Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon (39 page)

“Again: Release Bent, then we'll talk.”

Lyle looked jumpy, his eyes wide. He said, “You've pulled a gun on the Governor of New York, Smith. What the hell do you think
you're
doing?”

Gideon heard a click to his right and risked a glance. Jeb Hart had his own gun out, pointing at Gideon. Lyle smiled and seemed to relax somewhat.

“Good work, Jeb. Keep your gun on him.” Lyle pushed the barrel of his Derringer into Bent's temple. “And just so we keep this nice and neat from here on in, the next person who draws a weapon ensures the fat boy buys the farm.”

“Hey, now!” protested Bent. “I'm not fat, I'm big boned.”

There was a moment's silence, punctuated only by the roar of the tyrannosaur in Nyu Edo below.

“Governor,” said Gideon. “Please. Allow Serizawa to work on Maria. Let me go and put right what I've done before the monster slaughters everyone.”

Lyle smiled crookedly. “Isn't that exactly what we want, Smith? We came here as a war party, after all. The best thing is, we don't even have to lift a finger. We can just stand by and let that crazy beast destroy Nyu Edo for us. I'm not even asking you and your freak clockwork girl to do anything anymore, Smith. All I want you to do is nothing, like a good little hero.”

Gideon kept the gun on Lyle, at the same time asking himself,
What the hell are you doing? Are you really going to shoot the Governor of New York?

Maybe I am, he thought. Maybe I have to.

“Governor…,” he said. “Think about your wife. And your son. If I have to do this, I will. Think about them.”

Bent nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Lyle. Cora? Clara! Clara and little Alfie! Think about them!”

“Shut up,” said Lyle. “Shut the fuck up.”

Hart coughed. “Clara and Alfie? They're dead.”

“Shut the fuck up!” screamed Lyle.

Gideon frowned. “Dead?”

“Yes, they're dead!” said Lyle, pushing the barrel of the gun harder into Bent's temple. “Back in 'eighty-seven, we had a winter like we'd never seen. We couldn't cope. Couldn't keep the fires burning. I lost them both to pneumonia. Swore the lights would never go out in New York again, Smith. And they won't. Hart, shoot him.”

Gideon turned his head slightly, not taking his eyes off Lyle, and said to Hart, “You're going to do that?”

Lyle laughed. “Jeb Hart does exactly what I tell him to, and right now I'm telling him that if you don't put your goddamn gun on to the ground, he's going to blow your head off.”

There was another roar, seemingly closer. The dinosaur must be making its way up the hilly streets of Nyu Edo. Serizawa's daughter, Michi, began to quietly cry.

“The thing is,” said Jeb Hart casually, “that's not
strictly
true, Governor.”

Lyle blinked. “What?”

“I mostly do what you say, so long as it chimes with the needs of the people who actually pay my wages.”

“And who might they be?” said Lyle, his concentration slipping. Gideon squinted along the barrel of his gun again. He could take Lyle out now, with one shot … but ultimately, the governor was right. Gideon couldn't start shooting up servants of the Crown. Not without reason.

Hart grinned. “You could say me and Mr. Smith have the same boss.”

Gideon couldn't help but turn his head toward the man pointing the gun at him. “Are you talking about Walsin—”

Hart raised the forefinger of his free hand to his lips. “Hush now, Smith. Too much information is a bad thing, yeah?”

“You're lying,” said Gideon.

Hart shook his head. “Did you really think the mission to reclaim the brass dragon would be left to you and Bent? I've been working for the Crown for years, keeping a low profile, traveling across America and gathering information, helping out where and when needed. I was your backup, Smith.”

Bent winced as Lyle pressed the gun harder into his head. “So, what?” said the governor. “You're on his side now? Then why the hell are you still pointing a gun at him?”

Hart shrugged. “Because you're the Governor of New York, and you have been given approval by the Prime Minister to stage a retaliatory strike against Nyu Edo. Gideon Smith is disobeying your direct command. So, no, Governor Lyle, I'm still on your side.”

“Then shoot the asshole,” spat Lyle.

“Wait!” said Bent. “Hart, hold on!”

“Shoot Smith!” said Lyle, his voice rising tremulously.

Hart raised one eyebrow. “Hold it, Governor. What've you got to say, Bent?”

Bent swallowed, his eyes swiveling around to try to look at the gun at his head. “Are you going to shoot me if you don't like what I say?”

“Probably,” said Lyle.

Bent took a deep breath, and locked eyes with Jeb Hart. “The whole thing's a crock of effing shit. The Prime Minister has been conned. There was no attack on Lyle, was there, Governor? Those ninja weren't Japanese at all. That tattoo on the assassin's neck, it was from the dragon tong. Chinese gangsters. You've got a Chinatown in New York, haven't you? I don't know how you roped in four of 'em to attack you on a suicide mission…”

A cloud passed over Lyle's face, then he shrugged. “Sing Sing prison's full of tong crooks who'll cut any kind of deal to get out of jail. So I massaged the truth a little. It's only a matter of time before the Japs make a move for real.”

“But that's not all, is it?” said Rowena. Gideon arched an eyebrow in her direction. His friends seemed to have been uncovering all manner of secrets. Perhaps he should have been taking more notice of them.

She walked into Gideon's sight line and withdrew a folded piece of paper from inside her shirt. She held it up. “This is the letter from the Prime Minister.”

“You going to tell me that it's fake?” asked Gideon.

“No,” said Rowena. “I think it probably is Mr. Gascoyne-Cecil's signature. It was Governor Lyle's mark that interested me more.”

“Maybe I'll sign you an autograph later,” said Lyle. “When I'm Governor of Nyu Edo as well.” He seemed to suddenly lose patience. “Come on, Smith, put your gun down. I'm gonna count to five.”

“The thing is,” Rowena continued, “I'd already seen your signature before, but I didn't know it then. I saw it on the manifest for the coal run to Steamtown that's in your pocket. For which the payment was people, stolen from the streets. That was you, Lyle. You said you'd do anything to keep the lights on in New York City. And that includes trading lives.”

Gideon stared at Lyle, filled with loathing. Was this what power did to a man? Stripped him of his humanity?

“Why?” he asked. “You fake an assassination attempt on your own life, cook up some story that the Japanese are working on a weapon that can destroy cities … why? Why did you want war with the Californian Meiji?”

Rowena tucked the damning paper back in her shirt. “Lyle and Hart looked as surprised as anyone when we saw Serizawa's metal man.” She looked curiously at Jeb. “What did you really discover in California, if it wasn't a weapon?”

“I think I can answer that,” said Serizawa. He dug into a pocket in his laboratory coat. “My daughter went on a trip with her school into the hills, not very far from here. She brought this back.”

He held up a tiny thing between his thumb and forefinger. It glistened in the dying light.

Gideon said, “Gold. This was all about gold?”

“Old Lyle did say it takes a lot of effing money to run a city like New York,” said Bent. “And he ain't getting much help from London. So he decided to go to effing war with the Japanese for the gold that Jeb Hart told him was in the hills. But he couldn't just go straight in and take the gold; he needed a reason for war. So he cooked up this ninja attack using Chinese criminals from his own prisons, made up this whole bullshit story about a weapon the Japs were making to attack New York—a weapon we've just destroyed, which was actually a defense against bloody monsters, by the way—and conned us hook, line, and sinker to do his dirty work for him. And on the side he was selling off the flotsam and jetsam of his city to those buggers in Steamtown until he could get his hands on the gold.”

“That's it,” said Lyle. “Hart, take that gun off Smith or shoot the hell out of him.”

“Yes, Jeb,” said Gideon, locking eyes with Lyle. “Are you going to take this gun off me? Or shoot me? Or maybe you're going to stop protecting a corrupt criminal who needs to be summarily stripped of his role as Governor of New York and returned to London for trial.”

There was a heartbeat, then two, then three. Jeb Hart sighed and said, “Gideon, I'm sorry. Lyle is still the Governor of New York, and he's got more stripes than you. I have to follow orders.”

Lyle roared with triumph, holding his Derringer above his head and firing into the air. Gideon heard Hart spin the cylinder in the gun that was just a few feet from his head. Was this how it ended? Shot by one of his own compatriots over the criminal deeds of a British governor? Was this really how
wrong
the world was?

“Oops,” said Hart. Gideon turned his head a fraction, just in time to see six shiny bullets fall from the chambers in the open cylinder and plummet to the dust. “Gosh, that was darned clumsy of me. Looks like I'm fresh out of bullets.”

Lyle's cry of triumph turned to a roar of fury at Hart's betrayal. Eyes blazing, he strengthened his grip around Bent's neck and brought the gun down, his finger already tightening on the trigger as he thrust the Derringer to Bent's temple.

But Gideon was quicker. In the elongated second that followed, he considered that this was how it must feel for Maria to be at one with a piece of machinery. In her case it was Apep the brass dragon; for him, right at that moment in time, it was Louis Cockayne's gun. He felt the pearl-inlaid handle, slick with the sweat from his palm, as though it were an extension of his hand. The curve of the trigger sat so snugly against the crook of his forefinger that their atoms mingled, even the very thought of bringing the trigger back acting to move it before the pressure of physical movement did so with satisfying fluidity. The hammer whispered down, oiled to the point that friction was completely nullified: a perfect, pure movement that was almost not of the physical plane.

And as the hammer struck home with explosive finality, Gideon could have sworn that somewhere in the spaces between each orchestrated movement, Louis Cockayne urged him on.

Be prepared.

And if you can't be prepared …

Be lucky.

He couldn't claim preparation, though perhaps Jeb Hart could. And it wasn't so much luck as opportunism. The bullet found its mark, right in Edward Lyle's forehead. It wasn't clean, but it was quick. Lyle jerked backward, his Derringer flying out of his hand, Bent lunging forward to escape the spray of blood, bone, and brains that geysered out of the gaping black-red cavern where Lyle's face used to be.

Perhaps Gideon was finally doing what Louis Cockayne had said he should. Perhaps he was finally being his own man. Maybe, just maybe, he could start writing his own rules for what Rowena called the heroes club.

Be prepared.

And if you can't be prepared …

Be lucky.

And if you can't be lucky …

Seize the day.

There was a stunned silence as time twanged back into shape. Lyle sprawled in the dust, a widening pool of blood pouring from the back of his head. Gideon pulled Cockayne's gun back to his face, breathing in the cordite, and blew the wisp of gun smoke from the barrel.

“Carpe di-effing-em,” he said.

“Jesus Christ,” croaked Bent, on all fours and rubbing his jowly neck. “Jesus effing Christ.” He looked up. “You saved my life, Gideon. The effer was going to do for me.”

Rowena bent down by Lyle. “He's dead, for sure.”

Bent hauled himself to his feet and patted his pockets for his tobacco. “Heh, he might have served up a good turkey, but you cooked his goose well and effing proper, Gideon.”

Gideon turned to Jeb Hart. He said, “Thank you.”

Hart pulled a bent cigar from his shirt pocket and lit it with a match he struck on his belt buckle. “You just bought yourself a hill of shit, Smith.” He grinned. “Glad I could be of service.”

“Then we'd better get our stories straight before I go back to London,” said Gideon. “Rowena? I'm sorry. You were trying to tell me about Lyle and the slaves. And Aloysius, too. I should have listened. Made time to listen. It won't happen again. Being my own man doesn't mean I have to do everything on my own. I understand that.”

“Smith-san?” said Serizawa hesitantly.

Gideon nodded, holstering Louis's—
his
—pistol. “Yes. Mr. Serizawa, I would appreciate it if you would start doing what you can for Maria immediately.” He looked over to the
Skylady III
. “Inez? Chantico? There was mention of a Steamcrawler in the hold?”

Chantico waved excitedly, and Inez raised her slim sword, dragging her cowl over her head and crying joyously, “La Chupacabras!”

Gideon allowed himself a thin smile. “Then let's go and bag us a Tyrannosaurus rex.”

*   *   *

The Steamcrawler chugged down the ramp from the
Skylady III
's hold, Inez at the wheel. The armored cover of the vehicle was missing, and it seemed to Gideon that it was pumping out a lot more steam exhaust than a healthy engine should, but he had to admit that they had done a bang-up job repairing the metal tracks. There were two guns—now exposed by the missing carapace—at the front and rear of the cockpit, each fed by a ribbon of ammunition. Whether they would have enough firepower to bring down the tyrannosaur remained to be seen.

Inez, who insisted on wearing the black cowl, an ensemble to which she had added a black, narrow-brimmed hat with a chain of silver buckles around the crown, smiled. “Chantico repaired the track. Who knew he had an aptitude for things like that? Perhaps he is not so much of an idiot after all.”