The Dark Assassin (31 page)

Monk stood
alone, shifting from foot to foot, desperately searching the darkness for Orme.
Where the devil was he? There were barges moving upstream, their riding lights
glittering. An ice-cold wind was whining among the broken pier stakes.

There was a
noise behind him. He spun around. A man stood ten feet away. He had not even
heard him coming; the slurp of the water masked his footsteps. Monk had no
weapon, and his back was to the river.

A boat scraped
against the steps. He strode over and saw several men in it-randan, police
formation. There was room for two more, which would be cramped although not
dangerous. Orme was in the stern. Monk could not see his face, but he
recognized the way he stood, outlined solid black against the shifting, dimly
reflecting surface of the water.

Monk went down
the steps as fast as he could, his feet slithering on the wet, slime-coated
stone. Orme put out his hand and steadied him as he all but pitched forward on
the last step. He landed clumsily in the boat and scrambled to take one of the
seats. The next moment his hands closed over an oar and he made ready to throw
his weight against it on the order.

Butterworth came
down the steps, boarded, and crouched in the stern. The word was given, and
they pulled out into the stream. They heaved hard to catch up with the thieves'
boat.

No one spoke;
each man was listening to the beat of the oars. In the stern, Orme was
straining to see ahead and to steady them against the wash of barges going up-
or downstream and to avoid any anchored boats waiting to unload on the wharves
at daylight.

Where were they
going? Monk guessed Jacob's Island. He tried to distinguish through the gloom
the chaotic shapes of the shore. There were cranes black against the skyline,
and the masts of a few ships. There was a break in the roofs, signaling the
inlet to a dock, then more warehouses again, this time jagged, some open to the
sky, walls askew as they sank into the mud. He was right-Jacob's Island.

Ten minutes
later they were all on the soggy, rubble-strewn shore, creeping forward a few
inches at a time, feet testing the ground for litter, traps where the planking
had rotted and given way under the weight and broken timbers protruded through.
Somewhere ahead of them the thieves were gathering; from the thefts they had
counted ten.

Monk had a
cutlass in his hand, given him by Orme. The weight of it was unfamiliar but
deeply reassuring. Please God, he would know how to use it if he should have
to.

They continued
forward, ten river police surrounding an unknown number of thieves, and perhaps
their receivers as well. They were inside the first buildings now, the remnants
of abandoned warehouses, cellars already flooded. The sour stench of tidal mud
and sewage, refuse, and dead rats was thick in the throat. Everything seemed to
be moving, dripping, creaking, as if the whole edifice were slipping lower into
the ooze, drowning inch by inch.

A rat scuttled
by, its feet scraping on the boards. Then it plopped into a puddle of water,
and the empty sounds of the night closed in again. There was no living slap of
the tide here, only the groan of timber settling and breaking and sagging
lower.

There were
voices ahead, and lights. Monk, cutlass ready, stood half behind a doorway and
watched. He could see the squat shapes of the men, now no more than humps, a
deepening of the shadows, but the man with the ivory carving was there.

He froze, barely
breathing. He did not catch the words they said, but flight actions were plain.
They were dividing the spoils of the day. His stomach knotted at the sight of
how much they had. It was far more than he had known about.

He waited. Orme
was somewhere to the left of him, Butterworth to the right; Jones and the
others had gone around behind the chairs to encircle them.

The thieves were
arguing over how to sell the ivory carving. It seemed to go on interminably.
There were nine of them, not ten. Monk must have miscounted earlier. He was
cold to the bone, his feet numb, his teeth chattering. The odds were against
them. But the statue was what mattered; above all he must get that back, that
and the Fat Man.

The stench of
the mud almost choked him.

Why didn't they
agree with the obvious and take the carving to the Fat Man? He was the king of
the opulent receivers. He would give them the best price for it because he
would be able to find a buyer.

They weren't going
to! They knew he would take half, so they were going to try to sell it
themselves. Then all Monk would get would be the carving back, and a handful of
petty thieves. It would stop the robberies for perhaps a week or two, but what
was that worth? Instinctively he turned towards Orme and saw his face for an
instant in the faintest light from the thieves' candles. The defeat in him
twisted inside Monk as if he himself were responsible for the failure.

Another rat
squeaked and ran, claws rattling on the wood. Then there was a different sound:
softer, heavier. Monk's heart pounded in his chest and his mouth was dry. Orme
turned the same instant as he did, and both saw the shadow of a man blend into
the sagging walls and disappear.

Monk swiveled
around the other way. To his right Butterworth was rigid, listening. He too had
heard something and was straining his eyes, but not to where Monk had seen the
man disappear. Butterworth was staring at least fifteen feet away.

Monk was
freezing. His hand clenched on the hilt of the cutlass was like ice, clumsy,
all thumbs. His body was shaking.

He had been
right the first time. There had been ten, but one of them had left, betraying
his fellows. To whom?

The answer was
already emerging into the pool of candlelight in what remained of the room. A
grotesquely fat man stepped forward, his distended stomach swathed in a satin
waistcoat, his bloated face wreathed in smiles, his eyes like bullet holes in
white plaster.

Silence gripped
the thieves as if by the throat.

"Well!"
said the Fat Man in a voice little more than a whisper. "What a pretty
piece of work." Monk was not certain if he meant the betrayal or the
ivory.

One man squeaked
half a word, then stifled it instantly.

The Fat Man
ignored him. "Discipline, discipline." He shook his head and his
massive jowls wobbled. "Without order we perish. How many times have I
told you that? If you had given that to me, openly and honestly as we agreed, I
would have sold it and given you half." His mouth hardened. He stood motionless.
"But as I have had to take the trouble of coming for it myself, and
bringing my men with me, I shall have to keep all of it. Expenses, you
see?"

No one moved.

"And
discipline .. . always discipline. Can't have things getting out of control.
No!" He barked the last word as one of the thieves made to stand up, his
hand going to his waist for a weapon. "Very foolish, Doyle. Very foolish
indeed. Do you imagine I have come unarmed? Now, you know me better than that!
Or perhaps you don't, or you would not have tried such a stupid piece of
duplicity."

But the man was
too angry to heed a warning. He drew a dagger out of his belt and lunged
forward.

The Fat Man
shouted, and the next moment the shadows came alive. There was a melee of
heaving bodies, flying arms and legs, and the candlelight on the sudden, bright
arcs of knives and cutlasses. It took less than a minute to realize that the
Fat Man's followers were getting the better of it. There were more of them and
they were better armed.

Orme was staring
at Monk, waiting for the word.

For a sick,
blinding instant Monk wanted to escape. How many men could he lose in a
swordfight in the candlelight, with the thieves and the Fat Man's men against
them?

Then his mind
cleared. What were the odds to do with anything? They were policemen. They wore
the queen's uniform. The Fat Man would take the carving and the police would
have stood by like cowards and watched. Monk knew exactly how many men he would
lose then-all of them.

"Forward!"
he said, and charged, heading for the Fat Man.

The next moments
were violent, painful, and terrifying. Monk was in the thick of it, and at
first the cutlass felt strange in his hand. He was not sure whether to stab
with it or hack. A thin man, scrawny but surprisingly powerful, swung at him
with a cudgel and caught him a glancing blow on the arm. The pain of it jerked
him into reality and hot anger. He swung back with the cutlass and missed. A
knife tore the flesh of his right shoulder, and he felt the hot blood. This
time his cutlass did not miss and the jar of its blade on bone rocked him.

But beyond the
first taste of bile in his mouth, there was no time to think what he might have
done. Orme was to his right, in trouble, and Clacton beyond was struggling.
Jones came to his rescue. Where was the Fat Man?

Monk turned and
slashed at Orme's attacker, catching only his sleeve. Then again and again the
metallic clash of steel, the smells of sweat and blood fresh over the stink of
slime.

He was hit from
behind and fell forward, managing at the last moment to hold his blade clear.
He rolled over and scrambled up again. He lashed back and this time struck
flesh. There was a yell, and curses all around him. At least his own men were
easier to recognize by the outline of their uniform tunics, although most of
their hats had been lost in the battle.

Some memory
within his own muscles brought back the skill to balance and lunge, to duck,
keep upright, push forward and strike. His blood was hot and in some wild way
he was almost enjoying it. He barely felt his own pain.

Then suddenly he
was backed into a corner. There were two men in front of him, not one, and then
a third. Fear was sick and real. He could not fight three men. How had he been
so careless?

A blade arced
up. He saw it gleam in the candlelight, and beyond it, for an instant,
Clacton's face a couple of yards away, smiling. He could see him, and Clacton
was not going to help.

There was
nowhere for Monk to run, no room to step left or right. He'd take on one of
them at least, two if possible. He dared not raise his arm to slash. There was
no space to swing. He checked and lunged forward, skewering the man to his
left, expecting any second to feel the blade through his own chest and then
darkness, oblivion.

He tried to yank
his blade out but there was someone on top of it, heavy, lifeless, pinning his
arm down. Then he saw Orme pulling his own blade free, and understood what had
happened.

"Better be
quick, sir," Orme said urgently. "We've done a good job. One of the
Fat Man's men killed the thief with the carving and now the Fat Man's got it
himself. We've got to get back to the boats."

Monk responded
without hesitation. The thieves could fight it out among themselves. He must
get the Fat Man and the carving. They could still win, perhaps more swiftly and
completely than in the original plan. He snatched up the thief's cutlass that
moments ago would have meant his own death. Shuddering and stumbling, he went
back through the wreckage of the building after Orme. He blundered into
wreckage and tripped, falling headlong more than once, but when he emerged into
the winter night, which was clear-mooned and stinging with frost, Orme was a
couple of yards in front of him. Twenty feet beyond, the Fat Man floundered,
coat waving like broken wings, his right fist held high with something clenched
in it. It had to be the carving.

Orme was gaining
on him. Monk forced himself to run faster. He almost caught up with them just
as they reached the edge of the rotted pier jutting twenty feet out into the
river. The boat was already waiting for the Fat Man, and Orme's men were beyond
sight.

The Fat Man
turned with a wave of triumph. "Good night, gentlemen!" he said with
glee, his voice rich and soft with laughter. "Thank you for the
ivory!" He pushed it into his pocket and swiveled. There was a crack as
the last whole piece of timber snapped under his vast weight. For a hideous
instant he did not understand what had happened. Then, as it caved in, he
screamed and flailed his arms wildly. But there was nothing to grasp, only
rotting, crumbling edges. The black water sucked and squelched below,
swallowing him with one immense gulp. The moment after there was only the
rhythmic slurp again, as if he had never existed. His heavy boots and his
immense body weight had dragged him down, and the mud beneath had held him, as
if in cement.

Orme and Monk
both stopped abruptly.

The Fat Man's
boatman saw them and scrabbled for the oars, sending the craft back into the
night. In the moon's glow, the water was silver-flecked, and they were easily
visible. One of the police boats appeared from around the stakes of the next
pier and went after them. A second came for Monk and Orme, and then a third.