The Ultimate Secret (11 page)

“Jen!” cried Jamie, slapping his left hand on the table and extending it to the new arrival. “How the devil are you?”

The fixer frowned, then smiled fleetingly and reached out with own left. “Of course. Tinks said you’d hurt your right arm.” Jen’s accent came and went, depending on who he was speaking to; with strangers, he generally affected a Chinese accent so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible, but with those he knew well – and the two Welsh mercenaries were old friends and customers – he spoke English easily, with a slight hint of an American accent.

“Oh, this?” Jamie raised his right arm slightly, wincing a little. “It’s nothing. Bloody dog. Right as rain before you know it.”

“Glad to hear it. I’m well, since you ask. Business is good. Tinks?” He turned to the woman, who smiled tightly.

“Well enough. Between jobs; you know how it is.”

“Of course, of course. As much as I enjoy both your company, you’re here for a reason.”

“No rush,” said Jamie expansively. “We’ve time for a chat. It’s not like we’re going anywhere in a hurry; it’s three in the bloody morning.”

The fixer smiled, a little more surely. “Sadly, I do not. To business, and then I have a meeting to return to. Perhaps next time you’re in town. Suzie may be around.”

“We’d like that,” said Tinks.

“Excellent.” Jen smiled again and held out the envelope to her. “The job’s all in here. Buenos Aires; there are airship tickets in there. Simple second-story stuff. You’re to pick up a box of files or something, and rendezvous with the client’s representative in Stanley.”

“Do we get to know who the principal is this time?” asked Tinks, tipping out the envelope and leafing through the document. “Or does he want to remain anonymous?”

Jen shook his head. “As it happens, he doesn’t mind. The request has come through formal channels, from the East India Company. Mumbai office. It’s not my usual man, but the authorisation’s legitimate. I know people who’ve handled work for this guy, and he’s up front. Always pays on time.”

Tinks fixed a steady eye on him. “An honest spy?”

“All the best ones are.”

“In, out, no fighting?”

“That’s the plan.”

B
UENOS
A
IRES,
A
RGENTINA,
1999

“B
UGGER
! G
ET THAT,
would you, pet?”

The wrench
clanged
, impossibly loudly, as it fell to the roof of the lift. Jamie hung from a clamp on the lift cable as he worked at the door mechanism; Tinks stood on the roof and watched through the hatch at her feet, carbine cocked and ready, for anyone coming in beneath her.

She grimaced, hissed up at him. “Could you keep it down?”

“Sorry, love. Bit tricky getting a purchase on the door release from this position, and my arm’s still a bit stiff. Sling it up, would you?”

She crouched, keeping the carbine trained through the manhole one-handed as she fumbled for the wrench with her left, then straightened and tossed it up to him. The big mercenary caught the tool and applied himself back to his work.

T
HE FLIGHT HAD
taken a week. Britannia Airways airships were more comfortable than they were used to, even in second class; Jamie and Tinks had taken the opportunity to relax, gambling in the casino and playing quoits in the long gallery. They’d hung at the railing along with everyone else to see the stegosaurus ranches pass underneath, the great, slow beasts gathered in vast herds, leather-clad
llaneros
circling them on horseback and driving them to slaughter.

Disembarking at Ministro Pistarini had been trouble-free, thanks to Jen’s false passports and visas; they’d even passed through customs with barely a nod, as their forged papers gave Ecuador as their point of origin. Since the formation of the South American Union in ’55, all travel in-continent was more or less unrestricted.

It wasn’t the first time the two had come to the Queen of El Plata. Confronted with Britannian imperialism on the one hand and American socialism on the other, President Perón had plumped for pure capitalism, opening his country up for diplomatic and trade relations with all comers and forging an economic bloc – initially with Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru – that now spanned the whole South American continent, and was considered by many to be the only significant threat to Britannian dominance going into the twenty-first century. With the discovery of cavorium in the Ecuadorean Andes in ’92 and cavorite production now in full flow, Union President Chavez was even planning a settlement on Mars.

Perón’s steadfast political neutrality had encountered its first real threat after only a year, when a known political assassin had fled French justice to Buenos Aires and the Argentine government had refused to extradite him. Perón himself had flown to Paris to a summit with the French and Britannian leaders, and had spelled his nation’s policy out in no uncertain terms: Argentina would not extradite, would not expose, would offer no concession to any other sovereign power, and would ask none in turn. The SAU were open to business with all, and no sanction or threat of force would sway them to break any trust they had entered into with any other power.

For a few months, the fledgling trade bloc seemed at risk of a full-blown Britannian retaliation; but then old Blighty, it seemed, decided she had as much to gain from the situation as anyone else, and business eventually resumed as normal. The Ultimate Reich, already heavily invested in Argentina after the Second Great European War, flooded Buenos Aires; and China, the USSA, the League of Socialist Republics and even Britannia followed suit. Forty years on on, every nation of the world was represented in the capital. It was widely held that the secret records of every black operation, every shameful act, every denied, hidden policy in the world was tucked away in one diplomatic office or another across the city, safely protected by Argentine neutrality. Hence its other nickname: the Graveyard of Secrets.

Which also made it a popular hunting ground for the likes of Jamie and Tinkerbell. A number of their clients, over the years, had wanted to know something a rival nation was keeping secret, and here was often the place to find it. Argentina punished spies harshly, but the potential rewards more than made up for the risk.

“H
ERE WE ARE
. Thirteenth floor.” Jamie clambered out the lift door and swept the corridor with his pistol. The gas lamps were wound low, casting the floor in a warm gloom. The wall facing him bore the legend
Archiv 4
.

Tinks slinked out behind him, carbine slung over her shoulder. She grinned at him. “Feeling superstitious?”

“Actually I was just thinking maybe the Germans were. Bit obvious, isn’t it, putting your secret files up here?”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. There are archives on the floors below as well.” She’d unslung her rifle, and now pulled a creased drawing out of a thigh pocket. “Right. We need Room 4B. On the right, second left.”

They moved down the hall, slowly and silently, scanning the way in both directions as they went.

O
BERSTURMFÜHRER
H
EIDI
F
ARLHABER
swung back on her chair, booted feet resting on the cheap table by the wall, flipping through a battered old American pulp novel,
The Queen of the Leopard People!
It was supposedly based on true events, but she found it sordid and dull. She sighed and tossed the book onto the table.

Strict embassy rules held that a Schutzstaffel officer be posted at the Schwarzarchiv at all times, and in theory it was an honour to be given this responsibility – it had come with her officer’s commission – but she couldn’t help but feel it was a punishment. She’d been too outspoken, too unruly, in her earlier assignments; it was a fault common to her kind, and she couldn’t help but think the upper ranks should take that into account. Instead, here she was cooling her heels at this
tote Hosen
outpost of the Ultimate Reich, protecting dusty old boxes that no-one had shown the slightest interest in in decades.

She sighed again and rubbed her temples. Perhaps the late hour was making her maudlin. She’d get a coffee and–

A noise.

Heidi’s ears twitched and she became perfectly still, straining to hear the sound that had caught her attention. She sniffed the air, hoping to make out, beneath the dust and the faded, brittle paper, and the fug of the gas lamps, some hint of–

Yes. A hint of human perspiration. And now a soft footfall.

She dropped her feet to the floor and stood in a single, fluid motion, drawing her Luger as she did so, then looked down at the pistol, grimaced and reholstered it. She was going to be meeting new people, after all.

It would be politest to change first.

T
HEY WERE ONLY
minutes out of the airfield when Tinks clocked their tail.

The address had been easy enough to locate. The Autopista Pascual Palazzo was a major road in an industrial district in the northeast of the city; mostly paper factories and news presses. It was about three-quarters of an hour’s drive on main roads all the way, by cab.

They’d briefly debated hiring a trap. There was a small crowd of them outside the airfield, the drivers grooming and fussing over the
lagartos
: pachycephalosaurs, by the looks of them, their hides striped in vivid red and yellow, domed heads gleaming in the sun as they bobbed and tossed. But Jamie had demurred; the traps were cheaper than a steam car, but slower and less reliable, and he didn’t like the beasts. Skittish, and inclined to balk in crowds.

Pulling onto Pablo Ricchieri out of the airport, they’d been joined immediately by two or three other cabs – more passengers from the same flight, presumably – and a plain, new black car that slipped into the traffic two places behind them and remained obstinately in place, changing lanes twice to remain there. Tinks pointed it out to her partner.

“Thought that girl on Passport Control was giving us the eyeball,” he’d muttered. “They’re being a bit obvious, though, aren’t they?”

“Sending us a message, love.” Tinks had given them one more glance and slumped back in her seat to leaf through the architectural drawings they’d been given. “‘We know you’re here. Get out of town.’”

“What d’you think we should we do, then?”

She’d shrugged, still poring over the papers. “See if we can try and throw them off, carry on with the mission.”

“You’ve got a face, haven’t you? They hang spies, here.”

She’d smiled, and kissed him. “Let’s not get caught, then.”

T
HE DOOR WAS
locked. Tinks pulled a roll of lockpicks from her belt, selected a couple of tools, and set to work as Jamie covered her. Even in the dim light, it took her less than two minutes.

It opened without a creak; disused as these archives were, the whole floor was nonetheless spotlessly maintained. The floors gleamed, and the walls had been recently painted. The only dust was in the boxes themselves, faded and ancient, the labels on their sides giving dates from decades before.

“Shelf Thirty-Seven,” whispered Tinks. “It’ll be near the back of the room.”

They crept into the room, Jamie keeping his pistol drawn and one eye on the door. “Christ on a bike!” he hissed. “These files are
ancient
. What could be in here that anyone would want now?”

Tinks shrugged, no less puzzled. “We can worry about it later. Come on.”

They came to the shelf. The boxes here were among the oldest in the room, with original dates in the ’thirties and ’forties. Judging by the labels, they had been moved many times, and were heavily plastered with stamps marking them G
eheim:
secret
.

“Here it is,” said Tinks at length. “4B-37-DZ.” She pulled down the box, bringing out a small cloud of dust as she did. “It’s heavy enough, anyway.” She waved back at the door. “Come on. Let’s get a shift on.”

Jamie turned to go, and then froze at a low growl outside the door.

H
EIDI CREPT DOWN
the corridor, her tread cat-soft, belying her great size. She alternated between walking and moving on all fours, equally comfortable – equally uncomfortable, in truth, being neither one thing nor the other – on both. Her claws occasionally
clicked
lightly on the wooden floorboards.

The world around her swirled with colours and tones, her brain interpreting the information flooding in from her senses: the dull yellows of the dry, brittle paper, the sharp purple of the floor wax, the hint of blue where the paint, a month old but still discernible, cut through the scents of the archive. There: a thread of red, weaving in and under it all. The intruders were near.

Her great heart, pounding in her immense chest, strained, yearning for the hunt, the kill. As she drew closer, she lowered her head and shoulders, preparing for the sudden strike.

T
O LOSE THEIR
tail, they’d paid the cab driver – and it had been a generous sum; he was extremely reluctant when they’d explained what they’d wanted – to change his route, take them via Villa Subió Negro, a slum to the west of the city, not too far out of their way.

The steam car had made it perhaps a third of the way into the slum – the tin-box homes stacked three or four high between the narrow, winding streets, rubbish rotting openly on the ground, small clusters of locals standing and sitting at corners, staring intently at the car as it crept past them – before the way got too narrow and the steam car could go no further. The cab driver lost his nerve, insisting they either get out or let him drive them back into the city, and they’d decided to make the rest of the trip on foot. They’d moved quickly; the black car following them had disappeared a few streets back, but there was no guarantee they weren’t being followed.

The whole area was overrun with the tiny scavenging dinosaurs the locals called
carroñitas
: compsognathuses, their hides a brilliant green or a muddy brown. Some were kept as pets, but most simply roamed the streets, rooting in the rubbish and squabbling in the dust. Almost as ubiquitous, it seemed to them, were the soldiers of the local gang, which claimed control over the whole villa, drugs, prostitution and protection. They’d got into one fight shortly after arriving, leaving two of the gangsters dead in the street. Even through the black rose tattoos plastered across their faces, the boys didn’t look more than seventeen years old.