See "An Introduction to Detective Monica" for Full Disclaimers.

Part Four

I was in a much more cheerful mood when I got home, but not cheerful enough to risk having to run stuff up and down 'tweendecks, as I mentioned.  So I caught Duncan in passing, gave him a kiss and told him I'd take Jeremy out early for his exercise.  Duncan kissed me back -- paying attention, bless the boy -- asked me how my lunch had gone, and nodded somewhat absently while I rattled on a bit as I changed clothes.  Pretty soon he started fidgeting and then said he had to get back to work, and escaped below-decks; which, if course, was what I'd been hoping he'd do if I gave enough girlish details about lunch.  Most of them made up, of course, but hey.  It's always good to practice.

Although now it's getting on towards 4:30 or so, and it's starting to get dark, so I'd better get back.  Jeremy's been happily cropping grass in the park, and managed to chase two poodles and one Doberman out of 'his' territory today, so  he's happy.  (He hates dogs, and chases 'em whenever he gets the chance.  Funnily enough, every time he's done it, everyone around applauds him!  Don't ask me why, but the park regulars just love the sight of this teeny horse charging after a dog.  But Jeremy loves cats; there's an old geezer who walks his  cat, of all things -- a big Siamese tom, wearing a little harness, it's funnier 'n hell!  But we've met up with this guy and his cat several times by now, and Jeremy and the cat hit it off right from the start.  One time the cat even jumped up on top of him, and Jeremy calmly kept eating grass!  The old guy's really nice, too; he's been helping me with my French.  The cat's name is Richelieu.  I haven't the faintest about the old guy's name.)

So, I've caught you up, and Duncan's going to be worrying if I don't get home before dark.  Plus, although I'm somewhat surprised, I'm actually getting hungry.  I'll send you more later!

****

Well, this is just fine and dandy.  I swear, you cannot let men out of your sight for more than a few minutes without them wandering off!!  And now we're waiting things out, here in the car, and it's freezing 'cause we don't have enough gas left to keep the engine running so we can turn on the heater.  Well, it would be too noisy, actually; but still!  I  knew we shoulda got a car with a bigger tank!  But noooo, Rose has to swear by this little English thing she managed to lay hands on, probably a Morris Minor or something weird like that -- I swear, it looks like it should be driven by Miss Marple or somebody -- and not only is it cramped as hell  and has the steering on the wrong side, it's got a gas tank that holds all of about two cups of fuel!  Or so.  At least it seems that way.  For emergencies, I think you stick a huge key in the back and wind it up.  Plus I swear, I could go faster on foot and not even break a sweat.  Which, considering the intense exercise program that I'm  not working on, is saying quite a lot.

Rose got pretty quiet after I bitched about the above . . . I think I insulted her car.  At this point I don't really care.  I'm beginning to realize why so many of those cop shows have detectives that don't like having partners.  Not that she's  bad or anything -- it's just that it's making me jumpy to have her around.  And she's been chewing her nails, which as it's so quiet here, way out in the country, is even more maddening.  Plus we can't talk, 'cause it's one of those clear, calm, cold nights when sound carries like crazy.  So we stick to the occasional whisper.  Of course, I'm probably driving her nuts tap-tapping away on the notebook -- but hey, I've gotta do  something to help me keep up this 'seasoned detective' facade here!

As to how we got out here in the middle of the sticks -- well, when I got home with Jeremy, lo and behold, Duncan had skedaddled out with Adam and Richie for a bit, whee.  Leaving a note, of course.  He's a real dear about that, thank God.  And there isn't anything wrong with him going off with his friends, just them with no girls, y'know.  Not at all!  I'd figured they be doing that for several days when the guys finally arrived.  I sure wouldn't want Duncan to feel I had to be constantly hanging from his coat sleeves.  I was kind of surprised to find out that Richie and Adam had managed to get out without Rose, though.  I'd begun to think they were all attached at the . . . ah, hip.

On the other hand, when it got to be around 5:30 or so and still no sign of the guys, I started getting worried.  I went out to give Jeremy his last feed, and then kinda hovered around on deck for a bit, casting hopeful glances around for the car.  No luck.  At least not on the right car.  What did turn up, just as I was giving up, was this little green thing, with Rose bouncing out of it almost before she'd set the brake.

Naturally I wondered what the heck was wrong; I had a nasty feeling, which turned out to be right.  She said one of Their people had called her and told her that Green Robe had turned up somewhere suspicious and was apparently getting ready for some expedition.  As this was somewhat vague, I dug my heels in and started asking questions.  Rotsa ruck.  Rose said to leave a note for Duncan, grab some sort of weapon and let's get the hell outta here.  To do  what, she didn't specify.  I tried to ask, but the girl was so jittery I finally gave in rather than have her tap-dancing away next to me for as long as it took to explain.

So, we drive all over hell's half acre -- or what felt like it -- and ended up here.  'Here' being some sort of old chateau.  Again.  I'm beginning to dislike French chateaux, I can tell you that.  I'm just getting a  feeling about 'em, as if I should in future stay far, far away.  Although this may be somewhat difficult if Duncan insists on coming to France every year.  He seems to have lots of friends of the sort who would own chateaux.  Yeah, I know, I shouldn't go making generalizations like that, but I think I've seen enough of Duncan's friends.  And their resources.  Plus his.  For all that, he lives pretty simply, aside from minor, inconsequential, piddling little hobbies like highly expensive antiques, swords and otherwise.  Oh, and season tickets to the opera.  Plus this, that and the other thing that slowly begins to trickle down among your brain cells after a certain amount of shopping and being spoiled rotten money-wise.  At which time your brain should at least reach  some sort of conclusion.  As in, it's old money and your boyfriend is a somewhat eccentric scion of said old money . . .  or he's an international jewel thief or something and mixed up in even more complicated things than you thought.

I haven't made up my mind yet.

While we were getting here Rose finished filling me in on this Green Robe cutie, or rather, his history during his time with Them.  This, needless to say, was somewhat . . . vague.  Actually, downright foggy if you asked me.  No, more of a London pea-souper.  It was  supposed to be a personality sketch, but all I ended up with was a few lines that didn't show much of anything and a light gray wash over everything.  In other words, zilch.  Sure, the guy was ruthless, efficient, compulsive, madly in love with the fish-lady, and liked fuzzy slippers.  Plus sharp pointy things.  Oh, yeah, leave us not forget wearing his robe out in public.  (I flashed back to the unexpected, um, moment of . . . insight . . . I'd had after his fall down the hill back in the park in Seacouver, and told Rose in no uncertain terms that I'd already learned far more about the man than I'd ever wanted to know.  She kept on rambling.) But that's pretty much it.

Oh, she finally gave me a name for him.  A  real name, that is, as opposed to Green Robe.  Although it was only one name.  However, it was better than referring to his clothing as a name; that got kind of old after a while.  And 'sides, it was rather an interesting name . . . only I have no idea where it came from.  I've had plenty of time to speculate, now, of course; we've been sitting here freezing, chewing, tap-tapping, and dying of impatience with nothing happening for an hour now, and it's getting awful damn boring.  Ah well.  According to everything I've ever heard stakeouts are like that.  I've apparently been fairly lucky so far, boredom-wise; most of my stakeouts have been somewhat . . . eventful.

I sure do wonder, though, about this renegade.  Where the hell do you get a name like Draxen?  I keep thinking of Donder and Blitzen--

Uh-oh.  I just heard something.  And so did Rose, so I'm not imagining it.  I think we're gonna have to go.  As in, fas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

****

Ohhhh,  MAN!!!  Talk about a wild ride!  I swear, I wouldn't have believed Rose could drive like that!  She's almost as bad as  I am when it comes to a crunch.  (I mean 'bad' in a good way, of course.  I just can't give it the proper expression while typing.) And the little car surprised the hell outta me, too.

So, that noise I mentioned?  Cars.  As in 'more than one.' Leaving, for gawd only knew where.  Naturally, we followed.  How else ya gonna find where the bad guys are going, huh?

I was beginning to wonder if we were going to end up all the way in Monte Carlo or something, but no, we stopped well short of that.  I have  no idea where we were.  Are.  Whatever.  We're just . . . somewhere, and so are the Bad Guys, and we've all stopped.

Oh,  shit!!!

Sorry.  We're deep in it now, though; someone just flashed a spotlight in our direction and we've been nailed.

****

"Don't ask  me what to do -- what, you think I'm an expert or something?"

"Well, you  are the detective sec--"

"Shaddup, Rose!"

This is great.  Not only am I being chased by guys with guns again, I've got an amateur with me.  An amateur who thinks I'm an expert.  Whee.  Goody goody gumdrops.

It's a good thing I brought the Uzi.  And a good thing Duncan indulged me in getting more ammo for it.  (Another thing that makes me just a wee bit suspicious about my dear love, but hey, y'gotta love 'em for their quirks, too.  And vice versa; preferring to being adequately armed in a Nasty Situation is one of  my odd little quirks.  I've got the sword, too.  Kind of awkward, but comforting, for some reason. . .)

"What was that?"

"Thut up, thilly.  Probably one of them."

"Monica,  what are you--"

"Thhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Okay, okay, I'll whisper in your ear -- what the hell are you doing with the lisp?"

I roll my eyes; whoever trained her obviously missed a few of the finer points.  "Eth thoundth carry farther," I whisper, as softly as I can.  "Try it thometime.  Imagine a good, hiththy eth right now, like a thnake, and you'd thee goonth dropping on uth like flieth."

Yeah, okay, it sounds utterly hilarious; she does  not have to choke trying to stop a giggle fit!

Next second we're both running like mad, and tracers are zipping by overhead.  A sound I could do without ever hearing again, thank you very much.  Meanwhile, my little voice is screeching at the top of its lungs at me, saying that we're going the  wrong way to get back to the car, it's back  thattaway, behind the bad guys!

I tell my little voice to shut up, when I can spare the mental breath from cussing.

The bullets are getting  awfully close -- I think the goons have actually taken lessons or something, they're shooting pretty damned good; nice tight groupings in small bursts, rather than just spewing a continuous stream of lead at everything in the immediate ten square kilometers.  Either that or they're docked for the price of the bullets out of their pay.  Who cares.  Half of me is praying they won't get the range any better, the other half is praying for a really deep hole to hide in.  Somewhat to my surprise, there's apparently Someone listening.  We get part of my wish; we fall off the side of a hill.

Did I forget to mention we're at the coast by now?

Yeah.  And now we're well and truly  on the beach, at the bottom of what was maybe a 25 foot slope; fortunately, lots of nice soft sand to land on, not rocks, but still, it knocks the breath out of us pretty well even though we're totally relaxed from not expecting it.  I'm beginning to get homesick for the park back home when I notice -- a miracle!  - a patch of darker black in the face of the hill or whatever it was we've just fallen off of.

I don't waste any time; I ignore Rose's whooping and drag her with me towards that lovely hole in the side of the hill.  We make it just in time, and freeze.  Or rather, Rose does.  She lifts her pistol towards the entrance of our little cavern and prepares to make a last stand.

Me, I'm not interested in last stands.  In last anything's, to tell the truth.  Like good-byes.  Just go, they'll remember you better.  Anyway, I keep a weather eye out -- although all I can hear is a dim muttering up above us -- and keep backing up, groping behind me for some clue as to where the swallet or hole or cave or whatever stops.  Only it turns out not to be a cave.  My fingers ram into solid concrete.

Of course, I nearly go cross-eyed from trying not to scream out some ripe, juicy words at the top of my lungs.  My knuckles have bashed against what turns out to be a concrete wall, and I can feel blood running merrily to freedom down my fingers.  Great.  All aboard the Freedom Train.

So, Rose is womanfully preparing to go with her shield or on it, while I'm back behind her dancing around as silently as I can, flailing around with my wounded hand which hurts like a mother, lemme tell you.  Don't let anyone get away with telling you the adrenaline of battle has you ignoring minor pain like that.  Bull.  And now I had to worry about dogs, for chrissakes, and tracking, and smelling blood, and all sorts of goody stuff like that.  So you can imagine, I'm pretty relieved when I brace myself against the concrete wall only to find it shifting under my weight, then giving way to let me fall -- again -- into an even  darker hole.

Well, obviously, it's a leftover German bunker, but still, it's quite a shock.  However, my little voice lets out a silent whoop of glee, and I lean out, snatch Rose inside with me, and manage to get the door shut again.  The sound level drops considerably, and I feel around frantically for some sort of locking device.  Rose is the one who finds that; there's a metal bar that seals the door shut, presumably unable to be opened from outside with it in place.  We can hear faint shouts outside, and catch a gleam of light, but that's about it; and when no one manages to make it through the door after we catch our breath, we relax a bit.

"Jesus!" I whisper, forgetting to lisp.  "How many were there out there?"

"I don't know," Rose whispers back.  "I think at least four, maybe more."

I wince.  This is great.  "I don't suppose you have any bright ideas as to  where we are, either?"

"Uhh--"

"Okay, I get the idea."

"Well, it's my first time in France!"

That makes me look in her direction incredulously.  Not that I can see anything.  But still!  "You mean they send you over here, yet you've never been to France, you're still a beginner, and you don't even know what the hell  Glenmorangie is?!"

I can practically see the frown.  "Well, I speak French!" she says rather huffily.

"Oh.  Wonderful.  You can yell 'we surrender' in French.  Yeah, this I'm worried ab--"

I stop when her hand claps over my mouth; we both freeze and listen.  There's some shouting again outside, and while we're trying to make it out, there comes a solid thud against the door.  Fortunately, German thoroughness stands up over 50 years later.  Still, we begin groping our way further from the door.

Rose finally stops -- as I find out by bumping into her -- and I can hear her fumbling with something.  Finally a light shines; she's managed to remember she's got a flashlight.  It's just an itty bitty one, but good enough.  We can see that we're in a passage, and we hurry up a bit.  I'm thinking if there's an exit at the end of this, the goons just might be waiting there. . .

However, the 'other end' turns out not to lead outside.  Oh no.  It's worse.  It's another door, with no light behind it, and only a little slit to see through -- which at the moment doesn't do us diddly.  Rose looks at me inquiringly.  Hallelujah, I'm a leader.  How in the hell did  I get elected?  This I can live without.  But we can't necessarily live for long in here, so I start racking my brain for ways to exit a door safely.  Unfortunately, none of the movies I've seen have left me with the memories of any foolproof methods, so we have to use the most obvious; open the door and dive.

****

Well, it was easier than I thought it would be.  We've managed not to run into anyone yet, for which I thank whoever looks after fools and idiots.  A few seconds ago a bunch of loud voices and footsteps thudded past our hiding place; apparently something else is up, or they think we're still downstairs.  We're going to be making our way up to the next floor in a minute. . .

Right now we're on the second floor of some weird warehouse type thingy -- I think.  Don't ask me, I'm not too up on WWII architecture.  Hell, it could be an avante garde club for rave parties, what the hell do I know?  If so, the decorator was big on dust and rusty iron, not to mention grease stains and the occasional puddle.  The place isn't only mostly dark and cold, it positively echoes, and feels eerier than hell.  Fortunately, there are plenty of rooms to duck into, which we've done about seven or so times by now.  People keep running around, more than we thought were in the cars.  Something has everyone stirred up.

And what, you want to know, do we think we are doing?  We have no idea.  We would like to be back on the barge, waking up in a nice warm bed and telling our nice warm man that we had this really creepy dream.  We do not like this at all, and just wanna get the flock outta here.  We- Well, you catch my drift.  Rose apparently doesn't have any plans, except following the Bad Guys, or me.  I guess once we've gotten someplace -- as in 'here' -- I'm the one that's supposed to figure out what we're going to do.  Great.  Not only leader, but policy maker.  If I'm gonna work here, I wanna get paid!

Oh, fantastic,  another outburst of voices!  Yeesh, this place is  crawling with people!  Like poking a wasp's nest, they seem to have more boiling out of hidden places every second.  And the closest door is to a room that has a  light in it. . .Damn.  No time.  Gotta take it.  Well, at least I know how to dive in through a door now. . .

We do pretty good, just like we almost know what we're doing.  Good enough that we don't end flat on our faces, and manage to get the door closed and our butts on either side of the door within a few seconds, both of us scanning the room for danger with big popeyes.  Nothing screams or leaps, so we both relax a bit, heaving just the tiniest sigh of relief.  We tense when more footsteps go running by, but no one pauses, and we really relax.

Well, of course; you  know it had to happen.  I'm cautiously raising up enough to peer out the window in the door, Rose is looking up at me, and it isn't for a few seconds that we realize the little draft we feel isn't from under the door.  It's coming from behind us.  Plus there's the faintest sound, like someone walking in real soft shoes. . .or slippers. . .

And a soft little cough sounds, somehow with a polite-but-inquiring tone.  It's really amazing, when you think about it.  One little sound that takes on volumes of meaning.

The man standing behind us is looking quite pleased.  He's got a big, wide grin, and he nods happily when we turn to face him.  This does not make me happy.  Not at all.

Well geeze!  C'mon!  What, you  like having a crazy person wearing fuzzy slippers, carrying a big, sharp sword, grinning goofily at you?

Continued

(Want to see the previous stories again before going further?
Here are the first and second stories in the series.)

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