Simon Hawke - The Dracula Caper

Fortunately, thanks to her being in superb physical condition and the coach having to drive slowly in the reduced visibility due to the fog, she was able to keep up without too much difficulty. But after several blocks, it became obvious that

Conan Doyle and Stoker were following another coach, albeit at a distance, and there was another hansom following them, as well as the Chinese man on his bicycle.

"What the hell is going on here'?" she said to herself. as she paused on a street corner to catch her breath. "This is turning into a goddamned parade!"

The "parade" proceeded along the Strand, to Fleet Street, past the offices of The Daily Telegraph and St. Paul's Cathedral, winding along roughly parallel to the course of the Thames. They passed London Bridge and proceeded on a rough diagonal away from the river, towards Whitechapel Road and the London Hospital before plunging into the maze of Whitechapel itself. Finally, the lead coach stopped and a tall man in a high silk hat and opera cape got out and started walking rapidly down a narrow street, disappearing into the mist. Conan Doyle and Stoker followed after paying off their driver and the last hansom disgorged a single man, dressed in a brown tweed coat and bowler hat, who hurried after Conan Doyle and Stoker. Once again, the young Chinese was nowhere to be seen, but Andre had no doubt that he was there as well, hidden somewhere in the mist.

She wished she was not alone, that Delaney was with her or Steiger: There were too many people to keep track of and she had no idea what was happening. She was exhausted from the long run. She unbuttoned her dress and loosened her corset, cursing the ridiculous garment, wishing there was time to take it off entirely. Breathing hard from her very long run, her feet hurting from the high-button shoes, she quickly closed the distance between her and the shadowers, using the fog for concealment.

Who was the man everyone was following? Could he possibly be unaware that he was being followed by so many people and was it possible that they were all unaware of each other? In the thick London fog, it was more than possible. But the same fog that offered such good concealment also made it difficult to keep everyone in sight. Andre slipped around the corner of a building, into a narrow alleyway, and fell sprawling as her foot struck something soft and large.

She quickly got up to see what she had tripped over. It was the man in the brown tweed coat, lying face down on the cobblestones, his forehead bleeding. He wasalive. but unconscious. Andre quickly searched his pockets and came up with a badge. The man was a policeman, an inspector from Scotland Yard. He had been knocked out by someone. By the Chinese man'? Andre quickly looked around, suddenly feeling vulnerable in the fog-enshrouded streets. She had long since lost her hat, now she grabbed her dress and ripped it up the side, so she could have greater freedom of movement. She squinted hard, trying to penetrate the mist. She could see nothing.

Standing motionless, she strained to hear the sound of footsteps. In the distance, she heard the clatter of horses' hooves upon the cobblestone. Closer, she heard a baby cry; a man and woman's voices raised at one another in the dark; a chorus of far-off, drunken singing..

And then another sound, close, too close, right behind her Linda Craven knew she was being followed. She tried not to show it as she walked down the street, waiting for an opportunity to lose the policeman. He wasn't very good. She had spotted him within two blocks of leaving Scotland Yard. It made sense that Grayson would have had her followed. He hadn't believed her for a second. But unlike some of the men under his command, such as the one now tailing her, Grayson was very good indeed. He had put it all together very neatly, only he had no idea what it meant. When he realized she wasn't going to tell him anything, he had put a tail on her, obviously hoping that she would lead him to Steiger and the others. Well, thought Linda, he was in for a major disappointment.

She had to lose this cop and do it quickly, so she could get back to Steiger and the others and let them know what happened. She was sick over the death of Dick Larson. It had been entirely her fault. He had argued that it was too dangerous to go back to the suite at the Metropole, but she had insisted, shaming him into going along with her, and now he was dead. And Scott Neilson was probably dead, too. Larson had been right. She had allowed personal feelings to get in the way of duty. to get the better of her professional instincts, and it had cost Larson his life. "Professional instincts." she thought ruefully. What a joke. She wasn't a professional at all. She had no business being on this mission, which had turned into a complete disaster, a large part of which was her responsibility. She had cried back in Grayson's office and it hadn't been entirely an act. It was all falling apart and she felt utterly helpless to do anything about it.

At least there was one thing she could do right. She could lose the policeman Grayson had set upon her trail and get back to the command post, face Colonel Steiger and tell him what had happened. Own up to her responsibility. At least they got one of them. Perhaps it wasn't much, but it was something. If only the cost hadn't been so high.

She headed towards Charing Cross, at the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street. It was the place where proclamations were once read, criminals were once pilloried in stocks and executions had been carried out. Now, in the late nineteenth century, it was one of the busiest intersections in London. A large cross stood atop an ornate pedestal with eight statues of Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife to

Edward I, who had ordered the first crosses erected there in her memory at the close of the Thirteenth century. Linda quickened her pace, heading towards the Charing Cross Hotel.

She went into the hotel lobby, then quickly mingled with a group of people coming out, using their bodies to shield her from the policeman who was pursuing her. He ran into the hotel just as she was coining out. They passed within several feet of one another and he never saw her. Quickly, she hailed a hansom and jumped inside, directing the driver to take her to Mornington Place, near Regent's Park.

Having shaken the policeman, she leaned hack against the cushion of the scat and shut her eyes, feeling miserable. Her first assignment in Minus Time and she had made a complete mess of it. She had allowed Moreau to escape with Wells; she had been the only one of the entire team who had a shot at Drakov and she had flubbed it and now she had caused Dick Larson's death. She would not be surprised if she was court-martialed, assuming they ever made it back to their own time. It was a nightmare. Scott had told her about the pressure, about how he did not believe that anyone ever really learned to handle it, but she didn't see anyone collapsing under the weight of it, either, as she felt herself about to do. She simply didn't have anything left. She wondered whatever made her think she had what it took to be a temporal agent in the first place. She looked down at her hands and saw they were shaking.

She tortured herself with self-recriminations all the way to Regent's Park. She felt numb by the time the hansom reined up in front of H. G. Wells' house. She paid the driver and started towards the house, then saw the shattered window and the front door standing ajar.

"Oh, God," she whispered, "no. please…"

Without thinking of the danger, she ran straight up to the entrance and inside the house, where she was confronted by two uniformed policemen standing in the living room, talking to Amy Robbins and H. G. Wells.

"Wells!" she said, astonished.

"And who might you be, miss?" said one of the policemen.