He hadn’t even seen them come in.
“Matter of fact I do,” he said, and fished his old gold Dunhill out of his waistcoat pocket. He flicked it open and lit the cigarette dangling from the lips of the grinning skinhead who was staring at him with glittering eyes.
Whatever drugs he was taking had definitely kicked in.
“Ta,” the youth said. He’d had blond hair once, but the stubby new growth was some sort of acid green.
“Pleasure,” he replied and, pocketing his lighter, returned to his pint.
“Me mates and I,” the lout continued, “we was wonderin’ about you.”
“Really? I’m not at all interesting, I assure you.”
“Yeah? Well, what we was wonderin’, me mates and me, was whether or not you were a, you know, a poofter.”
“A poofter?” he asked, putting down his pint and turning his cold blue eyes toward the sallow face and wide grin full of bad teeth.
“Yeah. A fooking flamer,” the man said, though something in the older man’s eyes made him take a step backwards.
Two well-manicured hands shot out and pinched the skinhead’s ringed earlobes cruelly.
“Poofter?” the elegant man said, smiling, twisting his fingers. “You don’t mean the sort of chap who wears earrings and dyes his hair, do you?”
This drew a laugh from the two sullen mates and brought an angry flush of color into the cheeks of the green-haired fellow.
“Nice meeting you lads,” the Englishman said, releasing the chap’s bright red ears. He stood, picked up his cloak, and shouldered into it. Then he donned his top hat, picked up the ebony cane, and turned to go.
“Wot’s at?” the green-haired boy said, blocking his way.
“Wot’s wot?” the gentleman replied in a perfect mimicry of the fellow’s accent.
“Wot you said. Wot you called me—”
“Get out of my way,” he said. “Now.”
“Make me, guv. C’mon. Give ’er a go.”
“Pleasure,” he said, and he brought the flat hard edge of his hand down on the fellow’s right shoulder with such blinding speed that the youth felt the sharp stab of pain before he even saw the hand coming.
“Christ!” he screamed in pain, staggering backwards, his shoulder blade sagging at an odd angle. “You broke me bloody—me bloody—”
“Clavicle,” the Englishman said as the fellow stumbled backwards over a barstool and collapsed to the floor.
He then stepped over the chap on his way out the door. “Good evening,” he said, tipping his hat as he strolled out the open door and onto the empty street. No one about. It was a good deal later than he’d imagined.
He walked to the next corner and paused beside a lamppost to draw out his gunmetal cigar case. He lit his cigar, listening carefully for their approach. It didn’t take long. He let them get within six feet, then whirled about to face the three thugs. The green-haired one was holding his broken collarbone, his face contorted with rage.
“Ah, my new friends,” the Englishman said, a pleasant smile on his face. “I’ve been expecting you. Now. Who wants to go first? You? You? Perhaps all of you at once?”
He waited for one of them to move and when it happened he attacked. His senses were surging back to him, and, like an animal, he rejoiced in the feeling.
He broke two noses first, then lashed out at the third chap, his right foot the blur of a scalded piston. He connected, first hearing the snap of the fibula and then the deeper crack of the tibia, the inner and larger of the two bones of the lower leg. Sadly, it was enough to take all the fight out of them, and so he turned away and headed for home. It had started to rain, a raw, cold rain, and he removed his hat and turned his face up into it, enjoying the sting of the icy drops. He reached the house in Belgrave Square, and Pelham swung the door open for him, taking his hat and cane.
“Good heavens!” the old fellow exclaimed when the man removed his cloak to reveal his blood-spattered shirtfront. “What happened, m’lord?”
“Bloody nose, I’m afraid,” he replied, mounting the broad stairs. “Two of them, in fact.”
Ten minutes later, he was in his bed, yearning for sleep and the American woman he seemed to have fallen deeply in love with, Victoria Sweet.
A few hours on, the Englishman was staring at the ringing bedside telephone and the clock with equal disbelief. “Bloody hell,” he said to himself. He picked up the phone.
“Yes?” he said, with no intention of being polite. Christ, it was barely a quarter to five in the morning.
“Hi,” said the throaty female voice at the other end, altogether too cheery for the ungodly hour.
“Good God,” he said, yawning. He’d been in a deep sleep. Having quite a pleasant dream as he remembered. Vicky was undoing her—he’d lost it.
“No, not Him. But close. It’s the brand-new secretary. First day on the job!”
“Do you have even the faintest idea what time it is over here?”
“You sound put out.”
“May I be frank?”
“Oh, don’t be mad. I’ve had the most amazing day. I’m not calling to flirt, either. It’s strictly business.”
The Englishman, fully awake now, propped himself up against the many large pillows at the head of his bed. A hard rain, now mixed with sleet, was thrashing against his tall bedroom windows. The fire, which had been casting shadows on the vaulted ceiling when he’d at last fallen asleep, was now reduced to a few glowing coals, and a damp chill pervaded the lofty chamber.
He pulled the blanket up under his chin, cradling the phone against his cheek. Another soggy January day in London was about to dawn. He was sluggish. He was bored. His limbs, his mind, his very cells, had gone soft and flaccid.
The little scuffle in the street had been a pleasant distraction, but nothing more. The Englishman was in fact a restless warrior who, for far too long now, had been “between assignments,” as the euphemism has it.
Which is why the single word business had crackled like lightning around his languishing synapses and stirred his lazy blood.
“You mentioned something about business,” he said.
“Are you disappointed? Tell the truth. You were hoping it was phone sex. I could hear it in your voice.”
“Your voice does sound rather—never mind. Smoky. I thought you’d stopped smoking.”
“I’m trying to quit. I’m going hot turkey.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s the opposite of cold turkey. You fire up your first one the second you wake up and then smoke as many as you possibly can before you go to sleep at night.”
“Sounds brilliant. Well. You said business. Tell me.”
“First, you have to know something. This is not my idea. Your pal the president asked for you specifically. I’m telling you that just in case you’ve got too much on your plate already.”
“All right.”
“It’s not me who’s asking. It’s him.”
“Doesn’t matter to me who it is. My plate, dear girl, is as clean as your proverbial American whistle.”
“You have no idea how glad they’ll be to hear that over at Casa Blanca.”
“All right. I’m no longer annoyed. I’m awake. Razor sharp. Tell me.”
“Your MI6 picked this up, tossed the ball to us. CIA has checked it out and it’s serious. Confirmed through the captured Al Qaeda commander, Abu Subeida.”
‘The Gatekeeper.”
“Yes. Ever heard of something called Project Boomerang?”
“Hmm. I do seem to remember that. Some kind of wildly experimental submarine program. The Soviets were building a prototype at the Komsomolsk yard. Tail end of the Cold War. Never got it operational as I recall. Is that
