TW08 The Dracula Caper NEW (22 page)

Steiger took the woman by her arms and gently, but firmly, forced her down into an armchair. "I'm sorry. Miss Robbins, but I'm afraid we can't do that. We don't mean you any harm, but if you attempt to resist or cry out, I will be forced to restrain you."

"I remember you!" she said. "You're one of the Americans who came to see Bertie!"

"That's right." said Delaney, "and I was here, too, remember? Please don't be frightened, Miss Robbins, no one is going to hurt you. We've come here to protect you. Mr. Wells is in great danger and we need your help."

She looked from one face to another, panic-stricken, not knowing what to do. "Bertie's in danger? How'? Why? From whom? I don't believe you! Where is he?"

Christine Brant knelt down beside her. "It's a long story." she said gently, "and one that you're going to find very hard to believe, but we can prove it to you.

My name is Christine Brant. Sgt. Christine Brant. We are all special agents of our government, on the trail of a wanted criminal, a very dangerous man named Nikolai Drakov. He has an accomplice named Moreau and I'm afraid that H. G. Wells has fallen into his hands."

She shook her head, her eyes wide. "No, I don't believe it! Why would anyone wish to harm Bertie? He's done no one any harm. You're lying!"

"I'm not lying," said Christine. "It's true. One of our agents saw
him being abducted. It has to do with the murders you've been reading about in the newspapers. We're here to try and stop them. Several of our people have already been killed. Now listen carefully. What I have to tell you is going to sound incredible, but it's very important that you believe me and try to understand. You must, if you want to help Bertie. Will you try?"

Mutely, Amy Robbins shook her head.

Christine took a deep breath and while the others checked out the house and set about making it ready as their new command post, she started to explain to the frightened and bewildered woman.

"Now what?" said Dick Larson.

"We go back to the Hotel Metropole," said Linda Craven.

They were standing outside Scotland Yard, having just been informed by an impatient Ian Holcombe that Scott Neilson had left for the day and that he might not have bothered coming in at all, for all the use he was being. Holcombe had no time for them, but they had learned all they needed to know. Scott Neilson had left early; he hadn't received word that they were blown and that the command post at the Hotel Metropole was being abandoned as a security risk.

"Not smart," said Larson. "We shouldn't risk it. What we should do is report back to Steiger."

"And meanwhile Scott goes back to the hotel, finds no one there and has no idea what's going on," said Linda. "I don't know about you, but I'm not about to leave him sitting there, vulnerable, waiting for someone to show up."

"What if he's not back at the hotel?" said Larson. "Then what?"

"Then we report in," she said. "The point is, Scott's wide open and it's our fault. Actually, it's Steiger's fault. He should have left someone on duty at the command post, just in case."

"He wanted to, but Delaney was against it and he was right," said Larson. "It would have been too risky. There was no way of knowing Neilson would leave the crime lab early. In any case, it doesn't matter now. We don't know where he is and we'll be taking a hell of a chance if we go back there now."

"And what about the chance Scott will be taking'?" she said. "Without even knowing it?"

"Neilson's a big boy," Larson said, "and he's not stupid. When he sees there's no one on duty at the hotel suite, he'll put two and two together and figure something went wrong. He'll get out of there.”

"Maybe," Linda said. "but I don't want to take that chance."

Larson gave her a questioning look. "You letting personal feelings get in the way?" he said.

"What if it was you?" she said.

"I wouldn't want anybody taking any needless risks on my account." he said. "And I don't think Scott would, either. We've already got one member of the team at risk. If we go back to the hotel, that'll make it three."

"Fine," she said. "You don't have to go. Report in to Colonel Steiger. I'll go back to the hotel alone and if Scott's there, line. If not. I'll leave a message that we're blown and get right out of there and meet you back at Wells' house."

"And if anything happens to you, then Steiger will have my ass." said Larson. He sighed. "All right, we'll take a chance. I'll go back with you. But if he's not there, we report in, understood? We don't go running all over London looking for him."

"Fair enough," she said.

They went into an alley, out of sight, and programmed the transition coordinates for the suite in the Hotel Metropole into their warp discs. They clocked out together and appeared inside the suite, weapons held ready. The suite looked empty.

"Scott?" said Linda.

There was no response.

"There's no one here," said Larson.

"Maybe we should check the adjoining suite," she said. "Linda, there's no one here." said Larson.

The door to the adjoining suite suddenly flew open and Volkov fired. The dart struck Linda Craven in the chest. She collapsed to the floor before she knew what hit her. As Volkov quickly brought his gun to hear on Larson, Larson fired his resolver. The .45 slug took Volkov in the shoulder and threw him backwards through the doorway, into the adjoining suite. Larson felt the dart whiz by his neck, missing him by millimeters. He cocked the hammer on his revolver and started towards the doorway that led into the adjoining suite, but just as he approached it, Volkov came out in a flying leap, snarling hands outstretched towards Larson's throat. Larson fired again just as Volkov hit him and they both went down. Larson dropped his gun. They grappled, but even with two .45 slugs in him, Volkov's strength was superior to Larson's. He lifted him up off the floor and hurled him across the room. Larson struck the wall hard and fell down to the floor, stunned. Volkov grabbed him and lifted him high over his head. Then, with a roar of rage, he threw him through the windows. The glass shattered and Larson screamed as he fell to his death on the street below.

The blood was pouring from Volkov's shoulder and from the wound in his chest. He brought his hand to it and it came away wet with blood. He staggered and braced himself against the wall, his breath rasping in his throat. Even though he was in human form, Volkov started to whimper like a dog. Linda Craven lay unconscious on the floor. Volkov moved towards her, unsteadily, gasping for breath, blood frothing on his mouth. He collapsed just as he reached her, falling down on top of her.

Moreau wasn't taking any chances. He did not think Wells would betray him to the temporal agents, but there were ways of making men talk who didn't wish to and if they put Wells through a debriefing session, Wells would have no choice but to reveal Moreau's hideout above the apothecary shop. It was time to move. Lin Tao would accompany him, leaving the apothecary shop in Jasmine's hands. If the temporal agents questioned Jasmine, she would not be able to tell them anything, since she had been kept ignorant of the whole affair. Or at least so Lin Tao and Moreau believed, not realizing that since the first time she accidentally overheard them talking, she had made a habit of going upstairs to bed and then sneaking hack down quietly to eavesdrop on their discussions. They told her they would be away for some time and that, if she needed any help, she could count on Chan, a young member of the Green Dragon tong who would stay with her while they were gone. Chan would protect her and just to be on the safe side, they made sure he did not know where they were going, so even if Wells proved unable to convince the temporal agents and they traced Moreau to the apothecary shop, the trail would end there. However, neither of them had counted on Jasmine's growing sense of independence, nor had Lin Tao anticipated the full effect of western culture on his late-blooming granddaughter.

To both men, Jasmine was no more than a child, sheltered and naïve, and in some respects, she was just that. But at nineteen, she possessed the body if not the emotional development of a full-grown woman. And though, in some respects, Jasmine had led a sheltered life, she had lived in two widely divergent cultures and knew more about the world than many other young women her age. What she didn't know, she filled in with her imagination, fueled by her private fantasies and by the novels she purchased without telling her grandfather—for fear that he might disapprove—and read at night in the privacy of her room above the shop.

And Lin Tao would indeed have strongly disapproved of the works his granddaughter had chosen to complete her western education, novels such as Gustave Flaubert's
Madame Bovary
and Thomas Hardy's
Return of the Native
and
Tess of the D'Urbervilles,
works that were highly controversial in the atmosphere of Victorian morality, works which dealt openly and frankly with themes such as lust, adultery, illegitimate birth and murder. Flaubert had been brought to trial on the basis of his novel's alleged immorality and narrowly acquitted and Hardy's work had scandalized proper Victorians. Jasmine had even read
Dorian Gray,
by Oscar Wilde, but it was Hardy who had captured her imagination, with his tragically romantic heroines. Their grand frustrated passions became Jasmine's own. In her mind, she and Moreau were lovers linked by destiny, despite the fact that Moreau was completely ignorant of her feelings towards him. That made it even more romantic and now there was the added impetus of her "lover" being in danger. Like her literary role models. Jasmine was prepared to throw everything else aside and give way before the torrent of her feelings. But unlike the women of Hardy and Flaubert, she was Chinese, with oriental values, and her outward delicacy was not an indication of fragility. She was not going to remain idle at home while the two people she caredl about the most went out to risk their lives.

The decision made, escaping from the watchful gaze of Chan was simple. She made an infusion of spearmint and chamomile, sweetened with honey. Into Chan's cup, she stirred ten drops of her grandfather's favorite sleeping draught—a tincture of opium and belladonna. The honey masked its bitter flavor and the opium-laced tea quickly did its work. The moment Chan dozed off, she ran upstairs and changed her clothing, then slipped out of the shop. She had heard them talking and she knew where they had gone. What she did not know, exactly, was what she would do when she arrived there. She had never before been to a house of prostitution.

The last thing Neilson expected when Amy Robbins opened the door of the house on Mornington Place was to find Sgt. Christine Brant standing just inside the doorway, armed with a disruptor pistol.

Amy Robbins rushed up to Wells and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, thank God!" she said. "Thank God you're safe! They told me that you had been abducted!"

"I'm perfectly all right," said Wells. "What's happening here? Who is
this woman?"

"She's one
of us," said Neilson quickly. "What's going on? There was no one at the command post—"

"We're blown," she said. "We've moved the command past here."

"What?How?"

"Didn't Larson and Craven tell you? Where are they'?"

"I haven't seen them," Neilson said, frowning.

"What do you mean, you haven't seen them? Didn't they contact you at the crime lab?"

Neilson shook his head, mystified. "No, something came up and I left early. There's been another murder, a nineteen-yearold male. It looks like Hesketh was responsible. The deceased was gay.”

"The deceased was
gay?"
said Wells.

"It's just an expression, Mr. Wells," said Neilson. "It means the dead man was a homosexual."

"Is
that
what you Americans call it?" Wells said. "I shall have to remember that if I ever go to America. If someone asks me how I'm feeling, I would not wish to give the wrong impression."

"Please, Mr. Wells," said Christine Brant impatiently. "Go on, Scott.”

"Well, Doyle was at the lab. He received a message from Brant Stoker and rushed out. The note said Stoker had some information about the murders. I thought I should get back right away and let Colonel Steiger know, but there was no one at the hotel. I saw that the arms locker had been opened and I
was afraid something had gone wrong. I was just about to leave when Wells arrived, looking for us."

"Looking for
us?"
Christine said. "Did you search him?"

"Search him'?"

Neilson said, glancing at Wells and then back at her. "What for?"

"They've been picking our people off one at a time." she said. "Davis is dead, Rizzo’s gone, and now Larson and Craven are missing! Moreau could have planted a homing transmitter on him! You could have led them right to us!"

She spun the astonished Wells around and shoved him up against a wall, then started frisking him quickly and professionally.

"Really, madame!" Wells said, blushing. "I must protest! This is highly improper! I assure you that I am concealing nothing!"

I'm sorry, Mr. Wells." she said. "I just can't take that chance.•'

"You're probably going to have to," Neilson said. "If Moreau was going to do that, you can be sure he'd plant a bug you'd never find without a full body scan. Besides, if what Wells told me is true, Moreau is on our side."

"What?"

Quickly, Neilson recounted everything that Wells had told him, glancing at Wells from time to time for confirmation. "So with nowhere else to go," he finished, "we came here. Unless something had gone seriously wrong, I figured the house would still be under surveillance and I could contact whoever was on duty here to find out what the hell had happened. When I didn't spot anyone outside, I started to get a little worried, but—"

"I knew
I was forgetting something!" Brant said, rushing to the window. She parted the curtains and gazed outside for several moments, then turned around to face them once again, a grim expression on her face. "Ransome was supposed to be on surveillance duty outside. I was wondering why he didn't warn me you were coming. Now there's no sign of him. He wouldn't leave his post. Something must have happened to him."