Rochon betrayed no reaction to Lina’s startling announcement but reviewed Dokes’s inanimate form for a moment. Raising his gaze to Lina, he directed, “See to it that she is thrown over the side, s’il vous plait.” He then turned to Grant and asked, “Did you know of this?” His tone was neutral but the underlying menace was unmistakable.
“Yes—but she is in love with me and would not betray me,” Grant insisted, his voice quavering a bit. “Indeed she has been willing to help me decipher communications from the British.”
Rochon considered the unconscious woman dispassionately but was unmoved. “I will not take any chances; it may be a trap.” With a jerk of his head, he indicated to Lina, “See to it.”
Grant made an involuntary sound of protest as Lina gestured to Carstairs, “You there—help me carry her.”
He bent to lift Dokes and hoist her over his shoulder while Lina led him away from the stern. As soon as they were out of earshot Lina hissed, “Bind her and for heaven’s sake give her a gag. I will find a sail bag for her—Mãe de Deus but this entire event is a disaster, start to finish.”
“So—not the gold,” he concluded under his breath. “Cinder bricks?”
Lina dared not look around but said in an undertone, “Where is the Vicar? Did he hear what she said?”
There was a pause before Carstairs responded in a neutral tone, “I do not think so.”
Meeting his eyes in desperation, she implored him under her breath, “Don’t tell him, Lucien; it is very important that no one know it is not the gold—” She realized it was a request that required him to choose an allegiance with precious little information and struggled to decide what to say.
He carefully laid Dokes on the deck behind the wheelhouse, out of sight, and glanced around toward the figures gathered around the lifeboat at the stern. “Where is the gold, Lina?”
“England will have it back—well, most of it,” she temporized. “Please, Lucien—you must trust me in this.” She met his eyes, willing him to believe her.
“Fetch a sail bag, then—there’s nowhere to hide her.” He tore off a piece of Dokes’s petticoat to fashion a gag.
Thinking this a good sign, Lina procured a sail bag and between them they worked it down over the unconscious woman’s head. “Quickly,” she urged. “I must see if Brodie needs assistance.”
“At least she isn’t fat, like the Flemish ambassador.” He glanced up at her as he pulled the strings to secure the bag’s end. “I was mad for you, even then.”
“You were also married,” she reminded him as they pushed the sail bag against the wheelhouse and out of the way. “Married people should be loyal to each other.”
“Sorry.” He placed a hand over hers for a moment. “A sore subject.”
Pausing in her movements, she lifted her face to his and offered, “For you, also—let us each hope to have better luck this time.”
“Bela.” He leaned in to kiss her, mask and all.
At his use of Brodie’s pet name she accused, “You have been eavesdropping, my friend.”
“It is so appropriate—Portuguese for ‘beautiful.’”
“The first and only time Brodie has ever been straightforward,” she noted in a dry tone. “Now, let’s hurry back and see if we can salvage this miserable plot.”
When they returned to the others, it was to see Rochon and Henry Grant preparing to descend to the lifeboat on a rope ladder that had been cast over the side—the waves were making the small vessel toss about because the river had turned rough where it had widened, away from the city. Scanning downriver, Lina could make out the dark shape of an unlit ship that bore no flag, waiting silently to secure its cargo and return to France.
Pausing at the railing, Rochon unbuttoned his coat so as to make his descent, his satisfaction evident. “Adieu, mes amis.” He reached to put an arm around Lina and pull her to him. “I thank you for your assistance, ma belle. Perhaps you should come along with me so that I can show you how thankful I am.”
She didn’t resist and gave every appearance of enjoying the attention as she slid her hands under his coat and around his waist to embrace him. He had not appreciated her veiled reference to his sexual preferences and now sought to make it clear she was mistaken—Napoleon had little tolerance for such. Men are so predictable, she thought—now he is going to maul me about, just to prove the point.
She smiled into his eyes, opaque and hard like a snake’s behind his mask. “Another time, mon bravo.”
He bent and kissed her mouth and she returned the salute in full measure, hoping this was to be the final distraction before she retired to Suffolk—Carstairs was no doubt fit to be tied.
With a thin smile, Rochon released her and threw a leg over the gunwale to descend the rope ladder into the lifeboat. The boat tossed and bucked as he carefully stepped over the bricks, awaiting Grant’s descent.
The Vicar, however, had other plans. Leaping to the barge’s forecastle, he raised a pistol to aim it at his rival spymaster. “Halt,” he shouted. “You are under arrest in the name of the Crown.”
With a rapid movement Rochon drew for the pistol at his waist but as it now rested in Lina’s hand, he came up empty. The familiar sound of the cocking of firearms could be heard from various vantage points on the deck, and Rochon, quickly calculating, drew himself up, the picture of innocent outrage as he braced himself aboard the rocking vessel. “What is the meaning of this? What is my crime?”
The Vicar, still dressed as a dandy, addressed him coolly from where he stood amidships. “You are absconding with gold that has been stolen from the Treasury. Surrender, and be taken peaceably.”
“You mistake,” Rochon answered with calm assurance. “These are but ordinary bricks, as you can see.”
“Bring him in,” commanded the Vicar. “We shall discover the truth.”
The watermen began hauling on the davit ropes and after only a moment’s reflection, Rochon took the only course available to him. With a curse, he grasped one of the bricks and hove it with some force at the floorboard of the lifeboat.
“Stop him,” the Vicar shouted, striding toward the gunwale. “He must not sink it.”
But Rochon continued with his forceful bashing of the floorboard and barked a command at Grant, still on deck. “Shoot at the hull.”
Lina knew a moment’s regret that the man’s pistol had been neutralized by Dokes as the Home Office agents frantically pulled on the ropes, hand over hand, while Rochon pounded at the floorboards in a desperate race to sink the boat before it was recovered. Just as it looked as though the boat would be hoisted from the water, a shot rang out from the ship, hitting the hull of the lifeboat just below the waterline and creating a geyser of water that soon broke into a torrent. While the Vicar cursed roundly, they watched the vessel break in two, its cargo and its occupant sliding ignominiously into the choppy waters of the Thames.
Lina stood quietly beside Carstairs and hoped that no one else had noticed that Grant’s gun had not discharged and that Carstairs’s pistol had burnt a hole in the folds of her skirt. My sharpshooter, she thought a bit mistily—and there is no longer a question of loyalty, apparently; no need to sleep with one eye open.
A tense silence prevailed for a few moments as those watching contemplated the fortune that was now making its way to the bottom of the sea.
“Pull him in,” directed the Vicar in a grim tone.
In a matter of minutes the two spymasters faced one another on deck, Rochon’s dignity not at all affected by his bedraggled appearance. “You have nothing on me,” he pronounced coolly.
But the Vicar disagreed. “I believe you have in your possession a fortune in bonds; it is illegal for a foreign national to hold English bonds.”
“You mistake the matter; the bonds are forgeries and worthless,” countered Rochon.
The Vicar hesitated for only a second. “Then you will be charged with possession of forged documents with an intent to defraud.”
Checkmate, thought Lina, and awaited events.
But Rochon was not to be outmaneuvered, and with a quick movement he took the packet from his jacket pocket and flung it over the side. With a curse, the Vicar strode to the railing and watched the bonds follow the gold to the bottom of the sea.