by Simon Hawke
"I feel like a damn pervert," said Delaney, pulling back from the peephole to let Cobra have a look. The agent put his eye to the peephole and remained there, saying nothing.
"Look, I'll tell you what," said Finn. "One of us has got to find a way to get to Richelieu. You stay here and cover the king. I'll go back and figure out a way to get past those guards outside the queen's chambers. I'll see if I can't get Sparrow to distract them. Okay?"
Cobra did not reply, being intent upon observing Louis.
Finn nudged him. "You hear what I said?"
"Yeah," said Cobra. "I never saw anyone put a beauty mark there before." He looked away from the peephole. "Try to get through to the cardinal's chambers if you can. Don't kill anyone unless you absolutely have to."
"I've done this sort of thing before, you know," said Finn.
"Sorry. I guess I'm just on edge. Good luck, Delaney."
"Same to you."
Finn moved quickly back down the passageway, heading toward the queen's bedroom. Anne was seated at her writing table, with "Constance" by her side. The queen was wringing her hands and working herself up into an agitated state.
"Oh, Constance, Constance, I was such a fool" she was saying, as Finn put his eye to the peephole. He saw that the queen's back was to the panel behind which he stood. If he opened it a crack, he might be able to attract Sparrow's attention and signal her to get the queen out of the way for a moment or two.
"Be strong, Your Majesty," said Sparrow. "Have faith, D'Artagnan will return with the diamond studs, I'm sure of it."
"But suppose that he does not return," the queen said, "or suppose that he does not return in time? Richelieu knows everything! Think of all the obstacles he must have set in your Gascon's path! The cardinal is out to ruin me! Oh, how I despise that man!"
Finn eased the panel open just a crack and tried to catch Sparrow's eye. The queen was only yards away from him, so he could not risk making any noise. He could only hope that the agent would glance in his direction. As he stuck his head out, the door to the queen's bedroom opened and Germain stumbled in.
"Germain!" said Constance, "how dare you enter without knocking! You know that the-"
Germain fell face down upon the floor. A dagger protruded from between his shoulder blades. Anne let out a shriek and fainted. Sparrow bolted through the door. Finn opened the panel and barreled out into the room, following hard on Sparrow's heels.
As Milady plunged the dagger into Germain's back, Taylor seized control. Furiously, Milady tried to subdue him and, for a moment, they were at an impasse, each personality struggling to dominate the other.
Germain sank to his knees, hands clawing for the dagger in his back. He could not reach it. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Milady standing there, rooted to the spot, eyes glazed over, shaking as if with St. Vitus's dance. He crawled forward on his hands and knees, trying to cry out, to call the guards, but all that would escape his lips was a strangled gasping for breath. He struggled to his feet, backing away from Milady, who stood there quivering, seemingly entranced, her fingers hooked like the talons of some predatory bird, clutching at the air. It took his last ounce of strength to reach the queen's bedroom door. As Germain opened it, he died.
Taylor stood in the center of the room, drenched in perspiration, breathing heavily. He was dizzy and his head felt as though it had been squeezed in a vice, but he had won. His hands were shaking and he fought to calm himself, to steady his frazzled nerves. He took a deep breath and reached into the pocket of his cloak for the transmitter that would trigger the tiny, but immensely powerful, explosive charges hidden within the synthetic diamond studs now in the cardinal's possession. It wasn't even necessary for them to be on his person. The blast would take out the entire wing of-
The door flew open and a young woman burst into the room, holding a laser in her hand. As she fired, Taylor threw himself to one side. The tiny transmitter fell to the floor. As she fired a second time, Taylor rolled and pulled out his own laser and shot Sparrow, who never had a chance to fire a third time. Finn threw open the door. Taylor raised his weapon and fired again, but Finn ducked back out of the way in the nick of time and the deadly beam passed by him. Sparrow crawled forward, reaching for the transmitter. Her hand closed around it.
"Guards!" shouted Taylor, getting quickly to his feet. "Guards!"
The two men stationed outside the queen's chambers responded immediately and rushed in. As Finn glanced out from behind the door, hoping to get off a shot, Taylor quickly pointed at him and said, "An assassin! Save the queen!"
The guards drew their rapiers and ran forward as Delaney slammed the door, cursing. As the guards pounded at the door, Taylor moved toward Sparrow, who had died clutching the transmitter in her hand. As he started to bend over, he felt Milady surfacing within him once again. He froze, doubled over, trying to force her down, to stay in control.
"Run, Adrian, " she said. "Run, save yourself! "
"No!"
"Run, I said!"
The door flew open and one of the guards was knocked off his feet as Delaney engaged the other with his rapier, still holding his laser in his other hand and trying to get off a shot at Taylor.
Milady ran.
Finn fired, but missed Taylor and got the guard who was getting back up off the floor. The other guard froze at the sight of the laser beam and Finn took advantage of his astonishment to smash the handguard of his rapier into the man's face. The guard crumpled to the floor.
He ran to Sparrow's side, saw that she was dead, then noticed the tiny box she clutched in her hand. He pried her fingers away from it and carefully put it in his pocket, then ran after Taylor.
As she ran down the corridor, Milady kept glancing over her shoulder. She was almost to the end of the corridor when she looked back and saw Delaney coming after her. She stopped, raised her weapon, and fired wildly. Delaney dropped to the floor and rolled, but as he raised his own weapon, Milady turned the corner-
— and ran right into Lucas Priest. They both fell to the floor and Milady lost her grip upon her laser. Seeing her drop the weapon, Andre was on her in an instant. For a moment, they rolled around, thrashing like wrestlers as Milady screamed hysterically, raking Andre's face with her fingernails, going for the eyes. Andre grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her head against the floor, once, twice, three times. Milady went limp and Andre quickly patted her down, searching for other weapons.
Finn arrived upon the scene to see Lucas standing over Andre, holding both his and Milady's weapons as Andre searched her.
"Dead?" he said.
"Alive," said Lucas, "but out cold. Were we in time?"
Finn took a deep breath. "Just barely," he said. He looked up. "We've got company."
Guards were running toward them from both ends of the hall, rapiers drawn.
"I left one guard dead back there and one unconscious. If he comes to, we're going to be in a lot of trouble."
"Perhaps not," said Andre, rising to her feet. She held a piece of paper in her hand.
As the cardinal's guards ran up, Lucas quickly hid the lasers and drew his rapier. "We're going to have to bluff our way through," he said.
"What is this? What's going on?" said a lieutenant in the cardinal's guard, arriving at the head of a group of five men. They were joined at once by six other guards who had come running from the opposite end of the hall. They were surrounded. The lieutenant glanced at Lucas, frowning. "Captain?" he said. "Do I know-"
"It's all right," said Andre, approaching him. "These men are with me."
Finn and Lucas exchanged quick, uneasy glances.
"And who are you? What have you done with this woman? Speak and be quick about it!"
"This woman is an English spy," said Andre. "This man," she indicated Finn, "is an agent of the cardinal who has been working with us to unmask her. This will explain," she said, handing the paper to the officer.
The lieutenant opened the paper and read aloud, "It is by my o
rder that the bearer of this paper has done what has been done. Richelieu."
Finn quickly picked up his cue. "These two officers had arrested this spy and were conducting her to the Bastille when she tried to escape. As you can see by this man's face," he indicated Andre's scratches, "she became very violent and had to be subdued."
"We will take charge of her now, Lieutenant," Lucas said. "You and your men are to be commended for being so alert and responding so quickly. I will be sure to tell the cardinal. What is your name?"
"Lieutenant Bernajoux."
"Good work, Bernajoux. I will include your name in my report to the cardinal. This could mean a promotion for you."
"Thank you, Captain! Thank you very much, indeed!"
"Don't mention it. You're a good man. And now that you and your men have helped us to get things under control, we can go about our business with our prisoner and you can return to your posts."
"Yes, sir!" The lieutenant looked around at the other guards. "Well? You heard the captain. We've got matters well in hand. Go back to your posts!"
The lieutenant saluted Lucas, turned smartly on his heel, and marched off with the other guards.
"That was pretty quick thinking," Finn said to Andre.
She grinned. "With you two, one learns to think quickly." She tapped the paper that Bernajoux had handed back to her. "This helped a great deal. I will never regret having learned to read and I am thankful that Reese Hunter took so much trouble in furthering my education to prepare me for this time. I will miss him."
"So will we," said Lucas, remembering how Hunter had saved their lives on their last mission. And now, through Andre, he had helped them once again.
Finn picked up the unconscious Milady. "I think we'd better get while the going is good," he said.
"I'm with you," said Lucas. "Let's head back to the safehouse. We can commandeer a carriage."
As they started walking down the hall, Finn, carrying Taylor in his arms, chuckled.
"I just remembered something," he said. "I left Cobra in a secret passageway, watching the king preen bareass before his mirror."
"Getting him out might prove to be a problem," Lucas said.
"Yeah, his problem," said Delaney. "I think we'll just let him sweat it out."
EPILOGUE
It felt good to be back in the comfortable green transit fatigues and relaxing in the First Division lounge at TAC-HQ. Major Forrester was buying, but he did not insist upon their drinking Red Eye, so Finn and Lucas were sipping Irish whiskey and Andre was having her first taste of unblended Scotch. She was still numb from future shock and she couldn't tear her eyes away from the huge window that looked out over the Departure Station. Everything that she had seen so far exceeded her wildest expectations. She felt very small and insignificant.
"Cobra got out that night," Finn was saying. "Fortunately, he still had a comset on him, so they were able to contact him from the safehouse and tell him that it was all over; otherwise, who knows how long he might've been there." Delaney chuckled. "He waited until Anne was asleep. After seeing what had happened to Germain, the poor woman was up half the night. The palace must have been a regular circus after we # left. Anyway, Cobra waited until the queen fell asleep, and then he snuck out and stole some of her clothes, bundled himself up in one of her traveling cloaks, and got out of the palace passing as a lady in waiting." Finn laughed. "He's got initiative, I'll say that much for him."
"What happened to Taylor?" said Forrester.
"Sad case," said Lucas. "When he came to, or rather, when she came to, she denied knowing anything about anyone named Adrian Taylor. We didn't believe it at first, but it wasn't long before it became obvious that Taylor had completely lost his… her mind. She really believed that she was the Countess de Winter."
"Which gave Cobra the idea to dispense some Draconian justice," Finn said. "When D'Artagnan made it back in time to deliver the diamond studs to the queen so that she could wear them to the ball, Richelieu was forced to make a gesture and give her Taylor's two synthetic studs as a present, in addition to the twelve studs she already owned. Those explosives might have been harmless without the transmitter to trigger them, but Cobra sent a female agent in to join the queen's handmaidens and steal them. Probably a good thing, they would have made a hell of a bang if they ever went off.
"Sparrow was dead, of course, and unfortunately that meant that the TIA had to kill the real Constance Bonacieux, who would have been murdered by the real Milady in any case. Cobra said that she died painlessly while unconscious, but just the same, it was a messy business." Finn sighed and took a long drink. "In a way, Cobra followed the original scenario. He had us turn Milady over to the musketeers."
"They took her to Lille," said Lucas, "where Athos had been the Count de la Fere before he joined the musketeers and the real Milady, Charlotte Backson, had once been his countess. We took part in her trial, for the murder of Constance Bonacieux, among other things, and she was predictably found guilty. Athos turned her over to the executioner of Lille and had her beheaded. She believed she was Milady right up to the very end."
"After that," said Finn, "all that remained was to tie up some loose ends, not the least of which was clocking ahead a few years and altering the memoirs of M. D'Artagnan to make certain changes and delete any references to a couple of soldiers of fortune named Francois D'Laine and Alexandre Dumas. In a way, I'm sorry about that. I wonder how Dumas would have felt if he had seen his own name mentioned in D'Artagnan's memoirs?"
Forrester nodded. "Well, it was a close call," he said, "but you pulled it off. There will have to be some ongoing adjustment monitoring, but you've done your job. I think you can expect another promotion, Priest, and as for you, Delaney, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that the review board took your performance on the mission into consideration and they dropped the charges against you. The officer concerned lodged a formal protest which will go on your record, I'm afraid, but then, considering what your record looks like, I don't think that one more breach of discipline will make much difference. Congratulations."
"Thank you, sir."
"What is to become of me?" said Andre, hesitantly.
Forrester glanced at her and smiled. "Well, I understand you desire an implant. Under the circumstances, I think that's a good idea. You've held up pretty well, considering, but you're liable to break down from sensory overload if we don't do something about it fast. However, implant education is very expensive."
Andre licked her lips and looked from Forrester to Lucas, to Finn and back to Forrester. "I have no money," she said, softly.
Forrester grinned. "That's okay. Soldiers get them free. Welcome to the Temporal Corps."
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