The Archimedes Effect

38

Midtown Grill

Washington, D.C.

Kent sipped at the wine, which was considerably better than the house red—he had called Gino and arranged for that, and also spoken to Maria for the other little surprise he had in mind.

Set it up well in advance.

Jen chatted about the handmade-guitar show she’d attended last weekend, with mini-concerts provided by the luthiers to showcase their new instruments.

“—amazing that brand-new spruce-top classical could sound that good after what the player said was forty-five minutes of playing time. In another four or five years, it will open up and probably sound so good you won’t be able to listen to it without crying.”

Kent nodded. Said, “Uh huh.”

“I asked one of the makers what the difference was between a guitar-maker and a luthier. ‘Luthier,’ by the way, comes from ‘lute,’ but has come to mean anybody who makes fretted instruments like guitars, lutes, ouds, and the like. He said that the difference was about two thousand dollars. . . .” She stopped and looked at Kent. “Where did you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m right here.”

“No, your mind isn’t. What’s up?”

He took a deep breath. He had once stutter-stepped across a field littered with bodies, charging a Colombian machine-gunner trying to chop him down; once, had crawled into a dark underground tunnel in which he knew an enemy soldier with a shotgun was waiting. As a first lieutenant, he had, once upon a time, told a bird colonel to go to hell, and what to do to himself when he got there. He wasn’t a coward when it came to risking his ass, and he had been living on borrowed time for years. He didn’t worry about a lot of stuff.

He was worried now.

“Abe?”

“I’ve got a question for you.” He glanced away, caught Maria’s attention where she was on standby. He nodded, giving her the signal. She started toward their table.

“Yeah? I’m right here. Anytime.”

“Give me a second. I’ve only done this once, and it was almost forty years ago.”

She frowned, trying to make the connection. If Maria didn’t hurry, she would, too.

Maria arrived. She set a covered plate on the table in front of Jen. Jen looked up. “What’s this? We haven’t ordered yet.”

Maria smiled. She pulled the metal cover from the plate. . . .

Lying on a piece of black velvet was the engagement ring Kent had bought. It was white gold with a half-carat blue-white diamond mounted in a solitaire setting. He’d had it sized to match the ring he’d found in her medicine cabinet. He hoped it fit.

She blinked, stared at the ring. Then looked back at him.

“So, what do you think?” he said.

She smiled and shook her head. “What do I think about what, General?” She locked gazes with him, waiting.

He managed another breath, his heart pounding as if he had just finished the obstacle course. “Will you marry me?”

Her smile got bigger. “Sure.” She picked up the ring, slid it onto her finger. It seemed to fit okay. She put her hand back down, picked up the menu. To Maria, who was grinning like a pack of happy baboons, Jen said, “So, what’s the special tonight?”

Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth she was so cool. “Miss Jen!” Maria said. She sounded horrified.

“I thought the wine was better than usual,” Jen said.

“Does this mean I’ll get a break on the cost of my lessons?” Kent asked, smiling.

“Only after the wedding,” she said.

Kent laughed. If he thought he was going to one-up her, he realized, he was wrong.

London, England

1890 C.E.

Jay walked through the grimy streets, the vile, choking miasma of coal smoke and fog so thick you couldn’t see half a block. He was following a short man wearing an opera cape and silk top hat. So far, he was getting nothing more than dogs-not-barking-in-the-night, and he could have used Conan Doyle’s master detective and his doctor sidekick to help out here.

Rachel Lewis had been a dead end. She was too good to leave obvious clues that he could find.

Carruth had spent hardly any time on the web; there were few net-trails to find, and most of those didn’t go anywhere useful.

Jay was about ready to pack it in, but he figured he might as well follow up this last line of inquiry.

The figure fading in and out of the reeking smog was headed somewhere, and he might as well see where.

It wasn’t a direction connected to Lewis, as far as Jay could see.

Ahead, the caped man paused, then turned into an alley.

Probably Jack the Ripper’s turf.

Jay followed, and was rewarded by seeing the fellow enter a low doorway with a fitful oil lamp mounted on the wall next to it.

Jay went in, and found himself in a pub of some low standing. Thieves, cutpurses, trulls, sailors, a hard-looking lot drinking bitters and gin.

Rachel Lewis wasn’t here. Even in disguise, he would have known her, he was sure. Ah, well. That would have been too much to hope for, he figured.

“End scenario.”

Net Force HQ

Quantico, Virginia

Jay leaned back in his chair, shucking gear a piece at a time. So what he had found in the killer London smog was nothing more than an address for a cabin that Carruth had rented a couple of times, way the hell out in Montana. No sign that Lewis had anything to do with that, and Carruth wasn’t going to be using the place again.

Jay voxaxed the cabin’s rental site. It took only a few seconds to find out that it had just been rented. Details of the renter were not available for public consumption, but, of course, Jay wasn’t the public. He hacked the website and found the name of the person renting the place:

“M. Lane.”

Jay frowned. Something about that rang a bell, what was it . . . ?

He scrolled down, found a handwritten signature on the rental agreement. It was pretty much an unreadable scrawl, looked like it said “Margie,” or maybe “Margaret,” or . . .

Margo? Margo Lane? Lamont Cranston’s friend?

The Shadow’s girl . . . ?

“Holy shit!” he said. He reached for the phone. He needed to talk to the rental agent, to find out if the person in the cabin was, indeed, a woman. And if so, what she looked like . . .