The Reluctant Assassin (13 page)

Garrick slapped his thigh. “Oh, Chevron, you are a tonic. The odds are stacked against you higher than the Tower of London and
still
you are full to the gills with pluck. I see now why Felix was fond of you.”

Chevie snorted. “Felix? Fond of me? You’ve been misinformed.”

“Felix and I were . . .
close
before he died,” said Garrick cryptically. “Felix was fond of you, even if he was not fully aware of it.”

“So you knew, but he didn’t?”

Garrick half hid a smug smile behind his hand. “In a way, yes.”

The magician’s smile evaporated when the cab turned the corner onto Bedford Square and the house on Bayley Street came into view. The railings were crisscrossed with police tape, and two FBI agents in blue Windbreakers stood out front, flanked by Metropolitan police officers with machine guns slung across their chests. Obviously Waldo had redirected some of the FBI response team to Bedford Square and called in the locals to boot.

“We should have walked,” said Chevie. “We might have gotten here quicker.”

Garrick gnawed on a knuckle. “Quiet, girl. Do not force me to commit murder for the sake of a moment’s silence.”

Garrick considered the heavily armed officers.

Even an individual of my expertise could not be expected to take on the entire police force, he concluded, especially not ones with machine guns. Though according to Smart’s experiences, the bobbies are much hampered by their own constitution. Apparently they cannot even dump vagrants into the Thames anymore. But even so, they would have no qualms about cutting down an assassin attempting to gain access to the building.

While Garrick was thinking, Riley stole a glance at Chevie. Her face was tight and her muscles coiled, though she tried to appear at ease; and it was clear to Riley that she intended to try her luck with Garrick in this confined space.

She thinks I’m on his side, he thought. And I cannot let her know the truth without also alerting Garrick.

Garrick had obviously noticed Chevie’s attitude, for he pointed a finger at the boy. “Riley, tell your new friend to rethink her strategy. If she takes aggressive action, I will gut her before the seat belt is off, and knife the cabbie for spite.”

Luckily the cabbie was separated from them by a plastic screen and did not realize his life was a tool for barter.

“Here we are, mate,” he called over his shoulder. “Bayley Street. You might spot a few celebs up around here. House on the corner went for forty million pounds last month. There’s no recession in this manor, I’ll tell you that.”

Garrick rolled his eyes. “Apparently the verbosity of London cabbies is constant through the ages.” He knocked on the plastic. “I have a new destination for you, driver. Take us to the Wolseley. A
friend
told me about this café, and I feel it would be just the ticket for our ravenous group. Down Piccadilly, if you please, I do not wish to take the tourists’ route.”

“No worries,” said the cabbie. “I know this city better than the wife knows the inside of my wallet. Strike me dead if I try to cheat you.”

Garrick hid his face as they passed the armed police.

“That is exactly what I shall do,” he said.

By the time the cabbie drew in front of the Wolseley, the restaurant was open for early breakfast. Garrick selected a booth in the window and studied the menu with coos of delight that drew attention from other diners.

“What say you, son? Kedgeree or kippers? Why not both, eh? It is a special occasion, after all.”

Chevie sat by the window, hemmed in between the glass and the magician’s apprentice, hampered by the table.

I need to make a move, she thought. Orange’s last instruction to me was to guard the Timekey. I will not botch another mission. I must get that key back. And I can’t rely on Riley to help me.

All traces of Smart were gone now. The person sitting opposite her was a genuine magician from the past, and as if to prove it, he charmed the waitress, pulling a salt shaker from behind her ear and Felix Smart’s platinum MasterCard from behind his own.

“I believe this is what passes for money these days,” he said, his accent like something from an old black-and-white Sherlock Holmes movie. “Make sure to add a ten percent gratuity for yourself, my dear, pretty as you are.”

The girl was used to big tippers. “I think I’m pretty enough for twenty percent,” she said, not even bothering to smile.

Garrick waved a magnanimous hand. “Why not take thirty?” he said. “We Smarts are a generous breed.”

The waitress pulled a pen from the belt of her apron and took Garrick’s order. The magician selected three kinds of eggs: poached, fried, and scrambled. Kedgeree and kippers. Toast, muffins, and American pancakes with syrup. Sausages, bacon, and potato cakes. Oatmeal and granola. Orange juice, grapefruit juice, and a large pot of coffee. Riley opted for hot chocolate and a full English breakfast, while Chevie asked for a glass of water.

Obviously murder gives a person an appetite, she thought.

“Not hungry, Agent?” Garrick asked her.

Chevie smiled tightly. “I’m feeling a bit off. Must be all the corpses.”

Garrick winked at Riley. “You grow accustomed to that. Look at my partner here, an apprentice no more. He’ll be tucking into his bacon like the hangman’s waiting for him in the square.”

“Yeah,” said Chevie. “Maybe he is. That’s what happens when you kill everyone you meet.”

“I haven’t killed you yet, Miss Savano. Perhaps after breakfast, eh?”

Riley was silent throughout this exchange. He wished only to sleep and perhaps dream of a beach and the red-haired boy.

Beware the undertow—it’ll have yer legs out from under you.

Had the boy really said that, or was his mind inventing a past for himself? Riley shook his head to dislodge the familiar fog that settled over his brain when he was in Garrick’s company. He generally let his mind float away, but today was different. Chevie’s life was at stake as well as his own.

The last thing Riley wanted was a fry-up, but his body was hungry and, as Garrick always said,
Eat up, boy. Your next meal will probably be your last.

“You should eat, Chevie.”

Garrick’s hand darted across the table and clipped Riley’s ear. “
Chevie?
Who are you now, son? The Prince of Wales? Ladies will be referred to by their titles. This is
Agent Savano
or
miss
to you.”

Chevie was unimpressed. “Wow, manners. Cool. I had thought you were a murdering psycho, but now you’ve won me over.”

Garrick sighed, weary now of the girl’s comments. “This constant melodrama is so wearing. Isn’t there anything I can do to persuade you to be civil, at least while we are at table?”

Psychology 101: get the subject to talk about himself. Any information learned might come in useful later, if there was a later.

“You could tell me what you are, exactly.”

Garrick seriously considered this. It would be nice to share the details of his transformation; but then again, too much knowledge was too much power, so perhaps he would sketch in broad strokes. “I know that Felix went over the basics with you. Wormholes through time, and so forth. When Felix and I traveled the time tunnel together, we merged. I am still in control, but Felix is definitely a part of me.”

“You killed him?”

“I killed most of him. And it was self-defense: he did detonate a bomb.”

“So you can do stuff with what’s left of Felix? Tricks?”

“Ah, yes, of course. A trick. Ladies love the magic tricks. Think of a card.”

Chevie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

“No, seriously now, mademoiselle. Picture a card.
Visualize it
, as you Americans are fond of saying.”

Chevie couldn’t help it. The Queen of Hearts popped into her mind. It had been her father’s favorite bar on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Garrick clicked his fingers. “I have it. You were picturing the Ace of Spades. The card that signifies imminent and painful death.”

“No, I wasn’t,” argued Chevie.

Garrick twirled his butter knife. “You are now,” he said.

It was an exchange straight out of a penny dreadful, Garrick knew; but he had grown up on stage and had melodrama in his blood.

The food arrived, and Garrick tucked in with obvious delight, laughing as he ate, plucking morsels from several different plates—he ate sausages dipped in syrup and potato cakes smothered in hot chocolate. He was like a child at a party.

“There is no dirt, not a speck of grit,” he declared. “The odors are uniformly pleasant, and what is supposed to be hot is hot.”

Chevie watched the magician closely, mentally going over every detail of his face and mannerisms in order to commit it all to memory.

Middle-aged. Maybe early forties, hard to tell. Pale complexion. Teeth seem a little long. Yellowed. Dark eyes. Blue, maybe, deep-set, with a bulbous brow. Black hair starting to gray. Long and straight. Slim build, but wiry. Nothing obviously threatening about him. This guy would never get the part of a Victorian villain in a movie about himself.

Surely my chance will come, thought Chevie, but every time she was on the verge of launching herself at the magician, he saw the intent in her face. It was almost as if Garrick could read her thoughts.

“You are wondering if I can read your thoughts,” said Garrick suddenly, waving a nub of sausage at her. “I confess that I cannot, but I do have a certain expertise in the science of movement, what you might term kinesics or body language. Your violent intentions are as clear to me as the
Times
’s banner headline.”

Chevie glared at him. “Yeah? What’s my face telling you now?”

“The FBI often employ the term
acceptable collateral damage
,” continued Garrick calmly. “If we were to engage here, I can guarantee that at least half a dozen members of the public would be killed; the number could be as high as ten, if you really inconvenienced me. Felix assures me that you have a certain competence in the martial arts, but you are unarmed, and I have three pistols and a blade on my person. Do you think the Bureau would reward you for provoking me in a restaurant?”

Garrick was right, and Chevie knew it. She could not afford to be aggressive in such a public area.

Again, Garrick read her face. “You have come to the right decision, Agent. After all, these are real people all around us. People with families and loved ones.”

Garrick flinched as if struck, as his own words connected him to a memory of Smart’s.

“Loved ones,” he repeated, pulling the Timekey from under his shirt. “Felix knew that his father had taken a female companion somewhere in London after his mother died. Charles Smart never revealed whom, and Felix presumed that once his father disappeared into the past that was the end of that. But I have spied on many a lovesick mark, and passion will drive a man to almost any lengths.” Garrick paused, flipping the Timekey with his agile fingers. “His father built a second pod in London, but Felix could never track it down. And it occurs to me, as a student of human foibles and failings, what better reason to construct a backup pod than to sneak back to this century and visit a secret flame?” Garrick activated the key’s small screen and clicked though the menus until he came to a trip log.

“We have several jumps from Bedford Square, as one would expect, the last one in the early 1980s. And that should be the end of it—but, no, I have some coordinates here. More than a dozen more jaunts logged to and from the same spot. Smart, you amorous old dog. Whoever this woman is, you could not stay away.”

Garrick stuffed the Timekey inside his shirt. “Riley, my son. We have found our way home.”

Riley did not speak, but his eyes spoke for him:
I am not your son.

Surprising that Garrick could not decipher that.

Garrick used the GPS on Smart’s phone to navigate to the coordinates on the Timekey. Felix Smart’s memories acted like a living tutorial. Whenever Garrick arrived at a new screen, he simply concentrated for a moment until its workings came to him.

They walked from the Wolseley side by side, like family, past the Ritz and onto Piccadilly. Garrick enjoyed the early morning sun on his face, while Chevie’s strides were stiff with tension and Riley walked as though dazed with exhaustion; in reality he was overplaying his fatigue so that Garrick would not press him into conversation, and he could steal a moment to think.

I wish there was some way to signal to Agent Savano, he thought. We can only escape by paddling in the same direction.

He tried to catch Chevie’s eye, but she was lost in her own thoughts.

Surely there is an alert out for Garrick at this point, Chevie was thinking. Maybe he will be recognized.

It was doubtful, as Garrick no longer looked like Agent Orange. The only people who had Garrick’s true description were walking beside him, and it seemed as though Riley had chosen which side he was on. And she would not have held the boy’s choice against him had it not been for the murder of her colleague.

The city center was becoming busy as shops opened for business. In spite of the congestion fee, the streets were soon jammed bumper to bumper with vehicles. The day was shaping up nicely, clear silver skies that would soon turn blue, and a brisk breeze that could stir even the most jaded time traveler. The unlikely trio strolled together through Mayfair, Chevie hoping against hope that somehow the Bureau had tracked them and there was a sniper drawing a bead on Garrick’s crown even as they walked.

Wishful thinking. And, even if somebody does shoot this Garrick creature, it might not even harm him. It could just make him angry. Who knows what this guy is capable of?

Chevie told herself not to give up. One of Cord Vallicose’s maxims was that there was always an opportunity waiting to be noticed; an agent had to be ready when it presented itself.

Whatever it takes to stay out of the past, she thought. I am not going into the past.

But Chevie’s subconscious knew, even if her conscious mind didn’t yet realize it, that she would hop, skip, and jump into the past whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner” if it meant getting away from this lunatic magician.