11.55pm
Alone among craftsmen, the bullet catcher must hide his skill. For, once glimpsed, the illusion would be gone forever.
The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook
No magic could have amazed me so completely as Farthing’s voice issuing from the wall. In volume and immediacy he sounded close. Yet this impression jarred with the thin, metallic quality of the sound.
Fabulo’s eyes were wide. Lara held both hands in front of her mouth. Tinker pulled himself tighter against me. All were waiting for new words to break through the dry crackling.
“Best do what he says,” said Agent Chronis, his voice a dry whisper. Yan’s knife was still tight against his windpipe.
Jeremiah bent to bring his face close to the metal grille. His finger found the screws that seemed to hold it in place. But there was another detail I hadn’t noticed before – a button no bigger than a threepenny bit, flush with the rim and made of the same dull metal.
He was tracing the edge of it when the crackling changed and Farthing’s voice again barked from the wall.
“Attention, intruders. This is Agent Farthing. You must lay down your weapons. Failure to comply will result in lethal force being authorised.”
“It’s a speaking tube,” said Jeremiah. “Like on a ship. But with something else at work. Perhaps a fan to carry the words more perfectly.”
“And what of the lamps?” said Fabulo. “Do they work through tubes also? No. There are marvels here we’ve been denied. The Patent Office have been hoarding for their own good comfort!”
Farthing’s voice crackled through the grille: “Attention. Be aware that failure to respond will be taken as refusal. You have one minute.”
Fabulo spat at the wall. “Lethal force?” he shouted. “I’ll give you lethal force!”
“He can’t hear you,” said Chronis.
“Then how, by all the powers, does he expect us to respond!”
“You have to use the button.”
I prised myself free from Tinker’s arms. Fabulo nodded and I pressed it. The dry noise ceased.
“This is Elizabeth Barnabus,” I said.
I pulled my finger back and the crackling returned. Seconds passed, agonisingly slow.
“We’ll move on to the next door,” said Fabulo. “The bastard’s just trying to hold us up.”
“I’ll stay a while longer,” I said. “Lara, you’ve watched me. Could you work the machine if it’s needed?”
She nodded, grim-faced.
“You be careful, girl,” said Fabulo.
“I will.”
As they started away, I put my finger on the button again. “Attention Agent Farthing. This is Elizabeth Barnabus. Please respond.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw him standing next to a wall just as I was, his head bowed. He had said that we would meet as enemies, and here we were, the criminal and the agent of law. Yet there was something else. Behind and below the awful inevitability of the roles we were playing out, he was in pain. I’d heard it in his voice through the machine just as I’d felt it before in the darkened carriage. But, until now, I’d not understood his love for me with such blinding clarity.
There was a bitter irony in our situation. I found myself laughing.
Then his voice came through the grille. “This is John Farthing.” It sounded more intimate than before, as if he was whispering from very close. “Elizabeth? Are you still there?”
I pressed the button. “I’m here. And I’m alone.”
“Oh, what have you done!” he said. From the desperation in his voice, I knew he was alone also.
“I’ve done what I had to.”
“You must give up.”
“To be hanged?”
“At least that way there’s a chance.”
“It’s no chance at all.”
“Death penalties can be commuted, if you show good will. Persuade the others, or… or come back and unlock the door.”
“So they can be hanged and I can spend the rest of my life in a prison?”
“It would be something!”
“Are you so desperate to save me that you’d have me betray my friends?”
He didn’t answer. In the distance I heard a door opening. There’d been no time for Lara to use the light machine, so one of the keys must have worked. If I didn’t follow soon, I’d be left behind.
I pressed the button again. “We have a prisoner,” I said. “Agent Chronis. I could persuade the others not to kill him, but you’ll have to let us run free.”
Seconds passed before he answered. “You have less to bargain with than you think.” His voice had returned to cold formality. “We have a prisoner also. I can authorise an exchange. But no more than that.”
“Who?” I asked, dreading the answer, for I already knew what it must be.
“She hasn’t told us her name, but she was driving the carriage that brought you.”
On hearing the news, Lara’s face whitened to ash. Fabulo was first to her side, doing his best to hold her upright, despite his stature. Then I took her other arm. Together we lowered her to the floor. She sat, face in hands, shoulders rigid, breathing too fast. I looked to Fabulo and knew that her reaction had been no surprise to him.
“His life must be worth more to them than that,” said Yan.
“They can’t bargain,” said Chronis.
“They’ll soon bargain if I leave them your ears to find!”
There was fear in the agent’s eyes. Enough fear for me to know he spoke the truth.
“It’s the law,” he said. “An agent’s life can’t be traded. They can only swap me for her because it’s not letting her go. There’s no way for you to get out.”
I looked to where Lara sat, bent forwards. Fabulo was rubbing her back and her breathing had slowed. “Let’s take the trade,” I said.
“Why?” asked Yan. “If there’s no way out?”
“We’ve got a bunch of keys,” I said. “While I’m holding them up negotiating, you can be pressing on ahead. In this place, who knows what you might find?”
Jeremiah let me through. “Good luck,” he said, then wedged the door ajar. Feeling intensely alone, I began to retrace my way along the passage.
All I’d said to the others had been true. By negotiating, I could slow our pursuers. They might try to grab me. That was a risk. But if they really believed we had no way out, there was nothing for them to lose in trading honourably. They would surely want to save the life of Agent Chronis.
All the minutes I occupied talking to them would be time my comrades could use. If we could find our way to the very end of the tunnels, we’d be in a stronger position. It was against the law for them to let us free in exchange for one of their own. The same might not be true to save the Custodian.
I had reached the door barring the passage ahead. The speaking grille was silent. I pressed the button.
“Attention, Agent Farthing. This is Elizabeth Barnabus. Please respond. We want to trade.”
I could feel my heart beating faster as I waited. Though my logic was faultless, that alone would not have been reason enough for me to take the risk.
The grille crackled.
“This is Agent Farthing. What do you propose?”
“You’ll have cut through to the next section soon enough. I want you to step through alone. I’ll do the same and we can parley.”
I turned the torsion bar in the lock, as Jeremiah had showed me and heard it click open. The noise of the cutting machine was suddenly louder as I stepped through. He’d also given me a sliver of wood, which I used to wedge the door.
“Don’t let it shut with you on the wrong side,” he’d said.
I advanced down the passage towards the noise. I could see sparks fountaining from the door ahead. Threads of smoke drifted close to the ceiling and there was an acrid smell in the air. With one final shriek, the machine pulled back. The engine noise subsided. Then there was a sharp impact and a rectangle of metal fell to the floor.
I stopped, feeling the queasiness of fear and excitement.
The door swung half open and John Farthing stepped through. There were other faces crowding behind him, but he turned and pushed the door closed again, shutting them out. Then he scooped up the rectangle of cut metal and fitted it back in the hole.
I’d intended to wait for him so we could meet halfway. But, as he closed the distance and I began to see the pain in his expression, my feet began to carry me forwards, one step after another. It was he that started running first. We threw ourselves into each other’s arms.
He held me.
For a moment, I knew nothing but the touch of his cheek against mine, the heat of him and the scent of his skin. I closed my eyes and pressed myself more firmly against his body.
“Elizabeth.” My name burst from his mouth.
“John,” I whispered back.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “It should never have been like this.”
I don’t know how long we stood entwined. It may have been only seconds. The effort of will it took for me to pull away was like nothing I’d experienced before. We held each other at arm’s length. His eyes, his beautiful eyes, locked with mine. I stepped back.
“Remember,” I said. “Whatever happens next, what we just felt was real.”
He nodded, then looked down to the ground between us and would no more meet my eyes.
“It’s time to make the bargain,” I said, though speaking the words felt like driving nails into my own flesh.
“We have your driver,” he said. “You have Agent Chronis. Do you still wish to exchange?”
“Yes.”
“How do you wish to do it?”
“Can you control your men?”
“I can.”
“Then it’ll work. We each go back to our own side. You’ll send your prisoner walking towards us. When she passes the halfway point, we’ll send ours. But if he tries to grab her or if any of your men do anything stupid, then things will turn out bad. Do you understand?
“I do.”
“And do you agree?”
“I do. And I…” His words faltered. He was breathing heavily.
“What?”
“I must ask once more for you and your collaborators to put down your weapons and surrender. If you fail to do so, I’ll be obliged… be obliged to authorise lethal force.”
“I thought you’d done that already,” I said, then turned and walked away, though my legs and heart seemed made of lead.