The Policeman of Secrets

Chapter 12 Part 2

Turning, the three intruders saw a squat sergeant standing in the doorway. Middle-aged, he had a rough complexion and hard eyes staring from a florid face filled with a black mustache. His left arm ended in a wooden hand beautifully finished in copper and brass. The same decoration covered a wooden left foot that stood in stark contrast to the highly-polished boot beside it.

Having spoken, the sergeant’s mouth now hung open as if waiting for another thought, and he made no move to attack.

Parnell and Ferdinando were seemingly paralyzed, but the count was unfazed, stepping boldly forward to the new arrival. “So sorry, old man,” he said, his voice that of one friend to another, rather than a humble private to a sergeant. “Life took an interesting turn and here we are.”

“You will get a flogging for this.” The new arrival’s voice was steady and emotionless, the words sounding as if he was relaying an order from afar. “Where is your salute?”

The count was only a step away from him. “Why, here, of course.” He feigned the start of the gesture but then, with one swift move, snatched his dagger from inside his jacket and pressed it against the sergeant’s chest. “Not a word from you or you’ll never bark another order, my fat puppy.”

Balthazar could see the man’s mouth slowly forming new words, and pushed the blade further into his skin. A single spot of blood was enough to silence any cry for help, and the sergeant stood still as Parnell closed the office door. Ferdinando removed the bayonet hanging from the soldier’s belt and took it for himself.

Keeping his blade close, Balthazar said, “Now, our one-handed friend. You are outmatched by better men, if I may be so bold. We have need of your company while we wander round your humble abode, and we had best be on our way as your bellowing was surely heard across the river.”

He pushed the sergeant towards the door, flanked by Ferdinando and Parnell. Standing close behind, he said into the soldier’s ear, “Let us understand each other. You will take us to Colonel Wolf’s quarters at the double. Any sudden moves, any tipping the wink to anyone unlucky enough to get in our way, and I will ram this knife through the back of your head so hard that the blade will be the last thing your eyes see before they fall to the floor like broken eggs. My friends will then kill everybody else before us.”

The soldier did not want to move, so the count leaned to the side of the man’s face, breathing in the combination of cheap hair oil and unwashed and sweaty flesh.

When he spoke again, it was with a whisper laced with menace. “Do not doubt me for an instant, my friend. I may have the manner of a dandy, and the vocabulary of an Oxford don, but when pressed I have a killer’s heart.

“This is not my first time in such a predicament, and I am still alive. All those who tried to stop me or trick me or raise the alarm are dead.”

The sergeant stared at him, which Balthazar took as a sign of surrender. He gestured to his friends. “On our way, I think. Our companion here will lead us to Wolf, I will follow, and you will be the obedient troops under orders to stop for nothing. Can’t keep the colonel waiting, can we?”

With their prisoner before them, it was easy to make rapid progress. The sergeant marched steadily on, never hurrying or straying from the center of each empty corridor. The only extraneous sound was his breathing, interrupted by the occasional metallic clang from somewhere deep below ground. 

Once they were on their way, striding rapidly through increasingly smart hallways and rooms, Balthazar fired a flurry of questions at his prisoner: is Wolf present? What manner of vessel is Neptune’s Foe? What purpose do the masks and tanks marked Oxygen serve? What is the mission for Her Majesty?