“Where I’ll be out of the way, you mean,” Charlotte snapped, feeling very much the part of the thwarted youth. She didn’t care. She was frantic, her heart pounding, desperate to do anything to get to Dexter. Nothing else mattered, and the need was so paramount it crowded out all other thoughts in her mind.
I have to get to him . . .
Murcheson scowled at her, and she lifted a hand to her forehead, pressing against the temptation to cry. She knew it wouldn’t help her case if she did, but a voice in her head was screaming for action.
It can’t end this way, I was stupid, so stupid . . .
“I have to do something.”
“You’re far too emotionally invested to be objective in this matter, Lady Hardison.”
Charlotte didn’t attempt to deny it. An idea had started to form in her mind. She closed her mouth and listened in brooding silence as Murcheson briefed his men; then she allowed herself to be escorted down to the tram and into the station with no further protest.
Admiral Neeley barely noticed her arrival, more concerned with an ongoing training exercise than with one off-duty agent at loose ends. He noticed her departure from the bridge still less, and nobody batted an eye at the sight of Lady Hardison making her way down to the miniature submersible’s docking bay. She’d spent so much time there already, after all.
Charlotte felt bad about tricking the young technician, but it had to be done. She milked him for the status of the fuel tank, a last few bits of information regarding the navigation system, and then she asked him very sweetly if he could possibly find her a decent cup of tea. It was cruel; she knew the boy was smitten, and she took advantage of him even though she knew he would surely be reprimanded for dereliction of duty. But she needed that submersible. She waited two minutes after he left the lab, then ducked into the Gilded Lily and took the little craft down and out into the dark, murky waters of the channel.
Her plan had solidified once she heard the report of where Coeur de Fer had taken Dexter. The agents traveling overland were at a decided disadvantage, Charlotte had realized during the debriefing. They were in steam cars, which ran far slower on average than the speeds the sub was capable of in calm waters. They had to travel on the convoluted byways of the quays of Le Havre, and they were beginning from the Murcheson factory well north of town. From the station, though it was farther away, Charlotte could steer the submersible in nearly a straight line to the dock and the hulk of a decommissioned cargo freighter that Martin was evidently using as a base. What’s more, she could use the sub’s specialized listening devices to pinpoint their location on the freighter. She might even hear something that could help them take Martin without risking Dexter’s life.
The main challenge, as Charlotte saw it, would be maintaining her sanity in the claustrophobic confines of the tiny submersible long enough to get to the docked ship where Jacques Martin was holding Dexter hostage. Once she survived that, she reasoned, the rest of the rescue would seem easy in comparison.
Twenty
LE HAVRE, FRANCE
ICY WATER SPLASHED over Dexter’s head, waking him with shock, and he blew the salty, stinging stuff from his mouth and nose as he tried to get his bearings.
His stomach lurched and he choked back vomit, struggling to breathe, panic setting in as he began to remember his circumstances.
“Bastard!” he sputtered, finally realizing he was no longer gagged and could speak again. Coeur de Fer was standing a few yards away from him, an empty tin bucket next to his leg. “Where’s Charlotte? What have you done with her?” Dexter rocked back and forth on the chair to which he was bound, accomplishing nothing but nearly falling over.
The question seemed to surprise his captor. “I have done nothing with her, monsieur. Have you misplaced her?”
“What?”
They stared at each other, both confused now. Coeur de Fer finally broke the silence by coughing weakly. He shook his head and repeated, “I have done nothing with Lady Hardison, monsieur. I took only you. She will come to no harm, as long as you agree to assist me.”
What the hell would you want with me? Dexter couldn’t help but think. Despite recent events, he knew he was no spy. Unless Jacques Martin was interested in recent technological advances in seismology, or desperately required a specialized weapon harness or custom-made machinery, Dexter didn’t know what he could possibly do for the man. He feared what Martin might ask, knowing that his probable inability to provide whatever it was would most likely result in his death. Everybody knew that was how it worked: when the deranged killer no longer had need of you, he killed you. Usually not in a quick, merciful way.
“Are you after the documents?” It was the only thing Dexter could think of.
“Do you have them?”
“No.”
The former spy shrugged. “I suppose it was worth asking.”
Dexter looked at Coeur de Fer more closely, noting for the first time that he seemed not so much deranged as exhausted, like a man at the end of a badly frayed rope.
“What did you want them for?” he asked, figuring that if he was to die, at least he might clear some things up first. “Were you already working for Dubois before the treaty?”
Martin slumped back, letting the wall support his shoulders. “In all this time, Whitehall really never worked it out? Moncrieffe’s death was even more pointless than I supposed, if so. I wasn’t working for Dubois back then, monsieur, I was using the plans to pay him. For these.”
He waved his mechanical hand, then used one artificial “finger” to tap the shiny device that replaced his ear. Dexter winced at the unnatural clinking sound.
“Not for the post-royalists? Not . . . not for a return to the old French regime?”
Coeur gave an odd, humorless chuckle. “No. I’m not especially political. If anything, I lean Égalité.”
“But you’re working for Dubois now.”
“No,” Coeur de Fer corrected him. “I have been working for myself for days now. Dubois went too far. I may be a monster, but I do have some limits. I put Dubois down like the dog he was. France is better for his absence. Perhaps I’m a patriot after all.”
Dexter knew he was just forestalling the inevitable, but he didn’t want to ask Martin the reason for his abduction. Once he asked, it was just a short step from Martin realizing Dexter was no use to him. But the man seemed willing enough to converse, even if Dexter was having some trouble following Coeur de Fer’s train of thought. He wondered if Charlotte had noted his tardiness. Perhaps she would contact Murcheson if she grew concerned; then they would discover he was missing. If I can just keep him talking long enough . . .
“How did Dubois go too far?” The second after he asked, Dexter thought perhaps he should have first said something more conciliatory, like taking issue with Martin’s description of himself as a monster. Fortunately, the monster in question seemed to take Dexter’s query in stride.
“He was growing nearly as bad as he was during the war, killing indiscriminately to accomplish his goals. In war, this is one thing. In business, it is quite another. He was very put out that none of his attempts on Murcheson succeeded, you know. I thought it was . . . unseemly.”
“The factory. And the steam car!” Dexter brightened. “It really was all targeted at Murcheson because of his business, then. Charlotte was right.”
“You sound relieved.”
“It wasn’t you, then?”
“No,” Martin confirmed. “Those were both Dubois. I learned about them only after the fact. He would have been just as happy to rid himself of you, however, with the steam car. And I would have gladly killed Lady Hardison to get those plans. Don’t feel too relieved.”