The Dracula Caper

11

The House of Blue Lights was located in an unassuming, soot-blackened building off the Limehouse Causeway, near the River Thames and not far from the East India Docks, It was not among the more elegant of London's bordellos, but it was still a far cry from the tawdry whorehouses of Whitechapel. Madame Tchu's young ladies were of considerably higher quality than the Cockney streetwalkers who plied their trade in Whitechapel's cribs and alleyways. There were gentlemen among the clientele, as well as sailors, dock workers and merchants, but despite the rough character of many of her patrons. Madame Tchu maintained the house in a refined and genteel style. Few people knew that the House of Blue Lights was, in fact, operated by the Green Dragon tong and was one of the secret organization's major sources of revenue.

Jasmine did not know Madame Tchu. Their paths had never crossed before and there was no one in the House of Blue Lights who would know her, unless she were to identify herself as Lin Tao's granddaughter. Part of her wanted to walk boldly up to the front door, announce herself, demand to be taken to her grandfather, confront him with what she knew and insist on being allowed to help, while part of her was afraid of what her grandfather would do when he discovered that she had followed them and had been eavesdropping on their private conversations. She hesitated, thinking perhaps it would be best if she were to remain outside and watch, but watch for what and for how long? There was no telling when they might come out again. And meanwhile, even though the idea of going inside the house of prostitution frightened her, she was fascinated by the prospect. She wondered what it would be like inside, what sort of women they were, how they dressed and spoke and acted.

She was still debating what to do when she saw her grandfather come out with three young Chinese males. The small group stood in front of the entrance for several moments and she could see her grandfather talking to the three young men and making gestures, but she could not hear what he was saying. Finally, Lin Tao finished talking and two of the young men bowed to him and left. The third one remained with him and they walked off quickly in the opposite direction, Lin Tao moving with a sprightly energy that belied his age. That meant Dr. Morro was still in there, alone. Or was he, in fact, alone? What if the man she was secretly in love with had decided to sample the pleasures of the house? That decided her. Taking a deep breath, Jasmine started across the street.

Once she reached the door, however, her resolve faltered once again. She was walking back and forth in front of the entrance to the building when she noticed an open window on the third floor, on the side facing the alleyway. And some fifteen or twenty feet away from it, running down the side of the building, was an iron drain pipe.

She looked up and down the alleyway and then, bracing herself against the brick wall with her soft-soled shoes, she started to climb hand over hand up the drain pipe. The pipe was fastened solidly and she did not weigh much, but years of martial arts discipline had given her wiry body suppleness and strength. She made the climb quickly, like a monkey, and within moments she had reached the cornice at the top of the building.

She reached out with her right hand and grabbed the ledge of the cornice just above her, then let go of the pipe with her other hand and quickly clamped her lingers over the ledge, allowing her legs to swing out and away from the wall. Both hands clamped over the cornice ledge, she slowly started to inch across towards the open window, her forearm muscles feeling the strain as her lingers pressed down hard against the stone. Dangling high above the ground, she moved slowly, so as not to start her body swinging. When she reached the open window, there was a distance of about two and half feet separating her from the building wall and the window ledge. She licked her lips and pulled herself up slowly, allowing herself to swing outward a little. Then she swung her legs up and dropped at the same time, shooting her arms straight out in front of her, like a gymnast on the uneven parallel bars making the transfer from the top bar to the lower one. She grabbed on to the window ledge and winced as her body struck the side of the building, then she grunted and pulled herself up. She looked inside the room quickly and was relieved to see that it was empty. A second later, she was inside.

She straightened up, massaging her forearms and flexing her lingers, and looked around with wonder at the room she had entered through the window. The floor was covered with soft, thick Oriental rugs and the walls were hung with tapestries, there to hide cracks and peeling paint as much as to provide decoration. Everything was red and purple and gold, from the upholstery on the chairs to the canopy above the bed, which dominated the small room. She walked around the bed, marveling at the size of it, and saw with surprise that there was a mirror fastened just below the canopy. She heard footsteps approaching outside and quickly looked around for a place to hide. Briefly, she considered diving down underneath the bed, but then she realized that the bed would be the first place they would come to and instead she chose to duck behind the curtains on the other side of the painted wooden screen standing in a corner.

The door opened and a couple entered. The man was middle-aged, dressed in a dark frock coat, an elegant waistcoat with a gold watch chain and a howler hat. The girl was young. Chinese, no older than Jasmine, wearing a form- fitting, bright red dress slashed deeply up the side with green and gold dragons embroidered on it. The man had a red face and a huge handlebar moustache and sidewhiskers and the girl had long black hair hanging straight down to her waist. Jasmine watched wide-eyed from her hiding place as the man closed the door behind them and then swept the girl up in his arms, crushing his lips to hers. The girl lifted her bare leg and rubbed it against the outside of the man's leg, hooking it around him.

It was nothing like what Jasmine had imagined from the novels she had read. Instead of whispered words of endearment and loving, affectionate caresses, it was an impatient, clumsy pawing and clutching, a hurried, awkward shrugging out of clothes and a playful, adolescent wrestling. Instead of emotion- laden sighs and languorous moans, there was panting and giggling and squealing. Instead of a transcendent, blissful floating in one another's arms, it was a grunting, bouncing, spring-creaking thrusting and groaning and when it was over, the man lay spent for several moments, then immediately got up and started to dress while the girl came behind the screen and. while Jasmine held her breath behind the drapes, she quickly cleaned herself using the washstand that the screen concealed, slipped into her dress, straightened it, brushed the stray strands of hair away from her face with a completely indifferent air and then went out to escort the gentleman back downstairs. Jasmine was at the same time both fascinated and incredibly disillusioned. Was that all there was to it?

Somehow, she had imagined something much more spiritual and romantic. The sight of the man's unclothed body had repelled her. He had looked so much better in his clothes! Without them, his stomach had hung down like a buddha's and his chest had sagged. He had been covered with unattractive, thick, coarse, curling hair and his legs looked spindly, grotesquely out of proportion with the rest of him. Naked, he had looked ugly, comical, ungainly, and as for his manhood, it was all Jasmine could do to refrain from giggling at the sight of it. She could not believe that Dr. Morro would look so silly and pathetic with his clothes off, but at the same time, a telling blow had been delivered to her romantic fantasies. She was not embarrassed by what she had witnessed. She was merely surprised and disappointed.

She slipped out from behind the drapes and moved quickly to the door. She opened it a crack andpeeked out into the hallway. She could hear sounds coming from behind several of the closed doors, but for the moment, the hallway was clear.

However, she had no idea which way to go. She stepped out into the hall uncertainly and, at that moment, a door opened right in front of her and an old woman carrying a pile of bedclothing stepped out. Startled, Jasmine gasped.

The old woman smiled toothlessly. "I haven't seen you before," she said, speaking in Chinese. "You must be new."

"Yes, I… I am not sure which way to go," said Jasmine, forcing a smile.

The old woman looked at her questioningly. "Is there a gentleman wailing for you?"

"Yes, he has only just arrived,” said Jasmine. and she described Moreau.

"Ah, the important visitor who came with Master Tao," the old woman said, nodding. "Yes. he is to stay with us for a time. He is in the room at the far end of the corridor, but I was told he is not to be disturbed.

"I was sent to see if there is anything he wants," Jasmine said. "I am to bring him whatever he asks for."

"Ah well that is different," the old woman said. "It is good that there will be someone else to look after his needs. I have more than enough to do. There is no end to work around here. You are one of the new servant girls, then?"

Jasmine nodded.

The old woman shook her head. "You will find it harder work than pleasing gentlemen," she said. "You will see. You may soon prefer working on your back to scrubbing on your knees. There is time enough for that. You should not waste your youth. I was young and pretty once, like you. Now I wash floors and empty chamberpots." The old woman cackled and waddled off down the corridor, carrying her pile of bedclothes.

Quickly, before she ran into anybody else, Jasmine made her way down to the door at the far end of the hall. She hesitated when she reached it. Now that the moment had arrived, she was suddenly afraid of declaring herself. What would he say? Would he be angry? What if he rejected her? There was no turning back now. She bit her lower lip and knocked on the door.

"Yes? Who is it'?" she heard him say.

She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped inside.

"Jasmine!" Moreau said, astonished. "Dear God! What on earth are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"Do not be angry, Dr. Morro," she said. "I had to come! "It all came spilling out of her in a torrent of impassioned words, words that tumbled over one another in her rush to get them out, afraid that if she paused for breath, her fear would paralyze her or, worse yet, that he would stop her.

Moreau stood there in astonishment, unable to get a word in edgewise. She finally ran out of steam and stood before him, looking down at the floor, stripped hare in all but the literal sense, her face flushed, her lower lip trembling, her eyes ready to flood with tears.

Moreau started to say a dozen different things and realized that each one of them would have been wrong. What was he to tell her'? That he was old enough to be her father? It was a cliche and he was not her father and, in any case, the only time age made any real difference to a woman was if a man was too immature for her, a factor that was more often than not measured emotionally and not chronologically. And Jasmine was a woman, naive, perhaps, certainly inexperienced, but a woman none the less. And just as one did not treat a girl as if she were a woman, one did not treat a woman as if she were a girl. Was he to tell her that he did not love her? What purpose would that serve? Besides, she had not asked him if he loved her. She had opened up her heart to him, imposing no conditions, asking nothing, offering everything. A gift like that was not rejected out of hand. It was accepted in the same spirit in which it was offered. Whether or not it was reciprocated was another, much more complicated matter.

"Are you going to send me away?" she said, drawing herself up proudly, prepared to accept rejection with dignity.

"No," he said. "Please, sit down. It seems that we have much to talk about."

Andre was having a hard time keeping track of all the bodies. It was difficult enough, shadowing the indefatigable Conan Doyle, now she also had Bram Stoker to worry about and the man that they were following and the people who were following them.

She had picked up Conan Doyle as he left the crime lab at Scotland Yard, almost missing him as he came hurrying out of the building, heading for a nearby pub. She had followed him to the pub, where he met Bram Stoker. As the two men left the pub together, Andre became aware that they were being followed by someone other than herself. She kept her distance, so as not to give herself away, and watched as the other shadower hopped on a bicycle and followed the coach taken by Conan Doyle and Stoker. She quickly hailed a hansom and set off in pursuit as well, wondering who else besides herself would be following the two writers.

There should have been someone from their team assigned to cover Stoker, but this was someone she had never seen before. A young Chinese man, dressed all in black, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, effortlessly pedaling the bicycle, even over cobblestoned streets.

They drove to the Lyceum Theatre and went inside. Andre lost track of the Chinese bicyclist inside the theatre. She had caught quick glimpses of him darting through the streets, following the coach, but he seemed incredibly adept at disap- pearing into the fog and shadows. Now she had no idea where he was. Conan Doyle and Stoker were nowhere in sight. She moved stealthily through the darkened theatre as the play progressed, but she was not able to catch sight of them until she sneaked backstage and saw them standing in the wings. She found a place to hide among the backstage clutter and kept an eye on them. They, meanwhile, were apparently keeping an eye on someone else, out in the audience. They kept glancing up at the box seats, but from where she was hidden. Andre couldn't see whom they were looking at. And if the Chinese man was still around, she couldn't see him, either.

However, she spotted him in the crowd during the intermission. when Conan Doyle and Stoker went out through the lobby and upstairs, to the box seats. She was unable to follow them into the box, where they spoke with someone for a short time and she was unable to get close enough to hear what was being said, because the Chinese man had already beaten her to it. She spotted him skulking just outside the box, eavesdropping on their conversation. She pulled back quickly, before he could spot her.

In the crush that followed the conclusion of the play, she lost the Chinese man once again, but she was able to spot Conan Doyle and Stoker leaving in their coach. Without waiting to try and hail a hansom amidst the bustle of the audience dispersing and risk losing them. Andre took off after their coach on foot, jogging through the streets, cursing the Victorian clothing which made running difficult and interfered with her breathing.

Fortunately, thanks to her being in superb physical condition and the coach having to drive slowly in the reduced visibility due to the fog, she was able to keep up without too much difficulty. But after several blocks, it became obvious that

Conan Doyle and Stoker were following another coach, albeit at a distance, and there was another hansom following them, as well as the Chinese man on his bicycle.

"What the hell is going on here'?" she said to herself. as she paused on a street corner to catch her breath. "This is turning into a goddamned parade!"

The "parade" proceeded along the Strand, to Fleet Street, past the offices of The Daily Telegraph and St. Paul's Cathedral, winding along roughly parallel to the course of the Thames. They passed London Bridge and proceeded on a rough diagonal away from the river, towards Whitechapel Road and the London Hospital before plunging into the maze of Whitechapel itself. Finally, the lead coach stopped and a tall man in a high silk hat and opera cape got out and started walking rapidly down a narrow street, disappearing into the mist. Conan Doyle and Stoker followed after paying off their driver and the last hansom disgorged a single man, dressed in a brown tweed coat and bowler hat, who hurried after Conan Doyle and Stoker. Once again, the young Chinese was nowhere to be seen, but Andre had no doubt that he was there as well, hidden somewhere in the mist.

She wished she was not alone, that Delaney was with her or Steiger: There were too many people to keep track of and she had no idea what was happening. She was exhausted from the long run. She unbuttoned her dress and loosened her corset, cursing the ridiculous garment, wishing there was time to take it off entirely. Breathing hard from her very long run, her feet hurting from the high-button shoes, she quickly closed the distance between her and the shadowers, using the fog for concealment.

Who was the man everyone was following? Could he possibly be unaware that he was being followed by so many people and was it possible that they were all unaware of each other? In the thick London fog, it was more than possible. But the same fog that offered such good concealment also made it difficult to keep everyone in sight. Andre slipped around the corner of a building, into a narrow alleyway, and fell sprawling as her foot struck something soft and large.

She quickly got up to see what she had tripped over. It was the man in the brown tweed coat, lying face down on the cobblestones, his forehead bleeding. He wasalive. but unconscious. Andre quickly searched his pockets and came up with a badge. The man was a policeman, an inspector from Scotland Yard. He had been knocked out by someone. By the Chinese man'? Andre quickly looked around, suddenly feeling vulnerable in the fog-enshrouded streets. She had long since lost her hat, now she grabbed her dress and ripped it up the side, so she could have greater freedom of movement. She squinted hard, trying to penetrate the mist. She could see nothing.

Standing motionless, she strained to hear the sound of footsteps. In the distance, she heard the clatter of horses' hooves upon the cobblestone. Closer, she heard a baby cry; a man and woman's voices raised at one another in the dark; a chorus of far-off, drunken singing..

And then another sound, close, too close, right behind her Linda Craven knew she was being followed. She tried not to show it as she walked down the street, waiting for an opportunity to lose the policeman. He wasn't very good. She had spotted him within two blocks of leaving Scotland Yard. It made sense that Grayson would have had her followed. He hadn't believed her for a second. But unlike some of the men under his command, such as the one now tailing her, Grayson was very good indeed. He had put it all together very neatly, only he had no idea what it meant. When he realized she wasn't going to tell him anything, he had put a tail on her, obviously hoping that she would lead him to Steiger and the others. Well, thought Linda, he was in for a major disappointment.

She had to lose this cop and do it quickly, so she could get back to Steiger and the others and let them know what happened. She was sick over the death of Dick Larson. It had been entirely her fault. He had argued that it was too dangerous to go back to the suite at the Metropole, but she had insisted, shaming him into going along with her, and now he was dead. And Scott Neilson was probably dead, too. Larson had been right. She had allowed personal feelings to get in the way of duty. to get the better of her professional instincts, and it had cost Larson his life. "Professional instincts." she thought ruefully. What a joke. She wasn't a professional at all. She had no business being on this mission, which had turned into a complete disaster, a large part of which was her responsibility. She had cried back in Grayson's office and it hadn't been entirely an act. It was all falling apart and she felt utterly helpless to do anything about it.

At least there was one thing she could do right. She could lose the policeman Grayson had set upon her trail and get back to the command post, face Colonel Steiger and tell him what had happened. Own up to her responsibility. At least they got one of them. Perhaps it wasn't much, but it was something. If only the cost hadn't been so high.

She headed towards Charing Cross, at the junction of the Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street. It was the place where proclamations were once read, criminals were once pilloried in stocks and executions had been carried out. Now, in the late nineteenth century, it was one of the busiest intersections in London. A large cross stood atop an ornate pedestal with eight statues of Queen Eleanor of Castile, wife to

Edward I, who had ordered the first crosses erected there in her memory at the close of the Thirteenth century. Linda quickened her pace, heading towards the Charing Cross Hotel.

She went into the hotel lobby, then quickly mingled with a group of people coming out, using their bodies to shield her from the policeman who was pursuing her. He ran into the hotel just as she was coining out. They passed within several feet of one another and he never saw her. Quickly, she hailed a hansom and jumped inside, directing the driver to take her to Mornington Place, near Regent's Park.

Having shaken the policeman, she leaned hack against the cushion of the scat and shut her eyes, feeling miserable. Her first assignment in Minus Time and she had made a complete mess of it. She had allowed Moreau to escape with Wells; she had been the only one of the entire team who had a shot at Drakov and she had flubbed it and now she had caused Dick Larson's death. She would not be surprised if she was court-martialed, assuming they ever made it back to their own time. It was a nightmare. Scott had told her about the pressure, about how he did not believe that anyone ever really learned to handle it, but she didn't see anyone collapsing under the weight of it, either, as she felt herself about to do. She simply didn't have anything left. She wondered whatever made her think she had what it took to be a temporal agent in the first place. She looked down at her hands and saw they were shaking.

She tortured herself with self-recriminations all the way to Regent's Park. She felt numb by the time the hansom reined up in front of H. G. Wells' house. She paid the driver and started towards the house, then saw the shattered window and the front door standing ajar.

"Oh, God," she whispered, "no. please…"

Without thinking of the danger, she ran straight up to the entrance and inside the house, where she was confronted by two uniformed policemen standing in the living room, talking to Amy Robbins and H. G. Wells.

"Wells!" she said, astonished.

"And who might you be, miss?" said one of the policemen.

"Linda!" Neilson said, coining in from the next room with Delaney, whose hand was bandaged.

"Do you know this young lady, sir?" said the policeman.

"Of course," said Neilson quickly. "She's my sister. It's all right, Linda. No need to be alarmed. We've just had a minor accident."

"It is all entirely my fault," said Wells. He turned to the policemen once again. "I can see that I have only managed to upset everyone, including my poor neighbors. I shall have a devil of a time explaining it to them. I must ask you to forgive me, Linda." he continued, looking at her apologetically. "I invite you all for dinner and instead, it turns into a veritable disaster."

"Now let me see if I have it all correctly, Mr. Wells." one of the policemen said. "You were showing this Colt pistol to Mr. Neilson here, believing that the weapon was unloaded; Mr. Neilson cocked the hammer, squeezed the trigger- thinking the revolver was empty-and it went off, startling you and causing you to knock into that lamp there, which fell and broke the window, is that correct? And Mr. Delaney cut his hand upon a piece of glass, is that it?"

"That is correct, Constable," said Wells.

"Well, if you ask me, it's very fortunate indeed that no one was seriously injured," the policeman said. "You should always examine a firearm first to ensure that it's unloaded, Mr. Wells. It might stand you in good stead to remember an old adage, 'there is no such thing as an unloaded gun.' One can never be too careful."

"Yes, I have certainly learned my lesson," Wells said, sounding sincerely contrite.

"Well, at least no one was injured. Things could have turned out much worse. From now on, Mr. Wells, you will be careful around firearms, I trust?"

"To be sure," said Wells. "This entire unfortunate episode has given me a frightful turn."

No sooner had they gone than Delaney had unwrapped his hand and the ghostly figures of three men appeared out of thin air. Linda was astonished to see that one of them was General Forrester. Another was Colonel Steiger and the third, she realized, could only be the mysterious Dr. Darkness, the man who was faster than light. Darkness had an arm around each man's shoulder and as he released them, Steiger and Forrester stepped away from him and became substantial.

Darkness remained standing where he was, unable to move from the spot on which he had materialized, trapped by the immutable laws of the universe which his altered atomic structure violated. The only way Darkness could move from one spot to another was by translating into tachyons. He was incapable of taking even a single step.

"I hate it when you do that." Steiger said, rubbing himself as if to make certain he was solid once again.

"General Forrester!" said Linda. "What… what are you doing here? I don't understand, what's happened?"

"We were hit," said Steiger. He quickly told her what had happened. "The neighbors summoned the police when they heard all the commotion."

"I am still amazed that they believed us." Wells said.

"Police are inherently suspicious," Steiger said. "You tell them something that sounds reasonable and they're liable to think you're lying. On the other hand, you tell them an outrageous lie that makes you out to be a fool at the same time and they'll figure you've got to be telling them the truth, because no one would make up something like that."

"You have a fascinatingly devious mind. Colonel," Wells said.

"It comes of being a paranoid," said Darkness wryly.

And you. sir!" Wells said. "Just when i believed that I could not be astonished any further. you come along, a man who can become invisible! How is it possible?"

" I am afraid the explanation would be beyond you, Mr. Wells." said

Darkness. "Besides, you know too much already."

"We can worry about that later." Steiger said. "Right now, we've got a much bigger problem on our hands. Drakov was able to snatch Ransome and Rizzo, transform them into hominoids, then turn them against us. Andre is still out there somewhere, all alone." He turned and stared pointedly at Linda. "And you've been unaccounted for several hours. Where were you? And where's Larson?"

"Larson's dead." she said flatly.

"How? What the hell happened?"

"We went back to the Metropole, looking for Scott. Scott didn't know that we had left the Metropole and I was afraid he might walk into a trap. So instead of Scott, we walked right into it. One of Drakov's creatures killed him. It was all my fault."

"I'm not interested in whose fault it was," Steiger said sharply. "I want to know what happened."

" I was hit with a stun dart. I didn't see what happened after that, but Dick must have shot him, only he survived long enough to throw Dick through the window before he collapsed trying to get to me. When I came to, the police were there. Inspector Grayson had me taken down to the Yard. The police took charge of the bodies. I guess they must have taken them to the crime lab, because while Grayson was questioning me, Dr. Holcombe came in. He told him the hair samples Conan Doyle took from one of the werewolf's victims matched the man who had attacked us."

"What did you tell Grayson'!"

"I stuck to my cover story," she said. "I kept insisting I was a member of an academic research group from America, but he didn't buy any of it. He's thorough. He had checked everything out. He wired Boston and found out the foundation doesn't exist. He also checked with the American embassy and found out they didn't know anything about us, either. He established that our passports were forged or at least that mine was and he made the connection between our British cover identities and our American ones."

"What tipped him off?"

"He questioned the hotel staff and they identified Dick as one of the researchers, but he already knew him as a reporter. He followed it up and established that Tom and Scott were with the research group, as well, so now he knows the whole setup was a fake. He put me through a pretty good grilling, but I said I didn't know anything about it. I said I'd been hired through the mail and if my passport was a fake, I had nothing to do with it, because you had gotten it for me. He was already convinced the research group was a front for something, so I tried to convince him I was just part of that front, a victim who'd been conned."

"Did he buy it'?"

She shook her head. "He let me go. but he had me followed. I ditched the tail and reported in. I'm sorry, sir, I-"

"Never mind that," Steiger said. "You're certain you weren't followed?"

"Yes, sir. I made sure."

“'There's a chance Grayson might find out about what happened from those two policemen who were here and make the connection," said Forrester.

"I don't think that's likely," said Steiger. "It's a real long shot. -

"I agree." Delaney said. "He'd have no reason to see their report and they'd have no reason to attach any significance to it."

"Neilson, how about the crime lab at Scotland Yard?" said Steiger. "It's closed now and there won't be anyone around, right?"

"I can give you the transition coordinates," said Neilson. "I computed them just in case…”

"Well done,” said Steiger. "All right, Neilson and Craven, you come with me. The rest of you stay here and touch base with Andre when she reports back in."

They quickly programmed the transition coordinates for the crime lab into their warp discs. Steiger gave Linda one of the two discs he had taken off Ransome and Rizzo, to replace the one Grayson had taken from her. Moments later, they were standing in the darkened laboratory at Scotland Yard.

"You're certain no one comes in here at night?" said Steiger.

"Yes, sir," said Neilson, speaking softly. "Dr. Holcombe always locks up when he leaves. He had me do all the cleaning up before we shut down for the night. He doesn't like to have people poking around his equipment when he's not here."

"Where would the bodies be kept if they were brought here?" said Steiger.

"They'd be stored in the next room, right through that door there," Neilson said.

Steiger handed him a disruptor pistol. "Go find them and get rid of them, right now."

"Yes, sir."

Steiger turned back to Linda. "Grayson has both warp discs, yours and Larson's?"

"Yes, but he tripped the failsafes and fused them." she said. "He also has the dart gun that was used on me."

"Where did you see them?"

"In his office, where he questioned me."

Neilson returned. "I found them." he said. "I destroyed both bodies."

"Good ' said Steiger. "Now-shhh!"

Nobody spoke or moved as someone walked past the lab in the corridor outside. They waited until the footsteps faded away.

"All right," said Steiger. "Neilson. I don't suppose you happened to compute the transition coordinates of Grayson's office when you went through his files before?"

"Yes, sir, I did," said Neilson. "I thought you might want me to break in there again, so I figured it would be a whole lot easier if I could just clock in there."

Steiger grinned. "I'm putting you in for a promotion," he said. "Let's hope Grayson's not burning the midnight oil in his office. See if you can find those two warp discs and the dart gun Drakov's creature used. Destroy them and get right back here."

"Yes, sir." He clocked out.

They waited tensely until Neilson returned.

"I took care of it," he said.

Steiger took a deep breath. "Okay, that leaves us with the question of what to do for our next move. Andre's still out there, tailing Conan Doyle. He may still be with Stoker, in which case she's got them both covered. I want to get back and see if she's touched base. If not. Darkness can home in on her symbiotracer and we can give her some back-up. Assuming her tracer's not gone out like mine has."

He sighed and shook his head. "Damn it! We still have no leads on Hesketh and we have no idea how many other people Drakov's creatures may have infected. Judging by what he did to Ransome and Rizzo, we can assume he's not only able to create more of them, but to control them, as well, undoubtedly through implant programming. We're down on manpower and we still have no idea where Drakov's new base is in this time period. And there's still Moreau."

"Moreau may be our best chance," said Neilson. "If what Wells told me is true, Moreau can provide us with additional manpower through Lin Tao."

“I'll believe it when I see it,” Steiger said. "I'm not taking anything on faith. Who is this Lin Tao?"

"The head of a secret organization known as the Green Dragon tong," said Neilson. "According to Wells, they're practically in control of Limehouse."

"I'm glad someone's in control of something," said Steiger wryly. "I think we'd better clock back and have a long talk with our friend Wells."