The Diamond Conspiracy: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel (32 page)

He nodded, his grey eyes catching the warm glow of the room, seeming to dampen the intermittent chill Eliza felt.

“Very well then. When and where would you like it? The door certainly won’t give you enough room.”

Sound reached into his waistcoat and produced a small piece of paper. “This should provide both a desired time and coordinates for the landing site.”

“This won’t be easy to keep secret.”

“I am well aware of that,” Sound assured him, “but by the time anyone attempts to investigate, we will be under way.”

John took the coordinates from Sound, nodding silently as he read the information there.

“Doctor Sound?” the New Zealander asked.

“Yes, Miss Braun?”

“Exactly why have you brought us here?” She did not know what Sound was about, but she recalled how he admitted telling people what they needed to hear.

“Because you and Wellington play heavily in this endgame, and it is my intent to keep you both alive throughout all this.” His face was expressionless.

“Well, that’s reassuring,” she muttered.

“No, Eliza, this is more about following the unchanging factor,” Wellington said. “Whatever it is about that blackout of seventeen years, we play into the outcome of it. So Doctor Sound wants to keep an eye on us, see just how important our part in all this is.”

“That’s just brilliant, that is,” Eliza said with a slight frown, disliking being some kind of pawn in Sound’s games spanning decades.

“Eliza,” Wellington began, leading her over to the conservatory’s panoramic window, “I know that what is happening around here is nothing short of—”

“Overwhelming?” she whispered tersely.

“That’s a start,” Wellington said. “The sole reason I have not run in the opposite direction screaming is that the only other way out was flooded. That, and my own curiosity.” He motioned to Sound with his head. “The technology, not to mention the knowledge Sound—Wells—whatever you wish to call him—has amassed under our very noses is enough to keep me invested.”

“You don’t think it a little dangerous that Sound is the only one with access to this technology?” She looked into his hazel eyes. “Think of how many deaths could have been prevented—”

He stared back at her just as steadily. “No, Eliza, no, you cannot contemplate the ‘What Ifs’ with all this. You just can’t.”

“You know as well as anyone how much I do not like being told what I can and cannot do.” She could feel her jaw tightening and her dander starting to get up.

“That I do, but please heed my words on this,” Wellington implored. “Your way lies madness.”

She let out a long breath, folded her arms in front of her, and tapped her fingers against the sleeves of her blouse. Eliza hated feeling cornered, but this was a situation she could have
never planned for. “I trusted that man. He’s a lie. Everything we’ve ever believed about him has been a lie, and you’re asking me to blindly trust him again?”

She hated it when he was this calm. “I’m asking that you look at this from a different perspective. Doctor Sound has entrusted us with this secret, and he has confided in us our part in all this. Consider all these things his signs of trust in us.”

Eliza turned away to look at the sunset now under way. The sun seemed smaller for some reason, but that still did not rob the surrounding valley nor the steel-grey sky stretching above them of any grandeur. There was no rhyme or reason to accepting what was happening around them, even with actually seeing for herself, as she crossed from the Restricted Area into this man Carter’s conservatory. She should have demanded more from Doctor Sound once she had deduced his true identity.

“You’re asking a lot, Wellington,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to find her own calm.

“Yes, he is,” came the voice from behind them.

Both Eliza and Wellington turned to see John approaching. “I still remember when I was first introduced to Herbert’s marvels of technology.”

“How did you accept it?” asked Eliza.

It was a strange answer to her query. He laughed. “Asking me something like that isn’t really fair, considering my own experiences.”

Wellington’s brow furrowed. “Did you have a rough go in America?”

John’s smile faded ever so slightly. “Just a moment. Sound didn’t tell you where he was taking you?”

“It bears repeating,” Eliza begrudgingly offered. “Things were moving somewhat rapidly.”

John turned his eyes to the sunset as he took a sip of his drink. “So, how did I accept this brave new world, you ask? It was hardly easy, but I continued to discover such amazing sights, sounds, and smells . . .” His voice trailed off, and then he shook his head. “Well, all right, I’ll give you that the smells were a bit hard to take, but you build up a tolerance over time.” He took another drink before continuing. “What I learned over the years, even when adjusting from Virginia to Arizona, is
that you need to rely on your instincts when it comes to change you accept and change you can’t. It’s a lot to take in at times, I won’t begin to question that; but consider who guides you.”

“Doctor Sound, you mean?” Eliza asked.

“Yes. Regardless of whatever name he’s travelling under these days, Herbert should be held accountable based on his actions of past as well as present. I know his work from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, and he prefers missions where his agents come home unscathed. The amount of concern he gives those in his service is not only admirable, but the trait of a leader worth following.” John paused for a moment, the corners of his mouth tugging back in a contented smile. “If he kept his Restricted Area restricted, he had good reason. And if he is sharing its secrets with you, then that means he not only trusts you, but he believes you have the ability to accept the fantastic.”

“That’s our job,” Eliza stated, thinking to the vows she had made when she joined the Ministry.

“No, your job is to explain the unexplained. Not accept it. You two, however, have something Herbert believes is extraordinary.”

“No, we’re a constant in an apparently ever-changing mystery,” she said.

“And you don’t think that is absolutely extraordinary?”

She let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not sure what I am thinking at present. What about you, Wellington?”

The silence made her turn to look at the archivist who did not appear to have been paying attention to their conversation. His eyes were turned upwards, taking in the sight overhead.

What he said told her he had in fact been paying attention. “Actually, I find this view extraordinary.”

Eliza followed his gaze. Overhead, two moons were emerging from the glare of the dying sun, casting a dull illumination over their valley.

“I’ve been here for many years. Many more based on the Terran clock. This view is quite lovely.” John then said over his shoulder, “I’ll issue an order for your lander, Herbert. If we give it enough kick, I should have it at your desired coordinates within two years.”

“That may be cutting it close.”

“Oh now, cheer up, Herbert,” John said with a sly grin. “It’s more than enough time to reach you. It’s what? February, at the time?”

“January, actually,” the director replied, joining them at the massive window. “As a matter of fact, I believe at this very moment I am chatting with the two of you on a train platform concerning some rather amazing events on the Edinburgh Express.”

Eliza whipped her head around to Sound. “You mean, we travelled into the past?”

“It’s a time machine,” Doctor Sound replied. “It can go in both directions.”

She nodded. “Of course. Silly me. And as it can also travel through space, it can bring us here.”

“To Mars,” Wellington added. Eliza wondered if she should have been shocked at someone stating the obvious, but it was actually comforting.

“See?” John said with a wink. “You’re doing just fine.” He motioned to Sound with his drink. “May I offer you a place to stay? Along with prep time for launch, I will have to train one of your agents here how to operate the lander.”

“That would be splendid.” Doctor Sound finished off his drink. “If my memory serves, Cassandra will be entering my office reminding me I have a ten o’clock appointment with Sir William Christie. A few days from now, so we have time.”

“A few days, sir?” Eliza asked. “Don’t we have all the time in the world, literally?”

Doctor Sound mulled her words over for a moment, then checked his pocket watch. “Only a few days until the next event, then back to Whiterock. Until then, we look forward to your hospitality.”

“Thank you, Herbert,” John said. He then leaned closer to Eliza. “If you find this sunset amazing, just wait until you see our stars. Quite impossibly beautiful.”

Wherein Brandon Hill Touches a Piece of Bruce Campbell’s Past

“I
’m telling you, mate, they’re dead. Pushin’ up the daisies, they are,” Bruce whispered to Brandon as they waited in the October chill of a London night.

That the Australian felt the need to
yet again
state his mind on the ongoing matter of Doctor Sound’s disappearance, along with their hosts Wellington Books and Eliza Braun, at this particular moment of their mission was largely because he believed it was beneath him.

It had been five months since Sound had left Whiterock to return to Miggins Antiquities and not a word had come since then. Not a single note, communiqué, or æthermemo. While he knew the director had made clear he, Braun, and that tosser Books could be gone for a prolonged period of time, it really did not bode well. This was the Department, after all. They had made a mess of the Ministry. Even with those lucky few that had managed to find their way to Avebury Circle and then, eventually, to Whiterock, the Ministry he knew was now reduced to a mockery of what it once had been.

Brandon crouched in the shadows next to him, did not make any gesture to show he’d heard his partner’s complaint.

The Australian let out another annoyed huff. It was little relief to Bruce that, in the director’s absence, Miss Shillingworth was in charge. He liked the director’s clerk better when she was the mousy, silent bird that Bruce
thought
she was. The last time anyone barked orders at him like that was during his basic training in the Australian Defence Force. At that time, Master Sergeant Burgess towered over him, could have easily bested him in a fight, and never had to worry about freezing to death on account of the gorilla-like body hair he sported. Shillingworth possessed none of those characteristics, but when she managed to send him to the floor with a lightning-quick aikido takedown and screamed into his face to perform the obstacle course “with a purpose” he knew her authority would never be brought to question. Again. Ever. Full stop.

Bruce still never found out exactly what Sound was up to in the Archives, let alone that Restricted Area.

And now, five months without a word? Chances were he would never find out.

“Dead as damn doornails,” Bruce muttered, glancing up the street to the right.

“Agent Campbell,” Brandon whispered tersely, reverting to angry formality, “now is not the time to tread this ground again. We are following orders.”

The Australian was finding this newfound bravado from his partner in the field less and less charming. “Yeah. Orders from the afterlife.”

Brandon held up a cautionary finger. “Orders from the man who gave you a second chance. Or did you conveniently forget that?”

The Canadian, during their salad days, would never have questioned Bruce’s judgement or instincts. The two of them complemented one another, and managed to solve cases deemed too impossible or improbable by the director himself. Bruce knew that, and was always anxious to head out on assignment with him. They were a well-oiled machine. Unstoppable. Uncompromising.

And it made Bruce look even better on paper as a field agent. Something else that he enjoyed the benefits of.

Everything was different now, and now Brandon was less the devil-may-care partner and more of a conscience-in-the-field
that was working on the Australian’s few remaining nerves. Bruce longed for that trust, that sense of reckless adventure; and yet that desire for the old days, he found, continued to war with this new side of him, stalwart in that the Ministry needed him, not the other way around. He preferred self-reliance. The idea of “brotherhood” and “camaraderie” were quaint notions to say the least, but that was a dependence Bruce preferred not to encourage. However, something continued to drive him ever since Rockhampton. Whatever spurned this need for acceptance, Bruce had no inkling.

It was this bizarre sense of duty that had nagged at him when, following another hard day of training—training for what, still a mystery—Shillingworth approached him with the envelope bearing the seal of the Ministry.

Orders. From Sound. Bearing that day’s date.

The words he had read could have been penned only moments before Bruce had received them:

Agent Campbell:

You and Agent Hill must infiltrate Central London Aeroport’s warehouse and retrieve Wellington Books’ motorcar. It should be kept with other unclaimed luggage (their airship docked back in April 1896) and, I imagine, will be unguarded considering the amount of time it has been there. Do keep in mind that “unguarded” may not equate to “unwatched” so therefore exercise the highest of cautionary tactics. Avoid Department interaction at all costs, and return with the motorcar to Whiterock. I know what I am asking of you is of the highest risk, but I also know what the two of you can accomplish together.

Good Luck,

Doctor Sound

Now, here they were on a fool’s errand into the darkness of London, where the unclaimed luggage depot’s warehouse stood. The night watch casually walking about seemed hardly the kind of opposition Bruce was accustomed to dealing with.

“So now we are chauffeurs, are we?” Bruce grumbled. “Fetching the car for the lord of the manor, eh?”

Brandon looked over his shoulder. He appeared to be shocked about something or other. “Did you bother to
read
the report accompanying the orders?”

It hadn’t been that long since he and Brandon were in the field together, watching one another’s back. “When, in all the time we have worked together, have you ever known me to read a report from beginning to end?”

“Books modified the car. It’s a bloody armoury.”

“Wait—
Books
weaponised a motorcar?”

Brandon shrugged. “According to the report. And we need it.”

From the satchel hanging at his side, Brandon produced a monocular and pressed it against his eye. From the details he imparted to Bruce, the device must have possessed some Starlight technology.

“A single door to the east and then we have two barn doors on the west side. I would imagine they would have the car there, close to the doors.”

“If they didn’t receive any other motorcars or contraptions similar over the past four months.”

Brandon nodded. “Closer to five. Bloody thing is probably buried in there.”

“What about the Department? Any sign of them blokes?”

He swept the monocular to either side of the warehouse. “Just the night watch. I think once this man’s turned the corner, we can make for the door.”

Bruce removed from his back the long rectangular suitcase and set it at his feet. “Give me a bit of light, will ya, mate?”

Glancing to either side of them, Brandon produced an
illuminati
, cracked it against the street underfoot, and held the glowing stick over Bruce and his case. Bruce gently flipped the latches back and revealed six dismantled components of a Lee-Metford-Tesla rifle.

“That’s a Mark II,” Brandon whispered, his eyes appearing larger in the glow of the illuminati.

“That it is, mate,” Bruce said as he assembled the rifle. “Not many of these were made, but with those street urchins working an assembly line, and a little bit of love, we got this one working.” As much as he disliked the drills and training
of the past few months, there was the begrudging fact that his “rusty” skills were perhaps sharper than ever. With a final
click
of the transformer sliding into its housing and the reassuring feel of the rifle’s full magazine locking in tight, Bruce hefted the rifle, getting a feel for its weight. “Our toffy archivist was sporting quite the arsenal back at Whiterock. It was as if he had been preparing for something.”

Just before he buried the illuminati, Bruce caught Brandon’s quizzical, concerned look. “Preparing for something? What do you mean by that?”

Much as he liked Brandon, sometimes the Canadian could be a bit thick. “Oh, come off it, mate, a complete and utter tosser like Books, and he’s stockpiling enough firepower to supply both the Ministry and the Department? You don’t think that’s a bit strange?”

Brandon looked him over. “Honestly, there have been a lot of things I have seen of late I’d describe as particularly strange.”

He opened his mouth, ready to fire back a retort, but thought better of it. He closed his mouth with a soft
snap
, puckered his lips, and nodded. “Fair enough, mate.”

“We’re right as rain with you getting me out of South America, but Doctor Sound reinstating you as a field agent; I am still not sure what to think of that. Bit of a kick to the bullocks, if you ask me, but it is what the doctor ordered, now isn’t it?” Brandon dropped the monocular back into his satchel. “Get ready to move. We should have an opportunity coming up.”

Bruce’s stomach growled softly. “You wouldn’t happen to have a steak pie in there perchance?”

Brandon held up the saddlebag’s flap and peered in. “I have illuminati sticks, a few sticks of dynamite—must make sure not to mix the two up—an ’87 with a small box of ammunition . . . no. Not a meat pie of any kind here.”

“Maybe my luck isn’t what it used to be in the field,” Bruce grumbled, his stomach echoing the sentiment in its own way.

“Think positive, and your luck will change,” his partner urged. “Are you ready?”

Bruce’s thumb flipped the switch on the mini-generator atop the Mark II. He wasn’t sure where the sentiment came from, but it had to be said. “Don’t worry, Brandon. I’m not gonna let you down.”

Once the guard disappeared from view, Bruce took point in a sprint across the landing field to where the warehouses stood. Brandon crouched behind him and started to work on the lock.

“Taking your sweet time, Hill?” Bruce whispered over the various clicks and scrapes coming from the door.

“Never you mind,” Brandon returned. “I have this well under—
Oh bugger!
”

Bruce could see a form materializing through the evening fog. “Care to get it a bit more under control there?”

“Al—most—” The sharp
clack
of a lock sounded in Bruce’s ears. “We’re in.”

“Celebrate inside,” Bruce growled as he pushed Brandon into the warehouse.

When the door shut, both men flanked either side of the hatch. Brandon, now armed with one of his long knives, positioned himself across from Bruce. As they waited, Bruce dared to look around him. There were plenty of suitcases, glimpses into the various lives of people who either forgot about their personal belongings, or simply couldn’t be bothered to collect their things after a transcontinental or transatlantic voyage. Then there were those people who would simply choose to disappear, either during the voyage or afterwards, not always to end a life but in some circumstances to start a new one.

His attention flicked back to the door. The footsteps were just audible from the other side. Considering the girth of the night watchman, Bruce was surprised he had not heard the man sooner. They both waited as the steps came up to the door. For a moment, there was no movement. Bruce’s grip tightened on the Mark II as the doorknob jiggled. Once. Twice. Then after a moment, the footsteps resumed and eventually disappeared in the distance.

“All right then,” Brandon said, sheathing his knife, “let’s hope luck is on our side.”

“Start on the opposite end,” Bruce said, taking an illuminati from Brandon and cracking it to life. “I’ll work my way down here.”

Suitcases. Towers of wooden crates, some marked “FRAGILE.” The pale light of the illuminati threw shadows in all
directions, making it hard for Bruce to keep an eye out for any movement. He paused by one suitcase and checked the tag:

Rabarts, Daniel

Flight 5, RMS
Olympia

Destination: London, England

17 April 1896

At least he was in the right warehouse, if things were sorted by the year and time of travel. He had not gone far before he came up to a long pallet with what appeared to be a carriage concealed underneath a long tarp. He followed the edge of the tarp along its length until his hand found a baggage tag, at what he assumed to be the front of the vehicle.

Seemed as if Campbell’s luck was also on a path of redemption:

Lawrence, Wellington Reginald

Flight 11, USAA
Atlantic Angel

Destination: London, England

15 April 1896

Bruce whistled twice for Brandon. He watched the glare from his partner’s illuminati bob and weave through the makeshift labyrinth of luggage until he emerged from behind a pillar of crates.

“Looks like this is it, mate. Help me throw back the tarp.”

Dust and debris scratched and blinded him as the sheet snapped and furled. When it finally slipped away, both men turned their illuminati on the automobile.

“That,” Brandon began, his eyes moving from beginning to end point of the vehicle, “is a thing of beauty.”

“And it belongs to Wellington Books,” Bruce grumbled. “What a bloody waste!”

Brandon rounded on him, finally demanding, “What is your issue with our archivist?”

Bruce went to answer but as he had done before with his partner, his mouth closed with no words. He took in a deep breath and shrugged his massive shoulders. “You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just don’t like them?”