cot. The books scattered on the floor. The rotting food and empty wine bottles on the ancient stone floor. Lightning struck close by, filling the room with white light.
This was where he lived.
Horror began to steal its way into her mind, hot blood racing upward, flooding her skull.
He smiled. 'If you were granted one wish, Faith McGuire, what would you wish for?'
She tried for a laugh. 'To stop drinking with strangers.'
'I promise you, Faith, today will be the day you stop drinking with strangers.'
She edged toward the door, blindly reaching out for the handle.
'Don't bother, Faith. I locked it.'
'Locked it! Why on earth would you lock this door?'
'So you can't get out. Not until you've answered every last one of my questions about your brother's regiment. I need this information, you see. It's my trade. I'm rather a spy. I trade information for favors. Simple, isn't it.'
'Ah, yer full of it, ain't you? Trying to scare a poor young girl like that? I know your kind. Open that door and I'll give you a kiss, but only one. You don't scare me a lick.'
'You should be scared, my dear girl,' he said, moving toward her. He pulled something from his jacket pocket and held it up into the light.
'Oh, my God.'
'If you have a god, my dear, now would be a good time to have a quick word.'
'What is it? What are you going to do? Have your way with me? It ain't necessary, mister. I'm no virgin. I like it, y'see, can't get enough. I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt me.'
'Oh, I've no doubt you'll do as I say. But now it's time for the Q & A, my darling.'
He pressed the tip of the carving knife against her cheek.
She screamed once, found herself backing away and hit the edge of the table, hit it hard with her hip. She put a hand down on the table to steady herself. It was covered with a crusty dried substance that flaked off onto her hand. In some dim recess of her brain she knew instantly that it was old blood.
'It's covered with-'
'A sacrificial altar,' he said quietly. 'A Pagan ritual. Centuries old.'
'Please. Don't hurt me. I know how to make men happy. I'll do it for you. Anything. I swear it! On my knees, I'll swear it, only don't-'
'Oh, don't worry about all that nasty business. I'm not that kind of man. I find all that rubbish rather messy and disgusting, to be honest.'
He moved closer. She opened her mouth to scream as he raised the knife.
He jammed his fingers into her mouth, hooking his left thumb under her jaw, and pushed her back onto the table. Her large breasts were heaving beneath the low-cut white cotton peasant's blouse, and he yanked it down at the neckline, ripping the cloth away from her shoulders with his knife hand.
'Will you talk now, Faith? Will you tell me everything I need to know?'
He missed the hand coming for his eyes. She screamed as she went for them, intent on gouging, and he'd time enough to turn the other cheek, as they say, and all she managed was to rake three shallow wounds down the side of his face.
He slashed her with the knife. She was moving frantically now and the wound was only superficial.
'Faith. Your brother's unit is charged with the protection of Lord Mountbatten. I want to know how many men are assigned to his unit, and I want to know what their rotation schedule is!'
'No!'
He slashed again and the blade struck bone, a rib, but the blood was spurting and he gripped her jaw harder, slamming her head against the table with a hollow thud.
She quieted down a bit, dazed.
'Now talk,' he said, but he was convinced he wasn't going to get anything out of this one.
He took a moment to compose himself and regarded her calmly. She was still wriggling too much for his taste, and he cracked her skull once more against his altar.
'Do you or do you not intend to answer my questions about your brother's regiment?'
'Yes! Yes I do! Just stop. Don't-'
The bloodlust was up now. He'd never get anything but lies out of this simple girl. And he certainly could not allow her to go free, not now.
Pity.
He raised the knife above his head, bringing it down in a wide ripping arc. The vicious blow tore away most of her throat.
He took a step back to avoid that awful spouting gout of blood and said, 'I'm sorry, Faith. That was mean. You should never have trusted me. No one ever should. They all learn that lesson too late, I'm afraid.'
She was silent now.
He went over to his miserable cot and lay down, sick to his stomach over what he had just done, swallowing the vomit. The rage blooming inside him, the hot red need to kill finally extinguished, he lay there, disgusted, panting, hating himself, drenched in the hot blood of Faith McGuire. He seemed to have a half-empty wine bottle in his hand and he drank it down in a single draught.
In the morning, Faith would join all the others down in the catacombs. But for now, at last, he could get some sleep. He stared at the old magazine cover of Mountbatten taped to his wall. Scrawled across his face were Roman numerals, scribbled there every night as Smith marked off the remaining days until he struck. A grease pencil hung by a string, and he used it to mark off one more day, one more week.
Now, to sleep.
Perchance, if he was lucky, to dream of his unsuspecting nemesis.
SEVENTEEN
LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN STOOD on the glistening tarmac in the dewy light of dawn. He was gazing up with nostalgia at the silver fuselage of the familiar Lancaster heavy bomber. This particular aircraft, a York MW-102, with its four Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engines, had flown Mountbatten on countless missions during his days as Supreme Commander, Southeast Asia. Early in the war, he'd converted the Lancaster to his own specifications. Mountbatten had just refitted her yet again with bunks for a relief crew to shorten the flight time required for his upcoming journey.
Lord Mountbatten was a man on a mission, an extremely vital mission, and he literally had not a moment to spare. Millions of lives were literally hanging in the balance and he'd been chosen by his King and the prime minister to be the reluctant savior of these teeming masses.
The Hero of Burma had no burning desire to be remembered by history as a savior. He was a lifelong warrior, moreover, a victor, not some bloody diplomat or politico. One need only look at the legions of decorations now festooned so proudly upon his chest to know him for what he was. His idea of negotiation was a fight to the death. Far more importantly, did he want his name forever engraved in the history books as the man who'd begun this lamentable unraveling of the British Empire? Churchill thought the whole idea of giving up empire was blasphemy. For once, Mountbatten was completely in agreement with his bullheaded nemesis.
If this was not the end of empire, then certainly it was the beginning of the end. He had argued tirelessly with the monarch over his decision to send him to India. He neither wanted the Crown to give up this bastion of empire, nor did he have any wish to preside over this debacle. A religious struggle between two warring religions, Hinduism and Islam, for which there was clearly no solution.
But such was his fate.
His valet had already stowed Lord and Lady Mountbatten's personal luggage on board, all sixty-six pieces of it, so complete it included a set of silver ashtrays that bore the family crest. Also on board, in an old cardboard shoebox stowed in an overhead bin, was a family heirloom. It was the diamond-studded tiara Edwina would wear
