The Adept (25 page)

The two thieves climbed out of the car, the woman again handling the Fairy Flag in its frame. With her accomplice following, she carried it out along the dock to where her employers from the cabin cruiser were waiting to receive it. When she arrived, the shorter member of the pair bent down to examine the frame and its contents by the glow of a pencil flashlight. As he did so, the light glanced rosily off the fine carnelian signet ring he wore on his right hand.

“Very good, indeed,” he commented, raising his eyes to meet hers. “Excellent, in fact.”

The woman raised an eyebrow in sardonic acknowledgement.

“Thank you. As jobs go, it’s more dignified than mud-wrestling. And it pays better. Excuse me while I get rid of this.”

Hooking her fingers in the hair at the front of her face, she gave a backwards tug. Short blond hair gleamed pale in the fading light as the brown wig came away in her hand, and she shook her head lightly as she ran her free hand through the hair to riffle it. The man with the carnelian ring watched her from under hooded lids.

“I assume you’ll want your pay, so you can be off,” he said, motioning to his colleague to take the frame as he reached into the breast of his jacket for a fat brown envelope. “I think you’ll find everything in order.”

His colleague wore a medallion like the one still around the woman’s neck. She eyed it as she reached for the envelope in the other’s hand, not noticing that her erstwhile accomplice was moving in closer from behind, drawing his silenced pistol from behind his leg.

In the same instant that her hand touched the envelope, the man in black pressed the muzzle of the silencer just behind her left ear and pulled the trigger. The quiet cough of the shot was inaudible even on the shore, much less in the castle or on the road above. And the second and third shots he fired into her heart, once she was down on the dock, were no louder.

Her employer did not spare her a second look, only turning to follow his underling below decks with the Flag. The man in black knelt briefly to remove the silver medallion from around the woman’s neck, then pushed her body over the edge of the dock with no more concern than he would have given a sack of rubbish or a dead cat.

Then, as the boat’s engines rumbled to life, the man in black cast off the line securing it to the dock and leaped lightly aboard. Ten minutes later, boat, passengers, and stolen treasure had disappeared into the twilight, leaving only a faintly phosphorescent wake that faded steadily with the lowering dusk.

Chapter Sixteen

MEANWHILE,
as planned, Adam and Peregrine had spent their second day in London at the Docklands headquarters of the Scottish Geographical Society. Upon their arrival, Adam introduced himself to the receptionist as Dr. Sinclair, at the same time presenting Peregrine as his research assistant. He did not mention that his title was that of a medical doctor rather than an academic one. A seemingly offhand reference to the talk he had given the previous week at Gleneagles helped to reinforce the impression that he was a historian gathering material for a series of scholarly lectures.

“Oh, dear,” said the woman behind the desk, though she clearly was favorably impressed with Adam’s manner and appearance. “I’m afraid we don’t seem to have you written into our appointment book, Dr. Sinclair, but maybe something can be arranged—since you’re only here for the day. Why don’t you and Mr. Lovat have a seat, and I’ll phone upstairs to ask if-someone might be free.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Adam said warmly. “Of course we’ll wait. And thank you very much.”

It took some doing, but in the end they were able to secure the services of one of the senior archivists, a stocky, middle-aged Glaswegian by the name of Ronald McKay. Under his guidance, Adam and Peregrine spent the morning reading through microfilmed articles on archaeological fieldworks in Ross-shire. After lunch they examined the Society’s accumulated wealth’ of pictorial data—survey photos and reconstruction blueprints—in comparison with the sketches Peregrine himself had made. By the end of the day, after exhausting every available file on the subject, they had managed to compile a list of four Ross-shire castles worthy of further investigation: Foulis, Strome, Eilean Donan, and Urquhart.

“Whew! I hope we don’t have to do
that
again, any time soon!” Peregrine exclaimed, as they climbed into a taxi to return to the Caledonian Club. “One hour more, and’ I would have had a headache the size of Blenheim Palace!”

Adam smiled distractedly, mentally reviewing the four names on the list. All four were located on sites overlooking water, and all four had been in existence at the time Michael Scot had lived, but beyond that, they had not managed to narrow the field any further.

“Well, we might have done worse,” he said with a sigh, “but I must confess, I had hoped we might do significantly better.”

Peregrine grimaced. “I know what you mean. Any one of the sites on our short list could turn out to be the castle we’re looking for—or none of them, for that matter. I may be totally off base.”

“Do you think you are?” Adam asked.

“No. But unless you know of any other documentary sources we haven’t yet considered, I can’t think of any way, to narrow down the list to one.” Adam shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re quite right. We’ve done everything that paperwork could accomplish. Our only recourse from here is to visit these places in person.”

Peregrine looked slightly daunted. “You mean, go there?”

“Yes.”

“But—won’t that take rather a lot of time?”

“A day or two,” Adam admitted. “But if we don’t begin, we shan’t find out, shall we?”

“I suppose not,” Peregrine said. “Will we be flying back to Scotland tonight, then?”

A line appeared between Adam’s dark brows, and he leaned back against the vinyl-upholstered seat of the taxi, looking suddenly weary.

“No, we’ll catch an early shuttle in the morning,” he said, “We’ve done enough—more than enough—for one day. Nothing hampers the mind like fatigue. I want us well rested before we set out for the Highlands.”

Back at Adam’s club, they ate dinner early, while the dining room was still largely empty. Once the meal was over, Peregrine found himself more than ready to retire to his room. His neck was stiff from the unaccustomed hours he had spent hunched over the microfilm reader, and his eyes were burning from the effort of doing too much close work in poor lighting. A hot shower helped to alleviate the worst of his aches and pains, and he fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Dreams came and went, most of them quite unmemorable. But sometime in the dead of night, he woke suddenly to what he thought at first was the angry braying of a trumpet. He started up in bed and listened intently, but his straining ears could pick up nothing but the omnipresent rumble of traffic moving through the midnight streets of the capital.

I must be imagining things,
he thought with a shrug, and lay back down.

But echoes of the strange, angry alarm continued to reverberate at the back of his mind, like a memory of the warhorns of Elfland wildly blowing. Eventually he fell asleep again, with the half-formed intention of relating the incident to Adam the next day; but in the cold light of morning, the whole thing seemed too trivial to be worth mentioning.

Keep on like this, and before long, you’ll be running around claiming the sky is falling,
he told himself with a grimace, as he finished knotting his tie and ran a comb through his hair.
Adam’s already got enough to worry about, without you inventing new distractions.

With this admonition in mind, he put the matter aside and went downstairs, appearing promptly at seven, as agreed the night before. He decided that Adam must have spent a restless night as well, because his mentor was uncharacteristically silent and even a little testy over breakfast. His usual perusal of the morning paper seemed more intent than usual, as if he were looking for something specific; but he offered no explanation, and Peregrine did not press the issue.

Still on schedule, so far as Peregrine could tell, they were walking out the front door of the Caledonian Club well before eight, their few bags in hand. But no sooner had they emerged onto Halkin .Street, intending to have the doorman hail them a taxi to the airport, then Adam eyed the already heavy traffic of morning rush hour and instead began herding Peregrine in the direction of Hyde Park Comer.

“I’ll swear the traffic gets worse, every time I come to London,” he said sourly, consulting his watch. “I hadn’t reckoned on it being this heavy, this early. We’ll have to take the Tube. It will be standing room only, at this hour, but I’m afraid it’s the only way we’re going to make our flight.”

The Tube
was
standing room only. Flowing with the expected crash of morning commuters, in an atmosphere increasingly redolent of stale clothing and warring perfumes, they boarded the first available westbound train and spent the next forty-five minutes clinging precariously to hand holds along the ceiling, bags braced between their feet. Only past Acton did the crowd begin to thin out, and even then, they had to stand for several more stops.

They arrived at Heathrow with a scant twenty minutes to spare before the 9:30 shuttle. Fortunately, Adam had booked seats the night before, and they had only carry-on luggage, so securing their tickets and checking in was a relatively rapid procedure. After signing off on the credit card slip, Adam sent Peregrine off to buy a Glasgow newspaper while he telephoned Strathmourne. There would be copies of
The Scotsman
aboard the shuttle, so he would check that during the flight up.

“After looking at where we’ve got to go, I’ve changed my mind about taking the Jag,” he told Humphrey, after verifying that they would, indeed, be arriving on the flight Adam had designated in the previous night’s call. “I think you’d better pick us up in the Range Rover. And please pack us each a change of clothes suitable for stomping around uncertain terrain in uncertain weather. If my suspicions are correct, and time
is
running short, we can’t afford even slight delays in getting under way.”

“I understand, sir,” Humphrey replied. “I’ll make all the necessary arrangements.” The loudspeakers were announcing the final call for their flight. All he and Peregrine had to do now was make the plane. They were not the last ones aboard, but’ delays at security screening had him fidgeting for a few minutes. As he and Peregrine buckled up and the plane started to taxi out to the runway, Adam at last allowed himself to relax a little—which only gave him time to feed his growing apprehension.

Something new was brewing, almost certainly some new facet of what they had left behind in Scotland. He searched for it in the copy of-the Glasgow paper Peregrine had brought him and in
The Scotsman,
but nothing spoke to him.

Were the obstacles they were encountering a part of some emerging pattern of opposition on the Inner Planes, or were they random? He told himself that most of the obstacles could be chalked up to coincidence; but another part of him worried that it was all part of some sinister design being carried out by an enemy he had yet to meet face to face. Until he knew more, all he could do was trust to the innate survival instincts of his higher self, and hope that their adversaries would soon show themselves—and hopefully, make a mistake.

Their flight was routine, though the air turbulence increased the farther north they flew. The skies over southern Scotland were patched with racing scuds of dirty grey, and their aircraft descended through gusty showers. They touched down at Edinburgh on a wet runway and taxied to the terminal amid windblown outbursts of rain.

By the time the jetway was run alongside and they were permitted to begin deplaning, Adam had decided to ring Noel McLeod as soon as they got inside the terminal building. With single-minded impatience, he led Peregrine toward the arrival gate, raising a hailing hand as he spotted Humphrey, waiting just beyond the barrier.

But his valet was not alone. Adam stiffened as he recognized the moustached figure in the trenchcoat, all the slowly-building apprehension of the past twelve hours or so finally crystallizing.

“What is it?” Peregrine asked.

“There with Humphrey—it’s Noel McLeod,” Adam replied. “And unless I’m very much mistaken, his presence confirms the trouble I couldn’t find in the papers this morning. Come on!”

Leaving Peregrine to make his own way, Adam lengthened his stride and darted forward, weaving his way through the intervening throngs with an evasive skill a professional soccer-player might have envied. Humphrey and McLeod converged to meet him. The inspector’s craggy face was looking uncommonly grim, and his mouth was tight.

“Why do I get the distinct impression you’re about to give me news I don’t want to hear?” Adam said to McLeod, at the same time handing off his carry-on to Humphrey. “I was going to call you as soon as I could get to a telephone. Peregrine, get in here so he doesn’t have to tell it twice.”

Peregrine hurried to join them, looking slightly ruffled and mystified. McLeod greeted the artist with a curt nod and ushered them all aside, Humphrey taking up a station with the bags a few paces away, to deflect passers-by.

“This comes totally out of left field,” McLeod said, “but suddenly everything starts to make sense. Not quite two hours ago, I received a phone call from my clan chief. He’s in New York right now. He’d just had words with his staff up at Dunvegan Castle. It seems that the Fairy Flag has been stolen.”

Neither of his listeners needed any explanation of what the Flag was. The Fairy Flag of the MacLeods was one of Scotland’s most famous artifacts, and the legends surrounding it were common knowledge to anyone with even a modicum of interest in Scottish folklore. More knowledgeable than most, Adam experienced a sick, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

“Late yesterday afternoon, some time between five and six o’clock, as near as anyone can make out,” McLeod
replied. “We’re a bit short on details yet, but it seems the thief was a woman posing as a tourist. She had a male accomplice, but he wore a ski mask, so we have no description of him. Both of them were certainly, armed.”

“Was anyone harmed?” Adam asked.

“No, thank God. At least nothing serious. A twisted ankle, some bumps and bruises. There were four members of the castle staff on duty, and the thieves put them down the castle dungeon for the night. It’s one of those bottle dungeons—a nasty drop, but they were safe enough, once they were down.

“They’d probably be there still, except that a busload of English pensioners showed up for a prearranged tour, before regular opening hours, and got concerned when they saw cars in the staff car park but couldn’t rouse anyone inside. The local police are investigating, checking out every car in a fifty-mile radius, but you know as well as I that the perpetrators could be anywhere by now. They’ve had all night to make then getaway.”

Peregrine had been looking more and more incredulous as McLeod’s story went on, and by now could not contain his indignation.

“This is incredible. How did they get in? It’s a
castle,
for God’s sake! That’s hardly the usual target for breaking and entering.”

McLeod favored the younger man with a sour smile. “The woman apparently played the damsel in distress—came back to the castle, minutes after closing time, claiming to have lost her car keys somewhere on the premises. The caretaker, being the trusting sort, let her in—and
she
managed to let in her accomplice. The rest you can gather for yourselves. The staff were all old-age pensioners themselves. What kind of fight could they put up against armed and determined robbers?”