by Alex Archer
“Detective Inspector Beresford, please,” he said when his call was answered by the police operator at the other end of the line.
“Detective Inspector Beresford is on another line at the moment, sir. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No,” Roux replied. “I’ll hold. It’s urgent that I speak with him. Please tell him it’s about the Arkholme case.”
Music played for a moment or two and then the line was answered a second time.
“Beresford,” said a gruff and tired voice.
“My name is Roux, Inspector,” he began. “And I believe it is time that you and I had a short chat.”
40
Annja lurched upright in the hospital bed, her mind and body unaware of the time she’d spent unconscious so that they both thought she was still in the midst of the firefight, still in danger. Her hand curled around the nonexistent hilt of her great sword and suddenly it was there, swinging forward in an arc designed to disembowel her opponent.
Thankfully Roux had foreseen just such an occurrence and was standing off to one side, out of reach.
“Annja!” he called sharply.
His familiar voice brought her to full wakefulness and she glanced about, taking in her surroundings, noting Roux standing off to one side, prudently out of reach of her sword.
She was in a hospital; that much was obvious. An IV tube ran to her left arm, no doubt pumping glucose and other necessary fluids into her body in the wake of the battering she’d taken at the hands of the intruders who’d come for the torc. She also had a bandage around her head right at the hairline and another wrapped around her ribs. Her body beneath her hospital gown felt beaten and bruised, which was to be expected given what she’d been through, but her thoughts, now that she was awake, were surprisingly clear. She remembered the phone call from Roux, warning her to get out of the geologist’s offices before Shaw’s men arrived.
How had he known they were coming? she wondered, which then prompted another, perhaps more important, thought.
How deeply was he involved?
Annja kept her sword in hand, her gaze locked on Roux.
“What happened?” she asked.
Roux’s eyes narrowed slightly as he realized she was not putting her weapon away, but he didn’t say anything about it, simply answered her question instead.
“By the time Henshaw and I arrived, the mongrels who attacked you had fled, taking the torc with them. We managed to extricate you from the scene before the police arrived and brought you here.”
“And that is?”
“A private hospital outside of Paris. The kind of place that caters to those who do not wish to have their business aired in public.”
She hated to ask, but she had to know. “Sebastian?”
Roux shook his head.
Annja knew what that meant and vowed she’d take the time to properly grieve her new friend when all this was over.
For now, though, she still had to get to the bottom of things.
Watching Roux carefully, she said, “You knew they were coming.”
It was more a statement than a question, but Roux answered it as if it were the latter.
“I was offered a chance to bid on an artifact, one that might have some unusual powers attributed to it. As I dug into the offering, it became clear that the man running the auction, David Shaw, was up to something untoward and I made it my mission to find out what that was. By the time I discovered the connection between you, the torc and Shaw’s activities, it was almost too late. I warned you as quickly as I could and then did my best to extract you from the situation.”
He was telling the truth. She could feel it in her bones, could sense his honest concern for her and what she’d been through. The fact that she’d doubted him at all now seemed ludicrous.
She released the sword, letting it disappear back into the otherwhere, to wait for her next time of need.
She seemed to be having them a lot lately.
Roux stepped forward, coming over to her bedside. “The doctor said you should drink this when you woke up,” he said, handing her a glass.
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously, her discomfort with doctors and hospitals showing through.
Roux smiled. “It’s just water, Annja. Nothing more sinister than that.”
She smiled back at him, the initial awkwardness between them already forgotten. She took the glass and it was only when she held its cool surface in her hands that she realized how thirsty she was. The water soothed her parched throat and she drank two more before she was finished.
When she’d had enough, she said, “This guy, Shaw. Do you know how to find him?”
She asked the question in a casual tone, but Roux knew her extremely well. There was nothing casual in her desire to know the answer.
“At the moment, no, but I have people working on that. Unfortunately, we have a much bigger problem on our hands.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “And that is?”
Before he could answer, there was a knock at the door.
Annja glanced at Roux, her mind already halfway to calling the sword to her side, but he shook her off, gesturing that she cover herself up with the blanket.
As she did so, the door opened, revealing a short, stocky man with gray hair standing in the doorway. His shirt and suit had been well-pressed at the start of his shift, but since that was forty-eight hours ago, he was starting to look a bit worse for wear. Annja knew this because she’d seen him in the same suit the night before, giving a press conference regarding the events in Arkholme.
Detective Inspector Ian Beresford looked them over, then stepped into the room.
“It’s good to see you still alive, Miss Creed,” he said, his voice much deeper than it sounded on television. Without waiting for an answer, he turned to her companion and said, “You must be Roux.”
To her surprise Roux stepped forward and shook the detective’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Detective Inspector. I appreciate your willingness to meet with us on such short notice.”
Beresford’s face was a carefully controlled mask as he said, “You made a persuasive argument for doing so, Mr. Roux.”
Roux’s smile didn’t falter as he automatically corrected the other man. “It’s Roux, just Roux.”
“Indeed,” Beresford replied. “How interesting.”
“If you two are done fencing with each other,” Annja said, “maybe one of you could tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I’d like to hear that, as well,” Beresford said.
Roux pointed at the chair in the corner. “Why don’t you have a seat, Inspector? I have a hunch that this will take a while.”
IT TOOK MORE than an hour, as it turned out. Roux began the process, telling them how he’d been approached as a potential buyer for a rare Celtic artifact that had been unearthed by what he had been told was a private collector on private property. That wasn’t exactly the truth, but ally or not, Roux had no intention of telling a police inspector that he’d been breaking the law right from the very start. That was one detail that he had no qualms about leaving out. Annja went next, describing the attack at the Arkholme dig site and the ruthless way in which her colleagues had been cut down with gunfire. She told them how she’d managed to survive when the others did not and then of the two subsequent attacks by armed men, all with the same peculiar tattoo that she’d seen on the intruders at the dig site.
Beresford joined the tale at that point, confirming Annja’s guess that the gunmen were members of the armed insurgency group known as the Red Hand Defenders and then gave a little background information on the group’s motives and membership.
That cleared a few things up in Roux’s mind, particularly what Shaw intended to do with the portable nuclear device he’d bought from Perchenko, and he filled the others in on his activities the night before and what he suspected they meant in the overall scheme of things.
Beresford listened carefully as the story unfolded, lett
ing each of them speak and only occasionally interrupting to ask a question if he didn’t understand something. It was only when Roux mentioned Perchenko by name that Beresford acted surprised.
“Ivan Perchenko? The arms dealer?”
Roux nodded. “Acting on some information I received, I followed Shaw last night and witnessed him buying a piece of what I took to be surplus military equipment from Perchenko.”
“Do you have any idea what that equipment might be?” the detective asked.
Annja wasn’t surprised when Roux said, “I do,” but she was shocked to hear what he had to say next.
“Suspecting something was amiss, I decided to question Perchenko myself. After some conversation, he revealed to me that he sold Shaw a Cold War–era RA-115, which, in plain English, is a man-portable nuclear device, or suitcase nuke.”
Roux’s revelation stunned them into silence, but only for a moment.
“Is the device operational?” Beresford asked, leaning forward in his chair, practically vibrating with tension as he did so. “And is Perchenko still able to answer questions on the subject?”
“Perchenko thought he’d pulled a fast one over on Shaw. The device had been rendered inert by the Soviet military years before and he found it remarkably funny that Shaw had been willing to pay for a piece of equipment that was useless without the plutonium necessary to activate it.”
Beresford visibly relaxed as Roux continued.
“Figuring the authorities might be interested in hearing what he had to say for themselves, I left Perchenko and his bodyguard securely locked in the basement of a facility outside of Paris late last night.”
Annja couldn’t believe what she was hearing! From what she’d put together, it looked like this guy Shaw was clearly a member of the Red Hand Defenders, possibly even their leader. She’d thought the torc’s mystical properties were what made it so attractive to the organization, but now she understood that it was much more down to earth than that. Apparently it was the torc’s plutonium base that was of interest to them and not its alleged mystical qualities!
“I’m not sure I want to know what it took to ring that admission out of him,” Beresford told Roux, “but I guess I should thank you for your efforts. CT Command has been watching Perchenko closely for the past few years and hasn’t been able to pin anything definitive on him. With your testimony, we should be able to put him away for a good number of years.”
But Roux shook his head. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for that, Detective Inspector.” He turned. “Annja, would you be good enough to share what you learned about the torc before it was taken from you?”
Beresford turned to face her, a look of confusion on his face. Clearly he didn’t understand where this was going.
It’s only going to get worse, she thought.
She did as she was asked, telling him about the tests they’d run using the mass spectrometer in Cartier’s office and how those tests had shown that the torc was mostly composed of a type of plutonium that did not exist naturally on earth. How Shaw had known about it, she didn’t know, but it now seemed clear to her that it was the nature of the necklace that had attracted him to it in the first place.
Beresford’s face got more and more pale as she spoke, until he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Perhaps, like Scrooge, he was seeing the ghosts of things to come. The idea that a working nuclear device had fallen into the hands of the Red Hand Defenders, an organization that hadn’t shied away from targeting Catholic schoolteachers and postal workers, for heaven’s sake, was nearly unthinkable.
It also raised another, vital question.
What were they going to do about it?
41
In the wake of Annja’s announcement, silence filled the room as they all considered the implications of what had just been revealed. A group with a known hatred for British rule was in possession of what they considered to be a working nuclear device. The dangers that presented were staggering.
Even worse, however, was what Beresford said next.
“There’s nothing we can do. We have no proof.”
Annja, who’d pulled on a robe and gotten out of bed to pace back and forth with tired little strides of her aching body, whirled to face him.
“Nothing you can do?” she repeated. “Are you insane? Call out the freakin’ army, for heaven’s sake! Terrorists have a nuclear bomb and for all we know they’re getting ready to use it against the city of London!”
Clearly agitated, Beresford rose and shouted at her in response. “It doesn’t matter, Miss Creed. This is a country of laws! We don’t bend them to suit our needs like your country tends to do! All I have right now are statements from the two of you, which, in a court of law, will be practically useless. Need I remind you that you’re a potential suspect in a multiple homicide?
“Never mind that your companion here,” he said, pointing at Roux with his thumb, “has all but admitted to kidnapping and holding the principal subject against his will. The magistrate will throw the case out of court before I can even get a word in edgewise!”
Roux’s brow furrowed and Annja knew he was trying to reconcile his fifteenth-century ideas of right and wrong with the modern legal code. “Would it help if I gave you a written record of the discussion I had with Mr. Perchenko? Would that convince you?”
Beresford held up a hand, visibly trying to get his emotions under control. When he had, he turned to face them both. “You don’t need to convince me, Roux. Nor you, Annja. I believe you both. Who would make up a story as crazy as this. It’s so ludicrous that I’ve got no choice but to believe it. But that’s not the problem.”
Annja understood immediately and tried to explain it to Roux. “Detective Inspector Beresford also has to convince those above him in the chain of command that there is an urgent threat, and if the only proof he has at his disposal is our word, then he’ll be hard-pressed to make anyone listen.”
“Quite right, Miss Creed.”
Annja had never wanted to be more wrong in her entire life. “There has to be something we can do,” she insisted. “We can’t let Shaw just disappear with a tactical weapon like that. We have to stop him!”
Beresford nodded his agreement. “I’ll do what I can to sound the alarm. Someone, somewhere, has to listen to me. But at the moment my hands are tied until I get that official go-ahead. Shaw runs a multi-million-dollar corporation. The powers that be aren’t going to take kindly to me accusing him of being the mastermind behind an Irish terrorist group, never mind one with a bomb that big and that scary.”
“Perhaps there is something we can do in the meantime,” Roux suggested.
Beresford shrugged. “Talk to me. As the Americans say, I’m all ears.”
THEIR FIRST ORDER of business was to figure out where Shaw’s henchmen had taken the torc. That, at least, was something Beresford could work on without waiting for approval from those higher up the food chain. He didn’t waste any time getting in touch with the French authorities in charge of the crime scene at Cartier’s office and suggesting, one detective to another, that they be on the lookout for two dark-colored vans that left the scene just before law enforcement officers arrived. When asked what he knew about the incident, Beresford said that it appeared to be related to a series of previous incidents under investigation by New Scotland Yard and promised he’d be in touch later with more information. That seemed to satisfy them and he was confident that they’d let him know if and when they found anything. He then called his partner, Clements, and ordered him to place Shaw’s home and The Vanguard offices in London under a round-the-clock observation, citing a link to the Arkholme case as justification.
Given that no one expected Shaw to remain in France, they turned their attention to getting out of the country and back to England. Beresford suggested taking Annja into protective custody and bringing her across the Channel as an official “guest” of the Metropolitan Police Service, but doing so would require the cooperation of the French authorities,
who might then want to question her in connection with the Cartier homicide. None of them were ready to let Annja’s involvement in that situation become public knowledge yet, as doing so might tip Shaw to the fact that a witness to both the initial attack and the killing of Sebastian Cartier still lived. Right now Shaw wasn’t looking for her, no doubt believing that she perished along with Cartier, but that would change rather quickly if he learned that she was alive and talking with the police.
While they were still debating their options, Annja’s doctor arrived for his afternoon rounds. Dismissing the other men from the room, the doctor gave her a thorough examination, paying close attention to the cut on her head and the injury to her ribs. He removed the bandage from her head, cleaned the wound with some antiseptic gel and then covered it up again with a fresh bandage. When he was finished, he turned his attention to her ribs. Unwrapping the bandages let her know she was more sensitive that she’d realized.
“Tell me if this hurts,” he told her, and then gently pressed against her rib cage with one hand.
Pain went off like a supernova in her head, blacking out the room and everything in it. When she came back to herself, she found him standing over her, a look of concern on his face.
“Definitely yes, that hurt you, I see.”
She nodded weakly.
“You have several cracked ribs and some serious blunt-trauma damage to your torso,” he said as he removed the IV line and taped a bandage over the slight puncture it left behind. “Unfortunately, other than wrapping it up again, there’s not much we can do for it. It will heal, but it’s going to take time. I’d suggest several weeks of nothing more strenuous than bed rest,” he told her. “Though, based on your reputation, I’d say I’d be lucky if you stayed off your feet for a day.”
Annja smiled weakly in his direction, not bothering to contradict him. She’d be lucky if she could get even another four hours, but she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that.
When the doctor left she hobbled into the bathroom and took a shower, wanting to be rid of the stink of blood, cordite and plaster dust that surrounded her.
