Warriors

CHAPTER 59

Ambrose could now lift his numbed arm, but he was a realist to the core. Pick your battles. Live to fight another day. He settled for taking the blows on his forearms and upper arms, protecting his head. This seemed only to agitate the Brute further, because he immediately threw an overhead right that hit the shelf of Congreve’s jaw and knocked his mouth wide.

His knees went loose, and white rockets sailed behind his eyes. He bicycled backward, and only the wall kept him from going down on the spot. He hit it hard enough to jar the Old Master paintings hung above, the largest of which came crashing down, narrowly missing Congreve, with a corner of the heavy gilt frame striking his attacker on the crown of his head.

The wrestler roared in anguish if not pain. The man seemed immune to that human frailty.

Further enraged, Prime slashed down with the edge of his right hand, a diagonal blow catching Congreve on the side of his skull, just under the left earlobe. The famous detective melted down to the floor, his eyes unfocused, his legs jellied.

Then, blackness.

Congreve awoke on the cold, damp ground. When he could see, he discovered that he was out of doors; he was inside some kind of large wrought-iron cage or other. A towering thing that soared above him to heights lost to darkness.

He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. Five minutes? An hour? He was extremely cold from the night air. He was on his back. He felt a huge weight upon his chest, but perhaps it was just pain. He had no idea how badly hurt he was. He worked his mouth. He tried moving his arms. Then his legs. He couldn’t move his left leg. He tried again and heard a clink of chain.

His left leg was chained by the ankle to something — an iron stake pounded into the ground at an angle. He lifted his head to inspect his predicament.

In the shadowy realm beyond the cage he saw a tall silhouetted figure. She was peering at him through the bars. Chyna Moon. He couldn’t see much of her face. But she was smoking a cigarette, and the glow of the orange coal made her black eyes flare every few seconds.

“I gave you an injection, something to bring you around, Chief Inspector. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Methamphetamines are truly wonder drugs.”

“Release me at once!”

“Tell me what I want to know and perhaps I’ll do just that.”

“I cannot imagine I have information of any remote value to you.”

“Ah, but you do, you see. I want you to tell me all about your friend Lord Alexander Hawke.”

“What about him?”

“Where he is, for starters? On my orders, my companion paid him an unexpected visit tonight. He was not in residence. So she had to wreak our vengeance upon Miss Churchill, that pathetic excuse for a bodyguard. And the child, of course. Poor dear.”

“She told you she killed the child as well?”

“She did.”

“Well, she didn’t. The boy, no thanks to your murderous friend, was not seriously wounded. My friend Pelham interrupted Lorelei Li’s plans.”

“The boy survived? Well, well. She does lie a lot. No matter, the child can wait. It’s Hawke I want.”

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Hawke was fucking my sister Jet years ago in the South of France. She was quite famous in those days, a movie star much loved in China. But he tired of her. Discarded her, humiliated, like so much trash. And then he sent a giant black man to see my father aboard his houseboat in Hong Kong harbor. That night my sister ended up dead. My father holds Hawke responsible for the suffering of one daughter and for the death of the other. And then, of course, there’s the little matter of Professor Watanabe.”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“My father sent me a photograph, taken by one of his agents in London some time ago in Berkeley Square. My father had just learned that our trusted friend Professor Watanabe was a double agent. He’d been spying on us for MI6 for years. He had betrayed me. My father condemned him to death. He paid a terrible price.”

“So it was you I saw that night.”

“Where?”

“Near his cottage in the Fens one night. You and your companion were driving very slowly past his drive off the Carthage Road. That vintage silver Roller of yours. I followed you, but you lost me in the fog. Whatever were you two doing out there on such a foggy night?”

“Grouse hunting.”

“I am not amused. My friend is dead.”

“History’s about to repeat itself. Unless you tell me where to find that bastard Hawke. My father grows impatient.”

“Who is your father, anyway?”

“General Sun-Yat Moon. Look him up, if you miraculously live to get the chance.”

“I will. Watanabe was one of my closest friends.”

“Mine, too. So what?”

“I didn’t kill him. I’ll give you Hawke if you give me Lorelei. Where is she hiding?”

“Sorry. She knows far too much about my political activities here at Cambridge. Where is Hawke now?”

“On a business trip.”

“Do you see what I have in my hand? Look over here.”

“What is it?”

“A silver training whistle. I use whistles to call my little darlings to me when I need them. I gave one just like it to Sabrina Churchill when I gave her the raven as a gift — for the child, I told her. A very dangerous gift, but still. I liked the idea of a murderous creature introduced into a child’s nursery. A hunger bird. Sitting innocently in a gilded cage, ever so close to Hawke’s spawn. Day after day… waiting to be released.”

“You’re a monster, Dr. Moon.”

“Well, we all have our little shortcomings, don’t we? I’m going to toot my silver whistle now. You won’t like it. My birds are merciless. They will pluck the flesh from your bones, the tongue from your mouth, and the eyes from your head. Like you, your friend Watanabe crossed swords with me and lived to regret it.”

“Wait…”

“I tire of you. It’s cold. I’m going inside to bed. Looks like rain. I see you’re still clutching your precious British black rolled umbrella. I’m not all bad, you see. Wouldn’t want you to die of exposure tonight when there are so many other, far more interesting ways to perish.”

She blew the silent silver whistle, and the birds took wing.

“You’re not even human,” Congreve said.

“Cry me a river,” Chyna said with a thin smile, just before she turned away and drifted off into the dark gardens drenched in cold moonlight.

The bird attack was instant and horrific.

He sat up to make himself a smaller target, brought his knees up under his chin, tucked his head between them down into his chest, pulled up the collar of his jacket and covered his head with his hands. All he could think about were his eyes. And that was unthinkable.

The first salvo of searing pain was immediate and excruciating.

The ravens, masses of them, were everywhere at once. Relentless, hungry carrion eaters. Meat eaters who ate the dead and dying. Seeking any morsel of flesh they could get at. He screamed at them and tried to bat them away, but it was no use.

This was no bloody way to die… but what could he hope to do in order to—

Mary Poppins.

The very special umbrella Hawke had ordered made for him at MI6! Where was it? He slowly removed his hands from his eyes and looked around desperately for the old girl. He saw it. Lying in the dirt perhaps three feet away. He reached out for it. Came up a foot short. The birds dove and dove. He was losing a lot of blood. Wounds to his scalp and forehead were leaking into his eyes. His eyes, his bloody eyes!

He rolled over onto his stomach. Stretched the chain taut with his left leg, the manacle cutting into the soft flesh of his ankle, yanking anyway.

He thought he had one more chance left in him.

He reached out with his right hand and began to claw at the dirt. Pulling himself closer one half inch at a time… finally… he almost touched it (Mary Poppins!) with his fingertips… close… closer… he had her in his grasp!

He clutched the high-tech lifesaver to him, elated. Despite the pain, he managed to roll over onto his bum and sit up. Flailing away at the hellish birds with his free hand, he depressed a glowing red button in the crook of the carbon-fiber handle. That button caused the microthin titanium-mesh umbrella to deploy instantaneously.

Now he had a shield capable, so Hawke said, of stopping at least a knife and perhaps even a small-caliber bullet.

He held the handle close to his chest and lowered the crown down near his head for maximum protection. His head and all his torso, as well as most of his legs, were now unreachable.

Still the shrieking ravens dove down undeterred. It felt like his umbrella was being bombarded with golf balls. Countless numbers of birds slammed into his protective shield at full speed and careened off the thin titanium skin. Many if not most of them were dropping dead to the ground all around him. And yet still they came.

His fingers found another tiny illuminated button, blue. There were advanced lithium-sulfur batteries inside the umbrella’s tube, Hawke had explained with delight, capable of jump-starting a dead car battery. And thus the pointed ferrule at the umbrella’s very top was electrified to serious voltage.

He pressed the blue button repeatedly and saw jagged flashes, a veritable geyser of blue-white electricity, arc upward from the finial in all directions, instantly killing anything within range. And showering the ground below with showers of white-hot sparks when he zapped the filigreed iron struts near the top of the aviary.

To a casual observer, it looked as if the world-famous criminalist had sought refuge beneath a small black teepee, one capable of firing jagged bolts of blue-white lightning skyward from its apex like some high-tech electrified Roman candle.

Inside the protective cover of his cozy titanium tent, Congreve inhaled the acrid scent of burning bird flesh and feathers with enormous satisfaction. Zapped ravens were dropping like flies all around him now and — what was that? Someone calling his name?

“Inspector Congreve? Inspector Congreve? Is that you inside there, sir? Under that umbrella?”

He raised Mary Poppins a foot or two, in order that he might be seen and heard.

“Of course it’s me, Cummings, you bloody fool! Where the hell have you been, Inspector?” he shouted. “You were supposed to meet me here an hour ago!”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector, we had to — you see — we were held up by a lorry that jackknifed at a roundabout and—”

“Never mind all that. Just get me out of here! How many men have you got?”

“Six, including myself.”

“Send four of your best armed men into that house. There are only two people in there that I know of, but both are extremely dangerous. One of them has just confessed to the murder of Professor Watanabe. Her name is Dr. Chyna Moon. The other is male, a psychotic wrestler by the unlikely name of Optimus Prime. Tell your men to take no chances with either. They’re both mean as snakes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sabrina’s killer herself lives inside that morbid house. She may still be inside it, but I rather doubt it. Her name is Lorelei Li, a stringer for the Times and a Cambridge grad student. I think she very well may have escaped via motorbike a short while ago. A Vincent Black Shadow.”

“Any idea as to what direction she took, sir?”

“Yes. I seem to recall Pelham saying something about Sabrina visiting Lorelei at a cottage down in Cornwall. Nevermore, I think he called it. She’s probably en route there. Pretty girl. Voluptuous, as they say. Late twenties, Asian, short black hair. Call it in.”

“Very good, Chief Inspector. You appear to be bleeding.”

“Of course I’m bleeding, you idiot. I say, Cummings. Are we going to sit around and talk all night? Or is someone perhaps thinking of removing me from this cauldron of death? No hurry, of course; I’m quite comfortable in here with these bloodthirsty beasts.”

“Right away, sir! Constable Jenkins, cut away that padlock and let’s get the chief inspector out of there, shall we?”

Jenkins hefted a pair of bolt cutters and went to work on the hefty padlock.

“I say, Chief Inspector,” Cummings called out, “if you don’t mind my asking. What is that strange contraption you’re sitting under?”

“It’s a bloody umbrella! What does it look like?”

“It does have a certain ‘James Bond’ air about it, sir, to be perfectly honest. All those special effects, I mean, the sparks, the lightning bolts…”

There came then another eruption from the umbrella, only this time it was not sparks but the raucous laughter of one Ambrose Congreve, glad he would live to fight another day.