She took off her left glove to slip on the controller and activate the FLI. The tiny robot lifted into the air and soon became invisible against the night sky. Emma sat down on a rock, Jim next to her as they waited for the FLI to cross the minefield to Bykov’s estate. There wasn’t much to see at the moment through the glasses, just a white field and a black sky.
Finally Bykov’s palatial estate came into view; it looked no different than before except for the snow on the front lawn and that the fountain had iced over. Through the FLI, she saw guards in winter parkas walking the grounds armed with AK-47s. They of course wore night vision goggles so they would be able to see her in the armor. For all the good it would do them. She knew when the time came, she wouldn’t need a split personality; Emma Earl and the Scarlet Knight would be in complete agreement about what needed done.
The FLI neared the house itself and she sent it in close enough to search for a way inside. There were of course no open windows at the moment that she could send the FLI through. It zipped up to the roof, where she saw a brick chimney for a fireplace. Bykov’s people had put a grate over the chimney to keep out pests—animal and human—but not something as tiny as the FLI. “Just like Santa,” Emma mumbled as she brought the FLI in.
The chimney opened into a fireplace in Bykov’s study. She scanned the desk for anything of interest, but he hadn’t left anything out and the FLI couldn’t open drawers to see what might be in there. Still, she cataloged this room in her memory for later.
She skimmed down the hallway to the library, which was similarly devoid of anything useful. She recognized the ballroom and dining room from her time in Bykov’s house. From what she could tell by the dust on the table, he hadn’t hosted any dinners in some time. How long had it taken Markova to find her? How long had Bykov known she would be coming to get her daughter back?
It was on the second floor when she came upon Louise’s bedroom. The FLI camera was in black-and-white, so she couldn’t tell what colors it had been painted, but from the light gray of the walls, she figured it was a pastel color. There was a wooden crib on one side, the mattress covered by a blanket that was neatly tucked in to indicate no one had slept in it for a little while. She passed a shelf of porcelain dolls, probably antiques that cost hundreds of dollars each. Emma circled the FLI around the changing table, which had a layer of dust similar to the dining room table. How long since Louise had been here?
“What wrong?” Jim asked. “You find her?”
“No, I found her bedroom. She’s not there. I don’t think she’s been here for a while. A month at least, but maybe longer.”
“She not here?”
“I don’t think so.”
Emma continued the search, but she knew it was hopeless. Bykov had moved Louise to one of his other residences. Or with his money she could be almost anywhere in the world. She could even be in a submarine underwater, someplace where Emma could never reach her.
“What we do now?” Jim asked as she brought the FLI down on the shelf of porcelain dolls and took off the glasses.
“We go in for a closer look.”
***
She wished the magic carpet could still fly so she could easily get over the minefield to Bykov’s estate. The armor would protect her from the being torn to bits by the mines, but she imagined the concussion from the mines would toss her about like a rag doll and create all sorts of racket to bring the guards running and give her a lot of nasty bruises afterwards. Jim wouldn’t have that much protection; if he took one wrong step, he and his new friend would be blown to a pulp.
She explained this problem to him. As usual he seemed nonplussed by the situation. “We go under,” he said.
“Under?”
“He need sewer somewhere.”
Emma smiled at this. Yes, even someone like Bykov would need to have a septic system of some kind, unless he wanted to swim around in his own filth. The question then became where this system was and if it would have access big enough for them to use it.
Jim asked his new friend for help; the rat indicated no one from his nest had ever found any pipes—or at least no one had found it and come back to tell about it. Emma took this news in stride as she surveyed the ground around them. She tried to gauge the slope of the terrain. Bykov would be certain to have his pipes going downhill to make the flow more cost effective than to flush his sewage uphill. She also doubted he would keep it in the front yard; he would want to keep it in the backyard and far away from the house so that if it ever overflowed or ruptured, the mess and smell would be far removed from his house.
She led Jim around the edge of the minefield in a wide circle to search for the steepest downward slope. It took an hour before she was satisfied that they’d found it in a field northwest of the estate. For another hour they stomped around futilely in search of any sign. Finally Jim called for her to stop.
He consulted with his rat friend and then said, “We smell it. It close.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Our noses trained.”
She conceded the point; life in the sewer had given Jim a better affinity for the various smells of waste. As for the rat, its nose was more highly tuned than a human one. She took a step back and watched with fascination as Jim got down on all fours to sniff around the snow. “Be careful,” she said.
“I careful.” He stopped to consult with the rat on his shoulder again. The rat hopped down and nearly disappeared into the snow. It got up on its hind legs to shriek at Jim. Even before Jim said anything, Emma knew they were in business. “It down here.”
The next problem was to dig out the ground. The only thing they had even close to a shovel was the Sword of Justice. The ground was hard enough from the cold that she could jam the blade into the ground and slice up chunks of it like cutting a pan of brownies. With the augmented strength of the armor, she tossed these chunks behind her to avoid any mines.
A half-hour of digging in this fashion finally brought her to something metal. “We found it,” she said.
She cleared more dirt and snow away to find the septic tank itself. The tank was probably half the size of Emma’s house back in Rampart City, big enough to handle the waste of a small town for years.
She saw to her dismay that the pipe that led to the septic tank wouldn’t be nearly big enough for her or Jim to squeeze through. “There’s no way through that,” she said.
Jim considered this for a moment. “Then we not go to them. They come to us.”
Beneath the helmet she began to smile and nodded to Jim. “We sabotage the septic system and wait for someone to come out and look at it. When they do, they’ll have to turn off the mines back here.”
“Yes.”
“But it might take a while for someone to notice.”
“Then we make big mess.”
“I think I can arrange that.”
To do this, she had to dig completely around the tank. Once this was done, she severed the line to the tank. While the armor increased her strength dramatically, she still couldn’t simply pick the septic tank up from the ground. But when she carved out enough space around the severed pipe, she could get herself in front of the tank and tilt it upwards. While she held it up like this, Jim worked feverishly to fill in around her with dirt.
Another couple hours went by. Once Jim had filled in the area around her enough, she eased the tank down. It settled onto the dirt Jim had spread in the area she’d carved out so that the tank rested at a thirty-degree angle. After Jim helped her out of the hole she’d made, Emma went around to the rear of the tank to carve out another place to stand. This time instead of trying to lift the tank, she pushed it an inch at a time until it was almost on the surface.
She didn’t bother to go back around to the front of the tank. Instead, she tossed the Sword of Justice into the air and controlled the blade with her mind. A few strategic cuts and the front of the tank burst open; years worth of sewage spilled out onto the ground. “Well, that ought to get the
ir attention,” she said.
“Yes. Smell like home,” Jim said with a smile.
They retreated a short distance away; they lay on the magic carpet with the golden cape spread over them so no ordinary eyes could see them. From the stench of sewage in the air, Emma hoped it wouldn’t be much longer until someone showed up to take a look at it. While the smell might remind Jim of home, it was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
A half-hour went by before someone finally appeared on the horizon. As the shape approached, Emma saw a man in gray coveralls with a toolbox. He would need much more than that to fix the mess they had made with the septic tank. She was grateful to see the man wasn’t accompanied by any guards and didn’t wear any sort of night vision goggles.
“Stay here,” she whispered to Jim. “If you keep low he won’t see you.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“I will.” She took the cape and reattached it around her neck. Then she rolled off the magic carpet so that the cape was tightly wrapped around her body. Jim would now be visible, but as Emma suspected, the man in coveralls was far more concerned with the inches of sewage that had drained onto the backyard of Bykov’s estate.
She could hear the man curse in Russian as he surveyed the damage. He peeked into the hole in the septic tank; she grabbed him from behind. She let the cape drop so the man could see her.
“Hello,” she said in Russian. “I want to know how you got back here.”
“I walked,” the man said.
“You’re going to get me through the minefield, into the house. Is that clear?”
“Why?”
“That’s not important.”
“Who are you?”
“Just an old friend of Mr. Bykov.” She was about to tell the man to move when she stopped herself. “How long have you worked here?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Do you know a little girl named Katya?”
“Mr. Bykov’s daughter?”
“Yes,” Emma said. Her teeth ground together. “Do you know where he took her?”
“Mr. Bykov and Katya are always coming and going. They never call ahead.”
“And the girl, is she treated well?”
“Of course. Mr. Bykov loves his daughter.”
Emma’s free hand clenched into a fist. She wanted to punch the man for having the audacity to say a man like Bykov could love her daughter. She held back; she needed the man to get through the minefield. He was an innocent bystander in any case; her real beef was with Bykov himself.
“You’re going to take me to the house, is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, let’s get going.”
***
They waited until Jim caught up to them before they started along the path the handyman had traced out in the snow on his way down. Emma kept him in front, as much as a human shield as a guide. So far none of Bykov’s guards had shown up, but she imagined that situation would change once they got closer to the house.
She figured they were within three hundred yards of the house when the handyman indicated they were out of the minefield. From here it was simply a lawn that in summer months Bykov would use to host guests for garden parties and play croquet or volleyball or something like that. Emma didn’t see any playground equipment, but she imagined Bykov carrying Louise around the lush green lawn as she giggled joyously. That thought was enough to make her clench her fist again.
She forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Off at the edge of the backyard she saw a tool shed. “Jim, take him over there and both of you wait for me,” she said.
“I go with you,” Jim said.
“No. You could get hurt.”
“I not get hurt.”
She put a hand on Jim’s shoulder and then flipped up the visor so he could see her eyes. “Jim, please, I don’t want to have to worry about you. This will go much easier if I do it alone.”
He nodded to her. “I take him to shed. We wait for you.”
“Thank you.”
She waited until they were safely inside the tool shed before she flipped down the visor. With a deep breath, she tucked her hair up inside her helmet to let the Scarlet Knight persona take over. The time had come to take the fight to Bykov.
The Scarlet Knight sprinted forward and bounced slightly on her feet to charge up a jump. Once she judged she had charged the soles of her boots enough, she leaped into the air. She didn’t have enough height to make it clear to the second floor, but she managed to grab onto the back wall of the house with the fingertips of the gloves. The fingertips stuck to the stone side of the house to allow her to scale the wall to the second floor balcony.
She used the palm of her glove to unlock the door. She stepped into the master bedroom. Like Louise’s room, Bykov’s bedroom was made up neatly, with a layer of dust to indicate he hadn’t slept at home in some time. The Scarlet Knight rifled through the drawers in the room, but didn’t find any sort of clue as to where Bykov might have gone.
She crept to Louise’s bedroom down the hall with the cape around her body. The walls here were light blue, not pink like Emma had imagined. The Scarlet Knight didn’t really care what color the walls were; she only wanted to find out where Bykov had taken the girl. She didn’t find anything more enlightening than what she had seen through the FLI.
It was time to abandon subtlety and get down to business. The Scarlet Knight ran down the corridor and then downstairs without the cape wrapped around her. She hoped to trip as many motion detectors and cameras as possible so that Bykov’s security could zero in on her.
Predictably, she found them gathered in the foyer; they blocked the front door and the door to the ballroom. “Halt!” one guard shouted in English.
“Why?”
“Stop or we will shoot!”
“Fine. Waste your ammo.” Before Bykov’s men could open fire, the Scarlet Knight bounced into the air. She didn’t have enough to get behind the guards at the front door, but she didn’t really care. As she came down, the Scarlet Knight took the Sword of Justice from its sheath. The moment she landed, she swept the blade in an arc to slash the barrels of the AK-47s the guards carried. Some of them tried to throw the useless weapons at her while the smarter ones ran. She used the boots to jump ahead of them and take them down with a few well-aimed punches and kicks. Then she turned to face those who remained by the doors to the ballroom.
She didn’t bother to jump or even take a step. She simply threw the Sword of Justice, and guided it with her mind to repeat the same procedure as with those guards by the front door. While the sword did its work, she took down the guards with the useless rifles. A few kicks and throws and it was all over, a half-dozen men in a heap in the foyer.
She found the guard who had called for her to stop; she figured him for the man in charge. “How many more of you guys are lurking around here?” she asked.
“None.”
“Really?” She called the Sword of Justice back to her hand so she could hold it level to the man’s neck. “You’re sure about that? What about those outside the house?”
“They have probably run off by now.”
“They would if they knew what was good for them, but somehow I doubt they did.” She pressed the sword closer to his neck, enough to draw a thin line of blood. “I want you to call them and tell them you caught me.”
She reached down to take the radio from the man’s belt and hold it up to his mouth. Before he spoke, she hissed in Russian, “Don’t try to double-cross me or you’ll be spending the next year in the hospital getting put back together.”
The man nodded and then spoke into the radio. “We have her cornered in the ballroom. We need reinforcements. Bring everyone.”
Once the man signed off, the Scarlet Knight nodded to him. “Very good.” Then she smashed the radio over his head and let him drop unconscious to the floor.
The guards from outside were stupid enough to come in through the front door; they thought they ha
d the Scarlet Knight cornered in the ballroom. She merely had to plant herself beside the front door with the cape around her body and wait for them to rush in. Once the last one was inside, she closed the door loudly enough to draw their attention to her. She let the cape drop so they could see her.
“You want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” she asked. They lowered their weapons to fire. “OK, the hard way it is.”
It wasn’t hard. They didn’t put up any more resistance than the other groups. She hopped into their midst; she didn’t bother with the sword this time. They tried to track her with their weapons or knock her down with clumsy blows, but she was much too quick for them, a blur of red and gold darting between them to knock them down one at a time. In less than a minute it was all over.
The Scarlet Knight walked around the grounds to make sure she had all of the guards locked down in the wine cellar. When she came to the tool shed, she opened the door. “It safe now?” the Sewer Rat asked.
“They’re all taken care of.” The Scarlet Knight pulled off her helmet. She shook out her white hair to become Dr. Emma Earl once again. She leaned forward to kiss Jim chastely on the lips. “I’ve got them down in the cellar.”
“What about Louise?”
“That’s what we’ll have to find out.”
She led Jim and the handyman into the house; they took the latter down to the cellar to join his fellows. “They should be fine down there for a while,” Emma said.
“They have plenty to drink.”
She smiled at this. “Yes, I suppose they do.”
She decided to try Bykov’s study first. A search of the desk drawers turned up nothing of interest about Louise. In the file cabinets, she found plenty of documents about Bykov’s various business interests, but nothing about her daughter. She supposed it was too much to hope for that Bykov would be stupid enough to leave a schedule or itinerary around for her to find.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 121
