Mercy's Chase

by Jess Lourey

  49

  London Offices of the Order,

  Kensington Palace Gardens

  Lutsenko’s special phone lit up, causing a not-unpleasant tightening in his groin. The Grimalkin had never called him before. The assassin’s reputation was a thing of terrible beauty. While the Order considered the Grimalkin their employee, the truth was that the assassin was a freelancer, capable of executing Lutsenko—anyone—and then disappearing forever. Killing without consequence. It engendered a certain excitement, dealing with someone so lethal.

  “Hello?”

  “She’s on her way to Parliament.”

  Lutsenko had not gotten to the board of the Order by being stupid. “The final clue?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You’re with her?”

  A pause. “I can see her.” The background noise sounded like an airport or a subway, a location where crowds gathered in transit. “We need to remind her what’s at stake.”

  “The girl.” It wasn’t a question. Standard procedure, really.

  “Yes. When you send the reminder, tell her she has four hours. I’ll need current coordinates to the Tea Room plus exclusive use of it. I’ll take it from there.”

  The command chafed, but only momentarily. Lutsenko had no ego in this. He wanted what was at the end of the Stonehenge train. Any man would. They were stupid, ignorant, or lying if they thought otherwise. “Fine. Is that it?”

  The Grimalkin had already hung up.

  50

  Journey to Parliament, London

  A Piccadilly train had been waiting at the terminal. Salem leapt on as the doors closed behind her. She thought she caught a glimpse of Charlie, but the crowd had surged when the doors whisked closed. She pushed toward the front of the train, feeling exposed.

  Stone had not texted again. Salem pulled up a transportation app and input her final destination. The instructions were immediate. She’d alight at Hammersmith and walk across the platform to the District Line, which would take her to Westminster. From there, she’d limp to Parliament, hoping the guards would let her in, praying Charlie or Alafair didn’t get there first.

  If the trains ran on time, and she had spit and luck, she’d reach Parliament in under forty minutes. Her heartbeat thudding in her ears sounded like footsteps. She kept glancing around at her fellow travelers,

  seeing who was watching her, coming for her. The man with his back to her, was it Charlie? No.

  Breathe. Breathe.

  The B&C weighed down her shoulder. She was loathe to pull it out. It would make her too vulnerable, too distracted. But she needed to research. The painting would not give up its secrets easily. She needed to find a corner of the train car that she could lean against and then run an old-fashioned phone research.

  A seat opened up. She slid into it, almost weeping with relief at alleviating the pressure from her leg. Her phone’s battery was low. She dug in her bag for her remote charger and hooked it up. The phone greedily soaked up the juice.

  Salem’s first search was for the history of the Robing Room’s art. Her first hit surprised and worried her. Dyce’s paintings were frescoes, which meant they had been painted on wet plaster rather than canvas. It would have been difficult for Rosalind Franklin to alter a painting that was part of the wall.

  She pulled up the history of Dyce’s mercy painting, the one Hayes had pointed out to Salem. It depicted Sir Gawaine kneeling at the feet of his queen. According to legend, Sir Gawaine had intended to kill a knight who’d killed Gawaine’s hunting dog, but a woman rushed to defend the knight. Gawaine slew her by accident. He rode to his queen at Camelot, begging forgiveness, and was tasked with forevermore protecting women. Thus, the description beneath the painting: Sir Gawaine swearing to be merciful and “never be against Ladies.”

  That was all she could discover on that specific painting. Her next search was “Rosalind Franklin processes.” She’d read the basics on Franklin’s life and career, but nothing had stood out indicating how Franklin would hide a clue originally painted onto wet plaster a hundred years earlier. Unless she’d had extended private access to the room, she would have had to disguise a message on the painting’s surface.

  Salem knew Franklin was best known for her work with X-rays. She did not know that Franklin primarily used two methods: two-

  dimensional fiber diffraction to discover the shape of DNA and three-dimensional crystallography to study the molecular structure of any substance that could form a crystal, including salt, water, minerals, and fatty acids.

  None of that information actually helped Salem, unless Franklin created a dye at the molecular level that blended perfectly with Dyce’s paint and used it to paint some sort of map over the top of the mercy painting. Salem snorted at the thought, but it inspired another: if Franklin had hidden a clue in the Robing Room, she would have needed access, possibly while wearing a disguise. Gaea could run a history of work orders and private events recorded in the Parliament building during Franklin’s adult life, approximately 1938 through 1958. It would be impossible on her phone.

  The train shivered to a stop. Salem’s attention clicked back to real time. Hammersmith. She raced out, pushing through the crowds, not risking a glance behind. She was thankful for the crush of tourists and Londoners, but surprised to see Saturday crowds this early in the day, before she remembered that today was the headlining day of the International Climate Change Summit. The city would be pulsing with people. A good cover, but it also meant security would be extra tight around Parliament.

  She wondered where in the city her mother was. Vida was surely remaining in London until they located Mercy. The District Line pulled up to the platform. Salem boarded and made her way to the rear of the nearest car, planting her back to the wall. The train filled and took off. A variety of languages jammed the interior of the car, people from all over the world gathering, moving as a single animal, swaying forward then back as the train groaned around corners.

  The stops sped by. Salem had no plan. She held her phone, suddenly desperate to call Bel. So what if Bel hated her for letting Mercy get kidnapped? She’d still want to help Salem find her. Except that would be selfish because there was nothing Bel could do. Salem would only be calling her to get her sympathy, her love, to fill up that hollow spot that was Salem’s heart.

  “Westminster stop.”

  The train jostled to a halt. Salem followed the stream out and up the Bridge Street exit stairs. The fresh air slapped her face when she hit topside. She squeezed her jacket tighter around her neck, self-

  conscious about her rough appearance. She needn’t have bothered. Most of the people were staring up at the Clock Tower housing Big Ben, snapping photos, taking selfies. An animal-rights group was holding a protest blocking the sidewalk, so she stepped into the road where she was whistled back by an irate police officer.

  “The light has to change!”

  She apologized, walking toward the Parliament entrance Charlie had driven them through the first time she’d entered. The gate was open, armed guards standing in front. She craned her neck to see the tourist entrance. It appeared to be closed.

  She’d have to try the guards. She still had her FBI identification. It might be enough.

  The throng pushed her toward the guarded gate and then veered right, toward Westminster Abbey, the abrupt change in movement making her stumble. She grabbed a nearby bench to keep from falling. She almost righted herself when a force struck her in the center of her back. She hit the ground, unable to draw a full breath. She rolled to her back, hands up to block another hit.

  But no one was there.

  No one was even looking her way.

  What had hit her?

  She pulled herself onto the bench, stretching her hand behind her to feel the spot where she’d been assaulted. The weight of something in her pocket brushed against her thigh. It wasn’t her phone, whi
ch she still clutched.

  It was a gift box, pink, wrapped in a ribbon.

  Her eyes darted around, panicked, looking for who had slid it into her pocket.

  No one was paying her any mind. A climate change protest group had begun a chant. Fossil fuel is too cruel. Fossil fuel is too cruel. A nearby food cart was hawking gyros, the Mediterranean spices redolent in the cool air. Another vendor sold stovepipe Union Jack hats.

  The world spun in carnival colors, too busy for her.

  Salem tugged the ribbon. It fell to the ground. She lifted the lid. A single note lay inside, its message written in pencil.

  Once you have it, come to the Tea Room alone. 51.534761, -0.057631 until 1200 23.09 and then gone to you forever.

  She lifted the note. Underneath, in a bed of cloudy cotton stained with drops of red, lay a severed ear, a pink rosebud earring resting in its lobe.

  Mercy’s ear.

  Salem’s hands shook. She slammed the lid back on the box before it could fall from her hands. She shoved it in her pocket, as much as it horrified her to have the child’s flesh in her jacket.

  She stood, her knees wobbling.

  Get yourself together.

  She did not have the luxury of hysteria. With concentration, she moved one leg, and then the next, toward Parliament. She’d gone

  forward ten whole feet when the crowd parted, revealing Agent Lucan Stone ten feet in front of her.

  Watching her.

  She reached in her pocket for the box.

  His eyes widened. He yelled something, his words swallowed by the firework clap of a gunshot. The left side of his upper body flew back, punched by an invisible giant. The red began to flower on his shirt before he hit the ground.

  Someone screamed.

  Salem ran to him, fell beside him, ignoring the rip of pain in her leg. She placed her hands over the bleeding, pushing down, feeling the hot liquid pulse of his life leaving him. The screaming grew louder.

  She searched the crowd for help. Call an ambulance!

  No one seemed to be responding. Salem felt the world collapsing onto her, moving so slowly, burying her. Lucan Stone could not die right now. Why was no one helping?

  The crowd parted. Charlie appeared, and with him, her supervisor, Robert Bench. Salem sobbed with relief. “It’s Lucan! He’s been shot!”

  The men took immediate action. Charlie yelled into a walkie-talkie. Bench knelt across from Salem. He put his hand over hers, gently pulling hers out from under. “I’ll stay with him until the ambulance arrives. You need to get inside Parliament.”

  The ambient noise was loud—yelling, questions, someone weeping—but somehow Bench’s words reached her ears clearly, as if they were alone in a room. She was slipping into shock. She searched for an anchor point, something to ground her. She spotted Agent Len Curson nearby, something off-balance in his face as he glanced at Salem before taking charge of crowd control, creating a perimeter around the fallen agent.

  Salem was frozen.

  Bench’s voice was quiet but commanding. “Now, Agent Wiley.”

  Salem sat back on her heels. Her hands were cold apart from Agent Stone’s body. She could only sip at the air. “What …?”

  “Agent Stone is the Grimalkin,” Bench said. “We’ve finally caught him. Now get inside and save the girl. They’re expecting you.”

  51

  Parliament, London

  Salem was shuffled through hallways, someone appearing with a towel to wipe her hands free of blood, men murmuring, exchanging glances, ferrying her toward the Robing Room as quickly as they could.

  Snippets of conversation swirled around her. The president and vice president will be arriving in different vehicles, same time—twenty minutes out. Water leak near Jubilee Café. The Prime Minister is in the building. Russian security wants a word. Can you believe the size of the crowds?

  Salem let herself be led. Agent Lucan Stone was the Grimalkin. She had fed him clues the whole way, told him everything he needed to know to kill Bode, slice off Charlie’s finger, and be waiting for her at St. Brigid’s and then outside Parliament.

  Her mother was right about her.

  She was worse than useless. She was dangerous.

  They reached the Robing Room’s gilded door. Waiters and guards, butlers and secretaries pushed past. The summit was reaching a feverish pitch, separate from Salem, who was moving inside a bubble. The Robing Room door was opened for her.

  She was pushed inside.

  Alone.

  The silence was heavy.

  The door across the long room clicked open. Charlie stepped inside. Salem instinctively backed toward the door behind her.

  He held up his hands, all nine fingers. “Wait! I’m sorry.”

  She was numb.

  He walked toward her. “It’s terrible it went down like that, love. We’d had an idea for a while, but weren’t sure until he planted that box on you. He’s given you a piece of the girl, hasn’t he? Right in line with his pattern.”

  Salem’s mouth creaked open. Words didn’t come. She reached in her pocket for the box instead and held it out to him.

  He walked toward her, keeping his hands where she could see them, eyes and mouth soft, as if approaching a skittish forest creature. “Just let me put some gloves on, and then I’ll take that from you.” His wounded hand disappeared into his pocket and came out with a rubber glove, which he slid on his free hand. He plucked the box from her palm and set it on top of a nearby table. He removed the lid.

  “Damn it all to hell,” he whispered. “There isn’t much time. You know of the Tea Room?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s shorthand for a drop site. Terrorists, kidnappers, anyone looking for an exchange of money or information meets at the Tea Room. It’s not a place but a movable location, and after it serves its purpose, it’s gone.”

  A balloon was building in her stomach, expanding, rising to remove her head with it. “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced at her. “For ditching me back at the airport?” He attempted a smile, but the situation was too dire. “You needn’t be. In fact, it was a smart move, knowing what you knew. But we’re here now. We’ve got to crack this code. Have you got anything?”

  He stepped aside so she had a clear view of the painting. He was right, she knew that, understood she needed to get it together, but how was such a thing possible? She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, biting back the scream that threatened to consume her. She swallowed her disbelief, terror, and shame, shoved them all into a chest, and locked them up tight.

  There was no room for feeling anymore. Only math. Computation. Order.

  She unzipped the B&C as she approached the painting. She placed it on a table immediately below Dyce’s mercy fresco, waking Gaea and asking her to pull any unusual history on the room. While Gaea worked, Salem stood, glancing behind the wood. “I need a chair,” she said.

  Charlie obliged.

  She stood on it and was able to feel farther up the wood. No aberrations jumped out at her. Leaning forward, she peeked behind the frame but couldn’t move it. It had been mounted around the plaster rather than hung on the wall like a standard canvas painting.

  “I think I’ll need a ladder and a flashlight,” Salem said.

  Gaea pinged.

  Salem eased herself off the chair and peered at the screen. What she saw exploded a ball of heat square in her chest. “And a roll of butcher paper, plus a box of crayons or a charcoal stick.”

  52

  Penthouse, Tower Bridge, London

  The people below swarmed like ants.

  It was a cliché, but for Clancy, there was a reason certain sayings settled into the language and claimed their spot. They fit exactly the situation they meant to describe.

  The Order’s Tower Bridge penthouse was overk
ill—pun intended—for the job he was meant to do, but he could treat the lavish furniture and priceless paintings as the props they were. The only thing he cared about was the single square window no larger than a breadbox, a reference he didn’t think kids these days would get.

  The window slid upward. Unless something was sticking out of it—which his bionic sniper rifle would soon be—there was no reason to glance up here, and even then, you’d have to have eagle eyes, or better yet, a pair of binoculars trained on the window to catch the movement.

  He was peering through his own set of binoculars as Agent Stone was shot and dropped. Clancy’d worried that it would screw up his plans, but his contact inside Parliament assured him that the proceedings were on schedule. President Gina Hayes and Vice President Richard Cambridge would be arriving in seven minutes and counting. He could see their motorcades arriving from different directions.

  Worked for Clancy.

  He found himself grateful for the opportunity to rectify his past mistake. It wasn’t personal. It was pride. A twinge he recognized as self-pity tickled his nose. He was thinking of his wife and kids. They were nice enough folks. Sometimes he missed them. But nuts to that. There are no amends in this life. You do what you do and you take the hits.

  Still, he wouldn’t hate seeing his kids one more time.

  He set down his binoculars to give his sniper rifle a final check. It looked good. He slid it along the window ledge and lined up his shot, the wind biting his cheeks.

  The president and vice president exited their vehicles on schedule, walking toward each other, hands outstretched. Grins flashed and cameras snapped.

  Clancy set his sight.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The bullet sunk in, through, and exited the other side.

  There was no surviving that, but Clancy was a professional.

  He took one more shot.

  53

  Parliament, London

  Thundering footsteps pounded outside the door, but Salem’s focus was absolute. She was taping the butcher paper, taken from the cafeteria, to the edges of the painting. Once in place, Charlie handed her the black crayon he’d found in a box left in the lost and found.