Gilded Lily (24 page)

The tiny military vessel, clearly marked as such by the stenciling on its side, might be more maneuverable than his current mount, but he was fairly certain he had the advantage at a dead run. The pod was built to move quickly in the direction it was pointed, if not much else. If he could make it to the warehouse, he could make a stand. The Navy vessel could hold only two, maybe three at the most, and he was a decent shot. If he caught them coming out of the hatch, the whole thing could be over in seconds. They'd be most vulnerable then. It was a brief window of opportunity, but to his panicked brain it seemed the safest course of action. He had no idea how far behind him the enemy might be, or whether the two pathetic guards he'd left on the warehouse would even be close enough to help him. He might have a few seconds to prepare upon landing, perhaps as many as several minutes. If he ran, even just to his office for more weapons or ammunition, they could have time to split up upon leaving the sub and use their surroundings as cover. He wouldn't know their full numbers then, a distinct disadvantage. Of course he knew the warehouse better and could hunt them down, but still one or more might live to report back on the warehouse's location and contents. So he must be ready to disembark, then turn and fight immediately.

He nearly lost control when he entered the trench pointing toward the dock. Not an insufficiency of oxygen but a surfeit, if he read the signs correctly. Too much at too high a pressure. His lips were tingling, twitching, and what started as a faint ringing in his ears swiftly grew unbearable, sickening even. He was too busy steering the craft by that point to take time adjusting the oxygen level. The last leg was the trickiest. Dead straight down the trench, which deepened as it neared the dock. Then crisscross through the piers, in a sequence of turns he had to pray he remembered correctly despite the gathering darkness and the confusion that had begun to addle his brains and cloud his vision.

When he finally steered around the last row of barnacle-encrusted columns and saw the familiar rectangle of light overhead, Rollo wept with joy. There was no one there to see, after all. No one to witness his weakness and shame and giddy relief.

He ascended to the dock level faster than he should, shoving the controls toward their neutral position and scrambling to the hatch. His ears popped and crackled as it opened, a burst of bilateral pain that helped jolt him back to greater lucidity.

Carelessly he tossed the mooring loop over the hatch's valve handle and pulled himself up the ladder to the deck. Unsteady, still queasy, he caught sight of a glimmer under the water beside him and whirled, expecting the Navy sub to surface. It was no sub, though. He'd forgotten about Mord's squid creature, which kept up its steady pulse of light in a pattern he now recognized.
Blink blink stop. Blink blink stop.
From far off in the channel water, they'd spotted the same pattern of light and dark for a few moments before it ceased abruptly and the world turned into a nightmare of watery fury as the creatures attacked the fleet. Exactly the same beat, despite the distance between little Albert and his shoal mates. Whatever that flashing meant, it couldn't be good.

“Albert.”
He walked to the beast's cage and crouched at the edge of the dock, glaring into the mesh over the top. “Time for you to stop that.”

And time for Rollo Furneval to break a promise to Mordecai Nesdin. Mord was most likely dead, though, ripped from a sundered submersible by a rampaging cuttlefish. So really, it didn't matter anymore what happened to Albert.

He started to withdraw his revolver from the inside pocket where he'd stashed it, despite the various pilots' admonitions against bringing a firearm into a pressurized submersible. Rollo never went anywhere without his favorite weapons. But with his vision still blurred and a concern about how submersibles could sometimes look smaller than they really were, crew-wise, he didn't want to waste any bullets on Albert. He glanced around him, looking for a gaff or something else useful to hook the creature with, keeping the water in the corner of his eye lest the pursuing Navy sub—or, though he didn't expect it, any survivors from his own fleet—break through. With his woozy attention thus divided, he almost failed to notice a more pressing threat—three intruders creeping straight onto the warehouse dock through the office door.

“Y
OU DIDN'T
KILL
him, did you?” Sophie whispered as the skinny, watch-cap-clad man toppled to the dark ground just beyond the feeble circle of light on the wharf at the warehouse's entrance.

“'Course not, m'lady,” Dan assured her.

Freddie wasn't so sure, as the poor guard had banged his skull hard upon landing after Dan's single punch to the jaw, but she kept her worries to herself. “Should we see if there are any more, or just try to get in before they come 'round?”

Dan and Sophie shrugged in unison, a moment that would have been comical if it weren't for the inherent danger in the situation. They looked to her as if for guidance, so she felt compelled to contrive some.

“Right. Dan, you have your pistol? Good. Go peek around the corners of this building, just a glance down the pier on each side.”

“And shoot anyone I see?”

“God, no!”

“Oh, right, because the noise would draw attention. That's clever, miss.”

Freddie sighed. “No, we don't want to shoot anybody because . . . well, because
we don't want to shoot anybody
. Not if we don't have to. The pistol is just in case.” She considered adding,
Use your judgment
, but decided against it.

Dan sidled along to one corner, pistol cocked, and whipped his head around to check for enemies. A split second's look apparently assured him the coast was clear on that side, and he began creeping to the other side of the broad building, back to the wall, as Freddie and Sophie looked on.

“Dan. At the rate you're going, we'll be here for days,” Freddie urged.

“Oh. Right, sorry.” He peeled himself from the wall and moved more quickly to the opposite corner, though still on tiptoes.

“I still don't see what help we're going to be against an army of smugglers, Freddie.”

“Not an army. A few dozen at the most, according to Phineas. And if they've gone to attack the cephalopods, most of them may be out in the channel somewhere. Only one sentry outside the warehouse—”

“Two,” Dan reported softly from the corner. “I don't think this one'll be much trouble for us, though.”

Joining him, the women peered around the corner and observed another rough-clad man. This one was slumped against the side of the warehouse, cap pulled over his eyes and an empty bottle lying on its side next to him.

“Leave him, then. Now keep a lookout, while I figure out the lock.”

Reasoning that the wide double doors would be too noisy if opened, Freddie chose to work on the smaller, but more imposing lock on the smaller door next to it. It was no lightweight, simple warded padlock or even a typical pin-and-tumbler door lock, but a formidable-looking chunk of brass engraved with the name of a prominent locksmith. For a moment or two, it gave her pause. She'd brought her usual tools, a set of slender instruments that had started life as a decorative hairpin and a dinner knife, respectively. They would be useless against a tubular lock with pins on more than one side, or one of the custom models produced by that particular artisan, who famously kept a “challenge lock” on display in his workshop. That lock had been beaten, after many decades of unsuccessful attempts by all manner of folk, but only by another gifted locksmith, working with a full range of tools over the course of two days.

But luck and Furneval's earlier choices were with her. This lock might look unpickable, but it turned out to be no more than a standard model, hiding in a daunting case. Somebody had fooled either Furneval or whoever commissioned the work, for this was almost certainly not the doing of the locksmith whose name was on the device. After a minute or so of patient work, the pins fell into place with a soft, satisfying click that Freddie felt more than heard, and she turned the knob in triumph.

“We're in.”

The room they stepped into was dark, as night had fallen while the three were in the air. Dan, who occasionally smoked a pipe, produced and struck a match by the light of which they were able to spot a lantern. There appeared to be gaslights as well, but Freddie didn't want to start flipping switches lest they draw attention to themselves with no need. After Dan lit the lantern she held it high, turning in a slow circle to survey the space.

“What are we looking for?” Sophie asked, recalling Freddie to their earlier, interrupted conversation.

“Anything. Opium. Incriminating documents, ledgers . . . anything.”

“Bloodstains,” Dan suggested.

“I suppose. Although I don't know what—”

“No, I mean here. You're standing on them.”

Freddie froze, then stepped carefully back from the dark splotch that marred the already somewhat filthy wood floor. “It looks just like at the butcher's.”

“Aye. And see here, these scrub marks? Somebody's been after cleaning it, but there was too much already soaked into the wood. This was no paper cut. Somebody died here.”

She swallowed her gorge and reached for Sophie's hand, offering comfort. Sophie, however, was gazing at the floor with no visible sign of emotion.

“We might as well start looking about for anything else we can find,” she finally said. “This appears to be an office. If there are documents, it seems logical we'd find them here.”

There were many documents, and multiple ledgers. All of them seemed completely innocuous, however, the sort of thing that might be found in any warehouse. The smugglers appeared to be using some sort of coded system to record their transactions, as all the descriptions of goods were written in the form of cryptic initials and symbols with no apparent key.

“
One of
 . . . is this an omicron?
One of omicron to RP on such-and-such a date, via H. Ten pounds sterling
,” Sophie read from one of the books.

“At least the money part's clear enough,” Dan quipped. He was searching the higher shelves along one wall but finding nothing. “And the dates.”

“Yes, the accounting looks sound. But what does omicron stand for? And here's a theta, I think, and a phi.”

Freddie looked over her friend's shoulder at the ledger. “We should bring it back with us anyway. The proper authorities might be able to make some use of it.”

“So you do plan to go to the proper authorities at some juncture? I'm relieved to hear that.”

“Of course I am. And if I bring evidence back to bring down a major opium smuggling operation, my father won't dare try to lock me up in a country house, or even cut me off without a penny as seems to be my other alternative.”

“Darling,” Sophie remonstrated, “it does seem a trifle serpent's-toothish of you to expect indefinite financial support
and
defy your father in this very public way. And he might very well still cut you off, for making a fool of him.”

“If so, I'll deal with it later. Dan, grab those ledgers and the one on the shelf as well. We need to—oh.” She stared at the wall opposite the desk. It was mostly covered with a large map of the channel and its coastlines. Pins dotted its surface, some with brightly colored heads and others with tiny flags stuck on. “I've seen this before.”

“It's the channel,” Dan said, as if she were slow.

“Yes, I'm aware of that. I mean I've seen this pattern before. The red pins . . .” Tracing an imaginary line from one of the flags to the east, she found another red pinhead, larger than the rest. “Atlantis Station. And the smaller ones are places where the seismograph has been attacked. What if Phineas has told—”

“He wouldn't,” Sophie stated as firmly as she could in a whisper. “He wouldn't do that. They must have gathered the information from elsewhere. Were you saying earlier that we need to leave? Because I support that decision.”

“I was going to say we needed to investigate the warehouse proper, and see if we can find any opium.”

“Ah.”

“If you'd feel safer here, you can stay while Dan and I go. Or Dan can stay too, and I'll go alone.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Freddie.” Sophie had her little pistol in her hand, ready to defend herself or her friends if necessary. “Lead the way.”

“What we really could have used is a map of the warehouse,” Freddie mused as she lifted her own weapon in readiness and opened the office's inner door and peeked into the warehouse. She expected darkness, but a line of dimly lit gas lanterns provided a chilly illumination over the broad expanse of the warehouse floor, which seemed to contain mostly unmarked crates, all the way to the broad, open rectangle of water at the building's far end. The submersible dock.

Gesturing with her free hand for the other two to follow, Freddie ventured forward into the vast space, stopping short between two piles of crates when she heard a clanking noise and a string of explicit curses from up ahead.

“This isn't sharp,” the vulgarian said, “but it should do to fetch you out of the water. Let's see how long you survive in the open air, you poisonous, blinky bastard.”

More clanking followed, then a wrenching metal-on-metal squeak and another loud curse.

A moment later a man walked through her narrow angle of view, carrying a long pole with a spike-barbed hook on the end. A fishing gaff. Freddie tiptoed forward until a sharp tap on her shoulder brought her up short and she nearly screamed. It was Dan, and when she turned with a furious query in her eyes, he gestured most emphatically that they should all return to the office.

She shook her head. There were three of them, and there seemed to be only one man up ahead. Decent odds, and perhaps he would give up more information. She pressed forward to crouch behind a crate beside the dock itself. The man had disappeared, taking his wicked-looking gaff with him. When Freddie leaned forward, risking a quick peek to the left and right along the water, she saw no one.

Down in the water, a soft light glowed in a steady rhythm, mesmerizing.

What the hell is that?

But when she turned again to ask Dan if he knew, the big man's back was to her, his hands in the air. And Sophie, who'd been bringing up the rear . . . the man from the dock held her firmly around the neck with one arm, while his other hand pressed a revolver muzzle to her temple.

 • • • 

I
F
P
HINEAS HADN'T
already piloted much larger subs through the piers many times, they never would have managed to weave through the supports in the dark to get the
Gilded Lily
safely to Furneval's warehouse. Safety was, of course, a relative state in this context. Barnabas didn't care. Anything would be better than the literally hair-raising submersible ride through a pitch-black obstacle course.

“I'll surface as close to the dock as I can,” Phineas told him. “Be ready to pop the hatch and jump out. If you can find a mooring rope, toss it over, but don't waste time with it. And for God's sake, no itchy trigger finger. I don't care if Furneval has a dozen men training guns on us from the side of the dock, I want you to keep your hand off your pistol until you're completely outside the vessel.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Now is not the time for sarcasm.”

They broke the surface and Phineas spun the valve lock and opened the hatch, looking about to get his bearings once he was atop the submersible. When he saw the tableau of players already there, he froze. “Oh, dammit all to hell.”

“Just get out,” Phineas reminded him.

“Yes, get out,” said the man with the pistol to Sophie Wallingford's head. “Come join your friends. Your companion too.”

Barnabas leaped awkwardly to the dock beside the hatch, his kick sending the sub bobbing away. A mooring rope lay coiled nearby, and he tossed the looped end into the hatch opening. Phineas, rising from the hatch, took the heavy hawser in the shoulder with a curse.

“Oh, you little bastard,” hissed the gunman.

“Hello, Rollo,” Phineas replied calmly, as he braced himself and pulled the sub and himself back toward the dockside. Once there, he jumped out nimbly and strode toward the group, with what Barnabas had to assume was more confidence than he actually felt.

“I'll save you for last,” the villain declared, in a more conversational tone than before. “Too bad Edwin won't be here to help me. He'd have enjoyed what I'm going to do to your friends. It can be a memorial tribute of sorts, I suppose, for all of them.”

“Believe what you will, but I am sorry for the loss of your men. I counted some of
them
as friends too. Not Edwin, I admit.”

Freddie appeared unharmed, to Barnabas's vast relief. She had a weak little smile for him, which he attempted to return. Her presence there was a shock, as was Dan's, and he couldn't imagine what it meant in relation to the message the man had delivered him last night. His anger and melancholy vanished at that hint of a smile, melting away as shame heated his cheeks. He should never have believed ill of her. Not his Freddie; she could never betray him like that, and he'd been a fool to even entertain the notion for a moment.