Book 3 - The Spy Who Haunted Me (10 page)

“No,” I said. “You wouldn’t. Look, for this you need a diplomat. Someone they’ll talk to. Or at the very least listen to.”

“Trust me,” said the Matriarch. “I would never send you on any mission where diplomacy was necessary.”

“Even when you say something nice, it sounds like an insult,” I said. “Come on, people, you’ve been around and around the bushes so many times you’ve worn a trench in the ground. Why am I here?”

The Matriarch and the Armourer glanced at each other. “Forgive us for coming at this in such a roundabout way,” the Armourer said finally. “But we thought it important you understood and appreciated the situation the family is in. Traitors within, enemies without, and far too many questions we can’t answer. On top of that, we’re stretched far too thin. We’ve had to send out too many new field agents to replace those who died during the Hungry Gods War. Often without proper training, because there just wasn’t time. Many of them are going to die, but we had to send them anyway, because we have to reestablish our presence in the world. Remind everyone that the Droods are still a force to be reckoned with.”

“The family cannot afford to be perceived as weak or divided,” the Matriarch said flatly. “For the moment, most of the world gov ernments are still impressed, if not actually grateful, that we were able to save the world from the invading Hungry Gods. So everyone’s behaving themselves and playing nice. But it won’t last.”

“And all the usual troublemakers are still out there,” said the Armourer. “Dr. Delirium, the Kali Corporation, the Djinn Jeanie. So . . . when someone comes forward and offers us the name and current identity of the traitor within the family . . . we have to take them seriously.”

“We have received . . . a communication,” said the Matriarch, her thin mouth compressing as though tasting something bad. “From Alexander King, the legendary Independent Agent. Yes, I thought you’d recognise the name, Edwin. The single greatest spy the world has ever known.”

“Damn right!” I said, sitting up straight in spite of myself. “You used to tell me stories about him when I was just a kid, Uncle Jack. Hell, everyone knows stories about the Independent Agent!”

“Impress me,” said the Matriarch. “Show me you paid some attention during your lessons. What do you know about Alexander King?”

“There have always been other intelligence agencies in the world,” I said, “doing the same work as us. Some political, some religious: the Regent of Shadows, the London Knights, the Salvation Army Sisterhood. And any number of individual agents playing the great game for their own reasons: the Walking Man, the Travelling Doctor, the Old Wolf of Kabul, John Taylor in the Nightside . . . But the best of them has always been Alexander King. He’s taken on every rogue organisation, faction, and Individual of Mass Destruction and run rings around all of them. He’s worked with or against pretty much every government at one time or another, but always on his own terms. He’s even worked with us a few times. Didn’t he and Uncle James once . . . ?”

“Yes, he did,” said the Armourer. “And we still don’t talk about it. The point is, the Independent Agent has no loyalty to anyone other than himself. He’s worked for every country, every cause, every organisation, and always strictly for cash. He’s saved the world nine times, to our certain knowledge, and come close to destroying it twice.”

“I always thought he did it for the challenge,” said the Matriarch. To my surprise she was smiling just a little, and her usually calm and cold voice had just a touch of the wistful in it. “To see if he could do it, when no one else could. Alexander has been the best spy in the world for almost seventy years now. He admits to being ninety-one years old but could be even older. The point is, he became increasingly choosy about his missions, turning down most people. He said it was because there were no real challenges left anymore, but age catches up with all of us, even the incredible Independent Agent. In fact, he’s been quiet for so long most of us thought he’d retired.”

“He did contact us during the Hungry Gods War, to offer his services,” said the Armourer. “But that was when Harry was running things, and he said no. I don’t think he wanted to be overshadowed. Of course, that was before we realised just how serious the whole affair was . . .”

“The point is,” said the Matriarch, glaring sternly at the Armourer until he sank back into his chair, “Alexander King has contacted us. He says he’s dying. And is therefore prepared to divulge a lifetime’s hoarded knowledge and secrets to whichever present-day agent can demonstrate that they are worthy to take his place when he dies. To ascertain this, he is summoning the six most promising agents in the world to his home deep in the Swiss Alps. And he says he wants you, Edwin.”

“What? Me?” I sat bolt upright, honestly shocked. “Why would he want me?”

“He probably wants you because you took on the whole Drood family and won,” the Armourer said dryly. “And just possibly because you led us to victory against the Hungry Gods and saved all humanity. Anyway, he was most firm. He wants you, for this . . . competition of his.”

“You have to go,” said the Matriarch. “For the pride of the family, and to make sure the Independent Agent’s accumulated treasure of secret knowledge doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. That
cannot
be allowed to happen, Edwin. Alexander King knows things that no one else knows. The kind of suppressed truths that can bring down governments, start wars, and quite possibly set the whole world at each other’s throats. Any individual or organisation with that kind of knowledge would be a real threat to the Droods, particularly in our current weakened state.”

“And, of course, because there’s always the chance they might not use that knowledge in the world’s best interests,” said the Armourer.

“Well, yes, that too,” said the Matriarch. “Only we can be trusted with information like that.”

“Some of these hypothetical people might do a better job than us,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” said the Matriarch. “No one does it better than us.”

“Of course,” I said. “What was I thinking?”

“King says he knows who our traitor is,” said the Armourer. “You have to go, Eddie, and you have to win. For the sake of the family, and the world.”

“You will win, Edwin,” said the Matriarch. “Whatever this competition turns out to be. We’ll give you whatever support and assistance we can, but . . . in the end, you must win. By any means necessary.”

“I suppose so,” I said. I still had a whole shed load of reservations about practically everything involved with this competition, but I wasn’t going to waste my breath discussing them with the Matriarch. She was right about one thing: we had to find out who our traitor was, for the sake of the family and the world. Everything else . . . I’d have to think on my feet. As usual. I nodded slowly. “Do we at least know who the other competitors are?”

“No,” said the Armourer. “King is playing his cards very close to his chest for the moment. Typical of the man. We’ve been making some discreet enquiries, but no one significant has dropped out of sight . . . You’ll receive your instructions at King’s private head-quarters, some old ski lodge in the Swiss Alps. Very private, very well defended. It’s called Place Gloria; you might remember it from a rather famous spy film they shot there in the sixties.”

I shook my head. “I never watch spy films. I can’t take them seriously.”

“You’re expected to make your own way there,” said the Armourer. “Part of proving your worth, I suppose. The Merlin Glass could drop you off right at his door . . .”

“But you can’t take it with you,” the Matriarch said immediately. “Far too important to the family to risk it falling into enemy hands. On the other hand, Alexander King is supposed to have a quite magnificent collection of objects of power and influence in his own private museum. Spoils of the world’s secret wars . . . Some of which he stole from us. We’d quite like those back, if you can manage it.”

“Along with anything else you can get your hands on,” said the Armourer.

“I remember Alexander . . .” said the Matriarch. Her voice was definitely wistful this time, and her eyes were faraway. “I had a bit of a fling with him, in the autumn of 1957. In East Berlin, right in the shadow of the Wall. We used to meet at this perfectly awful little café that smelt mostly of boiled cabbage and served its vodka after the Russian fashion, with a little black pepper sprinkled on top. The idea being that as the pepper grains sank to the bottom of the glass, they’d take the impurities in the vodka with them. You really could go blind, drinking that stuff in East Berlin in 1957. Awful vodka, awful food, but I still have fond memories of that little café . . . or at least of the room we used to rent above it. Ah, yes; Alexander . . . This was before I met and married your father, Jack, of course.”

“Of course, Mother.” The Armourer looked more than a little uncomfortable at the thought of his mother getting it on with the Independent Agent, so I moved in.

“What were the two of you doing in East Berlin, Grandmother?”

“Oh, some nonsense about a Persian djinn being buried under the Berlin Wall to give it strength. We never did get to the bottom of it. But . . . you might mention my name to Alexander, Edwin, just in case he remembers me. A most charming fellow. Don’t trust him an inch.”

“Of course not,” I said. “He isn’t family.”

And that was the end of the council meeting. I was going to the Swiss Alps to meet a living legend who was dying and take part in a competition I didn’t understand, with people I didn’t know, all for a prize I wasn’t sure I believed in. And, no, I didn’t get a say in the matter. Business as usual, in the Drood family.

 

There was no way the Armourer was going to let me go off on a mission without the benefit of his very latest gadgets of mass distraction. So down to the Armoury we went, set deep in the bedrock under the Hall, so that when the place finally did blow itself up through an excess of imagination and optimism, there was at least some chance the family home would survive. As always, the huge stone chamber was jumping with activity and lab assistants running this way and that, sometimes in pursuit of an escaping experiment, sometimes because their lab coats were on fire. It took nerves of steel to work in the Armoury and a definite lack of the old self-preservation instinct. The Armourer strode through the chaos, entirely unmoved, while I stuck close behind him. If only to use him as a shield.

“How did the mellow bombs work out?” the Armourer tossed back over his shoulder, ducking slightly to avoid an eyeball with wings as it fluttered past.

“Oh, fine!” I said, stepping quickly to one side to avoid a lab assistant arguing fiercely with a plant in a cage. “Though the effects did seem to fade away pretty fast.”

“I’m working on it; I’m working on it!”

We passed a huge plastic bubble of clear water inside which two overenthusiastic lab techs were trying out their new gills and clawed hands and going at each other like Japanese fighting fish. Up above, a rather fetching young lass with new bat wing grafts was flapping along with a blissful smile on her face. Another technician appeared and disappeared and appeared, shouting,
“How do you turn this bloody thing off?”

In the Shooting Alley, half a dozen interns were trying out their new gun prototypes and making a real mess of the Alley in the process. Someone else had just finished showing off their new invention: a knife that fired its blade at your opponent while the hilt stayed in your hand. Afterwards, the blade would return to the hilt to be used again. Didn’t seem to have gone too well. As the Armourer and I left the Shooting Alley behind us, the technician was being led away sobbing while his friends tried to gather up his fingers.

A man-sized cocoon stood leaning against one wall under a sign saying DO NOT DISTURB. I didn’t ask.

The Armoury has provided the family with many useful weapons, devices, and gadgets of quite appalling nastiness down the years. The armour can’t do everything. But when you have an unlimited budget, an unlimited imagination, and a complete lack of scruples, you’re bound to wander into some fairly unusual areas . . . We use just the good stuff in the field and accept the occasional explosion or unfortunate transformation as teething troubles. It is, after all, a dangerous and downright treacherous world, and the Droods need every advantage we can come up with if we’re to hold our own. Besides, I like new toys to play with as much as the next man. And there’s always something new in the Armoury. Uncle Jack and his nasty-minded coworkers see to that.

Use the same tactics too often in the field, and your enemies will have an answer waiting.

The Armourer sat down at his workstation, brushing aside piles of paper, half a dozen unfinished devices he was still tinkering with, and a small bottle marked
Nitroglycerin; handle with care, dammit!
He gestured for me to sit down opposite him, and I did. Somewhat cautiously, because you can’t even trust the chairs in the Armoury.

“We’ll start with this,” the Armourer said confidently, handing over a simple golden signet ring with runes engraved all along the inside. “Slip it on your finger. No, the other finger. Now, to activate, just press the fingers on either side against the ring, twice.
Don’t do it now!
That is a Gemini Duplicator; gives you the option of bilocation. Don’t, Eddie. I have already heard every possible variation of any joke you might have been about to make involving the word
bi
. In this case, it means being in more than one place at the same time. Great for establishing alibis. I’m told it’s rather confusing, doing two different things at the same time in two different places, but it’s really just multitasking raised to the next level. I’m sure you’ll soon get the hang of it. But be warned; if one of your duplicates should happen to be killed, the psychic shock could finish off both of you.”

I considered the ring, being very careful not to squeeze it. “What happens if I use the ring to make more than two of me?”