She hadn't come to Shangri-La Station for the usual reasons.
A slight and frightened young woman, Jenna had lost the lean and supple dancer's grace which had been hers . . . God, was it only three days ago? It seemed a year, at least, for every one of those days, a whole lifetime since the phone call had come.
"Jenna Nicole," her aunt's voice had startled her, since Aunt Cassie hadn't called in months, not since before Jenna had joined the Temple, "I want to see you, dear. This evening."
The commanding tone and the use of her full name, as much as the unexpected timing, threw her off stride. "This evening? Are you serious? Where are you?" Jenna's favorite aunt, her mother's only sister, didn't live anywhere near New York, only appeared in the City for film shoots and publicity appearances.
"I'm in town, of course," Cassie Tyrol's famous voice came through the line, faintly exasperated. "I flew in an hour ago. Whatever you've got on your calendar, cancel it. Dinner, class, Temple services, anything. Be at Luigi's at six. And Jenna, darling, don't bring your roommate. This is business, family business, understand? You're in deep trouble, my girl."
Jenna's stomach clenched into knots. Oh, my God. She's found out! Aloud, she managed to say, "Luigi's at six, okay, I'll be there." Only a lifetime's worth of acting experience and the raw talent she'd inherited from the same family that had produced the legendary Jocasta "Cassie" Tyrol got that simple sentence out without her voice shaking. She's found out, what'll she say, what'll she do, oh my God, what if she's told Daddy? She wouldn't tell him, would she? Jenna's aunt hated her father, almost as much as Jenna did.
Hand shaking, Jenna hung up the phone and found Carl staring at her, dark eyes perplexed. The holographic video simulation they'd been running, the one they'd been thrown into fits of giggles over, trying to get ready for their grand adventure, time touring in London, flickered silently behind Jenna's roommate, forgotten as thoroughly as last summer's fun and games. Carl blinked, owl-like, through his glasses. "Nikki? What's wrong?" He always called her by her middle name, rather than her more famous given name—an endearing habit that had drawn her to him from the very beginning. He brushed Jenna's hair back from her brow. "Hey, what is it? You look like you just heard from a ghost."
She managed a smile. "Worse. Aunt Cassie's in town."
"Oh, dear God!" Carl's expressive eyes literally radiated sympathy, which was another reason Jenna had moved in with him. Sympathy was in short supply when your father was the John Paul Caddrick, the Senator everybody loved to hate.
Jenna nodded. "Yeah. What's worse, she wants me to meet her by six. At Luigi's, for God's sake!"
Carl's eyes widened. "Luigi's? You're kidding? That's worse than bad. Press'll be crawling all over you. Remind me to thank the Lady of Heaven for not giving me famous relatives."
Jenna glared up at him. "Some help you are, lover! And just what am I supposed to wear to Luigi's? Do you see any six-thousand-dollar dresses in my closet?" Jenna hadn't put on much of anything but ratty jeans since hitting college. "The last time I was seen in public with Aunt Cassie, she had on a blouse that cost more than the rent on this apartment for a year! And I still haven't lived down the bad press from that horrible afternoon!" She hid her face in her hands, still mortified by the memory of being immortalized on every television set and magazine cover in the country after slipping headlong into a mud puddle. "Cassie Tyrol and her niece, the mudlark . . ."
"Yep, that's you, Jenna Nicole, the prettiest mudlark in Brooklyn." Jenna put out her tongue, but Carl's infectious grin helped ease a little of the panic tightening down. He tickled her chin. "Look, it's nearly four, now. If you're gonna be in any shape to walk into Luigi's by six, with a crowd of reporters falling all over the two of you—" Jenna just groaned, at which Carl had the impudence to laugh "—then you'd better jump, hon. In case you hadn't noticed, you look like shit." Carl eyed her up and down, wrinkling his nose. "That's what happens when you stay out 'til four A.M., working on a script due at six, then forget to go to bed when you get back from class."
Jenna threw a rolled up sock at him. He ducked with the ease of a born dancer and the forlorn sock sailed straight through a ghostly, three-dimensional simulation of a young woman laced into proper attire for a lady of style, prim and proper and all set to enjoy London's Season. The Season of 1888. When Jenna's sock "landed" in the holographic teacup, while the holographic young lady continued smiling and sipping her now-contaminated tea, Jenna's roommate fell down on the floor, howling and pointing a waggling finger at her. "Oh, Nikki, three-point shot!"
Jenna scowled down at the idiot, who lay rolling around holding his ribs and sputtering with laughter. "Thanks, Carl. You're all heart. Remind me to lose your invitation to the graduation party. If I ever graduate. God, if Simkins rejects this script, I'll throw myself in the East River."
Carl chuckled and rolled over, coming to his feet easily to switch off the holoprojector they'd borrowed from the campus library. "Nah. You'll just film it, win an Oscar or two, and take his job. Can you imagine? A member of the Temple on faculty?"
Jenna grinned—and bushwhacked Carl from behind while he wasn't looking, getting in several retaliatory tickles. He twisted around and stole a kiss, which turned into a clutch for solid ground, because she couldn't quite bring herself to tell Carl the worst part of her news, that her aunt knew. Just how much Cassie knew remained to be seen. And what she intended to do about it, Jenna didn't even want to think about. So she just held onto Carl for a long moment, queasy and scared in the pit of her stomach.
"Hey," he said gently, "it isn't that bad, is it?"
She shook her head. "No. It's worse."
"Cassie loves you, don't you know that?"
She looked up, blinking hard. "Yes. That's why it's worse."
His lips quirked into a sad, understanding little smile that wrenched at Jenna's heart. "Yeah. I know. Listen, how about I clean up the place while you're out, just in case she wants to visit, then when it's over, I'll give you a backrub, brush your hair, pamper your feet, spoil you silly?"
She gave him a watery smile. "Lover boy, you got yourself a deal."
Then she sighed and stepped into the shower, where she could let the smile pour away down the drain, wishing the fear would drain away with it. Christ, what could she tell Aunt Cassie? She tried to envision the scene, quailed inwardly. Cassie Tyrol, cool and elegant and very Parisian, despite her New Hollywood accent and the ranch up in the hills, where Jenna had spent the happiest summers of her life—the only happy ones, in fact, until college and the Temple and Carl. . . . Aunt Cassie was not likely to take the news well. Not at all. Better, of course, than her father.
Two hours later, Jenna was still quailing, despite the outward charm of her smile for the maitre d' at Luigi's, the most fashionable of the restaurants owned by increasingly wealthy members of New York's leading Lady of Heaven Temple. It was little wonder her aunt had chosen Luigi's. Given Cassie's prominence in the New Hollywood Temple, she probably had a stakeholder's share in the restaurant's profits. Jenna's only aunt never did anything by halves. That included throwing herself into her latest religion or making money the way Jenna accumulated rejection slips for her screenplays.
The maitre d' greeted her effusively, by name. "Good evening, Ms. Caddrick, your aunt's table is right this way."
"Thank you." She resisted the urge to twitch at her dress. Carl had, while she showered and did her hair and makeup with the most exquisite care she'd used in a year, worked a genuine theatrical miracle. He'd rushed over to the theater department and liberated a costume which looked like a million bucks and had only cost a few thousand to construct, having been donated by some New Hollywood diva who'd needed a tax write-off. Jenna, who existed by her own stubborn insistence on a student's budget that did not include dinner at Luigi's or the requisite fashions appropriate to be seen there, had squealed with delight at his surprise.
"You wonderful idiot! If they'd caught you sneaking this out, they'd have thrown you out of college!"
"Yeah, but it'd be worth it, just looking at you in it." He ran his gaze appreciatively across her curves.
"Huh. This dress is a lot more glamorous than I am. Now, if I just had Aunt Cassie's nose, or cheekbones, or chin . . ."
"I like your nose and cheekbones and chin just the way they are. And if you don't scoot, you'll be late."
So Jenna had slid gingerly into the exquisite dress, all silken fringe and swaying sheik, and splurged on a taxi, since arriving on a bicycle in a ten-thousand-dollar dress simply would not do. Jenna followed the maitre d' nervously into the glitzy restaurant, aware of the stares as she made her way past tables frequented by New York's wealthiest Templars. She did her best to ignore the whispers, staring straight ahead and concentrating on not falling off her high-heeled shoes and damning her father for saddling her with the price of an infamous family face and name.
Then she spotted her aunt at a dim-lit corner table and swallowed hard, palms abruptly wet. Oh, God, she's got somebody with her and it's not her latest.
If this was family only . . . The only person it could be was a private detective. Cassie'd hired more than her share over the years. Jenna knew her style. Which meant Jenna was in really serious hot water. Worse, her aunt appeared to be absorbed in a violent argument with whoever it was. The dark circles under Cassie Tyrol's eyes shocked her. When Jenna reached the table, conversation sliced off so abruptly, Jenna could actually hear the echoes of the silence left behind. Her aunt managed a brittle smile as she stooped to kiss one expertly manicured cheek.
"Hello, Jenna, dear. Sit down, please. This is Noah Armstrong."
Jenna shook hands, trying to decide if the androgynous individual in a fluid silk suit beside her aunt was male or female, then settled for, "A pleasure, Noah." Living in New York for the past four years—not to mention a solid year plunged into Temple life—had been an education in more ways than one.
"Ms. Caddrick." Firm handclasp, no clue from the voice. Noah Armstrong's eyes were about as friendly as a rabid pit bull challenging all comers to a choice cut of steak.
Jenna ignored Armstrong with a determination that matched Armstrong's dark scowl, sat down, and smiled far too brightly as Cassie Tyrol poured wine. Cassie handed over a glass in which tiny motion rings disturbed the wine's deep claret glint. Jenna hastily took it from her aunt before it could slosh onto snowy linen.
"Well, what a surprise, Cassie." She glanced around the elegant restaurant, surreptitiously tugging at her short skirt to be sure nothing untoward was showing, and realized with a start of surprise there were no reporters lurking. "Gawd. How'd you manage to ditch the press?"
Her aunt did not smile. Uh-oh.
"This was not an announced visit," she said quietly. "Officially, I'm still in L.A."
Worse, oh, man, she's gonna let me have it, both barrels . . .
"I see. Okay," she sighed, resigned to the worst, "let's have it."
Cassie's lips tightened briefly. The redness in her eyes told Jenna she'd been crying a great deal, lately, which only added guilt to an already-simmering stew of fear and defensiveness. Jenna, wishing she could gulp down the wine, sipped daintily, instead, determined to maintain at least a facade of calm.
"It's . . ." Cassie hesitated, glanced at Noah Armstrong, then sighed and met Jenna's gaze squarely. "It's your father, Jenna. I've discovered something about him. Something you deserve to know, because it's going to wreck all our lives for the next year or so."
Jenna managed not to spray wine all over the snowy linen, but only because she snorted thirty-dollar-a-glass wine into her sinuses, instead. She blinked hard, eyes watering, wineglass frozen at her lips. When she'd regained control, Jenna carefully lowered the glass to the table and stared at her aunt, mind spinning as she tried to reassess the entire purpose for this clandestine meeting. She couldn't even think of a rejoinder that would make sense.
"Drink that wine," her aunt said brusquely. "You're going to need it."
Jenna swallowed hard, just once. Then knocked the wine back, abruptly wishing this meeting had been about her highly secret down-time trip with Carl, a trip they'd been planning for more than a year, to Victorian London, where she and her roommate planned to film the East End terror instilled by Jack the Ripper. They'd bought the tickets fourteen months previously under assumed names, using extremely well-made false identifications she and Carl had managed to buy from an underworld dealer in new identities. New York teemed with such dealers, with new identifications available for the price of a few hits of cocaine; but they'd paid top dollar, getting the best in the business, because Jenna Nicole Caddrick's new identity had to be foolproof. Had to be, if she hoped to keep the down-time trip secret from her father. And what her father would do if he found out . . .
Jenna had as many reasons to fear her world-famous father as she had to adore her equally famous aunt. Whatever Cassie was about to lay on her, it promised to be far worse than having her father discover she was going time-touring in the face of the elder Caddrick's ultimatums about never setting foot through any time terminal gate, ever. Voice tight despite her relief at the reprieve, Jenna asked, "Dad, huh? What's the son-of-a-bitch done now? Outlaw fun? He's outlawed everything else."
Noah Armstrong glanced sharply into Jenna's eyes. "No. This isn't about his career as a legislator. Not . . . precisely."
Jenna glanced into his—her?—eyes and scowled. "Who the hell are you, Armstrong? Where do you fit into anything?"
Armstrong's lips thinned slightly, but no reply was forthcoming. Not to her, at any rate. The look Armstrong shot Jenna's aunt spoke volumes, a dismissive, superior look that relegated Jenna to the realm of infant toddlers who couldn't think for themselves or be trusted not to piddle on the Persian carpets.
Jenna's aunt said tiredly, "Noah's a detective, hon. I went to the Wardmann Wolfe agency a few months ago, asked for their best. They assigned Noah to the case. And . . . Noah's a member of the Temple. That's important. More important than you can begin to guess."
Jenna narrowed her eyes at the enigmatic detective across the table. Wardmann Wolfe, huh? Aunt Cassie certainly didn't do things by halves. She never had, come to that. Whatever her father had done, it was clearly more serious than the occasional sex scandals which, decades ago, had rocked the careers of other legislators possessing her father's stature. A chill ran through her, wondering just what Daddy Dearest was involved in.
Cassie said heavily, "You remember Alston Corliss?"
Jenna glanced up, startled. "The guy in Sacred Harlot with you? Blond, looks like a fey elf, loves Manx cats, opera, and jazz dance? Nominated for an Oscar for Harlot, wasn't he? And still a senior at Julliard." Jenna had been impressed—deeply so—by her aunt's talented young co-star. And more than a little envious of that Oscar nomination. And with his good looks, Jenna had just about melted all over the theater seats every time he smiled. Guiltily, she remembered a promise to try and get Carl an autograph, via the connection with her aunt. "Wasn't there some talk of you starring in another film with him? Something about A Templar Goes to Washington, sort of a new take on that old classic film?
Her aunt nodded. "Alston wanted to spend a semester interning in Congress. Role research. I . . . I set it up, got him a job in your father's office. Asked him to snoop around for us. Find out things Noah couldn't, didn't have access to." Cassie Tyrol bit a well-manicured lip. "Jenna, he's dead."
"Dead?"
Cassie was crying, smudging her careful eye makeup into ruins. "Four hours ago. It hasn't hit the press yet, because the FBI's put a press blackout on it. I know because Noah dragged me out of my house, scared spitless because they'll come after me."
Jenna couldn't take this in. Alston Corliss dead, Cassie in danger? "But . . ." Nothing intelligent would form coherently enough to say anything else.
Noah Armstrong spoke quietly, with just a hint of anger far back in those piercing grey eyes. "Surely you've heard the scuttlebutt about people close to your father? To know Senator John Paul Caddrick is to inherit a tombstone?"
White-hot anger blazed at the crude insult, jolting her out of shock sufficiently to glare murderously at the detective. There were plenty of reasons to hate John Paul Caddrick, Senator from Hell. But murder wasn't by God one of them! Then she saw the sick, anguished pain in her aunt's eyes. Anger slithered to the floor in a puddle at her feet and Jenna was quite suddenly very cold inside.
Cassie Tyrol's lips trembled. "When we leave here, Jenna, we're going to the FBI. What Noah's found, what your father's been doing, who he's involved with and what they've been doing . . . it's got to be stopped. Noah didn't want me to tell you, Jenna, I sneaked away to call you, asked you to meet me here . . ."
She was crying harder, voice shaking. Shocked by her collapse into violent tremors, Jenna reached out, grasped her aunt's chilled fingers, held on tight. "Hey. It's okay," she said gently.
Cassie tightened her fingers around Jenna's, shook her head. "No," she choked out, "it isn't. You're his little girl. It's going to hurt you so much when all of this comes out. I thought you deserved to know. If . . ." she hesitated. "If you want to take off for Europe for a while, I'll pay for the tickets. Take Carl with you, if your roommate wants to go."
Jenna had to scrape her lower jaw off the table.
Cassie tried to smile, failed utterly. "You're going to need a friend, someone to protect you, while this is breaking loose, Jenna, and . . . well, your father and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. He's never approved of either of us joining the Lady of Heaven Temple or the food I eat or the men I divorced or the way I make my living, any more than he's ever approved of your friends or your choice of career. You're growing up, Jenna. Who you're friends with—or sleep with—is your business, not mine or his or anyone else's, and frankly, a blind man could see Carl's good for you, say what your father will. For one thing," she said bitterly, "you're standing up to that bastard for once in your life, insisting on a film career, and I know how much Carl's had to do with that. And I know what's in that bank box of yours. Frankly, I approve. It's why I'm sending him with you. I know he'll take care of you for me."
"What?" Jenna gasped. Cripes . . . Where did Aunt Cassie get her information from? But her concern was so genuine, Jenna couldn't even take offense at the invasion of privacy which her really serious snooping represented.
Cassie tried to smile, failed. "Don't be angry with me for prying, sweety, please. I'm just trying to look out for you. So." She slid an envelope across the table. "If you want to go, you can probably get out before the press gets wind of this. And don't go all stubborn and proud on me and tell me you've got to do things on your own. You think the press has been savage before? You have no idea how bad it's going to get, hon. They're going to crucify us. All of us. So take it, grab your passports, both of you, and get out of town. Okay, Jenna?"
She just didn't know what to say. Maybe that crazy scheme to get down time to film the Ripper terror wasn't so crazy, after all—and here was her aunt, handing Jenna enough cash to keep her hidden safely down time from the press corps for months, if necessary. Carl, too. Maybe they'd win that Kit Carson Prize in Historical Video, after all, with months to complete the filming, rather than a couple of weeks. The envelope she slid into her handbag was heavy. Thick, heavy, and terrifying. She poured another glass of wine and drank it down without pausing.
"Okay, Cassie. I'll go. Mind if I call Carl?"
Her aunt's attempt at a smile was the most courageous thing Jenna ever seen, braver and more real than anything her aunt had ever done in her presence. "Go on, Jenna. I'll order us dinner while you're gone."
She scooted back her chair and kissed her aunt's cheek. "Love you, Cassie. Be right back." She found the phones in the back beside the bathrooms and dug into her purse for change, then dialed.
"Hello?"
"Carl, it's Jenna. You're never going to believe—"
Gunfire erupted in stereo.
From the telephone receiver and the restaurant. Carl's choked-off scream, guttural, agonized, cut straight through Jenna. Rising screams out in Luigi's main dining room hardly registered. "Carl! Carl!" Then, as shock sank in, and the realization that she was still hearing gunfire from the direction of her aunt's table: "Cassie!" She dropped the receiver with a bang, ignoring its violent swing at the end of its cord. Jenna ran straight toward the staccato chatter of gunfire, tried to shove past terrified patrons fleeing the dining room.
Someone shouted her name. Jenna barely had time to recognize Noah Armstrong, elegant clothing covered in blood. Then the detective body-slammed her to the floor. Gunfire erupted again, chewing into the man behind Jenna. The wall erupted into splinters behind him. The man screamed, jerked like a murdered marionette, plowed into the floor, still screaming. Jenna choked on a ghastly sound, realized the hot, wet splatters on her face were blood. A booming report just above her ear deafened her; then someone snatched her to her feet.
"Run!"
She found herself dragged through Luigi's kitchen. Screams echoed behind them. The gun in Armstrong's hand cleared a magical path. Waiters and cooks dove frantically out of their way. At the exit to the alleyway behind the restaurant, Armstrong flung her against the wall, reloaded the gun with a practiced, fluid movement, then kicked the door open. Gunfire from outside slammed into the door. Jenna cringed, tried to blot from memory the sound of Carl's scream, tried desperately not to wonder where Aunt Cassie was and just whose blood was all over Armstrong's fluid silk suit.
More deafening gunfire erupted from right beside her. Then Armstrong snatched her off balance and snarled, "Run, goddamn you!" The next instant, they were pelting down an alleyway littered with at least three grotesquely dead men. All three were dressed like middle-easterners, wearing a type of headdress made popular during the late twentieth century by a famous terrorist turned politician, Jenna couldn't recall the name through numb shock. The detective swore savagely, stooped and snatched up guns from dead hands. "It figures! They showed up as Ansar Majlis!" Armstrong thrust one salvaged gun into a pocket, shoved the other two into Jenna's shocked hands with a steel-eyed glance. "Don't drop them! If I tell you to shoot, do it!"
Jenna stared stupidly at the guns. She'd used guns before, Carl's black-powder pistols, which he carried in action-shooting re-enactments, the ones stored in her bank box along with their time-touring tickets and the diamond ring she didn't dare wear publicly yet, and she'd fired a few stage-prop guns loaded with blanks. The guns Noah Armstrong shoved into her hands were modern, sleek, terrifying. Their last owners had tried to kill her. Jenna's hands shook violently. From the direction of Forty-Second Street, sirens began to scream.
"Come on, kid! Go into shock later!"
Armstrong jerked her into motion once more. She literally fell off her high-heeled shoes, managed to kick them off as she stumbled after Armstrong. They pelted down the alleyway and emerged into heavy traffic. Armstrong ran right in front of a yellow taxicab. The car screeched to a halt, driver cursing in a blistering tongue that was not English. Armstrong yanked open the driver's door and bodily tossed the cabby onto the street.
"Get in!"
Jenna dove for the passenger's door. She barely had her feet off the pavement before the car squealed into motion. Armstrong, whatever his/her gender, was a maniac behind the wheel of a car. If anyone tried to follow, they ended up at the bottom of a very serious multi-car pileup that strung out several blocks in their wake. Jenna gulped back nausea, found herself checking the guns with trembling fingers to see how much ammunition might be left in them, terrified she'd accidentally set one of them off. She'd never used any guns like these. She asked hoarsely, "Aunt Cassie?"
"Sorry, kid."
She squeezed shut her eyes. Oh, God . . . Cassie . . . Carl. . . . Jenna needed to be sick, needed to cry, was too numb and shocked to do either.
"It's my fault," Armstrong said savagely. "I should never have let her meet you. I told her not to wait at Luigi's for you, told her they'd trace her through that goddamned call to your apartment! I knew they'd try something, dammit! But Christ, an all-out war in the middle of Luigi's . . . with his own daughter and sister-in-law!"
Wetness stung Jenna's eyes. She couldn't speak, couldn't think. Her hands shook where she gripped the guns Armstrong had shoved at her.
"Forget Europe, kid," the detective muttered. "They're not gonna let you get out of New York alive. They hit your apartment, didn't they? Killed your fiancé? Carl, wasn't it?"
She nodded, unable to force any sound past the constriction in her throat.
Whoever Armstrong was, he or she could out-curse a rodeo rider. "Which means," the detective ended harshly, "they were going to hit you anyway, even if Cassie hadn't met you. Just on the chance she might have mailed it to you. And they had to kill Carl, in case you'd said something to him. God damn them!"
"Who's 'them'?" she managed to choke out, not quite daring to ask what Cassie might have mailed, but hadn't.
Armstrong glanced sidelong at her for just an instant, long enough for Jenna to read the pity in those cold grey eyes. "Your father's business associates. One royal bastard in particular, who's been paying off your father for years. And the goddamned terrorists they're bringing into the country. Right past customs and immigration, diplomatic fucking immunity."
Jenna didn't want to hear anything more. She'd heard all the slurs, the innuendo, the nasty accusations in the press. She hadn't believed any of it. Who would've believed such filth about her own father, for Chrissake, even a father as lousy as hers had been over the years? Jenna had learned early that politics was a dirty, nasty game, where rivals did their damnedest to smear enemies' reputations with whichever reporters they'd paid off that week. It was one reason she'd chosen to pursue a career in film, following her aunt's lead, despite her father's furious opposition. Oh, God, Aunt Cassie . . . Carl. . . . Her eyes burned, wet and swollen, and she couldn't get enough air down.
"Ever been time-touring, kid?" Armstrong asked abruptly.
"Wh-what?"
"Time-touring? Have you ever been?"
She blinked, tried to force her brain to function again. "No. But . . ." she had to swallow hard, "Carl and I, we were going to go . . . through TT-86, to London. Got the tickets and everything, used false ID to buy them, to keep it a secret . . ."
The taxi slewed around another corner, merged with traffic on Broadway, slowed to a decorous pace. "Kid," Armstrong said softly, "those tickets might just save your life. Because the only by-God way out of this city now is through TT-86. Where did you hide them? Do you still have the fake ID's you bought?"
She'd begun to shake against the cracked plastic of the taxi's front seat, was ashamed of the reaction, couldn't hide it. "Yeah, we've still—I've still—" she was trembling violently now, unable to block the memory of Carl's agonized screams. "Locked them up in . . . in my lock box . . ." The other secret hidden in that lock box brought the tears flooding despite her best efforts not to cry. Carl's ring, the one she couldn't wear openly, yet, not until she'd turned twenty-one, making her legally and financially independent of her hated father, lay nestled in the lock box beside the tickets.
Noah glanced sharply into her eyes. "Lock box? A bank box? Which bank?"
Jenna told him.
Twenty minutes later, after a brief stop at a back-alley stolen-clothes huckster for new clothes—something without blood on it—Jenna clutched the entire contents of her bank account—which wasn't much—and the false identification papers and tickets she and her secret fiancé had bought to go time-touring, a grand adventure planned in innocence, with dreams of making a film that would launch both their careers . . . and so much more. Jenna rescued the ring from the safe, too, still closed up its little velvet box that had once been Carl's mother's, wanting at least that much of Carl's memory with her.
She also carried a thick case which held Carl's two black-powder 1858 Remington Beale's pistols she'd kept in the vault, the heavy .44 caliber pistols Carl had carried during re-enactments of Gettysburg and First Manassas and the Wilderness campaigns, the ones he'd taught her to use, after he'd won that action-shooting match in up-state New York last month. The ones her father would've exploded over, had he known Jenna was keeping them in her bank box. Armstrong eyed the heavy pistols silently, that glance neither approving nor disapproving, merely calculating. "Do you have ammo for those?"
Jenna nodded. "In the bottom of the gun case."
"Good. We'll have to ditch this modern stuff before we enter TT-86. I'd just as soon be armed with something. How do you load them?"
Wordlessly, Jenna began loading the reproduction antique guns, but Noah's steel-cold voice stopped her. "Not yet."
"Why not?" Jenna demanded shrilly. "Just because it's illegal? My own father wrote those laws, dammit! It didn't stop . . ." Her voice shattered.
Noah Armstrong's voice went incredibly gentle. "No, that isn't it. We just won't be able to take loaded guns through TT-86's security scans. We can take them through as costume accessories, but not loaded and ready to fire. Tell me how to load them, and we'll do that the second we're on station."
Jenna had to steady down her thoughts enough to explain how to pour black powder into each cylinder and pull down the loading lever to seat bullets, rather than more traditional round balls, in each chamber of the cylinder, how to wipe grease across the openings to prevent flame from setting off the powder in adjoining chambers, how to place percussion caps . . . The necessity to think coherently helped draw her back from raw, shaking terror.
"They're probably going to figure out where we went," Armstrong said quietly when she'd finished. "In fact, they'll be hitting TT-86, too, as soon as possible." The detective swore softly. "Ansar Majlis . . . That's the key, after all, isn't it? After today, it's even money they'll hit her the next time Primary cycles. Part of their goddamned terrorist plan."
Jenna glanced up, asking the question silently.
"Those bastards at Luigi's were Ansar Majlis. Never heard of 'em? I wish to Christ I hadn't. Your aunt is—was—a prominent public supporter of the Lady of Heaven Temples. So are the owners of Luigi's. And half the patrons. The bastard behind that attack back there sent a death-squad of Ansar Majlis to do his dirty work for him. You've heard of Cyril Barris? The multi-billionaire? Believe me, kid, you don't want to know how he made all that money. And he can't afford to have your aunt's murder tied to him. Or to your father. Getting the Ansar Majlis involved makes goddamned sure of that. And those bastards have lined up another 'terrorist' hit, aimed right at the very soul of the Lady of Heaven Temples . . ."
Jenna gasped, seeing exactly where Armstrong was going with this.
The detective's glance was grudgingly respectful. "You see it, too, don't you, kid?"
Jenna truly, genuinely didn't want to know anything else about this nightmare.
Armstrong told her, anyway. Showed her the proof, sickening proof, in full color and stereo sound, proof which the elfin actor on the miniature computer screen in Jenna's hands had managed to give Armstrong before his death.
It killed what little respect for her father she'd still possessed.
* * *
In the year 1853, a stately man with a high forehead and thick, dark hair that fell down across his brow from a high widow's peak was inaugurated as the 14th US President under the name of Franklin Pierce. Armed conflict between Russia and Turkey heralded the beginning of the disastrous Crimean War. Further south, Britain annexed the Mahratta State of Nagpur, while in the British home islands, Charlotte Bronte published "Villette" and another writer on the opposite side of the Atlantic, American Nathaniel Hawthorne of Scarlet Letter fame, brought out the "Tanglewood Tales." Noted historian Mommsen wrote "A History of Rome" and the legendary impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh was born. European architecture enjoyed a renaissance of restoration as P.C. Albert began the rebuilding of Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and—across the English Channel—Georges Haussmann began the reconstruction of Paris with the Boulevards, Bois de Boulogne.
In New York, Mr. Henry Steinway began manufacturing fine pianos. On the Continent, Italian composer Verdi wrote his great operas Trovatore and La Traviata and German composer Wagner completed the text of the masterwork Der Ring des Nibelungen. Alexander Wood shot his first patient with a subcutaneous injection from a hypodermic syringe and Samuel Colt, that American legend of firearms design, revolutionized British small-arms manufacture with his London factory for machine-made revolvers.
In London, Queen Victoria ensured the increasing popularity of the previously little-trusted chloroform as a surgical anesthetic by allowing herself to be chloroformed for the birth of her seventh child. Britain established the telegraph system in India and made smallpox vaccinations mandatory by law. In America, the world's largest tree, the Wellingtonia gigantea, was discovered growing in a California forest. And in Middlesex Street, Whitechapel—otherwise known as Petticoat Lane, after the famous market which lined that cobbled thoroughfare—a child was born to Lithuanian immigrant Varina Boleslaus and English dock laborer John Lachley.
The child was not a welcome addition to a family of six subsisting on John Lachley's ten shillings a week, plus the shilling or two Varina added weekly from selling hand-crafted items made on her crocheting hook. In fact, in many parts of the world during that year of 1853, this particular child would have been exposed to the elements and allowed to die. Not only could its parents ill afford to feed the baby, clothe it, or provide an education, the child was born with physical . . . peculiarities. And in 1853, the East End of London was neither an auspicious time nor a hospitable place to be born with marked oddities of physique. The midwife who attended the birth gasped in horrified dismay, unable to answer every exhausted mother's first, instinctive question: boy or girl?
Statistically, the human gene pool will produce children with ambiguous genitalia once in every thousand live births, perhaps as often as once in every five hundred. And while true hermaphrodites—children with the genital tissues of both sexes—account for only a tiny fraction of these ambiguously genitaled infants, they still can occur once in every one million or so live human births. Even in modern, more culturally enlightened societies, surgical "correction" of such children during infancy or early childhood can give rise to severe personality disorders, increased rates of suicide, a socially inculcated sense of guilt and secrecy surrounding their true sexual nature.
In the year 1853, London's East End was an ethnically diverse, poverty-stricken, industrial cesspool. The world's poor clustered in overcrowded hovels ten and twelve to a room, fought and drank and fornicated with rough sailors from every port city on the globe, and traded every disease known to humanity.
Women carrying unborn children swallowed quack medical remedies laced with arsenic and strychnine and heavy metals like sugar of lead. Men who would become fathers worked in metal-smelting foundries and shipyards, which in turn poured heavy metals into the drinking water and the soil. Sanitation consisted of open ditches where raw sewage was dumped, human waste was poured, and drinking water was secured. In such areas, a certain percentage of embryos whose dividing cells, programmed with delicate genetic codes, inevitably underwent massive genetic and teratogenic alterations.
And so it was that in Middlesex Street, Whitechapel, in that year of 1853, after a protracted debate, many condemnations of a God who would permit such a child to be born, and a number of drunken rages culminating in beatings of the woman who had produced this particular unfortunate offspring, the child was named John Boleslaus Lachley and reared as a son in a family which had already produced four dowerless sisters. Because he survived, and grew to manhood in London's East End, where he was tormented into acquiring a blazing ambition and the means to escape, the infant born without a verifiable gender grew in ways no innocent should ever have to grow. And once grown, John Lachley made very certain that the world would never, ever forget what it had done to him.
On a quiet, rainy Saturday morning in the waning days of August, 1888, Dr. John Lachley, who had long since dropped the foreign "Boleslaus" from his name, sat in a tastefully decorated parlour in an exceedingly comfortable house on Cleveland Street, London, opposite his latest patient, and brooded over his complete dissatisfaction with the entire morning while daydreaming about his last encounter with the one client who would finally bring into his life everything his soul yearned to possess.
The room was cold and damp, despite the coal fire blazing in the hearth. August in London was generally a fine month, with flowers in bloom and warm breezes carrying away the fog and coal smoke and damp chill of early autumn with glorious blue skies and sunshine. But rain squalls and thunderstorms and an unseasonable chill had gripped the whole South of England for months, leaving arthritic bones aching and gloomy spirits longing for a summer that had seemed indefinitely postponed and then abruptly at an end before it had properly begun. John Lachley was tired of hearing the week's complaints, never mind those which had been lodged in all the previous weeks since winter had supposedly ceased to plague them.
He had little tolerance for fools and whiners, did John Lachley, but they paid his bills—most handsomely—so he sat in his parlour with the curtains drawn to dim the room and smiled and smiled at the endless parade of complainers and smiled some more as he collected his money and let his mind drift to remembered delights in another darkened room, with Albert Victor's hands and mouth on his body and the rewards of Albert Victor's social status firmly within his grasp.
He had been smiling steadily for the past hour or more, concealing his loathing for his current patient with an air of concerned understanding, while the bloody idiot of a Liverpudlian who'd appeared on his doorstep rambled on and endlessly on about his health, his illnesses, his medicines, his incessant chills and shaking hands, his itching skin and aching head . . .
It was enough to drive a sane man round the twist and gone. Which was where, in John Lachley's private opinion, this pathetic cotton merchant had long since departed. Hypochondria was the least of Mr. James Maybrick's woes. The fool daily swallowed an appalling amount of "medicinal" strychnine and arsenic in the form of powders prescribed by his physician, some doddering imbecile named Hopper, who should have known better than to prescribe arsenic in such enormous quantities—five and six doses a day, for God's sake. And as if that weren't enough, Maybrick was supplementing the powdered arsenic with arsenic pills, obtained from a chemist. And on top of that, he was downing whole bottles of Fellow's Syrup, a quack medicine available over any chemist's counter, liberally laced with arsenic and strychnine.
And Maybrick was so dull of mind, he honestly could not comprehend why he now suffered acute symptoms of slow arsenic poisoning! Grant me patience, Lachley thought savagely, the patience to deal with paying customers who want any answer but the obvious one. If he simply told this imbecile, "Stop taking the bloody arsenic!" Maybrick would vanish with all his lovely money and never darken Lachley's doorstep again. He would also, of course, die somewhat swiftly of the very symptoms which would kill him, anyway, whether or not he discontinued the poisonous drug.
Since the idiot would die of arsenic poisoning either way, he might as well pay Lachley for the privilege of deluding him otherwise.
Lachley interrupted to give Maybrick the one medication he knew would help—the same drug he gave all his patients before placing them into a mesmeric trance. Most people, he had discovered, could easily be hypnotized without the aid of drugs, but some could not and every one of his patients expected some spectacular physical sensation or other. His own, unique blend of pharmaceuticals certainly guaranteed that. Success as a mesmeric physician largely depended upon simple slight-of-hand tricks and the plain common sense of giving his patients precisely what they wanted.
So he mixed up his potent chemical aperitif, served in a glass of heavy port wine to help disguise the unpleasant flavor, and said, "Now, sir, drink this medicine down, then give me the rest of your medical history while it takes effect."
The drug-laced wine went down in two gulps, then Maybrick kept talking.
"I contracted malaria, you see, in America, trading for cotton shares in Norfolk, Virginia. Quinine water gave me no relief, so an American physician prescribed arsenic powder. Eleven years, I've taken it and the malaria rarely troubles me, although I've found I require more arsenic than I used to. . . . Poor Bunny, that's my wife, I met her on a return trip from Norfolk, Bunny worries so about me, dear child. She hasn't a brain in her pretty American head, but she does fret. God knows I have tried to gain relief. I even contacted an occultist once, for help with my medical disorders. A Londoner, the lady was. Claimed she could diagnose rare diseases by casting horoscopes. Told me to stop taking my medicines! Can you imagine anything more absurd? That was two years ago, sir, and my health has grown so alarmingly worse and Dr. Hopper is such a bumbling fool. So when I decided to visit my brother Michael, yes, that's right, Michael Maybrick, the composer, he publishes under the name Stephen Adams, I said to myself, James, you must consult a London specialist, your life is most assuredly worth the time and money spent, what with the wife and children. So when I saw your advert in The Times, Dr. Lachley, that you were a practicing physician and an occultist with access to the guidance of the spirit world for diagnosis of difficult, rare illnesses, and that you use the latest techniques in mesmeric therapies, well, I simply knew I must see you . . ."
And on, and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, about his nux vomica medications, his New York prescriptions that Dr. Hopper had so insultingly torn up . . .
John Lachley sat and smiled and thought If I were to jab my fingers into his larynx, I could put him on the floor without a sound, cut off his testicles, and feed them to him one bollock at a time. If he even has any. Must have, he said he'd fathered children. Poor little bastards. Might be doing them a favor, if I simply slit their father's throat and dumped his body in the Thames. Wonder what Albert Victor is doing now? Christ, I'd a thousand times rather be swiving Victoria's brain-damaged grandson than listening to this idiot. Dumb as a fence post, Albert Victor, but what he can do with that great, lovely Hampton wick of his . . . And God knows, he will be King of England one day.
A small, satisfied smile stole across John Lachley's narrow face. It wasn't every Englishman who could claim to have balled the future monarch of the British Empire. Nor was it just any Englishman who could tell a future king where to go, what to say, and how to behave—and expect to be slavishly obeyed. Stupider than a stick, God bless him, and John Lachley had him wrapped right around his finger.
Or rather, a point considerably lower than his finger.
Albert Victor, secretly bi-sexual outside certain very private circles, had been ecstatic to discover John's physical . . . peculiarities. It was, as they said, a match created in—
"Doctor?"
He blinked at James Maybrick, having to restrain the instantaneous impulse to draw the revolver concealed in his coat and shoot him squarely between the eyes.
"Yes, Mr. Maybrick?" He managed to sound politely concerned rather than homicidal.
"I was wondering when you might be able to perform the mesmeric operation?"
Lachley blinked for a moment, then recalled Maybrick's request to be placed in a mesmeric trance in order to diagnose his disease and effect a "mesmeric surgical cure." Maybrick was blinking slowly at him, clearly growing muzzy from the medication Lachley had given him.
"Why, whenever you are ready, sir," Lachley answered with a faint smile.
"Then you do think there is hope?"
Lachley's smile strengthened. "My dear sir, there is always hope." One can certainly hope you will pass into an apoplectic fit while in trance and rid the world of your unfortunate presence. "Lie back on the daybed, here, and allow yourself to drift with the medication and the sound of my voice." Maybrick shifted from the overstuffed chair where he'd spent the past hour giving his "medical history," moving so unsteadily, Lachley was required to help him across to the daybed.
"Now, then, Mr. Maybrick, imagine that you are standing at the top of a very long staircase which descends into darkness. With each downward step you take, your body grows heavier and more relaxed, your mind drifts freely. Step down, Mr. Maybrick, one step at a time, into the safe and comfortable darkness, warm and cozy as a mother's embrace . . ."
By the end of twenty-five steps, Mr. James Maybrick, Esquire, was in deep trance, having been neatly drugged into a state of not-quite oblivion.
"Can you hear my voice, Mr. Maybrick?"
"Yes."
"Very good. You've been ill, Mr. Maybrick?"
"Yes. Very ill. So many different symptoms, I can't tell what is wrong."
Nothing new, there. "Well, then, Mr. Maybrick, what is it that is troubling you the most, just now?"
It was an innocent question, completely in keeping with a patient suffering from numerous physical complaints. All he was really interested in was narrowing down which symptom troubled the fool the most, so he could place post-hypnotic suggestions in the man's drugged mind to reduce the apparent levels of that symptom, something he had done successfully with a score of other patients suffering more from hysteria and nervousness than real illnesses. He had been following the work of that fellow in Vienna, Dr. Freud, with considerable interest, and had begun a few experiments of his own—
"It's the bitch!"
John Lachley nearly fell backward out of his chair.
Maybrick, his drugged face twisting into a mask of rage, snarled it out. "She troubles me! The goddamned bitch, she troubles me more than anything in the world! Faithless whore! Her and her whoremaster! I'll kill them both, I swear to God, the way I killed that filthy little prostitute in Manchester! Squeezed the life out of her with my own hands, thinking of that bitch the whole time! Wasn't pleasurable, though, damn her eyes, I wanted it to be pleasurable! I'll squeeze the life out of that bitch, I swear I will, I'll cut her wide open with a knife, goddamn Brierly, fucking my own wife . . ."
Stunned, open-mouthed silence gripped John Lachley for long moments as he stared at the raving cotton merchant, for once completely at a loss as to how he ought to proceed. He'd never stumbled across anything even remotely like this homicidal fury. What had he said? . . . killed that filthy little prostitute in Manchester . . . squeezed the life out of her with my own hands . . . Lachley gripped the upholstered arms of his chair. Dear God! Should I contact the constabulary? This madman's murdered someone! He started to speak, not even sure what he was going to say, when a frantic knocking rattled the front door, which was situated just outside the closed parlour. John Lachley started violently and slewed around in his chair. In the hallway just outside, his manservant answered the urgent summons.
"Your Highness! Come in, please! Whatever is wrong, sir?"
"I must see the doctor at once, Charles!"
Prince Albert Victor . . . In a high state of panic, too, from the sound of it.
John Lachley glared furiously at the ranting cotton merchant on the daybed, who lay there muttering about ripping his wife open with a knife for sleeping with some arsehole named Brierly, about keeping a diary some servant had almost discovered, nearly ending in a second murder, and something about a room he'd rented in Middlesex Street, Whitechapel, so he could kill more filthy whores, and hated James Maybrick with such an intense loathing, he had to clench his fists to keep from shooting him on the spot. The crisis of his career was brewing outside and this homicidal maniac had to be dealt with first!
Outside, Charles was saying, "Dr. Lachley is with a patient, Your Highness, but I will certainly let him know you're here, immediately, sir."
Lachley bent over Maybrick, gripped the man's shoulders hard enough to bruise, hissed urgently, "Mr. Maybrick! I want you to be quiet now! Stop talking at once!"
The drugged merchant fell silent, instantly obedient.
Thank God . . .
Lachley schooled his features and stilled his hands, which were slightly unsteady, then crossed the parlour in two hurried strides, just as Charles knocked at the door.
"Yes, Charles? I heard His Highness arrive. Ah, Your Highness," he strode forward, offering his hand to the visibly distraught grandson of Queen Victoria, "welcome back to Tibor. You know my house is always open to you, whatever the time of day. Please, won't you come back to the study?"
Charles bowed and faded into the back of the house, his duty having been discharged. Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward was a tall, good-looking young man with an impressive dark moustache, a neck so long and thin he had to wear exaggeratedly high collars to disguise the deformity, and the dullest eyes John Lachley had ever seen in a human face. He was twisting expensive grey kidskin gloves into shreds. He followed Lachley down the corridor into the study with jerky, nervous strides. John closed the door carefully, guided his star client to a chair, and poured him a stiff shot of brandy straight away. Albert Victor, known as Eddy to his most intimate friends—and John Lachley was by far the most intimate of Eddy's current friends—gulped it down in one desperate swallow, then blurted out his reason for arriving in such a state.
"I'm ruined, John! Ruined . . . dear God . . . you must help me, tell me what to do . . ." Eddy gripped Lachley's hands in desperation and panic. "I am undone! He can't be allowed to do this, you know what will become of me! Someone must stop him! If my grandmother should find out—dear Lord, she can't ever find out, it would destroy her good name, bring such shame on the whole family . . . my God, the whole government might go, you know what the situation is, John, you've told me yourself about it, the Fenians, the labor riots, what am I to do? Threats—threats!—demands for money or else ruination! Oh, God, I am destroyed, should word leak of it . . . Disgrace, prison . . . he's gone beyond his station in life! Beyond the bounds of civilized law, beyond the protection of God, may the Devil take him!"
"Your Highness, calm yourself, please." He pulled his hands free of Eddy's grip and poured a second, far more generous brandy, getting it down the distraught prince's throat. He stroked Eddy's absurdly long neck, massaging the tension away, calmed him to the point where he could speak coherently. "Now, then, Eddy. Tell me very slowly just exactly what has happened."
Eddy began in a shaken whisper, "You remember Morgan?"
Lachley frowned. He certainly did. Morgan was a little Welsh nancy boy from Cardiff, the star attraction of a certain high-class West End brothel right here on Cleveland Street, a boulevard as infamous for its homosexual establishments as it was famous for its talented artists, painters, and art galleries. Hard on the heels of learning that his ticket to fame and fortune and considerable political power was banging a fifteen-year-old male whore on Cleveland Street, he had drugged Eddy into a state of extreme suggestibility and sternly suggested that he break off the relationship immediately.
"What about Morgan?" Lachley asked quietly.
"I . . . I was indiscreet, John, I'm sorry, it's only that he was so . . . so damned beautiful, I was besotted with him . . ."
"Eddy," Lachley interrupted gently, "how, exactly, were you indiscreet? Did you see him again?"
"Oh, no, John, no, I wouldn't do that, I haven't been with him since you told me to stop seeing him. Only women, John, and you . . ."
"Then what did you do, Eddy, that was indiscreet?"
"The letters," he whispered.
A cold chill slithered down John Lachley's back. "Letters? What letters?"
"I . . . I used to write him letters. Just silly little love letters, he was so pretty and he always pouted so when I had to leave him . . ."
Lachley closed his eyes. Eddy, you stupid little bastard!
"How many letters, Eddy?" The whiplash of his voice struck Eddy visibly.
"Don't hate me, John!" The prince's face twisted into a mask of terror and grief.
It took several minutes and a fair number of intimate caresses to convince the terrified prince that Lachley did not, in fact, hate him. When he had calmed Albert Victor down again, he repeated his question, more patiently this time. "How many letters, Eddy?"
"Eight, I think."
"You think? You must be certain, Eddy. It's very important."
Eddy's brow creased. "Eight, it must be eight, John, I saw him eight weeks in a row, you see, and I sent him a letter each week, then I met you and didn't need to see him any longer. Yes, it's eight letters."
"Very good, Eddy. Now, tell me what's happened to upset you so deeply about these eight letters."
"He wants money for them! A great deal of money! Thousands of pounds, John, or he'll send the letters to the newspapers, to the Scotland Yard inspectors who arrest men for crimes of sodomy! John, I am ruined!" Eddy covered his eyes with his hands, hiding from him. "If I don't pay him everything he wants . . ."
"Yes, yes, Eddy, he'll make the letters public and you will go to prison. I understand that part of the situation, Eddy, very thoroughly, indeed. Now then, how has he demanded payment? Where is the money to be delivered and who is to take it there?"
"You know I enjoy little jaunts in to the East End, occasionally, dressed as a commoner? So no one suspects my identity?"
Lachley refrained from making a tart rejoinder that Eddy was the only person in London fooled by those pitiful disguises. "Yes, what about your little trips?"
"I'm to take the money to him there, tomorrow night, alone. We're to meet at Petticoat Lane and Whitechapel Road, at midnight. And I must be there! I must! If I don't go, with a thousand pounds, he'll send the first letter to the newspapers! Do you realize what those newspapermen—what my Grandmother—will do to me?" He hid his face in his hands again. "And if I don't pay him another thousand pounds a week later, the second letter will go to the police! His note said I must reply with a note to him today, I'm to send it to some wretched public house where he'll call for it, to reassure him I mean to pay or he will post the first letter tomorrow."
"And when you pay him, Eddy, will he give you back the letters?"
The ashen prince nodded, his thin, too-long neck bobbing like a bird's behind the high collars he wore as disguise for the slight deformity, which had earned Eddy the nickname Collars and Cuffs. "Yes," he whispered, moustache quivering with his distress, "he said he would bring the first letter tomorrow night if he receives my note today, will exchange it for the money. Please, John, you must advise me what to do, how to stop him! Someone must make him pay for this!"
It took several additional minutes to bring Eddy back to some semblance of rationality again. "Calm yourself, Eddy, really, there is no need for such hysteria. Consider the matter taken care of. Send the note to him as instructed. Morgan will be satisfied that you'll meet him tomorrow with your initial payment. Lull him into thinking he's won. Before he can collect so much as a shilling of his blood money, the problem will no longer exist."
Prince Albert Victor leaned forward and gripped John's hands tightly, fear lending his shaking fingers strength. Reddened eyes had gone wide. "What do you mean to do?" he whispered.
"You know the energies I am capable of wielding, the powers I command."
The distraught prince was nodding. John Lachley was more than Eddy's lover, he was the young man's advisor on many a spiritual matter. Eddy relied heavily upon Dr. John Lachley, Physician and Occultist, touted as the most famous scholar of antiquities and occult mysteries ever to come up out of SoHo. And while most of his public performances—whether as Johnny Anubis, Whitechapel parlour medium or, subsequent to earning his medical degree, as Dr. John Lachley—were as fake as the infamous seances given by his greatest rival, Madame Blavatsky, not everything Dr. John Lachley did was trickery.
Oh, no, not by any means everything.
"Mesmerism, you must understand," he told Prince Albert Victor gently, patting Eddy's hands, "has been used quite successfully by reputable surgeons to amputate a man's leg, without any need for anesthesia. And the French are working the most wondrous marvels of persuasion one could imagine, making grown men crow like chickens and persuading ladies they have said and done things they have never said or done in their lives."
And in the parlour down the hall from this study, a homicidal Liverpudlian cotton merchant had just been spilling his darkest secrets under Lachley's considerable influence.
"Oh, yes, Eddy," he smiled, "the powers of mesmerism are quite remarkable. And I am, without modesty, quite an accomplished mesmerist. Don't trouble yourself further about that miserable little sod, Morgan. Contact him, by all means, promise to pay the little bastard whatever he wants. Promise him the world, promise him the keys to your grandmother's palace, for God's sake, just so long as we keep him happy until I can act. We'll find your letters, Eddy, and we'll get back your letters, and I promise you faithfully, before tomorrow night ends, there will be no more threat."
His oh-so-gullible, most important client gulped, dull eyes slightly brighter, daring to hope. "You'll save me, then? John, promise me, you will save me from prison?"
"Of course I will, Eddy," he smiled, bending down to plant a kiss on the prince's trembling lips. "Trouble yourself no more, Eddy. Just leave it in my capable hands."
Albert Victor was nodding, childlike, trusting. "Yes, yes of course I shall. Forgive me, I should have realized all was not lost. You have advised me so admirably in the past . . ."
Lachley patted Eddy's hands again. "And I shall continue to do so in future. Now then . . ." He walked to his desk, from which he retrieved a vial of the same medication he had given James Maybrick. Many of his patients preferred to consult with him in a more masculine and private setting such as his study, rather than the more public and softly decorated parlour, so he kept a supply of his potent little mixture in both locations. "I want you to take a draught of medicine before you leave, Eddy. You're in a shocking state, people will gossip." He splashed wine into a deep tumbler from a cut-crystal, antique Waterford decanter, stirred in a substantial amount of the powder, and handed the glassful of oblivion to Eddy. "Sip this. It will help calm your frayed nerves."
And leave you wonderfully suggestible, my sweet and foolish prince, for you must never recall this conversation or Morgan or those thrice-damned letters ever again. Eddy was just sufficiently stupid, he could well blurt out the entire thing some night after a drinking spree in the East End. He smiled as Eddy swallowed the drugged wine. Lachley's one-time public persona, Johnny Anubis, might have been little more than a parlour trickster who'd earned ready cash with the mumbo-jumbo his clients had expected—indeed, demanded. Just as his new clients did, of course.
But Dr. John Lachley . . .
Dr. Lachley was a most accomplished mesmerist. Oh, indeed he was.
He would have to do something about that drugged cotton merchant down the hall, of course. It wouldn't do to leave a homicidal maniac running about who could be associated with him, however innocently; but the man had mentioned an incriminating diary, so Lachley might well be able to rid himself of that problem fairly easily. A man could be hanged even for murdering a whore, if he were foolish enough to leave proof of the crime lying about. And James Maybrick was certainly a fool. John Lachley had no intention of being even half so careless when he rid the world of Eddy's blackmailing little Morgan.
His smile deepened as Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward leaned back in his chair, eyes closing as the drug that would leave him clay in Lachley's hands took hold, allowing him to erase all memory of that frightened, desperate plea:
Make him pay . . . !
Oh, yes. He would most assuredly make young Morgan pay.
No one threatened John Lachley's future and lived to tell the tale.
* * *
Senator John Paul Caddrick was a man accustomed to power. When he gave an order, whether to a senatorial aide or to one of the many faceless, nameless denizens of the world he'd once inhabited, he expected that order to be executed with flawless efficiency. Incompetence, he simply did not tolerate. So, when word that the hit he'd helped engineer at New York's exclusive Luigi's restaurant had failed to accomplish its primary objective, John Paul Caddrick backhanded the messenger hard enough to break cartilage in his nose.
"Imbecile! What the hell do you mean, letting that little bastard Armstrong get away? And worse, with my daughter! Do you have any idea what Armstrong and that vindictive little bitch will do if they manage to get that evidence to the FBI? My God, it was bad enough, watching Cassie turn my own daughter into a crusading, stage-struck fool! And now you've let her escape with enough evidence to electrocute the lot of us?"
The unfortunate lackey chosen to carry the bad news clutched at his nose. It bubbled unpleasantly as he whimpered, "I'm sorry, Senator, we sent six men to your daughter's apartment, ten into that restaurant! Who'd have figured Armstrong was such a slippery snake? Or that your kid would leave the table just before the hit went down?"
John Caddrick vented his rage with another backhand blow, then paced the dingy little hotel room, muttering curses under his breath and trying to figure out what that little bastard Armstrong would do next. High-tail it to the FBI? Maybe. But with Jenna Nicole in tow? Armstrong was good at disguises—as John Caddrick had discovered, much to his chagrin—but Jenna was instantly recognizable. If they tried to go anywhere near the New York FBI offices, the men he and Gideon Guthrie had hired would nail them. The trouble was, Armstrong was bound to realize that. No, that meddlesome bastard would attempt getting them both out of the city. But how? And where would the detective go? Armstrong was more than smart enough to know they'd be watching the bus stations, the airports, the car rental agencies, the ferry launches, anything and everything that offered a way out of the city.
Caddrick swore explosively again. Dammit! After everything he'd worked to achieve, with the timetable counting down to the final few days, along comes that goddamned, nosy bastard Armstrong. . . . He paused in his pacing. Armstrong knew that timetable, knew enough of it, anyway, to calculate their next major move. And the rat-assed little detective was a Templar, too, same as the senator's worthless daughter and now-deceased sister-in-law. If Armstrong and Jenna Nicole didn't try to rescue the next target slated to die, John Caddrick didn't know Templars.
"They'll go to TT-86," Caddrick muttered under his breath. "Get your butt onto that station with a hand-picked team. I want Armstrong dead."
"And your daughter?" the lackey quavered.
John Paul Caddrick shut his eyes, hating Cassie Tyrol for turning his daughter against him, for bringing her into this mess, for showing her the evidence. . . . And John Caddrick's employers would demand blood. At this stage, security leaks had to be plugged. Fast. Regardless of whose family got in the way. So he snarled out, "I won't by God let anybody screw this up. Not as close as we've come!"
Speaking through a handful of blood, the messenger asked, "Same M.O. as Luigi's?"
"Hell, yes!" He ran a distracted hand through his hair. "We've already got Ansar Majlis on station, thank God. Infiltrated 'em into that construction crew weeks ago. The second your team sets foot on that station, I want them activated. Major blowup. Whatever it takes to make it look good."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, don't just stand there, goddammit! Move!"
The lackey scrambled for the door.
John Caddrick yanked open the hotel room's wet bar and upended an entire, miniature bottle of scotch, then hurled the empty against the wall. The thing didn't even have the decency to shatter. It just bounced off. His ragged temper left a considerable hole in the drywall above the television set, along with a broken lamp and three overturned chairs. Damn that meddling detective! And God damn that brainless bitch, Cassie Tyrol! His only child . . . who'd never quite forgiven him for all the missed birthday parties and recitals and graduation ceremonies, stranded on the campaign trail or conducting Congressional business . . .
But there wasn't a stinking, solitary thing he could do to save his little girl. And once Jenna knew the truth, Caddrick's ungrateful wretch of a daughter would do whatever it took to see her own father behind bars. If he wanted to keep his butt out of the electric chair, he'd better make damned sure she died. And before this business was done, Noah Armstrong would bitterly regret having ever interfered in Caddrick's business. The senator ripped out another savage oath, then stalked out of the hotel.
Cassie had finally been paid in full for the trouble she'd caused.
All that remained now was to finish the job.
| Title: | Ripping Time |
| Author: | Linda Evans & Robert Asprin |
| ISBN: | 0-671-57867-7 |
| Copyright: | © 2000 by Linda Evans & Robert Asprin |
| Publisher: | Baen Books |