The Spy Who Haunted Me
“Damn right!” I said, sitting up straight in spite of myself. “You used to tell me stories about him when I was just a kid, Uncle Jack. Hell, everyone knows stories about the Independent Agent!”
“Impress me,” said the Matriarch. “Show me you paid some attention during your lessons. What do you know about Alexander King?”
“There have always been other intelligence agencies in the world,” I said, “doing the same work as us. Some political, some religious: the Regent of Shadows, the London Knights, the Salvation Army Sisterhood. And any number of individual agents playing the great game for their own reasons: the Walking Man, the Travelling Doctor, the Old Wolf of Kabul, John Taylor in the Nightside . . . But the best of them has always been Alexander King. He’s taken on every rogue organisation, faction, and Individual of Mass Destruction and run rings around all of them. He’s worked with or against pretty much every government at one time or another, but always on his own terms. He’s even worked with us a few times. Didn’t he and Uncle James once . . . ?”
“Yes, he did,” said the Armourer. “And we still don’t talk about it. The point is, the Independent Agent has no loyalty to anyone other than himself. He’s worked for every country, every cause, every organisation, and always strictly for cash. He’s saved the world nine times, to our certain knowledge, and come close to destroying it twice.”
“I always thought he did it for the challenge,” said the Matriarch. To my surprise she was smiling just a little, and her usually calm and cold voice had just a touch of the wistful in it. “To see if he could do it, when no one else could. Alexander has been the best spy in the world for almost seventy years now. He admits to being ninety-one years old but could be even older. The point is, he became increasingly choosy about his missions, turning down most people. He said it was because there were no real challenges left anymore, but age catches up with all of us, even the incredible Independent Agent. In fact, he’s been quiet for so long most of us thought he’d retired.”
“He did contact us during the Hungry Gods War, to offer his services,” said the Armourer. “But that was when Harry was running things, and he said no. I don’t think he wanted to be overshadowed. Of course, that was before we realised just how serious the whole affair was . . .”
“The point is,” said the Matriarch, glaring sternly at the Armourer until he sank back into his chair, “Alexander King has contacted us. He says he’s dying. And is therefore prepared to divulge a lifetime’s hoarded knowledge and secrets to whichever present-day agent can demonstrate that they are worthy to take his place when he dies. To ascertain this, he is summoning the six most promising agents in the world to his home deep in the Swiss Alps. And he says he wants you, Edwin.”
“What? Me?” I sat bolt upright, honestly shocked. “Why would he want me?”
“He probably wants you because you took on the whole Drood family and won,” the Armourer said dryly. “And just possibly because you led us to victory against the Hungry Gods and saved all humanity. Anyway, he was most firm. He wants you, for this . . . competition of his.”
“You have to go,” said the Matriarch. “For the pride of the family, and to make sure the Independent Agent’s accumulated treasure of secret knowledge doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. That cannot be allowed to happen, Edwin. Alexander King knows things that no one else knows. The kind of suppressed truths that can bring down governments, start wars, and quite possibly set the whole world at each other’s throats. Any individual or organisation with that kind of knowledge would be a real threat to the Droods, particularly in our current weakened state.”
“And, of course, because there’s always the chance they might not use that knowledge in the world’s best interests,” said the Armourer.
“Well, yes, that too,” said the Matriarch. “Only we can be trusted with information like that.”
“Some of these hypothetical people might do a better job than us,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” said the Matriarch. “No one does it better than us.”
“Of course,” I said. “What was I thinking?”
“King says he knows who our traitor is,” said the Armourer. “You have to go, Eddie, and you have to win. For the sake of the family, and the world.”
“You will win, Edwin,” said the Matriarch. “Whatever this competition turns out to be. We’ll give you whatever support and assistance we can, but . . . in the end, you must win. By any means necessary.”
“I suppose so,” I said. I still had a whole shed load of reservations about practically everything involved with this competition, but I wasn’t going to waste my breath discussing them with the Matriarch. She was right about one thing: we had to find out who our traitor was, for the sake of the family and the world. Everything else . . . I’d have to think on my feet. As usual. I nodded slowly. “Do we at least know who the other competitors are?”
“No,” said the Armourer. “King is playing his cards very close to his chest for the moment. Typical of the man. We’ve been making some discreet enquiries, but no one significant has dropped out of sight . . . You’ll receive your instructions at King’s private head-quarters, some old ski lodge in the Swiss Alps. Very private, very well defended. It’s called Place Gloria; you might remember it from a rather famous spy film they shot there in the sixties.”
I shook my head. “I never watch spy films. I can’t take them seriously.”
“You’re expected to make your own way there,” said the Armourer. “Part of proving your worth, I suppose. The Merlin Glass could drop you off right at his door . . .”
“But you can’t take it with you,” the Matriarch said immediately. “Far too important to the family to risk it falling into enemy hands. On the other hand, Alexander King is supposed to have a quite magnificent collection of objects of power and influence in his own private museum. Spoils of the world’s secret wars . . . Some of which he stole from us. We’d quite like those back, if you can manage it.”
“Along with anything else you can get your hands on,” said the Armourer.
“I remember Alexander . . .” said the Matriarch. Her voice was definitely wistful this time, and her eyes were faraway. “I had a bit of a fling with him, in the autumn of 1957. In East Berlin, right in the shadow of the Wall. We used to meet at this perfectly awful little café that smelt mostly of boiled cabbage and served its vodka after the Russian fashion, with a little black pepper sprinkled on top. The idea being that as the pepper grains sank to the bottom of the glass, they’d take the impurities in the vodka with them. You really could go blind, drinking that stuff in East Berlin in 1957. Awful vodka, awful food, but I still have fond memories of that little café . . . or at least of the room we used to rent above it. Ah, yes; Alexander . . . This was before I met and married your father, Jack, of course.”
“Of course, Mother.” The Armourer looked more than a little uncomfortable at the thought of his mother getting it on with the Independent Agent, so I moved in.
“What were the two of you doing in East Berlin, Grandmother?”
“Oh, some nonsense about a Persian djinn being buried under the Berlin Wall to give it strength. We never did get to the bottom of it. But . . . you might mention my name to Alexander, Edwin, just in case he remembers me. A most charming fellow. Don’t trust him an inch.”
“Of course not,” I said. “He isn’t family.”
And that was the end of the council meeting. I was going to the Swiss Alps to meet a living legend who was dying and take part in a competition I didn’t understand, with people I didn’t know, all for a prize I wasn’t sure I believed in. And, no, I didn’t get a say in the matter. Business as usual, in the Drood family.
There was no way the Armourer was going to let me go off on a mission without the benefit of his very latest gadgets of mass distraction. So down to the Armoury we went, set deep in the bedrock under the Hall, so that when the place finally did blow itself up through an excess of imagination and optimism, t
here was at least some chance the family home would survive. As always, the huge stone chamber was jumping with activity and lab assistants running this way and that, sometimes in pursuit of an escaping experiment, sometimes because their lab coats were on fire. It took nerves of steel to work in the Armoury and a definite lack of the old self-preservation instinct. The Armourer strode through the chaos, entirely unmoved, while I stuck close behind him. If only to use him as a shield.
“How did the mellow bombs work out?” the Armourer tossed back over his shoulder, ducking slightly to avoid an eyeball with wings as it fluttered past.
“Oh, fine!” I said, stepping quickly to one side to avoid a lab assistant arguing fiercely with a plant in a cage. “Though the effects did seem to fade away pretty fast.”
“I’m working on it; I’m working on it!”
We passed a huge plastic bubble of clear water inside which two overenthusiastic lab techs were trying out their new gills and clawed hands and going at each other like Japanese fighting fish. Up above, a rather fetching young lass with new bat wing grafts was flapping along with a blissful smile on her face. Another technician appeared and disappeared and appeared, shouting, “How do you turn this bloody thing off?”
In the Shooting Alley, half a dozen interns were trying out their new gun prototypes and making a real mess of the Alley in the process. Someone else had just finished showing off their new invention: a knife that fired its blade at your opponent while the hilt stayed in your hand. Afterwards, the blade would return to the hilt to be used again. Didn’t seem to have gone too well. As the Armourer and I left the Shooting Alley behind us, the technician was being led away sobbing while his friends tried to gather up his fingers.
A man-sized cocoon stood leaning against one wall under a sign saying DO NOT DISTURB. I didn’t ask.
The Armoury has provided the family with many useful weapons, devices, and gadgets of quite appalling nastiness down the years. The armour can’t do everything. But when you have an unlimited budget, an unlimited imagination, and a complete lack of scruples, you’re bound to wander into some fairly unusual areas . . . We use just the good stuff in the field and accept the occasional explosion or unfortunate transformation as teething troubles. It is, after all, a dangerous and downright treacherous world, and the Droods need every advantage we can come up with if we’re to hold our own. Besides, I like new toys to play with as much as the next man. And there’s always something new in the Armoury. Uncle Jack and his nasty-minded coworkers see to that.
Use the same tactics too often in the field, and your enemies will have an answer waiting.
The Armourer sat down at his workstation, brushing aside piles of paper, half a dozen unfinished devices he was still tinkering with, and a small bottle marked Nitroglycerin; handle with care, dammit! He gestured for me to sit down opposite him, and I did. Somewhat cautiously, because you can’t even trust the chairs in the Armoury.
“We’ll start with this,” the Armourer said confidently, handing over a simple golden signet ring with runes engraved all along the inside. “Slip it on your finger. No, the other finger. Now, to activate, just press the fingers on either side against the ring, twice. Don’t do it now! That is a Gemini Duplicator; gives you the option of bilocation. Don’t, Eddie. I have already heard every possible variation of any joke you might have been about to make involving the word bi. In this case, it means being in more than one place at the same time. Great for establishing alibis. I’m told it’s rather confusing, doing two different things at the same time in two different places, but it’s really just multitasking raised to the next level. I’m sure you’ll soon get the hang of it. But be warned; if one of your duplicates should happen to be killed, the psychic shock could finish off both of you.”
I considered the ring, being very careful not to squeeze it. “What happens if I use the ring to make more than two of me?”
The Armourer frowned. “The more of you there are, the harder it will be for you to keep track of yourselves and think clearly. Over-extend yourself, spread yourself too thinly . . . and at best, all your selves will slam back into one. Which will hurt, big-time.”
“And at worst?”
“You’d end up lost in the crowd. Unable to reintegrate yourself.”
“Got it,” I said. “Stick to two. Could add a whole new dimension to a threesome, mind.”
The Armourer sighed heavily. “Now, the new Colt Repeater. I’ve made a few improvements. Not only does the gun still aim itself and have an infinite number of bullets to call on; now it can draw on wooden, silver, and holy-water-tipped ammunition, as well! If one of those doesn’t kill your opponent, you’re probably better off running anyway.”
He handed over the heavy silver gun and its standard-issue shoulder holster, and then looked away so he wouldn’t have to watch me struggle to get the damn thing on.
“No reverse watch for you, this time. No one’s been able to make the damn thing work since you burnt out the last one.” He sniffed loudly but couldn’t stay mad at me for long, not while he still had so many new toys to impress me with. He handed me a small black box with a flourish. I accepted it, just a bit gingerly, and opened the lid with great care. The box held two very nice silver cuff links.
“Very nice,” I said innocently. “Solid silver, are they?”
“They are the Chameleon Codex,” the Armourer said sternly. “Programmed to pick up trace DNA from anyone you just happen to brush up against, and then store the information so that at a later date you can transform yourself into an exact duplicate of the original. Doesn’t last long, admittedly, but the opportunities for spycraft, deceit, and general mischief should be obvious.”
“Male and female?” I said hopefully.
He glared at me. “Can’t keep your mind out of the gutter for one minute, can you? Yes, male and female. Thanks to some rather exhaustive testing by one of my lab techs . . . Don’t put the cuff links on till you leave the Hall. Things are confused enough around here as it is. Finally, this is a skeleton key, made from human bone, and if you’re wise you won’t ask whose. Opens any physical lock. Almost as good as a Hand of Glory and a damn sight less obvious. Never liked the Hands anyway; nasty, smelly things. Try to get by with the skeleton key; we’re running low on Hands at the moment. We need to hang some more enemies . . .”
I made the box and the bone disappear into my pockets, and then looked thoughtfully at the Armourer. “What do you know about the Independent Agent, Uncle Jack?”
He smiled coldly then, as though he’d just been waiting for me to ask. “Your uncle James knew him better than I did, though we both worked with Alexander on occasion. We were a bit overawed at first, two young Droods out in the field for the first time, working with such a living legend. He was all that was grand and glamorous about spying, and we both learnt a hell of a lot from him. James and I took all kinds of damn fool risks, trying to impress him, but in the end it was James who Alexander took under his wing. I was killingly jealous, for a time . . .
“Alexander trained James: encouraged him, taught him discipline and determination. Helped make James into a spying legend in his own right: the Gray Fox. Whether that was a good thing in the end . . . I couldn’t say. But if anyone made James the man he was, determined to win at any price and to hell with what or who it cost . . . it was Alexander King.”
The Armourer looked at me steadily. “If you get the chance, Eddie, kill him. The whole world will rest easier for knowing that bloody-handed old sinner is dead and finally paying for his many crimes.”
I went outside to retrieve the Merlin Glass from my Rover 25 . . . and found my car just where it had been but now crushed and compacted into a metal ball some six feet in diameter. I stood there, looking at it, and only slowly realised that the new Serjeant-at-Arms was standing beside me, waiting for me to notice him.
“You were right, Eddie,” he said easily. “I couldn’t move your car. So I thought of something else to do to it. Here’s your Merlin G
lass. I made a point of removing it first. The Matriarch said you’d need it, on your mission.”
I took the Glass from him, and for once, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. The new Serjeant-at-Arms leaned in close.
“I’m not my predecessor. I’m sneakier. Welcome home, Eddie.”
I have my own room in the Hall, even though I have a very nice little flat in Knightsbridge. The Merlin Glass allows me to commute back and forth. The centuries-old hand mirror can function as a doorway to anywhere. I made a point of studying my reflection carefully. William had spooked me more than a bit with his suggestion there might be someone or something trapped inside the Glass. Watching, and waiting. But everything seemed as it should be, so . . . I said the activating Words, concentrated on a destination, and the Glass leapt out of my hand, growing in size to become a doorway between the Hall and the place where Molly Metcalf lived.
The wood between the worlds.
Through the doorway I could see tall trees, and rich green vegetation, and long golden shafts of sunlight. The oldest wood, the first wood, blazing with all the bright primary colours of spring. The trees seemed to stretch away forever, and there were glades and waterfalls, rolling hills and rocky promontories. I’d spent a lot of time exploring the wood with Molly. The wild wood was her home, where she belonged, and the only place where she and I could be together and still have a little privacy. Apart from all the local wildlife, of course, who seemed to find Molly and me endlessly fascinating.
The wood between the worlds is an ancient place, untouched by civilisation, and never entirely a comfortable place to be. I was welcome there only because Molly vouched for me. The animals were always easy in Molly’s company, but they accepted me only because she did, and many remained cautious and watchful. This was where the really wild things ran free, including many species that had long since vanished from the earth. There were huge boars with great teeth and ragged tusks. There were dire wolves and black bears, and older, stranger, more mythical creatures too. Some I knew only as glowing eyes in the gloom between the trees. Molly treated them all with equal ease and affection, just slapping them away if they crowded her. The first time she did that with a twelve-foot bear, I nearly had a coronary. There were all kinds of birds too, filling the scent-rich air with their songs, and whole clouds of multicoloured butterflies.