The Excalibur Codex

XXXII

Hal Webster snarled and sputtered, saliva drooling from his twisted mouth and a single tear trickling from the damaged eye as he tried to bring the big gun back to bear. The woman effortlessly maintained the pressure on his wrist with the foil and reached down with her free hand to take the pistol from his fingers. Just for a second Jamie noted that the barrel hovered over his chest and he took a deep breath, before their eyes met and with a short laugh she moved it aside. She reminded him of a very dangerous version of a woman he vaguely remembered from an old British TV series called The Avengers: Emma Peel with a splash of Lauren Bacall and more than a touch of cornered black widow spider. Her next words seemed to confirm it.

‘You have an interest in swords, Mr Saintclair?’ Why wasn’t he surprised she knew his name? ‘I also hear you can use them. Carl?’ A black man in fencing gear appeared in the doorway and Jamie realized he and Webster’s granddaughter must have been sparring somewhere in the house. ‘Give him the sword.’

The man approached with a grin. ‘You know the meaning of the phrase “greased lightnin’”, sir? Well, you’re about to find out.’

‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’ Jamie played for time as he studied the sword, which was one of the old-fashioned Italian types with a button point. The blade felt comfortable in his hand, but he had a feeling this was unlikely to turn out well.

‘Oh, we’ve plenty of time for that, Mr Saintclair,’ the woman said with airy confidence. ‘You aren’t going anywhere soon. Your friend is being entertained by some of our staff who don’t take too kindly to people who are guilty of trespass, arson and pistol-whipping their comrades. You think that’s amusing?’

‘No.’ He glanced at the old man in the wheelchair. ‘I think it’s probably a recipe for starting World War Three.’

Her smile was as cold as her ice-blue eyes. ‘Don’t mind Gramps. He’s never been the same since he had his stroke. Maybe a little crankier, but that would be difficult to tell. We just keep him locked up here in his little Nazi fantasy world waiting to die.’

She saw Jamie’s startled glance and laughed. ‘Clearly you don’t know my grandfather, Mr Saintclair. He is not a likeable man. You have no idea how much pleasure it gives me to be able to stand here and heap the kind of humiliation on him he heaped on my daddy and then me for all those years. In fact, every day he lives is a blessing, trapped in that broken, rotting body and knowing there is not one thing he can do about it.’

‘I’ve heard of dysfunctional families, but—’

‘En garde.’ The sword snapped up and froze in place.

‘Shouldn’t we at least be introduced?’

She frowned for a second. ‘Sure, why not? I’m Helena Webster, and I am chairman and chief executive of the Webster Corporation. Miss Helena Webster, if you care to know, because that vegetable in the wheelchair would never let a worthwhile man come near me. And you are Mr James Saintclair, art dealer of London, England. Locator of items of interest that changed ownership in World War Two without the consent of their owners. Would that be correct?’

‘You seem to know a lot about me.’

‘Oh, I do, Mr Saintclair. I became curious when I discovered you were dabbling in areas where I have a mutual interest. For instance, I know that you recently lost someone very close to you.’ She noticed him flinch and shook her head. ‘I apologize. Cruelty is in danger of becoming a habit. However, I also know that you have an unfortunate predilection for attracting some rather dangerous enemies, and, dare I say, curious friends. Do you gamble, Mr Saintclair?’ she asked before he could ask any one of the several questions that came to mind.

‘Since you know everything else about me, I’m sure you already know the answer to that.’

‘Well, I do like to gamble, or perhaps that should be, place my faith in my own skills. If you’re willing, we shall have a small wager on our bout. If you touch me you may walk away from here and we will say no more about aggravated assault, trespass and fire-raising, which you may not be aware can carry a life sentence in this state. If I touch you, we will honestly discuss the reason you are here and you will consider doing a service for me.’

‘It would be unwise of me to agree without knowing what the service was,’ Jamie pointed out.

‘True,’ she smiled, ‘but all I am asking is that you consider it. If you find it distasteful you have every right to say no.’

‘In that case, why not? Where are the masks and the vests?’

‘Oh, we don’t bother with little formalities like that here, Mr Saintclair. Swords have always been a way of life in my household. We trust in God and the expertise of our opponents to keep us safe.’

Jamie managed a rueful smile as he remembered the day Adam Steele had persuaded him to fight without a mask. Why do these bloody people always choose me? Still, what choice did he have? ‘Then God help us,’ he said, not altogether ironically.

‘Indeed. En garde.’

He’d planned to launch the first attack and finish it quickly, preferably in his favour, but the instant their swords touched he discovered just how good she was. Good and fast. She met his attack with a perfectly timed defence and counter that rocked him back on his heels and had him frantically trying to protect shoulder and breast where her relentless attack threatened. Just when he knew she had him, Helena Webster stepped back and resumed the garde position with an amused smile.

‘Not bad, Mr Saintclair. Not bad at all. I assume you know my grandfather flew with the Eighth Air Force? What you possibly do not know is that on 18 September 1944, during a mission to support the rising of the Home Army in Warsaw, his plane was shot down on the way to its Russian landing place. This was the only time in the war that Marshal Stalin had sanctioned the landing of Allied planes on Russian soil. Not surprisingly, given the distances involved and the casualty rate among the squadrons who’d previously flown to Poland, the crews regarded it as a suicide mission.’ Without warning she renewed her attack, but this time Jamie was ready and he managed to hold his own for a few seconds before she again took command. He tried to concentrate on the glittering blade as she continued the conversation. ‘His was one of nine planes lost.’ Christ. The point flashed before his left eye. ‘It was forced north and came down in the Byelorussian forest.’ He just got his foil in place to parry a lunge and dance out of range. And again. ‘Gramps was the only survivor and he joined the local partisans.’ She stepped back and Jamie took the chance to recover his breath and try to calm his thumping heart. Helena Webster was better than good. She was world class and she was playing with him.

‘Or that is the story,’ the American continued, her breathing as regular as when they’d begun. ‘My investigations, albeit impossible to verify, indicate that the “partisan” band he joined was actually a gang of bandits who terrorized the Polish villages between Byelorussia and what was then East Prussia, but took part in very little fighting against the Nazis. When the Red Army advanced into Germany, Gramps’ merry band roamed the no man’s land between the two sides, preying on the weak and stealing everything they could lay their hands on.’ She smiled at the man in the wheelchair. Hal Webster fixed her with his single eye and whined like a caged animal. ‘Isn’t that right, Gramps? A thief and a murderer, even before.’

Before what? Jamie’s attention drifted between the astonishing story he was being told and the point of Helena Webster’s foil, which he now discovered had somehow lost its protective button during the fight. Accident or design? He didn’t have time to ponder the question, because she came at him again and this time he knew he was fighting for his life. Time after time, he only just managed to get the edge of his foil in position to parry a thrust. Again and again, that point came back at him with lethal intent. His arm began to ache and the breath tore at his chest and throat. He could feel himself slowing and knew she could feel it too.

She fended off his counter-attack too easily and he knew it must end soon. He had one last chance. Using sheer power he pushed her blade up and away in an attack au fer, positioning himself for an angled strike that would have taken her in the left breast, but Helena Webster pre-empted the move with one of her own and he found himself breast to breast with his opponent. ‘The only question, Mr Saintclair, is how much you know about what comes after. And, more important, what will you tell?’

With a piece of footwork that would have pleased a prima ballerina she disengaged and came at him again, the relentless steel seeking out his eyes and throat. But the red rage that had been building up inside came to his rescue, fuelling his speed and the desire not to be beaten by this beautiful, infuriating, dangerous woman. Gradually it took over his movements. Now she was on the retreat, parrying right and left to stay in the fight. He saw his chance and lunged at her chest. A whir of light and a searing pain in his wrist. A pinprick at his throat.

‘Never underestimate the opportunity to envelope, Mr Saintclair. It is a little flashy, some would say a little too Errol Flynn, but it has its uses.’ He looked along the three feet of high carbon steel into eyes as hard and unyielding as the sword at his throat. ‘You see, in many ways I am my grandfather’s daughter. So let me ask again. How much do you know about what comes after?’

Sometimes not answering a question is an answer in itself, but he doubted Helena Webster would care for that option. He felt a tiny trickle that might be blood run down over his Adam’s apple and into the little hollow below.

‘All right.’ He nodded carefully. ‘A Byelorussian partisan group visited Nortstein Castle before the Germans had time to evacuate it in nineteen forty-five. They killed what was left of the garrison, while their leader had a, let us say, conversation, with the officer in charge. When he’d finished with the German, he lined his men up and shot them.’

The sword point slipped from his neck and Jamie relaxed. ‘Yes, their leader, as I’m sure you have surmised, was none other than my grandfather and he had his little chat with the SS officer on that very table,’ she pointed with the sword, ‘which is symbolic, if you like.’ She looked up at the banners hanging from the ceiling and smiled in a way that sent a shiver through him. He remembered Hermann’s description of a man red to the elbows and he didn’t feel like smiling back. Helena Webster read his look as she handed her blade to Carl, the guard. ‘The villagers had to bury what was left of the poor man. They couldn’t leave a whole heap of dead Germans and Russians lying around, so they hid them away in the woods.’

‘Do you mind telling me how you know all this?’

‘Oh, I was always curious about this — let’s call it a house, shall we? — and why my grandfather was the way he was.’ Her gaze drifted to the old man in the wheelchair and Hal Webster must have felt her eyes on him, because he lifted his head and now the expression on the untouched side of his face was one of sheer terror. ‘So when I got the opportunity to do some research I used all the resources at my disposal to find out, and those resources are considerable, Mr Saintclair. In this age of instant information and high-speed global communication all things are possible. A few people from Nortstein survived the war and the forced evacuation, and even those who did not left their stories. It was only a matter of tracking them down.’ Her voice took on an edge that hadn’t been there earlier. ‘Whatever happened in this room that day changed my grandfather, Mr Saintclair. He was never what you would call a good man, but … Are you aware of the story of Faust?’

An involuntary shudder ran through Jamie as he remembered a long day in the depths of the Harz Mountains where Goethe met his demon and a man sold his soul to the devil. ‘I’m acquainted with it.’

‘Then you understand. His obsession with Nortstein Castle led to where we are today, trapped, for want of a better word, inside this monstrosity; a temple to a culture of death. I by family responsibilities I cannot escape and you by circumstances currently beyond your control,’ she frowned and stared at him, ‘and perhaps even by a sense of duty?’

‘I thought you hated him.’

She turned to the man in the wheelchair with a look of loathing. ‘Oh, not my responsibility to my grandfather, Mr Saintclair; never that.’

‘Why?’

The question surprised her. ‘My family affairs are my own, please understand that.’

‘No.’ Jamie indicated the twelve shop dummies elaborately dressed in cloaks and SS uniforms, the Teutonic Knights’ banners, the round table and the iron pentagram of heroes’ swords. ‘I meant why all this?’

The blonde head tilted a little to one side and the over-bright blue eyes studied him quizzically. Eventually Helena Webster smiled.

‘Before I answer that question I must decide whether I’m going to kill you.’