Conflagration (43 page)

Sera joined in again. “But then Jack Kennedy was shot.”

Cordelia halted the conversation. “Wait a minute. You’re not going to tell me that shooting Jack was another part of getting Norse attention?”

Lime looked away. “There’s always that possibility.”

Sera was more direct. “If you’re asking if we had anything to do with it, the answer is no.”

“So who did?”

Lime met Cordelia’s stare with a firm and level gaze. “We don’t know.” She still seemed uncomfortable, however. “There’s some even blaming it on Albany.”

Cordelia turned and addressed herself to Sera. Her voice was brittle. “You should know that assassinating their own leaders is a game for nations who are not at war. In wartime it’s too much of a luxury.”

At that moment, Bonaparte returned with a battered and blackened coffeepot, some tin mugs, and an unlabeled bottle of booze. “There’s another wireless message from the Tower Room.”

“Has it been decoded?”

Bonaparte nodded. “It has.”

“You want to read it?”

The man frowned at Sera, and gestured to Cordelia. “In front of her?”

“She’s being put in the picture.”

“Does daddy know that?”

“Just fucking read the message, Bonaparte.”

“Whatever you say, Mme. Sera. It reads ‘The jade figurine is secured.’”

Sera groaned. “I thought you said it had been decoded.”

Bonaparte poured coffee and handed a warm tin mug to Cordelia. “Down to the cryptogram.”

“But I don’t remember all the cryptograms.”

Bonaparte handed a mug to Harriet Lime. “It means that everything is fixed and that Windermere is bringing the other three tonight.”

Windermere? The revelations were coming so thick and fast that she almost spilled hot coffee on herself. “Gideon is involved in all this?”

Lime smiled. “He’s in all this up to his superior neck. As is Anastasia de Wynter, and the whole ES Section.”

Cordelia looked to Sera for confirmation. “The others are coming tonight?”

“That’s apparently the message.”

Harriet Lime’s laugh was not altogether pleasant. “Ironic isn’t it, Cordelia? The last time you saw Gideon Windermere, you were running after him, and away from me, and now he’s coming to both of us.”

ARGO

For some miles the road had been following the river through low, level countryside, with the sea on the horizon, duplicating its meandering curves, except where they were cut short by low bridges. The air smelled of brine, and the seabirds waded in the mudflats that flanked the river. The Shoreham by Sea Air Station had been visible for some time before they reached it. Argo had stared out of the window of the official ES Section automobile for some time, watching the aircraft landing and taking off, and observing the flapping windsock, and how the giant hangars that housed the dirigibles dwarfed even the control tower, and all of the other buildings. Every so often, he would glance back to see if the other car from ES Section was following them. Argo was in the lead car with Windermere, Bowden Spinrad, and an ES driver, while Jesamine and Raphael, along with Madame de Wynter and Garth, followed in the second. They drove along the perimeter of the airfield for a full five minutes before they came to the main entrance to the base. A sign over the gate proudly announced
NORSE AIR FORCE
—
SHOREHAM BY SEA AIR STATION
—
“SHIELD OF THE BLUE YONDER”
—
ALL VEHICLES MUST HALT FOR INSPECTION
. Lower down, beside the gate, a much smaller sign read
AIR NORSE
—
COMMERCIAL AVIATION
. Argo knew that Air Norse was their destination, and what they intended to do there was very close to the edge of both Norse and international illegality.

As Windermere had explained, back in the sitting room at Deerpark, as they had formulated their plans. “We’ll be fine as long as we don’t run into anyone who outranks me. What we’re doing is totally without the sanction of higher authority, but no colonel or under is going to check on that. No one is going to call Sir Harry to see if he has given permission for a secret flight into enemy territory, if for no other reason than it would compromise all plausible deniability.”

Despite all the reassurances, however, Argo could feel the tension building inside him as their two cars slowed to a stop at the checkpoint beside the guardhouse, and a NAF sergeant, wearing the brassard of the Regimental Police, approached the car, while two airmen with Bergmans over their shoulders stood off at distance, but watched with care. Windermere glanced at Argo and spoke in a fast low tone. “Let me do all the talking. Just sit there and look snotty in your Albany battledress with all the brass buttons.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The sergeant looked in the driver’s window, and saw Windermere. He came to attention and saluted. “I’ll have to see your papers, sir. Standing orders in the current emergency.”

Windermere nodded. He had put on a fairly well-groomed uniform, and generally done his best to look like a colonel. “No problem, Sergeant. I think you’ll find they are in order.”

He handed a pouch of papers to the driver who, in turn, passed them to the sergeant, who leafed through them. “The Air Norse hangar, sir?”

“That’s right.”

“Been a lot of comings and goings there in the last few days, sir.”

Windermere was gently chiding. “Loose lips, Sergeant.”

The sergeant stiffened. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

He handed the papers back the driver, who returned them to Windermere. Then the sergeant saved a little face by making an elaborate show of having the airmen lift the barrier, and waving the two automobiles through. The driver then put his foot down, and they raced across the short manicured grass of the air station towards one of the big hangars that housed the dirigibles. It was the farthest from the gate, painted drab gray and with the legend
AIR NORSE
painted on the side and on the sloping roof. They passed close to a workhorse Odin biplane taxiing to a parking area, and sped by a Marlborough three-engined transport and one of the new Mjölnir Bombers, both being refueled by a NAF ground crew, who looked up from what they were doing as the two cars sped past. The activity reminded Argo that Shoreham by Sea would be in the very front line if the Norse and the Mosul ever fully went to war, and that the base had been on full alert ever since the Kennedy assassination. The hangar for which they were heading maintained the pretense of being that of a commercial air transport operation that leased space on the otherwise exclusively military base, but this fiction was compromised by the fully manned gun pit, and the brand new, rotating .50 caliber Locksley gun, so state of the art that it had not even been supplied to the Army of Albany lest a copy fall into Mosul hands. The guncrew were taking no chances. They brought the Locksley to bear so the multiple muzzles were pointing at the first car, and kept it trained on the new arrivals until they rolled to a stop, and the passengers began to alight. The airmen behind the gun plainly recognized both Windermere and de Wynter, and snapped off smart salutes. Out from the confines of the car, Argo found a stiff sea breeze was blowing. De Wynter was carrying a parasol and had difficulty hanging on to it. He frowned and turned to Windermere. “Will we be able to fly in this wind?”

“The met office says it will ease off after sunset.”

“I sure hope so. A weather delay is the last thing we need.”

An armed airman guarded the small door in the much vaster one that could let in or out the dirigible itself. Windermere let de Wynter and Jesamine through first and then ushered Argo inside.

“Now for the final surprises.”

The matte black bulk of the Black Airship was more a looming and overwhelming shock than a mere surprise. It rested inside the enormous hangar, barely touching the ground, like a leviathan in its lair, but dull and featureless, almost a vast teardrop hole in space. It was by no means Argo’s first close-up encounter with a dirigible, but to be so near to one in such a confined area could not help but fill him with a sense of awe and a feeling of being diminutive in comparison.

“Damn.”

He was standing on his own staring up at it. At a distance, Raphael and Jesamine were with de Wynter, doing the same. Windermere turned and grinned. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

“That’s the truth.”

Windermere tried for a sense of perspective. “It’s really not that big compared to the big civilian passenger liners that fly out of Croydon.”

The Black Airship was all the perspective Argo needed. “It’s big enough for me.”

He could scarcely believe that, in a few hours, he would be riding in the belly of the floating monster, if the long gondola slung beneath could be considered a belly. He had accepted the Black Airship in theory when Windermere arranged its use to transport them to Paris, and avoid a lengthy and decided perilous trek through enemy territory. It had not seemed overly fanciful that Norse Military Intelligence should maintain an advanced dirigible with all the state of the art options to use on covert missions. He could accept, since the ruins of Paris were a hotbed of anti-Mosul resistance, that such a craft would make regular trips to city, and that the minimal three-man crew, a pilot who doubled as navigator, a flight engineer, and a gunner who also supervised the drops and pickups, were able to treat such a mission as routine. Even the fact that he himself was about to go on such a mission did not give him that much pause, after all the things he had done and seen in the preceding year. It was only there, inside the hangar, that the sheer momentous impossibility dropped its full weight on him. For a moment Argo’s will buckled, and his legs felt weak under him, but then he adjusted. Life had been impossible for as long as he could remember, and he steeled himself with the reminder that there was actually no alternative. Windermere must have sensed what was happening to Argo, because he gently took him by the arm. “Stop being overwhelmed, and come and meet your support troops.”

Argo had been so absorbed by his first sight of the Black Airship, that he had not paid too much attention to the half dozen men who sat in its shadow, hunkered down on supply crates in a way that indicated they were used to waiting. His eyes were now adjusting to the gloom of the hangar, and, for the first time, he was able to make out the forest green tunics with the characteristic two rows of buttons, the shoulder insignia of the half moon emblem, and the motto
W
E
O
WN
THE
N
IGHT
. “Rangers? I don’t believe it.”

Windermere smiled. “I said the surprises would be plural.”

One of the Rangers rose to his feet. Argo immediately recognized the broad shoulders, bullet head, and bright blue eyes. “Steuben! When the fuck did you make sergeant?”

“I was wondering when you were going to see us.”

A second Ranger was on his feet. Madden hadn’t changed. He was still skinny and withdrawn, with blond hair and beard, and he still favored the black bandana wrapped around his head. “First Steuben makes sergeant and now Argo Weaver shows up a fucking major. That’s the end of two beautiful friendships.”

“How the hell did you get here? I don’t understand.”

The very last people in the world that Argo had expected to see were the Rangers who had been his protectors and mentors when he had first run away. He had been led to them by poor Bonnie Appleford. He looked at the men who were still seated. Penhaligon and Cartwright were there, the two farm boys, case-hardened by their trade, but the other two faces were new to Argo, and some that he might have expected to see were missing. Argo immediately became more cautious. “Jeb Hooker?”

A shadow passed over the Rangers’ faces. “We lost the captain at Newbury Vale, on the bloody Western Ridge. A Teuton grenade did for him. Barnabas, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s the way of soldiering. They weren’t the only ones by a long shot.”

“I still can’t figure how you got here.”

“Came over on the
Constellation
with Yancey Slide, didn’t we?”

Madden’s face suddenly became grim. “Our original mission was protecting the Prime Minister.”

Steuben glared sourly at Windermere. “But they told us we’d be a violation of local law, and they had us in barracks with our guns racked, while their Viking ballerinas and ignorant fucking coppers were looking out for our man, and you’ve see where that fucking got him.”

Resentment of the Norse seemed to be high among his former comrades-in-arms. Argo nodded. “I had some of that myself.”

Windermere, on the other hand, was unwilling to be saddled with the responsibility for the assassination. “I thought we’d resolved all that, Sergeant?”

Steuben stiffened, not quite coming to attention. “Oh, we’re professionals, Colonel. We’ll do the job, we’ll get you into Paris, and out again. No question there. We’ve got our orders, and that’s all we need. It’s just that the memory of Jack Kennedy doesn’t rest so easy quite yet.”

Argo intervened. “So what are your orders?”

“With the King now going straight to Stockholm and no public appearances…”

He quickly interrupted Steuben. “The King is coming? That’s official?”

Steuben nodded. “Yes, Major. But not to London. Which leaves us more than ready to escort you all to Paris and pull Lady Blakeney out of the shit once again.”

“So you’re coming with us?”

“That would seem to be the plan, only…” Steuben hesitated.

“Only what?”

“Only we have a few stipulations, which we don’t feel are unreasonable.”

“Such as?”

Steuben looked round at the entire group that had arrived with Windermere. “We takes our orders from our own officer. I hope no one has a problem with that. And begging everyone else’s pardon, you especially, Major Vega, but it would be best if Major Weaver was that officer. He’s marched with us, and fought with us, and we pretty much have the measure of him. We know you have the rank, Colonel, but being under your command would be a bit too much like joining the Norse, and we’re Albany, if you know what we mean.”