The Cog in the Machine
MINUTES LATER, GODFREY Joyce returned and stood in front of Madame Destine's cell, his arms linked behind his back, glaring with a self-satisfied expression as his two silent assassins manhandled her to her feet and dragged her from it and out into the Embassy's stable yard. She squinted her eyes as the blast of daylight hit her. Heinrich Nadir stood by a horse-drawn cart with a covered roof, his tongue silent, but the cogs within his brain ever working. His employer would be pleased. So far everything had transpired just as he had foreseen.
For Nadir personally, this boded well.
To her credit, Destine fought against her brutish captors the whole way, and as she was flung into the back of the cart, she lashed out with her feet, catching one of the assassins in the face. His nose spat blood. He raised his arm to strike her, but Nadir intervened, grabbing the assassin's arm.
'She is no good to the Hades Consortium dead, fool!' he reprimanded.
'Defiant until your last breath, Madame?' taunted Joyce. 'At least you'll have some company on the journey to Fantoma.' He nudged the Aksak's brother, bound and gagged next to Destine in the cart, and he stumbled onto the floor, his face littered with bloodied bruises. 'But enjoy it, because once you get there, you'll never see daylight again.'
'Gloat whilst you still have a breath in your body, Monsieur Joyce,' retorted Destine sharply. 'Soon Cornelius will come, and I only wish I was here to witness your downfall. You do not know him as I do. When he sets his mind to it he is capable of moving mountains.'
'We shall see,' said Joyce, as he signalled to his assassins. 'Take her away.'
Nadir shook Joyce's hand limply and clambered up onto the front seat of the cart next to the driver. 'I will send Lady Jocasta your regards,' he said.
The Hades Consortium assassins tied a blindfold around Destine's eyes and a gag around her mouth. The material tasted of paraffin and the Frenchwoman retched, swallowing the acrid taste back down her throat. With the blindfold obscuring her vision, she did not see Godfrey Joyce's gloating face as the cart moved along the gravel driveway towards the rear gates – nor did she catch a glimpse of Cornelius Quaint crouch down behind the low wall, out of sight.
Quaint watched the cart disappear into the distance, consumed by the fading light of the passing day.
'I hope that wasn't Joyce, or this plan is over before it's even begun,' he said.
'It was not,' said Faroud. 'It was Joyce's driver…and another man and a woman. I did not see them clearly, but neither was our target, which means that the man is still inside.'
'Well, what are we waiting for?' asked Quaint. 'Let's go and say hello.'
'It will not be an easy feat to sneak into this place, Cornelius.'
'Whoever said we were going to sneak in?' replied Quaint with a cocksure grin.
'Somehow I knew you were going to say that,' said Faroud. 'Just remember what I told you about Joyce. He might not look a formidable threat, but his mind is always ticking away behind his eyes. He is as slippery as an eel…a traitor not just to his own country, but to Egypt as well. Surely there can be nothing more despicable than that.'
'And when did you find out that Joyce was a rotten egg?' the conjuror enquired of a suddenly perplexed Faroud. 'You know…a bad seed,' rephrased Quaint, attempting to clarify his point. If the Egyptian's expression was anything to go by, he had failed miserably. 'For the leader of a band of underground criminals, you are woefully out of date with your slang! I mean, how did you find out about Joyce's connections to the Hades Consortium?'
'Through my brother,' Faroud replied softly. 'Rakmun was captured whilst stealing from the Embassy. He almost killed two of the guards and was apprehended at the scene, supposedly.'
Quaint raised an eyebrow. 'Supposedly?'
'Rakmun was no angel…he was a Scarab, after all…but he was loyal to me as a brother and as an Aksak,' explained Faroud. 'He had never expressed any interest in thieving from the Embassy; he knew it would have been a pointless venture. What we Scarabs do, we do for the good of the clan. We would never attempt such a foolhardy exploit so far from Bara Mephista – especially alone. The last I heard of Rakmun that night, he was out near the ruins of Fantoma sniffing around the Hades Consortium's affairs. He had been observing increased activity in the area and wished to investigate further.'
'And yet he managed to drag himself halfway across the country to rob the Embassy?' quizzed Quaint. 'That doesn't make much sense.'
'No, Cornelius…there is much of Rakmun's crime that failed to make sense.'
Quaint raised an eyebrow. 'Oh?'
'Joyce made it known in the local communities that one of the Clan Scarabs had been captured. He knew it would reach my ears,' Faroud began, the details still fresh in his mind. 'I contacted him to try to broker a deal between us. Even though I thought he was far too convenient in his guise as my brother's saviour, I had no choice. He told me that Rakmun was to be hanged but if I agreed to aid him, he would petition his release.' Faroud's eyes seemed to cloud over, as if spread with a layer of fine frost. 'Yet that was many weeks ago now. Joyce claimed that only his influence is keeping my brother alive. With no other recourse, I was forced to do as he commanded. I became a lapdog…just as Professor North rightly called me yesterday. Rakmun is all I have left of my family, Cornelius…I had to do whatever it took to keep him safe. But no more. I want to get inside that Embassy and beat the truth from Joyce…which is why I agreed to your hasty plan.'
'Hasty? I take offence, Faroud.' Quaint grinned like a truant child enjoying a day's freedom from school. 'My plan has been carefully devised – which is a hell of a lot more prepared than I usually am on these little affairs, let me tell you! When it comes to the Hades Consortium, it pays to be well organised. New Year's Eve is but two days away, and if Joyce is as slimy as you say, no doubt he'll want to earn himself a gold star and hand me over to his bosses, which is just fine by me. Once I get inside the Consortium's nest, he's all yours.'
'Yes, but what if he sees right through our plan?' asked Faroud.
'It doesn't matter. The end result is the same,' said Quaint. 'Joyce's actions are easy to predict – he'll betray us at the first opportunity. At its root, the Hades Consortium is merely a machine…and all machines rely on well-oiled cogs to power them. If we take one of those cogs out – in this case, Joyce – with any luck, the machine will fail.'
'You seem awfully familiar with the Hades Consortium,' said Faroud, a nagging thought buzzing around his head. 'The Clan Scarabs have been encamped deep within Egypt's heart for decades, and we have never set eyes upon any of them, save Godfrey Joyce – yet we know they are there. For a circus conjuror from England, how exactly do you know so much about them?'
'I wasn't born a conjuror, Faroud,' answered Quaint simply. 'In my past, the road of my life has verged with the Hades Consortium on more than one occasion. Although I've tried to steer well clear of them, it seems that Fate has other ideas.'
'I see,' said Faroud. 'I just assumed that they had wronged you in some way…that it was personal.'
'Oh, it's personal all right!' said Quaint, as if it should be obvious to even the most simple of minds.
Faroud pondered the reply. 'And may I ask what they did to hurt you?'
'Not me,' said Quaint.
'A lover, perhaps?' enquired Faroud.
'Not a lover…but people I loved.' The conjuror hissed a low, inaudible sigh through his teeth as he countered the discomfort of the memory. 'The Hades Consortium murdered my parents.'