Mons angels, p.11
Mon's Angels, page 11
Chance stepped to the front. The driver looked over his shoulder as he came close, eyes wide in fright. Chance reached down, grabbed the back of the man’s shirt and pulled him out of the seat. The truck immediately slowed, the steering wheel spinning. Its wheels bumped up against the curb.
“Get down and play dead, if you want to live, mate,” Chance said, pushing the driver roughly to the floor.
He jumped into the driver’s seat and pressed down hard on the brake. When the truck rolled to a stopped, he set the parking lever.
The driver jumped back up, reaching for his sidearm. Chance slugged him from a sitting position.
“I said stay down.”
They heard the sounds of pursuit as other men rushed toward the intersection.
“When you get up, report to the Venture Society first, before the peelers. Tell them the Luddites did this. Got that, mate?”
The driver nodded, his jaw starting to swell from where Chance hit him.
“Good. Now play dead until everybody’s gone.”
Half a dozen men rounded the corner, guns out. They stopped at the truck, looking up at Chance as Griselda and Biggin approached.
“There’s a lot of wooden boxes up here, milady,” Chance called down.
Griselda smiled.
“Bring the carts closer, everyone. Then help us unload the lorry and distribute the cargo. Mr. Biggin, you’re the strongest. Go fetch me those chests of gold.”
The injured man said nothing, but he climbed up into the truck with Chance and started unloading the precious cargo.
Chance gave the driver one last look, but the man lay perfectly still. Smiling, he moved to help Biggin unload.
23
Rip and Blair walked into a conference room at RVS Headquarters, sent there by the receptionist this morning when they arrived. As they settled down around the table, the Verez sisters walked in, giving Rip sad smiles and ignoring Blair.
Privately, he wondered how long they were going to mope about his marriage. Surely this would pass soon, he hoped.
A few moments later, Twig walked in.
“What’s this about?” the infiltrator asked.
In reply, Rip handed him a copy of that morning’s edition of the Standard Trumpet. The headlines read, “Ransacked! American Colonies’ Gold Shipment Waylaid. Armored Lorry Destroyed. Guards Gunned Down.”
Twig scratched his head while taking a seat and skimming the top fold.
“Oi! Did we do this?”
Rip said, “No. But that’s probably what we’re meeting about, if I had to make a guess.”
“Where’s Chance? He still infiltratin’ the Luddiots?”
Blair smiled at Twig and said, “Luddiots? That’s a new one. I like it.”
Rip said, “Again, that’s probably what this meeting is about. If anybody would be caught up in the theft of a million pound gold shipment, I’ve no doubt Bobby would be the one.”
A hidden panel in the wall slid open and everyone stood up as Sir Prescott walked in from a secret passage, the slashed ribbon of his office draped diagonally across his chest.
Following him, King Allo stepped into the room, nodding as everyone bowed formally at the waist. He moved to the chair at the head of the table and sat down, Prescott taking up a position slightly behind him.
Lastly, Sir Percival Hedgefield stepped through, the director of RVS. The door slid shut behind him. He moved to another chair at the table and sat down along with everyone else.
Allo spied the newspaper in front of Twig and said, “Good, you’ve read the Trumpet. That’s why I’ve called this meeting. Percy, tell them what you told me.”
Hedgefield cleared his throat and all eyes turned toward him.
“Quite right. Last night, shortly after this heinous act, the driver of the armored truck that was robbed called into the Royal Venture Society headquarters. He informed the receptionist that he was admonished by one of the brigands attacking him to report the incident to the Society before speaking with the Metropolitan Police. He said he was to tell us that the Luddites were responsible for the gold theft.”
“Aha! So, Chance did do this,” Twig said, smiling. “A million pounds. I’m going to have to up my game.”
Blair frowned at him while Hedgefield cleared his throat again.
“Next, he informed us the man bade him play dead whilst the gold was purloined. He could not tell us much more, but under further questioning, the description of his initial assailant indeed matches that of Mr. Chance. I presume, based on all your facial expressions, that you are aware of Mr. Chance’s activities, and that he is on some errand or other for the Rangers.”
“We were not aware of this job in particular,” Rip said. “Not about the gold robbery. If we had known about it ahead of time, we would have tried to help thwart it. But yes, we knew Bobby infiltrated the Luddites.”
“I helped,” Twig said, proudly. “It was my contacts, what got him in.”
The king and Hedgefield traded glances. Hedgefield cleared his throat again, a little more nervously this time.
He said, “We do not currently have any ventures or missions arranged against the Luddites, Your Majesty.”
Blair said, “This one was on our own. As you know, Sire, the Luddites are responsible for gunning down my father in cold blood.”
The king nodded, his lips tightening in a scowl.
“Quite so, Lady Coulter. I am aware. And I certainly understand your desire to move against them. This gold came all the way from California, which is still a relatively new territory for us. Spain and Portugal have been mining the New World for centuries, but the American Wild West is finally providing Umbria with a share of the mineral wealth those two kingdoms have long enjoyed. The shipment came from San Francisco, sailing around Cape Horn and up to Boston before the Umbrian Bank branch there sent home our share on the Potomac. Now, two men are dead and a million pounds are in the hands of villains.”
He paused, tapping his nose in thought as he stared down at the table. The silence dragged on for several seconds.
“This might be a fortuitous thing, Your Majesty,” Prescott said.
Allo looked up and said, “How so?”
Prescott shrugged.
“We have a man on the inside. Hopefully, he will be able to let us know what they are planning on doing with your gold.”
“Our gold, you mean. It’s Umbrian, belonging to all of us. But yes, I see your point. Perhaps Providence is playing a role here, previously unbeknownst to us.”
Allo stood, and everyone stood up with him. He addressed Rip.
“If we can be of any assistance, know that you have the full imprimatur of the crown behind your efforts to take down the Luddites. I’ll also offer a ten percent reward for the return of the Bank of Umbria’s gold.”
Rip raised his eyebrows.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. That is very generous.”
“It’s appropriate,” the king said, glancing at Blair. She bowed politely.
“Draw up the paperwork, Percy,” Allo said, turning to Hedgefield. “Make it an official RVS mission with the requisite rewards and file it for us.”
“Right away, Your Majesty.”
“Let’s get this settled. Top priority.”
Everyone gave the king a final bow as he walked back through the secret doorway, Prescott and Hedgefield following.
At the door, Hedgefield glanced back and said, “Godspeed to you all. Needless to say, this mission should supersede all else for the moment.”
Rip nodded as they locked eyes. Then Hedgefield walked through the door and it slid shut behind him, the wall appearing solid and featureless.
“Well,” Rip said as everybody sat back down around the table, “that certainly adds to the pressure, doesn’t it?”
“High pressure, high reward,” Twig said, rubbing his hands in glee. “And that’s a big reward. A hundred thousand quid!”
The vampires grinned, too. Rip noticed it, the first truly positive expressions he had seen them make since his marriage.
He said, “Why are you two so happy?”
“Oh, we like gold,” Hilda said, drawling out with her Hungarian accent.
“Yes,” Liza said. “It is oh so much nicer than silver, Ripley. We can hold gold.”
“We can touch it and caress it, pull it close to our bosom and—”
“Right,” Blair interrupted. “We get the point.”
But even Blair’s rudeness could not disrupt the vampire sisters’ good mood. They continued smiling for the rest of the meeting.
24
Chance woke up late, looking at a plain wooden ceiling while blinking away the sleep. For a moment, he could not recall anything, and he stared up with a blank look on his face.
Then memory flooded back, along with the soreness of his muscles, still protesting from last night. Everyone had pitched in to move the gold, and even with Mr. Biggin’s help it had been a laborious job.
The old wagons trundled slowly back to those city blocks controlled by the Luddites, creaking wooden planks complaining all the way.
Chance looked for an opportunity to sneak off and report in to RVS HQ, but the moment never occurred. Someone was always nearby the whole time they loaded and moved the gold. Griselda insisted he ride back with her and Biggin.
Under the guise of a newcomer, Chance used the opportunity to try and glean more information from Griselda about the organization. He also subtly probed her reasons for stealing the gold in the first place.
But the woman played coy, not willing to give up details so freely.
“You are enhanced, Mr. Robinson. That makes you extremely valuable to the Luddites. But you needn’t worry about things which do not pertain to you.”
That seemed rather enigmatic, Chance thought, reflecting on the comment.
Perhaps it’s laced with some double meaning or whatnot, he thought.
For her part, Griselda tried to get him to open up about his wartime experience. Since all that was fictional and he had no real military expertise, although plenty of Venture Society combat under his belt, he begged off by saying he felt uncomfortable discussing the war.
Eventually they made it back to where they started and Chance helped unload all the gold. Now he sat up on the cot and groaned, his muscles protesting.
He stood and wended his way amidst other cots, men sacked out and snoring. He was in the same building Checkers brought him to, and the layout was simple. Opening the door, he walked into a large common room.
Here a fellow wearing a chef’s hat stood behind a table with a large ten-gallon pot, ladling out porridge to men queued up with bowls. Next to the pot, a large assortment of lemons and limes provided a nice selection of citrus for breakfast.
They probably want to hold down scurvy, Chance thought. Smart, that.
His stomach rumbled as he picked up a bowl and moved to the end of the line.
Occupying a large space on the floor in the front of the room, several heavy wooden chests sat stacked in orderly piles. The chests looked relatively small, but Chance knew from painful experience they were extremely heavy.
Four men stood at the corners of the stacks, holding Mauser semi-autos. Griselda kept the gold guarded, even here among men who had pledged themselves to the Luddite cause.
And that’s likely a smart move, too, Chance thought. Gold has a way of making a man forget his oaths.
At last his turn came to receive a ladleful of porridge. Chance grabbed a lemon to go with it and moved to sit down at the long table with the others. He took the side facing the gold, as he reflected on his current dilemma.
If the fellow he saved last night, the driver, did the job Chance tasked him with, then word would spread to the RVS. From there, based on the amount of gold stolen, Chance suspected the message he sent home would receive plenty of attention.
Any minute now, somebody should come barging through that door, he thought.
But as he finished his porridge, no one came. Instead, another door opened and Griselda walked into the room.
“Good morning, gentlemen! I hope you all slept well. We are moving out immediately. We will begin by reloading the wagons. You will all stay in sight of one another as we go through the streets. No one will step out of line, and we will all show up at our destination with all cargo intact. Is that understood?”
The men at the table nodded. Several stood up and stretched, ready to begin hauling the heavy cargo back out to the street.
“Too bad we couldn’t have left that lot in the wagons all night, ay?” the man next to Chance said.
He shrugged and replied, “A little labor never hurt no one.”
Biggin reappeared, the bandage still wrapped around his head. He promptly went to work with the others, hefting the chests as if they were merely bulky, not extremely heavy.
Chance frowned. Biggin seemed more like himself today. His eyes looked sharper. He responded to the comments other made, and he even nodded at someone who bid him good morning.
That man’s recovering, no doubt, Chance thought.
Griselda seemed anxious, dancing about and making sure the wagons were equally loaded. They had six canvas toppers, and she wanted to make sure they would stay together through the busy streets.
In the hubbub, Chance took out a small knife and neatly cut his lemon in half. He squeezed the juice out on the table, then quickly dipped his finger in and scrawled out a brief message.
He was prepared to say he was just doodling should anyone ask, but no one noticed. Everyone seemed intent on the gold. He left one lemon piece on the table, then dropped the other one on the floor.
The Luddites did not appear overly concerned with neatness, but he hoped that no one would pick up the trash any time soon.
Then he stood, moving quickly to help the others with the gold.
25
Unlike some gangs that liked to hide their guards inconspicuously near areas they controlled, the Luddites were more open about their boundaries. Neither police nor passersby were expected to wander down their streets, unless invited. The men stationed out in the open at the edge of their territory reminded all pedestrians of this fact, sometimes with words and sometimes with fists.
And so as the lunch hour approached, a guard on the corner watched in surprise as Blair brazenly walked past his duty station, seemingly oblivious to the restricted nature of the street ahead.
She wore the uniform of a scullery maid, a drab black dress that looked worn and patched up several times. But her face seemed bemused, bearing a cheerful expression. And of course, she looked very attractive.
Had the guard been more observant, he might have noticed she did not have callouses on her hands. In fact, that was the one weak spot in Blair’s disguise, and it remained a key reason she rarely tried to pass as someone from the working classes.
Any time spent with her would result in someone noticing her hands, which were difficult to convincingly appear like those of a worker’s. Her fingertips remained smooth and her nails looked perfect.
But today she made an exception, gambling she could use her charm skills to get by the Luddite guard on the street despite the shortcomings of her disguise.
“Miss? Miss! I’m sorry, Miss. You canna go doon here.”
Inwardly, she cringed at the inappropriateness of the man’s address. One should never call a lady ‘Miss,’ after all. But since she was in disguise, she let the faux pas pass.
Instead she turned toward the guard, who had left his post at the corner and moved to intercept her. She smiled and activated her feminine skills.
“I have an appointment with Grisly, I do. Said I was s’posed to show at this very hour!”
She could imitate a variety of Umbrian accents, which varied widely, even down to certain city blocks in Ethinium.
Again, the lower classes were not ones she pretended relied on very often for disguises. But this man, just like his wealthier brethren in Parliament or those who were landed gentry, paid little attention to her voice. He was smitten by the sight of her. Even though she was dirty and dressed in threadbare clothes, he acted as if she was the most attractive woman he had even seen.
And, she probably was . . .
“I’m sorry, you canna go—”
“You mean I can’t go alone?” She shoved him gently on the chest. “Why, aren’t you a rake now! Pleased to meetcha. I’ll let y’take me to her, then.”
This threw the man for a moment, as he stopped to process what she said. When he realized she implied he was going to escort her to Griselda’s office, his face reddened.
“Oh, well, now, I . . .”
She slipped her arm through his and gently tugged him away from the corner.
“Come along. Show me where that office is, you big man, you.”
Reluctantly the guard walked with her down the street, abandoning his post.
On the other side of the intersection, Twig glanced sideways at Rip, standing beside him.
“Does it bother you she can do that to other men, mate? Manipulate them so easily like that, I mean.”
“Nope.”
Twig squinted at him and said, “Really? It would bother me, if she were mine.”
Rip shrugged.
“I know she’s play acting. I’ve seen her do it before. When we first met, it was in the bowels of the Gretna Green vault. She was screaming, acting all afraid of a steam worker who was trying to get to her while she was locked up in a cage. I took out the guy and opened the cage for her. She was miffed that I interrupted. She had a whole scheme planned out where he would open the door to get her and she would be the one knocking him out.”
Twig chuckled.
Rip smiled and said, “So, yeah. A little display like this doesn’t bother me. Come on, the coast is clear. Let’s get in there.”
Both men crossed the street and walked into unguarded Luddite territory. Blair had already diverted her mark into a nearby building. She led him inside like a sheep to slaughter.
“It doesn’t bother you that she’s now out of sight with that bloke?”
