by Rik Hunik
"You bet."
"I'll leave a note for Inspector Marco to let him know."
"Just don't let Thaddeus get his hands on it."
As I let myself out of Quintus's office a woman was just exiting the front door. I couldn't be sure with just a glimpse from behind, at a distance, but she looked like Silvina, my landlady. I couldn't imagine why she would be here at this time of night but, although I was curious, it really wasn't any of my business, even if it was her, and I didn't particularly want to talk to her so I didn't hurry to catch up, and when I got to the street she was gone.
Chapter 41
The next morning I awoke to find sunlight streaming through a crack in my bedroom curtains, coming down at a forty-five degree angle. Mid morning already. Somehow Thaddeus had intercepted Quintus's note and I was left behind. I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs while pulling on a pair of pants.
Zena raised an eyebrow at my attire and handed me a note from Inspector Marco, telling me the raid was being set up for tonight, a couple of hours before midnight. Police were discreetly watching the house, and a police boat was in the harbor, pretending to make a raid on a nearby ship whose captain had agreed to the deception, and actually volunteered his crew to assist in the roundup.
I gave Zena the day off and told her to stay away from the office. I went to Caracalla's and worked out in the gym and lolled around in the bathhouse. I wanted to stay in public places where there were plenty of people around. The day was unproductive and uneventful. I was maybe a little bit stronger and certainly very clean, but it seemed to take forever for dark to roll around.
I went to the police station an hour before the scheduled time of the raid. Both Quintus and Marco were there, Quintus was busy, but Marco found time to talk to me.
"Hey, Berk, so glad you could make it."
"I wouldn't want to miss it, but why wait so long. By now they know I've escaped. I thought you would want to nail them before they had a chance to get away."
"They never had a chance. We watched the island all day in case they started anything, but we were pretty sure they wouldn't try to load their prisoners until after dark, but before the moon rises shortly after midnight. We hope to catch them in the act. While we take the land end of the tunnel Quintus will bring two more boats to take their ship and secure the rock. If everything goes according to plan we should meet in the middle."
As an auxiliary I was entitled to a sword while I was working with the police and Marco made sure I was issued one. "You do know how to use it, don't you?"
"Sure I do. The pointy end goes into the other guy." Marco's eyebrows went up but before he could say anything I said, "Don't worry, I served my stint in the army, I just haven't had a chance to practice lately."
I led them to the house. "This is the place where the wall opens. The cab drives right in, they unload their prisoner where no one can see, then the cab drives right out the other side."
I stood back while the police surrounded the house. Marco knocked on the door and when he got no answer he signaled for the battering ram, just a four-foot long oak log with handles attached, but it made short work of the latch, the lock and the bolt.
By the time I got inside the police had already rounded up the six men there. While they were being manacled I heard a cab rattle up to the big door, and then a subdued ring from a concealed bell. Everybody looked around with what-do-we-do looks.
"Let them in," I said, and ran to lift the big bar. One cop gave me a hand and a couple more pulled the doors open. The cab rolled right in and we were closing the doors before the driver realized cops were holding the horses. The three guys inside jumped out, noticed that they were busted, and made a futile run for it, one of them charging straight at me.
I recognized my old friend with the scar on his arm at the same time he recognized me, his face lighting up with anticipation while I acted too scared to run away. He came full speed at me, I braced myself, dropped into a crouch and hit him low, flipping his legs out from under him and standing up as he passed over me. He completed one and a quarter revolutions before his face smacked into the floor, where he lay without moving, blood spreading from the point of impact.
I looked into the cab. The fourth passenger was a woman with a black cloth sack tied over her head, and her hands and feet bound in front of her. Thinking she could use some fresh air I untied the hood and pulled it off.
"Well don't just sit there staring," my mother said, "untie me."
"Vera, is that you?" Marco popped in from the other side.
"Yes, Marco, it's me. Now can you please untie me?" She offered her hands to him.
It took a second or two for me to start moving. I stuck my knife between her ankles and carefully sawed at the rope. "You two know each other?" My effort to sound casual failed dismally even in my own ears.
"Of course we do, dear. He's the man you wouldn't let me tell you about."
My face got hot and I was glad the light was dim. "Well you were right, I do like him."
"I hate to interrupt this family reunion but we have work to do. Vera my dear, I'm going to send you home in this cab with a couple of officers." He kissed her on the cheek, closed the door and started giving orders.
My mother looked at me but I couldn't think of anything to say. She smiled gently and said, "Why don't you come over for lunch tomorrow."
"Sure." I patted her hand and closed the door.
Marco posted some cops in case another cab showed up, then said, "Berk, I think we need your help to find the tunnel."
I had been so jarred by the revelation that Marco and my mother were an item that I had forgotten our purpose here. "Yeah, sure, let me think a minute." I pulled my thoughts into focus, tried to get an impression. "Nothing. It has to be in the basement. I'll try again there." By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs my mind had settled and I was in a more receptive state.
The basement was one large room carved out of the rock, filled with rows of posts supporting the beams that supported the floor above. I could sense the tunnel that led away but the entrance from the basement was obscured. "There's magic blocking my talent," I told Marco in response to his unspoken question. "I need to get closer."
Shadows danced as a swarm of cops equipped with lanterns conducted their own search, scraping and prying and tapping without any success. I ran my hand around the entire perimeter of the basement but I felt only solid rock. Marco paced rapidly in a small oval in the center of the room, anxious for results.
"It's not in the walls," I told them, "so it must be in the floor."
The pounding and shuffling that followed was near deafening. I got down on my hands and knees and felt my way along the floor. About five feet from the wall my fingers found a crack that my eyes told me wasn't there. "Over here," I shouted.
Working blind we soon raised a trapdoor, but even then the opening looked like undisturbed floor. Marcus went first, disappearing into the illusion, followed one by one by the rest of the cops, with me bringing up the rear, down a steep flight of narrow, stone stairs and along a tunnel not quite high enough for me to walk upright.
The line stopped moving, I heard some fierce fighting at the head of the line, then a loud whistle that increased in pitch until I could no longer hear it, some shouts, and then the line started moving again. As I passed through a door of iron bars that had been inset across the tunnel I saw two dead bodies sprawled on the floor, pushed aside when the door was forced open.
Four rooms had been set up as living quarters for the guards, with charcoal heaters, comfortable mattresses, and a well-stocked larder, while their prisoners had chilly cells, damp straw, and starvation rations of cheap gruel. One corner had been set up as a sort of office. I took a closer look at a list of numbers on one wall, and figured it could be a record of how many women they had brought in through the tunnel.
"Don't touch that," a cop said. "That's evidence and we'll get to it in due time."
Under his watchful eye I stepp
ed away from it and moved on to the cell area, where the police had routed the cultists before I had a chance to fight. Not that I was complaining too much.
I helped put the survivors into an empty cell for temporary storage while the women they had been escorting to the ship now wandered free. Miss Cynicism approached with a ring of keys. "Use this one."
The key she held out looked no different than the others hanging on the key ring but it locked the cell.
"What took you so long?" demanded Miss Cynicism.
"I was ready to go early this morning, but the cops wanted to wait till after dark so they could capture the ship and a lot more cultists."
"Well thanks for coming back." To my surprise she gave me a peck on the cheek.
"You're welcome. We better let the rest of the women out."
In front of the door of the next cell lay the inert body of a dark-skinned woman with a red stain on her dress between her breasts. Despite the fact that I had never seen her in the flesh before she looked familiar to me, and when I squatted I next to her memory hit me like a vision; this was Laura, daughter of Stella, who had hired me three weeks ago, while the paint was still wet on my new sign. Despite my jaunty attitude that day things hadn't turned out very well. Two of the three people I'd been hired to find that day had turned up dead, and the third had a totally new identity.
It was the responsibility of the police to tell Stella that her daughter was dead, but I still didn't look forward to talking to her. "What happened to her?"
"They used her as an example of what would happen to anybody who stepped out of line. They already took out about thirty women before the cops arrived."
I quickly unlocked the rest of the cells, without paying much attention to the babble of thanks as the women came out. One cop stood guard at the locked cell full of cultists. I handed him the keys, drew my sword and hurried through the door that had been locked to me the last time I was here.
At the top of the flight of steps a solid wooden door, painted to match the rock, stood open. A narrow passage let out onto a rocky piece of beach resounding with the clash of weapons, the grunts of men, and the occasional scream of a woman. A dozen lanterns on the police boat, and as many more scattered on the shore, illuminated the melee but they shone into my eyes and hindered as much as they helped.
I joined the fray, wondering why there were so many cultists still fighting and why there was only one police boat. For several minutes I felt like I was back in the army in a bloody fight for my life. I don't know what the odds were to start with but the police had superior weapons and were by far the better fighters, gradually reducing the numbers of cultists and gaining the upper hand. A few of them surrendered rather than fighting to the death and that inspired the rest. so all of a sudden the skirmish was over.
Some of the police from the boat got breath enough to talk instead of fight and one of them told me what happened. "Their ship got here right after dark but the watch didn't see it, probably because they used some kind of cloaking spell. They had at least a couple of dozen women loaded onto the boat when we got here but it took off before we could touch it. Quintus chased it in the other boat."
Another cop said, "They knew we were coming so they brought extra men to fight. We had to make do with what we had."
"We had a few delays coming from the other end but not much resistance. I'm glad I could help."
The cop used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his face. "I'm glad too."
Marco found me. "So, did you find all the women you were looking for?"
"I have no idea, it's too chaotic in there right now. Tomorrow morning I'll bring in a list to see how many of them were here."
"Care to join us rounding up and processing these losers."
I shook my head. "That sounds like a lot of fun but I would rather be safe at home, in my bed, catching up on my sleep. Last night was pretty rough."
He shook his head and looked at me like I was crazy. "You're right, you wouldn't make a good cop. Catch you later." He tipped me a wink and left.
I winced. I still don't like it when a cop says that to me.
When I got home I pulled out a few envelopes and touched the personal items inside, just to see what kind of impression I would get. Each time I got a picture of the woman in my mind and a precise direction and location, as if it had been marked on a map. It was that easy. I sighed and went to bed. I had a busy day ahead of me tomorrow.
Chapter 42
The next day the massive rescue of nearly a hundred women, and the arrest of the Brides of Vulcan cultists was the biggest story of the year in the news bulletins, and the buzz was all over the city. After my mother visited especially to ask what I thought of the articles I had to go and read some for myself.
I told Zena to stay in the office to deal with those clients who came looking for me while I was out talking to other clients about wrapping up their cases.
"What should I charge them?"
I considered at some length. "Just charge them an hour each, and if they want to pay more, don't argue."
"What if they don't want to pay that much?"
"Then they probably won't come here, and if they do, tell them you're not authorized to haggle."
I went to the small forum near the Old Harbor end of Germanicus Avenue, but the crowd was so dense I couldn't get close enough to read anything. Somebody started reading aloud. It wasn't the story I wanted to hear but it drew enough people away to get me a few steps closer. I have good eyesight and I'm taller than average, so even a few rows from the front I could read for myself, which was a lot faster.
The bulletins like to sensationalize everything and they had picked me to portray as the hero so I came off looking pretty good, though the amount of credit they gave me was embarrassing. It turned out that all ten of the missing women I hadn't been able to find for so long were among those being held captive by the Brides of Vulcan. Some of them had been taken away on the cultists ship, but the ship had been captured and brought back to Agrippina early in the morning. A lot of the women, some barely into puberty, were homeless, the sort of person that can go missing without anybody noticing. They had been held captive the longest because nobody noticed they were gone from the streets and their disappearances aroused no suspicion.
Inevitably someone recognized me and I had to suffer the adulation of the crowd. Standing under a cerulean sky with spring sunshine beaming down on me I couldn't help but feel like a hero, but Laura remained in my thoughts, Laura, the only casualty, randomly chosen to make a point for her captors. My first visit was to her mother, to refund the retainer she'd given me.
In the afternoon I had to present myself at a fancy ceremony where I was thanked personally by the Chief of Police and the mayor himself. I wasn't the only one getting accolades but all the attention directed at me made me self-conscious. Inspector Marco didn't seem to be enjoying himself either, but it was good for business so I tried to smile through it. It helped when I spotted my mother in the audience, glowing with pride.
# # #
Tying up all the loose ends filled all my time the next day and part of the morning after that.
When Zena came in from her law class she said, "That class can be pretty boring but it is useful."
"Oh really? What did you learn?"
She shook her head and I watched the way her hair bounced. "Nothing very useful in class yet, but being a law student got me access to some public records. I sweet-talked a cute little clerk and he told me even more."
"About what?"
"About this building."
"What's interesting about this building?" I yawned.
"If you care that much maybe I won't tell you."
I shrugged and examined my fingernails.
"Alright, I'll tell you."
"Oh, good." I quit pretending I wasn't interested and turned my attention to her.
"It's not much anyway, and I don't know if it even means anything. The cute little clerk told me that Silvina pa
id for this building with gold bullion, which doesn't happen very often anymore, and is frequently a sign of illegal activities. And nobody knows where she came from or how she got her money or anything about her."
"Your clerk boyfriend told you that too?"
She shot me a quick mock glare. "No, I've been talking to the neighbors."
"I already knew she was strange, and now you're telling me she's a criminal too."
"I'm just saying she might have been."
I thought back about what I knew of her and had to admit, "You could very well be right."
Zena looked around the office, then at me, and asked, "What now?"
I took a look around the office and that's when the realization hit me. "Hey, this is the first time in weeks that I haven't had a job. Sure there were times when I wasn't doing anything, but there was still unfinished business. Speaking of business, how did we do on the whole kidnapping thing?"
"If I add up all the money you took in and divide by the number of hours you spent on the case, I'd have to say your clients got the better end of the deal."
"I still have enough to take you out for lunch." I was almost at the door and Zena was almost ready to go when my mother arrived.
"You didn't show up for lunch yesterday so I thought I would catch you today." She stood by the door, waiting, as if I should have expected her and been ready sooner, perhaps waiting outside in eager anticipation of her arrival. The thought crossed my mind that three minutes ago would have been a good time for my departure.
"I'm sorry, I was too busy all day yesterday wrapping up the Brides Of Vulcan case, but you're just in time today, we were heading down to Pete's Place for some clam chowder. Why don't you join us?"
Her nose wrinkled at the thought of entering the dingy little shanty on the waterfront, but they serve the best seafood in town, and at a fraction of the price of the fancy place my mother favored. She sighed and agreed to accompany us. It took only a few minutes for the three of us to walk down to the waterfront and get settled.