On Her Majesty's Behalf (22 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-one

Kensington Gardens

London

A
T FIRST,
B
URKE
couldn't see anything—­he just heard the drone of the engine—­and then gradually he could make out a dark speck moving high against the clouds above. The pilot made a single pass overhead, coming in over the palace to the west and disappearing into the cloud cover to the east. He was too high for Burke to pick out any details, and there was no indication from the pilot that he'd seen them down below.

“Was that him?” Sergeant Drummond asked, but all Burke could do was shake his head.

He turned in place, trying to track the aircraft by sound alone, but didn't have much luck. The combination of the rising sun and intermittent clouds mixing with smoke from fires burning elsewhere in the city made it almost impossible for him to keep his eye on anything above the horizon.

A few minutes passed, and then gradually the sound of the plane grew louder, closer, and then suddenly it was right there, diving out of the rising sun to roar overhead, so close that Burke had to resist the urge to dive to the ground to get out of the way. Only the presence beside him of the Queen, who had shown no inclination to do anything of the sort, kept him on his feet.

As Drummond and several of the others were picking themselves off the ground, Burke and Veronica turned to watch the aircraft make its touchdown on the sward behind them.

The pilot ran out the landing as far as he could to bleed off his remaining speed and then slowly wheeled the aircraft about and taxied back to the end of the mall where Burke and his squad waited. When the aircraft came to a halt about fifty feet away, Burke went out alone to meet it.

As he reached the plane, the pilot shut down the engine and then hefted himself out of the cockpit to drop over the side of the fuselage to greet him. The flier was dressed in drab-­colored overalls, boots, and a thick leather jacket to ward off the chill of the higher altitudes, pretty much the uniform of the day for pilots all across the front, but something about the way the man moved seemed familiar to Burke. When the pilot pulled the leather flying cap and flight goggles off his face, Burke understood why.

“As I live and breathe, if it isn't Madman Burke himself,” his half brother, Major Jack Freeman, drawled in an exaggerated greeting.

For a moment, all Burke could do was stand there and stare.

“What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?” Freeman teased.

The sudden pulse of irritated anger that swept through Burke restored his capacity for speech. Stifling his urge to curse, he asked, “What the hell are
you
doing here!”

Freeman stiffened with anger of his own. “What do you think I'm doing here, you idiot? The brass wanted the best pilot we have to fly the fairy princess out of monster country and like it or not, that's me!”

Burke stared at his half brother, knowing he was right but unable to stop the memories of the last time he'd entrusted someone he cared about into this man's hands. Mae's death had been ruled an accident—­Burke knew that and even accepted it now—­but there was no denying the fact that her death had driven a wedge between the two men that had only recently started to heal. Now here he was, being asked to entrust the only woman he'd cared about after Mae to the very man who'd gotten his former fiancée killed. It was as if the universe was out to get him!

But what really made the situation worse was the fact that Freeman was right; he
was
the best pilot on the Allied side of the lines. Short of Richthofen, he might even be the best pilot in the entire war.

Burke really had no choice. He had to trust his brother, if for no other reason than there weren't any other options.

Now he did curse, once, beneath his breath, before getting himself under control and addressing his brother once more. “She's the Queen now, not the princess. Act like an officer and show some respect. And you'd best get her back to headquarters safe and sound or so help me God . . .”

Freeman's eyes narrowed, and he studied Burke carefully for a moment. “Well, I'll be a sonofabitch!” he said at last, with something almost like awe in his voice. “You're smitten, aren't you? You're smitten with the bloody Queen of England!”

Burke couldn't help but glance back to where Veronica was patiently waiting, surrounded by the rest of his men. He knew she couldn't hear them, but for some reason he still felt guilty . . .

He turned back to his brother. “We're wasting time. The two of you need to get out of here before that German patrol we ran into shows up. You just remember what I said!”

“Wouldn't dream of forgetting,” Freeman quipped, then got serious. “HQ says they're rerouting an airship for you and your team. They should be here in about two hours, so you're going to have to lie low until then.”

Burked nodded. “Understood.” He didn't like the idea of having to hang around at all, but he figured they could stay ahead of Charlie's squad for a ­couple of hours.

“Oh, and they gave me this to pass along,” Freeman said as he unstrapped a wooden ammunition box from where it had been stored beneath his seat and handed it over to Burke.

The sight of the box put a smile on Burke's face, a smile that grew wider when he opened it up to discover that it was full of ammunition for both the men's Lee Enfield rifles and his Colt pistol.

“Oh yes, this will definitely come in handy,” Burke said.

He turned and waved Veronica and the rest of the men over to them. When they caught up, he handled the introductions.

“Your Majesty, this is Major Jack Freeman,” Burke said. “He's going to see you to Allied headquarters safe and sound. Major Freeman, may I present Her Majesty, Queen Veronica.”

Freeman snapped off a near-­perfect salute and then smiled warmly at the Queen. “It's a lovely day for a jaunt across the Channel, Your Majesty. Trust me, we'll be in France in no time.”

“I certainly hope so, Major,” she replied, smiling in return. “Let me just say that your exploits precede you and that I'd recognize the name of the Allies' top ace with or without your trademark Jack of Spades painted on the fuselage. I have no doubt I'm in good hands.”

“You flatter me, Your Majesty,” Freeman replied, casting a mischievous grin over his shoulder at Burke, who had to stifle the sudden urge to punch his brother in the nose.

“Let me help you up into the cockpit,” Jack began, but Burke cut him off by stepping in front of him.

“Get the plane ready to go,” he said. “I'll help the Queen.”

To his surprise, Jack didn't even bother to argue; he just climbed up into the cockpit, leaving Burke to help Veronica into the rear seat all on his own. Not that it bothered him at all; he would have happily helped her in and out of the aircraft a half-­dozen times if that was what she wanted. Burke knew himself well enough to know that Jack had been right—­he was smitten with her, far more than he should be in fact, but that was how things were and there wasn't much he could do about it now. He made a cradle with his hands and, when she put one booted foot into it, he hefted her up and over the wooden side of the fuselage, then watched as she used the canvas straps to belt herself in.

“All right?” he said.

Veronica nodded, her face tight.

“What's wrong?” Burke asked, upon seeing her expression.

The Queen shook her head. “Nothing. Just never flown before.” Her hands came up, one on either side of the fuselage, gripping the leather that rimmed the seating compartment.

Burke smiled, recalling his own reaction to flying. “You'll be fine,” he told her. He put his hand over hers and squeezed it once, quickly, then let go.

He took a few steps forward and glanced up at Freeman, who was just settling his goggles back into place. “You're carrying the Queen of England, so no screwing about. Get her to headquarters as quickly as possible.”

Freeman grinned down at him. “Yes, sir, Major, sir!” he said, his voice full of mock sincerity. He fired off a salute in Burke's direction, despite the fact that the two of them were the same rank.

Refusing to let Freeman get a rise out of him, Burke ignored the salute. “I'm serious, Jack.”

To his surprise, Freeman dropped his usual antics and turned uncharacteristically serious. “I hear you. I'll get her back safe and sound, Burke, you have my word on it.”

For once Burke believed him.

“One more thing,” Jack said, beckoning his half brother in close. “I saw some strange-­looking tunneling equipment in a park just north of the Thames and suspect you aren't the only ones looking for the Queen. Watch your back, all right?”

Burke flashed back on the German tunneling devices that had breached the trenches in the days before his mission behind enemy lines. He wanted to describe them to Freeman, see if they were the same type of vehicles he'd seen as he'd flown over the park, but he knew they didn't have time. So he thanked him instead and then moved around to the front of the aircraft, ready to help get the engine restarted.

At a signal from Freeman, Burke grabbed the edge of the prop and pulled it around in a full revolution, a technique known as hand-­propping. He did this seven times, priming the engine, and then waited for Freeman to make some adjustments to the controls. When he was ready, Freeman gave him another thumbs-­up and Burke repeated the process one more time, stepping quickly out of the way as soon as he released the propeller. The blades spun around once, twice, and then the engine started with a roar.

Burke waved to Veronica one final time and then backed away to give Freeman room to maneuver.

They'll be fine once they're off the ground,
he told himself, doing what he could to quell the nervous tension spreading through his stomach. He watched as Freeman taxied the aircraft to the other end of the mall so they could take off into the wind and fought the growing uneasiness he was feeling.

Freeman was a hell of a pilot and the war zone was no place for a Queen,
he reminded himself.

That's when the first of the shredders burst from the trees near the other end of the mall and raced directly at the aircraft.

Burke was still in the process of bringing his gun up when the crack of a rifle shot echoed from behind him and the shredder he was staring at collapsed to the ground. He spun, saw Jones with his rifle to his shoulder, and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was short-­lived however, as several more shredders emerged from the trees in the wake of the first. Like the one before them, the new arrivals caught sight of the aircraft and rushed toward it.

By this point, Freeman had turned the plane around and was starting his run back down the length of the mall toward Burke and his squad. The plane was moving, but not very quickly yet, and it was clear to Burke that the shredders would reach it before it gained enough momentum to carry the Queen to safety.

He couldn't allow that to happen. He waved for his men to follow him and rushed forward to engage the shredders at close range.

 

Chapter Thirty-two

V
ERONICA SAT STIFFLY
in the rear cockpit as Major Freeman took the plane to the end of the mall and then swung around in a tight circle so that they were facing back the way they had come. She could see Major Burke and his men still standing together near the remains of
Physical Energy
and, behind them, the gleaming surface of the Long Water in the early morning light.

Freeman glanced over his shoulder and shouted something at her, but she couldn't hear him over the sound of the engine. She smiled and gave him a thumbs-­up anyway; it seemed the thing to do.

Apparently that was good enough for him, for he gave her the signal in return and turned back to his controls. A moment later the sound of the engine increased and the plane began its run toward the end of the mall and the skies beyond.

Veronica considered herself a brave woman, but the sudden realization that she was going to be thousands of feet up in the air in nothing but a flimsy wood and canvas aircraft caused her to grip the sides of the cockpit in fear.

Saints preserve us,
she thought and glanced over at Burke, hoping to see him give another of his reassuring waves.

The look on his face was anything but reassuring, however, as he stared past her for a moment before he suddenly snatched at the pistol on his belt. Behind him, Veronica saw the sharpshooter named Jones bring his rifle up to his shoulder and fire a shot in her direction. Veronica flinched, thinking at first that he was shooting at the plane, and only realized he was aiming at something behind them when he let off a second round.

With her heart hammering in her chest, the Queen twisted around to see what he was shooting at, only to discover shredders charging out of the woods to the right of the mall and racing directly toward the plane.

The lead shredder took a bullet in the forehead from Jones's rifle and was flung to the ground, only to be crushed beneath the feet of its companions as they surged forward. The pop of a pistol, most likely Burke's, joined the crack of Jones's rifle as he continued firing, but for every shredder they cut down, another took its place. If they didn't get out of here soon, they were going to be in deep trouble.

Veronica leaned forward and urgently tapped Freeman on the shoulder. When he glanced back, she shouted “shredders!” and pointed behind them. She doubted that he heard her, but her gesture did the trick as he followed the line of her pointing finger, his eyes widening at the sight of what was headed toward them. He spun back to his controls and a moment later the engine roared even louder than before, the plane picking up speed as he tried to outdistance their pursuers.

An anxious glance back let her know that it wasn't going to be enough; the shredders were going to reach the plane before they got off the ground.

Freeman must have realized the same thing, for he suddenly angled the plane to the right, desperately trying to widen the gap between them and their pursuers. Unfortunately, doing so brought him across the path of Burke and his men, who were charging forward to engage the shredders. As the U.S. commandos scrambled to get out of the way of the oncoming aircraft, Veronica knew they were out of options. If she didn't do something, the shredders would have them!

Without thought to her own safety, she slipped free of her shoulder straps and spun around in her seat, yanking her Webley out of the belt around her waist as she did so.

The nearest shredder was less than two feet from the tail of the plane when she swung her arms up, the pistol gripped securely between both hands. Centering the barrel on the rotting bridge of the creature's nose, she pulled the trigger. At that distance, it would have been hard to miss. Blood, brains, and flesh exploded in every direction as the Webley's bullet tore the shredder's head apart.

She barely had time to smile in satisfaction, however, before another shredder loomed up beside her. She spun, a movement made difficult in the tight confines of the cockpit, and was still trying to bring her weapon to bear when the creature's legs were cut out from under it by a burst of gunfire from one of Burke's men.

A glance showed more of the shredders closing in, but Veronica had bought Freeman the time needed. The plane hit a rut in the grass and bounced, throwing her against the side of the cockpit and bruising her ribs in the process, but the impact she expected as the wheels hit the ground again never came. The plane lifted off the ground instead, transforming in an instant from a bouncing, shuddering contraption of wood and canvas into a graceful flying machine that rose into the sky with silken smoothness.

For a moment she was overwhelmed with wonder as she glanced about and saw the city of London slowly coming into view below her and then the realization that she was a hundred feet off the ground and getting higher by the second suddenly registered. Her heart jumped into her throat and she literally threw herself back into her seat, frantically tugging the straps over her shoulders and securing them as tightly as she could to the underside of the seat, terrified that a sudden turn on Freeman's part would throw her right out of the aircraft.

Closing her eyes, Veronica prayed that the flight would be over soon.

V
IZEFELDW
EBEL
J
AEGER AND
his men had been standing inside the bank the Americans had used as shelter the night before when the American aircraft passed overhead the first time. Their attention had been focused on determining which direction the American commando squad had taken earlier that morning and as a result they were caught unprepared by the plane's sudden arrival, managing only to dash outside and get off a few meager shots in the plane's general direction before it flew out of sight.

Jaeger knew the plane had been sent to carry the Queen to safety and he wasted no time in sending his team after it. If he didn't find it quickly, he knew there was a good chance that their quarry would slip the net before they got close enough to do anything about it. He had no intention of letting that happen.

“Hound master!”

The other man stepped forward quickly. The men hadn't been with Jaeger for long, but they were already wary of his temper.

“Are the hounds ready to be loosed?” Jaeger asked, still staring off in the direction the plane had taken, comparing the plane's path with the map of London he kept in his head as he tried to work out just where it was headed. It couldn't be far; the sound of its engine had already faded.

“No, sir,” the hound master said in a trembling voice.

Jaeger glanced over at the handlers and noted that the hounds appeared to be in some sort of distress, bucking and pulling at their leashes.

“What's the problem?”

The hound master pointed at the roadway beneath their feet. “The Americans covered their tracks by pouring something, a chemical of some kind, all over the street in front of the bank. It's playing havoc with the hounds' sense of smell.”

Jaeger frowned.

Beside him, the hound master flinched.

Jaeger barely noticed. He didn't care if his subordinates loved him or feared him, as long as they got the job done properly. And right now the hound master was not doing so.

To be honest, Jaeger hadn't realized the Americans had dumped anything in their wake, for the simple reason that he couldn't smell anything. Hadn't been able to, in fact, since his transformation. He doubted any of the other men in the squad could either. To some degree that absolved the hound master from the way his hounds were now acting. It did not, however, absolve him from the fact that he hadn't had the foresight to prevent this mess from happening.

“Tell me, Sergeant, who is your second in command?”

“Unteroffizer Fitz,
Vizefeldwebel
.”

“And how would you rate Unteroffizer Fitz's competence?”

The hound master hesitated. “He is . . . competent,” he said at last.

Competent was good enough for Jaeger, for it was a description he would not apply to the hound master himself. Without another word he drew his Luger and shot the hound master through the forehead. The body was still twitching when Jaeger called out.

“Unteroffizer Fitz!”

A burly young man handed the reins of a struggling hound to another and hurried over to stand before Jaeger.

“Sir!”

Jaeger looked him over; decided he would do. “You are hound master now, Fitz. I want the Americans' trail found and I want it found quickly. Do you understand?”

Jaeger noted that Fitz did not even glance at the body by his feet as he replied, “I do, sir.”

“Then get to it.”

Hound Master Fitz wasted no time. He began barking orders immediately, telling the handlers to spread out until they found the edges of the spill and to start looking for the trail at the point. Like Fitz himself, his men needed no further encouragement to do as they'd been instructed. The handlers spread out in a wide circle, waiting until their hounds stopped reacting to whatever it was that the Americans had poured over the pavement before beginning the search in earnest. Jaeger watched for a moment and then turned away. He was about to order the rest of his men into formation when the sound of an engine caught his attention.

It was the airplane. Coming back.

As the sound grew closer and the men around him began looking to the sky above, Jaeger shouted, “A week's leave to the man who shoots that plane down!”

He didn't wait to see if the others were responding but turned instead toward where the machine-­gun crew stood around the weapons sled. The Maschinengewehr 08, or MG 08 for short, was a water-­cooled heavy machine gun mounted on a sled that was capable of firing four hundred rounds per minute. The weight and bulk of the weapon required that it be mounted on a tripod and made firing it at more than a forty-­five-­degree angle difficult, which was why the gun crew was currently readying their rifles instead of the MG 08.

Jaeger's transformation had made him stronger than most men and he didn't hesitate to snatch the machine gun off its mount and hold it in his arms. The crew was under standing orders to keep the gun loaded at all times. All Jaeger had to do was cock the weapon and he was ready to go. He held the gun by his waist and pointed the muzzle toward the sky, waiting.

It didn't take long.

The American aircraft arced into view overhead as it gently banked to the right, and for a moment the red, white, and blue rondel on each wing was clearly visible to those on the ground, resembling nothing so much as a colorful bull's-­eye that gave them an easy target at which to aim.

Jaeger's men began firing at the plane as soon as it came into view, the sound of their rifles like music to their commander's ears, but the machine gun in Jaeger's hands remained silent. He waited, watching to see what the plane would do in response to the ground fire. As the pilot began to react, Jaeger anticipated his next move and opened fire.

The roar of the machine gun filled the air and, high above, the pilot of the aircraft began to have a bad day.

A very bad day indeed.

I
T WAS THE
pop, pop, pop pop
of small arms fire that caught Veronica's attention. She'd heard the sound too many times in the last few days not to recognize it for what it was, even at this height. Wondering what was going on, she summoned the willpower to open her eyes and look over the edge of the cockpit toward the ground below.

She could tell right away that they were retracing the route she had taken with Burke and the others not so long ago. Ahead of them she could see Cleopatra's Needle, still pointing fingerlike into the sky, and the spires of the Royal Courts. Off to her right was the bombed-­out remains of Parliament and beyond that, the dark expanse of the Thames. Directly below them was Grosvenor Square, and it was from there that the firing originated.

Veronica could see at least a dozen soldiers gathered in the street and firing up at them as they passed overhead. Details were hard to make out from this height, but from the dark colors of their uniforms she guessed they were Germans. Perhaps even the unit that had attacked them the day before in the museum.

She reached forward and tapped Freeman on the shoulder. When he glanced back, she pointed at the Germans below them.

Freeman looked in that direction, nodded back at her to show he understood, and then put the plane into a steep, banking climb to get them out of range of the riflemen as quickly as possible.

He'd barely begun the turn, however, when bullets began to tear through the right wing, sending wood, wire, and cloth exploding upward. Almost as an afterthought, the roar of the machine gun reached them a half moment later.

Veronica sat there, too stunned by the ferocity of the machine-­gun attack to do anything, but Freeman reacted instantly to the damage to his aircraft, yanking back and pulling sideways on the stick at the same time, throwing the plane into a looping turn in the opposite direction he'd been traveling in an attempt to get out of the line of fire.