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Chapter Two of ‘Perseus Corbett and the Forbidden Valley’

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See Chapter One here

Chapter Two
Dead Man’s Gift

“I was first mate, I was, old Flint’s first mate, and I’m the on’y one as knows the place.”
-Billy Bones, Treasure Island

            Fourteen years later, Perseus Corbett was still a thousand miles from his heart’s desire.

            He was standing on a pier in Istanbul, before the gangplank of the steamer Aeneas, bound for New York, on a warm, clear night, and was just wondering whether he had forgotten anything. The visas were alright; perfectly genuine. He’d gotten them blank, but pre-approved from a friend in the American State Department a few years before, following a job in that country which hadn’t quite worked out. He was sure they had shaken off all pursuit, and in any case he doubted the Soviets would follow them all the way to Istanbul for the sake of retrieving their property.

            Said property took the very pleasing form of a young lady with shiny, jet-black hair and deep grey eyes, accompanied by her young son. Dressed in the rude garb of a peasant woman and clutching her shawl tight about her head with one white hand, the Countess Nadezhda Vladimirovich looked very little like the great lady she had once been, save for the distinction in her face and carriage, which all her fear and suffering had not yet erased. And though Perseus had assured her again and again that the danger was passed, her eyes nevertheless darted fearfully about and she clutched her son’s hand tight in her own.

            “I believe that is all, your highness,” Perseus said at last. “If you have any trouble in New York, asked for Daniel Kirby of the State Department and tell him that I sent you. Can you think of anything else, Martin?”

            He turned to his partner. Martin Halritter was a tall, straight-backed man with faded gold hair and a severely lined face that almost never betrayed his emotions.

            “I think not,” he said in a voice flavored with the air of Vienna. “I have spoken with one of the crew: Pierre Gustav. He is sympathetic to her highness’s plight and has promised to attend to her during the voyage.”

            “Then I think there is nothing more to say,” said Perseus. “Have a wonderful trip, your highness, and best of luck to you.”

            “Good monsieurs!” she said in her rich, husky voice. “I can never, never thank you enough! You have saved our lives! Still I cannot believe that you should run such risks, show such gallantry on our behalf, and to ask nothing in return!”

            “Oh, think nothing of it,” said Perseus, though inwardly he flinched a little. “No more than what a gentleman ought to do. Particularly these days.”

            “And to send us on to America,” she continued. “I almost fear to accept such kindness!”

            “Please,” said Perseus. “It is clear enough that Istanbul is no place for you. You had much better go to America, where you can be far away from all of this. You will have a new life ahead of you; a chance to start over.”

            He smiled down at little Foma as he said this. The boy had still not spoken a word since they met. But now that the moment of parting had arrived, he stole a furtive look at Perseus before turning away once more. Perhaps once in America, far from the horrors he had been forced to witness, he would begin to heal. 

            “I shall pray for you every day,” the countess promised.

            “That shall be most appreciated,” said Perseus with a bow.

            It felt odd to be saying goodbye. The had spent the better part of the past two weeks in company with the Countess and her son and had been through some very stiff times together. Smuggling them out of Soviet Russia had been no easy task, and it had cost most of what Perseus and Martin had been able to save. In such circumstances, twelve days are the equivalent of a lifetime, and the two men had almost come to feel that the countess were family. But they would not be going to America. There was, at present, nothing there for them.

            The whistle of the steamer blew to signal it was time for all to be aboard. The countess kissed Martin and then went to do the same to Perseus. But when she approached him, he held up a gently declining hand and settled for a simple embrace. Then they bid farewell to little Foma, and with a final, grateful smile the countess picked up her small bundle of baggage and ascended the gangplank.

            “So ends our attempt to retrieve the jewels of Russia,” Perseus sighed.

            “I should say we succeeded quite admirably,” said Martin.

            “Oh, I agree,” Perseus replied. “Don’t regret it for a moment. Rather have that lovely creature and that sweet little boy in the world than all the jewels the Tsars ever had in my pocket. I’m only noting that it seems a bit of a pattern with us, what?”

            He fingered the Charles I medal that lay concealed under his clothing. In the years since he left England, Perseus had grown considerably. He was tall and broad of shoulder, tanned from long days under tropical suns, and muscular from constant exertion. He carried himself much differently than he had as well. Long, careful study and practice had given decision and grace to his movements and eloquence to his manners, belying his shabby clothes. His brown hair had faded a little from his time in the sun, and there was a new thoughtfulness and cunning in his dark eyes.

            The two men sat down upon a set of crates. Perseus produced a battered cigarette case and they smoked in silence while they watched the Aeneas get underway. The countess, a small, dark figure on the stern, waved to them, and they waved back. Little Foma, they were pleased to see, waved alongside his mother.

            “It occurs to me,” said Perseus after the ship had begun its trip down the Bosporus. “That the problem with becoming a gentleman is that gentlemanlike behavior is not at all conducive to making sufficient wealth for a gentleman’s lifestyle.”

            “Indeed,” said Martin. “That is why most try to be born into wealth.”

            “Bit late in the day for that,” Perseus said morosely, fingering his cigarette and glaring at it in some disgust. “How much money have we got left?”

            Martine drew out their purse and counted.

            “About thirty pounds,” he said.

            “I suppose that’s just enough to start over, if we have an idea of where to start,” said Perseus.”

“I am quite certain you will think of something,” said Martin.

            Perseus glanced at him. He wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but the Austrian was too well-trained to give anything away by his face.

Martin had been valet to a count in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war. After having his leg shot off by the Italians and his Empire dissolved by the Americans, the count had retired in disgust to the West Indies, where he soon died and Martin had been left to ply his trade for tourists at a hotel. Perseus had taken him on to help dig up some pirate treasure, but yet another inconvenient revolution had left them with little to show for it beyond a fast friendship.  

            Ever since leaving England, Perseus had hunted treasure around the world. He’d gone to sea just before the Great War, did his part in the conflict from the deck of the destroyer Dauntless, and then scoured the globe for the chance to strike it rich, rich enough to make himself a gentleman. A mere business enterprise wouldn’t satisfy him; not only would that take longer than he wished, but the idea of working day after day in trade, trying to grow money like a farmer grew crops repelled him. He recalled the tales of the Darrow ancestors he had heard, of the knights and kings and cavaliers he’d read about in books, and the spirit of commerce seemed as far removed from them as could be imagined.

            No, a real gentleman, he thought, earned his place by deeds, adventure, and daring. It was not something that could simply be bought by accumulating enough in a bank account. At least, not as he saw it. Wealth, of course, he needed, but wealth with a history, wealth earned by action and daring, not by plodding.

            It had seemed straightforward enough when he began, and so it seemed with each new endeavor. He had dug for pirate treasure in the Caribbean, chased lost gold mines in the Rocky Mountains, sought hidden kingdoms in the jungles of Africa and India, dredged for shipwrecks in the East Indies, and dug for tombs in the Egyptian desert. Yet, somehow, each had left him as poor as ever, if not poorer. Many was the time he had stood at the brink of success, had handled ancient gold and hidden treasures, yet each time they had slipped through his fingers like sand.

            And something else had slipped away as well; time. Years ago, the thought had formed in his mind that Elizabeth was not likely to remain unmarried for long. In fact, it was likely as not that she had already moved on and forgotten about him. There was no particular reason she should remember him, let alone wait for him. This thought had grown like a cancer with every delay and failure he had experienced and was now like a permanent cramp in his brain. Since the end of the war, he had carefully avoided returning to England, or even reading English newspapers, lest he find his worst fears confirmed. As long as he didn’t know, he could still hope.

            Perseus threw his cigarette away in frustration and stood up. The Aeneas was almost out of sight down the Bosporus.

            “Come on,” he grunted. “I need a drink.”

            They left the docks and made for one of the numerous taverns that clustered like barnacles around the port. As they approached it, however, a large man in a black felt hat, with a closely trimmed beard stepped forward out of the shadows.

            “Excuse,” he said in a husky Slavic accent. “But I am waiting for some friends of mine. Have you seen them, perhaps? Two men, a dark-haired and very pretty woman, and her little child? They were supposed to arrive in Istanbul today, but I have not seen them.”

            Perseus carefully concealed the alarm that this question had raised. They had arrived at the port of Istanbul that afternoon and had immediately booked the Countess passage on the Aeneas, not leaving the docks the entire time. He was now immensely thankful they hadn’t.

            “I can’t say I have,” he answered. “Didn’t notice any particularly pretty women on our ship coming in, and I generally do notice that sort of thing.”

            The man smiled.

            “Most unfortunate; perhaps they have been delayed.”

            “Perhaps.”

            “Where have you come from, might I ask?”

            “Naples,” said Martin. “And you?”

            The man looked hard at him, which nearly made Perseus smile. He doubted there was a man alive who could read Martin’s face, if he didn’t want it read.

            “Oh, I have been here many years,” the man answered. “I have much business in this city. I am most apologetic to have troubled you. Might I buy you a drink?”

            “No thank you,” said Perseus. “We have business of our own to deal with. Good evening.”

            The man bowed and they walked on down the winding streets of Constantinople.

            “Well,” Perseus sighed once he was sure they were out of sight and that the man had not followed them. “It is damn good thing we sent her off when we did. I never would have thought the Russians would be so keen on getting her back.”

            “Nor I,” said Martin. “It is puzzling, that.”

            “What made you say Naples, by the way?”

            “I happened to recall that the Karnak was the most recent arrival, so it seemed to me the most plausible.”

            “Good lord, what a head for detail you have,” said Perseus. “Well, let’s find ourselves another tavern; preferably one without any Bolsheviks, if there is such a place.”

            They turned down a narrow street and saw what they were looking for up ahead; a hole-in-the-wall tavern, the sort no doubt frequented by sailors and local working-class. As they approached it, a thin old man came stumbling out and nearly walked right into them.

            “’Scuse me, gentlemen,” he muttered, though not in Turkish, but, English. “Much pardon,” he added in broken Turkish.

            “After you, father,” said Perseus in the former language.

            The drunk’s eyes lit up.

            “By God, is that a man of my own country I hear?” he said. “What are you doing in this forsaken place, my fine fellow?”

            “Seeking my fortune, as are we all,” Perseus answered.

            “Not I!” said the man with some dignity, drawing himself up straight and swaying as he did so. “Not I! I have found mine! Found it long ago. But I will say no more…no. Not another word. It is mine. Mine only.”

            “As you say, father,” said Perseus kindly.

            “Don’t you tell a soul,” he said, pressing a finger to his withered lip. “Not a soul. Mine alone. I shall go collect it one of these days. But tonight, I think I must go rest.”

            “Quite,” said Perseus. “Do you need any help, father?”

            “I need no one!” said the old man, pushing he way past them. “Mine alone. I need only time…yes. Time alone…”

            He stumbled on to the end of the street. Perseus and Martin watched him go, Perseus giving his friend a bemused look.

            “Poor old fellow,” he said. “Wonder what his story is.”

            “A sad one, I should say,” said Martin. “But common enough…”

            But then, just as the old man reached the end of the street, three figures jumped out and set upon him. The old man cried out, and struck one of them a solid blow, but was knocked down in an instant.

            “Here!” Perseus shouted, running to his aid. “You leave him alone!”

            The three attackers turned in evident surprise as the two men charged them. The nearest brandished a blood-stained knife at Perseus, who checked himself and raised his hands in defense. The assassin thrust at him, and Perseus dodged the stab and caught him by the wrist, pulling the man between himself and the second attacker while driving his fist into the man’s stomach. He grunted and dropped the knife, and Perseus pushed him into the second man.

            Martin, meanwhile, engaged the third attacker. This man was just bending over the fallen drunk, and Martin kicked him hard in the ribs, knocking him over. The assassin grunted, and tried to roll to his feet, but Martin caught him on the way up and struck him back to the ground.

            The toughs had evidently not been expecting anything like this kind of resistance. They had jumped a defenseless, drunken old man, but now they suddenly found themselves facing two young, fit, and experienced fighters. They stumbled to their feet and scattered as soon as they were able.

            “Bastards,” Perseus grumbled as he knelt over the fallen drunk. “Here, father; are you all right?”

            The old man was clutching his side, right under his heart. A dark stain was spreading over his ragged clothing and onto his withered old hand.

            “Thank you, friends,” he breathed. “Thank you very much. No one has done so much for me these many, many long years. Oh, but I have deserved no more! May God have mercy on my soul…”

            “Here now, it isn’t so bad,” said Perseus, looking significantly at Martin. “We’ll get you a doctor and you’ll be right as rain.”

            Martin nodded and set off at a run.

            “No, no,” said the old man. “It is over; I feel it. I have wasted my life; lost my chance.”

            His face suddenly became anxious and he felt inside his shirt. Then relief spilled over it.

            “It is there,” he gasped. “It is safe.”

            He drew out a small, square bundle wrapped in dirty leather rags and pressed it on Perseus.

            “I give it to you,” he said. “My treasure! My fortune! All I have in the world.”

            At these words, Perseus’s eyes lit up and his heart leapt in spite of himself.

            “What do you mean?” he asked.

            “Read it,” the man said. He was fading fast. “Follow it. And when you are rich beyond mortals, remember old Joe.”

             Perseus took the bundle, the old man’s warm blood staining his hands, and mechanically put it into his pocket.

            “Treasure house of the gods,” the man breathed. “Forbidden…valley…”

            His hand dropped and he breathed no more.

            A moment later, Martin appeared, a constable in tow. He paused upon seeing the huddled, shrunken old body and silently made the Sign of the Cross.

            Perseus and Martin explained what had happened to the policeman, and the body of Old Joe was given up to the state. The Turkish authorities, who had many such bodies, disposed of it in their own fashion, and probably no one in that city thought of or remembered the old man ever again. He slipped below the surface of history as a tiny pebble, even as the ripples he had set in motion began to spread.

            Perseus did not mention the bundle to the police, and it remained tucked away in his pocket. They went on their way in search of a place to spend the night and soon found themselves at a small camp of Tsarist refugees near a part of the city still scarred by the war. With a few quick words of Russian to explain that they were just fled from there, they were welcomed and permitted to take a small corner of the camp, under the walls of a half-ruined house. There, under the glow of a borrowed lantern, Perseus told Martin what had happened after he left and showed him the bundle.

            “Why did you not mention it to the police?” the Austrian asked.

            “I was worried they might take it in evidence,” Perseus answered. “Anyway, I don’t suppose they care, and the old boy gave it to me expressly.”

            “Hm,” said Martin, a faint crease appearing between his well-trained eyebrows. “What is it, then?”

            “No idea, but he said it was the way to treasure beyond the lot of mortals. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

            He carefully unwrapped the dirty bundle and found that it was a small notebook. Or rather, part of a notebook; the second half or more of the book had been torn away, leaving only the cover and the first few pages. Perseus opened it and read the following on the front leaf:

            “True Narrative of Certain Events in the Brazilian Jungle, by Robert Cooper”

Chapter One of ‘Perseus Corbett and the Forbidden Valley’

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[ I’m working on a new book at the moment – well, the idea for it is very old, but all books are new when written – and I thought I’d drop a draft of the first chapter for feedback and to start generating interest. Enjoy! ]

Chapter One
The Kiss

“Pause you who read this, and think for the moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

            It all began with a kiss.

The place was the top of the hill overlooking Sangral House, a magnificent old manor in Kent. The time was a fine spring morning in April 1914. And the principles were a fourteen-year-old boy and a girl of the same age.

The girl belonged to the house, being none other than Lady Elizabeth Darrow. The boy’s name, rather absurdly, was Perseus Corbett, and his being there at all requires a little explanation.

His mother, Antigone Brown, was the daughter of a classics instructor at an obscure college in Wales. She had married below her station to a would-be inventor named Kenneth Corbett whose subsequent failures to revolutionize the world eventually left him working in a London garage. Their only child was sickly from infancy, suffering a chronic cough and shortness of breath, the care of which served as a continual drain on the little family’s scanty resources. By the time he turned twelve, his condition was indisputably growing worse and it was plain that new measures were needed if he were to survive.

Kenneth Corbett had originally come from Kent, where his brother Roger was head gardener at Sangral, the country seat of the illustrious Darrow family. Hoping that the country air would work the boy’s cure, Kenneth wrote to his brother to beg him to take the him on for a time to see if his health improved. Having obtained permission from the family, Roger agreed, and so little Perseus was packed off out of London for the first time in his life.

The journey was a wonder to him. The green, rolling hills, the open places, and trees! More trees than he had ever thought possible! And flowers, horses, cattle, all whirling by the train windows like flashing picture cards.

More wondrous still was the noble brick and stone edifice of Sangral itself. It stood back all by itself, nestled among the hills, with great old trees standing about it like attendants upon some venerable king. It was a very ancient house and had been added to and pulled about many, many times over the centuries. The east wing drove out before the front entrance like a defensive arm, ending in a conical tower, while the west wing retreated back, as though seeking the quiet shelter of the trees. It was a house with character, a house that one remembered, and which might have been (and indeed had been) the inspiration for many a romance, many a history, many a ghost story. Its somber brown bricks rested upon one another as sturdily today as when the first of them had been laid back in the fifteenth century, and its many windows flared like bonfires in the evening sun.

The plan was that Perseus should earn his keep by working as an apprentice undergardener, and so the next morning he was set to weed the flowerbeds along the mansion’s western front (this being a job it was judged he would have a great deal of trouble messing up). It was hard work, and his back ached, but the sight of the great house, not to mention the beautiful, fragrant flowers made it impossible to care much. His greatest difficulty was the temptation to stop work and simply gaze at the great house, lost in a daydream. He felt almost like he were back in the middle ages, or the time of the cavaliers; some dutiful servant laboring on behalf of a noble knight, or some great lady. Sangral House was just shy of a castle, after all, he thought. All it needed was a princess.

Then, while hard at work in between these reveries, something fell out of the sky and landed with a soft thud in the dirt beside him, making him jump. The thing had come within a foot or so of landing on his head. It was, he saw upon examination, a round silver medal, with the image of a man’s head on one side and an oak tree on the other.

“You there! Boy!”

Perseus looked up to see a girl’s head with a lot of tangled red hair sticking out of an upstairs window.

“I’ve dropped my medal. Will you bring it back up to me please?”

“What’d you want to drop it for?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” she answered. “Could you just bring up, please?”

He felt the sudden thrill of exultation, as boys do feel when they’re asked to do something important. His imagination, already travelling along such lines, conjured images of himself as a knight errant, retrieving the princess’s lost treasure.

“All right, then!” he called back, which was not a very knightly thing to say, but it was his first attempt. Forgetting all about his work, he got up, dusted himself off a bit, and ran for the kitchen door, which was nearest. It seemed very dim after the bright sunlight outside, and he had a fleeting impression of a large, smoky kind of room full of delightful smells and a lot of activity. He darted through before anyone had time to realize he wasn’t supposed to be there and hurtled up the servants’ stairs.

“Here now!” said a commanding voice that caused him to stop. A tall, stern-looking butler stood before him, glaring down on him like an imperious judge.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” he said.

“The girl upstairs dropped this out the window,” said Perseus, holding up the medal. “She asked me to bring it up to her.”

The butler grunted, as though to say that he was not surprised.

“Very well,” he said. “I shall take it from here.”

He held out a hand for it. He was such a commanding presence that Perseus, who had always been used to obeying his elders anyway, nearly handed it over without thinking. But the fantasy that had taken root in his mind was strong, and he hesitated.

“No,” he said. “She asked me to do it.”

“That is no part of your duties,” he said. “Now hand it over.”

Perseus hesitated a moment later, then borne by a sudden reckless courage that came from he knew not where, he darted past the butler, ducking under his arm, and raced up the stairs two at a time while the old man shouted after him.

He reached the third floor landing and burst out into the corridor. The girl was standing by a bannister overlooking the main staircase, but she turned a smiling face on him as he ran down the hall toward her. Now that he saw her up close, he found that she was about his own age (though being a girl she of course conveyed the impression of being older). She was tall and lanky, with a good-natured, freckled face that had clearly seen a lot of sun, and bright hazel-green eyes. There was something of the air of a young colt about her, in her long, bony limbs and the restless, rather awkward energy of her movements.

“Here…it is…” he gasped, holding the medal out to her. His bad lungs were rebelling against the sudden burst of energy he had demanded of them.

“Thank you so much,” she said, taking it. “But are you all right?”

He nodded, still breathing hard. Meanwhile the butler appeared behind him in an icy rage.

“My apologies, Lady Elizabeth,” he said. “He has no business here…”

“It’s alright, Tredwell,” she said. “I asked him to bring my medal back up. I dropped it, you see.”

Tredwell’s stern face grew a trifle sterner.

“He has no business forcing his way up here,” he said.

“Oh, never mind that now,” she said. “Look, boy, are you sure you’re all right? Here, you must sit down.”

There was a large bay window with a velvet covered seat nearby and she urged Perseus to sit down and catch his breath. Tredwell frowned upon them.

“Could you get him a glass of water, Tredwell?” she asked.

“Very well, your ladyship,” he said with a stiff bow that spoke volumes of what he thought of the arrangement. He retreated, and Peseus slowly got his breath back.

“You’re not very strong for a gardener,” she said after he had his drink and Tredwell ahd been sent about his duties.

“I’m strong enough,” he said defensively. “It’s only that my lungs aren’t quite right. That’s why I’m here with Uncle Roger; they say the country air will make me better.”

“Oh, I see; that explains it. What’s your name, boy?”

“Perseus Corbett.”

“I say, what a funny name!” she said, laughing.

“It is not! It’s the name of a great hero who chopped a gorgon’s head off and used it to kill a sea monster and save a princess.”

“I know all that, but I’ve never met a ‘Perseus’ before,” she said. “Have you killed any sea monsters lately?”

“No,” he admitted grudgingly. “Has anyone chained you to a rock lately?”

“I’d like to see them try!” she answered, throwing her head back and laughing with the careless ease of one who was used to being able to have her own way.

“What’s important about that medal, anyway?” he asked, feeling he ought to take the offensive.

“What’s important about it?” she exclaimed. “It’s only from King Charles the First is all. He made a collection of these during the Civil War and handed them out as gifts to people who’d done him particular service, like my great-great-great…oh, I forget how many greats grandfather, Lord John Darrow.”

“You’re joking!” said Perseus, suddenly interested. He knew a bit of history, and the idea that he had been carrying something that once belonged to the unhappy king filled him with awe. “Shouldn’t that be in a museum, then?”

“No, because it’s mine,” she said. “My grandfather gave it to me personally.”

“So why did you drop it out the window?”

“I told you, that was an accident! I was just leaning out the window, looking at it and thinking about those days and it just slipped.”

“I’ve never met anyone related to a real-life cavalier,” he said.

“Oh, yes; we’re a very old family, didn’t you know? Lords and ladies all the way down. If you like that, we’ve got plenty more like it. I’ll show you them, if you like.”

That, however, had to wait, for at that point Uncle Roger, no doubt alerted by Tredwell, came to demand that he return to work.

“Later, then,” she said. “And don’t you dare be hard on him, Roger,” she added. “It’s my fault.”

Her orders commuted his sentence for a whipping to a stern talking to before he returned to his duties. But punishment or no, it hardly mattered compared with the fact that he had become friends with the young lady of the manor.

From then on, whenever Perseus wasn’t working (and sometimes when he ought to have been), he and Elizabeth would be off exploring the grounds in fine weather and the house in bad. She showed him all the treasures of her ancestral home, telling him what she knew of their history. He saw the portraits of her ancestors and heard what each one had done. He saw the landscapes and miniatures painted by famous artists, the furniture that had been in use for longer than the oldest servant had been alive. He saw the secret passages and the marks on the wall showing where some long-dead relative had thrown something in a fit of temper. He saw the woods and ponds that had been cultivated by generations of gardeners. He saw the stables with their fine horses, the kennels with their barking dogs, the pseudo-Greek folly down by the pond that Elizabeth’s grandfather had built.

Most importantly, the very day after their chance meeting, he saw the library, with its hundreds upon hundreds of books gathered across many generations; books of the kind the creaked when you opened them and breathed forth a wonderfully musty smell, so that even if you didn’t read them, you like to pull them down and page through them anyway. He had loved to read at home; being a sickly child with a mother both anxious and well-educated, it had been the chief source of amusement open to him, and the sight of this infinitude of words filled him with the same feeling as if he had found Aladdin’s cave.

Elizabeth, he found, was not a great reader. Or rather, she was not at all fond of being made to read. She had shown him the library mostly on account of some suits of armor that stood by the library fireplace and the portrait of an ancestor who had been a famous poet in his day. Perseus’s accounts of The Jungle Book, Treasure Island, and The Count of Monte Cristo, however, could not fail to pique her interest, and after they had explored the house from top to bottom and back again, their favorite pastime became finding a book to share. They would then race about the park, imagining themselves as part of the stories, or making plans for going on their own adventures; of voyaging in the West Indes like Robinson Crusoe, or trekking in darkest Africa like Allan Quatermain, or travelling in India like Mr. Kipling.

And so two years passed away at Sangral House. Perseus’s lungs recovered and his body grew strong under the stern direction of his uncle. He learned to ride, to fish, to shoot, and to climb trees. He learned more about history, about art, about music. Two years of almost unmitigated happiness and wonder, broken only by occasional visits home, where the dust and grime and squalor of the London neighborhood – so different from the romantic images of the city that he found in his books – seemed almost like a bad dream. Or, what is worse, like the coming from a good dream into a sad awakening.

The only other check to his happiness was Lady Darrow, Elizabeth’s mother. At first she paid little heed to the friendship between her daughter and the gardener’s nephew. They were children, and children would have their escapades. She didn’t much care for her daughter’s climbing trees or catching snakes, but Elizabeth had been doing those sorts of things long before Perseus showed up, and at least now she was reading more. But as time went on, Lady Darrow began to disrupt their escapades more and more. They would be having a great game in the conservatory and she would look in to say, “It is time for your music lessons, Elizabeth,” or they would be sitting reading together on the hillside and she would send to say he was wanted in the garden. More and more it seemed their time together was being curtailed, and there was nothing they could do but make the best of it.

Then came the end of it, the final awakening. A letter arrived from home to inform him that, as his health had so clearly improved, his mother wanted him to come home to stay. It was, she said, unthinkable that a son should remain so far from his family without due cause. Moreover, his father had found him a job, and a good one too, at a shop in London, which would bring in twice what he was making as an apprentice undergardener, money the family sorely needed.

Perseus was prepared to argue the matter out, that though the money was not very good, he was on his way to having a perfectly suitable job right here. He would be a full undergardener before long, and had a chance of being head gardener in the end. But then Uncle Roger put the final stop to his wishes.

“Fact is,” he said. “I think Lady Darrow had a hand in asking your mother to have you home. She’s not too keen on the way you and Lady Elizabeth are so familiar, as I’ve warned you time and time again.”

So it was settled. He would be going home to London for good. Home, where there would be no armor, no paintings, no old books, no secret passages, no ponies, no lake, and no woods.

Worst of all, there would be no Elizabeth.

Shortly after the summons home had arrived, Elizabeth learned that her parents were making plans to go on holiday to America, an extended stay of some months’ duration at least. That meant that on top of everything else, they would now be separated by a whole ocean.

The decision was made, the bags were packed, and the tickets purchased. All that now remained were the last few precious hours at Sangral Manor. Lady Darrow, though she did not approve of their friendship, was at least softhearted enough to allow them to spend those last hours in uninterrupted company.

Perseus and Elizabeth sat side by side on the hill, overlooking the house and grounds. They had spent many a happy hour there over the years, reading or dreaming or playing. But now there didn’t seem anything to be done except to be together while they could.

Elizabeth sat with her knees drawn up, resting her chin upon them, idly watching a rabbit grazing by its burrow.

“It’s not fair,” she grumbled. “Why couldn’t you have come with us to America?”

“Just be sure to watch out for sea monsters,” he said, making an effort to be cheerful. “I’d hate for you to be gobbled up while I’m not around.”

“That’s sweet of you,” she answered, smiling at what had become a long-running joke between them. “But I keep telling you I’m not going to need it; no one’s chaining me to a rock!”

They laughed, but not as wholeheartedly as they were used to. It was a faint flicker of something that was dying.

“You’re not going to forget about me, are you?” she asked after a pause.

“Of course not!” he said. “I’m going to be working in a bloody shop; thinking about you and Sangral is probably going to be the only thing that’ll make it tolerable. You’re the one who’s going to be having parties and meeting interesting people and having adventures and all that.”

“Well, just to make sure you don’t, I got you a present,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her frock and handing him a small box.

He opened it, and to his astonishment found the Charles the First medal that he had retrieved for her when they first met.

“You can’t give me this!” he said. “It was your grandfather’s! It’s a historical treasure.”

“Yes, and now it’s mine and I can do what I like with it,” she said. “Since I know you like it so much, I thought I should give it to you. Besides, you earned it; heroically risking the wrath of Tredwell to bring it to me, when any sensible boy would have just given it to him. I thought if I gave it to you, then you’d stay gallant and delightfully silly even working in some dreary old shop.”

Hesitantly, he put the medal about his neck.

“Thanks so much,” he said, fingering the ancient silver with affection and awe. “I’ll never, never take it off.”

“Don’t never take it off; you’ll spoil the silver. Just take good care of it; I don’t want to have to explain to either grandfather or Lord John that I gave their medal to someone who went and lost it.”

Perseus laughed, but again it soon faded, like a small fire in a cold stove. Their time was almost up.

“I didn’t even think to get you anything,” he said. “And you’re by far the more likely to forget about me.”

He didn’t add that he wouldn’t have known what to get her, even if he had.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s likely,” she said.

“Still, I should give you something. Something important. But I don’t have anything like that.”

Elizabeth thought a moment.

“Well,” she said slowly, looking away as though embarrassed. “There is something you could give me.”

“What?” he asked eagerly.

“It’s not really much, of course,” she said. “Though I think it is important. And I don’t know if I really ought to ask, but since you’re so eager…”

“Well? What is it?”

She swallowed and fixed her eyes on a bit of grass by his feet. Her face was as red as her hair.

“A kiss.”

Perseus felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.

“A what?”

“My first kiss,” she said, playing with the grass. “It’s a special thing. Ought to be, at least, I think. Something I can always take with me. That way I’d be sure never to forget you.”

Perseus felt himself going red as well. He had never yet seriously thought of kissing anyone; it was the sort of thing one read about in books and imagined doing, but which existed totally apart from the real world. It was as if she had told him that there was a dragon that needed slaying or pirate treasure to be dug up.

Yet, he certainly didn’t dislike the idea.

“I suppose so,” he said.

Judging by the way they focused on it, one would have thought that there was something infinitely fascinating about the grass about their feet.

“So…will you?” she asked after a moment.

He forced himself to look at her, and she forced herself to look at him, and he nodded. He had no real idea what he was doing, and it seemed far more complicated in real life that it had sounded in books. But there wasn’t anything for it but to simply try their best. Elizabeth shut her eyes tight and learned forward a little. Perseus thrust his face forward and their lips met.

It was wetter than he had expected. But really, quite nice.

They broke apart, both breathing rather fast. Then they both began to giggle uncontrollably.

A moment later, Uncle Roger came stumping up the hill to tell them it was time, and they walked back down together. At the gate, the moment of parting came. They shook hands and said their goodbyes.

“Have a good time in America,” he said.

“Have a good time in London,” she answered. “Or at least, not too frightful of one.”

He smiled, and just like that, they parted, him walking away beside his uncle to the train station for the last time.

“I’ll send for you if that sea monster shows up!” she called after him as a parting shot.

“See that you do!” he called back.

As the train rode away back to London, Perseus found his mind kept going back to that kiss. That first and only kiss. He felt different for it; stronger, bolder, more sure of himself. And all at once, he seemed to see his path clear before him.

In that moment, Perseus Corbett made a vow. He had no idea how he would do it, but he swore he would or die trying. He swore to himself that, some day, he would become a gentleman. He would have a house like that, beautiful grounds, horses, servants, fine old objects, all of it.

Most of all, he would marry Elizabeth Darrow.

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: The Four Sleuths in The Common Thread

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            “Phone call for Mister Fireson.”

Andre looked up. He had been reading the latest reports over Detective Crane’s shoulder. The police were busy trying to sort out all the information coming in regarding the conspiracy and working to track down Cummings, Deaney, and the others. It was interesting to follow, and though he had no official part to play in these proceedings, he was determined to see it through to the end.

But he had other responsibilities, and he’d been away from them for the past few days dealing with this adventure. Now that it was finally being wrapped up, he expected the phone calls to start coming in. So there was no surprise or suspicion in his mind when he took the phone from the junior police lieutenant and said, “Fireson speaking.”

“Mister Fireson,” said the voice on the other end. “I know you are a practical man, as am I, so I will not waste your time. I am currently holding Miss Rockford and Detective Stillwater in your house. Informing the police or failing to do exactly as I say will result in their immediate deaths. Do you understand?”

Andre’s hand tightened on the phone and his keen mind immediately focused on the problem.

“I understand,” he said, trying to affect a casual, businesslike tone.

“Good,” Cummings answered. “Now listen carefully. You will proceed to your office on a plea of urgent business. From there, you will order a helicopter – a Bell 214, and fully fueled, – to arrive at your estate at four o’clock today. The helicopter will be carrying five hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills, and will transport my associates and I to a location that I will provide to the pilot. Once we have arrived, I will send the two women back with the helicopter.”

“That might be tricky to arrange,” Andre answered. “Short notice, isn’t it?”

“Very, but that is your fault, Mr. Fireson. You could have stayed out of this and instead chose to destroy my work. If you find it is too much trouble, then I suppose that is your right and your friends can take the consequences.”

“Can I get assurance of that?”

There was a pause.

“Sorry, Andre,” said Sarah’s voice. “He’s telling the truth. At least about us. Sorry; we probably shouldn’t have let our guard down like that.”

Andre’s mind raced, trying to judge how best to take the initiative.

“Both of you?”

“Both of us.”

“Is that all he has to offer?”

“I…what?”

“Let me talk to him again.”

“Andre, what are you…”

Her voice faded as Cummings took the phone back.

“Are you satisfied, Mister Fireson?”

“Not quite,” he answered. “The price seems a little steep. Perhaps we can negotiate.”

There was a pause.

“Could you repeat that?” said Cummings.

“I said the price is a bit more than I’d care to pay for the merchandise,” said Andre in a slightly raised voice. “Maybe we could negotiate a little. Especially on the timeframe.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Sarah’s voice shouted, sounding as though Cummings was holding the phone out so they could hear.

“Would you care to reconsider?” Cummings asked.

“Maybe, but remember, you stand to lose as much as I do if this deal goes south,” Andre answered. “I’ll give you a call back when I get to the office.”

A pause.

“I am surprised to find you taking this attitude. But as you will; I will await your call. No tricks, Mister Fireson.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Andre answered.

There was a click as Cummings hung up. Andre carefully replaced the phone then immediately strode over to Crane.

“Get Windworth and come to my office, now,” he said in a low voice.

Crane looked at him in surprise.

“Something come up?”

He nodded.

“Can’t talk about it here. We need to move fast.”

###

            Cummings drummed his fingers on the telephone, frowning. Sarah Rockfrod wondered what was going through his mind. Evidently, the conversation hadn’t gone as he’d expected.

That’s because he doesn’t know Andre like I do now, she thought.

They were in what could only be the master bedroom. Sarah felt indignant on Andre’s behalf that his privacy was being so violated, and oddly shy of being forced into such an inner sanctum, though under other circumstances she would have been glad to see it. It was a wide, airy room with a high ceiling, paneled, as most rooms in that house were, with reddish-brown wood and with a magnificent bay window looking westward over the city. There was a rich red and gold rug covering most of the center of the room, a four-poster bed, a great, carved desk that looked at least a century old under the window beside a shelf full of books and a fireplace complete with mantelpiece. On the other side of the room there a small exercise area with a heavy punching bag, a set of parallel bars, and some weights. The walls were hung with several paintings in ornate frames. It was a beautiful room, stamped through and through with its master’s personality, which made the present situation seem all the more intolerable.

Sarah and Karen sat side-by-side on the floor at the foot of the bed, their wrists tapped behind their backs, knees and ankles bound tight together in front of them. Deaney was taking out his aggression on the punching bag, while McLaglen stood beside the two women, gun in hand. Tyzack, Aldrige, and Booker Sarah knew, were posted somewhere in the house, watching the doors.

For a brief moment when Andre had claimed the price was too steep, Sarah had felt shocked, betrayed, scared…then she remembered how he had behaved when they first met; the mask of unscrupulousness and cruelty that he had put on while dealing with Deaney. It was, she guessed, his strategy for keeping Cummings off-balanced, uncertain. Buying time.

“You don’t really think he means it, do you?” said Deaney, delivering a swift kick that sent the bag swinging.

“Perhaps not,” said Cummings thoughtfully. “But he was correct about one thing; if we kill them, we lose our bargaining position.”

Sarah’s eyes kept being drawn to the portrait of a dignified, middle-aged man that stood in pride of place over the mantelpiece. From a strong resemblance of face and expression, she guessed this must be Andre’s father, or at least one of his relatives.

“I’m telling you, he’s bluffing,” Deaney insisted.

“He’s not,” Sarah put in.

They looked at her. So did Karen.

“If Fireson helps you, it’ll tarnish his family name,” she said. “He cares more about that than he does about anyone.”

“Even you?” said Cummings.

Sarah swallowed.

“Oh, he doesn’t really care about me,” she said. “I mean, really, we’ve known each other for, what three days? And I’m just a nobody; he’s a tycoon and aristocrat and all the rest of it. Trust me, if it’s between me and his legacy or whatever, I’m not even going to rate a consideration.”

“Is that what you think?” McLaglen asked Karen.

Sarah looked at Karen, who seemed to be scrutinizing her.

“No,” she said. “I think he genuinely cares for her, and that he’s bluffing.”

“I’m telling you he’s not,” said Sarah. “Trust me, I know when a man is into me; he isn’t.”

“Well, this is enlightening,” said Deaney with a groan. “I say we test it; kill one of them to prove we’re serious.”

“No, no!” said Sarah hastily. “You don’t have to test anything! I’m telling you…”

“Yeah, if you do that, that’s the end of negotiating; they’ll figure they have nothing to lose and come at us with all they’ve got,” said McLaglen. “I’ve done this game from the other side, trust me.”

“Okay, so we don’t kill them;” Deaney said. “There’s other things we might do to get the point across.”

He cracked his knuckles, and Sarah swallowed as he turned a nasty, almost hungry face in her direction.

“That will have to be considered,” said Cummings. “For the moment, however, he won’t be stupid enough to involve the police, which buys us some time…”

He glanced at the two women thoughtfully, then beckoned to his companions.

“Deaney, McLaglen, will you come with me for a moment…”

“What about them?” McLaglen asked, nodding at the girls.

“They aren’t going anywhere, and this won’t take long,” Cummings answered.

The three men left the room, not without some suspicious and uncertain looks.

“Why didn’t you back me up?” Sarah muttered under her breath as soon as the door was closed.

“It would look too neat if we agreed,” Karen answered. “This way they don’t know what to think.” She hesitated. “You didn’t…really believe that, did you?”

Sarah bit her lip. Her own arguments for what she thought was a bluff suddenly sounded uncomfortably convincing in her frightened, uncertain state of mind.

“Well,” she muttered. “If it is true, at least it won’t hurt for long.”

###

            “This is intolerable,” Andre growled, pacing the floor of his office like an enraged leopard in a small cage. “Who the hell does Cummings think he is, going into my house, trying to extort money from me?”

“I suspect that was the point,” Nick put in, sitting casually on Andre’s desk. “Classic humiliation scheme; Cummings gets what he wants, but he also gets his revenge on you in particular.”

“Do you think he’ll do what he says?” Crane asked. “I mean, let the girls go when he’s got what he wants?”

Nick’s face seemed to sag as though with weariness.

“Well,” he said. “Perhaps, but we wouldn’t like their condition if he did.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Andre. “Since we’re not giving him what he wants. He is not getting away with this, damn it.”

“None of us want him to,” said Crane. “But we also don’t want to lose Sarah and Karen, do we?”

“We’re not,” Andre said. “We’re going to save them and bring down Cummings and Deaney and the rest of ’em.”

“Excellent!” said Nick. “I fully agree. Now how are we gonna do this?”

“That’s what we need to figure out,” he said. “You’re the con man; can’t you come up with anything?”

“I’m working on it, but these angry tirades aren’t really helping things. Do we have anything more practical, like a plan of the estate?”

“Sure thing,” said Marco Benton. He went to file cabinet, drew out a roll of paper, and spread it on Andre’s desk. “’Course, the safe room ain’t on this one, but it’d be about here.”

They all bent over the plans, studying them carefully.

“Hm,” said Nick. “Not a lot of good options.”

“No, I purposefully made the house difficult to assault,” said Andre.

“I’m sure that seemed like a good idea at the time,” Nick answered.

“Obviously, I didn’t count on being forced to attack it myself,” Andre snapped. “But we do have one in; don’t forget the escape hatch.”

“That is something,” said Nick. “And we have another as well.”

“What’s that?”

“He wants a helicopter. Helicopters come with pilots, and if it can carry all of them out it can carry other people in.”

Andre nodded, seeing his point.

“I think,” said Nick after a moment’s thought. “That I have an idea…”

###

            “There it is,” said Cummings as he hung up the phone. “Fireson has capitulated. The helicopter, with the money, shall be arriving in twenty minutes. Or so he says.”

He tapped his fingers on the desk, thoughtfully looking out the window at the city.

“There lies my domain; stripped and left for others. ‘Of comfort no man speak; Let’s talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs. Let’s choose executors and talk of wills, and yet, not so; for what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground?’”

He sighed and turned back to the room.

“This is it, gentlemen. Remember what we discussed. Anything goes wrong, you know what to do.”

Karen saw Deaney looking in their direction and grinning.

“McLaglen, send your boys up to the helipad to greet the chopper. Tell Booker to be on the alert.”

The ex-police captain nodded and left to attend to the orders.

“Mr. Deaney, if you would get our guests ready to move,” Cummings said.

“I would be glad to,” he answered. He drew a pocket knife, knelt beside the two girls, and set to work cutting the bonds on Sarah’s legs. He let his other hand rest appreciatively on her thigh as he did so.

Meanwhile, Karen Stillwater’s cool, methodical brain was working through the possibilities. It was unlikely in the extreme that Nick and Andre wouldn’t make some attempt to rescue them. That was rather embarrassing, since they had already done so more than once, but there was no helping that now. It was equally unlikely that Cummings wouldn’t anticipate that and so have some kind of plan in place. Therefore, it would be a question of who was the better strategist: Nick or Cummings. And they had already had an answer to that, hadn’t they?

Deaney turned to her now, running his hand along her thigh as he cut the strands of tape binding her. It made her stomach fairly boil with anger and humiliation, though it also allowed her to feel just how powerful this man’s hands were. It felt as though he could break her legs just with his hands alone. The desire to kick him in the face – or somewhere else – as soon as she was free would regrettably have to be set aside.

“There you are,” said Deaney as he finished. “Just don’t go anywhere.”

He waved the knife in her face. She didn’t flinch.

“Why would I?” she answered, her strange half-English, half-Mexican accent becoming slightly more pronounced with the force of her suppressed anger. “I still have scum like you to arrest.”

Deaney’s face briefly registered surprise and anger, then he smoothly turned it to a grin.

“We’ll have to see about that,” he said. He put out a hand and gripped her injured shoulder hard as he stood up, causing Karen to gasp and wince with pain.

Deaney strolled over to speak with Cummings. Sarah turned a furious face to Karen.

“Bastard,” she mouthed. Karen didn’t reply. She was thinking rapidly. Cummings had a plan, and likely it was better than what their friends would come up with. But it would also necessarily be based on what he knew. If they could somehow change the script without him realizing it…

She gave Sarah a serious look to let her know that she had an idea. Sarah glanced at Cummings and raised one quizzical eyebrow. Karen nodded slightly, then tilted her head to indicate that Sarah should do what she did. Sarah looked a little confused, evidently not quite getting the meaning of the signs, but she nodded, hopefully to say that she’d follow Karen’s lead.

Karen gathered her feet under her and stood up, a little unsteady on her cramped legs. Sarah tried and failed to do the same.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Deaney demanded.

“If you want us to be able to walk later, you’d best let us exercise now,” said Karen.

Cummings allowed it. So far so good, but they’d be watched. Sarah got up on her second attempt and together the two women paced the spacious bedroom, keeping as far away from the two men as possible.

“Now what?” Sarah mouthed when their backs were to their captors.

“Do what I do,” Karen mouthed in answer.

She drifted over to the ornate desk and leaned against one corner, flexing and stretching her legs. Meanwhile, she carefully and deliberately drove the tape binding her wrists against the corner of the desk, where the woodworking rose into a blunted point. It wasn’t much of a tool, and she had to work slowly to avoid making too much noise, but with a couple tries it was enough to tear a good-sized cut into the duct tape. Enough to start on. Duct tape, she knew, is very strong, but only as long as it retains its integrity. Once start a cut, and you usually can finish it.

Karen didn’t dare stay long by the desk, but resumed her aimless ramblings. Sarah, having seen what she did, opted to try the same thing by leaning against one of the bedposts. The four-poster was as richly carved as everything else in the room, mostly in soft curves, but near the base of each post was a trio of fleur-de-lis with gently pointed tops. It was lucky that she was so short that she could reach them without drawing attention.

The two women drifted over to the window and sank down onto the seat. Sarah’s eyes were bright with excitement, while Karen, her face outwardly calm, felt as though she were full of static electricity.

There was nothing to do now but wait.

###

            At the top of the escape shaft, Andre had one hand on the latch of the heavy door leading into the safe room, the other held his Glock at the ready. He didn’t think that Cummings could have discovered the safe room, but he meant to be prepared just in case.

He glanced at Benton, who nodded, holding a shotgun at the ready. Andre turned the latch and they burst into the room to find themselves covered by compact assault rifle. But it was in the hands of the loyal Liu Sho.

“Mister Fireson!” the gardener exclaimed, lowering the gun at once and bowing. “My humblest apologies, sir, that your house has been defamed in this manner, and that your guests has been mistreated under your own roof. I saw them coming, and as you have always instructed, I retreated, and only then did I see that they had the young ladies with them.”

“That’s quite alright,” said Andre, holding up a hand to stem his apology. “You did the right thing. Now, what can you tell me about what’s been happening?”

“Two men were waiting in the hall. They have gone up to the helipad. A third man – big like Marco – he was here,” he pointed to one of the screens of the closed-circuit tv system. “But I have not seen him in some minutes. Three men are in your master bedroom, with the two women.” He pointed to the screen showing the closed door to his master’s inner sanctum. Andre’s blood boiled and he had to exercise great control not to immediately rush out there.

“Don’t worry boss; I don’t think they’d be doing any bedroom activities,” Benton put in. “It’s only amateurs do stuff like that, leastways, unless they’re feelin’ pretty safe. Situation like this, what with it bein’ your house and all, they’ll want to keep on the alert if they got any sense.”

“I actually had not been thinking along those lines, but thank you for putting it in my head,” Andre growled.

“Sorry, boss,” Benton shrugged.

Andre drew a deep breath. His fears for his friends were not helping. They could be dealt with later. He pushed them aside, into the room in his mind where he kept matters that he couldn’t attend to straight away, and then returned his attention to the matter at hand. It was just another puzzle; another mental challenge for him to overcome.

“Watch the helipad and the door to my room,” he ordered. “When they come out, that’s when we come out.”

“And keep an eye out for that goomba, Booker,” Benton put in. “I don’t like not knowin’ where a beef cut like that is hidin’.”

###

            “You know what I like about flying helicopters?” Nick Windworth said as he maneuvered the chopper in its approach to Fireson’s mansion.

Detective Crane, who was trying to stay focused on the mission and to recall all the tactical training he had learned in his younger days, was not in the mood for riddles.

“What?” he demanded shortly.

“Not a blessed thing,” Nick answered.

“Thank you, Windworth; that was very helpful,” Crane growled.

“Just making conversation,” the con man answered. “Oh, will you look at that? There’s a welcoming party.”

“Terrific.”

They flew in low over the mansion. Below them, former Detectives Tyzack and Aldrige stood waiting, pistols in hand. Nick turned the helicopter and lowered it gently to the deck.

Now came the tricky part.

Without powering down or turning off the blades, Nick suddenly threw off his seatbelt and rushed to the back of the chopper, threw open the side doors and started shouted and gesticulating wildly, waving for the detectives to come over. He looked as though he were close to panic. Tyzack and Aldridge exchanged a confused glance, then as Nick’s gestures became more frantic and he started pointing at the cockpit and then up at the blades, and then back into the chopper, as though trying to tell them something, though what they couldn’t imagine, they started for the chopper. Nick waved them on, as though urging them to hurry, and they picked up the pace.

“’Bout time, what’re you waiting for?” he shouted as soon as they came within earshot under the heavy throbbing of the propellers. “Come on, we got a big problem here.”

“What?” Tyzack shouted.

“I said, we’ve got a big problem here!” Nick screamed in his face.

“No, idiot, what’s the problem?”

At that moment, Crane turned around in his seek and aimed a gun at Aldrige, while Nick suddenly stuck his pistol under Tyzack’s chin.

“Two dirty cops, that’s the problem,” Crane snarled.

###

            “Here they come,” said Andre, pointing to the screen. The door to his master bedroom opened and McLaglen came out, leading Karen by the arm and covering her with his pistol. Next came Cummings, and last of all Deaney, and Andre felt his heart turn over as he saw that he was leading Sarah.

“Let’s go,” he said, hoisting his weapon. “Hit ‘em fast and hard.”

Marco Benton and Liu Sho nodded, guns at the ready. Andre pulled back the safe room door and stepped out into Marco’s gleaming kitchen, making for the servants’ staircase. Liu Sho was right behind him.

There was a crash and Andre whipped around to see his gardener fall, bleeding from the head. Edmond Booker was standing over him, a heavy iron skillet in hand, and before Andre could bring his rifle to bear, he swung it again, knocking the gun out of his hands and advancing like a tidal wave of muscle.

But he had acted too soon. From behind him, Benton (unwilling to shoot for fear of hitting his master) slung his rifle around Booker’s neck and pulled. Booker roared and grabbed at the gun, driving Booker back into the stainless steel refrigerator so hard it dented with the impact.

“Go on, boss! I’ll take care of him!” Benton called. Booker twisted around in his grip and the two hulking figures set to like a couple of enraged bears.

There was no time; probably the sounds of the fight had already alerted Cummings to their presence. Andre didn’t even pause to pick up his rifle, but drew his pistol as he ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time until he burst out into the upper hall.

The upstairs of his house was shaped like a cross with a curved bar; a long, crescent-shaped corridor servicing the two wings, while the main upstairs hall reached back to the rear of the house. Andre came out midway along the north wing, near the entrance to the patio over the gardens. He turned left and raced down the corridor.

“Hold it right there!” he shouted as he came in view of Cummings’ gang.

They had been caught right at the top of the grand staircase. From the other direction came Nick and Crane, both with pistols drawn. Deaney and McLaglen were turning about, gripping their hostages, looking from one side to the other. Andre felt a surge of triumph; they had done it after all.

Then Cummings held out his hands as though in surrender, and two small, dark objects dropped from them.

Andre realized what was going to happen a split second too late.

There was an explosion like a high-caliber gunshot, and at the same time a burst of blinding white light. Andre had been through tactical training and knew what to do here. Temporarily blind and deaf, he ducked and rolled out of the way. Beyond the sharp ringing in his ears he heard the dull throb of gunshots, and he prayed that they had been directed at him and not the hostages.

Then, as he came up, squinting and trying to blink the light out of his eyes, he smelled burning, and became aware that there was smoke all about him. For a second he thought his house was on fire, but then he realized that this was the other device that Cummings had dropped; a smoke bomb. He backed away, coughing, trying to get out of the cloud so that he could see.

It didn’t reach far, and he was soon able to breathe more freely. But as he stood in the corridor, gasping and trying to focus through the light in his eyes and the ringing in his ears, he realized he now had no idea where the others were. Cummings had played them after all.

###

            When the flash had gone off, Karen had found herself instantly blinded, deafened, and soon choking on smoke, followed by the impression of being half dragged, half carried down a long flight of steps. Coughing and trying to blink the light and the tears out of her eyes, she analyzed her position; she must be going down the main staircase. Clean air allowed her to breathe again, at least. McLaglen hit the front hall and turned right. She didn’t know what was in this direction. It felt like a long way, then, as her sight returned, the blurred impression of passing through a doorway into a large, airy room. Another blink and she had the impression of a library.

McLaglen was heading straight for one of the high windows. So that was how he meant to get out.

“Cummings, you’d better be right about this,” she dimly heard him muttered as they crossed the room. Karen, however, had no intention of letting him off that easily.

She twisted her wrists hard, snapping the last frayed remnant of the tape binding her hands, pulled one hand free of the sticky substance, heedless of the pain, and before McLaglen knew what was happening, she had seized his gun hand and was twisting it back.

McLaglen swore and tried to throw her off, but she held on grimly. She’d made a mistake; the grip was wrong. She couldn’t get the right leverage to bend his wrist, which meant they were just fighting on pure muscle. She seized his hand with both of hers and tried to force it back, but he was a lot stronger than she was. He grabbed her by the hair, down by the roots, and pulled hard, forcing her head back and causing her to gasp with pain, but she didn’t let go. He drove her back against a desk, pressing against her, preventing her from kicking him, and Karen was suddenly aware of how badly she had bungled her attack. He had her pinned in a vulnerable position and now slowly, inexorably, he was forcing the barrel of the gun back around to point at her.

Karen fought with every ounce of strength she had left, but it was no good; McLaglen simply had more to give, even with one arm. Her dark eyes widened in fear as the gun turned. The barrel seemed to be growing as it drew nearer; the black hole through which the killing bullet would emerge loomed larger and larger, until it had consumed the whole room, the whole world. There was nothing but that black pit aiming up under her chin, seemingly prepared to swallow her whole.

Then, all at once, a hand shot out and grabbed the slide, and the spell was broken. The gun dwindled to its normal size, and she was aware of Nick Windworth, one hand on McLaglen’s gun, the other pressing his own to the dirty cop’s temple.

“I’m trying to think of a reason not to pull this trigger,” he said. “And I’m coming up dry. Can you suggest anything?”

###

            Sarah felt herself being dragged along the corridor. She had heard his gun going off even over the piercing hum in her ears, and she thought she’d cried out, but she couldn’t hear herself.

Please let him have missed, she thought.

The first thing she could see was that he was taking her out onto the patio. There was, she knew, a metal staircase leading down to the garden; he must be heading for that. But…they seemed to be alone. Where was Karen? And where was Cummings?

As soon as she was aware of her position, Sarah stuck her heels into the concrete floor and tried to stop, or at least to slow Deaney down.

“Come on, you little snot,” he said, giving her arm a savage yank that pulled her off her feet, though she was light enough and he was strong enough that she didn’t fall. The power she could feel in his hand was terrifying: she though he’d likely be able to snap her arm just with a twist of his wrist.

Speaking of which…

They were approaching the gleaming, top-of-the-line grill set. Almost without realizing what she was doing, Sarah snapped the remaining tape that bound her wrists, pulled her left arm free, seized the prongs and, turning, drove it head-on into the underside of Deaney’s right forearm. His hand opened involuntarily and the gun dropped at once as he screamed. She tried to pull it back out, to stab again, but before she could Deaney released her arm and backhanded her hard across the face, knocking her back against the grill. Her head swam with the impact and she tasted blood. Then his hand closed about her throat, he lifted her – one armed off the ground, then threw her straight down onto the floor. The awkward angle at which he threw her, so that she landed on her side, was the only thing that saved her from cracking her skull open like an egg on the flagstones.

He ripped the prongs out of his arm and brandished it over her, his face alive with rage. He looked ready to stab her to death and was only hesitating as to where to start.

Then the door to the corridor burst open and Andre flew out, gun raised. He fired, but missed. Deaney was already turning to meet him, and he was still disoriented from the flash bang. Deaney threw the prongs at him, and Andre had to duck to avoid it as Deaney came charging right behind the missile. A roundhouse kick and Andre’s gun flew off the edge of the patio, then Andre ducked the next attack and drove at Deaney in a football tackle. As Deaney rained blows down on him, the two slammed into the railing and, still locked together, tipped over the side.

Sarah screamed, staggering to her feet, aching all over. There was a great splash and she realized they’d landed in the pond. Stumbling, she headed for the stairs.

She needed to help Andre…somehow. And what about Karen? They must have taken her somewhere else, and Cummings…

Midway down the stairs, Sarah suddenly understood. She didn’t work it out step-by-step, but saw the whole thing, the whole plan. So simple. So obvious. So…so petty.

She also saw at once what she needed to do. There was a split second of hesitation, of doubt as she looked at the churning waters where the two still fought; should she let it go? Stay and help?

No, Andre could handle himself. All her friends could. She could count on them for that much at least, now that she had the chance to end this once and for all…if it wasn’t already too late.

While Sarah had her revelation, Andre hit the surface of the pond with a painful smack, and all at once the warm, murky water consumed him, disoriented him. Something, a foot, struck out and hit him hard. Andre struck back, his knuckles hitting flesh. He surged upward and broke the surface. Deaney was right beside him and he hit out as hard as he could.

“Son of a bitch!” he coughed as he rained blows on him. “Come into my house! Attack my people! Who do you think you are?!”

His punches were weaker than he would have liked. In the water he couldn’t use body mechanics or brace himself; he only had the strength of his arms alone, and not even all of that. Deaney blocked his latest attack and kicked him hard in the stomach.

“Self-righteous little prick!” he gasped. He kicked him again, knocking the little remaining wind out of him. Fighting in the water was a losing proposition.

Andre pulled back, kicking out for the side of the pond, flailing as best he could with no breath. Deaney had had the same idea.

Aching all over, Andre pulled himself up out of the water and onto the gravely path of his garden; the path he had helped to build with his own hands. A few yards away, he saw Deaney, gasping and panting, rising to his feet. He glared at Andre with murder in his eyes. Andre forced himself to rise to meet him, but Deaney gave a sudden explosive leaping kick, knocking him back to the ground.

“This won’t change anything, Fireson,” he snarled, kicking him savagely in the ribs. “You’ve only bought her a little time. Whatever else I do, I’m going to snap that little blonde tart’s neck, but not before I…”

He never finished. Probably in his rage he hadn’t noticed the green lump laying in the shadows by the pool, watching the battle, but it had seen him. It had seen him kicking and hitting its master. And with a sudden roar, Richelieu the alligator lunged forward and caught Deaney’s waist between his jaws. Deaney had time to utter a single shriek of pain and surprise before toppling into the pond with the enraged alligator on top of him.

Andre staggered to his feet, wincing at every step, and watched as the churning green water turned to red and became still again. The alligator poked its long, blunted snout of the water, bits of something hanging between its teeth.

“Good boy,” Andre gasped.

###

            Cummings took the spare jumpsuit down from the wall of Andre’s garage and stepped into it, then pulled a dirty cap down over his eyes. His movements were swift, but precise. The old battered gray van they had brought the two girls here in was waiting for him. It would take time for Fireson and his people to figure out what had gone wrong, then more time for the police to arrive, and by then, he would just be another work truck driving on his way; practically invisible. In a few hours, he would be over the border in Mexico, and from there he could make his way anywhere in the world.

He pulled open the van door, settled in the driver’s seat, stuck his gun down in between the seats, and started up the engine.

“Where’re we going this time?”

Cummings whipped around, reaching for his gun…but it wasn’t there. Instead, he found himself looking at Sarah Rockford’s lovely, smiling face, framed by its halo of golden hair, his gun in her small hand pointing right at him.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Cummings had nothing to say.

“I just saw it,” she said. “All at once; the common thread, the tell of all your little schemes. You’re a very clever man, Mister Cummings, but you always, always look out for yourself. Your whole master plan was basically just turning the city into a glorified mirror to admire yourself in. Now that things are falling apart for you, well, I just realized that you absolutely would send your friends off to lead us on a merry little chase while you slip off in the confusion and save your own precious skin. Because that’s what you do. It’s all you do.”

He gave a weak smile.

“It’s all anyone does, Miss Rockford.”

“My friends and I have been doing nothing but putting ourselves on the line to try to stop you for the past few days. You’ve given us plenty of chances to get away, but we haven’t, because you needed to be stopped. That’s the real flaw in your master plan, Mister Cummings; it isn’t about motive and opportunity, it’s about right and wrong. Sooner or later, there was going to be someone who wouldn’t tolerate what you were doing. From the moment you started this conspiracy of yours, it was only ever a matter of time.”

He looked at her, and she saw cold hatred in every line of his face.

“You wouldn’t really shoot me,” he said. “You aren’t the type.”

Before Sarah could answer, someone pulled open the driver side door, leveling a service revolver at Cummings’s head.

“She’s not,” said Crane. “But I am.”

 ###

            Andre Fireson loved his great house in the hills. But it wasn’t his only home. Every so often, he felt the need to get away from the city altogether, and for that purpose he had purchased about a hundred acres of secluded beach-front property some distance north of Los Angeles, on which he had built a modest cabin of sorts, surrounded by trees and facing out onto the Pacific.

It was the perfect place to escape to after their adventure.

The warm ocean breeze blew in on the patio overlooking the dock. They had just gotten back from a little light swimming (light due to the fact that most of them were still injured one way or another), had a mouth-watering lunch prepared by Benton (who was still mourning the granite countertop he’d broken while subduing Booker), and now they sat together, the four of them, watching the waves rolling over the beach, while Liu Sho (a bandage about his head) tended to the sea-side flowerbeds.

Or rather, Andre was sometimes watching the waves. More often his eyes rested on Sarah. She was wearing an open white shirt over her sky-blue swimsuit (Andre had provided both, as they were nicer than anything she had at her old apartment), and looked, to his mind, like the sun-drenched sea personified. A clever girl too; clever and brave and principled. He intended to spend more time with her, now that they had the chance. A lot more time.

Karen’s suit, meanwhile, was black, the exact same shade as her hair, and she had a dark grey shirt on over it. The sea at night, under a cloud-dressed moon, Andre thought with smile.

“All things considered,” said Nick, sipping his drink as he turned his face to the Pacific and his eyes to Karen. “I think I’m glad we didn’t die after all.”

“I think I have to agree,” said Karen with a faint smile. “And that reminds me; how did you know McLaglen would take me to the library?”

“I saw the plans to the house while we were strategizing and, well, that’s what I would have done,” he said. “A side exit, not too obvious, allows him to slip away into the bushes and avoids any potential ambushes at the front door while still giving access to the main drive.”

She stared at him, then shook her head in amazement.

“Not bad for a small-time crook,” she said. She contemplated him for a moment, eying his broken and bandaged thumb, and then broke. “That does it!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been dying to know; where did you learn all this? Who are you really? And please tell the truth this time; no more jokes.”

He looked at her, all black and grey and tan, yet almost luminous in his eyes, and it was as though the youth he’d lost long ago had momentarily flickered to life. For the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, he found he felt no reluctance to tell the truth.

“The truth, if you really want it, is nothing too special. I just a guy who did a few tours in Vietnam is all, and you pick up these things.” He sipped his drink, then added. “As a matter of fact, I was one the first American troops to enter Hanoi, back in ’68, if you can believe it.”

Karen frowned at him.

“Hanoi fell in 1970,” she said.

He looked steadily at her, smiling slightly.

“I know. What’s your point?”

There was a brief pause while they digested this. Sarah got it first.

“You were special forces!” she exclaimed.

“If you want to call it that,” he shrugged. “Put it that I did the things no one was allowed to talk about and that I didn’t want to think about, and when I got home I just…kept doing them. There didn’t seem to be anything else worth doing.”

Karen nodded. Though she had no personal experience even close to what he described, she thought she understood.

“And now?” she asked.

He thought a moment, then shrugged.

“Now I’m going to drink and enjoy the view,” he said, leaning back in his chair and fixing his eyes on her. “Everything else can wait.”

Andre laughed.

“Amen to that,” he said.

A few minutes later, Detective Crane appeared.

“Detective!” said Andre. “We were hoping you could make it. Sit down; have a drink. You missed lunch, but I’m sure Benton could whip something up for you if you like.”

Crane smiled and took his advice. They chatted a bit as the late lunch was prepared, but Crane seemed oddly distracted. It didn’t take long for him to share why.

“I was just doing some follow up,” he said. “Now that Deaney’s dead and Cummings is in jail, Roper Shipping is getting bought up by Centron Farms.”

“Is it?” said Sarah. “Looks like Cummings’s effort to keep them out of L.A. backfired on him.”

“That’s not all,” said Crane. “You know how he said they were running a third of the city? Well, that’s an obvious exaggeration, but not as much as you’d think. This case is already making waves in the business community; most of those who did business with Deaney are selling out as fast as they can. And guess who’s doing most of the buying?”

Andre sat up, suddenly alert.

“Centron Farms,” he said.

“But that’s not all,” Deaney went on. “That warehouse they were going to bomb? Well, we found out that it had hidden cameras watching all the rows. So, the thing is, even if the bomb had gone off, their plan would have backfired on them, because the company would have been able to show sabotage, and might have even been able to identify the perpetrators.”

“It’s good to know they wouldn’t have gotten away with it, even if we had all died,” said Karen.

“Right, but think about it,” said Crane. “Centron Farms moves in, starting a shipping and receiving branch and challenging Deaney directly. Cummings tries to deal with it, and in so doing he alerts us to his activities, all the while they have it set up so that, even if he succeeds, they have the last laugh. And now Centron Farms are taking over most of his old territory. Meanwhile, at the exact same time, the Mexicans under El Jefe start a war with Gallano, at great cost and seemingly to little benefit. Now between the two of them, the whole system’s gone and they’re both moving in.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” said Nick. “What’re the odds that two powerful, outside forces would just happen to challenge Cummings’s organization from two ends at the same time?”

“You mean you think this was all planned?” said Sarah

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” said Karen. “I mean, no one could possibly account for everything we ended up doing, right?”

“He didn’t need to plan for that,” said Nick thoughtfully. “All he had to do was stir the pond and something would come to the surface. Move in, put pressure on them to either sell out honestly or fight back dishonestly, at which point either someone notices something wrong, or they themselves secretly get the evidence they need to take Cummings down. Diabolically simple, actually; nothing illegal about it, unless, of course, he was also working with the cartels, which, if no money exchanged hands, would be all-but impossible to prove.”

“But who…” Sarah asked.

“Xander Calvan,” said Andre. “He’s the head of Centron Farms. Has a reputation for ruthless brilliance in more ways than one. I’ve met him; if anyone could pull off a strategy like this, it’s him, and I don’t think he’d scruple to deal with the cartels either.”

“If all this is true,” said Karen slowly. “What does it mean that this man is now taking over all that Cummings and Deaney had?”

A chill seemed to sweep over them. Then, suddenly, Sarah laughed.

“Never ends, does it?” she said. “You know what, though? I’m not going to worry about it. Maybe there’s nothing to it, maybe there is, but whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. Right?”

Andre grinned.

“You’re something, you know that?”

She flashed him a radiant smile.

“You have no idea.”

Crane chuckled good humoredly.

“I suppose that’s the best attitude we can take,” he said. He lifted his glass. “In any case, he’s to you all; case closed.”

The four of them raised their glasses. The future would come when it came. For now, though, life was good.

 

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: The Four Sleuths in The Trap Closes

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Sarah Rockford returned to consciousness by slow degrees, resisting the process at every step, for the more aware she became, the more her head pounded and her muscles ached. She dimly hoped that she was dreaming, and that when she did finally become fully awake it would be to discover that she was in her own bed in her own little apartment, with these cramps nothing more than the result of a weird sleeping position. Or even better, maybe she’d wake up to find she wasn’t alone in her bed, and…

Sarah didn’t usually have dreams like that, and the realization of what she was thinking about jerked her fully awake. She wasn’t alone, but neither was she in bed. The pounding in her skull re-doubled, and her cramped muscles seemed to scream at her. She was sitting on a cold floor with her back against what felt like a slender steel girder. Her legs were stretched out in front of her and her arms held high over her head. An exploratory tug told her that here wrists were shackled in place. A strip of tape covered her mouth, while more of the same stuff affixed her waist to what felt like a steel girder.

She shook her golden head to clear it and looked around. The place where she had found herself was very dim, but not quite dark. She was able to see that she was bound to one of the support beams of a huge shelf that stretched from one end of the space to another and almost up to the ceiling overhead. It was clearly one of many in the building, and her legs stretched out into an aisleway between the shelves. She couldn’t quite make out what was on them; thick cylinders and crates by the looks of things.

Sarah turned her gaze along her own shelf and saw that there were other figures bound in the same way all down it; her friends. The one to her left was looking back, his eyes glittering slightly in the gloom. It was Andre. On her right, she saw Karen, who was either still unconscious or else slumped over in despair, while on Karen’s other side she could see the dim outline of Nick, who seemed to be sitting quite still.

Between her and Karen was the only clear spot of color in view: a red, luminous digital counter. Sarah squinted to try to make it out. It read four-minutes, forty-one seconds. Forty seconds. Thirty-nine…

With a sudden, sick jolt, Sarah remembered everything; their disastrous mission to Deaney’s house, Mr. Cummings’s ambush and revelation of his plans. This must be the chemical supply warehouse owned by Centron Farms, and that was the bomb that would unleash the cloud of poison gas over the city.

Say rather the bombs. As her sight adjusted to the gloom, Sarah perceived that the one with the digital read out was only the trigger; there were wires running from it all along the shelves, glinting a little in the dim light. She could feel one with her fingers as she flexed and pulled on the handcuffs. The whole shelf was lined to blow, and to take them with it!

Sarah screamed aloud for help, momentarily forgetting her gag. It did no good, of course. Karen turned to her, and Sarah saw blank despair in the other woman’s glittering dark eyes. Of course, Karen knew how hard it was to get out of these handcuffs better than any of them, and the cuffs were cruelly tight. Meanwhile, the counter continued its unwavering march towards zero: three-minutes fifty-five seconds. Fifty-four. Fifty-three…

Sarah was quite right in her assessment of Karen’s thoughts. She had woken up a little before Sarah and identified their position. A quick assessment told her that there was no chance at all for them to escape in time; the handcuffs were too tight. They were separated one from the other by about five feet, so there was no chance of collaborating. They couldn’t even try to work out a plan together, since their mouths were taped shut. A quick exploration with her fingertips revealed nothing within reach that might be able to pick the lock, and the odds of their being rescued were about zero. And the bomb was counting down rapidly.

Karen wasn’t the kind of girl who gave up easily, but she also had a very logical mindset, and pure, cold logic told her that they had no chance of escaping.

She struggled hard to think of something, anything to avoid that conclusion, but it was no good. Death, which she had cheated one way or another so many times over the past few days, had at last caught up with her, and with her friends as well. The terrible thoughts of ‘what would have happened,’ which had broken her formidable self-control when she was out of sight of the others, were now being realized. There was no hope; they were really going to die. And she was more afraid than she ever would have admitted as she watched the clock counting down; three-minutes eight seconds. Seven. Six…

Meanwhile, Andre Fireson’s fear was almost completely swallowed in anger. It wasn’t right that they should go out like this after all they’d been through. He looked down the row at Sarah, her bright gold hair shining even in the darkness. Had he saved her life more than once just to have her die here? And Karen and Nick too. That wasn’t right. He wouldn’t allow that.

And it wasn’t right that Cummings should get away with it after all. Dammit, they had a responsibility to the people of the city! All the innocents who would die in this ‘accident,’ and he didn’t meant to shirk that duty; not as long as he could still breathe. He thrust back the creeping despair that threatened to envelope his heart and twisted his cuffs, thinking that maybe he could break them off against the metal of the shelf.

Two-minutes, thirty-two seconds. Thirty-one. Thirty.

Nick Windworth sat very still, weighing their options. It wasn’t looking good; not good at all. Of course, there were things one could do to get out of handcuffs…or try to at least. Why had he gotten involved in this whole mess in the first place? He could have been well out of town by now, if he’d been smart. Safe and gone, leaving the problem to others. He’d done his bit and more long ago, hadn’t he? And hadn’t he decided to wash his hands of this sort of thing once he realized he wasn’t the same stupid, idealistic kid anymore? So what madness had possessed him to get involved this time?

He looked to his left and saw Karen Stillwater slumped against her bonds, her black hair hanging limp over her face like a shroud, but the richness of her figure outlined in the gloom.

Ah, who’re you kidding? He thought. You’re still a dumb kid, especially if you’re feeling that. And at your age!

The thought took him back to the things he’d learned when was still young; the things he’d had to do, and which he’d hoped he’d never have to do again. But the sight of Karen, slumped in fear and despair, gave him the resolve to at least try.

A sudden clang echoed through the warehouse as Nick slammed his hand as hard as he could against the support beam he was shackled against. A groan of pain escaped his gagged lips as the metacarpal of his left thumb snapped and dislocated.

So far so good, he thought grimly. The others were all looking at him now. He could see Karen’s glittering dark brown eyes, and there was puzzlement as well as fear in there now. Nick forced himself to look at her while he tried to work his hand – now misshapen from the blow – out of the tight cuffs.

One minute, twenty seconds. Nineteen. Eighteen.

The broken bone ground against the steel edge of the cuff, and Nick’s nerves screamed at him. He groaned back, biting down hard on the wad of cloth in his mouth. But it was coming through. One more thought of Karen, and with a final burst of pain he yanked his hand free.

Forty-seven seconds. Forty-six. Forty-five.

Nick didn’t waste time on the gag, but set to work at once on the tape holding him to the base of the beam. He flipped the now-empty cuff through the lock so that the pointed tip swung free and, holding it in his one functional hand, used the point to tear through the tape.

Thirty seconds. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.

Nick pulled free, stumbled as the torn line of tape snagged at him, ripped it off and threw it aside as he hurried to the digital counter.

Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen.

Nick drew a deep, calming breath, trying to think through the pain in his hand. He couldn’t see the controls well, so he picked up the bomb, carefully, and pulled it back a little into the comparative light.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

There were three buttons on the side, and no time to work out which of them did which. No time to play ‘eeny-meeny-miney-moe’ either. He pressed the first one.

Five. Four. Three.

Nothing at all happened, so he pressed the second. The timer stopped a two seconds left.

Nick let loose a sigh of relief, gingerly set the bomb back, and ripped the gag from his mouth, spitting out the blood-soaked bits of cloth.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

It took a few minutes for Nick to find a crowbar with which to break the handcuffs and free the others, and when he had they gathered around in a huddle, where of course the first thing they wanted to know was how Nick had escaped.

“You broke your own thumb?” Andre exclaimed.

“Well, yeah,” said Nick with a shrug. “If it’s a choice between a thumb and life, it’s not really that hard of a call to make.”

Karen stared at him, but he couldn’t make out her expression in the gloom. His hand was swelling up badly.

“That was good thinking,” said Sarah. “Thanks!”

Everyone echoed her sentiments, and Nick felt rather pleased with himself.

“So…now what?” she asked. “Go to the police?”

“No,” said Karen. “Things the way they are, they probably wouldn’t believe us and we’d just end up in jail.”

“I’m sure Cummings will have anticipated we might break out,” said Andre. “He’s probably got a back up plan. As a matter of fact, he’s probably putting it in place as we speak; they obviously know something’s gone wrong by now.”

“If I were Cummings,” said Nick thoughtfully. “And the bomb didn’t go off when planned, I would assume that we had gotten free and stopped it somehow, as in fact we have. What’s the next step?”

“The obvious thing to do would be either to go to the police or to try to get out of town,” said Karen.

“And his next move would be to simply start the bomb again,” said Nick. “He does that fast enough, the gas might kill us before we can get out, and even if he doesn’t, his plan’s gone off, so to speak.”

“That means he’s probably sending men over to do so right…” Andre began, but then froze. They had all heard it; the door to the warehouse opening.

Nick gestured to the others, and they all hurried down the row in search of a place to hide, but not before Andre grabbed the wires leading from the trigger and yanked them out. They could see several flashlights shining from the far end of the row, casting irregular shadows as they streamed in and out among the shelves. The four of them reached the far end of the aisle and pressed themselves against the end of the shelves on either side: Nick and Karen on one, Andre and Sarah on the other.

The men came without caution, talking aloud. Andre glanced down the rows and counted three; all with flashlights and it looked as though they all carried pistols as well.

“Any sign of them?”

“Nope; here’s where they were.”

“How the hell’d they get out?”

“Beats me.”

“Gallano’s gonna be furious about this.”

“Doesn’t matter; they can’t have gotten far and once the bomb goes off they’ll be dead anyway. Now hurry up and get it going again.”

Suddenly, Andre had an idea. It came to him all at once: complete and perfect.

“Sarah,” he whispered. “Listen very carefully…”

###

The three men examined the bombs and one of them (who looked more like a banker than a thug) sighed.

“Took out the triggering wires,” he said. “Probably figured the whole thing couldn’t be detonated that way. Too bad for them I always come prepared!”

“Yeah, yeah; just get on with it. We don’t need to caught here when the cops show up.”

“Who says they’re going to?” said the bomb expert. “Way I understand it, Gallano and Deaney’ve got them well in hand. If those four losers go to the cops, they’ll just stall ‘em until it goes off.”

As he spoke he drew out a line of wire from his pocket and started to attach them to the trigger.

“Hold it!”

The three men whipped around. Detective Karen Stillwater was striding up the aisle, cool as could be, aiming what looked to be a pistol at them.

“Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads,” she ordered.

Her voice had such confidence that two of the men began to do as she said.

“Hold it,” said the bomb expert, frowning at her.

The other two froze.

“I said drop them, now!” she snapped.

“Where’s you light, detective?” asked the expert.

“You’ve got until three to drop your weapons and put your hands on your head,” she ordered, ignoring him. “One…”

“Shoot her!” shouted the expert, as he ducked.

Karen swore as the other two rose and aimed their guns at her. With no better options, she ducked and threw the pair of pliers that she’d been trying to pass off as a gun straight at the nearest thug’s head. She had a good arm, and the man was forced to dodge, throwing off his aim. Even so, it would have been bad for her had she been alone.

As the second thug took aim at her, he was suddenly tackled from behind. The whole time Karen had been bluffing the three men, Andre Fireson had slipped as quietly as he could down another aisle and come up behind them while they were focused on her. He drove his man to the ground, and the gun went spinning out of his hand and under one of the shelves. Andre didn’t wait to finish him off, but sprang up and went for the other one, who was turning to fire on him. Andre knocked the gun to one side, and the warehouse echoed as it went off. In the confusion of the flash and the sound, Andre’s fist caught the thug on the side of his jaw, then a blow to the stomach, then another to the face, backing the man against the shelves, the contents of which rattled with the impact.

The expert, meanwhile, was backing away from the fight, reaching for his own pistol. But even as he drew it, Karen came flying like a gazelle and caught the weapon as it came out of his holster, then drove her knee up into his crotch before twisting his elbow hard, forcing the weapon from his limp fingers. She took the gun, elbowed him on the back of the neck to drop him. She gasped in pain as the blow caused the knife wound in her chest to open again, but for the moment adrenaline kept her going as she turned back to the fight.

But the thug Andre had tackled to the floor had risen and was on her even as she turned. He caught her wrist, which was slender in his beefy hand, and twisted hard. She yelled and the gun dropped to the floor. The man dove for it, and Karen kicked it away, sending it spinning under the shelves.

Enraged, he hit her hard across the face. Her head swam and she tasted blood, but long training and practice kept her aware as he seized her dark hair with one big hand and pulled her head back thinking, no doubt, that he would hold her up while he beat her. Instead, as he yanked her head back, her hand came up and raked her nails across his eye. This wasn’t enough to make him let go, but he did pause in his assault to yell and clutch at the injury, and while he was so distracted Karen lifted her foot and stomped hard onto the side of his knee. She weighed probably half of what he did, if that, but caught unawares and from a weak angle the man went down hard onto the concrete floor. Unfortunately, he didn’t let go of her hair until she’d been pulled off balance as well. She caught herself and as he looked up she kicked him hard in the face.

While all this was going on, Andre was trading blows with his man, seeking to put him down. His opponent was tough; he had about a foot on Andre, and the muscle and weight to back it up. Even so, Andre’s hard, well-trained body was up to the challenge, and he dodged and weaved, pounding the man’s core while the other tried to land a knockout blow.

The thug threw a big swing, Andre leaned back out of the way, then countered with a jab to the nose, then an uppercut to the gut and a cross to the jaw. The thug reeled, and Andre pressed his advantage with another, harder blow to the jaw, then finally a powerful blow to the temple. The thug dropped.

Andre whipped around in time to see Karen kicking her man hard in the face. He growled and blood flew, but he still rose, aiming an uppercut at her as he did so. She stepped back out of the way just in time. Andre charged in from behind and drove his fist up into the man’s kidney. The man howled in pain and tried to turn to face him. That gave Karen the chance to run up behind him, leap up, and bring her right elbow down on the back of his neck, knocking him out.

“Not bad,” said Andre, breathing hard as he surveyed the three unconscious or feebly stirring men. “You okay?”

Karen could feel her face swelling up, and she was gripping her searing chest wound but nodded. “You?”

He rubbed his jaw and grinned. “Never better.”

“You might want to reconsider that, Mr. Fireson.”

They turned and saw a tall, slender figure coming down the aisle, flanked by two more men, but with pistols drawn.

“Mr. Gallano,” said Andre as he and Karen slowly raised their hands in surrender. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Deaney and Cummings have you running errands now, huh?”

“I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty, Mr. Fireson,” the drug lord answered. “It was I who tied you all in place. I frankly enjoyed the experience and hoped it would be the end of our relationship.”

“Still, it’s a little risky, all things considered,” said Andre. “A man of your stature doing wet work like this? Especially when your enemies are on the watch.”

Gallano hesitated, and Andre could tell he’d touched a sore spot.

“Your concerns are precisely why I was chosen for this…duty,” he said. “Mr. Cummings considered that I was the least likely person to put myself into such a position and hence would make discrediting any potential witnesses that much easier.”

“And of course you do whatever Cummings tells you,” said Andre.

“Enough!” said Gallano. “You’ve wasted too much of my time as it is. You two,” he gestured to his men. “Bind them again and re-set the bomb.”

Then he paused, shining his light on the floor, the up and down the aisle.

“Where are the others?” he demanded

“Running an errand,” said Andre. “In fact…”

The overhead lights suddenly blossomed to life. Gallano whipped around and found himself covered by six uniformed police officers, plus two men in ragged old suits, one of whom snapped a picture just as he turned. Behind the line of cops, was a round-shouldered, nondescript man, and beside him, hardly to be seen, just the top of a head of shiny gold hair.

Gallano and his men froze in utter astonishment, so stunned by their sudden change in fortunes that they couldn’t take it in. Then a hand, slender but strong, took hold of Gallano’s wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.

“Eugenio Gallano, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder,” said Detective Karen Stillwater.

###

“I still don’t get it,” said Earnest Marlin of United World News to Sarah while Karen and Andre directed the officers in handling the bomb and the disposal of the suspects. Sarah had already given him a summary of the conspiracy and the bomb plot. “How’d you bring us here just in time like this?”

“Once Nick and I slipped out the back, we just went to the nearest payphone,” she said. “I called you, and you very sweetly decided to trust me,” she beamed a radiant smile on him. “Nick called the police and told them there was a robbery in progress next door, just in case one of the bad guys were listening and would have gotten suspicious if he’d mentioned Centron Farms. Then when they showed up, he just directed them over here. But we didn’t really expect to catch Gallano himself, did we?”

“You’re not supposed to say that,” Nick admonished her. “When a con goes off better than you expected, you say you planned it that way from the beginning.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, the way we figured it, Gallano’d send those three to re-set the bomb. Andre and Karen stayed here to ambush them, then we’d hand them over to the cops and they would roll on the conspiracy, see? It was kind of a gamble, since who knew whether they would talk, but at least it would draw attention to the plot and they couldn’t cover that up. Plus it would certainly stop the bombing.”

“And you say Walter Deaney’s involved in this?”

“He’s one of the ringleaders,” said Sarah, nodding. “But not the leader: that’s James Arthur Cummings.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You will,” said Nick. “From the looks of it, Gallano can’t wait to tell all he knows. After all, if he keeps quiet, odds are one of his former employees down at the precinct will see to it he has an ‘accident’ in his cell. Oh, that reminds me; I called someone else too.”

DA Chen had just arrived, looking breathless and staring as he saw Gallano sitting handcuffed in a police car. Nick went up and offered his uninjured hand.

“District Attorney,” he said. “We’ve never formally met, but I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter while she was in the hospital. A lovely girl. Did you know Mr. Gallano here tried to have her murdered to get you off his back? Detective Crane can give you all the details.”

By the time the four of them left the warehouse in the company of the police and district attorney, the conspiracy that Mr. Cummings had been so proud of the night before was in the process of unraveling. Captain McLaglen and detectives Tyzack and Aldrige disappeared from the precinct, but Detective Crane and Marco Benton – who had been run down at last about a mile after dropping the two women off – were released from jail on the recognizance of the District Attorney. No one knew where Cummings was yet, but as Gallano disappeared into an interrogation room with Crane and Chen, it seemed only a matter of time.

As she sat in the precinct lobby with Andre, Karen, Nick, and Benton, Sarah Rockford felt safe for the first time since she’d learned of Deaney’s existence a few days before.

Nick was looking over Karen’s bruised and discolored cheek.

“You sure it doesn’t hurt too much?”

“I’ve been hit in the face many times before,” she said. “It’s a small price to pay.”

“I still say it should’ve been me,” he grumbled.

“You were in no position to fight with that hand,” she pointed out.

“I’ve fought with a broken thumb before,” he said.

“Oh? Where was that?”

“Country club.”

She cast him a suspicious look, then sighed.

“Well,” she said. “At least we’ve all come through it safe.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Sarah. “And that reminds me; I’ve gotta go write this down! I promised the Spinner a piece for the evening edition.”

“Do you have to go right now?” asked Andre.

“Won’t be long,” she said. “Just a quick write up.”

“Very well, but after that, I am inviting you all to dinner at my house to celebrate,” said Andre. “That is, if you are feeling up to cooking, Marco.”

“Boss, this ain’t the first time I’ve been in stir,” said the hulking valet. “Of course I’m gonna cook! I’ll cook you all a meal that’ll make you sing!”

“None for me, thanks, I don’t sing,” said Nick.

“Oh, so we’ve found something you can’t do,” said Karen.

“There are lots of things I can’t do,” he said. “Hold down an honest comes to mind.”

Sarah laughed, but Karen didn’t.

“I’ll be just across the street,” Sarah said. “Be back in a little bit.”

“Hold on,” said Karen. “You shouldn’t go anywhere alone just yet.”

“Come on, it’s over,” said Sarah. “Besides, who’s gonna do anything right in front of a police station now that they don’t have any cops on the inside?”

“Just to be safe,” Karen answered, standing up. “Anyway, I can help you fill in the details.”

Sarah looked at her and saw there was more to it than that. So she shrugged and the two women waved to the men and left together.

Across the street in the little café they ordered coffee and Sarah took out the pen and notepad she’d borrowed from the precinct, but didn’t start writing. Karen obviously had something on her mind, and Sarah composed herself to be the perfect listener, as she often did when taking interviews.

“So? What’s on your mind?”

Karen thoughtfully ran one finger around the rim of her mug for a minute.

“Have you begun to think of what will happen next?” she asked.

Sarah shrugged.

“Not really. I mean, apart from writing it out and so on.”

“I mean where we all go from here.”

“Well, I hope we stay friends,” she said. “I mean, we’ve been hostages together! Twice! You can’t buy that kind of bond.”

Karen laughed.

“I’m sure we will; if only because I’d hate to miss sentiments like that. What I meant was…I suppose it’s early to think about it.”

“About what?”

“I am a detective, Sarah; I notice things. I’ve seen the way you and Andre look at each other.”

Sarah, who had been taking a sip of her coffee, choked.

“I…” she coughed. “You…I don’t…”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Karen added hastily.

Sarah used a coughing fit to gain time to collect herself.

“Well, I…wait, did you say he looks at me, like…”

Karen smiled.

“Sarah, of course he does; you’re beautiful!”

Sarah knew that of course, but for the first time felt rather shy of the fact.

“So are you,” she said.

Karen gave a shrug and a rueful smile and said, “No, I’m not.”

“Of course you are! Look, if I took a shot of you right now, even with your face all busted up and your chest bandaged, and I sent it to a dozen magazines, I guarantee you’d have twice that many photographers knocking on your door by lunch time tomorrow.”

That made Karen laugh.

“I don’t believe you, but you make me feel better,” she said. “What I really wanted to talk to you about was whether…whether you think one of us would stay around if…if I asked him.”

Sarah knew what she meant at once. Quite apart from the obvious clues, such as the exchange she’d witnessed only a few minutes before, there was only one of their number who might be expected to disappear.

“I’m sure he would,” she said. “I don’t really know what goes on with him, but I get the idea he’s just…just waiting for a reason to stick around somewhere and go straight. And you’re a pretty good reason!”

“Let’s not go too fast,” said Karen. “I only want to…to have a little time.”

“Well,” said a male voice. “In that case, I suggest you keep very still, detective.”

The two women froze. The voice had come from the patron sitting behind Karen, whom Sarah had barely noticed. His head turned slightly, and she saw the profile of Captain McLaglen behind sunglasses and a baseball cap. Then another voice came from behind Sarah.

“Believe me, ladies, there is almost nothing I would like better than to kill you both, so don’t tempt me.”

It was the voice of Walter Deaney.

“We’re going to walk out of here,” he said. “Together. Easy and friendly. There’s a car waiting just around the corner. We’re going to get into it.”

“And then?” Karen asked in a low, tense voice.

Deaney smiled.

“That’ll depend on your boyfriends, won’t it?”           

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: The Four Sleuths in The Mastermind

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Sitting on the edge of the table, kicking her feet and looking more like a schoolgirl on recess than she would have cared to know, Sarah Rockford looked around with interest in the strange group she had found herself in.

There was Andre Fireson, whose mansion she had woken up in that morning (was it really that soon?) and whose safe room they were now gathered in. He was short for a man, but compact, powerful, and possessed of amazing energy and lightning judgment. She had noticed that when he threw her from the helicopter. He was pacing the floor in a restless fashion, like a leopard caught in too small a cage.

He’s just dying to be out there again, she thought. To be making things happen, taking the fight to the enemy.

Then there was Detective Karen Stillwater: cool, logical, and focused (not to mention drop-dead gorgeous in just the way powerful men of action like, Sarah added mentally to herself, admiring the other woman’s shiny black hair and excellent physique). She stood before a white board on which they had pieced together a plan of the conspiracy, as well as they understood it, studying the diagram as though triple checking that the information was accurate.

She’s worried, Sarah thought. Worried she might have missed something. Her coolness isn’t natural, but a skill she’s worked to develop. Kinda silly of her; I mean, we’re all in the same boat anyway.

This caused her eyes to drift over to Nick “Breezy” Windworth. He stood a little apart from the others, arms folded, leaning against the wall. He was the oldest one there, with sloping shoulders and a somewhat silly face that created the impression of a thoroughly average, somewhat stupid kind of man.

But he isn’t, Sarah thought. Judging by what Karen and Andre have said, he’s probably the cleverest one among us, and certainly the most experienced. I wonder where he got that experience?

At first, Sarah thought that Nick was looking at the whiteboard as well. Then she realized that, in fact, he was looking at Karen. Looking very hard at her too. That made Sarah feel oddly relieved, though she wasn’t quite sure why.

That made her think of herself; a twenty-year-old freelance reporter getting by on nothing but her charm and her pen who had exposed one conspiracy, gotten a swelled head, and gone for a second, with the result that she’d survived three attempts to kill her in less than twenty-four hours. She was five-foot-nothing (to be generous), blonde, and good-looking enough not to feel self-conscious in describing herself as such.

Now it turned out that all four of them, in their own way, had each been chasing down a piece of the same conspiracy, the full extent of which they still didn’t know. One by one they had crossed each other’s paths, and now they were all here, and all (if she could judge by her own case) determined to see the thing through to the end.

“Okay,” said Karen in her odd, but charming accent that was part Mexican, part British. “Let’s go over it one more time. Gallano runs the drug trade. Deaney manages supplies via Roper Shipping. Gallano employs local crooks like Mistretta as enforcers, and to preempt any local competition. According to the files we recovered from Mistretta’s office, he has enforcers like that all over the city. Each pursues his own operations, while reinforcing and supporting the others. The organization employs dirty cops, including Captain McLagen to sabotage any police investigations before they can get too close to the truth. And the whole thing is run by at least one mastermind, whom we do not yet know.”

“I still think it’s Deaney,” said Sarah.

Andre shook his head. “Deaney’s smart, but he’s not that smart; he’s taken too many blows to the head for that. In fact, if we’re right, he doesn’t even have to be as clever as I take him for; I imagine this mastermind takes much of the credit for building his company. Besides, I heard him taking orders from someone at the party: that’s how I knew they were coming for you.”

“Anyway,” Karen went on. “As far as we know, the conspiracy worked fine until fairly recently, when El Jefe’s cartel began to move in on Gallano’s trade. And now they’ve arranged for some kind of ‘event’ to take place tomorrow, which is so important that they have been willing to risk exposure to ensure that we do not know about it. They brought out trumped-up charges against Crane and I – sure to attract attention – tried to kidnap and interrogate Sarah rather than just kill her purely in order to find out if she knew anything, and then tried to murder her and Andre in a very dramatic manner, again simply on the possibility that they might know something. From all this we can deduce that whatever they’re planning, it’s big and it’s vital to their operations.”

“Could it be some kind of strike on the Mexicans?” Sarah asked.

“Considering they used a grenade launcher on them last week, I don’t think they’d be so worried about keeping any of their operations against them a secret,” Karen answered.

“You didn’t find anything in those documents? No crimes that couldn’t be accounted for or anything like that?” Andre asked.

Karen shook her head. “No, it was all pretty straightforward. I doubt Gallano or the others would trust Mistretta with that sort of information anyway; not unless they had to.”

“Where are those files anyway?” Nick asked. “I’d had to think they went to waste after all the trouble we had getting them.”

“The originals are at the precinct,” she said. “But Crane and I made copies and I hid mine back at my apartment. But don’t worry; I’ve practically memorized them.”

“We can go get them later if we have to,” said Andre. “In the meantime, the question is how can we learn what they’re planning before tomorrow?”

“I think,” said Nick. “The question whether there is a way we can learn what they’re planning before tomorrow.”

“I think that was implied in his question,” said Sarah.

“Are the semantics really helping?” said Karen.

“As I said,” Andre declared, raising his voice. “How can we discover their plan before tomorrow? And I am not gonna accept that there is no way to do so until you prove it to me.”

He had a commanding presence, in spite of his short stature, and the others felt it. At once they began considering possibilities.

“Not to sound cruel or anything,” said Sarah. “But could we do what they tried to do to us? You know, grab someone – McLagen for instance – and interrogate them?”

“Kidnapping someone isn’t as simple as it looks,” said Nick. “Especially not a high-ranking police officer who knows to be on his guard.”

“Besides,” said Karen. “As much as would like to take some electrodes to that…man, we can’t even be sure if he knows anything. As far as I can tell, Deaney and Gallano are the only ones we can say for sure know about this thing, apart from the unknown Mastermind.”

“That’s something,” said Andre at once. “Deaney and Gallano know about it. How can we use that?”

“If they know, they might have records of some kind,” said Sarah. “Plans, diagrams, expense reports, anything of the kind.”

“Almost certainly,” said Nick. “In my experience, if you’re going to plan a major operation, you are going to have documentation of some kind or other. That has to go somewhere, if they don’t burn it, which I doubt they would do the day before. They’d need to double-check, do last minute reviews, make alterations.”

“So there is evidence,” said Andre. “Physical evidence that we can find and get at.”

“It won’t be any use for convicting them,” said Karen.

“I don’t care,” said Andre. “We can worry about convicting them later; right now, I only want to stop them.”

“Well, then,” said Nick. “It seems fairly obvious; if that’s what you want, then we either search on Gallano’s yacht or in Deaney’s house. Unless, of course, anyone can think of any alternative location where either or both might keep his secrets.”

“His safe!” Sarah exclaimed.

“Sorry?”

“I mean, Deaney’s safe; the one you and I tried to get into,” she said to Andre. “You said he had a bunch of other documents in there, that he didn’t show you, right? I’ll bet that’ll include just what we’re looking for!”

“I bet you’re right,” said Andre with a fierce gleam in his eye. “If only we’d gotten into it earlier.”

“I would have if you hadn’t interrupted me,” she said, unable to resist.

“No, you wouldn’t; they had already seen you, remember? I would have gotten in if you hadn’t been sneaking around.”

“We’ll agree to disagree on that,” said Sarah with a dignified toss of her head that sent her bright yellow hair flashing. “The point is, that’s got to be where it is, right?”

A reluctant smile twitched at the corners of Andre’s mouth and he let it go.

“No,” said Karen. “That is one likely place where it might be, assuming such a thing exists.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” said Sarah. “Go in and look.”

“We’re going too fast,” said Karen. “First let’s see if we can come up with any other possibilities.”

After a good quarter-hour of further discussion, however, nothing occurred to them. The only viable alternative, which Karen suggested, was to take what evidence they had and go to the FBI.

“Only we don’t have much in the way of hard evidence,” Andre pointed out. “And besides, while we’re doing that, these guys will be carrying out whatever they’ve got planned for tomorrow, and I don’t intend to let that happen.”

“Me neither,” said Sarah.

“Of course I don’t want that either,” said Karen. “But if they knew the feds were looking into them, mightn’t that scare them off?”

“Yes, if we could get a full-blown investigation going by tomorrow,” said Nick. “And as one who has witnessed several Federal investigations up close, I can tell you that they’re usually not that quick.”

“And if we get ourselves killed chasing a dead lead, that won’t help anything either,” said Karen.

“Oh, I don’t think we will,” said Nick an odd, absent tone. “After all, we’ve each shown ourselves to be rather good at surviving, one way or another. And in any case, we’re fortunate enough to have one of the more courageous young officers I’ve happened to meet on our side.”

Karen blinked in surprise at that. She opened her mouth to reply, then seemed to have second thoughts and closed it again. Nick laughed.

“Detective Stillwater, you are young, brave, and beautiful; you really need to get better at accepting compliments.”

She blushed and looked away, but he had succeeded in teasing a smile from her face. Sarah caught Andre’s eye and they both grinned.

“What the hell,” said Karen. “I don’t suppose I’ll find a better lot to die with anyway. So what is the plan?”

###

            Andre Fireson, millionaire, heir to princes and keeper of his family legacy, had never expected to find himself slinking through another man’s property at night, dressed as a catburglar and intent on robbing his safe. Strange the things that duty called one to.

The night was pitch dark; a blanket of cloud covered the moon and stars, casting all that lay outside the glare of streetlamps into total blackness. Outside of Walter Deaney’s residence, lamps illuminated the iron gate and flooded large sections of the garden, but most of the tree-lined grounds were as dark as the deepest forest. Andre stayed low, moving with cat-like stealth across the well-kept lawn.

There was no one in sight. Deaney evidently didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention by keeping visible guards on his property. But Andre did not, for that, assume the approach was unwatched.

He waited in the shadows, breathing with the light wind that sighed among the bushes. Four slow minutes ticked by.

Suddenly, there came a shout and sound of a struggle from the front gate: not loud, but clear in the quiet night. Flashlights blossomed inside the darkened house, and two figures – on of whom a veritable giant, whom he guessed to be Deaney’s man, Edmund Booker – came out. They swept their lights over the lawn, but the bush concealed Andre from their beams. Then the two men hurried off in the direction of the gate. Just as Nick had said they would.

“The best way to trick someone,” he’d explained. “Is to let them think they’ve caught you.”

So far, so good, Andre thought, as he rose and darted across the brightly lit patio to the house. He didn’t bother trying to go inside; the doorframe was flanked with sheetrock, providing easy handholds. He’d done his share of mountaineering – his twenty-second birthday gift to himself had been to climb the Matterhorn – and so the ascent was no difficulty.

The second floor window above the patio looked into Deaney’s office. It was going to be locked, of course, but Benton had long ago showed Andre how to use a flatheaded screwdrive to push the latch back from the outside. It was tricky to do while hanging from the side of a building, but Andre was up to the challenge.

In a few moments, the window slid back and Andre stepped softly into the office, behind the big oak desk. All was quiet inside, but he could hear the faint sounds of the guards searching the grounds. He had to be quick.

Summoning to mind the image of the room as it had appeared when he last was there, Andre slipped noiselessly across the carpet to the Renoir painting and pulled it away from the wall. Only now did he employ his small flashlight to illuminate the dials. This was it…

The lights switched on.

“I think that’s far enough,” said a familiar voice.

Very slowly, instinctively keeping his hands up, Andre turned on the spot. Walter Deaney was sitting in one of the armchairs, dressed in a silk smoking jacket and looking quite at his ease as he pointed a pistol straight at him.

“Mr. Fireson,” he said. “I’ll admit, I was wrong. I had you pegged as a smart man; someone who would know when to leave a thing alone for his own good.”

“Must be hard to admit that,” Andre answer. “That you were wrong, I mean.”

“Not as hard as you’d think,” he said, with a grin. He rose to his feet, crossed the room, and relieved Andre of his own weapon and pocketed it. Then he jerked his pistol at the door. “I’d much rather not have to shoot you in my own house, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

Andre obediently exited the room, his hands still held up above his head.

“So, where are you planning to shoot me?” he asked.

“Maybe nowhere,” said Deaney. “All depends on you.”

They descended the staircase and into the living room.

“You don’t really expect me to believe you’ll let me go?” Andre asked.

“Why not?” said Deaney. “We’re both businessmen; I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

“I doubt it,” said Andre. “You see, unlike you, I’m not just a businessman. I’m also a gentleman.”

Deaney laughed.

“That’s good!” he said. “I’ll have to remember that one. Alright, just sit there by the bar. Pour yourself a drink, if you like.”

Andre sat on one of the stools and lowered his hands. Deaney sat down on the arm of the sofa, watching him intently.

“We’re just gonna wait here until my boys get back,” he said. “And here they are now!”

Booker and another man of much the same build appeared, carrying something between them.

“Found him, boss,” Booker grunted. They tossed the object they had been carrying to the ground and it rose to its knees, groaning. It was Nick Windworth, and his face was badly bruised.

“Well, that could’ve gone better,” he muttered.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” said Deaney. “You’re that con-man, aren’t you?”

“Depends on which con-man you mean, Mr. Deaney,” he answered.

Deaney chuckled.

“You all seem in good spirits, all things considered,” he said.

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” said Nick, sitting back against the end of the bar and massaging his face. “What with all that’s been happening, and your big to do tomorrow, I’d figure you to be a bit more…anxious.”

Deaney looked down at him, sizing him up.

“Trying to fish for information, I see,” he said. “Not bad. Now let me try; what happened to the two girls?”

“You really think we’d bring them along?” said Andre.

In his turn, Deaney looked hard at Andre, then laughed.

“No, of course not,” he said. “Not the sort of thing a gentleman would do, is it? But I am going to have to insist knowing their whereabouts.”

His eyes went back to Nick.

“I don’t think you’re quite as much of a gentleman, are you?”

“Not as such,” said Nick with a shrug. “I lie and cheat all the time.”

But before he could say anything more, there was a sudden sharp crack while at the same time a small cloud of dust burst out of the wall. Deaney swore and ducked under the couch, twisting ‘round to see where the attack was coming from. Booker dived for cover as well. The other man swayed a moment, feeling at the ragged red hole in his chest, then toppled to the ground.

Andre seized his chance. While Deaney had his back to him, he launched himself onto the other man, seizing the hand that held the gun and twisting it. The pistol dropped, but almost at once Andre received a sharp elbow to the rips and Deaney twisted in his arms with the speed of a snake, striking quick, powerful blows at his face and solar plexus. Andre wasn’t helpless; he could ward the worst of it off, but Deaney was far faster and more precise than any man he’d ever fought.

Outside, in the garden, hidden under a guile suit, Karen Stillwater racked another bullet into the rifle chamber. Just as Fireson had warned her, the XR-7 thermal-imaging rifle’s accuracy was badly off; she’d been aiming for Deaney. At least she’d given them a chance to escape. Only now the four heat signatures were moving too fast and too close for her to dare risk another shot. It was hard to even see the hot pads that Andre and Nick wore about their ankles and necks so that she could identify them.

Karen drew a deep breath and pushed her fears aside. Her friends needed her to be cool and collected. And so she concentrated on watching struggling figures through the thermal scope, waiting her chance to act.

Meanwhile, Andre and Deaney bobbed and weaved about the living room, Andre more struggling to hold the other man off than seeking a chance to injure him. He was a skilled fighter, and a powerful man, but Deaney was a professional athlete on his own ground; a little out of his prime, but still far out of his league. Andre tried to dodge in close enough to punch him, but Deaney easily accounted for his movement and delivered a brutal kick that Andre only just managed to ward off, but Deaney followed it up with a second, then a back fist that caught Andre under the eye. Andre countered, landing a blow in Deaney’s hard stomach that made the other man flinch, but when he tried to capitalize on this, Andre found himself quickly reversed and hit with another blow to the head, then Deaney launched himself off his front foot and kicked Andre square in the face.

The blow sent his head ringing, and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, only the floor seemed to be moving as well. Deaney loomed over him from all directions at once, grinning and saying something he couldn’t understand. Then something bright and glittering flew through the air and struck the side of Deaney’s head. He staggered and fell onto his hands and knees. A moment later, Nick Windworth had snatched up the fallen pistol and was pointing it at the master of the house.

“That’s enough of that,” said Nick. “Hands up, both of you.”

Deaney sullenly raised his hands, blood trickling from the side of his face from where the glass ashtray had hit him. Booker, who had been clutching a broken nose from where Nick had smashed his head into the bar, likewise raised his hands in surrender.

Andre shook his head to clear the cobwebs and sat up, forcing himself to focus through the pain and haze. He retrieved his own pistol from Deaney’s pocket and joined Nick.

“Pays to have a backup plan,” he said.

Then to his discomfort, Deaney grinned.

“It does indeed.”

###

            Sarah Rockford had followed in Andre’s shadow as he’d crept across the yard, then darted across to the shadows under the window as soon as he’d climbed up. She’d waited there, heart hammering, while he entered the room. Then the lights had gone on and she knew he’d been caught. She’d listened through the open window as Deaney led him out of the room, and as soon as they were gone started up the side of the building.

She wasn’t nearly as experienced a climber as Andre, but she was lithe and athletic, and in any case she was very light, so she ascended with little difficulty. The room was still lit – Deaney hadn’t turned the lights off when they left – and clearly empty.

Sarah slipped in; all in black, her bright golden hair hidden under a black cap. Her small feet made no noise on the carpet as she stole across to the safe.

Out came a stethoscope. Heart hammering, she began to turn the knob, just as Nick had shown her earlier that day, when he’d given them all a crash course in safecracking.

A sharp crack from bellow, followed by shouts and the sounds of fighting, momentarily distracted her, but she had the first number. She started over, focusing past the sounds of combat and trying her best not to think of what might be happening to her friends below.

She had the second number. The sounds of fighting died down, but what that might mean, she couldn’t say, and daren’t speculate. Then the final number. She tried the handle, and with a heavy click the door swung open.

“Most impressive.”

Sarah whipped around. A man was sitting in an armchair, watching her. A broad-faced, genial-looking man of about sixty, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

“I must congratulate you all; that was a very good plan,” he said. “I honestly didn’t expect it to go this far. I suppose we have Mr. Windworth to thank for that. Unsurprising, considering his background.”

“Mister…Mister Cummings?” Sarah said, dimly recognizing the man she’d met at Deaney’s party.

“I’m glad you remember me, after all you’ve been through since,” he said. “It’s Miss Mitchell, isn’t it? Or is it Miss Rockford?”

Sarah didn’t answer, but stared at him. Cummings didn’t appear to be armed, but something about him warned her that she was in mortal danger.

“Do you mean you knew, all along?” she said.

“Well, of course I knew that you were likely to make an attempt on Mr. Deaney’s safe tonight; that was the only logical move you had left, unless you intended to simply give up, and I certainly didn’t expect you to do that. So I made sure Mr. Deaney and Mr. Gallano were here to welcome you.”

“Mr. Gallano?” Sarah gasped.

Outside, on the lawn, Karen continued to watch the scene unfolding in the living room. Nick and Andre had come out on top after all; they had Booker and Deaney at gunpoint. Now she just had to make sure no one else came in, or…

Something hard, round, and cold pressed against the back of her head.

“Good evening, Detective,” came the voice of Eugenio Gallano.

All around her, a dozen of Gallano’s men rushed to the house, rifles in hand, to surround the two men.

“Nick! Andre! It’s a…” Karen screamed, but a moment later Gallano had struck her on the back of the head, and she knew no more.

Inside, the two men heard the scream, and heard it cut off suddenly. Nick whipped around in a sudden alarm at the sound, but before he could do anything or ascertain what had happened, the doors burst open and they found themselves surrounded by rifles.

Upstairs, Sarah heard all of this without realizing quite what was happening, but knowing that it meant she and her friends were caught.

“It’s you, isn’t it,” she said. “You’re the mastermind.”

Cummings laughed.

“If you want to call me that,” he said. “I developed the scheme years ago. You see, the problem with any extra-legal business opportunities is that sooner or later someone traces it back to you, if you have motive and opportunity. You can put some distance between yourself by paying someone, but that still leads back to you. But what if you had a vast, mutually beneficial organization where the only common thread was a single mind directing all? They would seem to have no connection and, hence, no motivation to help one another, leaving nothing for the police to grab on to. Why should an Italian drug lord turn to a local thug, or a respected businessman transport drugs he doesn’t even sell?”

“But you benefit from it all, I imagine,” said Sarah.

“Immeasurably,” Cummings agreed. “But not so much financially as you might think; most of that goes to my people. It is the challenge I enjoy more than the money. That, and of course the contemplation of that fact that I rule about a third of Los Angeles.”

“What?” she gasped. “What do you mean?”

“Roper Shipping isn’t the only company that sends Deaney a paycheck,” he said. “It’s just the only one he pays taxes on. One way or another, thanks in part to Gallano’s influence, he runs about a dozen different companies. Oh, I don’t mean he sits on the board or anything, but if he tells, say _ automotive to go one way, they do it. They know that if they don’t, something unfortunate is liable to happen to one of their ships.”

“Which means that you run them,” said Sarah.

“More or less,” he admitted. “Quite a good scheme, don’t you think?”

Sarah licked her lips. She was wondering why Deaney was spending so much time talking instead of just shooting her. But then, she realized, it wasn’t as if he had anyone else to boast too. He’d probably been dying to tell everyone how clever he’d been for years. Perhaps she might be able to stall him until…something.

“It’s impressive,” she admitted. “Only, it seems to be kind of coming apart at the moment, doesn’t it?”

“Hardly,” he said. “It is true we’ve had more police attention than we would like with this unfortunate tussle with the Mexicans, not to mention you four running around town like rats seeking out crumbs. But after tomorrow we’ll be able to start returning to normal.”

“Why? What’s so special about tomorrow?”

“That, as you no doubt have guessed, is why we’ve had to take some extra steps with you people. It’s a rather delicate situation, you see.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“No? I’m not surprised. Well, the truth is that the Mexicans have not been the only ones trying to, I believe the phrase is ‘muscle in on’ my business. Centron Farms out of San Ignatio has been expanding into Los Angeles. Specifically, into shipping and receiving. I wouldn’t worry about it ordinarily, but quite frankly, Centron Farms has the resources to put serious pressure on my business. They’ve already begun making offers to buy Roper Shipping, the kind of offers that raise questions when you refuse them.”

“Then what do you intend to do?” asked Sarah.

“Centron Farms has a chemical supply warehouse on Welmat Street,” he said. “Tomorrow, there will be an explosion: a minor one, but enough to unleash a cloud of chlorine and hydrogen-sulfide gas into the air above northern Los Angeles.”

“But…” Sarah stared in horror. “But that will kill hundreds, thousands!”

“Yes, very tragic,” said Cummings. “Of course, the subsequent investigation will reveal that, had the building been built up to code, the tragedy would never have occurred. Centron Farms will be fortunate if they survive the ensuing investigations, and certainly will not be in any position to expand any further into my territory.”

Sarah turned to the door and saw, to her dismay, Andre, Nick, and Karen being brought in. Andre and Nick had bruised faces, and Karen walked unsteadily, leaning on Nick, a trickle of blood coming from beneath her dark locks. Sarah instinctively rushed at Andre and hugged him, and the four companions stood at bay before Cummings. Behind them, Deaney, Gallano, and their people stood covering them with guns, Deaney and Booker both bleeding from the head and looking vindictive.

“So there you all are,” said Cummings. “I was just telling this young lady what to expect tomorrow.”

“Why bother?” Andre demanded. “Why not just kill us here?”

“We try not to have murders take place in our homes,” said Cummings. “It raises questions, and as recent events have amply demonstrated, not all police are reliable. Much better that your remains be scattered amid a wasteland of other evidence, none of which will be linked to me.”

He nodded to Gallano.

“Take them away, Eugenio, and try to do it right this time.”

Gallano scowled, but obediently ordered his men to bind their hands and blindfold them. Sarah’s last view of that house was of Cummings’s smiling, triumphant face beaming on her before everything went dark.

Book Release: Spring and Fall in the Old Dark House

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Just in time for Halloween is this nice little ghost story about two friends – super-smart, super-sweet, irrepressibly lively Jenny Spring and taciturn, dour, extra-stoic David Fall – who end up having to explore a (possibly) haunted house, where they learn a thing or two about how much they still have to learn.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

When twelve-year-old Jenny Spring is asked that question by her best friend, David Fall, she insists that she doesn’t. She’s the smartest kid in school, and she knows exactly the right arguments to prove that there are no such things as ghosts.

But when the actions of a bitter classroom rival force them to enter and explore the creepiest house in town, Jenny and David find themselves forced to reconsider; what if there are such things as ghosts?

 

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: Andre Fireson and Nick Windworth in Friends in Need

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They sat across from each other, as they had done once before, just prior to a hail of gunshots that had killed Gallano’s bodyguard and ended up setting his restaurant on fire. Andre thought the mobster had grown even more vulture-like in the intervening week or so.

“You place me in a most awkward position, Mr. Fireson,” said Gallano. “You arrive here, on my own boat uninvited, and during such a delicate time. How do you expect me to respond, I wonder?”

“As for that, you did destroy my car and kill my chauffeur,” Andre answered. “Not to mention nearly killing me.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” said Gallano hastily. “I was not told the whole plan; only that it would require the use of my helicopter.”

“Does that mean you’re not the one in charge?” Andre asked, sensing weakness. “Should I be speaking to someone else?”

“I am in charge of my own operation,” Gallano snapped. “However, I do, occasionally…cooperate with certain others for our mutual benefit.”

“Walter Deaney, perhaps?”

Gallano scowled at him.

“You seem very well informed, Mr. Fireson; so much so that I wonder you need to ask any questions at all.”

“I make it my business to be well informed, Mr. Gallano, as I am sure you do as well. Now, these others you cooperate with…”

“You are not in a position to ask me any questions on that matter, Mr. Fireson,” said Gallano. “We are only having this chat in order that I may decide what to do with you now that you are here. Because you saved my life, I do not like to kill you, but, on the other hand, I cannot permit you to possibly interfere with…with an event taking place tomorrow.”

Andre’s eyes rose with interest.

“Oh? What event is that?”

“One that you may read about after the fact,” said Gallano. “I have made my decision; you will remain on the Fulmine as my guest for today and tomorrow, after which my men shall take you ashore and we shall never meet again. I will then consider my debt paid. However, if you attempt to leave this vessel, or to interfere with my plans in any way, you will leave me no choice but to order your execution. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite,” said Andre. “I don’t suppose you’d listen to a counteroffer?”

Gallano hesitated. He was, after all, a businessman at heart and always liked to know his options.

“I…will listen,” he said.

“Hand over everything you know about your co-conspirators, especially any cops on your payroll, tell me what you’re all planning, and I will provide the means for you to flee the country and disappear.”

The drug lord stared at him and then laughed.

“That hardly seems an appealing offer,” he said.

“Beats prison,” said Andre.

“Yes, but, you see, I am not going to prison, Mr. Fireson. I am quite well protected. The present…unpleasantness is merely a temporary obstacle. Within a week, it will all be behind me.”

“I’m sure your boss would be happy to hear that,” said Andre.

Gallano’s face twitched.

“This conversation is over,” he said. He nodded to one of his men. “You, take Mr. Fireson to his cabin. See that he is comfortable and that a guard is placed on him.”

###

            A short while later, Andre stood gazing out of the porthole in his cabin at the LA skyline. His room was very comfortable, but he had no intention of staying there. He had found out some interesting facts and had shaken up the old buzzard, both of which had been worth the effort to come aboard. Now he needed to find a way out.

He thought of Sarah and wondered whether she’d made contact with Crane yet. He trusted Benton to look after her, and yet he found he couldn’t prevent himself from worrying. Had he really done the right thing, leaving her like that? Was what he had learned worth the risk?

There was a rap at the door and one of the stewards came in bearing a tray.

“Your lunch, sir.”

“Didn’t order any,” he answered.

“Compliments of Mr. Gallano,” the steward answered, laying the tray on the table. It did smell good, Andre had to admit. He would probably need to keep up his strength if he meant to escape.

The steward bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him. Andre went to the tray and found it contained a dish of fried chicken, rice, and vegetables, a piece of bread with butter, and a glass of water. The meal wasn’t bad; not up to Benton’s cooking, but then few things were.

He’d almost finished before he noticed the folded piece of paper tucked beneath the plate.

He drew it out and unfolded it. It was a plan of the Fulmine, with his own room and usual positions of the guards marked off in red ink. Along the side of the paper was a message:

I have a plan. Leave after dark. Wait for my signal.

Andre felt his heart hammering with excitement, but his mind was troubled. Evidently, he had an ally onboard. But who? And what was his plan? Most importantly, what was the signal going to be? Presumably he’d know it when it came, otherwise his friend would have been more specific.

In any case, this was good news; better than he could have hoped for. He tucked the plan into his pocket then rang for the steward to take away the tray. Once this was done, he began methodically to memorize the plan as best he could.

He had been at this for less than twenty minutes, however, when there was a heavy thud from the corridor. Andre hastily tucked the map away as the door opened and the steward came in. Only, he didn’t look like a steward anymore; his round, somewhat drooping face was flushed and he moved, not with the rapid deferential step of a waiter, but the confident, direct motion of a soldier. He was taller than Andre, but something about his sloping shoulders and hunched posture made him seem much smaller than he was.

“Hello,” he said. “Change of plans.”

“What?” said Andre.

“We’re not waiting for dark anymore. Have to go now.”

“You?”

“Obviously.”

“Anyone else?”

“Nope.”

“What’s changed?”

“Basically the whole plan, but I’ll tell you on the way. Can you give me a hand with this?”

He indicated the guard who had been stationed outside of Andre’s room; a hefty figure with a huge scar on one cheek. He now lay slumped against the opposite wall.

“What’d you do to him?”

“Whacked him over the head,” said the other conversationally as they hauled the brute into the room. “I was in a hurry. Still am, as a matter of fact. You any good with guns?”

“Rather,” said Andre dryly.

“Good. You take this,” said the other man, handing him the compact assault rifle the guard had carried. “Don’t like guns myself. Bad experiences.”

“Wait, who are you anyway?”

“Nick Windworth,” said the false steward, holding out a hand. “Friends call me Breezy.”

“Andre Fireson,” he answered, taking it.

“Knew that. Good to meet you,” said Nick, dropping the guard’s sidearm into his pocket. “Now we need to get off the boat and quick.”

“What’s happened?”

“Friend of mine needs a hand, and quickly. But don’t ask questions; just follow my lead. It’s not gonna be as easy as the night escape would have been, but then we don’t have as far to go either.”

Andre didn’t understand what he was driving at, but kept his mouth shut and checked the rifle magazine and chamber. It was fully loaded. He grabbed a couple spare mags from the guard’s pockets, as well as his radio, then followed Nick’s lead into the corridor.

They made for the fore stairs, then took them down into the lower decks, where the luxury vanished and the work began. Nick evidently knew his way around the ship very well, and they followed a winding, twisting path through its bowels, making, as far as Andre could tell, for the stern. They didn’t meet anyone along the way.

“So how do we get off the ship?” he whispered as they hurried past the engine room.

“Originally, I meant to take one of the lifeboats,” said Nick. “Figured we’d slip away and they wouldn’t realize we were gone until morning. But that’s not gonna be quick enough this time.”

“What do you mean, quick enough? And what else is there?”

Nick gave him an appraising kind of look.

“I don’t suppose you can fly a helicopter, can you?”

“Afraid not,” said Andre, seeing the idea at once. “Can you?”

“Well, I haven’t done it in a while, but I figure it’s like riding a bike.”

That was not encouraging.

Near the stern they found the after stairwell and began to ascend. Andre’s heart was hammering. He felt sure their luck was bound to run out soon. They couldn’t possibly get away without being spotted, could they?

They didn’t.

They came onto the main deck; the helipad was just outside a set of plate windows. And the pilot and one of the guards were standing right beside it, talking.

“No time for finesse,” said Nick in a low voice. “I’ll take the one on the left, you take the one on the right? And if you have to shoot, make sure you don’t hit the chopper.”

Andre nodded. Keeping low, they slipped through the door and out before the helipad, their guns raised.

“Hands up!” Nick ordered. “Up where I can see ‘em!”

The two men started, froze, but the guard’s rifle was pointed out to stern, and he sensibly saw that he’d have no chance at all to bring it to bear before he was shot. They raised their hands in surrender.

“Cover them,” said Nick. He relieved the guard of his weapons and the pilot of his keys, tossing the guns overboard.

“Now take a swim,” he ordered.

“What?”

“Not in a mood for arguing: there’s the water. Get in.”

He forced them down to the side of the yacht and onto the gunwale.

“You’re never gonna get away with this,” said the pilot.

“Yeah, that’s what I was going to say to your boss,” said Andre, and together he and Nick shoved them off. The two men hadn’t even hit the water before they were racing back to the helicopter.

“Not gonna take long for them to realize what we’re doing,” said Nick as he started up the rotors. “Then they’ll alert their allies in the police, and they’ll have choppers of their own in the air.”

“Then remind me why we’re doing this?” said Andre

The chopper lifted into the air. As it did so, several armed guards came rushing out onto the deck or onto the balcony above, aiming at them. Nick banked hard as the bullets pot-marked the chopper, but most of the rounds missed. Andre leaned out the side and returned fire. He was rated an expert marksman, but even so he had trouble landing a shot. But he did force the men back under cover, and that was something. A moment later, they were flying full-tilt toward the city.

“As for your question,” said Nick, speaking as calmly as if he’d merely been distracted by a matter of protocol. “Like I said, a friend of mine needs help, and she needs it fast.”

“Can be a little more specific?” said Andre.

“I was hanging around old Gallano when he got a call. Couldn’t hear too well, but I was able to gather that Mistretta, who seems to be the main dirty jobs man of this little conspiracy, anyway he’s gotten his grimy mitts on a couple of people they were looking for. One of whom’s Detective Karen Stillwater; friend of mine. Crane’s partner.”

“You know Crane?” said Andre.

“Everyone knows Crane in my line of work,” said Nick.

Andre was about to ask what that line was, but the mention of Crane suddenly put another idea into his mind.

“Who was the other one? The one they caught?”

“Don’t know. Someone named ‘Rockford.’”

Andre swore aloud.

“Know her?”

“She and I were on our way to see Crane and his partner when we got grabbed.”

“Ah, got it,” said Nick. “Well, Mistretta’s got them both, and Crane’s been arrested.”

“He’s what?”

“Sounds to me like they’re done playing around. Whatever’s happening tomorrow, the want to make damn sure we don’t interfere.”

Andre nodded abstractedly. He was thinking of Sarah, captured by a gangster. Why, oh, why had he ever left her? It was stupid, arrogant, irresponsible. And what happened to Benton? Was he dead, or perhaps arrested? Nothing else, he was sure, would have made him abandon her.

He shook his head. He couldn’t worry about that now. They needed to focus on saving the girls.

“You know where they’re taking them?”

“I’ve got a good idea,” said Nick. “But we’ll need to ditch the chopper first.”

They were well into the city by now, heading north and east. Nick was leaning forward, scanning the buildings below them, looking for a likely spot.

“Try my building,” Andre said. “On 7th and Randolph; shouldn’t be far from here.”

“That’s a good idea,” said Nick, banking in that direction. “Don’t suppose you keep spare cars there?”

“Can borrow someone’s,” Andre answered. Then he remembered it was Sunday; no one would be there.

“Never mind; sure to be someone parked nearby,” said Nick.

Andre quickly identified his building and watched it draw nearer. He wondered whether it would be his much longer; even if they survived today, with the police against them he might end up arrested on trumped up charges, like Crane.

So be it, he thought. It wouldn’t be the first time his family had been wronged by a mob. He thought of his ancestor, the Duke, forced to flee France in the wake of the Terror while his brother and sister went the guillotine. To die falsely accused and striving to uphold the right would at least be a fitting end for one of the Duke Duroc’s descendants.

Nick landed the helicopter expertly on top of the Firebird Arms building, and the two men flew out almost before it had stopped moving. Andre’s passcodes got them into the empty building and down the elevator.

“Mr. Fireson!” said Lou the security guard as they flew out of the elevator into the lobby. “What are you doing here? And…”

“No time, Lou,” said Andre. “It’s an emergency. I need to borrow your car.”

“Of course, sir,” said Lou, eying the rifle in his hand and passing him the keys. “Should I call the police?”

“Absolutely not,” said Andre. “If they come by, you didn’t see us. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lou. “I hope everything’s alright, sir.”

“It isn’t,” Andre answered as he and Nick flew into the parking garage.

###

            Sooner than Andre would have thought possible, Nick nodded at a run-down garage on a grim street corner.

“That’s it,” he said, driving past without slowing down.

There was no one in sight save for two tough-looking customers standing by the door.

“How do we do this?” Andre asked as they turned the corner.

“We try to go in guns blazing, he’s liable to cut their throats just to spite us,” Nick said. “We’ll have to be smart.”

He parked out of sight around the corner and got out. Andre followed him, the rifle tucked out of sight in his jacket. Nick turned down an alleyway behind the garage and, motioning for Andre to keep low, drew his automatic.

“No entrances back here,” he explained in a whisper. “So should be no guards.”

The alley was filthy, damp, and full of trash from a Chinese restaurant next door. It stank horribly.

“If there are no entrances, how does this help us?”

Nick shrugged.

Partway down the alley there were a couple sets of of bar-covered windows looking in on the garage. The first of these showed the main garage.

From here they could see the two women. They were each tied hand and foot, arms overhead and bound to the car elevators, which were raised high enough to stretch them to their full length. Their feet were bound to weights on the floor, leaving them almost immobile except for their heads.

Directly between them there was a work table, on which was laid an assortment of knives, drills, saws, pliers, blow torches, and other implements of torture. Mistretta sat beside it with his back to the window, idly fingering each instrument in turn, holding it up and turning it about so that the two women could see it clearly and imagine just how much it would hurt.

“Well,” he said. “Now that we’re all settled, let’s get started. The two of you have been making a lot of trouble for some very important people. So what I want to know is, how much you know, how you found it out, and who else knows about it? First one who talks gets to walk out of here alive.”

He held up a rotary saw and flicked it on. It spun with a high-pitched whine for a moment before he flicked it off again.

“Go to Hell!” Sarah spat defiantly. Karen said nothing, but her face was set even as her breathing came fast and shallow.

“Can you hit him through the window?” Nick asked a low voice.

“Maybe,” said Andre. There was a good deal of clutter in the way, and firing through glass would throw off his aim.

“Well, try, and if you can’t, make him think you can, at least for a second. I’ll go in the front. As soon as you hear trouble, start firing and keep him away from the girls.”

It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the only one they had time to make. Andre nodded and shouldered his rifle, sliding the barrel between the bars into the clearest section of glass he could find. Nick slipped off out of the alley Inside, Mistretta had set down the handsaw and instead picked up a long, thin knife. He fingered it a moment, then turned to Karen.

“Let’s start with you, Chiquita,” he said. “I want you to think hard about my questions.” The woman stiffened, but glared defiantly at him. Mistretta started toward her, idly twirling the knife…

###

            As he left the alley, Nick Windworth fell into a stumbling, weaving gait. His head lolled about and his arms waved meaninglessly. Typical drunk, like you see every day in this kinda neighborhood. He staggered down the street toward the guards, who watched him keenly.

“Hello,” he gulped as he came right up to them. “Would one of gentlemen point me in the direction of…”

They weren’t fooled. In a flash two pistols were drawn.

Oh, well, Nick thought.

He darted forward as quick as a striking snake and caught the wrist of the nearest man, forcing the muzzle of his gun down, and shoved all his weight against him. They were both bigger than he was, but they weren’t expecting this maneuver and so the first guard stumbled back against the second. With and expert hand, Nick twisted the wrist that held the pistol until it was pressed against the guard’s own abdomen, and before the man had quite realized what was happened, two powerful shots split the peace of the afternoon.

The man dropped, clutching his stomach, and Nick took his pistol. The second man tried to pull free as his partner slumped back on top of him. He stepped out of the way of the falling, mortally wounded man and looked up just in time to see Nick level the stolen pistol into his face. A third shot ended the affair.

It had all happened so fast that only now did Nick hear the bark of Andre’s rifle. Hoping that was enough to keep Mistretta distracted, he opened the door and slipped into the garage.

Almost as soon as he did so, more gunfire sounded. Of course; Mistretta had guards inside as well. Two of them, both pouring fire into the window through which Andre had been firing. Nick should have reckoned on that. The window shattered under the assault and there was a hail of dust and sparks as the bullets bounced off of the bars and tore into the bricks.

But he’d done his job; Mistretta had been momentarily forced to duck for cover back behind his table of torture implements. The two girls, unable to move or duck, shut their eyes and winced, trying to block their ears with their shoulders as the gunfire roared around them.

Nick, from his position behind a workbench, took careful aim at one of the guards and fired two quick shots. Them man dropped. The other heard and turned. Nick moved from the table to a metal tool chest, which rocked when the bullets hit it.

Mistretta, meanwhile, had figured their game. He crawled out from behind his table and ran over to Karen, standing so that she was between him and Nick. She gasped as he pressed his knife to her chest, but he didn’t stab her yet.

“That you, Breezy?” Mistretta called. “I know it’s you! You’re sweet on this cop, aren’t you? Wouldn’t want to see anything bad happen to her, right? That’s why you’re here. Come on out, or I’ll gut her slow!”

His ruined face twitched. Nick didn’t doubt for a second that he’d do it. From outside all was silent. It seemed Andre had been hit by return fire. His plan had never been a very good one, and now it was time to face the fact that it had failed.

“All right Mistretta,” he called. “You win.”

“No, don’t!” Karen called. “Stay…”

Her words were cut off in a shriek of pain. Nick leapt to his feet, all his long experience and training suddenly vanishing in anger at the sound of her agony. Mistretta, he saw, had dug his thin knife into Karen’s chest, just below the collarbone. But at that same moment there was another sound. A crumbling, shattering sound.

Mistretta, Nick, Sarah, and the last guard all turned to look at the window. The bars had been torn off. The salvo of gunfire had not only shattered the glass, but had torn chunks out of the brick work, which hadn’t been particularly strong to begin with. That meant Andre was still alive.

Nick registered all this information as he sprang over the table and rushed at Mistretta. He couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting Karen, but he closed the distance within seconds, and as Mistretta turned back in his direction he threw a punch with his left hand that tore open half the stitches on the gangster’s face. Mistretta screamed in pain and fury, dropping the knife, but before Nick could shoot him he came back, caught the wrist that held the gun and forced it upwards. Mistretta was incredibly strong; more like a chimpanzee than a man, and his first blow staggered Nick and would have dropped him to the floor had Mistretta not been holding him up by one arm. The gun fell from Nick’s fingers in the shock of the blow, then he rocked and nearly passed out when Mistretta hit him again. Then Mistretta picked him up and threw him bodily into a tool bench, which was knocked over backwards with the impact.

Nick was dazed, racked with pain, but training and long practice allowed him to focus nonetheless. Mistretta, half his face a bloody mess, was hurrying forward to finish him off. Nick seized a heavy wrench from the floor and threw it at him. It struck dead in the center of the forehead and Mistretta staggered back, clutching at his skull.

Meanwhile, from the corner of his eye, Nick saw that another struggle was going on; Andre had climbed in through the shattered window and attacked the guard while the man had been distracted by the fight with Mistretta. They were struggling for control over the rifle.

But he couldn’t pay attention to that battle; he had his own fight to deal with. Taking advantage of Mistretta’s momentary incapacity, Nick grabbed another wrench, the largest he could find, from the pile on the floor, and staggered to his feet. In the time it took him to rise, Mistretta had recovered. He saw the weapon in Nick’s hand and hesitated, licking his lips. Nick held the wrench out before him, and the two opponents circled each other. Mistretta was far the stronger of the two, that had been well proven, but Nick guessed he was the better trained and he had a weapon. Call it an even match.

There was a sudden bark of gunfire. Mistretta looked around, and Nick struck. He darted in and swung for Mistretta’s temple, but the gangster’s animal-like reflexes were too good; even seeing from the corner of his eye was enough to allow him to block the attack, though not well; the wrench, instead of cracking his skull, instead shattered his wrist. Mistretta yelled in pain, but even as did he caught the hand holding the wrench with his uninjured hand and bent it cruelly back until the weapon fell to the ground. He then swung around and threw Nick against a yellow ‘flammable contents’ locker, which rocked with the impact.

Mistretta charged after him. Nick turned the handle on the locker, opened it, and threw the first thing his hands touched at the oncoming gangster. This turned out to be a plastic canister filled with some kind of oil, and it broke with impact, splattering its contents all over him. Mistretta gasped and sputtered, blinking the stuff out of his eyes and gritting his teeth as it seeped into his wounds.

That gave Nick an idea. He grabbed another bottle from the cabinet, hastily unscrewed the top, and threw it directly into Mistretta’s face. The gangster roared in pain as it got into his eyes, and charged blindly forward. Nick stepped out of the way and he slammed into the cabinet, causing more of its contents to spill out onto the floor. Mistretta turned after Nick and began taking wild swings in the air at where he imagined Nick to be. Nick dodged left, then back, then stepped aside and stuck out his foot. Mistretta fell forward and struck against a set of gas canisters that fed the welding torches.

Meanwhile, Andre knocked the guard out by slamming his head into a workbench, then rushed to join Nick, out of breath but still game.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Been better,” Nick answered, rubbing his bruised and tender cheek.

But Mistretta didn’t seem to have much fight left in him. He staggered, blinded, his left wrist shattered, his face a mass of blood and oil. The two men watched warily as he rose slowly to his feet. Then, both at once, they saw he was holding one of the welding torches.

“No, you idiot! Don’t…” Nick began, but it was too late. The torch flared to life in his hand, and instantly the oil that had coated Mistretta, and which he had dripped and smeared onto the torch as he had fallen on it, burst in flames.

The two men and two women all cried aloud in horror, but their yells were drowned in the scream from Mistretta as his whole body was immediately set alight. He ran, blind, maddened by pain, his arms waving, and all the oil and other materials that had spilled out onto the floor were set alight.

“We gotta get out of here!” Andre shouted. He ran to the table, seized the rotary saw, and began cutting Sarah’s bonds. Nick was right behind him, took a knife, and cut Karen free.

Mistretta was nowhere to be seen, that entire side of the garage was in flames. Once it reached the gas canisters, the whole place would go up. And worse, the flames were blocking the door.

“Out the window!” Andre shouted as he cut Sarah’s ankles free. He didn’t stop to see whether she could walk, but lifted her lightly in his arms and sprinted across the garage to the shattered window.

Nick, for his part, didn’t trust his ability to lift Karen and still run full speed. She was stiff and in pain, but could walk, and he threw an arm around her as together they limped across the garage. It was filling with smoke now, and they coughed as they went, eyes and throats burning. The fire was near the canisters.

At the window Nick lifted Karen and passed her out to Andre’s waiting arms before climbing out himself. The four of them sprinted down the alley and around the corner, and Andre (who was last) had no sooner turned onto the main street than the entire interior of the garage exploded in flames, shattering every window and tearing the doors off their hinges.

People had begun to arrive. Sirens wailed in the distance. Nick led the four of them down the road to where he’d parked their borrowed car. He and Karen got in the back, Andre and Sarah in the front, and a moment later they were driving as fast as they could away from the garage.

“Thanks,” said Sarah as soon as she had breath to speak. “That’s two I owe you.”

“Now what?” asked Karen. Then she yelped as Nick applied an impromptu bandage consisting of his handkerchief and a torn part of his shirt to her wound.

“First thing to do is switch cars,” he said as he worked. “Then find somewhere safe to regroup and decide what to do next.”

“We can use my place,” said Andre.

“Won’t they expect us to go there?” said Sarah.

“Yes, but I’ve got places there we can hide,” he answered. “Call it paranoia, but I like to be prepared.”

“Except they’ll be watching for us on the way,” said Karen. “Staking out the road in front of your house.”

“Then we won’t use the road. Trust me.”

A few blocks away they left the car parked in front of a multilevel parking garage. They walked into the structure and ‘borrowed’ a different car from the second floor. Andre took a long, winding route out of the city, but they saw no sign of pursuit. It seemed they had finally shaken the police. Along the way, they shared their stories of what had happened that morning.

“I hope Benton made it at least,” Andre muttered. “Doesn’t sound good.”

“What were you doing on Gallano’s yacht in the first place?” Karen asked Nick.

“After I’d annoyed Mistretta so much, I figured I ought to go into hiding,” he answered. “Gallano doesn’t know me, and Mistretta’d never think I’d be hiding right under his boss’s nose. Thought it’d be the last place he’d look.”

Karen smiled slightly. “And you still wanted to help,” she said.

“Nothing to do with it,” said Nick.

“Liar,” she replied.

They drove out of the city, and the Fireson mansion loomed into view on its height like a medieval castle. But Andre turned off the road the lead up to the hilltop and instead skirted around its base, where there was a wide thicket.

“I own all this land,” he explained. “Use it as a nature preserve. Good PR.”

They passed a sign reading ‘Duroc Nature Preserve: Take Only Pictures, Leave Only Footprints.” Andre parked the car in one of the few spots then led the others out onto the walking path. It was very pleasant, and if they weren’t all exhausted, sore, and tense with fear they would have enjoyed it.

Andre led them off the path, through the thicket, and finally to a spot where a hoary old tree grew right against the side of the hill. Then, to their astonishment, he reached onto the tree’s side, which was hidden behind a thorny bush, and pulled the entire front of the trunk open.

Nick whistled.

“That’s a neat trick,” he said.

Inside there was a short tunnel, at the end of which was a heavy metal door and a keypad. They slipped in, closing the ‘tree’ behind them. Andre entered a code, turned the latch, and pulled the door open to reveal a stairwell.

“It’s a bit of a climb, I’m afraid,” he said.

That turned out to be an understatement. The stairs wound back and forth so many times that they lost count, ascending straight up into the center of the hill. By the time they reached the top, the two women were nearly dead on their feet and had to be half-carried by their male companions, who were staggering themselves.

At last they reached the top landing, where there was another heavy door and combination lock. Once through this, they found themselves in a low-ceilinged, but otherwise spacious chamber. Crates and boxes lined the walls, sofas stood in the middle, and there was a table with chairs in a kind of kitchenette in one corner. A cluster of television monitors stood at one end, and a set of cots at another.

“Welcome to my safe room,” said Andre, breathing hard. “Bathroom’s through there if you need it. First Aid over there. Room’s sound-proof and not on the original plans, and the entrance is pretty well hidden, so I don’t expect we need to worry about any visitors.”

He went at once to the monitors and began flicking through them. Evidently, he had a closed-circuit camera system in his house.

“But,” he said. “It doesn’t look like we have to worry about that.”

Sarah joined him, while Nick set about giving proper treatment to Karen’s wound.

“How does it feel?” he asked as he finished.

She grimaced.

“I think I’ll live,” she said. She kept drawing deep, steadying breaths. Nick eyed her thoughtfully.

“Bathroom’s through there if you need any privacy,” he said.

She looked at him, swallowed, and nodded. She got up and, slightly unsteady, hurried for the door.

Nick watched her go. He bit his lip, then winced when he found it swollen. His mind was racing with ideas, but none of them related to their current predicament. He’d surprised himself a lot these past few days, but now he was positively stunned by his own thoughts.

Don’t be an idiot, he told himself. You’re way past all of that.

He sighed and stood up. Sarah passed him on her way to the kitchenette. Nick went over to Andre, who was still sitting by the monitors.

“Nice couple of girls,” he muttered.

“They certainly are,” Andre answered.

Nick thought a moment, then asked in a low voice, “Sarah…she your girl?”

Andre turned to look at her, and the expression on his face was answer enough.

“More or less,” he muttered. “I kidnapped her.”

Nick considered this.

“Makes it official, then.”

The two men looked at each other, then began to laugh.

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: Sarah Rockford and Karen Stillwater in “Mate in Two”

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Detective Crane hung up the phone and turned to his young partner.

“Well, they’re on their way,” he said in a low voice.

Karen Stillwater nodded, feeling a thrill of excitement that she carefully kept from showing on her face. They were making progress at last. Between Fireson and Rockford’s statements and the information they’d gotten from Mistretta’s ledger, they might be able to finally move against the conspiracy. It would all depend on what they said, and whether Captain McLaglen believed it.

She looked around the precinct office to make doubly sure they couldn’t be overheard.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked. She tried to say it in as offhand a manner as she could, not as though she were really uncertain.

“Now we make sure we’re the ones they meet when they arrive,” said Crane. He checked his watch. “Fireson’s house is out of the city, so we’ve got some time.”

He looked over at the pegboard showing an outline of the case. It didn’t show anything about Mistretta or Deaney; only details of Gallano’s fight with the mysterious El Jefe. As far as that went, it was accurate, but it didn’t help much with their current problem.

“Here’s something I don’t get,” he said suddenly. “El Jefe’s lost about thirty people in only a couple weeks. I’m sure he’s got men to spare, but it still seems like a big price to pay just to get a new marketplace.”

Karen frowned at the board. The same thought had occurred to her, but she hadn’t wanted to mention it (thinking it might reveal her inexperience).

“I suppose all empires want to expand,” she said.

“Yeah, but he’d probably make more money just selling to Gallano rather than trying to muscle him out of his territory,” said Crane. “There’s something else going on here; something we haven’t found yet.”

Karen’s heart sank at that. There always seemed more to this case; it was like a bottomless pit.

At that point, the phone rang. Crane picked it up.

“Crane.” He listened a moment, then frowned. “May I ask why, sir?” He glanced at Karen. “I see. We’ll be right there.”

He hung up. Karen looked at him expectantly.

“Captain McLaglen,” he said. “He wants to see us. Says it’s important.”

Karen could sense there was more to it than that.

“That’s not so unusual, is it?”

Crane tapped his fingers, still frowning at her.

“You know, after almost thirty years as a cop, you develop a sense for when something’s not right. And something isn’t right about this. Why now? And why did he so specifically say he wanted me to bring you?”

A cold weight seemed to drop into Karen’s stomach. She saw what he meant, but took care not to show her unease.

“So what do we do?” she asked.

He thought for a moment.

“We go,” he said at last. “But listen carefully; if things go wrong, I want you to do exactly as I say. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Also, I think you should take this,” he said, taking the notebook containing his data on the case out of his pocket and handing it to her.

“Why?” she said.

“Just in case,” he said. “If anything goes wrong, there’s some stuff in there you might need to know.”

She accepted it and tucked it into her pocket, though she didn’t like the implications.

“All right; let’s get this over with,” he said.

Captain McLaglen was a thickset, middle-aged man whose remaining hair was salt-and-pepper grey. He was a thirty-year veteran, like Crane.

As they entered his office, they saw he wasn’t alone.

“Detective Tyzack,” said Crane, nodding. “Detective Aldrige.”

“Crane,” said Aldridge. He was tough and thick, in his mid thirties with a thick brown mustache. Tyzack was a thin, almost bony man with a gaunt, prematurely lined face and deep-set eyes.

“I assigned Tyzack and Aldrige to work an angle of the Gallano case,” McLaglen said.

“You mean my case, sir?”

“Different side of it,” said Aldrige.

“I’ll bet,” said Crane.

“They came up with some rather interesting information,” said McLaglen. “I’ll let them explain. Aldrige?”

Aldrige pulled out his notebook, cleared his throat, and read out:

“At approximately nine-twenty-two last night, Detective Tyzack and I interviewed the manager of the Kiber club on Mellon Blvd. He identified a photograph of Salvatore Puchino, a known associate of Eugenio Gallano, as a regular customer. He testified that Puchino regularly meets with a young woman, with whom he has long, hushed conversations, and to whom he has been observed passing small paper bags. The witness further testified that, to his knowledge, these bags contained sums of money.”

He paused a moment, glancing up at Karen.

“When presented with a photograph of Detective Stillwater, the witness identified her as Mr. Puchino’s regular date.”

A flood of outrage filled Karen’s chest, leaving almost no room for her to register the sense of dread that accompanied it. She struggled to maintain her composure.

“Can you explain this, detective?” asked the Captain.

“Yes,” said Karen, looking straight at Aldrige. “You’re lying.”

“I’m only repeating what the witness told me,” he said.

“Is this witness, by any chance, acquainted with a man named Antonio Mistretta?”

The two other detectives glanced first at each other, then at Captain McLaglen.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” said Aldrige. “Do you sir?”

“No, I don’t,” said McLaglen.

Karen looked from one to the other. She felt as though a trap were closing in on her. They were all in it: the captain too. That meant her chances of clearing her name were next to zero.

“Out of curiosity,” she said, squaring her shoulders, lifting her head, and looking straight at them. “How much is Gallano paying you? Or is Deaney the one footing the bill?”

The three men exchanged glances.

“I think that sounded like a confession to me,” said Aldrige. “What do you think?”

Tyzack nodded.

“I think so too,” said McLaglen. “How about you, Crane?”

Crane looked at the three men with an expression of utmost disgust. Then, without warning, he drew his gun so fast the others didn’t even have time to react.

“Hands up!” he snapped. “All of you. Captain, step away from the desk.”

Whatever the three dirty cops had expected of the veteran, it hadn’t been this. They stared at him in blank shock for a moment, then slowly raised their hands.

“You’re making a big mistake, Marvin,” said McLaglen.

“Funny, that’s just what I was gonna say to you, sir,” Crane answered. “In the corner. Now!”

They obeyed, keeping their hands raised and their eyes on the two honest detectives. Karen had drawn her gun as well and was aiming right at Aldrige with a hand as steady as rock, though inside her mind was whirling. How on Earth were they supposed to get out of this? They couldn’t just shoot the captain and two other detectives in the middle of the precinct.

“Karen,” Crane said in a low voice. “Get out of here.”

“What?”

“Find Fireson and all of you get somewhere safe. I’ll keep them here as long as I can to give you a head start.”

“But…” she began.

“That’s an order, detective.”

Karen remembered her promise, swallowed, and holstered her gun. There was nothing to say and nothing else to do; she left the office, closing the door on her partner, mentor, and friend.

In two minutes she was in her car and driving away from the precinct. How long did she have? Not long; ten minutes at best. People were always coming in and out of the captain’s office, and the moment someone knocked on the door or poked their heads in, that would be it. Then the chase would begin.

Her mind, as it usually did in a crisis, had become remarkably clear; she needed to stop Fireson from entering the precinct. He had almost certainly already left, but it was just possible that she might be able to contact him. First, though, she needed to look after herself.

About two blocks from the precinct there was a Lutheran church: Christ the Savior Parish. The parking lot was mostly full, as it was a Sunday morning, but there were one or two spaces left. She picked one as far from the street as she could and hurried into the church.

Services were in progress, but seemed almost over. The congregation was singing a triumphal hymn. In a corner of the lobby, she found what she had been hoping for: a clothing donation box.

With little time, she selected a black t-shirt with the logo of some band or other on it and a brown leather jacket and ducked into the restroom. It gave her a pang of conscience to steal from a church donation bin, but as she was going to be replacing the clothes with much better alternatives she thought it would be acceptable. She quickly changed in the stall, discovering the process that the shirt was a couple sizes too small for her and the jacket a few sizes too big. There was no helping that, though; she couldn’t keep trying on clothes until she found ones that fit. She adjusted her shoulder holster under the jacket and tried to make the shirt reach all the way to her belt. She also put her hair up into a ponytail, just to try to change her appearance as much as possible.

This done, she exited the rest room and joined the crowd of worshipers who were now eddying out of the church. A line of payphones stood just outside the church, and she made for these, concealed in the crowd.

In the phone booth, Karen checked Crane’s notebook for Fireson’s number and dialed. It was answered on the third ring.

“Yes?” asked a low and rather stern voice.

“Mr. Fireson?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Detective Stillwater with the LAPD. I was supposed to meet with him today. Who is this?”

“This is Liu Sho, gardener,” he said. “Mr. Fireson left some time ago.”

“That’s what I want to stop,” she said. “The precinct has been compromised and Detective Crane has been arrested. If Fireson shows up here, he and the girl will be arrested too.”

“Thank you. I shall alert him immediately,” Liu Sho answered with what Karen thought was admirable presence of mind and hung up.

That was that. Karen hung up and waited a moment, thinking. She pretended to be studying the phonebook, while surreptitiously looking back and forth along the street for anyone suspicious.

She’d wait five minutes, then call Liu Sho again to confirm he had gotten hold of Fireson. Then…she didn’t know what she would do after that. She had never considered this scenario. She was herself a fugitive, and though she knew not every policeman was corrupt, she had no way of knowing who was and who wasn’t. Besides, with the story they’d cooked up against her and with Crane holding the captain at gunpoint, even honest cops would be after her.

Unexpectedly, she thought of Breezy Windworth. He probably would know what to do. But she hadn’t seen him since he’d pulled her out of Mistretta’s hideout the other day, and she had no way of contacting him.

Perhaps, she thought, if she could head off Fireson, he might be able to help. He was rich and powerful, and probably had his own way of dealing with problems. In any case, he might have somewhere to hide.

The minutes crawled by as she dwelt on her predicament and tried to watch every passerby and every car without being obvious. She picked up the phone and pretended to be speaking for a while, just so as to appear natural. Finally, she dialed the number again.

Please say you reached them, she thought. Please say they’re on their way back now.

“Mr. Liu Sho?” she said.

“Detective? What has happened to my master?” he demanded. “I called his car phone twice. The first time, no one answered. The second, the line did not work.”

Karen felt icy fingers tapping at her heart. If they had gotten to Fireson and the girl, that would mean she was pretty much the only person in the city who knew about the conspiracy.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Liu Sho.”

She hung up, bit her lip, and tried to think. What to do now?

It seemed almost certain that the conspirators, anticipating the move, had ambushed Fireson on his way to the police station, probably about the same time they went after her and Crane. She had never met Fireson, but Crane seemed to think him a fairly capable man. Was it possible he had slipped the net, as she had? Perhaps. But if so, it was likely he was still making for the precinct, in which case he’d be walking into a trap.

Karen saw what she had to do. She didn’t like it, but that had never stopped her before.

She left the phone booth and back in the direction of the precinct. She would hang about until Fireson or the girl showed up, then hopefully be able to head them off before they went in. And if they didn’t show up…well, then she’d really be on her own.

###

            Sarah Rockford had never stolen a car before. Or rather, she had never borrowed a car from necessity before, as she hastily corrected herself. Then again, she’d never found herself dropped from a helicopter in the ocean and needing to escape quickly before the same people who had tried to kill her discovered she was still alive before.

She was angry at Fireson, less for throwing her into the ocean than for not jumping off himself. Now who knew what was going to happen to him, while she was left soaking wet and in the care of his ex-mobster valet.

“Why didn’t he come with us?” she demanded for about the third time as Benton drove the ‘borrowed’ car away from the pier where they had climbed out of the ocean.

The human refrigerator sighed.

“Like I say, he’ll have his reasons. Probably he wants to see who was behind this and thought he could do that better without worrying over you. Probably he figured one of you needs to get to the station to make your statement and you might have better luck splitting up. Probably a lot of things, but rest assured he did it mostly to keep you safe, so quit complainin’.”

Sarah had to admit he had a point, and so she lapsed into silence. After a while it occurred to her that Benton seemed to be taking a rather roundabout route to the police station: he kept turning around or taking side-streets as if he couldn’t quite remember where he was going. She then realized that he was making sure they weren’t being followed. Considering they had dropped out of a helicopter by an industrial dockyard and subsequently ‘borrowed’ a car five blocks away, she didn’t think that was too likely, but then again she still hadn’t worked out how the bad guys had found them that morning in the first place.

Finally they arrived in front of the precinct: a five-storey, white stone building set on a wide, grassy lot. Benton parked across the street, looked up and down, then got out. Sarah followed, her heart hammering. At last, they’d made it…

“Miss Rockford?”

Sarah jumped and turned to see a young woman hurrying toward them from an alleyway. She looked to be several years older than Sarah and a little more than a head taller. She had jet-black hair tied in an untidy ponytail, large dark eyes, and wore a leather jacket over a black shirt with a ‘Hee-La’ logo on it. Sarah’s keen aesthetic tastes appreciated that she was very beautiful, though in a totally different style from herself (she also couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy accentuated by the fact that the woman’s shirt seemed a few sizes too small).

“I am Detective Karen Stillwater; Detective Crane’s partner,” she said hurriedly in a slight but peculiar accent. “You have to come with me.”

“Why?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

“The precinct has been compromised; Crane’s been arrested.”

“He’s what?!” Sarah exclaimed.

“Keep your voice down!” Stillwater snapped. “We have to leave now.”

“Hold on, hold on,” said Sarah. “How do we know we can trust you?”

The other woman opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Apparently, she hadn’t considered this. But before she could come up with a good argument, two plain clothes detectives appeared.

“All right, Detective Stillwater, we’ll take it from here,” said the first, a burly man with a bushy brown mustache. His partner – whom Sarah thought looked as though he were recruited from the Egyptology wing of a museum – merely nodded.

The two detectives had their hands on their holsters. Stillwater’s went to hers, but she didn’t draw. Sarah took a few steps back, not sure what to make of the situation.

“That’s Detective Aldrige,” said Stillwater, still speaking to Sarah. “He and Tyzack are the ones who went to your apartment last night; they’re Gallano’s men.”

“Don’t listen to her; she’s the dirty one,” said Aldrige.

Sarah didn’t feel the slightest temptation to believe him; she’d already leaned that these two were dirty just that morning from Andre Fireson. Only trouble was, now that she knew Stillwater was telling the truth, they weren’t really in a position to follow her lead and get out of there.

“Woah, woah!” said Benton, putting up his hands and walking toward the detectives. “I think we all need to calm down a bit. I know these two gentlemen, and I’m going to take their word for it.”

Sarah didn’t understand what he was doing; he knew these cops were dirty as well as anyone. He’d been the one who had identified them in the first place when they’d come to abduct her the night before.

“I’m telling you…” said Stillwater.

“Now, listen, I think I’ve got a pretty good eye for people,” said Benton, speaking over her. “And I’m sure if we just talk about this, we can come to some kind of agreement.”

“That’s right,” said Aldrige, who seemed to think he’d found an ally. “Listen to him, Stillwater.”

All the while he’d been talking, Benton had been casually drifting closer to Aldrige and Tyzack. Now, with sudden, explosive speed, he sprang forward and his massive fists slammed first into one face, then the other. The two detectives fell like bowling pins under the two blows before they had even begun to draw their weapons, but they hadn’t even hit the ground before Benton was sprinting back towards the two stunned women.

“Best be moving, ladies,” he said, slinging himself back into the driver’s seat with surprising agility for a man of his size.

Stillwater recovered first, seized Sarah by the arm and pushing her into the back of the ‘borrowed’ car before climbing into the front seat even as it peeled away from the station. The altercation had apparently not gone unnoticed, for cops were already pouring forth from the front doors.

“Now what?” Sarah asked as they pulled away.

“First thing, we gotta lose the bacon brigade,” said Benton. “Excuse me, detective; force of habit.”

He drove fast, though not so fast as to draw attention, turning first down one street, than another. Sirens were wining behind them, but there were not cops in sight just yet.

“You’re a cop, right?” said Sarah.

“Yes, a detective,” said Stillwater.

“So, you’ve got a radio that feeds into the main cop channel, right?”

“Yes, but I switched it off…”

“Let me see it.”

“Of course not!”

“I’ve got an idea; come on!”

“Detective, give her the radio please,” said Benton.

“I can’t just give a civilian…”

“We don’t have time for that!” said Sarah. “We’re all in the same boat now, sister; just give the radio.”

With evident reluctance, Stillwater handed it to her. Sarah switched it on.

“Dispatch, tracking fleeing vehicle: grey four-door Ford, traveling south on Rothcar Avenue.”

“You need to give a call sign!” Stillwater snapped.

“This is dispatch; who is this?”

Sarah stared blankly.

“Say Adam 10,” said Stillwater.

“Dispatch, this is Adam 10,” said Sarah hastily. “Repeat, grey four-door Ford spotted heading south on Rothcar.”

“Roger, that Adam 10.”

“See?” said Sarah, switching it back off.

“Good idea,” Stillwater admitted. “Assuming they buy it.”

“So, what happened to Crane?” Sarah asked.

“Aldrige, Tyzack, and Captain McLaglen tried to frame me,” Stillwater answered. “They’re all on Gallano’s payroll. Crane drew on them and made me run for it.”

“But what’s gonna happen to him?”

“By now he’s been arrested,” said Stillwater.

“Well, we have to do something!” said Sarah.

“You think I’m not going to?” Stillwater snapped with her first serious display of feeling. “He’s my partner! But we can’t do him any good if we get caught too.”

The sirens seemed to recede. Sarah’s ruse apparently had worked. They drove on, Benton driving seemingly at random, but always away from the precinct.

“What about you?” Stillwater asked. “Where’s Fireson? And…why are you both soaked?”

“Oh, just the usual,” said Sarah. “We were on our way when a big helicopter came by and picked the car up with a magnet.”

“What?!”

“Mm-hm,” said Sarah. “Crazy, right? My readers are never gonna buy that. Anyway, we all climbed out onto the magnet just before they dropped the car into the ocean, then we saw the chopper was making for this big yacht, so Fireson pushed me off and Benton here jumped in after me. We swam to shore and borrowed a car.”

Stillwater gave a low whistle.

“Wait, this yacht; did you happen to see the name?”

Sarah shook her head. “It was too far off, why?”

“Because Mr. Gallano owns a yacht called the Fulmine. A yacht with a helipad, and word is that he’s been living there ever since someone took a shot at him last week.”

“Sounds like the place,” said Sarah, now more annoyed than ever that Fireson had gone there.

“And Mr. Fireson rode the helicopter to the yacht?”

Sarah nodded. She didn’t want to talk about that.

Stillwater breathed what sounded like a prayer under her breath.

“Don’t worry about my boss,” said Benton. “He knows what he’s doing, and he’s been in tight spots before. Besides, he’s the one who stopped Gallano from taking those bullets, so I think he’ll be alright.”

Sarah nodded vaguely, wishing she could believe that.

After a minute or too, Stillwater said, “I think we might have lost them.”

“Now where do we go?” Sarah asked.

“Back to the mansion,” said Benton. “Don’t worry; there are places there you can hide where no one’ll find you. Trust me, it’s the safest place in the city, and once the boss gets off the boat that’s where he’ll be headed.”

He pulled onto another street and started heading back in the direction of the mansion. For a moment, they drove in silence.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Sarah asked after a moment.

“Springwood,” said Stillwater.

“Where’s that?”

“Little north and east of here. Quiet little town.”

“Oh. Well, with you accent I thought maybe…”

“English father, Mexican mother,” she answered.

“Ah, that makes sense!” said Sarah. “Hope you don’t mind my asking questions; part of the job, you know.”

“I kind of do, as a matter of fact; I’m trying to think.”

“Sorry,” said Sarah. “I’ll be quiet.”

“Thank you…” said Stillwater, but at that moment all idea of quiet was shattered. Sirens suddenly blared, not just from behind, but from all sides. Two cop cars pulled into the intersection in front of them, and two more pulled in behind. All at once, they were surrounded.

Benton swore loudly, as did the two women, but he didn’t hesitate. He was an excellent driver, and as quick as thinking he whriled the wheel about, drove over the corner (narrowly missing a businessman in a brown jacket, whose briefcase went flying as he dove out of the way, spilling papers everywhere), down the wrong side of the street for a moment, then over to the right side just in time to avoid an oncoming pickup. More sirens blared, and the police came racing after him.

“How did they find us!?” Sarah exclaimed.

“I…I don’t know,” Stillwater said. “They’re not using the usual tactics. They must have…must have guessed your ruse and gone the opposite way, kept everything off until they’d found us, then…just all came at once. I’ve never seen this sort of thing before!”

Benton gunned it, barely slowing down as he went around a corner, making for more open areas, but the police had a lot more speed than he did. What’s more, rather than following all in a pack, they seemed to be splitting up and trying to cut off his escape routes.

“I hate to admit it,” said Benton. “But I don’t think I can shake them.”

The two women exchanged glances. Stillwater’s face was pale, but set and focused, as if her whole being was concentrated on their present problem. Sarah wished she felt as calm as that.

“Only one thing to do,” he went on. “If I’m not mistaken, there’s bunch of warehouses coming up where I can cut across from one road to another. There’ll be a few seconds where we’ll be out of sight, and when that happens, you two pile out and hide. Cops will keep chasing me and you can make your way back to the mansion.”

“What?!” said Stillwater.

“No!” said Sarah.

“Boss told me to keep you safe; that means outta jail, and this is the best I can do for you,” said Benton firmly. “I’ll meet you there if I can. Now get ready; it’s coming up.”

He braked hard suddenly, causing the pursuing police to do the same, then gunned it and turned into the warehouse lot. The car seemed to fly down to the end of the lot, then he turned sharply, braking as he did so.

“Now!”

Sarah didn’t stop to think or try to argue: she threw open her door and jumped out. The car was nearly at a stop, but it hurt nonetheless and she scraped her knees on the pavement. Stillwater, with her police training, rolled and landed on her feet. She grabbed Sarah by the hand as she stood up and pulled her behind a dumpster that stood next to one of the doors.

Benton didn’t hesitate a second after they had left the car, but drove on as if he hadn’t stopped, mounted the curbed and bounced into a neighboring parking lot. The pursuing police cars surged after him and did likewise, while the two women crouched behind the dumpster, pressing their bodies tight against the warm metal to try to make themselves as thin and small as possible.

The sounds of the chase quickly receded, but it wasn’t until they had waited in silence for nearly two whole minutes before they dared to speak even in a whisper.

“Do you think he can get away?” Sarah asked.

“He seems to know his business,” Stillwater admitted. “But then, so do our people.” She thought a moment. “Honestly, I don’t expect him to escape.”

Sarah slid down on the pavement, resting her back against the dumpster and her head in her hands. She felt exhausted, bewildered, and scared all at once. Stillwater sat down next to her, leaning back and staring off into space.

“It’s like everything falling apart at once,” said Sarah. “To think just yesterday I was sneaking about Deaney’s house, and now I’m a wanted fugitive.”

“You think that’s strange, I was a cop this morning,” said Stillwater.

They both laughed. It wasn’t really funny, but in their state it was either laugh or cry, and neither was willing to cry. Sarah felt, and thought Stillwater probably did too, that they needed to be strong for each other. After all, at the moment it seemed they were the only two people in the whole city who knew about the conspiracy and were relatively free to do something about it.

“Something I don’t get, Detective…”

“You can just call me Karen.”

“Alright; that’s easier. You can call me Sarah. Anyway, something I don’t get, Karen, is how did they know we were even coming to the station today? Do you think they had your phones tapped.”

“Crane and I thought of that,” said Karen. “We’ve been checking, and no, they’re not tapped. Besides, we never really thought they would do that, since it would be too hard to explain if anyone caught them.”

“Okay, then what do you think happened?”

Karen considered.

“Honestly, Sarah, I think Gallano or Deaney or whoever is really in charge just saw that it was the smartest move you could make and guessed you’d do it.”

“Like a game of chess.”

“Exactly. They anticipate what you’ll do and plan for it.”

Sarah thought about that. She didn’t like it.

“So,” she said, ticking off on her fingers. “Gallano manages the drug trade. Mistretta does dirty work for him to keep the locals in line. Deaney handles shipping and probably does some funding. And someone or other manages the whole thing according to a master strategy.”

“Possibly Deaney himself?”

“I don’t think so,” said Sarah. “I did a lot of research on him, and the guy is smart, but no genius. I think he got hit in the head too many times for that.”

“Well, we’ll work on it when we get somewhere safe,” said Karen.

“You think we can go?” asked Sarah.

They listened a moment, but only heard the sound of normal foot traffic.

“Yes,” said Karen. “But quietly.”

“I thought that would go without saying,” said Sarah, getting to her feet.

“And try not to attract attention.”

Sarah laughed.

“Karen, I hate to break it to you, but you and I walking down the street are going to attract attention.”

“What do you mean?” she said with a slight edge of defensiveness in her voice.

“Let’s just say I hope whoever this master strategist is doesn’t think to follow the whistles.”

Karen opened her mouth, then shut it again. Sarah chuckled. She was starting to like the detective; she had a straightforward sincerity and unselfconsciousness that she found refreshing.

“Never mind; you’ll find out,” she said. “Lead the way, detective!”

The two of them started down the long drive that would take them back to the street, where hopefully they would find crowds and be able to blend in until they could catch a cab or ‘borrow’ another car to take them back to the mansion.

But they never got there.

When they were About halfway down the drive, a van pulled in from the street and began driving toward them. Sarah felt a twinge of anxiety as they stepped out of the way to let it pass.

It’s only a van, she thought. Perfectly normal…

But it didn’t pass. It stopped right in front of them. Karen drew her sidearm and pushed Sarah behind her, but as the back of the van opened she found herself immediately covered by two shotguns. Sarah looked back the way they had come, wondering if perhaps…

Then two more men, both armed with rifles, emerged from inside one of the warehouses, aiming at them. Sarah and Karen looked in front, then behind, then at each other.

“Check mate?” Sarah whispered.

Karen nodded and lowered her gun.

The two groups of guards converged on the women, and sooner than Sarah would have thought possible their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs and they were bundled into the back of the van.

There was a man in there waiting for them. Sarah had never seen him before, but he was compact and muscular, and his face…his face made her wince. It seemed to bristle with crudely-done stitches all down his right side, holding together a series of deep, irregular cuts. It looked as though he’d recently had his face slashed by a tiger.

Worse, Sarah felt the sudden intake of breath and rigid tension in her companion and knew that Karen recognized their captor.

“Mistretta,” she breathed in a voice that was half terror, half contempt.

“Hola, chiquita,” he said, his face breaking into a terrible, lopsided grin. “I was hoping to see you again.”

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: Andre Fireson and Sarah Rockford in ‘A Snare of Attraction’

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AL+VL 2            Sarah Rockford returned to consciousness with a throbbing headache and a very dim recollection of what had happened the night before. She sat up, rubbing her head and trying to figure out where she was. It obviously wasn’t her own apartment; her whole place probably could have fit in the bed alone, and besides, this room was much too fancy.  The bed on which she lay had very soft, silken sheets of an exquisite pattern. Elegant, dark wood furniture filled the room, and there was a large, curtained window covering most of one wall.

She remembered being at Walter Deaney’s party yesterday afternoon…had she passed out there somehow? No, she remembered leaving. Or rather, being forcefully ejected by one of Deaney’s partners in crime. The memory of that made her angry, which caused her head to throb harder, but also brought back more of the night before. She’d gone home, changed, written down her notes, had dinner, and had been working on compiling a usable story when…

Sarah remembered everything at once: the knock on the door, the attack from behind, the sweet, sickly smell of chloroform. She threw off the covers and leapt out of bed as if she expected it to trap her. For a moment she stood in the middle of the room, trembling a little, trying to think.

She’d been kidnapped; that much was clear. By whom? Probably one of Deaney’s people. Had they brought her back to his house? She went to the window and pulled back the curtains to reveal a spectacular view of the Los Angeles skyline. Deaney’s house was surrounded by trees and a wall; this definitely wasn’t Deaney’s house.

Then where? And, come to think of it, if she had been kidnapped, why hadn’t they restrained her in any way?

Hubris, she decided. Or perhaps they didn’t think they needed to.

She went half-heartedly to the door, which of course would be locked. Except it wasn’t. More and more confused, she pushed it gently open, expecting to find a sentry or something, but the hall was deserted.

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and resolving not to be lured into complacency, she slipped along the passage in her bare feet, moving as silent as a beam of light, her ears straining to hear any sound that might indicate pursuit or ambush.

The upstairs hall ended in a glorious double staircase under a gorgeous chandelier. Tense and frightened as she was, Sarah couldn’t help admiring the décor. The walls were richly paneled and hung with paintings; all of a classical school. Most showed scenes of battle and heroism, but a few were portraits. They were so lovely and so interesting that she wished she could have had time to examine them properly. But while escaping from people who’ve drugged and abducted you is really no time for art appreciation.

She padded down the steps, uncomfortably aware of how exposed to view she was on the stairs. If anyone entered the hall, they’d see her at once. At the bottom, three corridors led off in different directions, while another staircase led down. Since Sarah didn’t know where to go, she selected the corridor leading directly away from the staircase on the idea that it might lead to a door.

In this, it transpired, she was right. The corridor led to a kind of conservatory, which led out onto a glorious patio centered on a circular pond surrounded by lush garden. The flowers and exotic plants were spectacular, and so placed as to create the impression that they grew from the building itself. Again she wished dearly that she could have paused and admired them. Whoever had abducted her, she thought, at least had excellent aesthetic tastes.

Yet, at the same time, she wondered again why she had been left alone. She began to mistrust her run of good luck; surely it wasn’t natural for anyone to be this careless? The fear she had felt upon realizing that she had been abducted did not diminish upon finding herself apparently alone in the house. On the contrary, the longer she went without seeing any kind of guard, the more nervous she became. She felt as though she were being led on, lured into a trap. Yet there was nothing to be done but to keep going; to let herself be drawn on to her doom.

Sarah shook herself; thinking like that wouldn’t help. She slipped out into the garden, and the glorious smell of flowers and fruit was all around her. The pond was lined with lilies, and there was even a very lifelike model of an alligator lying beside it to give the impression of a real tropical pool. And on the far side of the garden, under the limbs of what appeared to be a peach tree, she saw a gate.

Sarah hurried forward eagerly, hoping to be through and gone before anyone noticed. But when she reached the gate, she found that it was chained and padlocked. She looked about, but the fence was too high to climb and none of the trees in the garden were tall enough to get over it (and even if they were, she’d only break her leg trying to get down on the other side).

Heart hammering, sure that someone must have noticed her efforts to escape by now, Sarah turned to go back to the house and try to find another way out. It was at this point that she made a most unwelcome discovery; the alligator by the pond was not a model after all, but a living, breathing reptile. It had stood up on its four stubby legs and was walking toward her, mouth half open, green, slitted eyes fixed on her.

###

            “Morning, detective,” said Andre. He had slept little the night before, expecting every minute for either the police or the mob to come knocking at his door. He, his man Benton, and Liu Sho, the gardener, had sat up most of the night with rifles in hand just in case it came to a fight. But no one had come so far, and Andre wondered whether he dared to hope the two crooked detectives hadn’t been able to identify him as he ran off carrying their unconscious would-be victim to his car.

“Mr. Fireson. To what do I owe this early pleasure?” Detective Crane groaned.

“I had a idea that a warrant might be issued for my arrest,” said Andre.

That seemed to make him sit up.

“Is that right?”

“Yes, you see, I kidnapped someone last night.”

There was a pause.

“Is this a confession?”

“Not exactly. I only did it because two of your people were on the way to do much worse. See, I was at a shindig being thrown by Walter Deaney yesterday for reasons of my own and I happened to run into this girl…”

“Short, blonde, and much too confident for her own good?”

“You know her then.”

“Unfortunately yes,” growled Crane. “And I explicitly told her not to mess around with Deaney.”

“Well, she didn’t listen to you.”

“Is she…?”

“She’s safe,” said Andre. “She’s the one I kidnapped.”

There was a pause.

“I’m going to assume there is a way that will make sense.”

“Deaney figured out what she was up to and sent some people to get her, so I had to get her fast. There was no time to explain, so I just chloroformed her and threw her in my car.”

Crane gave a low whistle.

“I appreciate your looking out for the kid,” he said. “She has a tendency to get herself in over her head.”

“So I’ve noticed,” said Andre. “Something you should know, though; the men Deaney sent after her were cops.”

“Cops?”

“Plainclothes detectives. I happened to hear him making the plan; orders were to take her to someone named Mistretta, and…”

“What did you say?”

“I said Deaney ordered two cops to take her to Mistretta.”

Crane swore.

“So Deaney’s mixed up in it too,” he muttered.

“Mixed up in what?”

“Never mind,” said Crane. “Can’t tell you now. Look, who were the two cops? Did you get their names?”

“Benton’s the one who saw them,” said Andre, but at that point he heard a piercing scream from the patio.

“And I’ll let him tell you,” he said. “Sounds like my guest is up.”

He handed the phone off to Benton and hurried out to the patio. Liu Sho followed him, rifle in hand, no doubt to ensure his beloved flowers were safe. They came out of the conservatory, saw the scene before them, and both exploded into laughter. Sarah Rockford was crouched precariously on one of the higher branches of the peach tree while a large alligator stood below, looking up curiously at the stranger who had wandered into his domain.

“Good morning, Miss Rockford,” Andre called. “I see you’ve met Richelieu.”

He walked up to the gator and patted his flank affectionately. The girl was too frightened, too confused, and too angry to answer right away. She just clung to the tree branch, giving him the most withering glare she could manage from her position.

“Don’t worry; he’s mostly harmless,” said Andre. “I think you just surprised him is all.” He patted the alligator behind the head and the beast shut its eyes contentedly. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“Are you asking me or him?” she asked, nodding at the alligator.

Andre laughed.

“Both.”

About fifteen minutes later, the two of them were sitting opposite each other at the table on the upstairs balcony. Benton, after finishing his conversation with Detective Crane, had produced mouth-watering omelets with his usual infallible skill, while Sarah had been given a chance to change into spare clothes that had once belonged to Andre’s mother. The dark blue frock might have been rather out of date, fashion wise, and was a bit large for Sarah, necessitating the use of safety pins to keep it in place, but he thought the color suited her very well.

She sat rigid and suspicious as Benton brought the food out to them, not even touching the steaming mug of perfectly prepared coffee even as Andre sipped his gratefully.

“As I said,” he began. “I can explain everything.”

“You drugged and kidnapped me,” she said. “How do you explain that?”

“Listen and you’ll find out,” he said. “But if you’re thinking I brought you here just to poison you, you’re mistaken. Besides, Benton’s cooking is worth being poisoned over.”

She glared at him, then, as though with reluctance, picked up the coffee and sipped it. Her expression changed at once.

“Oh, I see what you mean!” she exclaimed.

Andre smiled.

“Benton is one of the most gifted chefs I’ve ever met,” he said. “You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you? He used to crack heads for the mob.”

“And now he cracks heads for you?” she asked, taking a forkful of omelet and gasping with delight as she tasted it.

“Sometimes,” Andre said. “But I’m not a criminal, Miss Rockford.”

“Then I suppose that was your twin brother I heard conniving with Deaney yesterday?”

“I was lying to him,” he said. “Pretending to be crooked in order to find out how crooked he was. I find it’s a useful tactic for straining the scum from my pool. My company, Miss Rockford, is bound up with my family name, and I will not have that associated with any kind of low or criminal activity. We had everything stolen from us once; that is not going to happen again.”

She looked at him with some surprise. Evidently his earnestness surprised her.

“So how did you catch me at the safe?” she said.

“I meant to crack it and get the ledger myself so that I could turn Deaney over to the police,” he said. “Same as you, I’d guess. By the way do you even know how to crack a safe?”

“I know the theory,” she said.

“I know the theory of an atom bomb; doesn’t mean I can make one,” he answered.

“Okay,” she said after a few moment’s consideration. “I’ll admit that your story would explain a lot of things I wondered about, like why you threw me out instead of…of doing anything else. But then why kidnap me?”

“Because Deaney was onto you,” said Andre. “One of his people saw you from the backyard. You were standing in the window, remember.”

“Oh!” she said with a shocked expression. “I didn’t think of that.”

“No, I guessed you didn’t,” he said. “So he sent some of his dirty cops over, and they were going to take you away to torture and murder you. Since I didn’t have time to explain all this last night, I just knocked you out and took you home.”

Sarah looked at him with an odd, far away expression as she absorbed all of this.

“I see,” she said. “Then I guess I should thank you, shouldn’t I? But…just so we’re clear, you’re not going to torture and murder me or anything, are you?”

He smiled.

“Probably not,” he said. “But we’ll see.”

She smiled, a little uncertainly, and they resumed eating.

“I hope you slept well,” he said by way of turning the conversation to more general matters.

“Yes, I always sleep well when I’ve been chloroformed,” she said.

“Benton’s done his share of abductions,” said Andre. “He suggests that I might have overdone the dose slightly. My apologies.”

“I’m sure you’ll get it right next time.”

The conversation then turned to the house, and she asked about the paintings and the garden, and this carried them through the rest of breakfast. After they’d finished, however, they resumed discussion of the day before, and Sarah told him her side of the story, while Andre filled her in on some other details, including the whole conversation he’d overhead between Deaney and his associate.

“That was probably Mr. Cummings,” she said. “He’s the only one I really spoke to, and the only one I told my cover name.”

“So, there’s Deaney and Cummings,” said Andre. “Then Mistretta, whoever that is, those cops…what were their names, Benton?”

“Detectives Tyzack and Aldrige,” he answered.

“A nice little conspiracy,” said Sarah. “’Noted businessman and mathematics professor head smuggling ring.’ Probably have to punch that up, but it’ll make one heck of a story.”

“Detective Crane seems to think it’s all part of something he’s working on,” said Andre.

“You know Detective Crane?” she said in surprise.

“We’ve met,” said Andre. “He was glad to hear you’re safe.”

“That was sweet of him,” she said. “He was pretty adamant about my not going after Deaney.”

“And he was right; you nearly got killed.”

“’Nearly’ is the important word,” she said. “Still here.”

He frowned at her.

“Your story on Hunar Contractors said one of them tried to bury you alive in concrete. That actually happen, or was it just to spice up the story?”

“No, it really happened,” she said. “Didn’t have to embellish it at all; it really was that close.”

She spoke lightly, but her tone didn’t quite match her eyes, or the way she fingered her fork nervously.

“So, you’ve almost been killed twice in, what, the past week or two?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “But, like I say, I’m still here.”

Andre looked at her. He felt a curious pain about the region of his chest. Sarah had turned her head to watch where Liu Sho was tossing bits of meat to Richelieu in the garden below. Andre was struck again by how lovely she was, and how young she seemed. Though only twenty-six himself, he often felt older than he was, what with running a company and carrying the responsibility for his family name. He now felt responsible for the girl across from him, almost as if she were his daughter…no, not like that. Not like that at all.

“The question is,” he said, trying to shake off the feeling. “How do we keep it that way?”

“We catch Deaney,” she said. “Break up the conspiracy.”

“I was thinking of a more immediate solution,” he said. “Why does Deaney want you dead?”

She looked at him in surprise.

“You know that as well as I do,” she said. “I heard him talking to you and sharing all his dirty little secrets.”

“Right,” said Andre. “He wants to kill you before you share what you know with anyone who might do something about it, and he wants to find out just how much you do know. So it seems to me the way to stop him would be to just tell what you know.”

“You mean, go public?”

“No, I mean tell the police. Once they have our statements, the damage will be done and Deaney and his crew will be too busy dodging the cops to want to go after you.”

“Except you said the cops are working for him.”

“Not all of them,” said Andre. “Crane certainly isn’t. We may not know how many of the cops are dirty, but he can’t own the whole department.”

Sarah nodded.

“That might work,” she said. “Especially if we could swear it out to Crane.”

Andre called for Benton to bring the phone, and the valet appeared at once. Andre dialed the detective’s number. Crane must have been expecting a return call, for he answered on the first ring.

“It’s me again, detective,” said Andre.

“Been expecting you,” he said. “Tyzack and Aldrige haven’t said a word about what happened last night; didn’t even put in a report. You haven’t had any visitors this morning?”

“No.”

“Hmm, that’s odd,” said Crane. “I can’t believe you gave them the slip this easily. They must mean to get at you somehow, but I just don’t see…”

“We were just thinking about that,” said Andre. “Listen, the reason they want Sarah dead is that that she’s a witness to Deaney’s corruption. So am I. But if we swear out a statement at once, damage will be done and they’ll have no reason to go after us.”

“That’s probably your best bet, short of actually putting them in jail,” Crane agreed. “We’re at the station now; how fast can you get here?”

“We’re leaving right now,” said Andre, nodding to Sarah who was already standing up and draining the last of her coffee.

“Watch yourselves,” said Crane. “These guys are smart. They might be waiting for you.”

“They’ll be sorry if they do,” said Andre.

A few minutes later, Andre and Sarah were in the backseat of his sedan as Benton drove out of the gate surrounding the mansion.

“Can you handle a gun?” Andre asked, opening a hidden compartment under the floor to reveal two rifles and four handguns.

Sarah whistled.

“Sure,” she said, accepting a small automatic, checking the magazine, and racking the slide. “What do you do; run guns?”

“Of course not,” he said rather sharply as he closed the lid so that it blended perfectly with the carpet. “But I do make them and there’s no sense in making guns if you don’t have them handy. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to tangle with some nasty people. Car’s modified too; it’ll stand up to most things, at least long enough for us to get out.”

Sarah nodded, getting the gist of what he meant.

“You think they’ll try to ambush us on the way?”

“I think we’d be stupid not to expect it,” he answered.

They drove out of the hills and down in the direction of the precinct. It was a Sunday and traffic was comparatively light. Even so there were a good number of cars on the road. Andre and Sarah eyed each of them suspiciously as they passed, watching to see if they made any strange moves.

“So how did you get into the arms dealing trade?” Sarah asked.

“Family business,” he answered. “My father started it after coming back from World War II: made custom hunting rifles out of a workshop, built it up from there.”

“Now you make guns for the military.”

“Partly,” he said. “We mostly target the civilian market, but with the African situation we’re looking to cut a deal with the government.”

“Does it bother you at all, making weapons? I mean, the morality of it.”

He frowned at her suspiciously.

“Just journalistic instincts,” she said. “Have to ask that kind of thing because the readers would want to ask it.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “Because at the end of the day all law, all convention, all civilization in fact comes down to the use of force. I think it’s as honest a job as any to try to ensure the right side has the power to back itself up when it comes to the point.”

She looked at him with admiration.

“That’s a good answer,” she said. “I actually would like to do a story on you sometime.”

He chuckled.

“I appreciate that. Now let me ask you something; you’re, what, eighteen? Nineteen?”

“I’m twenty,” she said a little defensively. “Almost twenty-one.”

“Well, even so, how’d a girl like you end up chasing down stories like this?”

She sighed and gave a little shrug of her shoulders.

“Just trying to survive.”

Andre looked at her, and as he did so he noticed a large semi truck pulling alongside them in the right hand lane, and another pulling up in front of them.

“All things considered,” he said, drawing his own pistol. “I think you might be in the wrong line of business.”

Sarah swallowed and tightened her grip on her gun.

“Benton,” Andre said.

“Sorry, boss,” he said. “Came up too fast…”

All at once, they found themselves boxed in by three large trucks; one in front, one behind, one to the right. On their left was a guardrail and a drop down a steep incline.

“We’ll be coming up on smoother ground soon,” said Benton. “I’ll peel off there. Don’t think they’ll expect us to go off road.”

Andre, however, suspected they wouldn’t be allowed to get that far.

“In the meantime,” he said. “We’re not going to play around.”

He rolled down the window, leaned out, and began shooting at the tries of the rear truck. He got off three shots before he realized that there was another vehicle in play. A large helicopter was swooping low over them, something large and circular dangling from beneath.

The truck’s tire blew out under the assault of bullets and the driver had to pull sharply to the right to avoid going off the edge of the road.

“Clear behind!” Andre shouted.

But it was already too late.

The helicopter swung overhead, and the device dangling from its belly snapped onto the roof of the sedan with a bang as loud as the gunshots. It was a giant electro-magnet.

A moment later, the sedan and its passengers were lifted clear off the roadway and into the sky.

Sarah screamed. Andre and Benton both swore. The helicopter swung around, sending the car’s occupants tumbling about, and headed for the ocean.

“They’re gonna dump us!” Benton shouted.

“Well, there’s gotta be something we can do!” Sarah said.

Andre looked around, thinking. It looked bad; there was no way to detach the car, and even if they did it would just crash against the ground below. They couldn’t reach the helicopter from here; they were at the end of a twenty-foot cable. They had absolutely no control over the situation.

Like rats in a trap, he thought bitterly.

He turned to Sarah, who seemed to be reaching the same conclusion. Her face was pale and frightened, and her breathing was coming quick. Once they were out over the ocean, they were doomed. The car would be dropped, they would ride it down, down to shatter upon impact, either killed outright or knocked unconscious to drown inside the broken vehicle…

Then Andre had his inspiration.

“Out of the car,” he ordered, holstering his gun.

“What?” said Sarah.

“Climb onto the roof,” he said. “Onto the magnet.”

“Oh, I see what you mean, boss,” said Benton enthusiastically as he rolled down his own window.

Andre stuck his head out the window and found a precarious handhold where the roof of the car met the rear window. He pulled himself gingerly up, holding tight against the wind, braced a foot against the window base, then began straightening himself, reaching for the great hook connecting the magnet to the cable. It was almost in reach.

The car shuddered as they hit a burst of air turbulence and he was nearly thrown free. But as he bounced up he made a snatch for the cable and caught it. It was greasy and the metal scratched his palm, but he held tight and pulled himself up onto the magnet itself.

Toward the front of the car, Benton was heaving his huge bulk out of the driver’s seat and reaching for the magnet. Andre caught his outstretched hand, braced himself against the cable, and strained to pull his massive valet up out of the car. Between his own strength and Benton’s the huge man soon sat alongside him on the magnet, gripping tight to the wire.

Meanwhile, the coastline zipped past below them. They were over open water now. Any second the car would drop.

Sarah poked her head out of the window, her blonde hair whipping about her face.

“Come on!” Andre shouted. “You can do it!”

She reached as far as she could, got a grip on the back of the car, and stood on the window base, then reached for Andre’s outstretched hand. They were almost touching.

Then the car dropped.

Sarah sprang clear just as it fell. For one terrible second she hung suspended in mid air, arm outstretched, hair flying, her mouth open in a disbelieving scream. Then Andre, reaching as far as he could, seized her arm in an iron grip. It was a lucky thing that she was so light. There was a painful jerk on both their shoulders, but she didn’t fall. Sarah seized Andre’s hand in both of hers and hung precariously beneath the magnet, while two hundred feet below the sedan hit the water with a terrible splash.

“Are you okay?” Andre called over the wind.

“I’ve been better!” she called back.

Andre pulled Sarah up onto the magnet and a got a grip about her waist with one arm while he clung to the cable with the other. A moment later, the magnet was hoisted up by a winch beneath the helicopter, so that the three were now crouched directly below the undercarriage.

Meanwhile the helicopter, apparently oblivious to its new passengers, banked around and began flying parallel with the coast maybe a half-mile out. It also began to descend.

“Where do you think it’s goin’, boss?” Benton asked.

“No idea,” Andre answered.

The helicopter continued to descend. They had started out about two hundred feet up. Now they were half that and still getting lower. There were a number of boats out today, and it briefly occurred to Andre to wonder what they thought of the sight of three people clinging to an electro magnet slung below a large helicopter.

Then he spotted one ship in particular; a large, elaborate yacht growing nearer every minute. A yacht with a helipad on the stern.

So that was where they were headed, and he thought he could guess whom it belonged to.

The helicopter was now about fifty feet over the ocean and maybe a quarter mile from the yacht.

“Can you swim?” Andre asked Sarah.

“Well, yes, but…”

Andre turned to Benton.

“Go with her and make sure she gets to Crane.”

Benton was too good a servant to argue the point or to fail to understand. He simply nodded.

“Hold on, what are you…” Sarah began.

“Keep your legs tight together and try to fall straight down,” he said.

“No, wait…!” she began, but it was too late. Andre threw her off the edge of the magnet and she fell with a shriek into the ocean. At the same time, Benton saluted and jumped off after her.

The plan was a desperate and possibly foolhardy one. But Andre Fireson wasn’t the type of man to let people chase him all around Los Angeles. He meant to go straight into the lion’s den and see what he could find there.

The helicopter arrived over the yacht and descended to land. Andre sprang clear before he was trapped under the machine and ducked out of sight beneath the edge of the pad. The helicopter landed, and a tall, slender figure emerged from the deck, accompanied by two guards. Andre recognized him at once.

Throwing caution to the winds, he stood up and strode forward. The guards drew their guns, the helicopter pilot swore, and the central figure started visibly, but Andre merely nodded as though he’d just walked into a board meeting.

“Good morning, Mr. Gallano,” he said. “I see we meet again.”

 

Thrilling Adventure Stories Presents: Andre Fireson in Necessary Evils

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AL 2

Andre Fireson was no stranger to elegant afternoon affairs like this one. Being the President of a major arms manufacturer, he’d often had to wine and dine his way to a lucrative business deal. They could even be enjoyable at times; there were worse ways to spend an afternoon than among well-educated, successful men and beautiful women in fine clothes.

This wasn’t going to be one of those times. Today he had a very particular goal in mind. He needed to know whether his potential business partner was the monster he was rumored to be.

Once again, it came back to the looming war in Africa and his contract negotiations with the government. Things were moving, and Andre had almost locked down his deal when word broke that Magpie Holding and Shipping, his usual company for moving his product, had been implicated in the breaking Hunar Contractors scandal that was rocking the LA business community. He’d dropped them at once; Firebird Arms didn’t need any bad press right now.

Trouble was, this left him with no immediate way of moving his product around. He needed to find a new shipping company fast, and Roper Transport seemed the obvious choice. It was, after all, one of the top such companies in the Western United States, and the board was pressuring him to sign with them and be done. But Andre had heard too much about Walter Deaney to want to do business with his company. At least, not without first finding out just how much of what he’d heard was true.

So, when Deaney had invited him to come to his party that weekend to discuss their possible deal, Andre had accepted. It would give him a chance to find out just what sort of man Deaney really was.

His initial impression had been unexpectedly favorable. Deaney was about seven or eight years his senior: dark, handsome, and with a strong voice and easy manners. He had, Andre knew, been a professional fighter, and for a while they talked sport. Deaney told a good story, and he seemed affable and charismatic. His house was richly, if not tastefully, furnished, and his food and drink was excellent. Yet the longer they talked, the less Andre liked him. There was something about Deaney’s affability that rang hollow: the expression in his eyes didn’t quite match that of the rest of his face, his laughter was a little too hearty, and in any case Andre had learned to distrust anyone who tried too hard to be liked. A man of real substance, he believed, didn’t cater to the opinions of others; between two decent, honorable men, liking would occur without forcing it. Deaney was too lavish with his compliments, too hearty with his laughter. He was ‘slick’ would be how Andre would put it: as slick as an ice rink.

Andre took a moment when Deaney when to greet some people to take a turn about the garden and chat with a few of his fellow guests. He found them, as he’d expected, to be much of a piece with their host: very friendly, very eager to please, and generally empty of substance.

About an hour later he and Deaney sat down at the bar and got onto the subject of business.

“You understand, of course,” said Andre. “That you would be running extremely valuable cargo for the United States Government.”

“Naturally,” said Deaney. “I’ve handled sensitive material before, don’t you worry. My people can keep secrets.”

Andre studied him thoughtfully. Should he lay his trap now? No, not quite.

“That’s good to know. Still, with such valuable cargo, shipping carries certain dangers. Have you had any trouble with hijackers?”

Deaney sipped his drink and shook his head.

“Nope, never any trouble of that sort,” he said. “My drivers know their business. We can mark the truck as hauling something like potato chips or bowling pins and no one would know the difference.” He grinned. “We take security very seriously, Mr. Fireson.”

Andre nodded. I bet you do, he thought.

“Glad to hear that, Mr. Deaney,” he said aloud. “Now, tell me more about…”

He trailed off, for he had suddenly realized they were no longer alone at the bar. A small, very young-looking blonde girl in a white and blue patterned dress sat almost directly behind Deaney. He guessed she was about eighteen; probably the daughter of one of the guests, and most likely with no idea what she’d sat in on.

“Miss?” he said, raising his voice slightly to get her attention. “Do you mind? This is a rather private conversation.”

Deaney started a little and turned around to see whom Andre was talking to. What happened next surprised him; the girl seemed to jump and her face took on an expression as though she’d just come face-to-face with a cobra. Evidently, she knew who Deaney was.

“Sorry,” she stammered, looking from one to the other. “Excuse me.”

She took her drink and hastened away, both men watching her as she disappeared back into the crowd.

“Suppose this isn’t the best place for private conversation,” said Andre. He had an uncomfortable idea it would be best for the girl’s sake to pass the incident off as casually as possible. “Especially,” he added in a low voice. “As I want to talk to you about some potential…extra services.”

“Suppose not,” Deaney laughed. He checked his watch. “I’ll tell you what, I need to see to a few things, but when I get back, why don’t we continue this in my office upstairs?”

Andre agreed to this and Deaney went off to speak to one of the other guests. Andre sipped his glass thoughtfully. A chance to see Deaney’s private office was too good to miss. If he’d get answers anywhere, it would be there. Besides, it would be best to lay his trap where no one would overhear it.

His valet Marco Benton drifted over.

“Notice anything?” Andre asked.

“Not yet,” Marco rumbled. “Waiters are all with the catering company. Only ones working directly for Deaney are Booker and the maid.”

“Booker?”

“That guy,” said Marco, nodding at what appeared to be a slab of well-cooked beef from the buffet that had sprung to life and put on a tuxedo. “Edmund Booker. There’s a goomba if I ever saw one. If he had anything to do with this spread, I’ll eat my cookbook. Guy’s got no class; you can see just by lookin’ at him.”

“Notice anything about the other guests?”

Marco shrugged.

“Typical rich types; not real gentry like you.”

“Appreciate that,” said Andre. He thought a moment.

“You notice a girl; real short, blonde, white and blue dress?”

The big valet shook his head.

“Nope, can’t say I have.”

Andre frowned, processing what that might mean. Marco was very observant, not to mention had an eye for the ladies. If he hadn’t noticed her, that could only mean she hadn’t been here very long…

“Keep an eye out for her,” said Andre. “Might be nothing, but…you never know.”

“Sure thing, boss,” said Marco, and he retreated as Deaney returned.

“Shall we, then?” he said, gesturing at the hall with his drink.

“Please,” said Andre, picking up his own.

Deaney led the way upstairs and down the hall into a wide, well-proportioned room that would have been elegant had it been more tastefully furnished. Andre’s well-honed sensibilities recoiled at the mishmash of clashing art styles, from the deco clock on the white mantel to the Victorian desk by the window and the Edwardian sofa and chairs before the fire.

“There we go,” said Deaney as they entered. “Now we can be a bit more private.”

“Nice room,” Andre said, focusing on the structure rather than the content in order to make the words sound convincing. “Renoir?” he said, nodding at what he recognized as one of the artist’s more garish works.

“Original,” said Deaney proudly. “Got it off some art galley that went bust. That one’s a Cabanel.”

“So I see,” said Fireson, though how any man could endure having these two paintings in the same room was beyond him. He suspected that framing their price tags would have been more to the point.

“But,” he said, tearing himself from the subject with an effort. “I presume you didn’t take me up here to show me art.”

Deaney grinned approvingly.

“That’s good,” he said, gesturing at one of the armchairs. “I admire a man like you; you know what you want, you go for it. Now, you said you might be interested in some…extra services?”

Firesone sat down on the edge of the chair, looking Deaney hard in the face, trying to read him. He’d have to tread very carefully here.

“Hypothetically speaking,” he said. “Say I wanted to move my weapons to a different client, without my present client being aware of it. Say I were to order your company to take a little extra in a given shipment, deliver it to these other clients, then proceed with the standard order without recording the difference.”

Deaney leaned back on the sofa, his eyes narrowed, dangling a half-full glass in one hand. For a moment, the two men studied each other, almost fencing with their eyes, seeking weakness.

“That would be illegal,” Deaney said at last.

“So it would,” said Fireson. “Do you object to that?”

Deaney smiled slightly, and the fencing match continued for another few seconds. Then he shook his head with a careless air.

“Not at all.”

Fireson smiled and sat back in his armchair, picking up the drink he’d set down on the side table.

Got you, he thought.

“That’s out of the way, then,” he said aloud. “I’m sure you know how tricky it can be to find the right kind of help.”

“Oh, I do,” said Deaney. “And I appreciate your approach.”

But Andre was not done yet.

“One thing further I need to know,” he said. “Do you have any experience in this regard? I don’t intend to trust my reputation and my business to amateurs.”

Deaney seemed slightly taken aback and gave a laugh that was even more out of harmony with his eyes than usual.

“Amateurs?” he said. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Mr. Fireson. My people and I have been doing this sort of thing for a long time.”

“So you say,” said Fireson. “Anyone can talk. I never take anything on hearsay, especially a man pitching his own services.”

Deaney sipped his glass, eying Andre thoughtfully. Possibly he was trying to detect trickery, but in this case there really was none; Andre’s father had taught him that rule, and he followed it to the letter in all his dealings.

“Fair enough,” said Deaney, setting down his glass. “Let me show you something.”

He got up and went to the Renoir painting. Andre guessed what this meant, and sure enough, a moment later Deaney had swung the picture away from the wall to reveal a safe behind it. He turned the dial a few times (taking care to position himself between it and Andre), then opened the door. Inside Andre had a glance of several neatly arranged folders containing numerous documents, but Deaney ignored these and instead took out a small, black ledger. He shut the safe door and led Andre back to his desk, where he laid it flat and opened to a certain page.

“Take a look at that,” he said. “But don’t touch.”

Andre bent over the ledger (vaguely aware of a faint smell of oranges as he did so), and studied it. It was a record of shipments made over the past month; shipments where the contents were written in code and the locations were all to or from Mexico. Two entries were marked ‘lost’ and accompanied by the letters ‘EJ’ followed by a question mark.

It was obvious to Andre that he was looking at the record of a smuggling operation, and to judge by the numbers, a very successful one.

“Hm,” he said. “Impressive. And you’ve been doing this how long?”

“Several years,” Deaney answered.

“Never been caught?”

“Never caught,” said Deaney with a satisfied expression. “The cops have had their suspicions, but they haven’t been able to land anything one me. I’m pretty good at covering my tracks.”

“So I see,” said Andre, trying not to look at the ledger as he spoke. Deaney closed the little book and returned it to the safe. Andre followed him, the beginnings of an idea – reckless, but not unworkable – rising in his brain.

“Well, Mr. Deaney, you certainly know how to run a business,” he said aloud. “I’ll run it by my board, but I think I can safely say that we have a deal.”

He held out his hand and Deaney shook it. Andre registered the faintly triumphal look on his face, and the fact that his hand felt as thought it were made of steel wires. He made a mental note to wash his own hand very thoroughly.

“Glad we could come to an agreement,” said Deaney. “Shall we return?”

Andre picked up his glass and followed Deaney out of the office and back down to the party. As he went, he worked out his plan in his mind.

When they entered the living room, Deaney excused himself and went out onto the patio to speak with his other guests. Andre waited until he was sure he was out of sight, then drained his glass and set it aside.

“If anyone asks,” he told Marco (who had dutifully appeared at his side the moment he returned). “I’m in the bathroom.”

“Got it.”

He slipped back out of the living room and into the hall, then up the stairs as silently as he could and back to the office. He guessed he could count on maybe five or ten minutes before he was missed; hopefully that would give him time to get into that safe and get that ledger.

When he opened the door to the office, however, he found that the safe was occupied.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he said, louder than he had intended in his surprise.

The girl jumped back from the safe with a small shriek of alarm. He pulled the door shut behind him; whoever she was, he didn’t want anyone to hear them.

It was the same girl who had been at the bar: bright blonde hair, wide hazel eyes, and barely clearing five feet. She seemed momentarily struck dumb by his appearance and only stared at him with evident fear.

Andre looked at the safe. It was still shut. She had obviously had the same idea he had…only what was she even doing here? More importantly, how much, if any, of the recent conversation had she overheard?

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

She swallowed and seemed to gather her courage.

“I…I’m a cop,” she said. “And my superiors know where I am.”

This was such a patently desperate maneuver that he didn’t even bother contradicting it.

“How long have you been in here?” he asked.

She squared her small shoulders and gave him a defiant look.

“Long enough to hear some very interesting things, Mr. Fireson,” she said.

So she’d heard it all. She’d been spying on them. That might be awkward for him. But more importantly, if she was spying on Walter Deaney, and if things like her gambit at the bar were her idea of subtlety…

“You’re not a cop,” he said bluntly, still working things out in his mind. “And I don’t think anyone knows your here.”

“That’s all you know,” she said, unable to keep a faint tremor out of her voice.

“You’re right: I do know that,” he said. “If you never left this house,” he went on, thinking aloud. “I don’t think anyone would come looking for you.”

The girl licked her lips nervously. He’d frightened her. Well, good; better scare her off now than have her keep snooping around until an actual crook found her. Andre looked at her, then about the room. He made up his mind and started toward her.

“Stay back!” she said, retreating.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “You’re getting out of here right now.”

“I…what?” she said, apparently confused. This gave him the chance to close in and seize her by the arm; not too hard, but hard enough to ensure she wouldn’t wriggle away. As he did so he caught that same scent of oranges, recalled smelling it by the curtains, and understood where she’d been hiding.

“You are going to walk out with me,” he said in his commanding voice that very few people ever disobeyed. “We are going out the front door, to the gate, and you are going to leave and I am never going to catch you around here again. Understand?”

She blinked, evidently confused that he didn’t mean to murder her on the spot.

“That’s it?” she said. “You’re just gonna let me go?”

“Let you go?” he said, tugging her after him as he started for the door. “No, I’m going to make you go.”

He marched her out into the hall and down the stairs. Andre caught Marco’s eye as they entered the hall and he motioned for him to follow. At the front door they encountered a few other guests.

“Gate crasher,” Andre muttered. “She’s just leaving.”

The girl didn’t struggle and didn’t protest. She accompanied him to the gate without making any kind of a fuss, though Andre could feel the tension in her body as they went. He guessed she still didn’t quite believe he was going to let her go unharmed.

He jammed the switch to open the gate. As it creaked open, he looked around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard, then lowered his face to her ear.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said. “But you have no idea what you are dealing with. Stay away from this if you value you life.”

With that, he pushed her through the gate. A little harder than he had meant: she nearly fell on her rear. As she recovered, he jammed the switch again and the gate slid shut.

The girl turned and fixed him with a furious, hateful glare from the other side of the bars. Strangely enough, it wasn’t until that moment that Andre realized that she was beautiful. It seemed to him as though he had never seen a lovelier girl in all his life than the one who stood glaring vindictively at him through the bars.

A moment later, she turned and disappeared down the street. Andre felt strangely dissatisfied with himself as he turned back to the house. Marco had joined him surreptitiously. For such a big man, he had mastered the art of moving quietly.

“Follow her,” Andre ordered. “I want to know who she is.”

Marco nodded, opened the gate just enough to slip his bulk through, and disappeared. Andre stood for a moment, frowning in thought, then turned back to the house

He didn’t feel like going back to the party, and as he’d already gotten what he’d come for there didn’t seem much reason to stick around anyway. So instead he strolled along the path leading around to the garden, looking over the flowerbeds.

The path led him around the corner of the house, away from the direction of the patio and the main party going on in the living room. Things were quieter here; the noise of the party was reduced to a kind of dull hum. He was able to think.

There’d be no going back to the safe today, and probably no more chance for him at all. But there might be ways of getting around that; he had money, and he connections, and the man who had both very rarely found an insurmountable obstacle. In any case, he’d escaped the shame of having his family company linked with the likes of Deaney…at least, assuming the girl didn’t spread the word around, though he supposed he could deal with her one way or another. Bringing Deaney to justice might have to be another man’s task. Perhaps he’d get in touch with Detective Crane and inform him of what he’d learned.

As Andre was musing on all of this and admiring Deaney’s flowers (the man kept a good garden, he had to admit), he suddenly became aware of voices coming from the house. This wasn’t the hum of indistinct music and talk coming from the party; these voices were much closer, low, and serious. Among them he recognized Deaney’s own.

They were coming from a half-open window leading into one of the smaller ground floor rooms. Andre slipped closer to try to hear, blessing the softness of the soil about the flowers that masked the sound of his movement. He stood against the wall beside the window, listening.

“Sure, I noticed her,” Deaney was saying. “Good-looking, fun-sized blonde. Guess she was a gate crasher. What about it?”

The other man hesitated before answering.

“Did you happen to notice what she did while she was here?”

“Not especially,” said Deaney. “Got herself a drink at the bar while I was talking to his lordship, until he shooed her away.”

“Ah,” said the other man. “I see. And you didn’t notice her anywhere else?”

“No, not until he dragged her out of the house. Why?”

“Because I did,” said the other. “I had a nice view of the windows on that side of the house, and I looked up and saw that same girl hiding behind the curtains in your office.”

There was a pause.

“When was this?”

“You figure it out,” said the other dryly.

Deaney swore aloud.

“Did you get her name?”

“She said it was ‘Linda Mitchell,’” said the other. “But she was lying. She’s a good liar, but not good enough. Still, I don’t suppose she’ll be hard to track down.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Deaney. “I’ll talk to our people in the police; have them pick her up, then we dump her in the ocean.”

“You’d better find out just how much she knows first,” said the other. “I really would rather not have any more surprises just now.

“Right, right,” said Deaney. “Instead of the ocean I’ll have them take her to Mistretta, let him play with her for a bit, see what shakes out. It’ll give him a chance to redeem himself.”

“Very good; I will leave it in your capable hands, then,” said the other. “Only next time, be sure to check behind the curtains.”

Andre stepped away from the window, carefully knocked the dirt off his shoes, then headed quickly back toward the front door. As he did, he met Benton waiting for him.

“Tell me you found something,” he said.

“Drove off,” said Benton. “Got her plate, though.”

“Good,” said Andre. “Because we need to find her. Now.”

###

It was later than Andre would have liked when Benton finally parked the big black sedan around the corner from the run-down apartment building.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Andre asked.

“According to my friends, this is where she lives.”

Among his many other qualities, Benton had a seemingly endless series of contacts, ranging from associates of his days cracking heads for the mob to city clerks, bankers, and tradespeople. Whatever the job, he knew someone who could make it happen. Tracking down the girl had been a simple matter of passing a few bills around the county records office, which had revealed that ‘Linda Mitchell’ was in fact a freelance reporter by the name of Sarah Rockford. In fact, that she had been the very one who broke the Hunar Contractors scandal and so created this whole mess in the first place. If nothing else, the girl certainly had courage.

Andre was a little surprised at the place. He knew she had been playing a part that afternoon, yet it still seemed strange that the beautiful, elegant young woman he’d thrown out of Deaney’s party should live in what he could only describe as a dump.

“Wait here,” he said. “Keep the engine running. Cops show up, try to stall them.”

“I don’t think I have to wait,” said Benton darkly, nodding as another dark sedan pulling up in front of the building.

Andre swore. Going in the front was no longer an option, not unless he meant to knock out two cops. Even if he knew they were dirty that wouldn’t help him much; he didn’t know how far up the scale the corruption went. In any case, if he gave the police a reason to come after him, that would also give them a shot at the girl.

Only one choice now.

“Stall them,” he said. “But don’t engage.”

He slipped out the back of the car and went around the back of the building while Benton got out and made straight for the two plainclothes detectives making for the front door.

The building was about five stories high, and according to the address they’d found, Rockford lived on the third floor. It was one of those old brick buildings that came with a metal fire escape that led down into the alley behind it. From the ground the only way to access the fire escape was a sliding ladder currently raised some ten feet off the pavement.

Andre quickly surveyed the layout, then took a running leap at the alley wall, jumped off, and just caught the lowest rung of the ladder with his outstretched hand. It clanked in what seemed a dangerously loud way.

Though he was a rather short man – only five-foot-five – Andre had worked hard to build an extremely powerful body, and he easily hoisted himself up the ladder to the first platform. He then lowered the ladder before continuing: he had a feeling they would need to get away quickly.

Trying to move as quietly as he could on the rickety metal structure, Andre ascended to the third floor, where he started looking surreptitiously through the windows, hoping against hope that the girl would be in one of them so that he didn’t have to invade more than one apartment tonight.

Andre didn’t believe in luck, which is perhaps why he seemed to have an unusual amount of it. In the fourth window on the third floor, he found her. The room was tiny and cramped, piled high with papers, books, and assorted debris. Rockford had changed out of her dress and was now wearing pale blue pajamas. She was sitting on a kind of combination couch and bed, a notebook in hand, chewing thoughtfully on a pen.

Time was rapidly running out; the police would be at her door at any minute. Yet still Andre hesitated, watching her. Partly, this was because he suddenly realized he had no idea how he was going to approach her; his original plan had simply been to knock on her door and talk to her. However, the fact that he was now obliged to enter through the window made that much less practical, as did the fact that they were on a strict time limit. At the same time, if he tried to enter now, she’d scream and probably try to run…ending up right in the arms of the corrupt cops.

Many years of brutal financial negotiations and hard study had left Andre with a keen strategic mind, and it didn’t take him long to concoct a plan: a risky one, and not likely to endear him to the girl, but one that seemed most likely to succeed. Still watching Rockford from the window (which was partly open to let in a breeze), Andre slipped a hand into his pocket and quickly began to prepare what Benton had euphemistically referred to as “Plan B.”

He had no sooner finished than there was a knock on Rockford’s door.

“Sarah Rockford? LAPD.”

Rockford looked up with a surprised expression, set her notebook aside, and rose to answer the door.

As soon as she turned her face to the door, Andre threw the window open wide (thankfully it didn’t stick) and slipped in behind her. A second later, he had seized her about the middle and clapped the chloroform-soaked rag over her mouth.

She immediately screamed into the cloth and began thrashing and fighting as savagely as a badger that’s been caught in a snare. Her foot kicked sharply up and back, and her elbow jammed into his stomach, but Andre knew how to fight and how to grapple: he kept his knees turned in to deflect the kick and Rockford wasn’t strong enough to do any damage to his muscular abdomen. He held tight to her, gripping her left wrist in his right hand so that his arm encircled her slender body, pinning her right arm to her side and using his greater bulk to hold her in place as much as possible as she kicked and squirmed helplessly.

In any case, the chloroform very quickly took its toll. After a few seconds’ furious and futile fighting, Rockford’s movements became sluggish, and finally she slumped limp and unconscious in his arms.

The police were hammering on the door now, shouting for her to let them in. Andre stuffed the rag back into his pocket and carried the unconscious girl back through the window, which he pushed shut behind them. He slung her over his shoulder – it was a good thing she was so small – and carried her as quickly as he could down the fire escape, which rattled audibly under his tread.

There was a distant crashing sound as the police broke down the door. Andre descended the ladder one-handed, then dropped the last four feet and ran for it just as a voice from overhead shouted, “Stop! Police!”

Andre was around the corner in an instant, where Benton waited in the idling car. He threw the unconscious girl into the back seat then climbed in after her, and Benton was off before he’d even closed the door.

“Close one, boss,” said Benton.

“Too close,” Andre agreed. He threw a blanket over the small, huddled form on the floor, just to make sure no one looked in and saw her. He felt strangely guilty as he did so. Though he’d done it to save her life, and he hadn’t had much choice in any case, it wasn’t pleasant to think that he’d attacked, knocked out, and kidnapped an innocent girl. That was going to be difficult to explain.

Benton chuckled from the driver’s seat.

“What’s so funny?” Andre asked in a sharp voice.

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “I was just thinking of what she’s gonna say when she wakes up.”

Andre sighed and rubbed his temple, feeling suddenly tired.

“It’d be more helpful if you’d think of what I’m going to say,” he answered. “Because I sure as hell don’t know.”