Wolf in Shadow-eARC

by John Lambshead

  “How did you know about that?” Rhian asked.

  “I’m the landlord. I know about everything that goes on in my pub,” he replied.

  Jameson parked the Jaguar in a clearing amongst the woodland that ran around the periphery of Shternberg’s country estate. Karla’s eyes glowed metallic green in the dark. Her body cycles peaked naturally in the early hours of the morning.

  The estate was surrounded by a high wall so Karla made a stirrup with her hands and boosted Jameson up. A thin wire ran along the top, held clear of the brickwork by insulated hoops. He clipped a cable to the wire and connected it to his phone.

  “Why am I waiting?” Karla asked. “Can’t you get a move on?”

  “Hang on a sec,” Jameson replied. “I just have to take out the security system.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll just stand here, shall I, holding you up?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Jameson replied, politely.

  He keyed the analysis program on the phone. It looked like an ordinary Android device from the outside but had a number of unusual features, including a security analysis and defeat package. Your average burglar would have happily paid a year in the nick to own one. Eventually the wait symbol stopped flashing and a green icon showed the mobile had the systems sussed. Jameson unclipped it and cut the wire. He hovered for a second, but there were no flashing lights or bells.

  Hauling himself over the wall, he dropped down the other side. Karla vaulted the wall as if clearing a five-barred gate.

  “Show off!” Jameson said.

  She smiled at him, flashing long needle-pointed teeth.

  The drive up to the front of the mansion was brilliantly lit. The rear, where they entered the garden, was in shadow. Rhododendron and other bushes were tastefully arranged to form a semi-wilderness containing winding paths. Jameson avoided these, pushing his way between the bushes. Paths were obvious places to site some sort of detection mechanism.

  “This is going to play hell with my clothes,” he said.

  “Wassock,” Karla replied succinctly.

  She had a nice line in archaic insults, acquired during a very long life. Wassock, pronounced “wazzok,” was an old rural north-country expression for a traditional village idiot. It had a brief resurgence of use among public schoolboys, which is how Jameson knew what it meant.

  “I begin to see the advantages of a black leather suit like yours,” Jameson said. “But I suspect that although you look cute in it, I really would resemble a wassock.”

  The bushes ended at a cleared grassed area a few meters from the house. Large French windows gave access to the lawn. The room behind was dark and empty. Jameson considered entry through the French windows but rejected the idea. Instead, he chose a small door on the left of the building that was presumably used by the servants. Both the French windows and the kitchen door were protected by security cameras, presumably low-light models.

  “That’s what you get for employing bloody amateurs,” Jameson said.

  “What?” Karla asked.

  “Both the cameras are mounted above the left corners of the doors,” Jameson replied. “Don’t you see? The cameras both point the same way. The left camera covers the right one as well as the door, but is itself vulnerable.”

  He moved into the blind spot.

  “Dear God, they haven’t even buried the cable in the wall.”

  He pointed to where the cable from the camera was clipped to the outside of the brickwork. Dropping on one knee, he pulled out a tuft of grass.

  “Give me a lift up.”

  “I think you only bring me along to act as a human ladder,” Karla said.

  “Certainly not,” Jameson replied. “You aren’t human.”

  She shoved him up the wall a little more vigorously than required. Jameson decided not to complain in case he got accidentally dropped. His colleagues thought that Karla had no sense of humor, but they didn’t know her. She had a sense of fun, in the same way that the Emperor Caligula could be a laugh a minute. Like when he was deciding who to toss to the lions.

  Jameson carefully smeared mud all over the camera lens. The exposed cable was tempting. Using his phone, he could corrupt the system to show anything from an empty doorway to the BBC News, but that would take time. Sometimes the old ways were the best. When they came to review the tapes, all they would see was a malfunctioning camera.

  “Okay, let me down.”

  Karla took her hand away and he dropped like a share price. She caught him before he hit the ground, but this was payback time for the ladder crack. She knew how much he disliked her demonstrating her strength on him. He decided to maintain a dignified silence on the matter. She sniggered, showing that she was not fooled at all.

  The door lock was a nice new modern digital pad system that offered no protection at all to Jameson’s phone. He had been concerned that Shternberg might have left on the old-fashioned mechanical lock. Now they could be really tricky. A few seconds of digital magic and the door clicked open. He closed the burglar app on the phone and ran the magical field-protection app through its cycle. It detected nothing. Jameson looked at Karla questioningly. In his experience, she was far more reliable than any artificial detector. She shook her head, concurring with the mobile, so he entered.

  The inside of the house was in darkness, so Jameson took a pencil torch from his inside pocket and shone it around. He found a scullery with an old-fashioned sink, draining boards, boot racks, and couple of shotguns propped against the wall in the corner. He passed through an inner door, into the kitchen which was a strange mixture of the old and new. An Aga shared space with microwave ovens. Most of the space in the kitchen was taken up by a large wooden table. Traditional kitchen sideboards lined the walls. Rows of stacked plates, pots, and pans filled the shelves.

  Jameson pressed on into a corridor and began trying doors at random. He discovered the broom cupboard and a stairway down to the cellar. A quick reconnaissance revealed nothing but Shternberg’s collection of wines. Jameson would not have minded trying one or two. The man had good taste and deep pockets. The next door was more promising. It was locked. He searched through his pockets for his picklock until Karla tapped him on the shoulder and handed it to him.

  “Thanks, I forgot I’d given that to you.”

  Bingo, the room was some sort of office, with filing cabinets and a computer on a desk in the corner. He turned the computer on, looking through the filing cabinets while he waited for it to boot. The cabinets contained cardboard folders full of receipts and spreadsheet printouts. Jameson had the impression that he was looking at the household accounts. Nevertheless, he plied his phone into a USB socket on the front of the computer and initiated a data dump. He looked around the room while the hard drive disgorged its secrets, but found nothing further of interest.

  The final room on the rear of the ground floor was a sitting room. Although comfortably furnished, it was not luxurious, so he concluded that it was for the servants’ use. A door separated the functional areas of the ground floor from the main entrance. Jameson checked with his phone but could find no sign of electrical or magical alarms, so he pushed open the door and shone his torch into the hallway.

  Light reflected off the back of a man wearing silver clothes like a spacesuit. Jameson took two or three steps forward and raised his hand to chop at the back of the neck. Karla laughed softly and he realized that it was a suit of armor. The hallway was lined with them.

  “Bloody Shternberg, typical of a nouveau riche asset-stripper to have suits of armor lying around like some poxy lord of the manor,” said Jameson, feeling foolish.

  He heard something behind him and swung round, shining the torch. Karla leaned against the doorway with her arms crossed. She would never mistake an inanimate object for a person no matter how dark it was. She could sense her prey’s feelings, smell his sweat, hear his heartbeat.

  A grand staircase gave access to the first floor. If the mansion had a typical layout, the master’s study an
d living rooms would be on this floor. Jameson slowly and carefully climbed the stairs. He placed his feet on the side of each step so it would not creak. Nevertheless, the fifth depressed silently under his weight. Jameson cursed under his breath and activated the security search on his phone, something he should have done before using the stairway. It was a natural place for an alarm. He was getting past this sort of thing, getting too old and too careless.

  A red icon flashed on the phone’s display.

  “Oh, bugger, silent alarm,” Jameson said to Karla, as there was no further point in being quiet.

  “I can hear people moving about,” Karla said.

  “Okay, out, mission accomplished,” Jameson said.

  He quite deliberately pulled open the front door, setting off an audible alarm. Exiting, he and Karla circled around the house to the back. Somebody threw back a window on the first floor and leaned out. Jameson had a quick impression of a long stick. He knocked Karla over and dived the other way, a split second before the double blast of a shogun. Pellets chopped through the bushes behind them.

  Jameson landed on his hands and rolled over onto his back, pulling a pistol from the holster under his left arm. He was armed with a Glock 26 subcompact pistol for this particular operation, not his usual railgun with its distinctive bolts. He had not expected to encounter paranormal entities.

  He snapped off two shots at the shadowy figure in the window. The gunman returned fire, shooting each barrel separately into the garden. The pellets went wide of Jameson and Karla, confirming that the gunman was not sure where they were. Light snapped on in the rooms at the rear of the house, illuminating the man. He was loading new shells into the breaches of his weapon. The man half turned to yell at someone behind him. “For Christ’s sake, turn that bloody light off.”

  Jameson grinned, “Tough luck, sunshine.”

  He had all the time in the world, like he was on a firing range. Sighting carefully down the barrel, he put a double tap into the lit window. The gunman dropped without a sound. The shotgun fell out of the window, clattering down the wall. Jameson regained his feet and ran into the bushes, pounding along the decorative paths.

  The dogs made no sound. Guard dogs barked, but hunting dogs, killers, were silent. They ran in so fast that Jameson had no chance even to count them. He had an impression of teeth, and then the crack of his Glock. He pulled the double-weight trigger as fast as he could without aiming. He fired from the hip, getting off three, maybe four shots before the first dog hit him and knocked him into the bushes. He smashed his elbow on a root, badly jarring the ulnar nerve. The ulnar is the largest nerve in the human body protected neither by muscle nor bone. Presumably evolution will one day fix the problem. In the meantime, like the appendix, the design fault continues to plague the human body. The pistol dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers and he cursed.

  He pushed at the dog, trying to keep its teeth from his throat. The animal made a strange noise, halfway between a gargle and cough. It spewed blood all over his chest and died. At least one of his hastily fired rounds had smashed through the dog’s lungs. He searched frantically for the pistol, but it was lost somewhere in the undergrowth.

  Snarls, growls, and smashing sounds of splintering wood indicated that Karla was fighting for her life. Cursing, he staggered to his feet to offer what help he could. A dog writhed on the path. It whimpered in pain, back bent at an impossible angle. Karla rolled on the ground, a dog clamped to each arm by its teeth. Jameson ran in and kicked one in the ribs. It yelped and attacked him. He backed off raising his arms like a boxer to cover his chest and face. It bit into his arm, the heavy body pulling him round.

  He struggled to keep his feet. He had to prevent the animal pulling him to the ground. Then it would have a significant advantage. He smashed his free fist into its head, but it was like striking a wooden block. Changing tactics, he jabbed it in the eye with his thumb, gouging deep until it released him.

  Berserk with rage, foaming at the mouth, the dog sprang again. Jameson desperately raised his arms, but the attack never came. A clawed hand sank into the back of its neck, halting it in mid-air. It crashed onto its back. Karla was lightning quick, stamping on the animal’s throat before it could roll back onto its legs. It choked to death from a crushed windpipe. Jameson looked round for the third dog and found it on its side, throat ripped out. Blood soaked the gravel path.

  “You’re hurt,” Karla said, in concern.

  She gently lifted his arm and licked at his blood. Jameson wondered where the hell the dogs had come from and who had released them. That was the wrong question. That the bloody things were dead was what mattered. That and the fact that his arm hurt.

  “We have to go,” Jameson said. “The idea was to put the wind up Shternberg, not get found in flagrante delicto.”

  Karla had to haul him over the wall.

  “You drive,” Jameson said.

  “Really, I can drive?” Karla asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” Jameson replied. “I don’t think I’m up to it.”

  Karla was as pleased as a kid on Christmas morning eyeing up a newly delivered sack from Santa. She got Jameson into the passenger seat and slid over the bonnet to take the wheel. She put her hand on the electronic control unit on the dashboard and the engine started. The Jaguar shot off, tail wagging and back wheels spinning.

  “Will you turn the thrice-cursed traction control back on, please?” Jameson asked.

  “It’s more fun with it off,” Karla replied.

  “Fun for whom?” Jameson asked. “It’s no bloody fun for me.”

  Karla pouted and glanced at the control panel. The drive configurations system flashed icons in colored succession and the wheels stopped spinning. The rear of the car stopped wagging like a Labrador’s tail and dropped in line with the front.

  “Better,” Jameson said. “While we’re on the subject, how do you do that? The car just seems to know what you want.”

  Karla didn’t reply, but she did smile at him. Her teeth were extended at the excitement of driving.

  “And put your teeth away,” Jameson said, his arm hurting. “You’ll scare someone to death, probably me.”

  He searched the side compartment by his seat until he found an analgesic and antiseptic spray. He took off his jacket, not without some difficulty. He rolled up his sleeve and sprayed his arm. The chilling liquid almost immediately took away the pain. A doctor had once told Jameson that the effect of painkillers was nine-tenths placebo. Not that Jameson gave a damn, as long as they worked.

  Karla pulled onto the main road behind an articulated lorry. Without hesitation, she pulled out and rocketed down the side of the long vehicle. They slipped around the front just before an oncoming car shot past in a blaze of flashing headlights.

  “And you,” Karla said, making a rude gesture in a direction of the car.

  Jameson lowered the seat back and closed his eyes, thinking he might try to get some sleep. His mind drifted over the events of the evening.

  “Oh shit!” Jameson sat bolt upright, ignoring the throbbing arm.

  “What?” Karla asked.

  “I’ve left the bloody gun behind.”

  CHAPTER 17

  PRESSURE

  “So let me get this straight, just so there is no misunderstanding,” Randolph said. “You decided to carry out a little amateur burglary on Shternberg’s country house to ‘speed things up.’”

  “We weren’t getting anywhere following him around,” Jameson said defensively. “So I thought we should ratchet up the pressure a little. You know, prod him a little and see what reaction we got.”

  “You thought, you thought?” Randolph said. “If you’d thought, you wouldn’t have left evidence behind?”

  “Ah, yes, the Glock,” Jameson said.

  “The Glock,” Randolph mimicked. “The Glock with the serial number issued to Her Majesty’s Metropolitan police force and hence traceable to us.”

  “I was a little preoccupied at the
time,” Jameson said. “What with fighting off a pack of killer dogs intent on ripping out my throat.”

  “Daemon killer dogs?” Randolph asked hopefully.

  “Just the normal kind,” Jameson replied.

  “Did you find any sign of unsanctioned paranormal activity?”

  “No.”

  “Or bring back any useful intelligence?”

  “We did clone a hard drive. The Library are going through the data, but it looks like household accounts.”

  “Household accounts,” Randolph repeated, his voice leaking sarcasm like sump oil from an old motor. Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull, how many favors I had to call in, how much political capital I had to expend with Special Branch to get that serial number expunged from the record?”

  “Sorry about that,” Jameson apologized. It had been unprofessional.

  “And all for nothing.”

  “It’s early days yet,” Jameson said. “Let’s see what reaction we provoke.”

  “No more burglaries,” Randolph said.

  “Right,” Jameson replied.

  “We can but hope that Shternberg uses magic rather than a Russian Mafia hit squad to eliminate you,” Randolph said brightly. “Then at least I’d know that we are on the right lines.”

  When Rhian came off evening shift, Frankie was sitting at the kitchen table gazing gloomily at various stacks of official-looking papers. She held a glass of wine in both hands, elbows resting on the table. The bottle was open beside her. From the level, Frankie had been hitting the giggle water hard.

  Rhian took a glass from the kitchen cabinet and emptied what was left of the wine into it. She didn’t particularly want a drink but thought that Frankie had already had enough. It did not seem to have improved the woman’s mood.

  “Everything okay?” Rhian said.

  Frankie put the glass down carefully, the way drunks do when they want to appear sober.

  “That pile there,” Frankie said, pointing, “are the outstanding utility bills.”