The Last Ringbearer (27 page)

CHAPTER 35

C 
lose to evening a stranger visited the Mordorians’ barrack where the Engineer Second Class lay wracked by a consuming fever. He was wiry and quick of movement, his swarthy Southerner’s face marked by decisiveness – most likely an officer off an Umbarian privateer who by a quirk of fate wound up at Mindolluin rather than dangling off the yardarm of a royal galley. He stood for a minute over the bloody mess already presided over by hordes of fat flies and grumbled to no one in particular: “Yeah, prob’ly a goner by morning …” Then he disappeared, only to re-appear a half an hour later and, much to the surprise of Kumai’s fellow inmates, begin treating him. Ordering them to hold the patient down, he started rubbing a bright-yellow ointment smelling sharply of camphor right into the weeping welts; the pain was bad enough to jerk Kumai out of wobbly unconsciousness, and had he not been so weakened, his fellows would not have been able to keep him pinned down. Pirate (as the prisoners took to calling him) kept working calmly, and just a few minutes later the wounded man relaxed, melting with copious sweat, and sank into real sleep like a stone in a pond.

The ointment was truly miraculous: by morning the welts had not only closed but started itching like crazy – a sure sign of healing. Only a few inflamed, and Pirate, who showed up before morning call, got to work on those. Kumai, mostly back to life by then, greeted his savior gloomily:

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but surely you could’ve found a better use for your wonderful medicine. What use is saving the one who’s going to die soon anyway?”

“Well, a man has to do stupid things from time to time, or stop being a man. Turn a bit … yes … Bear this, engineer, it’ll be better soon … Oh yes, speaking about doing stupid things. Forgive my curiosity, but why have you stayed to die in this quarry? You could have been sitting pretty in a royal workshop in Minas Tirith right now.”

Kumai grunted: “It’s the simple wisdom of prostitutes I’ve followed all my life: don’t hustle while under a customer …” and cut himself short when it suddenly occurred to him: how does this guy know about my trade when I’ve told no one about it and had concealed it during that ‘skill survey’?

“A commendable stance,” nodded Pirate without a shadow of a smile. “The most interesting thing is that in this case it’s also the pragmatically correct one; actually, the only correct one. You see, all those who have
hustled
back then are already dead, whereas you will soon be free, with a bit of luck.”

“Dead? How do you know?”

“I buried them myself, that’s how. I’m a gravedigger here, you see.”

Kumai digested this in silence for some time. The most horrible thing was his first thought: good riddance! And then: my God, whom did I turn into here? He did not understand Pirate’s next words right away:

“In other words, you made the right choice,
mechanic
Kumai. As you can see, the Motherland had not forgotten you and has set up a special operation to save you. I am one of the participants in this operation.”

“How?” He was totally dumbfounded. “What Motherland?”

“What, do you have several?”

“You’re crazy! Someone really is ready to sacrifice a bunch of people just to get me out of here?”

“We are following orders,” Pirate answered drily, “and it’s not for us to decide what is more important to Mordor: a spy network that took years to build or a certain Engineer Second Class.”

“I’m sorry … By the way, somehow I haven’t asked your name yet.”

“You did right – you have no need to know it. Your escape will begin in a few minutes, and no matter what happens, we’ll never meet again.”

“In a few minutes?! Listen, I’m a lot better now, but hardly enough to … how am I supposed to get past the outer guard?”

“As a corpse, of course. Remember that I serve on the burial detail. Don’t worry, you’re neither the first nor the last, knock on wood.”

“So all those who were …”

“Alas, that job was for real. That was Elvish work, there was nothing we could do … Anyway: you will now drink from this bottle and ‘die,’ to all appearances, for about twelve hours; after what happened to you yesterday, no one will be the wiser. The rest is technical details that do not concern you.”

“What do you mean, don’t concern me?”

“Very simple. I advise you to supplement your wonderful ‘don’t hustle while under a customer’ principle with another one: ‘the less you know, the better you sleep.’ Whatever you need to know you’ll know when it’s time. Drink, Kumai, time is of the essence.”

The liquid in the bottle worked in seconds; the last thing he saw was Pirate’s swarthy face with plenty of tiny scars around the lips.

Kumai never found out what happened later to his ‘corpse’ (six beats per minute thready pulse, no visible reactions). Nor was there any reason for him to learn how he rode the corpse cart under a pile of dead bodies, or how he lay in the nearby abandoned quarry under a layer of gravel, awaiting transport. He came to in total darkness; everything’s in order – if Pirate was right about the twelve hours, it should be night now. Where am I? A stable, to judge by the smell … The moment he moved, an unfamiliar voice with a hard-to-place accent spoke:

“Congratulations on your safe arrival, Engineer Second Class! You can relax – the road ahead is long, but the biggest danger is past.”

“Thank you, ah …”

“Superintendent. Just Superintendent.”

“Thank you, Superintendent. That man, back in the quarry …”

“He’s all right. You don’t need to know more.”

“Can I send him my regards?”

“I doubt it. But I’ll report your request.”

“Permission to ask a question?”

“Permission granted.”

“Am I expected to create new weaponry?”

“Certainly.”

“But my specialty is completely different!”

“Do you intend to teach your superiors, Engineer Second Class?”

“No, sir.” He hesitated. “I’m just not sure …”

“But the HQ is sure.” The Superintendent’s voice thawed a little. “After all, you won’t be working alone. There’s a whole team there. Jageddin is the boss.”

“
The
Jageddin?!”

“The very same.”

“Not bad …”

Say what you want, but there is a certain charm in not having much to think about and just doing what you’re told …

“So, you just lie there and get better. Were it not for this stupid incident with the warders, you could’ve gotten started right now, but as it is, we’ll have to wait.”

“You know, I’m well enough to go home, to Mordor, as it is.”

The invisible man chuckled: “Why do you think you’re going to Mordor?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s very simple, really. You’re a wanted man, or at least we’re anticipating such an eventuality; as you’ve seen, the Elves are very thorough. Whereas you must work, rather than hide – two very different tasks.”

“All right; where, then?”

“Think. What’s the best place to stash stolen goods? In a policeman’s attic. What’s the darkest spot in a room? Right under the lamp. Get it?”

“You mean to say …” Kumai said slowly; he felt cold in his gut, because all the pieces of the wonderful puzzle that was his miraculous escape began to fit into a very different picture: a clever ruse. “You mean to say that I’m staying here, in Gondor?”

“No. To be honest, it’s tempting to hide you in Gondor, nor would it be too difficult in any other time. We were working on this option, but had to abandon it. The thing is, right now the King and the Queen are jockeying for position in Minas Tirith; both have their own secret services which spy on each other, so it would be real easy to attract their attention purely by accident. So, unfortunately, no local option for us. But the world is not limited to Gondor and Mordor … By the way, were it the Reunited Kingdom trying to use you surrepticiously, they would most likely have sent you to Mordor: between them, the army and the counter-intelligence service of the victorious nation could have set up an ‘ivory tower’ for you bar none. Do you agree?”

Silence fell for a couple of seconds.

“Damn! Is it so obvious on my phiz?”

“Without a doubt, although I can’t see your phiz in this dark. In other words, let the experts worry about such things and do the job you know how to do, all right?”

“Please accept my apologies, Superintendent.”

“Don’t worry about it. As long as we’re on the subject: the people you’ll be working with at that ‘university’ got there in a variety of ways; many are your good friends. You can discuss anything your heart desires with them – student parties, news of the Resistance, philosophy – anything but the story of how you got there. Loose talk on the subject can cost a lot of people their lives – both my colleagues, like our mutual friend in Mindolluin, and your colleagues still in the hands of the enemy. I say this with utmost seriousness and responsibility. Do you understand, Engineer Second Class?”

“Yes, Superintendent.”

“Very good. Get well soon and move on.”

“Congratulations, Mongoose.” Cheetah straightened up in his armchair and looked over the Secret Guard lieutenant standing at attention. “I have examined your report on Operation Mockingbird. Six men rescued – great job. The Service thanks you.”

“His Majesty’s servant, sir!”

“At ease, Lieutenant. Sit down, this is no parade ground. So the retreat from Mindolluin happened under the emergency option?”

“Yes, sir. The last man I’ve watched – engineer Kumai, number thirty-six on our list, designer of mechanical dragons – got into a stupid mess the day before the planned escape. The local warders turned him into chopped liver, and I had to fix him up real fast; to be honest, first I thought that there was no hope. I did save and extract him, but this completely exposed me: the snitches reported the healing, and … In other words, your boys from the backup team showed up just in time.”

“Yeah,” Cheetah grumbled and looked at the shabby walls of the safe house with obvious disgust, “quite in time … Two dead, three wounded, Her Majesty’s entire Secret Service is frantically looking for a Mordorian spy: a swarthy man with small scars around the mouth. Meanwhile, the police is searching for an escaped convict of the same description … I think, Lieutenant, that it’s high time you changed climates; get packing to go South, to work in Umbar.”

“Yes, Captain, sir!”

“Here, examine this dossier. Baron Tangorn, Faramir’s Umbarian resident before the war. We have reasons to believe that he is doing the same thing we are doing – looking for Mordorian experts and documents for his prince; there are indications that soon he’ll show up in Umbar. Your task is to capture Tangorn and pry all the information concerning this Ithilienian venture out of him. His Majesty considers this operation to be of exceptional importance.”

“May I treat him harshly to obtain this information?”

“It won’t work in any other way; judging by this dossier, the baron is not the kind to buy his life with the secrets he’s been trusted with. In any case he’ll have to be disposed of after the interrogation, since we’re formally allied with Ithilien, so this whole story must not become known.”

“How will he come to Umbar – in an official capacity or? …”

“Most likely ‘or.’ You have an important advantage: it appears that Tangorn doesn’t yet know that he’s being hunted. He may even stay openly in a local hotel, at least at first, and then his capture will not be a problem. But the baron is an old hand; if he detects something amiss, he’ll disappear in that city like a frog in a pond.”

“Understood. Will I operate independently, alone?”

“Independently, but not alone. You’ll have three sergeants – choose them yourself, out of our people. If you find him quick, that should be more than enough. But if you spook him …”

“That can’t happen, Captain, sir!”

“Anything can happen to anyone,” Cheetah responded irritably, involuntarily glancing at his foot. “Anyway, while searching in the city you may not ask the local station for help, which is a great pity: they have a boatload of manpower, and, more importantly, excellent contacts in the local police …”

“May I know why?”

“Because we have information that the Elves are very active in Umbar and there’s a strong pro-Elvish underground there. Under no circumstances may Lórien find out about your operation – this is the strictest order – and I’m concerned with leaks:
our
people are in the shortest supply, and, regrettably, all the resident spies in Umbar are regular people …” Cheetah hesitated a little and finished in a humdrum sort of tone: “You will have a
mandate, just in case.”

Mongoose looked up at the captain, as if to confirm what he heard. So this is what ‘His Majesty considers this operation to be of exceptional importance’ means! A
mandate allowed a member of the Secret Service to act in the name of the King. In overseas operations this can be necessary for only two reasons: to give a direct order to the ambassador or to depose (or eliminate on the spot) the local station chief …