Simon Hawke - The Timekeeper Conspiracy

The door flew open and a young woman burst into the room, holding a laser in her hand. As she fired, Taylor threw himself to one side. The tiny transmitter fell to the floor. As she fired a second time, Taylor rolled and pulled out his own laser and shot Sparrow, who never had a chance to fire a third time. Finn threw open the door. Taylor raised his weapon and fired again, but Finn ducked back out of the way in the nick of time and the deadly beam passed by him. Sparrow crawled forward, reaching for the transmitter. Her hand closed around it.

"Guards!" shouted Taylor, getting quickly to his feet. "Guards!"

The two men stationed outside the queen's chambers responded immediately and rushed in. As Finn glanced out from behind the door, hoping to get off a shot, Taylor quickly pointed at him and said, "An assassin! Save the queen!"

The guards drew their rapiers and ran forward as Delaney slammed the door, cursing. As the guards pounded at the door, Taylor moved toward Sparrow, who had died clutching the transmitter in her hand. As he started to bend over, he felt Milady surfacing within him once again. He froze, doubled over, trying to force her down, to stay in control.

"Run, Adrian, " she said. "Run, save yourself! "

"No!"

"Run, I said!"

The door flew open and one of the guards was knocked off his feet as Delaney engaged the other with his rapier, still holding his laser in his other hand and trying to get off a shot at Taylor.

Milady ran.

Finn fired, but missed Taylor and got the guard who was getting back up off the floor. The other guard froze at the sight of the laser beam and Finn took advantage of his astonishment to smash the handguard of his rapier into the man's face. The guard crumpled to the floor.

He ran to Sparrow's side, saw that she was dead, then noticed the tiny box she clutched in her hand. He pried her fingers away from it and carefully put it in his pocket, then ran after Taylor.

As she ran down the corridor, Milady kept glancing over her shoulder. She was almost to the end of the corridor when she looked back and saw Delaney coming after her. She stopped, raised her weapon, and fired wildly. Delaney dropped to the floor and rolled, but as he raised his own weapon, Milady turned the corner-

— and ran right into Lucas Priest. They both fell to the floor and Milady lost her grip upon her laser. Seeing her drop the weapon, Andre was on her in an instant. For a moment, they rolled around, thrashing like wrestlers as Milady screamed hysterically, raking Andre's face with her fingernails, going for the eyes. Andre grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her head against the floor, once, twice, three times. Milady went limp and Andre quickly patted her down, searching for other weapons.

Finn arrived upon the scene to see Lucas standing over Andre, holding both his and Milady's weapons as Andre searched her.

"Dead?" he said.

"Alive," said Lucas, "but out cold. Were we in time?"

Finn took a deep breath. "Just barely," he said. He looked up. "We've got company."

Guards were running toward them from both ends of the hall, rapiers drawn.

"I left one guard dead back there and one unconscious. If he comes to, we're going to be in a lot of trouble."

"Perhaps not," said Andre, rising to her feet. She held a piece of paper in her hand.

As the cardinal's guards ran up, Lucas quickly hid the lasers and drew his rapier. "We're going to have to bluff our way through," he said.

"What is this? What's going on?" said a lieutenant in the cardinal's guard, arriving at the head of a group of five men. They were joined at once by six other guards who had come running from the opposite end of the hall. They were surrounded. The lieutenant glanced at Lucas, frowning. "Captain?" he said. "Do I know-"

"It's all right," said Andre, approaching him. "These men are with me."

Finn and Lucas exchanged quick, uneasy glances.

"And who are you? What have you done with this woman? Speak and be quick about it!"

"This woman is an English spy," said Andre. "This man," she indicated Finn, "is an agent of the cardinal who has been working with us to unmask her. This will explain," she said, handing the paper to the officer.

The lieutenant opened the paper and read aloud, "It is by my order that the bearer of this paper has done what has been done. Richelieu."

Finn quickly picked up his cue. "These two officers had arrested this spy and were conducting her to the Bastille when she tried to escape. As you can see by this man's face," he indicated Andre's scratches, "she became very violent and had to be subdued."

"We will take charge of her now, Lieutenant," Lucas said. "You and your men are to be commended for being so alert and responding so quickly. I will be sure to tell the cardinal. What is your name?"

"Lieutenant Bernajoux."

"Good work, Bernajoux. I will include your name in my report to the cardinal. This could mean a promotion for you."

"Thank you, Captain! Thank you very much, indeed!"

"Don't mention it. You're a good man. And now that you and your men have helped us to get things under control, we can go about our business with our prisoner and you can return to your posts."

"Yes, sir!" The lieutenant looked around at the other guards. "Well? You heard the captain. We've got matters well in hand. Go back to your posts!"

The lieutenant saluted Lucas, turned smartly on his heel, and marched off with the other guards.

"That was pretty quick thinking," Finn said to Andre.

She grinned. "With you two, one learns to think quickly." She tapped the paper that Bernajoux had handed back to her. "This helped a great deal. I will never regret having learned to read and I am thankful that Reese Hunter took so much trouble in furthering my education to prepare me for this time. I will miss him."

"So will we," said Lucas, remembering how Hunter had saved their lives on their last mission. And now, through Andre, he had helped them once again.

Finn picked up the unconscious Milady. "I think we'd better get while the going is good," he said.

"I'm with you," said Lucas. "Let's head back to the safehouse. We can commandeer a carriage."

As they started walking down the hall, Finn, carrying Taylor in his arms, chuckled.

"I just remembered something," he said. "I left Cobra in a secret passageway, watching the king preen bareass before his mirror."

"Getting him out might prove to be a problem," Lucas said.

"Yeah, his problem," said Delaney. "I think we'll just let him sweat it out."

It felt good to be back in the comfortable green transit fatigues and relaxing in the First Division lounge at TAC-HQ. Major Forrester was buying, but he did not insist upon their drinking Red Eye, so Finn and Lucas were sipping Irish whiskey and Andre was having her first taste of unblended Scotch. She was still numb from future shock and she couldn't tear her eyes away from the huge window that looked out over the Departure Station. Everything that she had seen so far exceeded her wildest expectations. She felt very small and insignificant.

"Cobra got out that night," Finn was saying. "Fortunately, he still had a comset on him, so they were able to contact him from the safehouse and tell him that it was all over; otherwise, who knows how long he might've been there." Delaney chuckled. "He waited until Anne was asleep. After seeing what had happened to Germain, the poor woman was up half the night. The palace must have been a regular circus after we # left. Anyway, Cobra waited until the queen fell asleep, and then he snuck out and stole some of her clothes, bundled himself up in one of her traveling cloaks, and got out of the palace passing as a lady in waiting." Finn laughed. "He's got initiative, I'll say that much for him."