Gossamer Wing (28 page)

He was sorry, Martin could tell. Naïve though the sentiment seemed, it made a difference. Martin hadn’t believed Dubois, hadn’t even quite believed himself. He believed Dexter Hardison, though, about both the poison and the sympathy.

It really is over
.

“This was more than just a drop, I suspect,” he said softly, with a wry smile.

* * *

THE NEXT ATTEMPT
to place the listening ear had gone more smoothly than the first, but Charlotte still heard nothing when she bent to the earpiece. It made the sound of the ocean, nothing more.

“Damn it!”

The craving to pilot the sub upward again, crack the surface and swing the hatch up, was almost too great to resist. The cabin seemed so small she could barely move inside it now. The atmosphere was thick and heavy with fear. Her fingertips tingled constantly, buzzing with tension from her taut shoulders and her ongoing struggle to keep from hyperventilating into unconsciousness. Her head was throbbing, stomach churning, and Charlotte thought if she ever escaped the submersible she would never, never allow herself to be put into such a tiny enclosure again. She would live on her front lawn, if need be, weather and elements be damned.

Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine herself on the
Gossamer Wing
. Soaring through open air, the whole world below like a picture from a storybook, a chill but bracing breeze on her face.

Soon
, she promised herself.
Dexter first
.

She would make one more attempt. One more try at finding them, getting a read on the situation, anything she could learn to tell the agents speeding to Dexter’s rescue, to make it safer for him when they went in.

Really, she just wanted to reassure herself that he was alive.

Charlotte piloted the craft down the length of the ship and stopped midway before turning and cranking the handle to maneuver the extendable arm out once more.

Thinking about it less, and barely looking at the viewfinder, she had better luck. The ear pressed flat against the hull and sealed itself there on the first attempt, and a startled laugh bubbled up as Charlotte leaned down and twisted the earpiece toward her ear.

“If I’d known it was that easy I would have just tried doing it blind from the start,” she muttered to herself. Then she stopped breathing as she heard a voice from the earpiece.

“Even if I could remove it, there’s no antidote for . . .”

Dexter!

The connection was feeble, and Charlotte turned the volume higher once more, straining to catch as much as she could; she didn’t dare risk attempting another placement of the listening device.

“Was in a vault in his office. He claimed to have destroyed it.”

That was Coeur de Fer’s
voice, she supposed. He spoke remarkably clear English.

“He was lying,” Dexter replied. “There’s no known antidote for mercuric cyanide. It kills some fast, some more slowly, depending on the victim and the dosage. But either way it’s death, and not a very nice one. Taking the arm off now wouldn’t do a thing to help.”

“I should have known. He never did have any honor.”

“Look, I know this ship isn’t really moving, there’s no engine vibration. We could just go ashore right now. If you went to a hospital they might be able to make you more comfortable,” Dexter suggested.

Coeur de Fer chuckled. “Good effort, my friend, but I think not. I do not care to spend my last few days—”

“Hours,” corrected Dexter.

“Or even my last few hours—in a jail cell as a murderer and a traitor.”

“Understandable. Are you going to kill me?”

Charlotte gasped to hear Dexter’s direct question.
Don’t put ideas into his head
, she thought.

“Probably not,” the dying spy conceded. “I don’t think I have the strength. You can tell my story after I’m gone, I think.”

“What version would you like me to tell?” Dexter inquired, his dry humor coming through even over the earpiece in the submersible. Charlotte smiled, touching a finger to the device. He wasn’t even attempting to trick his kidnapper, to plead or lie or wheedle his way out, she thought with a hint of pride. He was just . . . being Dexter.

“One that finally gives Simone Vernier the recognition she deserves, and that casts Dubois as the fiend of the piece.”

“From what I gather that wouldn’t be too difficult. I’d only have to tell the truth, then, wouldn’t I?”

She was astonished.
A joke
. There he was, being held captive on a derelict freighter in a remote by-water by a rogue agent who very likely planned to murder him, and Dexter was making
jokes
with the man. Amazing.

Martin didn’t seem to mind. “It was all just about money to him, you know? Dubois. He claimed to care about France, about pushing the British out. But that was never the true reason. He just wanted to make the war go on, so his contract would go on too and he would make more money. Always more. That’s why he wanted to kill Murcheson, to eliminate his competition for the steamrail project. He didn’t do it for any noble cause, not for France; he did it for himself. He made a traitor of me too, which saddens me. I would not have had my life end in this disloyalty.”

After a pause, Dexter spoke again. “Perhaps it doesn’t have to. I think we might be able to reach an agreement.”

Twenty-one

LE HAVRE, FRANCE

CHARLOTTE FINALLY LIFTED
the hatch to the submersible to find a row of pistols pointed at her from the dock.

“Lady Hardison?” one of the men asked, clearly in shock.

The weapons wavered then lowered as she clambered from the sub to the dock with the help of the agent who had recognized her first.

“You need to get back, ma’am. If you take cover behind one of the shipping crates, that should—”

“Put your weapons away,” she demanded. “I don’t need to take cover. I think they’re about to come out.”

“Lady Hardison,” another of the agents said, “our priority is to take down Jacques Martin. We need to take that ship. We’ll do everything we can to avoid collateral harm, but you really must—”

“No, I mustn’t,” Charlotte insisted, alarmed. “I heard Dexter and Martin talking. Dexter is in no danger from him right now, but that could change if Coeur de Fer is threatened by a bunch of hotheaded idiots waving guns in his face.”

“I don’t think you’re aware of all the circumstances, my lady.”

“I don’t think you’re aware of the danger your career is in with this agency if my father learns that his son-in-law negotiated himself out of a hostage situation only to be killed by friendly fire.”

Charlotte knew Murcheson had remained at his factory, in an attempt to preserve his cover should it be intact after the events of the past few days. She found herself longing for the man’s presence, even if he had been a bit paternalistic earlier, because he would at least have listened to her. She had no assurance these men would. They had all put their guns away, but it seemed obvious they were only moments away from deploying them again to go after their quarry.

“Please,” she begged. “Don’t storm the ship. Give Dexter just a little more time. Just . . . just ten minutes. If he doesn’t come out with Coeur de Fer by then, you can go in and do your worst.”

“We have our orders, ma’am.” He stepped toward Charlotte, reaching for her arm. She backed away nimbly, drawing her pistol from its holster on her thigh.

“I don’t give a damn what your orders are, I know what I heard and I won’t let any of you risk my husband’s life.” The men stood stunned, hands halted on the way back to their own weapons. She’d drawn too quickly for them to respond in time, however. Clearly they hadn’t been expecting anything like this from Charlotte. She wondered briefly if it was her size, her gender or the situation that had put them off guard.

“Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said slowly, “put your weapon down. You don’t want to do this.” He sounded as though he were trying to placate a child.

Charlotte backed another few steps away and fixed the group with a glare. “You’re making a grave error to think I won’t shoot. Do you really think I value any of your lives more highly than my husband’s? You there!” she snapped at the agent standing farthest from her, “hands where I can see them. All of you, hands up. If anybody else tries reaching for a pistol, he’ll be shot for his trouble. I won’t kill you but I will incapacitate you if I have to.”

The agent moved his hand away from the holster and raised his arms. The others followed suit, looking miserable and baffled about what to do next.

Charlotte kept the gun trained on the lead agent and pulled out her pocket chronometer. “Ten minutes. That’s all I asked for, that’s reasonable, and if he doesn’t come out by then we’ll . . . reevaluate.”

“Three minutes,” offered the agent.

She shook her head. “You’re still not taking me seriously, are you? I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I will not let you board that ship, sir. Don’t try my patience. You’re in no position to negotiate.”

“Murcheson will see you hanged if you’re wrong, Lady Hardison.”

“My father is more frightening than Murcheson, trust me.”

The noise of a hatch creaking open alerted Charlotte even before the agents’ amazed glances did, and she had to resist the urge to turn her head to see whether it was Dexter or Martin standing on the deck of the ship.

“I’m all right. I’m coming down,” Dexter called out. “Please don’t shoot.”

As the wave of relief struck her, Charlotte’s hand began to tremble. She forced herself to breathe steadily and stay focused on the agents in front of her as Dexter spoke again.

“Mr. Martin is coming with me,” he told them. “Please, ah, don’t shoot him either. I’ve given him my word he won’t be hurt. Charlotte, what’s going on down there?”

“Have you been harmed, Lord Hardison?” the lead agent called. His hand twitched down as though he were thinking of reaching for his gun, then snapped back up again when Charlotte made a warning noise.

“No, not really,” Dexter said. “Have you?”

With a feeble smile, Charlotte replied, “I haven’t shot anyone yet. These gentlemen are rather set on killing Mr. Martin, though. Shall I keep them from doing that?”

“I suppose so. We’re coming down, but this gangplank will take me a moment. I’ll have to do it myself, Monsieur Martin is in no shape to help,” Dexter explained as he started turning the giant crank to extend and lower the gangplank to the dock. From the corner of her eye, Charlotte could see the mechanism working.

Then there was a moment of silence, and she backed up even more to put the gangplank between herself and the agents, so she could see Dexter. He stood at the top with an arm braced around his slender, pale, black-suited companion.

“All right. Don’t shoot,” Dexter warned them again, though the agents made no move toward their weapons. “He’s dying already, anyway, so there would really be no point.”

Dying?
Charlotte watched them descend, the sight confirming Dexter’s words. Martin was obviously sick unto death, his breath a rasping wheeze, his legs barely able to support his trembling body. As they approached the circle of watery light provided by the dock’s single lamp, Charlotte could see that Coeur de Fer was flushed an unnatural pink, and drenched with sweat.

“Dear God. You can lower your weapon now, Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said as Dexter stopped by a piling and lowered Martin to sit on the rough stump. “Your husband is right, there would be no point to shooting this man. He’s done for. Stand down, gentlemen.”

Charlotte considered him for a moment, then cocked her pistol back and flicked the safety on before tucking it back into its holster. She turned to Dexter, who was still bending over the crumpled husk of a man he’d half-carried off the ship.

“He has a story to tell,” he explained, straightening to look at the agents and Charlotte.

Coeur de Fer nodded, then took a breath and began. “Seven years ago, I sold my soul . . .”

* * *

THE AGENTS HAD
gathered around Coeur de Fer, straining to hear his voice, one of them writing it all down in a notebook he’d procured from somewhere. From time to time in the narrative, one or another of them would exclaim as another years-old mystery was resolved.

Murder and sabotage, callous cruelty and greed. If half what Martin said were true, Dubois was a monster indeed, even worse than the sort Murcheson had suspected him of being. And Coeur de Fer had been his creature, trapped into service by his own ambition and poor choices.

“Simone Vernier probably had all the information she needed to have Dubois strung up. If she had only lived long enough to report . . .” The British agent’s voice trailed off as he considered what might have happened had Dubois received the justice he’d deserved back then, when he really had been committing deliberate treason, actively conspiring against the ruling faction of the French government in hopes of derailing the treaty process.

“Ah, but if she had, she would have probably also gotten those notes to our superiors, and if that had happened the French might never have come to the negotiating table with the British,” Martin countered. “Who ever knows about these things? That was one of Dubois’s mistakes, thinking he could predict the outcome of such complicated plans.”

An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, approaching rapidly. Martin reached out, clutching Dexter’s forearm. “My mother is Marie-Terese Imbert. She lives in Bayeux. See that she gets my remains, at least the metal. I am worth far more dead than alive, and I should like to be some good to her after all these years.”

“I will,” Dexter assured him.

A fit of coughing and retching overwhelmed Martin, and he could barely speak by the time he regained what little breath was left to him.

“I was Jean-Michel Imbert once,” he whispered. He swayed on his post, and Dexter leaned in to support him again. “My greatest regret was letting my mother think I had died. But I couldn’t let her know what I had become.”

Dexter thought of his own mother, several years widowed but nevertheless peaceful and happy, and extravagantly proud of her son. She had cried at his wedding. That had been
his
great regret, lying to his mother about Charlotte and the marriage, but he’d known she would forgive him after the fact and be proud of him for serving the Crown so selflessly. He was struck by how fortunate he was, and how ridiculous it was that he took his luck for granted most of the time.

“Perhaps you’ll last long enough to talk to her yourself,” he comforted Martin, but the other man shook his head.

“Thank you, my friend,” he whispered. Dexter could barely hear him. “You’ve rid me of the poison after all.”

As the attendants swarmed down from the ambulance and muscled the nearly dead Jacques Martin into a gurney, Dexter stepped away and walked toward Charlotte. She stood several yards from the frantically active scene, staring at Martin. Dexter couldn’t read her expression, but she was so beautiful it made his breath catch in his throat.

Her hair fell over her shoulder in a loose plait, stray curls catching the rays of the cheap floodlight in a halo around her head. The white jacket she wore was fastened up tight against the chill. She wore holsters on both thighs, a pistol in one and a wicked knife in the other, and on the whole she gave the appearance of a dangerous but angelic child. A fierce guardian spirit. A creature of myth.

Too good to be true
, he told himself.
Too good to be true for me
.

“You forgive him, and I can’t,” she greeted him. She didn’t sound angry, just puzzled and exhausted.

Dexter stopped short a few feet away from her. “What makes you say I forgive him?” He wasn’t so sure, himself, that he’d forgiven anything. The man had nearly killed them both, by his own hand or by proxy. He’d chased them, and then drugged and kidnapped Dexter. Charlotte had lost her husband to the man. It would take a great deal to forgive all that.

“Maybe not forgive. But you pity him. I was so frightened when I realized he’d taken you, but all the time you felt for him. I still see a monster.”

“Dubois was the monster. Martin did terrible things,” Dexter said, “but in his own mind he didn’t have much choice.”

“We always have a choice.”

After an awkward silence, Dexter cleared his throat. “This wasn’t quite the greeting I expected. And not the one I’d planned. Thank you for coming to my rescue, Charlotte.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No. I just kept the agents from rushing in. You rescued yourself. You were so reasonable in there. So . . . kind.”

“Why don’t I feel complimented?”

Dexter was irked, in fact. He was tired, very tired. He wanted a substantial kiss and a great deal of coddling, and instead Charlotte seemed too stunned at his forgiving nature, too awed by his supposed
kindness
to provide those things.

“I’m sorry. You should feel complimented. I’m . . .” She blinked back tears, shaking her head sharply then flinging herself at him in a ferocious embrace. “I’m just so glad you’re not dead!”

“That’s better,” Dexter chuckled into her neck.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He wrapped his arms around her, dipping down and picking her up by the waist for a few seconds. Amazed, as always, by how light she was. He set her down gently and framed her face with his hands, wiping a tear away with one thumb.

“I just realized, you came all the way here in the submersible, didn’t you? I can’t believe you did that for me. That was very brave of you.”

Charlotte nodded. “Murcheson may be less than pleased, though.”

“You did it without his permission?” Dexter asked, taken aback.

She blushed as she confessed, “I did it against his express orders to stay at the station.”

Dexter frowned. “My knight in shining armor. But you took too great a risk holding the agents off like that. They had their orders to follow. You can’t go drawing weapons on your own side, Charlotte. Murcheson will be even less pleased about that than about the sub.”

“Sir? Ma’am? We’re heading back to the station. We’ll need you to come with us.”

Dexter ignored the agent who’d spoken, and indulged in another few seconds of staring at Charlotte. She licked her lips and offered a tentative smile, and Dexter couldn’t help himself. He bent and kissed her as chastely as he could manage, then pulled away long before he wanted to and nodded at the waiting agent.

“I’ll meet you there, I suppose,” Charlotte said. “I’ll have to take the sub back to base.”