by Maureen Tan
I lifted night vision binoculars to my eyes and explored a half dozen possible routes across the grounds. It was easy enough to dismiss all possibilities save one. John and I could make it, I thought. If we were careful. And lucky. I retraced the route, memorizing its details.
The wind gusted again, reinforced by icy droplets. Bare branches rattled overhead. Dead leaves swirled around my booted ankles and scuttled out across the lawn.
A light went out behind a window on the north wall, returning my attention to the manor house. At almost every window on the second floor, a sliver of light showed above the drapes. Throughout the night, the light behind one window, then another, would be extinguished briefly as someone with binoculars looked out over the grounds. The rotating sentries made it impossible to know how many there were or to predict which window might be chosen next. One thing was certain. These were no amateurs who had invaded Sir William’s house.
The light came on again.
I stepped away from a laser transmitter that rested on a tripod near my elbow and negotiated the two meters of brushy undergrowth separating me from John.
He stood among the sparse branches of a young pine, his dark clothing making it difficult to pick him out of the shadows. We were dressed much alike. Our silk turtle-necks were warm without being bulky. Leather jackets and loose trousers of tight-woven fabric offered some defense against knife blades and thorny branches. Soft leather boots with thick rubber soles provided traction and support without limiting movement. Neither of us wore a bulletproof vest. They were too cumbersome.
Padded headphones covered John’s ears. His shoulder supported the butt end of a tripod-mounted laser receiver.
I touched his arm.
He slid his eyes toward me, lifted an index finger, and raised an eyebrow.
I nodded, complying with his mute request. I could wait.
He refocused on the house.
For the past two hours, we’d worked our way along the edge of the manicured lawns and formal gardens, pointing the laser transmitter at line-of-sight windows, illuminating the glass with a beam of light undetectable by the human eye. Sounds behind the windows vibrated the pool of invisible light, creating interference patterns in the reflected beam. The laser receiver read those patterns and converted them back into sounds.
Our fingers and toes might be near-frozen, but thanks to technology, we had a better fix on the problem confronting us inside Winthrup Manor. We still hadn’t located Hugh, but from listening in on snatches of conversation, John and I had estimated that there were no more than ten people in the house, most of them congregated on the first floor. The only innocent victim of the kidnapping was in the kitchen at the back of the house. I was determined to keep Archibald Beane alive.
The last time the housekeeper had seen him was just before she’d left for London to deliver the ransom note. He was at the kitchen table, his hands bound in front of him, a noose tucked under his flowing beard. The end of the hanging rope was thrown over an exposed ceiling beam, anchored to one leg of the table. One of the kidnappers had spent a moment demonstrating how easily the rope could be pulled taut.
* * *
John pushed the headphones down around his neck and turned his head toward me.
“Got the little sod! Master Hugh is in his bedroom. And if he’s a prisoner, I’m the Queen Mother. But he’s definitely unpopular with the fellow at the window.”
He paused, stepped away from the equipment, flexed his shoulders, then continued.
“Loud music on the second floor masked Hugh’s half of the conversation, but I doubt it could be anyone else. I heard, ‘What are you doing in the hallway?’ A pause, then the same voice again. ‘Very well. I’ll have Dickie bring you a tray.’ A longer silence. Then, ‘His royal frigging highness is hungry.’ Pause. ‘Only way he’ll keep his bleedin’ arse in that bedroom.’ So someone on the second floor has a walkie-talkie. Or there’s a house phone.”
“Nice work.”
“Thanks. So now that we know Hugh’s upstairs and the old man’s in the kitchen, I suppose it’s time to solve the problem of getting across the garden.”
I passed him the binoculars, pointed.
“I’ve been thinking about just that. Take a look. Hedgerow, flower bed, fountain, spruces, foundation.”
No need to mention the wide stretches of lawn in between.
He aimed the binoculars, adjusting brightness and focal length with fingers gloved in supple black leather. Beneath the gloves, his scarred and mutilated hands were a reminder of how badly things could go wrong.
John spent a moment tracing the route, grunted non-committally, lowered the binoculars, and glanced at the sky. The moon broke through the clouds. Its light touched his face, turning his fine blond hair silver, draining the color from his pale blue eyes, and transforming his narrow features into an expressionless mask.
For a moment, he looked like the killer he was. Passionless, distant, efficient. Just as he’d been trained. He might occasionally be my partner, might often work for Mac. But, ultimately, John answered to someone higher in the organization. Someone whose name I didn’t want to know.
The wind gusted. Darkness consumed the moon and the illusion.
John handed back the binoculars.
“What then, Janie?”
What then? indeed, I thought.
I tried to sound confident.
“I’ll climb the north wall, cross the roof, go in through a window, creep down to the second floor, take out the sentry, and secure young Hugh. You sneak around to the back of the house, get as near as possible to the kitchen. Maybe even slip inside. Once in position, we each signal Hawkins. Then I protect Hugh and you protect Miss Beane’s father from the bad guys while our people storm the front gate. Simple.”
The sound that John buried in his collar was somewhere between a disbelieving snort and choked laughter.
* * *
The wind moved from gust to steady gale, lowering the temperature several degrees. I shivered, gave the zip on my jacket an upward tug, hoping for additional warmth, but finding that the zip was already at the top.
John took the headphones from his neck, hung them over the end of the receiver. The wind was strong enough to set the headphones swinging. He stretched again, linking his fingers behind his back, arching his back, pulling his shoulders toward his spine.
“This weather makes my bones ache.”
“Old age, Grammy Wiggins?”
Fifty-two, wiry-tough, and deadly, John was far from old, fragile, or sweet.
“I’m too old for this.”
The sweep of his hand took in the overcast sky and the manor house. I couldn’t be sure if he was referring to the weather, the operation, or both. I decided it was best not to ask.
“Let’s walk away from this one, Janie. Something’s not right here. Leave it to the hooligans from Hereford.”
When I didn’t answer, he sighed.
“Well then, I suppose your way is as good as any.”
I looked at the sky, checked my watch.
“We’ll go in thirty minutes. I’ll brief Hawkins. You coming?”
“In a bit. Leave the binocs, would you?”
* * *
By the time I reached the rendezvous area, it was sleeting.
John and I had tucked the rest of our gear beneath a lightning-struck elm. I hunkered down beside the charred trunk, dug through my pack for a waterproof poncho. Before I’d finished shrugging my way into it, Hawkins had detached himself from the darkness.
“Breaching the house won’t be easy,” I said. “The only reasonable approach is across the formal garden to the north wall. With luck, their sentry won’t look out a north window at the wrong moment.”
“We can neutralize that threat. A sniper—”
I shook my head.
“No. We can’t risk confrontation until we’re inside the house. If we’re spotted crossing the grounds, John and I will not return fire. Neither will you.”
“Then you’ll pull back, report, and await instructions.”
“Leaving you both to die?”
“If need be.”
“I don’t like it.”
Despite our whispers, I heard the scowl in Hawkins’s voice.
Not surprising.
Men like Hawkins were good soldiers. Training might move them into an elite section of the Royal Armed Forces, make them extraordinarily effective, but it didn’t change their basic nature. They remained good soldiers, loyal to their unit, unlikely to walk away from fallen comrades.
My training had not been as kind.
I raised my chin, narrowed my eyes, delivered each word with precision.
“If we fall, you will pull back, report, and await instructions. Understood?”
He didn’t snap to attention, salute, and bark, “Yes, ma’am!” But his whisper managed to imply that response.
* * *
I was leaning forward, re-strapping my throwing knife over my right calf, when John arrived.
Hawkins gasped at his sudden appearance.
I stifled a chuckle, then carefully pressed the last Velcro strap into place. After testing the sheath’s fit, I gave my pant leg a tug and straightened.
“There’s an old coal chute at the back of the house,” John said without preamble. “The boards covering it are rotted. According to Miss Beane, there’s a door up from the cellar directly into the kitchen. She said she’d installed a ‘wee latch’ to keep the cat from prying open the door and creating a draught.”
I nodded, remembering how patiently John had listened as she’d described the elderly calico cat and its peculiar behaviors in minute detail, as if this information, too, could prove vital to the rescue of her father and Hugh. And I supposed it had.
“I’ll wait in the cellar, close to that door, and set my shoulder to it when the time is right.”
“Good,” I said. I looked at Hawkins. “Once we’ve signaled, you and your men can cross the garden, storm the house. After that—”
“Yes, ma’am. We know what to do after that.”
No hesitation in his voice. No enthusiasm, either. Just absolute surety. Hawkins and his men were good soldiers. They would do their duty for God, Queen, and country.
Hawkins moved off to gather his unit.
I stepped in front of John, curled my right hand into the supple leather of his jacket, gave it a quick shake.
“You crossed the garden. Twice. With no backup. Don’t you ever learn?”
In a rare display of affection, John raised his gloved fingers to my cheek.
“You care too much, Janie. A bad habit.”
Minutes earlier, I had insisted that Hawkins leave John to die.
Duty made monsters of us all.
9
The rain was falling in an icy torrent.
We huddled against the damp foundation in a corner formed by the north wall and the chimney.
John was not happy.
“Insanity. You can’t climb in this.”
No point in letting him know I wasn’t particularly keen on the climb either.
“We have merely achieved what the Scots call ‘full conditions.’ Invigorating. Nothing more.”
I stripped off my poncho and jacket, exchanging dryness and warmth for mobility, and reminded myself that exertion would cure my goose bumps. Then I traded my boots for smooth-soled rock-climbing shoes and pulled on a pair of fingerless gloves.
John spoke again when I took a pair of wool socks from my kit and tugged them on over my shoes.
“What’s that in aid of?”
“Better footing. It’s an old Joe Brown trick.” Joe Brown was an English hardman of legendary rock-climbing ability.
I rechecked the closure on my belt pouch, the strapping on my two-way radio and throwing knife, and the soft webbing harness that held my Walther PPK Special and its Brausch silencer under my left arm.
Then I turned my attention to the wall. I set my left foot on one of the wall’s rough-hewn blocks, reached above my head and curled the fingers of my right hand into a mortar line between chimney stones. And climbed.
John waited below, ready to protect my back or to scrape up pieces. As the situation required.
The world narrowed to fingers and toes, to minuscule cracks, bumps, and edges. Awareness of the distance between me and the ground melted away, replaced by awareness of my body and its relationship to the section of wall within reach of my hands and feet. I moved steadily, kept three points of my body in contact with the wall at all times, using my free hand or foot to stretch, grab, step, or push.
I reached the overhanging roof and edged my way along a line of mortar until I was clinging only to the chimney. Ignoring the steady flow of icy water down my arm, using the angle between the chimney and the roof line as an anchor point, I pulled myself upward until I could see the slate shingles that angled steeply to the roof’s peak. Then I took a breath, reached along the side of the chimney, groped for finger holds. Found one. And gained the rooftop.
* * *
I stood with my back to the chimney, muscles quivering, senses heightened, momentarily unaffected by the wind howling around me, tugging at my wet clothing, driving icy rain into my uplifted face. I wanted to shout into the darkness, to announce to the elements that I, Jane Nichols, had defied gravity and death. Again.
It occurred to me that, under the circumstances, the announcement might be a trifle premature. So I focused adrenaline-inspired energy on crossing the slick slate roof. Compared with the vertical ascent, slab climbing was easy. I placed all my weight onto the balls of my feet, letting the wool socks and friction work for me. I moved quickly and confidently toward the dark shadows of the first dormer.
Too quickly. Too confidently.
I slipped. My feet went out from under me, and I landed on my side, began a steady slide down the 40-degree slope. I rolled onto my stomach, used hands and feet as brakes, exposed as much body and clothing as possible to the slate surface. I slowed to a stop. My feet were within inches of the roof’s edge.
I hated climbing.
I half-crawled the several feet remaining to the dormer, maneuvered my way around to the window, stepped onto the sill. It was hinged on the left, latched on the right. I dug in the pouch, pulled out the proper tools. In less than a minute, I cut the glass, undid the latch, and swung the window open. It swept the sill, forced me to spend another unpleasant moment balancing on the angled slate rooftop. And then I was inside.
I stood motionless, listening, and heard nothing suspicious. Using a penlight’s narrow beam, I examined the room. No closets. No furniture. Just cobwebs, dust, and a bare bulb hanging from cloth-covered wire. I walked through the open door into a narrow passageway that dead-ended immediately to my right in a cramped bathroom. With my back to the bathroom and peering into each room along the way, I walked the length of the corridor to a small landing. A steep flight of stairs took me down to a closed door.
I tucked my torch away, retrieved the Walther from its holster. After threading my finger through the trigger guard, I pushed the door open and found myself alone in the second-floor hallway near the end of the south wing.
I closed the attic door behind me. Except for an unobtrusive brass knob, it was indistinguishable from the polished mahogany panels lining the wide hallway. The panels glowed, warm and ruddy under the subdued light of crystal wall sconces.
I walked toward the center of the house.
Thick carpeting in shades of cream, maroon, and cobalt blue covered the floor. Massive bedroom doors, solidly shut, broke the walls at regular intervals. Between the doors were long, narrow tables—carved affairs with marble tops. Heavy chairs upholstered in silk damask stood beside the tables.
Elegant. Except that the hallway had been vandalized. The cream-and-shell-pink striped fabric covering the chairs was slashed. Horsehair stuffing was everywhere. A dark wad of it,
like the corpse of some small animal, was caught on the jagged teeth of a broken liquor bottle that lay in the middle of the hallway.
On the walls, life-sized oil paintings of the Winthrup ancestors had not escaped attack. I glanced at the nearest portrait. A long-dead Winthrup glared back, oblivious to the ragged slashes that marred his finery. There was something odd about his eyes, but I didn’t look more closely. Instead, I smiled ruefully as I passed, thinking that if he were able, he would cover his largish ears with his hands to protect them from the slashing, discordant music blaring from the north wing.
An open foyer at the top of the formal staircase separated the two bedroom wings. I crept across it, sparing a glance over the railing at the brightly lit reception hall below, then continued on.
The destruction in the south wing was repeated in the north. Graceful ebony stands had once filled the spaces between doorways, supporting a collection of vases. The stands were splintered, the vases smashed. Ignoring the impulse to hug the wall, I walked down the center of the hallway, stepping over furniture and glass, holding the Walther down by my thigh. I counted doorways. Hugh’s was the fifth on my left, nearly to the end of the corridor. Hopefully, a sentry seeing a figure moving at a normal pace would hesitate for a moment before attacking. That moment would be enough.
It very nearly wasn’t.
I was almost to Hugh’s room when a dark-haired man emerged from the doorway opposite. His glance traveled past me, snapped back in a classic double take. His Uzi swung in my direction.