by Camilla Monk
Near the washing machine I had noticed earlier was a small wooden door. March opened it, revealing a dank passage at the end of which the garden’s lights shone bright in the darkness, casting a faint golden hue on the darkened lawn. There was a recess in the stone wall, leading to a small room that was used to store gardening tools and some chemical products. The three of us hid in there, enjoying a brief reprieve until Sahar’s goons found us. Some barking echoed in the distance.
“That could be a problem,” Alex said.
“Two dogs,” March confirmed.
I shrank, shielding myself behind their broad backs in case yet again another overequipped guy popped up, intent on stuffing our heads and hanging them in his living room.
“They took Sahar to safety. Second floor, maybe?” Alex mused.
March nodded. “Possibly.”
“She told me that she had her own nerd ‘up there,’” I ventured.
Amazing how those two ignored me while playing super tough pro or whatever. Alex spoke to March, without even sparing me a glance. “Worth a try. What about Island? We can’t leave her alone.”
March turned to Alex and for the first time addressed him as he would have a partner. “Can I entrust her to you while I go entertain these gentlemen?”
“You can.”
Spurred by frustration, I felt my energy come back. I kicked Alex’s leg to finally gain both men’s attention. “No, you won’t! You two have lost your minds!”
“Baby—”
“Biscuit—”
“I’m no one’s baby or biscuit!” I hissed. “And if you’re seriously thinking of taking on the rest of these guys, at least be efficient: do it together. We’re right under the left wing; I could go hide in the greenhouse. It looked empty when we came in, and they’re all focused on the garden and the upper floors. That way, even if they catch you, Sahar still won’t have me.”
I had a point. I could tell by the frowns on their faces.
March shook his head. “It’s too dangerous—”
“You mean, more dangerous than following you guys in your shooting spree? Or more dangerous than wrestling with dogs and paramilitary clowns on your own out there?” I said with a heartfelt glare.
Alex’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “All right. Once you’re outside, we’ll distract them. Run to your left. Don’t stop; don’t look back. Use your gun if you have to, but mostly, just stay hidden.”
“And for the love of God, do not try anything!” March added.
In the jacket pocket, my fingers gripped the handle of the semiautomatic pistol. “Got it.”
THIRTY-TWO
Beaks
“This thing is gonna bite us, and we’re all gonna die a horrible death!”
—Uninvited, 1988
Honestly, I had no idea Alex was so much into gardening, and when he said he’d distract Sahar’s men, I hadn’t imagined it would involve using a bag of nitrate fertilizer and an old lawn mower’s gas tank to construct a homemade bomb.
It did work, though.
There certainly was a lot of distraction when the powerful explosion destroyed most of the lobby’s windows and sent half a dozen men flying to the ground, some severely burned. I covered my ears with my hands and raced toward the greenhouse door without looking back. It was unlocked. I tiptoed in and knelt behind some kind of exotic plant in the darkness, watching the wreckage of Alex’s bomb burn on the lawn, my breath coming in short pants.
He and March had benefitted from this “distraction” as well. Gunshots had started to resound near the manor’s entrance, and whatever they were doing, I just prayed they’d make it out alive. I could hear windows breaking, men screaming, dogs barking—no doubt after Alex’s balls for unearthing some of the bones they had hoarded. I sat crouched in soft earth, shivering with every distant detonation, and reconsidering my promise to not leave the safety of the greenhouse. I knew I’d be useless on such a battlefield, though. I curled into a ball and waited.
After a few minutes, I gathered March and Alex had made it inside, since the garden had become quiet, and the gunshots now seemed to be coming from inside the manor. I had been too focused on the rampage outside to notice until now, but a variety of strange sounds echoed in the deserted greenhouse. Some rustling, water splashing—and something halfway between cooing and groaning.
I got up and looked around the dark jungle of plants and flowers surrounding me. The noises seemed to be coming from the other end of the greenhouse. I padded toward their source, stopping every now and then to listen for potential danger, every sense on high alert. As I walked through what I recognized as rosebushes, the splashing sounds became louder. I inched closer, until my knees met something hard. Glass. I laid my hands on the glass balcony circling a huge pool. Maybe the sounds came from some sort of fountain? No. Something was moving in there, alternatively wriggling and slithering. I squinted my eyes, making out one, two, then an entire group of slick, dark shapes, the size of small dogs.
I bent over the balcony to take a better look . . . and nearly fell into the water when all the lights came on. Once I had recovered my balance, I got a better view of the strange creatures frolicking down there. Platypuses. Dozens of them, swimming, playing in a well-landscaped pool, surrounded by nice flat rocks, plants, small trees. I looked up at the ceiling in mild panic. Had someone turned on the lights accidentally? Had I been found?
“Stay where you are, bitch!”
Sahar. I stepped away from the balcony slowly. Indeed, standing in a small clearing, among banana trees and exotic flowers, was her curvy silhouette. Her black and blue hair was a mess, the silvery dress had been torn in several places, and she was pointing a gun at me. I gulped. I could see no guards with her. Maybe March and Alex had wreaked such havoc in the manor that she had lost her personal guard in the process? Or had she been looking for me? Over her head, in a corner of the ceiling, the blinking of a red light I hadn’t noticed before tipped me off: there were goddamn security cameras in that greenhouse!
“You’re coming with me,” she announced, her index finger tightening on the trigger.
I thought of my own gun, still tucked in March’s jacket pocket. She’d kill me if I tried to aim it at her, right? Without thinking, I staggered back and reached in the pocket. Either she saw the gun or she guessed its presence, because she marched toward me and the pool.
“I told you to stay the fuck where you are! Pull out the gun—slowly, or I’m blowing your face off!”
I knew that technique—I had witnessed March use it on other guys. She was shouting at me to increase my stress levels and make me do something stupid. It worked. I pulled out the small black pistol and held it out by the barrel in what I hoped was a gesture of appeasement.
“Throw it in the pool!”
“W-What if one of the platypuses gets smacked on the head and—”
“Stop fucking with me or you’ll be their next meal!”
Fear thrummed in my ears and temples, making my skull hurt. I threw the gun as I had been instructed, hearing it land in the pool with a splash. A few platypuses grunted at the intrusion. No, it was more like . . . growls. “D-Did you say they were going to eat me?”
She cocked the gun with a sneer. “They’re carnivorous.”
“I know . . . they eat worms and shrimp—”
“Look closer,” she ordered.
I glanced at the pool, never daring to lose sight of the gun Sahar was still pointing at me.
Shit. Bones. Or more exactly ribs, and possibly a femur. There were goddamn human bones lying on the rocks. And a shoe. I clenched my fists as hard as I could in an effort not to tremble.
She let out a cruel laugh. “It took them a week to completely finish Van Kreft.”
“But th-they’re not supposed to have teeth! It’s just the spurs, right?”
She shrugged. “Van Kreft said it was an incredibly rare subspecies. They were his passion, and Wille was kind of obsessed with them too.”
I racke
d my brain for memories of my dinner with Wille. I think he had talked about ornithology and Australian endemic species, but I had been zoning out at the time. I should have listened. I so should have. Because I was now facing the horrifying truth: there was such a thing as killer platypuses. I knew about the poisonous spur on their leg already, how a single sting could cause unbearable pain that would last for months, even years. But teeth. These monsters had killed their own master and eaten him! And eaten his shoe too.
“You said that it took a week for them to finish Van Kreft. Was he . . . alive?”
Sahar sighed dispassionately. “No. The venom killed him after a few hours. But their teeth are really small, so it takes a while for them to eat their prey. I’m planning on having them trashed. I prefer sharks.”
Sh-sharks? . . . By then I was completely petrified, and my breathing had all but stopped. My knees were shaking, and I dared neither run away nor follow her as she had requested. All I could see was a choice between getting shot or getting eaten alive by a pack of bloodthirsty platypuses.
“Now come here—we don’t have all night,” Sahar ordered.
There was nothing rational about my decision. But then again, was there anything rational about this whole situation? My legs stopped shaking for a second, which was all I needed to flee in terror. Of course she shot at me, as I ran along the pool’s balcony and toward the greenhouse’s garden door. With each detonation resounding behind me, I envisioned myself collapsing to the ground in a pool of my own blood.
She was taller than me, with a more powerful build, and even as she swore and almost stumbled because of her heels, I could feel her closing on me. I registered a whiff of overly sweet perfume and acrid sweat, and her body rammed into mine, flattening me to the ground.
Her nails dug into my sides, my arms, and I just fought back for my life, driven by pure adrenaline. I kicked and scraped and bit and screamed, wiggling under her weight, batting her hands every time she tried to pin me. She lost the gun at some point; I saw it fly and land somewhere on our right, near the pool. I rolled away and crawled to reach it, my arms straining desperately toward its barrel. Sahar was quicker, dashing to pick it up and aim it at my head.
She leaned against the balcony with a smirk, her breath coming in short pants. “I can’t wait until you’ve talked . . . so I can finally get rid of you.”
This statement triggered my most primal instincts. I was cornered; she’d torture me and kill me anyway. Nothing mattered but survival. Under my right palm, I felt for one of the many decorative stones peppering the greenhouse’s ground. When my fingers met a particularly large one, I grabbed it. With the war cry of a prehistoric beast, I jumped to my feet and threw it at Sahar, at the same time that she fired.
The bullet missed me, landing in a banana tree a few feet behind. My stone, however, hit her square on the forehead, and to my horror she staggered backward. I saw her eyes widen as she lost her balance, her hand reaching out for me in a silent call for help. My brain told me to grab on to her fingers, in spite of everything, but my feet remained glued to the ground under the effect of stress. She fell over the balcony and into the pool.
There was this huge splashing sound, her yelp of surprise, then, right afterward, the ghastly swarming of an entire pack of hungry platypuses charging her. I managed to overcome my fear and ran toward the balcony. There are no accurate words to describe what I witnessed: Sahar’s face looking up at me, like reddish putty distorted by a grimace of agony, her screams of anguish, all the blood tainting the once clear water as the creatures plunged their—admittedly small—teeth into her flesh. I feared it might already be too late, but I decided to help. I couldn’t watch this abomination without doing anything. I removed March’s jacket, and, under it, what was left of the dress one of her men had cut in half: a damp rag. With great caution, I approached the balcony and threw the garment in her direction, holding on to the end of one sleeve and hoping she’d manage to catch the other so I could pull her up. She couldn’t even seem to reach her end of this improvised rope. I watch her struggle toward it, one of her arms rising weakly out of the water.
Now, I’d like to stop right here and seize the opportunity to praise the remarkable training provided by both the Lions and the CIA to their professionals. When March and Alex burst into the greenhouse via a second door, guns in hand, they demonstrated a level of focus and self-control that was simply superhuman. They saw me half-naked trying to pull Sahar out of a pool of berserk platypuses trying to devour her, and they barely blinked before running to our aid with cold-blooded efficiency. March jumped on the rocks and pulled Sahar out of the pool, while Alex shot twice into the water to disperse the platypuses—for some reason he didn’t seem to want to harm them.
March cradled Sahar’s trembling, bruised body in his arms and hauled her back to safety, assisted by Alex. They laid her on the ground. She had bites everywhere, but also large patches of crimson, swollen flesh on her arms and legs where the platypuses had stung her. She had stopped screaming—probably no longer could—and emitted a series of whimpers, lolling her head softly.
March placed a hand on her forehead. “She needs medical attention. When will they be here?”
“Less than an hour or so,” Alex said, before turning to me. “What about you? Are you all right?”
“Yes . . . just cold. Who are you talking about?”
March examined my body anxiously—perhaps looking for platypus bites—as he spoke. “Mr. Morgan was able to contact his colleagues stationed in Geneva. They’re coming to clean up.”
“And we found something you’ll like in Sahar’s bedroom,” Alex added with a wink.
March’s lips quirked. “Indeed. Let’s take her to the second floor with us. We’re going to need your help, biscuit.”
THIRTY-THREE
The Bonsai
“My doom has come upon me; let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”
—Homer, The Iliad
Once March had picked up Sahar, I followed him and Alex through the greenhouse, then the left wing of the house. There, an apocalyptic mess awaited, made of half-destroyed baroque furniture, tangled curtains, and dead bodies. At the end of the building, a stone staircase led to the manor’s second floor. There, too, among Renaissance tapestries, damask sofas, and classic paintings, shit had gotten very real, and I didn’t dare to ask why a pair of legs dangled from under the lid of that black grand piano. March’s nostrils flared at the sight of a shattered vase, and I gathered he’d need to sort a thousand Skittles to recover from this adventure.
We reached a vast bedroom with a view on the park. The two men who had been guarding its doors were dead, but here, at least, the furniture was untouched, suggesting that no brutality had occurred. March laid Sahar’s prone body on the bed, wrapping her in the comforter with careful gestures. She seemed to have finally passed out.
After Sahar had been taken care of, two details struck me: several laptops sat on a Napoleon III desk, along with a surprising number of chocolate milk cartons. A nerd had been here. The second point was that low, insistent moan coming from an antique Chinese wardrobe. Alex walked toward the source of the noise with a contented smile and opened the heavy wooden doors to reveal a quite young, chubby blond guy, who sat gagged, tied, and handcuffed. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and his expression was that of a man who had stared death in the face. Alex pulled him out, along with a camel cashmere coat, which he handed to me. He helped the hostage to his feet while I shrugged the coat on, shaking away the strange guilt I experienced upon wearing something that was obviously Sahar’s.
Much like me back in the cellar, the guy’s legs were shaking so badly he was having a hard time standing up. A blue Avatar shirt suggested that he was the troglodyte creature who had consumed all that chocolate milk. Also, one of his hands looked a little red . . . and weird.
March noticed the direction of my gaz
e. “It’s nothing, just the left hand. He still has his right one to type.”
The guy whimpered.
My hands flew to my mouth. “You broke his hand?”
“Just twisted a couple of fingers.”
“March, it looks like a bonsai!”
“Now you’re being dramatic! Mr. Morgan, hold him for me, please. We’ll put these back in place.”
The victim welcomed March’s treatment plan with a muted scream while Alex locked an arm around his shoulders with a good-natured smile.
“Hmm! Hmmggnnmm!”
My body jolted as the swollen articulations snapped back in place. Something halfway between a groan and a gurgling sound erupted from the guy’s throat.
March patted his back. “See? He’s just fine.”
My heart went out to this fellow IT enthusiast. “Can we at least remove his gag?”
Alex complied, untying the piece of fabric that had been used to silence the guy.
“Please! Don’t kill me!” he squeaked in a broken sob.
“Not if you help us, young man,” March said coolly.
“He’s the one who supervised the final transfers for Sahar. He can wire the money back,” Alex explained. “We were going to make him, but we heard Sahar’s screams, saw the lights on, and came to help you.”
March narrowed his eyes at the crying boy. “We have, however, returned to finish what we started.”
His victim cowered in fear. “I’ll do anything you want! But please don’t torture me again!”
“Then put that right hand to good use,” March instructed the guy, removing his handcuffs and the rest of his bonds before helping him sit on the chair.
Alex turned to me and pointed at the screens with his chin. “Can you check that he’s not playing us?”
“Yes.”
I think March’s abuse had made a lasting impression on the guy. He diligently went through a list of accounts located in every single tax haven you could think of—and some you wouldn’t think of—and got down to business. Soon the transfers were starting, and we all watched as $698,473,510.82 changed hands in less than a minute.
