sufficiently peeved about the house to commit murder. Upon further investigation, Sutherland and I have learned that it’s a bit more complicated. A woman named Bianca Moon is intimately involved. ‘Intimately’ is not a word chosen lightly. Bianca, a Chinese agent, is sexually involved, God help us, with my cousin. She discovered that Henry and I were meeting for quiet lunches in the park. The Yard, as you well know, was running Henry. So, we now learn, were the Chinese.”
“So Henry’s a double. The Chinese are trying to warn us off.”
“Henry was a double. Henry may be dead. Our Miss Moon was not at all pleased when Henry sent my new housekeeper, Mrs. Purvis, to hospital instead of me.”
“Mrs. Purvis was shot? I’d no idea. Was she seriously wounded?”
“She’s recovering nicely, thank heaven.”
“Good news. I was thinking it was our Henry hiding in the rosebushes at Spring Cottage. It sounds like his style.”
“I thought about that, too. The only one on earth who knew I was leaving my house in the middle of the night was Mrs. Purvis. Henry could have been parked on the street and followed me, I suppose, but it’s unlikely. I drove at high speed and watched the mirror the whole time. Nothing.”
“There was one other person who knew you’d be at the cottage last night. The person who invited you to come there.”
“Lady Mars.”
“You said it, not me. It’s no secret that Brixden House has been a hotbed of spies at various times in its history.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Diana has nothing at all to do with this. She’s quite lovely, in fact.”
“So was Tokyo Rose, apparently.”
“Please. Don’t be absurd.”
“Listen, Constable, you and Cousin Henry may have stumbled into something far more ominous than either of you anticipated. Something worth killing you both over. I’m talking about that disc you found in Henry’s freezer. The French oil refineries and tankers.”
“Yes. It’s all about oil somehow, Alex. The whole bloody thing.”
“I think the next world war will be about oil. And someone clearly wants you and me as early casualties of that conflict. Tell me what you’ve learned.”
“The few computer discs in Henry’s flat contained photographs of French refineries and pipelines. Supertankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Henry was passing Bianca Moon hard intelligence about current oil production at Leuna and French transport tanker statistics. It’s a subject she has keen knowledge of, having been an employee of the French behemoth Elf Aquitaine.”
“There was a scandal,” Hawke said. “I knew I remembered that name. Bianca. She was the mistress, wasn’t she, of the former French Foreign Trade minister who was disgraced in the matter?”
“Exactly. She was Honfleur’s geisha. She absconded with millions and disappeared. Now, she appears to be back in spades.”
“Likewise, Monsieur Honfleur. He seems to have rehabilitated himself. He’s the new prime minister. That’s a remarkable recovery, even in France.”
“I was listening to the radio on the way here,” Ambrose said. “The BBC is saying that Honfleur’s son Philippe was killed yesterday in a terrorist attack on the latest French Foreign Trade minister, a chap with the old familiar name of Bonaparte.”
“The French are killing each other, Constable,” Hawke said, and turned to face the window. “Another Revolution. Another Bonaparte.”
“It’s worse. It’s the dragon and the frog,” Congreve said, thinking out loud.
“China and France,” said Hawke, shaking his head sadly. “‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’”
“A lovely sonnet indeed. But, something tells me you are going to be an impediment in this unholy marriage, Alex. You’re going to spoil their bloody honeymoon, at any rate.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Cannes
“PUT THE GIRL DOWN,” STOKE HEARD A VOICE BEHIND HIM say. Major German accent. Sounded like Colonel Klink on that old TV show Hogan’s Heroes. Stoke had Jet in his arms, having just lifted her from the bed. He’d wrapped her in the sheet, since she was buck naked except for a little pair of black lace panties. Girl had some nasty cuts and bruises in various places, but the blood had clotted up okay. In the mirrored wall behind the bed cage, he could see there was just one guy. The door was closed behind him. Big guy, weird blond fuzz on his head, and he had on a white dinner jacket and a rich man’s thin smile on his face.
Thin smiles, thin watches.
“Hey, Baron,” Stoke said to the reflection. “How’s it going?”
“Drop her.”
The German also had an ugly little black automatic in his hand. Austrian Walther. He had it pointed smack dab in the middle of Stoke’s broad back. Hard to miss at this range. Like trying to hit a barn. Stoke was armed, but he couldn’t think how the hell he could get to his weapon without putting Jet in the line of fire.
“She’s hurt,” Stoke said, keeping his back to the guy and watching him in the mirror. “She needs a doctor. You got a sickbay on this floating gin palace, boss?”
“Schweinehund!” Even in the dim light, Stoke could see him turning purple in the face. High blood pressure aggravated by people not listening to his ass say “jump.” “I repeat, put her down. This is a private matter.”
“How’d your speech go? Nobody gives more rousing speeches than you crazy Nazis when you’re fired up. Man oh man, I’m telling you.”
“I said, put her down!”
“I asked you a question. Is there a doctor aboard or not? I’m taking this girl to a doctor. Some of these cuts are deep.”
“She is a guest aboard this yacht. She is here of her own free will. Now, put her fucking down.”
“The tycoon himself. Sorry I missed that welcome speech. Bet you had ’em screaming for blood.”
“Who are you? What are you doing on my boat?”
“Me? I’m a decorator. From Orlando. Just poking around, looking for fabric ideas. Chintz and shit. Toile. Found this lady who was hurt. You do this to her?”
“Drop her on the bed and turn around. Now.”
“I want to know if you did this to her.”
“It’s none of your affair. A private matter, as I said. She disappointed me. She was punished. Simple.”
“Punished? That what you call this? Punished?”
“She resisted and she got a little banged up. Nothing serious. Ask her.”
“You were planning to leave her down here in a damn cage to bleed to death?”
“You have five seconds. If you don’t do as I say, I will put one bullet in the back of each of your knees. Shatter the patella, sever the tendons. You won’t walk again. One…”
“Do what he says,” Jet said. “He will shoot.”
“Hey—”
“Two…”
“Shit, man, you making this harder than it has to be.”
“Three…”
“Damn, you Germans are stubborn,” Stoke said, and then he dove across the bed with Jet tucked safely within the solid cradle of his arms. There was a rapid pop-pop, two slugs thunked into the thick mattress, and then Stoke and Jet were on the floor on the far side of the bed. He pushed her down with his left hand and drew his gun with his right. The Sig Sauer P220 was Velcroed into a nylon holster just above his left ankle. Aluminum alloy frame made it light, Black Talon ammo made it right.
