body face-up upon it. The clothes were sodden, and water and other, possibly less pleasant fluids gushed out of his trouser legs and the sleeves of his macintosh. The face was grey, the eyelids swollen horribly shut, the mouth gaping open and full of leaves, twigs, and irregular teeth.
“It’s Henry, Diana,” Ambrose said, with all the emotion of one who has seen Monday follow Sunday.
He had his penlight out and was playing it about the skull. Thin strands of dark reddish hair were plastered to the chalky pate. Bright orange wisps they would be in the light of day. Ambrose put one knee in the muck and gently peeled the eyelids back, first the left, then the right. He bent forward with his penlight, shining the thin beam directly into the fish-dead eyes. Then he picked up the left hand, the fingers wrinkled by immersion, and held it for a second, then let it drop to the ground.
“Hmm,” he said, getting back to his feet.
“What does that mean, hmm?” Diana Mars asked.
“Nothing much. Extremities are rigid. Rigor mortis. Left eye is normal, right eye is completely dilated.”
“And what does that mean, Ambrose?”
“Blunt force trauma. An unseen blow to the head, I would say, based on the complete lack of defensive wounds to the hands. We’ll see what the forensic lads have to say. We should go up and call immediately, Lady Mars. Now, Mr. Pordage, I would ask that you and your grandson remain here with the body until the police arrive. It shouldn’t be long. I’m sure they’ll have more questions for you. The SOCOs, those are the Scene of Crime officers, will interview both of you in some detail. Please try not to leave out anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant.”
“I’ll certainly do my very best, sir.”
“That’s all anyone can ask.”
“He’s a relative of yours, sir?”
“My cousin. How did you know?”
“You said, ‘It’s Henry,’ sir. Everybody on the place has been asked about Henry Bulling. Shown his picture. Didn’t recognize him, myself. I’m sorry for your loss, Inspector.”
Ambrose thanked him, took Diana’s arm, and turned to go.
He had a thought and it stopped him dead in his tracks.
“One more thing, if you don’t mind, Mr. Pordage?”
“Certainly not, sir.”
“You haven’t by any chance seen her ladyship’s former butler, Oakshott, about, have you? I mean, since your chance pub encounter at the Feathers?”
“No, sir, I have not seen hide nor hair of that gentleman.”
“I seen him, sir,” Graham Pordage suddenly said. “I seen Mr. Oakshott. Just this very morning.”
“You did?” Ambrose said, turning to the boy.
“What’s that?” his grandfather said, his face reddening with anger. “You never said a word, boy.”
“I didn’t, Grand, and I am most truly sorry now that—that—that we found that body.”
“Why didn’t you tell your grandfather you had seen Oakshott, Graham?” Diana Mars asked, looking at the boy evenly. “You certainly knew the police were looking all over Gloucestershire for him, didn’t you, child?”
“ ’Cause I wasn’t at all sure it was him, ma’am, is the reason. And he was always kind to me, he was, Oakshott. When he was in service, I mean. Before he became a murderer.”
Ambrose said to the boy, “What makes you now think Oakshott’s a murderer?”
“I think it was Mr. Oakshott killed that dead man right there, sir.”
“I see. This is a very serious charge. You’re accusing a man of murder, Graham. There’s nothing to be afraid of, but you must tell me precisely what happened. Starting with exactly what you saw this morning.”
“Well, that’s the thing, sir. I didn’t see him, to be honest.”
“You did not see him?”
“No, sir. And that is—I mean, which is why I was afraid to say that—I had seen him. I didn’t. I heard him, is what happened, sir.”
“You heard him. Where? How?”
“I was havin’ me morning tea as usual, I was, sir. Under Cobble Bridge, the old footbridge is where I like to have it. About a mile upstream from here. A half mile beyond Spring Cottage. Beans on toast, sir, and my cuppa. Isn’t that right, Grand?”
“Aye, he does. That’s the truth.”
“Go on,” Ambrose said.
“I guess I drifted off a bit, sir. The sun was barely up and I hadn’t quite awoked. That’s when I heard ’em. Footsteps over me head. And two men shoutin’. One was shoutin’. The other, not so much.”
“What were they shouting about?”
“Couldn’t rightly say, sir, could I? The one, I thought I recognized his voice as that of the gentleman formerly in service, Mr. Oakshott, he was telling this other bloke, whose voice I did not recognize, that it was all his fault. That he ought to kill him for what he done. That he ought to blow his brains out. The other one, I could tell he was sore afraid. Then—”
“Then, what?”
“They was fightin’ right above me head, sir. Terrible struggle, wasn’t it? Both of ’em not sayin’ anythin’, just grunting and hitting. I put me hand over me mouth so they wouldn’t hear my breathin’ so hard, sir, I was so afraid. Then one a’them, he must have thrown something in the river. There was a splash, right about in the middle where the current is strongest. That’s when the one ran off, sir. I heard him crashing into the woods. T’other one, Mr. Oakshott, he chased after him and I ran off the other way, sir.”
“Was it a gun? That went in the river?” Congreve asked.
“I couldn’t rightly say, sir.”
“And you kept this all to yourself all day long?” Ambrose asked.
<
br /> “Aye. I didn’t want Mr. Oakshott to come to any trouble on my account. And I was afraid I’d seen something bad, sir.”
“You did, Graham,” Ambrose said. “And the Yard will be grateful if you can—”
“Oh,” Diana cried.
There was an awful noise as something shifted inside the corpse and a large bubble of thin grey gruel appeared on Henry Bulling’s lips, popped, and trickled from the side of his mouth.
Diana clung to Ambrose and he put his arm around her shoulders. She was trembling.
“There, there, Diana,” he said, patting her upper arm.
This time when he touched Diana Mars he didn’t feel any electric shocks or a frightening frisson.
He felt only softness and warmth.
Chapter Thirty
Aboard the USS Lincoln
“HELL OF AN AIRPLANE,” THE NEW AND IMPROVED CIA MAN Harry Brock said, squinting his brown eyes in the midafternoon sun. The wind was out of the northeast and ripping whitecaps from the crests. Large ocean swells of clear turquoise water were heaving the broad steel deck fore and aft. Brock and Alex Hawke were standing on the USS Lincoln’s flight deck along with a group of sailors, fellow admirers who’d come up on deck to take a look at the future.
The experimental stealth fighter had drawn a crowd as soon as Hawke touched down six hours earlier. The F-35 Strike Fighter would soon complement or replace all the U.S. Navy F/A18 Super Hornets it now shared the carrier deck with. And, pending further development and the rigorous assessment of many more former U.K. combat aviators like Hawke, the Royal Navy would shortly be flying F-35s instead of the Sea Harriers.
The plane Hawke had landed on the Abraham Lincoln’s flight deck early that morning was simply the most advanced piece of flying machinery on earth. Capable of speeds approaching Mach 3, the single-seat supersonic fighter could also stop in midair. Literally, as Hawke had learned to his delight on his flight out from RAF Uxbridge. Fighter jocks liked this feature. It meant that when you hit the brakes in a dogfight, your pursuer rocketed past you to become your prey in a nanosecond. Confused the living hell out of them before they died.