Broken Promises (7 page)

“Both of you have to jump!”

They would be fine. They had to be fine. Their mechanical enhancements would allow them to handle the impact of the fall, even at such a height.

He held his breath as Patrick let go first. The younger man had already been at the bottom of the ladder, but there was still a long way to go. He fell hard and fast, landing on his feet but then losing balance and tumbling head over heels across a wide strip of open field.

Above him another explosion rent the air, and debris flew in every direction. Callie ducked her head and her foot slipped. She screamed and looked up at him with panic.

She was going to freeze.

“Let go!” he yelled. “Don’t think about it, just do it!” She had to do it, and he needed to see her land safely, even though the sight of his wife hurtling through the sky—

She glanced down once more, then back up. Her gaze never wavered from his when she uncurled her fingers, as if they’d frozen around the wooden rung.

She let go.

Good God, she was dropping so fast. His innards jumped into his throat as she shouted and her arms flailed. She disappeared into a stand of trees and out of sight. He swore and twisted around as the airship passed over the spot but he couldn’t find her. He had no idea where she’d landed or how she’d landed…or if she was all right.

The craft picked up speed in its fiery descent to the ground. A shout broke from him as his legs bounced off the top branches of the trees. He was forced to turn his attention back to getting onto the ground in one piece.

Clinging tightly to the rope, he knew he had to let go but there seemed to be no safe place to land. The craft had gone beyond open fields and was careening over a forest of pointy-tipped evergreens, poking up at him like furry stalagmites in a limestone cave.

Another explosion rocked the airship. The fire must have gotten to the gas in the balloon. Suddenly, even though the rope was still in his hands, it was no longer attached to anything, and he tumbled through the air.

He fumbled to right himself and land on his feet, but the ground was coming up too fast. Leaves and branches slapped at his face and arms. It was the most startling feeling to know that his life was completely out of his hands.

He couldn’t see. His shoulder hit another tree, and while it hurt like hell, it also slowed him down.

He reached out and grabbed a branch that stretched out like a lifeline. The bark cut his palms. His grip slipped and he started tumbling again, bouncing off tree limbs on his way to the inevitable hard ground. This time he was close enough to the ground that when he landed, at least it didn’t kill him.

When he opened his eyes and looked up, his harsh cough turned to a muttered curse. Flinching, he rolled over, ducking his head into his arms as a shower of burning debris rained down.

He lifted his head again when the shower of splintered, flaming wood stopped, shrugging a long, hot plank from his shoulders before it could sear his skin.

Collapsing onto his back, he lay still and catalogued the aches and pains. The hand he pressed to his temple came back bloody. But that wasn’t the end of it. Something had jammed him in the back during his fall, his arms were covered in long scrapes, and his ankle throbbed, a dull pain. He didn’t think it was broken. Other than that, he surmised that there wasn’t anything wrong with him that couldn’t be fixed with a bandage…or fifteen.

He felt dizzy and weak as he got to his feet slowly, hands on his knees like an old man who’d lost his cane. He stifled a groan at the twinge that pulled in his lower back. His body was definitely telling him to wait a while longer before moving, that he was too old to be falling out of burning airships and bouncing back like a twenty-year-old who might very well have done something like that for the fun of it. But he couldn’t take it slow. He had to find—

“Jasper!”

Straightening, he spun around to see Callie and Patrick racing toward him. Thank God they’d both made it to the ground in one piece. Their scraped and dirty faces brought tears to his eyes. Shaking with relief, his knees collapsed and he went back down, dropping his head into his trembling hands.

Callie barreled into him, sliding to the ground beside him, arms going around his neck and squeezing him tightly. “You’re all right,” she whispered into his shoulder. “Good Lord, Jasper. You could have…” She pulled back and looked into his face. “How the devil did you find yourself stuck in the middle of yet another uncontrollable fire?”

“Hmm. Just lucky, I suppose. But perhaps you’ve taken a liking to dangling dangerously from the end of ropes?” He cupped her dear face in his hands and his smile faltered. She had a long cut under her chin, and another just below her eye.

“What should we do?” Patrick had lost a boot. He had a wide tear in his trousers and a scrape on his cheek and chin. His forearm bore a red, dirty rash that looked as if he’d been dragged behind a speeding postal coach for several feet.

“I suppose we should walk back to the landing strip. Perhaps the carriage driver returned when he saw the explosion.” He grimaced as he imagined walking such a distance when his muscles were already starting to spasm and lock. “Either way, it seems the journey to Manchester is going to take longer than we anticipated.”

* * *

It was a little over an hour by the time they arrived at the same spot of open meadow where they’d boarded the airship. To Callie’s dismay, they found the poor driver lying unconscious in the grass by the side of the dirt road, but there was no sign of the carriage.

Jasper pressed his fingers to the man’s neck beneath his jaw. “He’s alive. But he has a decent-sized bump on his head and won’t be taking anyone anywhere for a few days—if he even had a carriage to drive.”

The driver started to moan and Callie held his hand as he slowly regained consciousness. Finally, he blinked and opened his eyes.

“My lord,” he mumbled, looking up at him. “So sorry. Was surprised. Didn’t expect—”

“It’s all right, Benjamin. Let’s just make sure you haven’t been seriously injured.” After checking him over, they helped the man to his feet. Patrick supported his weight by holding an arm over his shoulder, and they once again started to walk as a group.

“Did you recognize your assailant?”

He shook his head. “It happened so fast. I waited a while before leaving, wantin’ to pat down both the horses because Silver looked like he were goin’ to throw a shoe on me. When I started back for the manor, a man suddenly stepped out in front of the carriage and I had to haul back on the reins.” Benjamin rubbed his temple. “It were the lieutenant. The same one who was here waitin’ for you when we arrived. I didn’t remember seeing him disembark the airship. Before I knew what were happening, he’d come around, clubbed me in the head, and left me here while he stole the carriage.”

“Who is that horrible man?” she asked. Jasper didn’t answer, his forehead tense with lines of frustration and anger.

They didn’t walk far this time before the sound of carriage wheels rumbled toward them. Callie wasn’t extraordinarily surprised when the door swung open and she saw who had come to “rescue” them.

General Black.

“Get in.” He frowned at the lot of them as if their misfortune at being blown out of the sky had sorely inconvenienced him.

The short ride back to the manor was a silent one. Jasper glared out the window. Both the carriage driver and Patrick looked weary.

When they arrived, Jasper sent Benjamin inside with Patrick to have Mrs. Jenkins take a look at the bump on his head before turning to the general with a dark scowl.

“Just what the hell kind of ‘facial reconstruction’ did Dunsmoor have? That was him on that ship, wasn’t it? I’ve known the man for fifteen years, but I stood less than five paces away from him this morning and wouldn’t have recognized him if my life depended on it.”

“That lunatic was Captain Dunsmoor?” Callie looked between her husband and the general, feeling as if she’d missed some important piece of information. The man who was on that airship with them had looked much too young to be a seasoned officer. “How do you know it was him?”

“It fits. Dunsmoor is an explosives specialist. If anyone could have rigged something like that bomb on the airship, it’s him. And he called me ‘CC’—short for Colonel Carlisle. It didn’t register at the time, but only the soldiers I served with have ever called me that.”

She remembered that. She also remembered the assessing look the man had leveled on her, the way he’d smiled at Jasper rather smugly. In hindsight, it might have been the kind of smile one wore when he knew something everyone else did not.

The general shrugged and looked up at the house before answering. “Yes, it’s probably safe to assume that the man who set the bomb on the airship was Captain Dunsmoor.”

“Why would he do that? How does he know about us?”

“We had a breach of security at the War Office last night. We think he posed as another officer to get in and infiltrate our file. That’s how he would have known you’re being sent to fetch him.”

“By
pose,
you mean—”

“What happened to his face?” Jasper interrupted

“Last year while he was on a mission for us, one of Captain Dunsmoor’s explosions backfired and caused him significant injury. His identity was exposed to the French. By the time we recovered him and brought him to the good doctor, his life hung by a thread. The heart transplant almost didn’t take. Nobody believed that the damage to his face was repairable, but Helmholtz had been working on a way to synthesize skin cells using his nanites. The War Office requested that in the course of treatment, the captain’s appearance be…altered so his skills could be used more efficiently upon recovery.”

Callie gasped. “You mean you altered his appearance on purpose? Just so that you could use him as a spy?”

Black’s mouth pressed together in a thin line. “As much as you may believe it to be so,
I
am not personally responsible for every action of the War Office, madam,” he snapped.

“No,” Jasper countered, disgust evident in his sharp tone. “But I’ll lay bets that you could take credit for at least half of them.”

Black raised a brow and sneered. “And would we lay the other half at your feet then,
Colonel?
”

Jasper’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t rise to the bait. Callie knew he’d tried to break free of his past…right up until the day she was attacked. To save her, he’d gotten on his knees before the very same organization that had nearly stripped his soul and promised to serve them again. It was why Callie had insisted on being his partner. If he was to be indebted, she refused to let him descend back into hell alone.

“So who is he? Whose face did you give him?” he demanded of General Black.

Oh, dear lord.
It couldn’t be true, could it? She could understand that in the course of repairing the damage, the man might have come out of it looking a little different. But to have been given someone else’s face. Someone specific. That was diabolical.

“We captured a colonel of the Renegade forces who we understood to be privy to very sensitive information. All our efforts to interrogate him had failed. He happened to match Captain Dunsmoor in size, height and coloring.” The general’s words were clipped, his tone sharp, as if he would provide the facts but nothing more. “The opportunity presented itself, and when Dunsmoor healed from the procedure, he was an exact match for the enemy soldier.”

“Ah, God. Did you even ask him before you hacked away at his face? Christ, of course not.” Jasper spun away and pushed a hand through his hair with a harsh oath before he rounded on Black again. “You took his identity. Turned him into the enemy, and he has no way to ever come back from it. It’s no bloody wonder he turned on you. Jesus.”

Callie was the only one to notice the small twitch in the general’s temple. Was the situation getting to him as deeply as it did Jasper? At some point someone had made him the face of the War Office. From what she knew of him, he wouldn’t have appreciated that. His shoulders were wide enough to take on the burden, but it couldn’t be easy being the one who would always bear the consequences of Britain’s intelligence efforts, which were rarely well received when exposed to the public, and often underhanded and devious.

Why did he continue to align himself with the War Office if he didn’t agree with their methods? Perhaps he was indebted to those in command just as she and Jasper were. Either way, she would never ask. He would definitely never tell.

“This is information we should have been given immediately.” Jasper was practically shouting. “Before the man tried to kill us.”

“But he didn’t succeed,” Black said. “And now you should have no difficulty locating him once you reach Manchester.”

Callie frowned. “The last time you thought he would be in Manchester, he was right here under our noses. What makes you think he’ll go there now?”

“He’ll go to Manchester because he broke into the War Office for a reason,” Jasper interrupted. “The files he stole…he’s still after the doctor, isn’t he? And now he knows where you’ve hidden him.”

Chapter Six

They were given only one hour to pack another bag before leaving again. This time Callie insisted on taking the train, and General Black agreed to transport the three of them to the station. She could only hope that steam travel meant less likelihood of fire and falling to one’s death, but given her luck lately she wasn’t going to bet on it.

As they waited to board, Jasper turned to her. “It isn’t what you thought it would be, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The spy business. None of this is very exciting, unless you consider near-death disasters exhilarating.”

“I suppose I assumed our first mission together would be filled with thrilling political intrigue. That we would dash off somewhere romantic like Italy or France under cover of night and wear exotic disguises in order to infiltrate the enemy and recover stolen information vital to our country.” She laughed. “Instead, here we are riding the train to Manchester on a sunny afternoon to apprehend a wanted fugitive of our own government.”