Simon Hawke - The Zenda Vendetta

“You saw her?”

“Plain as day and bold as brass.”

“You’re sure it was her?”

“It was Falcon, all right. No question. She was on the balcony of the Grand Hotel as we rode by. You should have seen her, standing there and grinning at me. She made my stomach do somersaults. She’s established an identity here as a visiting aristocrat of some sort. The Countess Sophia, if you please.”

“Not very subtle, is she?” Lucas said.

“No, just one look at her would tell you that. That hologram didn’t do her justice. She’s one of those people who can knock the wind right out of you with just a look. She really puts it out there. Feral.”

“Sounds like she impressed you.”

“Oh, she did that, all right,” said Finn. “That was the whole point. She’s really something. Charisma with a capital ‘N’, for Nasty. Sapt tells me that the lovely Countess Sophia has managed to acquire quite a notorious reputation in the short time that she’s been here. If he only knew. He suspects her of being involved in the plot because she’s been keeping very close company with Black Michael and Rupert Hentzau. I got a look at Hentzau, but it didn’t tell me very much. He seems very young and quite fit, dark and good-looking in a go-to-hell way. According to Sapt, he’s the worst of the lot. The other five, Detchard, Bersonin, De Gautet, Lauengram and Krafstein, are all reasonably young, apparently efficient, and generally standoffish. They’re not well thought of in court circles. Michael’s tarnished his prestige a bit by hiring a bunch of cutthroats. So far, it all fits the scenario, but it’s occurred to me that it wouldn’t have been very difficult for the Timekeepers to dispose of the real Six and take their places. Anyone could be a ringer in this Chinese fire drill. They’ve got the mobility and we’re the sitting ducks, or at least I am. It makes me feel wonderfully secure. Much as I hate to say it, I think our best bet would be for you and Andre to leave me alone to take my chances and concentrate on taking out the Timekeepers. They must have a base of operations around here somewhere.”

“I think I’ve already found it,” Lucas said.

Finn glanced at him sharply. “What do you mean, you think?”

“Call it an educated guess. A good hunch.”

“I’ve learned to respect your hunches.”

“It hit me this morning, when I was crouching in the bushes and watching them take the king away,” said Lucas. “Put yourself in their position. You’ve had some time to set this up. You’ve considered all your options very carefully. If you wanted to play it safe, if you wanted to have an easily defensable position and still be right on top of things, where would you hole up?”

“Hell,” said Finn. “Zenda Castle?”

“Where else?” said Lucas. “It would be perfect. Michael’s got enough to do with keeping up the chateau. It must be costing him a fortune. Why would he waste time and money refurbishing a ruined castle when he doesn’t need the room, especially since he has hopes of moving into the palace soon?”

“Derringer told us he’d only seen lights burning in the new addition,” Finn said. “The rest of the place has probably been abandoned for years.”

“And you’ve established that Falcon is in close contact with Michael and Rupert Hentzau,” Lucas said. “It all fits. She’s had the opportunity to visit the chateau. She could have asked to see the castle, dropped a remote in there somewhere when no one was looking, homed in on it later, and clocked right in. There would have been more than enough time to explore the place, program transition coordinates, and establish a practically impregnable base of operations.”

“Nice,” said Finn. “Now all we have to do is find a way to get into the castle, rescue the king, and flush out the Timekeepers. What could be simpler? Searching that old ruin shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”

“That’s why Falcon didn’t kill you before,” said Lucas. “Why take unnecessary risks when they can make us come to them? She wants to be certain to get all of us. Their first move was to deprive us of our temporal mobility. Now all they have to do is wait.”

“Sure,” said Finn, grimly. “The minute we set foot inside Zenda Castle, we’ll be on their home ground. Got any ideas?”

Lucas shook his head. “No. Do you?”

“Yeah,” said Finn, morosely. “Why don’t we just shoot each other and deprive them of their satisfaction?”

“You lied to me,” said Drakov.

Falcon did not reply. The moment she clocked in, she began to strip off her elegant gown, shucking her identity as the Countess Sophia as though it were wholly inappropriate for such a dismal setting as the castle turret. Drakov watched her with scorn as she removed every last item of her clothing, laying everything out very carefully upon a clean blanket spread out on the cold stone floor. She was incredibly beautiful, yet she was completely unself-conscious of her nakedness. Aside from the goose pimples that rose upon her flesh, the cold did not seem to bother her. It would be a long time before the warmth of the early morning sun penetrated into the keep, and its light served to give only a little illumination. Falcon strode barefoot across the floor and began to dress in the black fatigues that she had left folded on her cot. She used no wasted motions. Everything about her was methodical, thought Drakov, even the way she made love, though the method there was far more subtle, far more complex, and far more incomprehensible than any that he had encountered in almost 80 years of life. In three months, he would be 79 years old. He looked 30 and, till now, he had felt it. Falcon had aged him, emotionally if not physically, but then she would probably have that same effect on any man, born of a natural union or not.

“What are you complaining about now?” she said.

“Trust,” he said. “Or rather the lack of it. You will, perhaps, excuse me if I chafe under my new status as your supernumerary. It is not a role I am accustomed to.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” She pulled on the black trousers and sat down on the cot to put on her boots.

“It was never your intention for this to be our secret base of operations,” he said. “You mean to lure them here.”

“So?” she said, putting on her shirt. “That bothers you?”

“Not by itself,” he said. “I can even see a certain logic to it. What bothers me is that I finally see my role in all of this defined. I am to be used as bait and nothing more.”

She looked up at him, meeting his gaze, saying nothing.

“In a way,” said Drakov, “I am astonished that it took me so long to see it. Yet, in another way, I am surprised that I have even seen it at all. It means, I think, that I am finally beginning to understand you and I find that quite disturbing.”

Falcon picked up a pack of cigarettes, took one out, rubbed it against the side of the pack to ignite it, then leaned back against the wall, one leg drawn up underneath her, the other bent at the knee to provide a prop for her right arm. She inhaled a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it through her nostrils. She didn’t speak, but her look prompted him to continue.

“He’s here,” said Drakov. “Or did you already know?”

“I knew,” she said. “You saw him?”

“He nearly killed me.”

“Only nearly? Then he must be slipping.”

“At first, I told myself that you must have arranged it somehow, but I don’t see how you could have. Besides, if he had killed me, it would have spoiled your plans. For both of us.”

“That’s true,” she said. “What happened?”

“He came up on me as I took the Observer. Even as I struck, I knew he was behind me. I don’t know how I knew. I simply knew. He fired as I turned and I felt the beam graze me.” He lifted his shirt to show her the burn on his left side, just beneath the large latissimus dorsi muscle. “I activated the remote with one hand and fired with the other. I had no chance to aim. I had one very brief glimpse of him, no more than a dark shape. I never saw his face. In the same instant that I felt the pain of my wound, I was back here again. But it was he. I know it.”