Dawn's Early Light (17 page)

Adding to this comical farce of wonder were strains of “God Save the Queen” blaring out from a hidden steam organ. She heard some of the people around the prince joining in the chorus while others showed a bit of cheek and sang the alternative American lyrics, which did make Bertie's cheek ruddy with laughter. From where Sophia stood, shadows seemed to move of their own accord as chandeliers dipped, swayed, and twirled overhead to the laborious beat of the music. It was a ridiculous affectation.

“Not the best tune, is it?” came a familiar voice, heavily buttered with Scottish brogue, making Sophia turn with a start.

“Hamish!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet. “Of course I would find you here.”

The smell of machine oil and Macassar oil should have warned her. Lord Hamish McTighe travelled in a veritable cloud of it, merely feeding the image he perpetuated of the quintessential Scottish mad scientist. “Mad McTighe,” with his crop of wild, yet still receding at the brow, red hair, his clan tartan displayed both proudly as his jacket and his kilt, grinned broadly at Sophia before making a rather spectacular bow.

“Contessa,” he wheezed when he stood up. “Nah' this is a most wonderful surprise.”

Sophia smiled. “I am a firm believer in the joy of surprises.”

“Well,” McTighe said, blushing a red that rivalled his beard, “I can hardly wait to share this one. A very good friend of mine has just arrived for the convention, and I would love ta introduce you.”

Smoothly, Sophia cast her eyes over the fine French silk satin dress she wore, knowing full well the white stood out against her olive skin, and made it gleam in contrast. “I am sure any friend of yours, Hamish, will be delightful.”

She had not lied when she told McTighe she was a firm believer in the joy of surprises. Sophia had not counted on his presence here. The Scotsman was as erratic as he was brilliant. She had met him at an event that was a far more intimate affair than this event, taking place in a tiny Tuscan village. Under her Contessa guise, she had been there to win over the trust of an ambitious French biologist. Along the way, she also made an impression on this madman.

Now that would serve her well. She took his arm and allowed herself to be led into the Garden Court. Just as she had anticipated, McTighe led her straight over to the OSM agent and the Prince of Wales.

“Albert,” McTighe called across the ballroom, “I have someone ya must meet.”

Before he could mangle her alias with that vicious accent of his, Sophia introduced herself. “Contessa Fiammetta Fiore,” she announced, her full, crimson lips fixing into a smile as she held out her white-gloved hand. “And you are?”

“Albert Edward Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. People call me the Prince of Wales, but you can call me Bertie”—and Sophia feigned a mock gasp of surprise as he kissed her hand and added—“provided you call upon me.”

With the exception of Agent Harris, they all burst into laughter. Sophia placed a hand on her chest and caught her breath. “Oh, I feel so silly not showing honourable deference.”

“Worry not, madame,” Albert said, “in the eyes of St. Patrick, we are all humble engineers.”

McTighe gave a gruff laugh. “Bertie and I have enjoyed a few of these soirées together, I canna tell you!”

Between McTighe's dark chuckle and Bertie's blushing, the evening was promising to yield many stories, possibly around many drinks. That would have been the direction of things had redoubtable Miss Harris not stepped in. “Unfortunately, Your Highness, there is an urgent message from home waiting for your attention in your suite. From your
wife
.”

Really, the American knew just how to kill a mood, and Sophia was becoming more and more unhappy with her presence.

Bertie broke the sudden silence between them with a bit of nervous laughter. Through a tight smile, the prince asked, “Miss Harris, exactly what do you think you are doing?”

“My job, Your Highness,” she replied pointedly, her gaze fixing on Sophia.

The assassin did not return the glare, lest she engage in a staring competition with the American. After all, she wouldn't be much of a lady if she did. However, she did take note of the woman's opening tactic. Sophia wanted to know this adversary's tell, and she was getting her wish.

McTighe cleared his throat before making a rather spectacular bow to the agent, and then followed it up with a, “If you don' min' me sayin', you are a bonnie lass to be guarding this old fool.”

“Now, now, McTighe, don't attempt to turn the lady's head,” the prince said cheerily, looking between the women. “She'll get quite the wrong idea about you.”

“Gotcha eye on her yourself?” McTighe whispered none too quietly to him. “Can't say I blame you there . . .”

Albert winced, as if he would rather not be having this conversation. With a gentle shake of his head, he implored, “My dear friend, when are you going to learn at least some of the social delicacies? Not all of them, mind you, but just a spattering?”

McTighe shrugged and grinned. “I got thro' fifty-eight years without 'em. Why bother now?”

Sophia chuckled at his rather poor joke as if it were the most amusing thing she'd heard in months.

Once again, Agent Harris interjected, “Watching His Royal Highness is my duty, Lord McTighe, and I made a promise to fulfill my duty to the letter.” Her eyes returned to Sophia. “No exceptions.”

“Your guard is most”—Sophia paused to lick her lips—“enthusiastic.”

The prince shrugged. “I fear you are right, and that the only way to calm her is to do as I am told.” He smiled wickedly, seemingly ignoring his own advice. “As if I am a very naughty schoolboy.”

Sophia knew she was walking a fine line between McTighe and the prince, but she dared an askance look. “Perhaps that is what she likes.”

Both men nearly choked on her wickedness.

Harris went to retort, but this time Sophia spoke first. “The pleasure has been all mine.” She paused, then smiled wide, making the prince gasp as she said, “Bertie.” She tapped her hand just briefly on the prince's arm, earning a flinch out of Harris. “We shall leave you to your amazon. Another time, I hope, we may enjoy one another's company under less chaperoned conditions?”

McTighe, taking his cue, led her deeper into the Garden Court, with the prince falling behind her.

Sophia's smile was content as they went. She knew one thing about such men as the Prince of Wales: they always wanted what they couldn't have. Such dangerous passions could also be used to lead them as if there was a ring in their nose.

She felt within the next few days she would have exactly what the Maestro wanted. That would make putting up with Lord Hamish McTighe almost bearable.

E
liza tried the door, and found it surprisingly unlocked. Perhaps someone up above—be it Heaven itself or just the chap manning the top of Currituck—was trying to make up for her rather marginal evening. She took a deep breath, and pushed it open slowly. Beyond was the interior of the lighthouse, lit by a series of incandescent lightbulbs. Once through a stone archway, they all stopped just before a circular alcove, a spiral staircase winding its way up to the summit of Currituck Light, its flash only visible through the cracks of the access hatch.

“This ain't good,” Bill muttered softly behind her. His grasp of the blindingly obvious was still intact, and just as annoying as it had been on the
Sea Skipper
.

“Oh, come along, Bill, where's your sense of adventure?” Eliza asked brightly. “Entering a potentially hostile environment with no intelligence whatsoever pertaining to who could be here? What could be better than this?”

“Yeah,” Bill breathed nearly in her ear while matching her step for step, “what could possibly go wrong?”

“We know at least one person is up there,” Wellington whispered. “Edison's assistant was receiving data from Currituck. Best-case scenario: there's a difference engine up there, sending out a simple, rudimentary signal the assistant was reading.”

Felicity asked, “Worst case?”

Wellington looked at Eliza. “Don't worry,” she replied. “I have plenty of bullets to go round.”

“The longer we stand here,” Bill grumbled, “the worse it gets.”

He had a point. Many times while on assignment Eliza had been in similar situations, and she had discovered there was a certain point where waiting began to eat at confidence: ears began to hear things that weren't really there, and nerves began to fray. She took the lead, but paused after taking only four steps. It was bloody nigh impossible for anyone to climb these stairs silently. The sounds of their footsteps on the iron staircase reverberated throughout the brick spire. If there was someone up there, they were practically announcing their ascent through.

On reaching the first landing, “This lighthouse,” Felicity whispered, “is quite tall, isn't it?”

“Just keep climbing,” Eliza returned, continuing up the next flight.

At the top of the stairs, all four of them trying desperately to catch their breaths quietly, they reached the Watch Room. It was crowded with all the trappings of lighthouse keeping, but also, and far more importantly, the bottom half of the clockwork that kept the light turning. It was still working, and the whirring of its cogs and gears was somewhat soothing.

Eliza turned to Wellington and Felicity. “You two, stay back. We don't know how many are out there.” She then looked to Bill. “What do you think? In, or out?”

Bill's eyes considered the door leading to the Watch Room, and then looked over the heavy hatch that led to the Gallery.

“Out.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Eliza muttered, holstering her pistols. Gripping the handle, she disengaged its lock and pulled. Obviously the light keeper had not been so careful in his maintenance of Currituck's details as the door's hinges let out a scream like a terrified cow, a scream that echoed throughout the tower.

Yes indeed, stealth was no longer an option. “Taking the left,” Eliza said, bringing out her pistols.

“Goin' right,” he replied from behind her.

Eliza crept around the barrel of the lighthouse in a low crouch. She had only travelled a few feet before she saw the figure ahead of her, dressed in black. The man was not looking in her direction. Instead, he was leaning over the railing, looking down.
That would not do,
Eliza thought. They had many questions to pose.

Still, she and Bill were moving in on him like pincers of a crab. Now there was no other escape, but that was the worry.

Just as she was deciding how best to work this, she heard her OSM counterpart speak from the other side of the stranger. “Easy, partner. It don't have to end this way.”

Darkness swallowed the man whole, but there was just enough light for Eliza to see the movement of shadows in front of her. When the intermittent light returned and pierced the darkness, Eliza felt her chest seize up when she saw the man's leg clear the Gallery. He was leaning out over the abyss; only his arms wound into the iron railing kept him from slipping off into the night.

“You won't stop the House,” the man warned, and his voice cracked on that assertion.

“Look,” Bill spoke gently, “I'm unarmed, see? How 'bout we jus' talk, okay?”

“Do you really think talking will make things better?” he replied, his eyes flicking up to the stars as if they had some answers to offer.

Eliza took a few hesitant steps forwards. Between the fall underneath him and Bill on the other side of the deck, she remained unseen to the Usher agent. She had seen plenty of people driven to the edge of terror before. So long as Bill kept calm and kept him talking, it meant time. Time for people to consider their actions.

“It could,” Bill insisted. “Come on—is the House of Usher worth throwing away your life like this?”

“You think I'm going to let go?” The man started laughing in a deeply unsettling fashion. “That
would
be insane. No, this is my insurance. If you do not do as I say, I let go. Then, we all die.”

“We all die?” Bill asked.

The light came up again, and Eliza got a better look at the young, bearded man. What she had first thought was terror causing the henchman's voice to waver now appeared to be conviction. Conviction of a fanatic.

If needed, Eliza knew she could catch the henchman's forearm or bicep before he took that lethal fall. He had interlocked his arms with the railing, and clearly showed no intention of letting go.

Her eyes narrowed on one of the Usher man's wrists—there was something odd about it.

“I know you don't want to die,” the American agent said, “and while this may sound odd coming from this side of the railing, I can assure you that I do not want you to die either.” Eliza heard the soft sound of a boot heel against the iron platform, marking Bill's cautious approach. A gust of wind ripped through Eliza's leather duster as if it were not there. She could also hear the flapping of the Usher henchman's long coat and even Bill's duster.

When the gust subsided, the Usher man continued, “You leave. Your compatriots leave. We all live. One more step, and I take us all.”

“Not sure if I can do that, partner,” Bill replied in a conversational tone.

Currituck's light grew brighter again, and a thin steel band wrapped around the henchman's right wrist gleamed for only a moment. Eliza also caught a glimpse of wires running underneath the man's shirt cuff. Eliza leapt, grabbing the man's forearm in a vice-like grip. Bill was not far behind her.

“I had this under control,” Bill grunted, struggling with the Usher thug who was now attempting to wriggle free of his coat.

Eliza thought a little pepper was needed on Bill's attempts to keep the man still. “He's wearing a dead man's switch. He's either dropping, or trying to disconnect the leads.”

The American agent immediately changed his grasp on the Usher man. Eliza tightened her own grip, but with the thug's feet dangling in open space, gravity refused to be ignored. She felt the railing of the lighthouse Gallery press harder into her chest as the man kicked and squirmed.

“Goddamn it, Bill, pull him up or we die!” she shouted.

Apparently that was the just the inspiration he needed. Both agents heaved, and the man bounced hard into the railing. Eliza thrust her head forwards to plant a Glasgow kiss between the Usher agent's eyes. She got a bit of a nasty shock in return, but the blow was hard enough to stun the man. Feeling him slacken, Bill and Eliza readjusted their grip and pulled him over the railing.

“Nice move,” Bill grunted. “You're quite the lady!”

“Shut up and get him on the landing,” she growled through clenched teeth.

The Usher agent suddenly became lighter, easier to manage, and Eliza felt another pressing against her. With the help of a newcomer, the limp body cleared the railing and fell against the iron landing. The henchman lay groaning against the light tower, bleeding from where Eliza's forehead had connected with his nose. She turned to see Wellington standing over the thug, his hands on his hips, examining their prisoner as if he were a prize fish he'd just helped land.

“Any idea as to who this rather enigmatic gent is?” her partner asked.

“He,” Eliza said, ripping the man's shirt open, “is one highly dedicated git.”

The small box strapped against the centre of his torso continued to tick merrily into the darkness and Wellington gaped at it with a pale face and wide eyes. Eliza bent down and pulled the thug's right sleeve back to reveal the steel band and set of wires she had seen in a flash. It was the House of Usher's sophistication that always unnerved and alarmed her. Their shadowy rival appeared to have unlimited resources, and technology paralleling the Ministry's own. She knew these kill switches intimately. She and Harry had worn them when running highly sensitive documents from city to city, country to country. This was uncommon technology, or so Blackwell and Axelrod had told her.

“Wellington!” an all too familiar voice called from inside the lighthouse.

Eliza pursed her lips. She'd been rather enjoying some quality time with her partner, and didn't appreciate Felicity's interruption.

“Once we heard the struggle, Agent Lovelace and I dared access to the Watch Room,” Wellington said, adjusting his besmirched cravat. “You should come have a look at the inner workings of this light.”

Eliza turned to Bill, who waved his hand dismissively. “Don't you worry your pretty little head. I'll keep an eye on our friend here, make sure he don't go nowhere.”

Another wave of light swept across their balcony scene and that was when her eye caught something tucked into one of the kill switch's chest straps. With a frown, she peeled back the strap and found what appeared to be a key.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” she said. The key had no markings, and didn't look a regular size. So rather than show it to her partner, she tucked it into her waistband. “Come along, Wellington. Let's go look at the pretty clockwork of Currituck.”

Eliza followed Wellington inside the cramped cylindrical chamber housing the magnificent clockwork running the Fresnel lens.
Feels as though we are trapped inside a glass grandfather clock,
Eliza mused. She pulled apart the top two buttons of her shirt, since the temperature here was actually warm, almost stifling. She didn't need to look to know that Wellington was more fascinated by the clockwork than her own external workings. That irritated her more than she could express at present.

“Over here,” Felicity said, her eyes not leaving the light's clockwork arrangement. At least, for once, she was not ogling Wellington.

They walked around Currituck's huge movement together, coming to an abrupt halt on seeing what prompted Felicity's earlier cry. Six sticks of dynamite were strapped in among the clockwork, the multitude of fuses leading back to a small metallic box that ticked and blinked in time with a rhythm similar to a heartbeat.

“Now there's a design I can respect,” Eliza said with a smile, though her heart began to race just a little.

“Miss Braun,” Wellington hissed, “have a care.”

“Oh, give over, Welly. You have your Archives where you rule, but this? This is
my
element.” She bent over to examine what they were up against. The kill switch relay she identified earlier, if she were lucky, would be the most complex component of this bomb. “What I need is—” Eliza looked over to Felicity and said, “Do you happen to have one of those fancy half dollars on you?”

Felicity patted about all over her tight jeans, before finding and handing over a single coin. It was amazing she could fit anything in the pockets at all.

The coin easily served as a makeshift screwdriver, and within moments Eliza had removed the cover of the relay, revealing an even more wild array of lights, gears, and wires. She carefully ran her fingers along the wires leading from stick to relay. The tiniest pinprick of sweat began to build on her neck as she gently gnawed on her bottom lip, each
tick-tick-tick
testing her patience. Then finally Eliza muttered, “There you are.”

“There what is, Eliza?” Wellington asked, leaning forwards—curiosity getting the better of him despite the situation, despite his constant fussing.

She smiled slightly. For the first time on this mission, she held Welly's undivided attention.

“That,” she said, pointing to a small brass box lodged behind two slow moving cogs, “is the cypher to the puzzle.”