Warriors (43 page)

“Because I don’t believe a single bloody word you say.”

She leaned her head back and expelled a never-ending plume of curling blue smoke.

“Oh, don’t be rude. I begin to find you most annoying.”

“And I begin to find you to be a woman aiding and abetting an alleged murderer. If you refuse to cooperate, you will find me a great deal more than merely rude and annoying.”

“Odd, isn’t it, when one has nothing to hide or conceal.”

“I find that difficult to believe. As it happens, I already find you to be one of the most cowardly women I’ve yet to meet, perhaps in the entirety of my career in the enforcement of the law.”

She laughed.

“Really. That’s quite a statement, coming from a street bobby policeman. I’ve read your own dossier, you see. With all the details of your humble origins. Reminded me of a Shakespeare quote on the subject. Perhaps you know it?”

“Enlighten me.”

“ ‘On what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?’ ”

Congreve didn’t even blink.

“Professor Moon, I’m quite sure you consider yourself a woman of great intellectual and personal power. You exude a bristling confidence. You show bemused disdain for those, like me, whom you deem wholly beneath you. People like myself, who come from humble origins.”

“Your humble origins are self-evident. Get to your point, for God’s sake, assuming you have one.”

“In all my professional life, Professor Moon, I have yet to meet a coward who wasn’t cruel. And, since I think you to be capable of the most unspeakable cruelty, I believe you to be the most unspeakable coward.”

“What cruelty? This is nonsense. I won’t stand for it!”

“One of the most horrific implements of death in the fifteenth century. The Shining Basket.”

“Oh, please. All this twaddle about baskets. At this late hour . . .”

“I’ll not ask again. Pick up the bloody phone.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, crisscrossing her long silk-encased legs and picking up the receiver of a black 1930s Bakelite telephone. “Optimus? Yes. There you are. Could you come to the library for a moment? Our unwelcome visitor has a little something he’d like you to do for him. Yes? Good.”

“On his way?” Congreve said.

“On his way.”

“What is this fascination with ravens, Dr. Moon? This room feels like a blackbird mortuary. Most curious. A hobby?”

“Oh, much more than that, Inspector. I import a very rare breed of raven from New Zealand.
Corvus antipodum
. Extraordinarily intelligent. Eaters of the dead, commonly referred to as carrion eaters, you know, feasting on dead animals, decaying meat. Hunger birds, I call them. Long considered a bird of ill omen, ravens are believed by some to be ghosts of murdered persons, or some kind of mediator animal between life and death. I suppose you find some of these things morbid or distasteful, but to me, they are creatures possessed of great beauty. Oh, Optimus, here you are at last.”

The burly butler entered the large room and proceeded across the faded Persian rugs to position himself between the lady of the house and her guest. He kept his eyes on Congreve speaking over his shoulder to his mistress.

“You rang, Madame?”

“Oh, Optimus. How beautiful you are in this light. The chief inspector has a favor to ask, don’t you, Inspector?”

“Indeed. My good man, would you please go to the third floor, find Miss Li, and bring her here to the library? I have a few simple questions regarding her whereabouts tonight.”

“Sorry, sir. That will not be possible. She was feeling quite ill earlier and retired for the evening. A nasty stomach virus. She appeared in the pantry a short time ago and said she might run over to the twenty-four-hour chemist in St. Ives. Get something for it.”

“In the Rolls-Royce?” Congreve said.

“No, sir. She indicated she was taking the Vincent Black Shadow.”

“I take it that’s a motorcycle,” Congreve said.

“Indeed it is.”

“Well,” Chyna Moon said, “there you have it. So good of you to come all this way at such a late hour. Optimus, will you show Inspector Congreve to the door?”

“I am not leaving this house without speaking to Lorelei.”

“Ooh, first-name basis!”

“Yes. I happen to know her. And I know she’s in this house. If you refuse to fetch her, I shall arrest you both for obstruction of justice.”

Chyna permitted herself a flash of anger.

“I think we are quite done here. I want you to leave, Chief Inspector. Now. Optimus? Remove him from my sight.”

The big man made a move toward him. Congreve reached inside his jacket and pulled the revolver. He pointed it at the famous wrestler’s heart.

“Lay a hand on me, Prime, and I will have your bloody head on a pike. I will—”

He never finished his sentence.

Optimus faked a move to the left, then got inside, clubbing Ambrose’s gun arm down and away with a sharp and powerful downward chop of his left forearm. Before Congreve could bring the gun back up, Prime dropped away and kicked him on the point of his right elbow. Congreve felt like he had grabbed a threadbare power line with his bare hand. Red-hot wires ran up into his shoulder and down to his fingertips, and his arm went slack, half numbed.

The gun skidded across the worn carpet.

When the brawler lunged and bent to snatch it, Ambrose leaned back and drop-kicked him in the midsection with the steel-tipped toe of his custom Lobb brogue, something he would not have done in hindsight. A couple of broken ribs only galvanized the Brute.

Dr. Moon provided a smattering of applause as if from the audience. She was sipping brandy and watching the battle royal from the crimson sofa, the look on her face rife with amusement.

Roaring, Prime came back at him, swinging good punches. Congreve had somehow gotten shakily to his feet and was backpedaling, trying to put some distance between himself and his formidable adversary. He did manage to surreptitiously kick the weapon back into a corner behind him, and thank God Prime hadn’t seen him do it. It was the only chance he had.

“Oh, Optimus. Look what he’s done now,” Dr. Moon said. “He’s kicked the gun back into the corner behind him.”

“I saw that, Madame. But thank you.”

“For God’s sake, don’t kill him here. I do not want any blood on these rugs. It will never come out.”

“No, Madame. I shall restrain myself.”

“Please do,” Congreve croaked.

C
H A P T E R
  5 9

A
mbrose could now lift his numbed arm, but he was a realist to the core. Pick your battles. Live to fight another day. He settled for taking the blows on his forearms and upper arms, protecting his head. This seemed only to agitate the Brute further, because he immediately threw an overhead right that hit the shelf of Congreve’s jaw and knocked his mouth wide.

His knees went loose, and white rockets sailed behind his eyes. He bicycled backward, and only the wall kept him from going down on the spot. He hit it hard enough to jar the Old Master paintings hung above, the largest of which came crashing down, narrowly missing Congreve, with a corner of the heavy gilt frame striking his attacker on the crown of his head.

The wrestler roared in anguish if not pain. The man seemed immune to that human frailty.

Further enraged, Prime slashed down with the edge of his right hand, a diagonal blow catching Congreve on the side of his skull, just under the left earlobe. The famous detective melted down to the floor, his eyes unfocused, his legs jellied.

Then, blackness.

CONGREVE AWOKE ON THE COLD,
damp ground. When he could see, he discovered that he was out of doors; he was inside some kind of large wrought-iron cage or other. A towering thing that soared above him to heights lost to darkness.

He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. Five minutes? An hour? He was extremely cold from the night air. He was on his back. He felt a huge weight upon his chest, but perhaps it was just pain. He had no idea how badly hurt he was. He worked his mouth. He tried moving his arms. Then his legs. He couldn’t move his left leg. He tried again and heard a clink of chain.

His left leg was chained by the ankle to something—an iron stake pounded into the ground at an angle. He lifted his head to inspect his predicament.

In the shadowy realm beyond the cage he saw a tall silhouetted figure. She was peering at him through the bars. Chyna Moon. He couldn’t see much of her face. But she was smoking a cigarette, and the glow of the orange coal made her black eyes flare every few seconds.

“I gave you an injection, something to bring you around, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Methamphetamines are truly wonder drugs.”

“Release me at once!”

“Tell me what I want to know and perhaps I’ll do just that.”

“I cannot imagine I have information of any remote value to you.”

“Ah, but you do, you see. I want you to tell me all about your friend Lord Alexander Hawke.”

“What about him?”

“Where he is, for starters? On my orders, my companion paid him an unexpected visit tonight. He was not in residence. So she had to wreak our vengeance upon Miss Churchill, that pathetic excuse for a bodyguard. And the child, of course. Poor dear.”

“She told you she killed the child as well?”

“She did.”

“Well, she didn’t. The boy, no thanks to your murderous friend, was not seriously wounded. My friend Pelham interrupted Lorelei Li’s plans.”

“The boy survived? Well, well. She does lie a lot. No matter, the child can wait. It’s Hawke I want.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Hawke was fucking my sister Jet years ago in the South of France. She was quite famous in those days, a movie star much loved in China. But he tired of her. Discarded her, humiliated, like so much trash. And then he sent a giant black man to see my father aboard his houseboat in Hong Kong harbor. That night my sister ended up dead. My father holds Hawke responsible for the suffering of one daughter and for the death of the other. And then, of course, there’s the little matter of Professor Watanabe.”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“My father sent me a photograph, taken by one of his agents in London some time ago in Berkeley Square. My father had just learned that our trusted friend Professor Watanabe was a double agent. He’d been spying on us for MI6 for years. He had betrayed me. My father condemned him to death. He paid a terrible price.”

“So it was you I saw that night.”

“Where?”

“Near his cottage in the Fens one night. You and your companion were driving very slowly past his drive off the Carthage Road. That vintage silver Roller of yours. I followed you, but you lost me in the fog. Whatever were you two doing out there on such a foggy night?”

“Grouse hunting.”

“I am not amused. My friend is dead.”

“History’s about to repeat itself. Unless you tell me where to find that bastard Hawke. My father grows impatient.”

“Who is your father, anyway?”

“General Sun-Yat Moon. Look him up, if you miraculously live to get the chance.”

“I will. Watanabe was one of my closest friends.”

“Mine, too. So what?”

“I didn’t kill him. I’ll give you Hawke if you give me Lorelei. Where is she hiding?”

“Sorry. She knows far too much about my political activities here at Cambridge. Where is Hawke now?”

“On a business trip.”

“Do you see what I have in my hand? Look over here.”

“What is it?”

“A silver training whistle. I use whistles to call my little darlings to me when I need them. I gave one just like it to Sabrina Churchill when I gave her the raven as a gift—for the child, I told her. A very dangerous gift, but still. I liked the idea of a murderous creature introduced into a child’s nursery. A hunger bird. Sitting innocently in a gilded cage, ever so close to Hawke’s spawn. Day after day . . . waiting to be released.”

“You’re a monster, Dr. Moon.”

“Well, we all have our little shortcomings, don’t we? I’m going to toot my silver whistle now. You won’t like it. My birds are merciless. They will pluck the flesh from your bones, the tongue from your mouth, and the eyes from your head. Like you, your friend Watanabe crossed swords with me and lived to regret it.”

“Wait . . .”

“I tire of you. It’s cold. I’m going inside to bed. Looks like rain. I see you’re still clutching your precious British black rolled umbrella. I’m not all bad, you see. Wouldn’t want you to die of exposure tonight when there are so many other, far more interesting ways to perish.”

She blew the silent silver whistle, and the birds took wing.

“You’re not even human,” Congreve said.

“Cry me a river,” Chyna said with a thin smile, just before she turned away and drifted off into the dark gardens drenched in cold moonlight.

THE BIRD ATTACK WAS INSTANT
and horrific.

He sat up to make himself a smaller target, brought his knees up under his chin, tucked his head between them down into his chest, pulled up the collar of his jacket and covered his head with his hands. All he could think about were his eyes. And that was unthinkable.

The first salvo of searing pain was immediate and excruciating.

The ravens, masses of them, were everywhere at once. Relentless, hungry carrion eaters. Meat eaters who ate the dead and dying. Seeking any morsel of flesh they could get at. He screamed at them and tried to bat them away, but it was no use.

This was no bloody way to die . . . but what could he hope to do in order to—

Mary Poppins.

The very special umbrella Hawke had ordered made for him at MI6! Where was it? He slowly removed his hands from his eyes and looked around desperately for the old girl. He saw it. Lying in the dirt perhaps three feet away. He reached out for it. Came up a foot short. The birds dove and dove. He was losing a lot of blood. Wounds to his scalp and forehead were leaking into his eyes. His eyes, his bloody eyes!

He rolled over onto his stomach. Stretched the chain taut with his left leg, the manacle cutting into the soft flesh of his ankle, yanking anyway.