Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin leaned back, his chair creaking underneath his girth. A thick white mustache dominated his face, appearing even more prominent in contrast with his shaved head. “You can’t bring a well-constructed dirigible down with a firearm,” he explained. “A shot would pierce the lift bag, but you’d need a spark. In the future, take care to arm the guards with explosive bullets.”
While others listened in silence to the description of the heist at the top of the Eiffel Tower, von Zeppelin kept interrupting and peppering Wells with questions about the design and construction of the airship.
“The airbags must have been filled with helium,” he said. “The Americans do this; helium is in far greater supply in the New World.”
Everyone turned toward a short, thin woman who wore a cowboy hat and rested a pair of long leather boots on the edge of the table.
“My people had nothing to do with this,” said Annie Oakley. “It’s not like an airship can cross the Atlantic. Whoever the thieves are, they have a European base of operations. And aren’t you an expert on dirigibles, chubby?” She glared at von Zeppelin, whose face turned an interesting shade of red. He opened his mouth to speak, but Oakley waved him off. “Oh, relax, I’m just joshin’ you. I’m still sore over my crew losing out to your team in Calcutta.” She smiled and turned to Wells. “Besides, if you can’t bring an air balloon down with a gun – helium or not – you are not using enough gun.”
“Ms. Oakley’s theory has merit,” said Mori Ogai of Japan. “We must look to agencies with bases within a dirigible’s reach.”
“Of course you like her theory,” grumbled Vincent van Gogh. “It shifts the suspicion away from you. Except that the European agencies have plenty of otherworldly tech to work with. It’s the second-rate outfits like yours that must resort to stealing the table scraps, so you can keep up with the big boys.”
Everyone spoke out at once, tempers flaring, insults and recriminations flying across the room.
“Enough!” roared Jules Verne. “I will have order.” The head of the Deuxième Bureau banged his palm against the table and glared at everyone else until they ceased their squabbling one by one and there was silence in the conference room.
“Don’t you see,” said Verne once he had everyone’s attention, “this must be what the thieves want. To sow discord among the agencies and stomp out the budding spirit of co-operation that has been nurtured by this joint enterprise.” Verne leaned on the table with both hands. “We must band together, combine our resources as never before to track down and retrieve the transmitter. Now, then, let’s talk about how we can best coordinate our efforts on this.”
The meeting went on for nearly an hour.
After everyone else had gone, Wells, Doyle, and Curie eagerly crowded Sklodowska.
“What have you learned?” Wells rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Which one of them was lying?”
Sklodowska looked uncomfortable. “All of them, at one point or another. Truth does not seem to come easily to people in your line of work. As to the specific question of the heist…” She hesitated for a moment. “I think I would prefer to discuss it with Mr. Doyle alone.”
“Nonsense,” said Curie. “We are in this together, and we deserve the truth.”
“That’s right,” said Wells. “It’s exactly as Verne was saying; we must work together on this.”
Sklodowska looked to Doyle, who nodded.
“Very well.” She frowned, and then put the Googol Glasses back on. “I insist on asking each of you first, did you have anything to do with this heist?”
Wells frowned. The implied accusation stung, but he understood Sklodowska’s need for caution. He affirmed his innocence, and the other two men grudgingly did the same. Sklodowska nodded, satisfied, and removed the glasses.
“Everyone in this room was an accomplished liar,” she said, “but only one of them lied about their knowledge or involvement with this theft.” Sklodowska turned to Curie. “The reason I wanted to speak to Doyle alone, was because that particular liar was your boss.”
“Jules Verne stole the transmitter?” Wells stared at Sklodowska in surprise. He certainly did not anticipate this outcome, and was wondering if perhaps she might be a double agent, feeding them misinformation in order to sow discord between two of the most powerful ministries at the summit.
Curie looked as though he had been hit by lightning. “There must be some sort of a mistake,” he stammered. “Monsieur Verne would never—”
“But he did,” Sklodowska cut him off. “He was undoubtedly lying when he suggested the reason for the heist. Verne is holding something back, and I’m sure he knows who took the transmitter, if it wasn’t his own people.”
Curie raised his index finger and opened his mouth to speak, but after a second’s hesitation lowered his hand and dropped into a chair, his shoulders slumped. “Why?” he asked. “Why would Verne do such a thing?”
“It makes sense,” said Doyle. “Suppose Verne directs the efforts of all the agents who are here for the summit, and recovers the transmitter after a few days. It will give the black eye to our ministry and the entire British Empire, and allow the French to replace us as de facto leaders of the newly formed coalition of agencies by the time this World’s Fair ends.”
“That is underhanded and devious,” said Wells.
“Yes, and exactly the sort of thing MacLean would do too, if she had thought of it first,” said Doyle. “Espionage is a full-contact sport.”
Wells rubbed his chin. “Shall we confront Verne in front of the others and expose his scheme?”
“We haven’t sufficient evidence and I’m not prepared to expose the existence of Ms. Sklodowska’s invention to every agency in the world,” said Doyle. “No, we must investigate quietly and recover the transmitter before Verne’s people do.”
“What about you?” Sklodowska looked at Curie. “You are an agent of the French ministry, so where do your loyalties lie in this?”
Curie chewed his lip and stared off into space as he thought it over. “Verne charged me with protecting the transmitter and then threw me under the horse carriage. I’m loyal to France, and won’t commit to any action that will harm my country, but retrieving and activating the transmitter expeditiously will benefit everyone, including my countrymen. So I will help you look for it, Verne’s schemes be damned.”
Wells gripped Curie’s shoulder. He appreciated how difficult his friend’s choice must’ve been. He also wondered if he would possess the courage to make the similar choice, were he in Curie’s shoes.
“I believe him,” said Sklodowska.
“You’re not wearing your truth detector glasses,” pointed out Doyle.
Sklodowska gave Curie another appraising look and said, “I know.”
Wells and his team exercised extreme caution as they moved, ever so slowly, down the dark corridor, each step bringing them closer to Jules Verne’s office.
Breaking into the heart of hearts of the Deuxième Bureau was reckless, dangerous, and their best chance at discovering what Verne might know about the heist. Curie was clearly uncomfortable with smuggling foreign nationals into the “Second Bureau” – France’s top spy agency – but he was committed to helping his allies.
Curie’s credentials got him into the building and past the armed guards in the vestibule. He broke into one of the offices on the ground floor, propped open its window, then helped Doyle, Wells, and Sklodowska climb inside. Getting to the top floor, where Verne’s private suite of offices was located, wasn’t difficult. The trouble would come next; Curie knew that the top floor contained many booby traps set to defend against such unwelcome intrusions, but wasn’t high enough on the Bureau totem pole to possess the knowledge of their nature or locations.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for Doyle to defeat the lock and open the door leading from the staircase onto the top floor – and only after Sklodowska’s sharp eye found the very thin copper wire which undoubtedly connecte
d the door to some sort of an alarm. Wells made a careful cut, then stuck the knife into the doorframe and tied the wire to it, maintaining the pressure that would prevent it from setting off whatever nasty surprise the wire connected to.
Once inside, Sklodowska lit a candle. It illuminated a long corridor with rows of doors on each side. Verne’s office was behind the heavy oak door directly ahead, at the far end of the hallway.
The four of them edged forward slowly and very quietly, constantly searching for evidence of more security measures. It was only because the building was so quiet that Wells heard a soft click when he stepped onto a section of parquet flooring. “Down,” he hissed as the panels on both sides of the corridor began to shift.
Doyle and Wells threw themselves out of the way. Sklodowska hesitated for a fraction of a second but Curie tackled her onto the ground. A dozen darts shot from both directions, sailing a hair’s width above Curie’s head as he and Sklodowska tumbled to the floor.
Everyone kept their heads down until they were certain that no more projectiles were flying.
“Get off me, you oaf!” Sklodowska shoved at Curie.
Curie pushed himself from atop Sklodowska, his face burning red. He offered his hand, to help her up, but wouldn’t look her directly in the eyes. Sklodowska ignored the proffered hand, got up on her own, and brushed off her dress. Wells and Doyle exchanged a meaningful glance, but made no comment.
Doyle picked up one of the darts, careful to avoid touching the sharp end. He sniffed at it. “Must be some sort of poison or paralyzing agent,” he whispered. He studied the open wall panels. “It appears to be a mechanical device. I don’t think it set off any alarms.”
Wells moved into the lead. “Stay a few steps behind me,” he told the others, “and take care to follow precisely in my footsteps.”
Wells’s heart raced. Each panel he chose to step on was a risk, each step forward without setting an alarm a small victory. He had no way of knowing where the traps were hidden and had to rely on blind luck. He fervently hoped that he was overdue a small measure of good luck.
His luck held out, and the group arrived at Verne’s door without setting off any more traps. Doyle reached for his lock picks but they weren’t needed – the door wasn’t locked.
“Remember the crystal,” said Curie softly. He opened the door with great care, moving it as slowly as he could. On the other side, a few steps into the room, stood a small round coffee table with ornate legs. A shimmering yellow crystal the size of an egg rested on its surface.
It was the one security item Curie knew of and had warned the others about in advance. The Second Bureau found the crystal in the jungles of the Philippines, its origins lost in antiquity. The crystal was sensitive to movement. A person walking past it at a leisurely pace prompted a shrill noise louder than the call of a carnival barker. If one ran past the crystal it let out a cry so loud it would be heard all the way across the Seine.
Curie inched toward the crystal as slowly as he could. Even at his snail’s pace, the crystal murmured, getting louder as Curie closed in on it. Wells gaped at the ancient artifact. Despite his status as a Ministry agent and ready access the position granted to all sorts of unusual devices, this was the most alien thing he had ever seen.
When Curie finally reached the table, he removed his bowler hat and placed it gently on top of the coffee table, covering the crystal.
“Clear.” Curie exhaled with relief, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and motioned for the others to come in.
Verne’s office was spacious and the antique shelves along the walls were decorated with many of the curious items his agency had gathered from around the world. Wells resisted the urge to gawk at the moon rock, or the dinosaur bones the Second Bureau had recovered from deep inside a dormant volcano. Instead, he looked for papers or any other evidence of Verne’s complicity in the Eiffel Tower heist.
Sklodowska went straight for Verne’s desk, expertly picking the locks on its drawers one by one and scanning through the contents. She held up a page. “Oh wow, according to this, Nostradamus was a mechanical assassin from the future, sent back in time to kill—”
“Give me that!” Curie snatched the sheet from Sklodowska’s hand. “Sorry,” he said. “State secrets, and all that. Kindly stick to the more recent documents.” He slid the page back into its place in the drawer.
They searched the desk and the bookshelf behind it, but found no useful evidence until Doyle waved them over to a landscape painting on one of the walls. “There is no dust,” he said. “All the other ones had a bit of dust collecting behind the top of their frames. Verne’s maid isn’t very thorough.”
The others crowded behind Doyle and watched him remove the painting from its place on the wall. It revealed the door to a cast iron safe. The handle and the dial of the combination lock protruded from its sleek surface.
“Aha!” Doyle leaned in, his ear touching the safe, and turned the dial.
And the weight of the world came down on their heads.
An enormous force pushed Wells to the ground. It pressed down on him and restricted his movements. He could barely wiggle his fingers and turn his head only slightly, to see that everyone else was pinned down on the floor around him. There was nothing above them, but it felt as though the air itself had turned to lead. Wells cursed under his breath. The Bureau defenses had defeated them after all.
A few minutes later the door opened and Jules Verne walked in. Wells cursed again. Held firmly to the ground, he had time to contemplate how much trouble they were all in.
“What do we have here?” Jules Verne strolled past the immobilized agents, examining each of them in turn as one might study an exotic animal at the zoo. “Three foreign spies and a domestic traitor, killed during a failed assassination attempt.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “How very embarrassing this episode will turn out to be for the British Crown.” He rubbed his hands gleefully.
“I’m no traitor,” shouted Curie, his voice partially muffled by whatever was holding them down. “You’re the traitor, stabbing your allies in the back and risking the security of the entire world, and for what – a short-term political gain? You disgust me. Do to us what you will—any fate is better than listening to you gloat.”
“Let’s not be so hasty,” Doyle said quickly. “Give the nice insane villain the chance to lay bare his plans, if he really wants to.”
“Very well.” Verne was smiling unkindly at his captives. “We have a few minutes before the air inside the force fields that are enveloping each of you runs out. I am told suffocating is a painful and prolonged way to die.”
Wells struggled against the invisible restraints, but still couldn’t move more than a few inches. Whatever it was Doyle was buying time for, Wells couldn’t figure out how to help his friend take advantage of it.
“Before I kill you, Mr. Doyle, I shall indeed take this rare opportunity to gloat. Yes, I intend on embarrassing the British and gaining political advantage, just like young Curie has surmised. But I am also getting paid an enormous sum of money for the few days’ use of the transmitter device. More than enough francs to retire in comfort. And now that I have all of you, no one will doubt that this heist was the work of British agents gone rogue, perpetrated by the very people put in charge of protecting the transmitter. So you see, your deaths will serve my cause nicely. In the end, I always win.”
“Not quite,” said Doyle. “We’ve heard enough evidence to sink you. Now!” he shouted.
There was the sound of an explosion. The door of Verne’s office was blown off its hinges and flew inward, slamming against the antique shelves with incredible force and scattering the prizes Verne had collected around the room. Armed men poured through the opening, lining up against the walls and pointing an array of futuristic and alien weapons at the shocked Verne. Between all of them, the armaments were impressive and varied enough that they could belong to only one ministry in the world.
“Sorry, chap,” Doyle
said to Wells. “I couldn’t keep this sort of an operation secret from our superiors. And besides, I was rather certain we’d need the backup.”
One of the Ministry men found and pulled a heavy ivory lever protruding from the wall behind a shelf, and suddenly Wells was able to move once again. He watched his comrades scramble onto their feet; the field that held them in place had been terminated.
With the room secured and Verne held down by a pair of Ministry operatives, a woman in her late fifties walked through the jagged opening that had once been the door.
She wore a flowing black skirt and a high-collared shirt with a military-style red jacket over it. There was a holster on her right hip and a gleaming brass spaulder which housed some sort of otherworldly tech over her right shoulder and arm. Her gray hair was cut very short. Large pearl stud earrings were the only jewelry she wore.
She walked past the subdued Verne as though he wasn’t there and came to rest in front of the agents, who tried their best to stand at attention despite their aching muscles.
Sue Ann MacLean, Her Majesty’s Ministra of the Preternatural Affairs, turned to Wells and said: “Still getting yourself in trouble, I see?”
She brushed off the excuses Wells attempted to mumble, nodded in turn to each of his friends, and finally turned her attention to Verne. “Where is the transmitter?” she asked.
Verne scowled at her, refusing to talk.
MacLean reached into one of the many pockets on her jacket, took out a small syringe filled with a milky liquid and, before anyone could react, stabbed its needle into Verne’s neck. “Truth serum,” she said. “Soon he will tell us everything we want to know.”
As they waited for the serum to take effect, a group of French agents burst into the room. Colonel Jean Sandherr looked over the ransacked office, his captured boss, and the discarded syringe on the ground.
“This isn’t what we agreed to,” he told MacLean. “I can’t have you drugging the head of the Deuxième Bureau.”
“He is guilty,” said MacLean. “My people recorded him admitting as much. You can have the evidence.” She extended her hand and Doyle handed over a miniature phonograph he had concealed in his pocket.
H. G. Wells, Secret Agent Page 4