On Her Majesty's Behalf

by Joseph Nassise

  Traitors’ Gate, the only water gate entrance to the tower, had originally been built by Edward I in 1275 as his own private entrance to the castle when St. Thomas’s Tower was being used as accommodations for the royal family. When the Tower of London became a prison, the gate earned its more infamous nickname because it was through here that prisoners were brought in by barge off the Thames, passing under the Tower Bridge where the heads of those recently executed were displayed on pikes. The prisoners were then turned over to prison officials inside the safety of the tower walls.

  Veronica knew that an arched tunnel led beneath the Tower Wharf to a set of stone steps that led up from the river directly in front of St. Thomas’s Tower, one of the smaller buildings in the tower complex. If she could get them close enough to the wharf, she should have time to maneuver them into the tunnel before the current pushed them past.

  Already tired from her fight with the safety belts and the aftereffect of all the adrenaline coursing through her system from the crash, Veronica nevertheless began to swim against the current, kicking her legs as hard as she could, hoping to get in closer to shore before the cold water leached the last of the strength from her weary muscles. She kept her arm clamped tight around Freeman’s chest and did her best to keep his head out of the water as she went. For every foot she managed toward shore, though, the current carried her a half-­dozen more downstream, and she was soon stroking with her free arm, Freeman’s combat knife still gripped securely in hand, as well as kicking with her feet to get her out of the flow of the current and over to the bank.

  Just as she thought she couldn’t do any more, her outstretched hand smacked against the stone wall that held up the Tower Wharf and she breathed a sigh of relief. The current was weaker here along the base of the wall and she was able to hug the wall for the last several yards as the archway leading to Traitors’ Gate loomed closer. When they were parallel with the opening, she kicked out with her legs and forced them out of the current entirely, putting them in the calm waters of the narrow estuary that led beneath the wharf and under Traitors’ Gate. From there it was a simple matter to dog-­paddle the length of the tunnel, slip under the half-­raised portcullis that was used to block off the entrance every evening, and then stagger a short way up the staircase at the far end, dragging Freeman behind her as she went. Once they were both out of the water, she collapsed on the stone steps and tried to catch her breath, letting the knife slip from her fingers to the ground beside her.

  She didn’t know the shredder was there until it was almost upon her.

  Some long-­buried instinct for self-­preservation caused her to lift her weary head and she caught sight of the shredder while it was still a ­couple of yards away. Adrenaline dumped into her system, sending her heart hammering into overdrive, and she snatched at her belt, clawing for her pistols, only to find it wasn’t there. She must have lost them in the crash!

  She still had Freeman’s knife, though, and as the shredder rushed down the steps toward her, she grabbed the knife from the step beside her, gripped it tightly, and stood to meet the shredder’s charge . . .

  Chapter Thirty-six

  On the Thames

  London

  THE MEN WERE tense as they rowed cautiously toward the Reliant. Burke didn’t blame them; he was tense, too. He kept waiting for a mob of shredders to come pouring out of the hatch, and every second that passed in eerie silence only served to tighten his nerves.

  Sergeant Drummond stood in the bow, having volunteered to be the first aboard. Burke had served with his fair share of men over the years and had to admit that the Black Watch sergeant had certainly proved his worth on this mission. Behind Drummond was Jones, another man with nerves of steel, and then Burke himself. The three of them had volunteered to be the ones to clear the boat, which seemed fair to Burke given that it had been his idea in the first place.

  While the three of them handled the dirty work below, Corporal Williams and Private Cohen would guard the hatch. Both men were under strict orders to seal the hatch if it looked like any of the shredders were going to escape the confines of the boat. Neither of them had looked happy, but they’d accepted the orders and Burke knew they’d carry them out if it became necessary.

  Let’s just hope it doesn’t.

  Last but not least, Doc Bankowski and Professor Graves would remain aboard the lifeboat, oars in hand, ready to get them out of there at a moment’s notice.

  To everyone’s surprise they reached the boat without any shredders pouring up from below.

  As Bankowski and Graves brought them up alongside the hull, Sergeant Drummond deftly jumped up onto the deck, Jones at his heels. Burke followed suit, only to have his lead foot hit a patch of decking slick with river water and go right out from under him. His reflexes took over, putting out a hand to catch his fall.

  Unfortunately for all concerned, it was his mechanical one.

  The resulting bong that echoed through the hull when his metal fist made contact with the outer deck felt like the loudest sound in the entire world at that moment.

  Everyone froze, Burke included.

  For a long moment no one even dared to breathe. All eyes were on the hatch.

  Waiting.

  Watching.

  Expecting a horde of ravenous zombies to come swarming out of the belly of the boat and fall on them at any moment.

  But nothing happened.

  The only thing coming out of the boat beneath their feet was silence.

  Drummond looked back at Burke and when the other man nodded his head, he stepped quietly over to the hatch. He hesitated the barest fraction of a second and then poked his head quickly over the opening before ducking back again.

  He gave it a heartbeat and then did it again, this time more slowly.

  A hand signal told the others he wasn’t seeing anything significant.

  Jones helped Burke to his feet, and the two men joined Drummond by the hatch. The ship’s battery was still good, for there were lights on in the bridge compartment at the bottom of the ladder. Cautiously, one after another, they started down.

  This is it, Burke thought, as Drummond made his way down the ladder. We’re trapped in the narrowest of tubes without room to maneuver or even bring a weapon to bear. If they have any sense at all, this is where they’ll jump us.

  Drummond stepped off the ladder, no worse for wear than he’d been seconds before. Burke watched him glance both ways, fore and aft. Then came the signal for the others to join him.

  His heart hammering in his throat, Burke followed.

  The first thing he saw as he stepped off the ladder was the eviscerated body of Captain Wattley. His flesh had been eaten right off his bones, but it was clear from the uniform he wore just who it was. Burke felt a pang of regret; differences about the mission aside, the gruff sailor had been a good man.

  A few other bodies lay where they had fallen, most of them unrecognizable thanks to the way the shredders had torn at the exposed flesh.

  Under cover of the guns carried by his two companions, Drummond stepped to the far end of the compartment and gently pulled the bulkhead door shut, spinning the handle to seal it closed for the time being.

  The plan was for the trio to move aft, clearing the rear of the boat before moving forward and doing the same to the bow. Sealing off the forward compartments would keep any shredders from sneaking up on them from behind.

  They waited a moment by the bulkhead door to see if anything responded to their presence. When all remained quiet, they turned and headed aft.

  Compartment after compartment, they found the same thing; a few bodies here and there, but no sign of any shredders. Damage to the interior of the vessel appeared to be minimal as well for it seemed the shredders’ initial attack had been so overwhelming that word hadn’t had time to spread through the boat fast enough to allow any of the sailors to mount a coord
inated response. With the aft section of the boat cleared, the trio turned their attention to the forward compartments, only to find the same results.

  Once the all clear was given, the squad set about making the boat seaworthy. Williams disappeared into the engine room, after shanghaiing the wounded Cohen to help him. Doc and Graves were given the task of trying to identify the bodies, then wrapping them in blankets weighted down with whatever they could find and giving them a quick burial at sea. A few of the men, Drummond in particular, pressed for the bodies to be taken to France with them, but they had already started to decompose and without adequate refrigeration equipment it just wasn’t possible. Regretfully, Drummond at last agreed.

  Drummond and Burke spent some time familiarizing themselves with the boat’s controls so that when the time came, they’d be able to manage the vessel while under way. Both men were quick learners and the fact that all the control systems were clearly marked in English certainly made their task easier.

  An hour after boarding, they were ready to give it a go.

  There was another moment of tension as they waited for Williams to fire up the engines. He’d been right though—­a diesel was a diesel—­and the big engine came alive with a grumble that vibrated through the whole boat.

  Once the cheering stopped, Burke gave the order to haul up the anchors and get under way. They started out with the engines at less than one-­eighth speed, moving out from under the shadow of the bridge and giving them time to get used to how the boat handled. They had one scary moment when they scraped hard against something submerged in the water, but the bulkheads all held and the inexperienced crew breathed a sigh of relief.

  Since they weren’t familiar with all the complexities of the boat, they kept things simple. Burke stood over the open hatch in the conning tower, shouting commands down to Cohen, who stood at the base of the ladder and relayed them to Drummond, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. Next to the sergeant, in the planesman’s chair, sat Graves. While Drummond kept them on the straight and narrow, it was Graves’s job to keep them on the surface and running level. Jones and Doc Bankowski were out on deck with Burke, scouring both banks for signs of the downed aircraft. Jones was using the spotting scope off his rifle while Doc had a pair of binoculars they’d found in the captain’s cabin.

  Yard by yard, they made their way down the river.

  Burke hadn’t forgotten about Charlie and his team of German commandos, so he made it his mission to watch for signs of the enemy as well as for the missing aircraft. It wasn’t an easy task; much of the city around them was in ruins thanks to the German bombing campaign that had coincided with the release of the gas, and shadows loomed everywhere amid the rubble. Between that and the shredders wandering the streets, it made Burke’s job a tough one.

  They had moved about a half mile downstream and were just passing beneath Waterloo Bridge when Doc gave a shout.

  “I think I see something! Over there!”

  He was pointing to something on the south bank of the river, behind the remains of the National Theatre, so Burke shouted down orders to hold their position so they could investigate. Williams was quick to respond and the boat came to a halt in the shadow of the bridge above.

  Burke and Jones quickly moved to Doc’s side.

  “What have you got?” the major asked.

  “Over there,” Doc said, pointing. “Behind that building with the slate roof; is that the tail of an aircraft?”

  Burke didn’t see it until Jones handed him the spotting scope, at which point the round curve of the airplane’s rudder came into view. But their initial excitement was quite squelched when Jones spotted a section of the wing nearby with the German cross boldly emblazoned upon it.

  It was an aircraft, all right, just not the one they were looking for.

  “Must have been playing escort for the airships that conducted the bombing raid,” Burke said.

  “One less pilot to be shooting at our boys at least,” Jones replied, “and good riddance to him.”

  Burke nodded; it was a sentiment with which he could easily agree.

  The trio turned around, intent on returning to their respective positions, when something dropped onto the deck of the boat from the bridge above. It rolled for a moment then came to rest against the deck gun about ten feet in front of them.

  Burke recognized it immediately.

  He’d spent years in the trenches and knew a German stick grenade when he saw one. The wooden handle made them easy to throw and the bulbous head contained the explosives that made them so deadly. His gaze immediately traveled to the handle of the device, looking for the cord that would be there if the thrower had forgotten to arm the grenade, hoping against hope that it was still there, but of course they couldn’t get that lucky.

  Time slowed to an imperceptible crawl, every second feeling like an eternity as they ticked by in Burke’s mind.

  One.

  Burke started forward, his mouth opening to shout a warning.

  Two.

  Someone shoved past him, kicking him aside, as a voice shouted in his ear.

  “Grenade!” Jones cried, as he pushed past Burke and threw himself atop the explosive, smothering it with his body.

  Three . . .

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Traitors’ Gate

  London

  QUEEN VERONICA MET the shredder’s charge head-­on, letting it get close enough for it to lunge toward her, arms outstretched, before she stepped nimbly to one side, bringing Freeman’s knife up in a vicious side-­arm blow that struck the creature in the hollow of the throat and tore upward through the roof of its mouth and into its brain.

  It was dead before it hit the ground at her feet.

  Heart pounding in her chest, Veronica bent over, wiped the knife blade clean on the thing’s ragged clothes, and then kicked the shredder down the steps past Freeman into the water where it quickly sank from view.

  She bent over, trying to catch her breath, when she suddenly remembered the philosopher’s stone. She’d forgotten all about it in the excitement of the crash and their escape from the river. She was relieved when, quickly checking her satchel, she could found it still safely inside.

  Noise to her right caused her to look up in time to spot five more shredders headed in her direction. They were still a long way off, but there was no doubt that they had seen her and weren’t inclined to give her a free pass through their territory. She estimated she had ten minutes, maybe less, to find somewhere secure or she was going to be facing several of them at once.

  She moved back down the staircase until she stood a few steps below Freeman, then used the leverage the position gave her to get him up over her shoulder. He was still unconscious, which kept him from struggling against her but made him feel fifty pounds heavier than he really was, and she staggered for the first few steps before she found her footing. Climbing the remaining steps to the walkway above, she glanced about hurriedly, desperate for a solution.

  The shredders on her left were definitely closer, and now there were a few coming toward her from the opposite side as well. That left her with only one valid option.

  She spun around and moved quickly for the entrance to St. Thomas’s Tower.

  The door was wooden and heavy and for a moment she thought it might be locked, but she backed up and kicked it once, twice, and then the door popped open, the wood having swelled a bit in the heat.

  Until recently, St. Thomas’s Tower held the Irish spy Robert Casement; Veronica knew because it had been part of her duties to occasionally visit the man. Her father had hoped that Casement might let some important detail of his activities slip in the hope of impressing a beautiful girl like the Crown princess, but Veronica knew within seconds of meeting the man that he had no interest in women, pretty or otherwise. Still, a duty was a duty and she’d faithfully visited the man until si
x months ago, when he’d been executed for treason against the Crown. In Veronica’s eyes he’d been a nasty, bitter man and she hadn’t been sorry to see him go, though the circumstances of his departure weren’t something she was all that comfortable with even now.

  The benefit of having spent time in the tower was that she knew the layout of the place with a fair degree of accuracy, which was why she knew that the great room she entered after coming through the door wasn’t good enough for what was to come. It had once served as Edward I’s audience chamber, a place where he would receive visiting nobles or spend time with the poor he governed. There were too many windows with nothing but blown glass and flimsy wooden shutters to protect them, never mind a fireplace with a chimney wide enough to allow two men to come down it at the same time.

  No, she needed something smaller and more defensible.

  Thankfully, she knew just such a place.

  At the back of the audience chamber was a small room that had seen use as everything from a wine cellar to a meditation chamber. What made it so attractive was the fact that it had no windows to speak of, just four stone walls, plus a very thick door that could be barred to prevent entry. It was just the kind of place they could hunker down and wait for Burke to rescue them.

  If Burke even comes to get you, her conscience replied.

  Shut up! she argued with herself. Of course he’s coming.

  This time that voice in the back of her head was silent.

  She moved across the audience chamber, kicked open the door to the storeroom, placed Major Freeman on the floor, and hurriedly turned back toward the door.

  On the far side of the audience chamber, directly opposite the storeroom, she saw a shadow darken the doorway.

  The shredders had caught up with her!

  Stifling a cry of desperation, Veronica flung herself across the room to the doorway and desperately began to push the heavy oak door shut again.