“Aye, for the present, sir. But I’ll be back later.”
The inspector leaves the drawing room.
“Do you want to clean up, old fellow?” Chubb asks. “I’ve organized some sandwiches and coffee, but say the word and we can do you some steak and eggs, jam omelet, you name it.”
“Sandwiches and coffee sounds perfect.”
The food arrives and I eat. Compared to the moor, the drawing room seems like an oasis. A crackling fire, comfortable chair, quiet warmth. Chubb sits watching me in companionable silence.
“We naturally put off the auction, after they found Kuznyetsov—or whatever his name turns out finally to be,” Chubb says. “The guests had to stay to be questioned, and since everything seems to have quieted down, the police have agreed that we can have the sale tomorrow. If you’re still interested in that old grimoire, I mean?”
I wash the last of a venison sandwich down with the first cup from the second pot of coffee.
Time to fess up.
But before I can, Chubb says, “Apparently that was the one thing Kuznyetsov actually didn’t steal. We turned the whole castle upside down, as discreetly as possible, and were just considering how to question the guests when word came about Kuznyetsov’s body being found. Then all hell promptly broke loose.”
I wait for more explanation.
“You know how, when you’ve lost something, you keep looking over and over in the same place, because you can’t really believe that it isn’t there?” Chubb nods toward the glass cases across the room. “And blast me if it wasn’t right there. Have a look. I wouldn’t have believed it either, but there the bloody thing is.”
I stand and walk over.
Chubb unlocks the glass case, slipping on a pair of white gloves and carefully lifts out the book, holding it like a relic. I stare in amazement. It is the incunabulum 15th-century grimoire—the same one Kuznyetsov stole, the same one I found at the stone, the same one that went with me to 1755.
The same one I dropped in the boat.
A chill bristles the hair on the back of my neck.
How is that possible? Then I know. It was in my family for hundreds of years. That’s what Eleanor LeBlanc said. Passed down, until some impoverished ancestor sold it.
Passed down?
Chubb closes the case, seemingly pleased with everything.
A quote from Shakespeare rolls through my mind.
What is past is prologue.
Had Melisande Robicheaux apparently become the inadvertent owner of the incunabulum. Left in the boat by a man who rowed her out to the silkies’ island, then passed down to her heirs, and they to theirs, through the centuries, until making its way here. That’s nonsense. Ridiculous. It was all a dream. The missing book was simply found here at the castle, as Chubb said.
My host pours two generous measures of whisky. The silence in the room exaggerates the clink of the bottle against the rim of the glass.
“You’re sure you’re all right, old man? No need for a doctor?”
“I’m fine,” I say, knowing that I can now keep the whole experience to myself.
I accept the drink and enjoy a sip. It is one of the peaty Highland malts with fumes that can clear the head of crazy dreams.
Exactly what I need.
But a thought occurs to me. The flintlock pistol in the boat. I reach down and open the sporran that hangs from my waist.
Inside lies the wad and load.
I smile.
Not a dream.
Then I wonder if someday the rusted remnants of my watch and gun will make their way inside some collector’s case too.
GAYLE LYNDS AND DAVID MORRELL
GAYLE AND DAVID COFOUNDED INTERNATIONAL thriller Writers, so it was only fitting they be teamed together for this anthology.
Gayle’s character, Liz Sansborough, appeared in her first novel, Masquerade (1996). The story of an old assassin trying to come in from the cold, the book was rejected some thirty times, largely because publishers believed the market for international spy thrillers was as dead as the Cold War. Plus, there was another problem—Gayle was female, and as one publisher told her agent, “No woman could’ve written this book.” High-octane adventure and a geopolitical story that spanned the globe was then a male-only field. Still, Masquerade went on to become a New York Times bestseller, and Publishers Weekly has listed it among the top ten spy novels of all time.
Rambo, of course, derives from the classic First Blood, which David penned in 1972. That character has evolved into icon status. It’s even now an actual word in the dictionary. Few fictional characters can claim that fame. There’s not been a new Rambo story in print for over thirty years. David has toyed with ideas, but none have “spoken to him,” which is a prerequisite for him before starting any project. When asked to be a part of this book we hoped that something might speak up and, thankfully, it did.
This story was a true collaboration.
David and Gayle e-mailed and talked on the phone many times, hashing out the plot, engaging in a vigorous back-and-forth reminiscent to them both of 2004 through 2006 when they were busy creating International Thriller Writers. David was a little apprehensive about using Rambo in a short story. He worried that whatever he might do with his character in the future might be compromised.
So he and Gayle devised a clever solution.
One that delivers on all fronts.
Rambo on Their Minds.
RAMBO ON THEIR MINDS
BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS
WARREN COUNTY, VIRGINIA
THE LONG SHADOWS OF MORNING drifted across highway 55. Forests clothed in autumn golds and reds pressed the road where a dusty five-year-old van cruised the speed limit, attracting no attention. In the front seat, the driver and his passenger—armed and alert—wore sunglasses and baseball caps pulled low across their foreheads.
From the vehicle’s rear came the sounds of a moan and coughing.
The passenger peered back over his shoulder. His name was Rudy Voya, a muscular man in his midthirties, with a broad pale face and high Slavic cheekbones. “She’s waking up,” he reported. He carried a .40 Smith & Wesson in a shoulder holster under his leather jacket. At his feet lay his AK-47. “Looks as if you shot her up perfect, Max.”
“Not like we don’t have a lot of practice,” the driver, Max Tariksky, said with a nod. He was Rudy’s cousin, the same age and hearty build, but forty pounds heavier. His face was round, his nose a ski slope, and his hooded gray eyes steely. He carried a 9 mm Browning under his windbreaker.
They had snatched the woman when she was on her dawn run through Rock Creek Park in Chevy Chase. Her name was Liz Sansborough, and she was a professor of psychology at Georgetown. She should’ve been an easy mark, but she was also ex CIA and rumored to have been an undercover officer. Taking no chances, Rudy had pretended to lose control of a bicycle, crashing into her, knocking her to the ground, while Max had hurried from a bench to help her stand but instead had injected her with a fast-acting sedative. They’d shoved her and the bike into the van before anyone had a chance to realize what was happening.
Now she was curled like a lemon peel on the floor behind them.
The highway bent sharply left and crested a ridge. As a mountain valley unfolded below, Max slowed the van. No vehicles were in sight. On their right an asphalt lane came into view and he turned the van onto it, braking inside the trees. Ten feet ahead stood a reinforced security gate with barbed wire on the top. On either side a chain-link fence extended into the forest. The sign on the gate warned PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESSPASSING.