The Black Hawk

Nine

“WERE YOU FOLLOWED?” THE OLD BITCH SAT DRINKING coffee, glaring at Hawker.

She wasn’t just any old bitch. She was Carruthers, Head of the British Service for France. She could order him killed just as easy as stirring sugar in her cup. Easier, because she liked sugar and she didn’t like him.

A fellow might as well talk to a pillar of iron spikes when it came to reasonable discussion. He said, “People don’t follow me.”

“Really?” Just a well of skepticism, Carruthers. You had to wonder if she trusted her own earwax.

“I switched back on my trail a dozen times. Crossed the Seine twice. Went all the way down to the Sorbonne. It took me an hour. I didn’t lead anybody here.”

“He has the skill.” Doyle had all the parts of his gun laid out on the table where he’d pushed his plate away. “It’s his neck, too, if the French stumble in here.”

“If he’s left a trail here, the French won’t get a chance to kill him.” The Old Bitch picked up her cup and looked over the top. “Tell me what the girl said.”

He could do that. He started at the beginning—meeting Owl in La Place de la Révolution. “First off, she asked me if I’d seen Robespierre die. Called him the ‘great man.’ But sarcastic-like. I said . . .”

He knew how to report. He used to do this when he worked for Lazarus, back when the King of Thieves owned his soul, such as it was. When Lazarus wanted information, a fellow gave it to him fast, not wasting words and not making mistakes.

Working for Carruthers wasn’t all that different from working for the cold-blooded bastard who ran the London underworld, except now he lied and stole for England, and he was likely to get killed by the French instead of dancing in the air on the nubbing cheat.

He went back over his encounter with Owl, word for word, as near as he could remember. Doyle cleaned his gun. Two more agents came in, took chairs, and listened. Althea—she was the other old lady spy, but fifty times more reasonable than the lead-plated bitch—brought out eggs and toasted bread and laid it down in front of him.

Maggie sat on a stool to the side of the kitchen under the window. She was five days married. Married to Doyle over there. They were generally within sight of each other when they could manage it. She was spending her honeymoon busy as a cat with two tails, but not the way you’d think. Or not only that. She had maybe two hundred gold louis piled up on a barrel top in front of her. She was counting them into bags and writing out notes, giving orders for La Flèche business she wouldn’t be here to see to, personal. She’d be leaving France tomorrow.

Maggie was another one who wouldn’t let Bitch Carruthers get peevish and slit his throat.

He finished up his report with, “. . . said she’d expect me at sunset and I should wear something unobtrusive.”

They all sat, considering him.

Doyle fingered the crop of bristle that was establishing itself on his cheek. He hadn’t shaved, since he might need to go out and look scruffy on the streets. “So she says they’re about to close this Coach House operation. You have to go in tonight. That’s not much warning.”

“I doubt the timing is accidental.” Carruthers had a way of looking at you so you almost doubted yourself. “You saw a dozen children, learning to fight.”

“Thirteen. They’re doing a good job of it. If Owl is right—”

“Justine DuMotier,” the Old Bitch corrected.

“Her. If they learn English as well as they’re learning to fight, they’ll pass for English kids. No problem.”

A long stare from Carruthers. She turned to Doyle. “Do you believe this?”

“It’s an elaborate lie, if it’s a lie. Why bother?”

Carruthers came back with, “The boy’s not worth the trouble of arresting. You are. Are they after you?”

When Althea went around pouring coffee, she poured some for him too. The cup was thin as paper and the color of blue jewels, with curly gold leaves painted on it. The only time he touched something like this was to steal it. It didn’t feel right, drinking out of it.

They started talking back and forth, all of them arguing, and left him to eat in peace.

“If the girl belongs to the Pomme d’Or, then Soulier’s behind this.”

“. . . and the very wily Madame Lucille. They’re both old enemies of the Jacobin faction, particularly Patelin. This could be aimed at discrediting him.”

“. . . internal politics of the Police Secrète. The DuMotier girl’s being used by them, at the very least. Probably she’s an agent herself.”

“If the boy gets caught, it looks like a British operation. That undermines Patelin without pointing the finger at . . .”

“Which is what they have in mind. Blaming us.”

“. . . a chance to find out which side Soulier’s supporting in the next . . .”

The air’s so thick with intrigue nobody’s going to be able to breathe. He put jam on bread and piled the eggs on and rolled it up tight to eat. He had most of that inside him before he noticed he wasn’t doing it right. The Old Bitch had that kind of look on her face.

No eating with your hands. Just no end to the things you weren’t supposed to do. He started to lick his fingers. And stopped. You weren’t supposed to do that either, apparently. He was damned if he’d wipe jam on his togs.

“The napkin,” Doyle said.

He’d laid it on his lap, like you was supposed to, and forgot about it. So now he used it and stashed it away again.

He said, “I know what we have to do.”

That stopped the talking.

“We stop trying to guess what everybody’s up to. I meet Owl tonight, and then we know. I go find out.”

Althea sat down comfortably in the cushioned chair at the end of the table. “The problem with that, Hawker, is that this smells remarkably like a trap.”

“And I have no intention of losing my rat to a French trap,” the Old Bitch said. “I’ll send a man to watch the DuMotier girl and see what she does. You,” she looked directly at him, “will stay home.”

“You’re wrong.” It was out of his mouth before he knew he was going to say it. Stupid.

Nobody said anything just immediately. Doyle put the cork back in a little bottle of gun oil, tamping it down hard with his thumb. He didn’t seem concerned one way or the other. Noncommittal, if you went searching for the exact word.

“Explain yourself.” Lots of spiked and rusty edges in Carruthers’s voice.

“You’re going to have to root out a whole platoon of these Cachés they’ve planted in England. It’ll take you months and you’ll probably miss some. In one night, I can give you thirteen you won’t have to track down.” He glanced around. No expression on any face. “I won’t do anything stupid. If it’s not going to work, I’ll back away.”

They lounged around, waiting for him to say some damn thing or other. He didn’t know what.

He said, “You’re not risking much. Just me.”

Nothing.

So he said, “They’re kids.”

Doyle stopped scraping cinder out of the frizzen and set it down. “He should go. I would.”

“Fine then. We’ll send him into the middle of a Police Secrète power struggle,” Carruthers sounded irritated, “where he’ll be just about useless to me. He won’t see what’s going on under his nose, and there’s no time to teach him.”

That simple, that easy—he’d won his point. With the British Service he was out of his depth most of the time.

“Send someone with him,” Althea said.

“Who’d frighten her off. And I take the chance of losing two agents.”

Two agents. Carruthers said two agents. Meaning one of them was him. He missed some of what they said next while he was trying to decide how he felt about being an agent.

“. . . and more experienced,” one of the men said.

“We’ll send Paxton.” That was Althea. “He’s young enough to look unthreatening.”

Paxton. Everybody’s pet. The perfect agent. Paxton wouldn’t forget to use his damned napkin. Paxton probably didn’t slurp his tea. Probably he was no use at all on a job.

But the Old Bitch thought it was a glorious idea. “Pax will keep him out of trouble. You,” she turned to Hawker, “are walking a fine line. An agent gets to contradict me three times in his career. You’ve used one of them. You will now write a report of everything you saw and heard this morning.”

“I can’t—”

“The ink and paper are in the cupboard. Work at this table. Make two copies.”

Great. Just bloody great.