Butler Did It! (29 page)

“Kobi, this is not as it seems.” Simon
quickly explained, as he held out his hands in a pleading gesture.
“I have been in delicate negotiations with Alexander Levasseur to
reacquire Queen Hatshepsut’s gifts and return them to Kenya.” All
the while Simon edged along the steam table toward another
potential weapon. “Why, I arrived just this evening to take
possession of the antiquities.”

“Strange, that’s not what Matthew
Butler and Katherine Annenberg said.” Kobi returned. “According to
them, you spoke quite eloquently about the history of the Sambok.”
Kobi advanced to the near side of the steam table.

“Lies, all lies! I wasn’t even here
yesterday evening.” Simon denied vehemently.

“I don’t remember mentioning when,
Simon.”

A long silence carried through the room
as Simon realized his mistake. The politician’s tone quickly
changed from denial to anger.

“You were always so clever. Even as a
child, you were the smart one, the favored one. Is it any wonder
that I hate you? You are an elder’s son and a man of destiny, yet
you refused to use your gifts to improve your power and prestige.
You squandered your legacy the day you became a lowly game
warden.”

“And you perverted yours by becoming a
vain, petty politician with delusions of grandeur.” Kobi returned.
“Simon, you’re so blind that you can’t even see what you’ve become.
You are a charlatan, one who constantly schemes and wheedles in a
futile effort to steal power. It’s no wonder everyone calls you the
‘Peacock with two tails’. You and Levasseur are the masterminds
behind all of this, aren’t you?”

With a completely insincere sigh, Simon
shrugged. “Yes, I arranged to steal the artifacts. Levasseur’s
influence got it released from the British Museum.”

Simon’s surprising confession
astonished Kobi, but not as much as when Simon’s manner suddenly
donned a robe of egomania.

“In a matter of days I will return this
treasure to a grateful nation. A smart politician must wield power
effectively. The return of the antiquities will elevate me to the
status of a national hero. That and the healthy campaign chest
provided by Mr. Levasseur will insure a favorable result in the
upcoming election. Six months from now I will be the new President
of Kenya.”

Kobi blanched inside at the prospect of
the Peacock becoming both the President of Kenya and his boss at
the same time.

“And, what does Levasseur get in
return? Certainly, his money and influence will buy much. I suppose
that your corrupt government will protect his arms shipments and
allow him to launder currency. But, most of all, he will get a
strong base from which he can run guns throughout
Africa.”

“What does it matter? No one cares, and
no one can stop us.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Kobi said,
his voice rising, “Simon Njuguna, I arrest you for crimes against
Kenya. Will you come quietly?”

“Ah Cousin, I think not.” With that
remark, Simon grabbed a pan of pea soup warming on the steam table
and flung it at Kobi. The pan and its contents barely missed Kobi
before exploding between the stove and the prep table
opposite.

“Now, now,” Kobi remonstrated, flicking
some green slime from his shirt. “Don’t make me angry.”

“Yes. Assaulting an officer is a
serious offence,” Simon mocked.

“But not as serious as mass murder and
treason,” Kobi retorted. “Both of those are hanging offenses. And
if it takes a lifetime, I swear that I will see you hang for your
crimes.”

Warily, the two men circled the steam
table, always keeping it between them. Simon reached a pan of roast
beef, suddenly grabbing the meat fork and quickly flinging it at
Kobi’s head. Again, the younger man ducked under the streaking
missile. As Simon reached for a conveniently abandoned butcher
knife, Kobi picked up one of the lids from the steam
table.

This seems familiar
, he thought.
This lid is no bigger than the practice shields of my youth, and
it’s strong enough to deflect most anything Simon might
throw.

Another idea suddenly occurred to him.
Perhaps, I can goad Simon into making a mistake. Kobi picked up a
serving spoon from a pan of macaroni and cheese and threw it with
considerable force at Simon. The sticky, cheesy spoon hit Simon
squarely in the chest.

“Ow!” He gasped, as the spoon splatted
on the floor. “This is my best silk suit, you bastard.”

Once a peacock, always a
peacock
, Kobi reflected, as he cast about for a better weapon.
He settled on a twelve-inch long metal skewer.
Good for
stabbing, but poor for hacking,
he thought, as he dodged a
short shower of forks.

Simon had also acquired a large pot lid
for a shield and was searching furiously for a better
weapon.

In the escalating arms race, each man
acquired and rejected utensil after utensil, flinging each
rejection at the other person with speed and power.

As they scrounged for better weapons,
both men closed in on the kitchen’s ultimate armory, the stove
area, where several large pots and frying pans hung from an
overhead rack. Simon arrived first but had trouble getting a long
handled pot off the hook because he had tracked through the spilled
pea soup, which had made the floor treacherously
slippery.

Watching Simon struggle to maintain his
balance, Kobi saw his opportunity. Grabbing a nearby ten-inch
frying pan, he attacked. Simon had only a second to deflect the
blow with his pot-lid shield. Kobi flung his own shield at Simon,
and wielding the frying pan with two hands, rained a series of
blows as fast and as hard as he could. Yelling at the top of his
voice, he beat down Simon’s shield, and quickly caught Simon on the
side of the head with a resounding ‘thwack.’ The politician uttered
a surprised ‘ook’ and collapsed as if pole-axed.

Panting from the effort and the
aftereffects of excessive adrenaline racing through his system,
Kobi cast around for something to restrain his captive. Seeing
nothing useful, he hoisted the unconscious man on top of a
butcher’s block. Using all the knives he could find, he pinned
Simon face down over the block by beating a multitude of knives
through Simon’s best silk suit into the block with his frying pan.
After several minutes of effort, Kobi stood back to admire his
solution. Simon was well pinned, with knives through the suit’s
shoulders, elbows, wrists, and waist. For good measure, Kobi took
the two largest knives and beat them crosswise into the block with
the sharp edge just touching the back of Simon’s neck.

“That should hold you for a bit,” he
muttered.

<<>>

In the living room, Elke threw a punch
at Chan’s face while Eva directed a kick at his groin. With a
graceful spiral, Chan slipped past the punch, giving Elke a nudge
that sent her sprawling across the hardwood floor. At the same
time, he caught Eva’s kick, lifted her foot high in the air and
dumped her on her ass. Without turning around, he brought his heel
down viciously on Eva’s hand as she reached for her automatic
weapon. The howl of pain the blow produced rattled a chandelier.
Chan kicked the automatic under a grand piano.

Elke quickly leapt to her feet again,
lining up for another attack.

Chan gave her a little smile, “Remember
rule number one.” He said, in a reference to his favorite Terry
Pratchett quote, ‘Do not act incautiously when confronting a little
bald wrinkly smiling man,’ from the novel Thief of Time.

“I’ll show you the rules, old man,”
Elke screamed, swinging her leg in a roundhouse kick, trying to
sweep him off his feet. He caught her leg with his left hand,
spinning with her momentum. Unprepared for Chan’s defense, Elke
suddenly found herself cart wheeling backward, again landing
heavily on top of her sister. The two women quickly scrambled to
their feet but did not attack. Instead, they paused, sizing up the
smaller Chinaman with a bit more caution.

<<>>

On the other side of the room,
Katharine stared at the gasping, red-faced Levasseur in
astonishment. “It worked! Look! It actually worked,” she
yelled.

Matthew rushed to her side, “Listen,
you’ve got to get out of here!” He grabbed her camera off the desk,
pushed it into her arms and hustled her to the door. “Go back to
the Rusty Duck and wait for us there. We don’t know how many guards
are still out there.”

“Matthew, he’s getting away,” shouted
Chan, caught in the middle of a simultaneous attack by the Ice
Maidens.

Bent over in pain, Levasseur was making
a slow break for a nearby doorway. More roughly than he intended,
Matthew shoved Katharine out of the house. “Stay out of sight,” he
commanded, turning back to pursue Levasseur.

<<>>

Taking advantage of Chan’s apparent
distraction, Elke threw herself at him, attempting to get him in a
strangle hold. Chan, placing one hand on her collarbone, and
adjusting her trajectory and speed considerably, sent her headfirst
into a corner. Eva, a skilled and dirty fighter, tried a feint to
the left and then a punch to Chan’s solar plexus. Effortlessly,
Chan slipped past her strike, leaving Eva overbalanced as her punch
met with empty air. Chan’s index finger gave her a tiny push as she
flew past him. That push got her spinning and she belly-flopped
onto Elke. Both women, bruised in body and ego alike, rose
cautiously to their respective defensive positions to confront
their opponent. With just a few simple movements, both had been
made painfully aware that Chan wasn’t going to be a pushover. The
little man stood before them, beckoning the two battered women to
continue the fight. His well-practiced radiant smile, a devastating
weapon in itself, just urged his infuriated opponents into making a
rash and perhaps even fatal move.

<<>>

In hot pursuit of Levasseur, Matthew
raced down a long hallway into what appeared to be a study, where
he saw Levasseur standing in front of an open floor safe. As
Matthew got close enough, he saw Levasseur reach for a pistol on
the shelf inside. Thinking quickly, Butler kicked the safe door,
which slammed on Levasseur’s wrist, forcing him drop the pistol
back on the shelf. As Levasseur retreated, blood still running from
his nose and now holding a bruised hand, Matthew swung the safe
shut and spun the dial.

“You won’t need that,” he
said.

Instead of attacking, Levasseur raced
to a wall that held a collection of African Tribal weapons, with
several vicious-looking spears among them.

“You’re right, I don’t need the gun.”
Levasseur said, as he pulled a short Assegai spear from the wall.
“I have many ways to kill you,” he laughed as he threw the
spear.

Butler easily dodged the badly thrown
spear, which clipped a marble urn, then bounced off the couch and
fell to the floor. He grabbed up the first portable thing that came
to hand, a large crystal ashtray. He threw this at Levasseur, who
also easily dodged the missile. The ashtray did find a target
however, when it shattered the glass front of a weapons case,
showering Levasseur with broken fragments.

Shaking glass out of his face and hair,
Levasseur reached into the case blindly and came out holding a
bronze tipped Ethiopian war axe. Taking two leaping steps, he
closed the distance to Butler, swinging the axe madly. Butler
stepped inside the arc of the axe, diverting the blow, but
miscalculated Levasseur’s momentum, which carried both men onto a
nearby couch. Levasseur’s flailing axe blade hit a lamp and sent
its shattered remains across the room to explode on the wall
opposite. As Matthew scrambled to climb over the back of the couch,
Levasseur snarled and leapt after him, taking both men and the
couch over backwards. Matthew turned his head, barely dodging the
brutal blow that drove the axe an inch into the teak
flooring.

Butler rolled onto his feet as
Levasseur tried to extract the axe. Unable to free it from the hard
teak floor, Levasseur abandoned it and began looking for a new
weapon. With Levasseur distracted, Butler cast about for a weapon
of his own, saw the Assegai spear lying on the floor and pounced
upon it. Just at that moment, one of the twins came flying backward
through the study door. Stumbling, she tripped over the crouching
Butler, lost the remains of her balance and fell onto an ornate,
inlaid side-table, whose legs gave out immediately. The stunned
woman awkwardly crashed to the floor between the two men. Butler,
reacting to this new threat, paused, giving Levasseur just enough
time to make a run for it. Matthew scooped up the spear from the
floor where it lay and threw it at the retreating Levasseur.
Missing its mark, the spear struck the doorframe with a ringing
‘thung’ sound, just inches from Levasseur’s retreating
head.

<<>>

As she ran down the dark path to the
dock, Katharine’s heart soared. She just couldn’t believe that she
had retrieved her camera, especially when it took something as dumb
as leaping into a standoff to do it. The elation quickly passed
however, as several dark questions rose up in the recesses of her
mind.
What about the photographs of the Coelacanth? Were they
still in the camera?