Down: Trilogy Box Set (106 page)

The one-eyed rider stopped a few feet away and dismounted, holding his reins with his left hand, his right hand resting on the pommel of his scabbarded sword.

“I am Vladimir Bushenkov,” he said. “You will hand over your weapons and come with me. The tsar wishes your company again.”

John turned to Emily. “We almost made it,” he said. “We came damned close.”

“Is Paul, I mean, Pasha here?” Emily asked Bushenkov.

“He is here.”

“At least I’ll find out how to beat the strangelets,” she told John. “If we ever get back, I’ll know how to do it.”

Behind them they heard Tracy’s thin, tired voice calling out, “Excuse me. Are those supposed to be there?”

John and Emily turned their backs on Bushenkov and faced the sea.

Dozens of black lines appeared through the blanching fog, bobbing up and down. A sail was visible, then more and more of them.

Martin and Tony were shouting now for everyone to look this way and that.

To the north and the south of the Russian line, masses of men appeared from the thinning fog.

Thousands of men.

A light cannon fired off a warning. A shell crashed inland over the Russian line.

Bushenkov’s prominent Adam’s apple rose and fell in a gulp and he swore in Russian.

“Miss me?” It was Brian calling to them, approaching from the beach accompanied by a squad of standard bearers.

News of the flanking armies spread through the Russian cavalry ranks. Men shouted, seeking their orders.

Stalin howled in rage. “Who are they? Who are these bastards? Garibaldi is in Paris. He can’t be here.”

The word came down.

Iberians
.

There was more cannon fire. This time the shells landed closer to the Russians. A low, throaty roar swelled up from thousands of Iberian lungs and the Russians began breaking ranks and fleeing inland.

Stalin refused to budge until General Kutuzov appeared at his side and pulled him into his caravan.

Loomis began to run toward the sea but Stalin ordered his personal guard to bring him back and when they did he kicked and screamed at them to let him go before he was forcibly thrown into the caravan. Its horses were whipped into a gallop and the caravan joined the retreat soon fading from view.

Bushenkov had remained in place, seemingly caught between the devil of the Iberians and the deep blue sea of Stalin’s rage. John got into his face and said, “Get the fuck out of here. We’ve got a ship to catch.”

The secret policeman’s chin quivered. Without uttering a word he mounted his horse and galloped away.

Behind Brian, a larger phalanx of Iberians appeared on the beach. The fog was now so transparent that the full majesty of the Iberian armada was visible at anchor along with dozens of beached longboats.

Finely dressed soldiers parted to reveal Queen Mécia in their midst, walking up from the sand, her leather boots wet from the surf, steadying herself on the arm of her man, Guomez.

John and Trevor greeted Brian with weary bear hugs.

“You knew they’d be here, didn’t you?” John said.

“Put it this way,” Brian grinned. “I was hopeful.”

Trevor shook his head and grinned. “Once a sly dog, always a sly dog.”

The queen smiled and nodded to Brian but went straight for the children. Delia picked Sam off his feet and Arabel lifted Belle so Mécia didn’t have to stoop.

“What a miracle,” she said, Guomez translating. “The most colorful and fragrant flowers, her majesty can ever recall seeing. She is most happy she could come to the rescue of the children, indeed all of these living persons. She wishes you well and hopes you are able to return to your own land.”

“Come on then,” Brian said, his voice choking. “You’d better be off. The wind’s a bugger so the crossing won’t be a quickie.”

“You’re not coming with us, are you?” Trevor said.

“I’m not.”

Trevor got angry, “For fuck’s sake, Brian, you …”

Brian shushed him. “Look, mate. I made a deal. As magnanimous as she’s sounding, she’s a tough old bird. She wouldn’t help unless I agreed to stay. I swear she’s a bloody clone of my first wife.”

“We can try to reason with her,” John said.

“It’s not her you’d need to reason with,” Brian said. “It’s me. Alice did it and so can I. Look, people,” he said to all of them, “I always thought I was born a few hundred years too late. I’ve always been happiest pretending to be a medieval soldier, prancing about like a twit in period pieces. The last month, with this adventure we’ve been on, I’ll say this: in the land of all these dead bastards I’ve never felt more alive. Now all of you, bugger off home. I’ve got to negotiate my new title. I was thinking Prince Brian the Lionhearted. Got a ring to it, don’t you think? And one last thing, Trev. Come here.”

Trevor came over to him, trying to hold his emotions in check.

Brian leaned in and whispered, “You did good, mate. Best damned student I ever had.”

Mellors regained consciousness tied to a living room chair.

When his glassy eyes focused on Murphy and Rix seated across from him he pulled against his ropes. He looked like he was about to scream.

“Shhh,” Murphy said. “Anything louder than a whimper, Jack, and I’ll cut your tongue out.”

“This isn’t possible,” Mellors said.

“That what you think?” Rix said. “A long, illustrious career as a detective, rising to the exalted rank of detective chief super, and that’s the best you can come up with. This isn’t possible.”

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” Murphy said. “But surely the lion’s share of your scumbag life’s behind you, wouldn’t you say, guv?”

“You’re dead,” Mellors said. “Both of you are dead.”

“Bingo!” Rix said. “You finally got one right.”

“You’ve been dead for thirty years.”

“Right again,” Murphy said.

“You’re young. Like you were. What are you, ghosts?”

“Now you’ve lost your way again,” Rix said. “We’re not ghosts. We’re flesh and blood just like you. Well, maybe we don’t smell quite as fresh. Here have a snort.” He leaned forward and passed his forearm under Mellor’s nose.

Mellors grimaced, his eyes widening.

“So how old are you?” Rix asked.

Mellors didn’t answer.

“I’ll say you’re eighty-five, eighty-six,” Murphy said. “What do you reckon, Jason? Probably retired eight to ten years after we kicked it. A good twenty years of retirement. Nice fat super’s pension supplementing all the filthy lucre he made off with during his years of wickedness. Lovely seaside house. Probably flush with mateys in the local bar. But I don’t see a woman’s touch. All alone, Jack? Wife leave you, did she?”

“Cancer,” Mellors said.

“The tragedy of it,” Murphy said.

“Fuck you!” Mellors shouted.

Murphy got up and punched him in the face. “I said, shhh, didn’t I? One more bit of noise and you will regret it.”

Mellors spit blood onto the carpet.

“It’s really difficult to get that out of a nice beige pile,” Murphy said, “though I have to say, that hasn’t been one of our principal concerns these past three decades.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Mellors said. “Tell me how you’re here when you were killed. I was at your bloody funerals. Tell me how you haven’t aged a day.”

“Tell you what,” Rix said. “Let’s take a little stroll down memory lane. Let’s relive a little episode in our lives that you probably haven’t bothered to even think about since 1985. After we've had that stroll, we’ll tell you everything, explain all the mysteries of the universe, bring you well into the fold.”

Jack Mellors pushed his way through the crowded pub to the farthest table in the back, close enough to the gents to smell the urinal cakes whenever someone opened the door. The big man with silver temples folded himself into a chair and put his pint onto a beer mat.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

“No problem, guv,” Murphy said.

“You’re wrong about that,” Mellors said. “You lads have a big fucking problem.”

“Now hang on, Jack,” Rix said.

“Don’t fucking Jack me,” Mellors said. “I’m your fucking DCS. My friends call me Jack. You don’t.”

“I was going to say that this problem is best described as our problem,” Rix said.

“Oh, no, my son,” Mellors said. “Don’t you try that one on. I’m your fucking superior. When we’re on the straight and narrow, I’m your superior.” He lowered his voice and looked around. “When we’re engaged in certain nefarious activities, I’m also your superior. You’re bent cops. I’m your bent chief super. Got it?”

“The package was light, guv,” Murphy said. “I hope you don’t think we were skimming.”

Mellors gulped at his beer. “It’s hardly called skimming when you’ve come up almost two kilos short,” he said. “That’s not a skim, that’s a fat load.”

“Look, fault us for not weighing the case or whatever,” Rix said, “but they insisted on doing the exchange at King’s Cross, out in the open. They’ve never shorted us before.”

“Well, you’re well short now, aren’t you? You’re short twenty-five thousand pounds fucking sterling. And you’re going to make good on it or I will unleash our little snarling friend on you. Actually, I’ll unleash Nicky onto you and onto your ladies. Nicky, once unleashed, will look for pounds and pounds of flesh, know what I mean?”

“Leave our wives out of this,” Rix said, seething.

Mellors leaned back in his chair. “Relax, lads. I know you don’t have that kind of ready dosh. I’ve got a way for you to make it quick and easy and get yourself square with me and Nicky.”

“How?” Murphy asked.

“There’s a nice simple job in Knightsbridge. Rich banker fuck. You’ll take something from him. He’ll gladly pay you fifty grand for its return. Nicky gets his twenty-five, I get ten since I’m your superior and all, and you get five each. Everyone wins.”

“What is it we take?” Rix said.

“His little girl.”

“I won’t do a kidnapping,” Rix said.

“Oh you’ll do it, sunshine. Just picture your wives missing all those pounds of flesh. Shit, get them to help. Ladies are just the ticket when you’re snatching a kid.”

“There’s five grand not accounted for,” Murphy suddenly said.

“Eh?”

“The split on the fifty grand. There’s an extra five.”

“Oh yeah, excellent maths skills,” Mellors said. “You’re going to have to take one of Nicky’s boys with you. He’ll be getting five as well. You know Lucas, don’t you?”

“Yeah, we know Lucas Hathaway,” Rix said.

Mellors asked for a glass of water.

Murphy got one from the kitchen and held it to his bloody lip while he drank.

“Did you know that little Jessica Stevenson had asthma?” Rix asked. “Bad asthma.”

“Of course not,” Mellors said.

“We as good as killed her as if we’d put a knife through her heart,” Rix said.

“Things happen,” Mellors said. “You’ve got to think fast, not panic. You still could have gotten the ransom. It all would’ve been square. But what did you too do? You folded like a cheap suitcase.”

“We couldn’t live with what we did,” Murphy said.

Rix stood and began pacing. “We were going to turn ourselves in, do the time, whatever it took to try to make things right. We were going to do that but Lucas must have called you and you must have told him to do us. Admit it, Jack. You had us taken out.”

“Did you think I was going to go down for your fuck-ups? You must be joking. Yeah, I had Hathaway do you and then I made sure armed police were onto him straight away. I whistled past the graveyard that night and here I am. Eighty-five years old, healthy as a horse, still shagging every so often and with a happy bank manager as one of my drinking mates. And where have you two fuck-ups been all these years?”

“Us?” Rix said. “We’ve been in the place where you’re going.”

Ben hadn’t left Dartford in days. He felt as much of a prisoner as the Hellers in their locked cells. He had spent so much time interviewing Molly and Christine that he joked he almost knew them better than his own unhappy wife.

He had long since appropriated John Camp’s office as his own and he was there, reviewing interview tapes, trying to find a clue to the possible whereabouts of Murphy and Rix. He cued the video file where he had the women talking about the night of the kidnapping of Jessica Stevenson. His gut instinct told him that untangling this tale of woe would lead him to the men. There wasn’t much time. The MAAC restart was coming.

One of Ben’s agents called the office phone.

“Yes, I’m at a terminal,” Ben said.

“Quick, punch up the South Ockendon live feeds,” the agent said.

As he did so he said, “There hasn’t been any activity there for almost a month.”

“Camera six. Hurry.”

He clicked on the correct icon and Murphy and Rix came into view looking directly into the camera from the same house on the estate where they’d first appeared.

“Did you reach Ben Wellington?” Murphy said into the camera.

“I’m here,” Ben said.

“Did you miss us?” Murphy asked.

“Desperately. Why are you there?”

“Because we want you to take us to our girls,” Rix said.

“Stay put. I’ll have someone there shortly.”

“That’s all right,” Rix said. “No hurry. We’ve got a last bit of business to do.”

He disappeared from view and came back, dragging a chair. A large, white-haired old man was tied to it.

“Jason, who is that?” Ben said, his voice rising.

“This is the bastard that’s responsible for us and our girls going to Hell, Ben. Not that we’re not responsible, but DCS Jack Mellors is Hellbound too. We wanted to make sure that when he arrives we’d be able to find him. When you send us back we’re going to return to our little shithole of a village in Ockendon. And when we get there we’re going to find Jack Mellors and we’re going to put him in the worst rotting room in Hell.”

Murphy held a knife to Mellor’s throat.

“Don’t do it!” Ben shouted.

Murphy ignored him.

The Iberian ship heaved and rolled on the giant swells. John and the Earthers could have had several small cabins to themselves but they wanted to stay together, so the captain gave them his own generous cabin to occupy as a group. The captain, Jose Manuel Ignacius, knew these waters so well he could have navigated without sight. On Earth he had been at the helm of one of the Duke of Medina Sidonia’s invasion vessels in 1588 when Phillip II went up against Elizabeth I and tried to turn England Catholic again. The Spanish Armada was defeated then but Ignacius survived to die years later in a tavern brawl. In Hell, he had been pressed into service on the high seas over and over, most recently when he experienced defeat at the hands of Henry’s fleet. John neglected to tell him that his singing cannon were instrumental in the Iberian’s demise that day. That would have been like him telling a New York City taxi driver that he might have killed his cousin in Afghanistan.