“You have his eyes, you know,” Teasdale said. “I mean you’re father. He had that same shining intensity. It could be off-putting when you first met him, but with time and acquaintance his true spirit came out. When I heard that you had followed in his footsteps, I was overjoyed. And when this project was announced I thought of you. In fact, I never thought of anyone else.”
“He was a good man,” she lied, spitting out the words in a quick, Tommy gun rattle of syllables. She hoped her tone and expression would steer him away from any further mention of her father. It wasn’t easy living in the shadow of one of the world’s most famous and respected archeologists, and her strained relationship with her father at the end of his life complicated things even more.
“Anyway …” Teasdale said, getting the message and averting his eyes. He blushed, darkening his cherry-skin British cheeks, and fiddled with the Chinese calligraphy pen on his desk.
“When will the rest of the museum be evacuated?” she asked. She watched his face relax for just a moment before returning her stare to the antique mirror. Her hair was a cheerful shade of auburn, so perhaps the trouble was not the mirror after all. Suddenly the skin on her face felt tight against her skull. Surrounded by so many ancient relics, she still somehow managed to feel old.
With a frown, Teasdale laughed. “There won’t be any more shipments, Miss Stuyvesant. The government has its hands full enough with the war. A private grant paid for this much, but no, I should think that the rest of the museum will have to tough it out here.”
“But,” she said, “This is the finest—”
“Yes, dear, it is.” Teasdale tipped back his coffee mug and drained it into his mouth. She realized he’d poured more than just coffee into the drink. She couldn’t blame him. The bombs were unnerving. “But you see, the Prime Minister is more interested in securing the future than preserving the past. No one should fault him for that, of course. But it does seem a regrettable shame, doesn’t it?”
She realized she wasn’t staring at her own reflection anymore; her gaze had migrated to the relics that surrounded her. Inside his office, Teasdale had assembled his own private exhibit of world history: a drinking cup from Roman-occupied Palestine, a Kushite planting bin, an Indus Valley farming tool. She wondered what would become of it all and her mind supplied an awful image of broken pottery, shattered marble, and twisted metal.
“In any case,” he said, setting the cup down on his mahogany desk, “we’re very grateful to the United States for safekeeping our treasures. I trust you’ll do a sterling job of babysitting our precious little trinkets, yes?”
She nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”
He seemed satisfied. When she’d first arrived he’d been taken aback that Washington had sent a woman to oversee the transfer. He hadn’t said anything, but Priscilla knew the look in his eyes: suspicion and dismay. To offset his apprehension, she’d made small talk about a Shang Dynasty-era oracle bone on display in the main hall. He’d been impressed enough for his eyes to soften. Maybe the coffee had helped. Or, more likely still, it had been her surname.
“The boys’ll just be finishing up preparing the last of our load,” Teasdale said, rising from his chair. Another bomb exploded, this one closer, and powder rained down from the plaster ceiling. He wiped his head. “Herr Hitler seems intent on keeping the custodial staff employed. We should scuttle down to the loading bay and get you on your way.”
She followed him out of his office into the hall. The museum was closed and lit only by emergency lighting powered by a generator in the basement. London had been dark for over a week. She stayed close, riding his coattails down exhibition aisles and around complex displays. As a student, she’d considered it the world’s most beautiful museum and even in the dark, she still did. The single boatload of artifacts they were shipping across the Atlantic for safekeeping hadn’t emptied the floor or the archives in the least; the British Museum’s collections were massive.
He turned into a shadowed hall and asked her to watch her step as they descended a long flight of steep stairs. He didn’t tell her, he asked her. She wondered why the British insisted on being so polite, right down to the most common expressions. Her thoughts turned to Buddy Martin, the project’s security officer, standing up flagpole-straight and, in a hammy cockney accent, saying, “Dearie Germans, wouldst you mind please holding off on the cluster bombs for a might? Is awfully distracting at mid-day tea, I’m sure you understand.”
At the foot of the stairs, the dim lighting returned and she followed Teasdale down a cinder block hall. Doors on both sides of the hall were marked with black marker on wide strips of gray tape. One read sub-sahara, the next burma. Following her eyes, Teasdale knocked on a door marked brazil and said, “Rotating exhibits. I pray they have a chance to mingle back on the floor.”
The hallway ended, opening into a large, two bay loading dock. Men were busy hauling the last of the wooden crates onto trucks parked in a line just ahead of the closest door. Teasdale whistled and a pair of men standing on the sidelines hurried over, one removing his hat as he came to rest near alongside the curator. “This is Owney Baxlerdean and his colleague Brigham Hamlynd. They’re both associates of the museum, rising stars in the academic circles, and archeologists in their own right. They’ll be escorting our exhibits to America as representatives of the museum.”
Priscilla extended her hand to Owney and then Brigham. Owney’s palm was a desert, Brigham’s a swamp. They both nodded with nervous energy, muttering how nice it was to meet her. She wondered which spooked them more: the Luftwaffe bombers overhead or the touch of her small hand?
“You work at the Smithsonian?” Brigham asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I imagine I’d like working in the castle,” he said, and slid his hands down his pant legs. “Funny, y’know, James Smithson bequeaths the money to build a museum across the pond and nearly gets stung up by his ‘ittle toes for it, but now we need the old house to protect Britain’s treasures. Makes you think.”
“Think?” she asked. “About what?”
His eyes almost crossed, as if he couldn’t imagine her not following his train of thought. “Well, about fate, Miss. About providence.”
This man’s an academic? she thought. She was too accustomed to the schools of New England and the heavy hand science had dropped on those institutions. “I guess it does.”
“Like you coming to England. Got to be fate that brought you across the sea to meet me.”
Teasdale cleared his throat and gestured to the trucks. “It looks as if they’ve finally finished loading. As much as I’ve enjoyed meeting you, I believe it’s time we said goodbye and you be on your way. Owney will drive the lead truck, Brigham will follow, and Mason—Aye, Mason—”
A lean, redheaded man at the base of the loading dock raised his hand. His frayed sleeves and jagged collar flapped in the breeze as he threw open the bay doors.
“He’s Irish, but the good sort, and tough as varnished leather.” Teasdale waved back. “Knows his way around difficult places and could fight his way out of from betwixt the devil’s own teeth. He’ll be driving the third trunk.”
Turning to Owney, Priscilla cupped her hands around her mouth to offset the noise flowing in through the open bay doors. Air raid sirens wailing and the Royal Air Force circling over the city, London sounded like a city preparing to die. “We’ll be heading east?”
Owney nodded and spoke with a voice so uncertain and soft that she needed to lean toward him in order to make out the words. “Yes, ma’am. We can’t shuttle down to the Thames. The bloody Nazi bombers won’t let vessels stay afloat in the waterways. We’ll do better at Southend-on-Sea. It’ll make for a lengthy ride but the route’ll get us the best chance to get out into open waters.”
“Where the submarines wait,” Brigham said.
A loud clap of thunder shook the building. No, she realized, it was not thunder. But it was very close. “I think they’re telling us
we’d better get underway.”
Brigham raised an eyebrow and dropped an arm around Owney’s shoulder. “They could stand to be a little more polite about it. Owney’s a quiet one. I’m sure he could teach them some wartime etiquette: a gentle ‘off you go’ would suffice, no need for the disruptive explosions and all that.”
“Get yer arms off me, y’idiot,” Owney mumbled, shrugging out from the larger man’s embrace. They exchanged a quick, confrontational glance.
Priscilla smiled, recognizing the showdown as part of a brotherly ritual and not as a serious confrontation. She thought of her sister Katie, teaching in a two-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, and felt a twinge of homesickness.
Stumbling away from Owney, Brigham slid one of his arms under and around hers, linking them at the turn of their elbows, and led her to the first truck. “I lost the coil toss, if yer wondering. Bet heads on a halfpenny and what do I see when it’s flipped? An old boat. What had I ever done to it? But anyway, it means that you’ll be sharing the cockpit with clammy ol’ Owney and have to do without my more charming company.”
She laughed. “And you’ll be driving the second truck?”
“Exactly,” he said with a sigh, and pointed. “All of the way back there, practically an entire cricket field’s length. But all is not lost, not quite. The trucks have radios fastened to their dashboards. Should you become lonely—and with Owney as your entertainment I imagine you will—you kin pick up the handset, press the side trigger, and I’ll be right there to answer you.”
Feigning relief, she exhaled deeply. “Well, you’ve put my fears to rest.”
Owney strode up behind them, shaking his head. “He thinks this is a good time, y’know. First thing he said when he saw you was that you weren’t wearing a ring.”
Brigham’s eyes widened. Then he laughed. “Such a brave lad at last. Caught me straight square between the eyes. What can I say? I’m speechless. But it’s true: I did mention your unencumbered ring finger. It was certainly more polite than where Owney’s eyes traveled.”
Slapping him on the back, Brigham headed to the second truck and left Owney to stew and blush. Opening the truck door for Priscilla, he stammered, “I didn’t … he’s just … I wouldn’t ever … he’s just yanking back on my chain, Ma’am …”
Sliding into the passenger seat, Priscilla nodded to ease his discomfort. As he slammed the door shut, she stared into the side mirror and watched Brigham wave as he settled behind the driver’s wheel of the second truck. Grinning, she thought, At least with these two it won’t be a dull trip.
Owney opened the driver side door, brushed off his side of the bench seat, and slid in beside her. When he smiled at her, the skin at the sides of his lips curled into a tight knot, giving his face the unpleasant look of a cheap Halloween mask. His hands shook as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered to life, pistons clanging like kitchen pans, a vibration shivering down the length of the truck’s body.
The other two trucks roared to life behind them. In the side mirror, Brigham swatted away a patch of his dark hair that had fallen over his eyes. Acknowledging that she was watching, he winked.
Owney forced the protesting gearshift into first gear, put his foot down on the gas, and released the clutch. The truck lurched forward and bolted down onto Great Russell Street. The seat bounced under them and Priscilla raised her hands to the roof to help stabilize herself.
“Sorry ’bout that, I—”
The street exploded. Concrete, tar, and stone rose up in a wave of black and brown. A debris cloud engulfed them a split second before the force of the bomb’s blast hit the truck, tossing it into the air and buckling its metal hood. The windshield exploded, spraying them with thousands of tiny, glistening shards. Priscilla felt her face pelted—the glass felt like ice—then incredible heat flood through her as a funnel of smoke burst into the cab. The truck landed, bounced, and overturned, collapsing to the street on its side, sliding, grinding out sparks.
She fell. As she slid down along the seat, the truck jerked, tossing her against the dashboard. Her chest and ribs bounced off the driver’s wheel with a crack and the air gushed out of her lungs, leaving her gasping as she collided with Owney against the driver’s side door. Her head struck the side window and her vision flared, painful white light replacing the destroyed street. The world around her became a blur of shadows fading from a blistering light. Her hearing had changed, too, becoming a sonic landscape of distant but reverberating drums and a shrill, warbling siren much closer.
Shaking, she lifted her head off the window—no, she realized as she saw the blood spotting her blouse—not the window. The side windows had shattered as well. She pulled a shard out of the skin just below her ear. Her head had been resting on the street itself.
When the shrill siren noise cut out, she turned her head and saw its source. Owney’s mouth gaped open, no longer screaming but still leaking blood from his bottom lip. His eyes were opened wide but the pupils were no longer glued to the same perspective; each wobbled in its own direction, independent of its partner. The wound above his right eye looked very deep.
Priscilla reached out, hands trembling, and wrapped her fingers around the bent steering wheel. Pulling herself up, a pain sprang up in her midsection, forcing a coughing, crackling scream. She lost her grip and fell back against Owney. Her heartbeat pounded in her chest and neck, as if her heart was tunneling its way out through her esophagus. Fighting, she extended one arm again. Her fingertips skimmed over the steering wheel’s leather. She tried to close her fist but her fingers only tittered in response.
Debris still fell, tapping against the truck’s metal body. Closing her eyes, she relaxed her arm, letting it fall back to her chest—
But it did not fall. A strong hand snatched it from beyond the broken windshield and she was pulled from the wreckage, her body squeezing out through twisted steel. She opened her eyes as Mason cradled her to his chest and stepped away from the overturned truck. Brigham and two of the loading dock workers pulled Owney from the truck, all three lifting the unconscious man. His arms hung down, swinging, with fingertips grazing the asphalt.
They were yelling. Their distorted voices drifted and echoed as Mason carried her away.
“—hhhis legs, higher I saiddd—”
“—ttthat blood. Hold his head uppp—”
“—sssee the hole? Get some pressure on ittt—”
In Mason’s thick arms, Priscilla’s body went limp, muscles relaxing all at once. Her head lolled against his shoulder, pointing her face skyward. Three airplanes danced in the sky: two British Spitfire fighters chasing a German Ju-87 Stuka. The Spitfires dove, almost in free fall, as they pursued the German plane. Bursts of white flame flickered as they fired off a quick succession of shots. Sparks flashed against the green body of the Stuka as the British gunners hit their mark. The German plane, nearly buzzing the rooftops, changed direction and pulled up, throwing the fighters off its trail. For a moment they continued to fire, spraying the street with rounds from their wing-mounted machine guns. With the sound of a metal hammer hitting an anvil, several rounds cut through the overturned truck’s hood. The men pulling Owney from the wreckage briefly retreated, flinching away from the gunfire and dropping him back into the truck’s cab.
Continuing their pursuit, the Spitfires’ shadows darkened the street as they passed overhead. For a long moment, the low buzzing sound of their whirling props drowned out all other sounds.
Until—
“—ggget him outta thereee—”
The loading dock workers rushed back to the truck and dragged Owney out of the twisted metal trap. As they struggled to lift him off the street, the planes reappeared overhead, following the street, one Spitfire now chased by the Stuka. The second Spitfire trailed them, firing.
Mason’s large hands encircled Priscilla’s head, cradling her, protecting her like a helmet. He turned toward the loading dock ramp. The dock’s garage doorway was blocked by the seco
nd truck. Rocketed back by the blast, it was lodged cockeyed in the entrance. All four tires were blown out.
Machine gun bullets pelted down on the street, tearing divots from the pavement. Staring beyond Mason’s fingers, Priscilla thought Great Russell Street resembled the pond at her father’s summer home during a Spring downpour, raindrops exploding the calm surface, tiny droplets of water forced airborne with each strike, centrifugal waves expanding. The street cracked into thousand of jagged intersecting shards.
Mason ran for the blocked doorway.
Another blast sounded, this one louder than any thunder she’s ever heard, and the lead spitfire exploded into a ball of red flame and black smoke. It careened downward, spinning, wings crumpling. Disappearing behind the museum’s quadrangle, it screeched and roared. The street shook and loose debris danced as the plane crashed into the grassy nook on the property’s edge.
The Stuka swept across the sky in a wide arch, turning back toward the museum.
Mason’s arms gripped her body against his, fingers digging into her thigh and shoulder, as he ducked under the second truck’s body and ran hunched over to the other side. The loading dock was abuzz with motion-men in sleeveless shirts rushing from the receiving lanes to the access hallway, a few carrying unconscious coworkers away from piles of storage goods that had fallen from high shelves and struck them. Even with the sounds of the planes and the artillery droning in from the street, Priscilla could hear the wounded screaming. They sounded like frenzied animals being led up a slaughterhouse ramp-confused and terrified, primal senses rising to the surface.
Mason slid his left arm out from under her thigh and threw open the third truck’s door. Trapped behind the second, it had been protected from the blast. Its engine still hummed. He tucked her inside and slammed the door.
The workers were dragging Owney into the dock, heads bowed as they passed below the second truck. The rumble of the remaining Spitfire’s engine boomed through the dock, growing louder, painful in its ferocity. As Mason climbed into the driver’s side of the third truck, his mouth opened into a scream. Priscilla turned her head toward the blistering noise, now as loud as an earthquake, and saw:
Eternal Unrest: A Novel of Mummy Terror Page 2
