The Shot in the Dark
QUAINT AND FAROUD were led outside into the Embassy's yard and seated upon a horse. Quaint was at the front with Faroud behind him, their bound wrists linking them to one another. They rode steadily through the desert land for some time, following the lantern from Joyce's horse-drawn cart ahead, with the Consortium guards at their backs. The opportunity for escape was not forthcoming and Quaint grew restless as his limbs went numb. Every impatient inch of him wanted to get to Fantoma as quickly as possible, and it was agonising in every sense – not assisted by Aksak Faroud falling asleep on him an hour and a half into the journey.
'Hold here!' said Godfrey Joyce, pulling his cart to a stop.
Quaint heard a groan from the Scarab leader behind him, and he craned his neck as far as he could. 'You can wake up now, Aksak.'
'Where are we?' asked Faroud, blinking life back into his eyes.
'In trouble,' said Quaint.
'Still?'
'It's normal for me, I'm afraid,' said Quaint.
Faroud peered through the darkness, assaying their position. A large mountain range was silhouetted against the night sky less than a mile away. 'This is not Fantoma, Cornelius,' he whispered in Quaint's ear. 'Is that a good thing, or not?'
'Probably not,' said Quaint. 'But all we can do is watch how this unfolds and make our move when we can.'
'I've got to rendezvous with my contact,' said Joyce to the mute Consortium assassins. 'Get these two dogs off their mount and onto their knees where they can't cause you any bother.' With that, he whipped the reins and his cart rode off into the darkness.
Quaint and Faroud were pulled unceremoniously onto the hardened ground. The assassins drew their swords and towered over them.
'Any ideas how we can get out of this?' Faroud asked quietly.
'I don't exactly work at my best under pressure,' Quaint replied.
'What is Joyce waiting for? Why not just kill us now and be done with it?'
'Don't knock it, Aksak. Everything is working out just fine so far.'
'You are still clinging to your plan?'
'Absolutely!' confirmed Quaint.
'Our plan is sunk, my friend. Soon Joyce will return and we shall die on our knees…most undignified for an Aksak,' Faroud said grimly.
'And for a Quaint,' added the conjuror. 'And speaking of the good Mr Joyce…'
Accompanied by a cloaking trail of dust, Joyce emerged from the pitch darkness. He was not alone – there was a single passenger bound and gagged in the rear of the cart. Quaint and Faroud tried to battle the darkness to identify the passenger, and the cart was feet away when Faroud's heart rose. It was Rakmun. His brother's face was bloodied and bruised, and his swollen lips tried to speak through the gag taut between his teeth, but it was nothing but an inaudible garble.
'Rakmun?' said Faroud. 'My brother. He is safe, Cornelius!'
Quaint looked at their surroundings. 'This is your definition of safe?'
Faroud glared. 'He is alive, that is what is important!'
'I wouldn't cheer just yet,' said Quaint. 'Now Mr Joyce has got something to threaten us with.'
'How I love a nice family reunion!' said Joyce, his callous expression reinforcing Quaint's point. He reined the cart to a halt, and snatched Faroud's brother by his rope-bound wrists, dragging him onto the ground. 'You two seem intent on causing problems for me, so I thought that perhaps you'd respond to a little more persuasive pressure to keep you in line.' He pulled a pistol from his belt and held it to Rakmun's head. 'You have an obligation to safeguard this young man's well-being, Aksak. This doesn't have to get messy…so long as you do as you're instructed.'
'Again you use my kin against me,' snarled Faroud.
'A precautionary measure, I assure you,' said Joyce. 'Previously your brother was merely an insurance policy to make you susceptible to my requirements. You just needed the right level of motivation to keep your leash tight. But now I need you restrained and he fits the bill quite nicely.'
The Scarab leader ground his teeth. 'The Hades Consortium would even go so far as to sanction killing a boy?'
'They would, without a second thought,' said Quaint. 'Except I'll bet they have no idea what he's up to. Isn't that right, Joyce? You've been using the Scarabs for your own purposes…such as covering up your dirty little secret in Umkaza?' Quaint smiled as Joyce's expression wavered for a second. 'Don't look so shocked, Godfrey – or did you think we hadn't worked out why you were so keen for Professor North to pack her bags? She was getting too close, wasn't she? Too close to unearthing the skeletons in your closet…or should I say under the ground? I doubt the Hades Consortium would relish doing business with a man in such a volatile position. You didn't cover your tracks as well as you thought, Godfrey, and the Consortium doesn't like to leave footprints.'
Joyce's eyes flickered with irritation, confirming Quaint's assumption. 'So…your French companion was telling the truth…you do know what happened in Umkaza in 1833…but so what? It changes nothing!'
Quaint cocked his head like a robin listening for a worm. 'Destine? What do you mean by that? What did Destine say?' he asked.
The look of spite on Joyce's face spoke volumes. 'Mr Quaint, my guards have orders to behead you at my slightest whim, so I would be very careful who you toy with if I were you,' he said, and it was sound advice. His two assassins were primed like hungry dogs at a dinner table. 'Think about this young man here…or your friend the Aksak, and not to mention your French companion. Do you value their lives as little as you obviously value your own? All you have to do is comply and this will all be over.'
'We're bound and on our knees, Joyce. How much more compliant can we get?'
'You know what I'm talking about, Quaint. Aloysius Bedford's journal – give it to me,' Joyce demanded. 'And I will consider sparing your life.'
'Aloysius Bedford?' asked Quaint. 'What the hell has he got to do with this?'
Joyce removed his gun from Rakmun, and repositioned it at Quaint's forehead. 'Don't feign ignorance,' he sneered. 'Your Madame told me everything! She told me of her friendship with Bedford, of her time in Umkaza twenty years ago…how she had read of my betrayal in his journal. A distasteful affair, to be sure, and not one I can allow to become public knowledge, hence my insistence that you hand it over right now!'
Quaint shook his head. 'I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Why would you mention Aloysius, the man's been missing for-'
'For twenty years, yes I know,' concluded Joyce. 'And as you know very well considering that you have read his journal…he is dead! And we both know why. The idiot cottoned onto what we were planning. Now, let me make this easy for you, Mr Quaint. Give me the book, and I'll give you your freedom.'
'You're insane!' snarled Quaint. Joyce was very convincing – he certainly seemed to believe every word that he was saying. But how could any of it be true? 'I've never even seen Aloysius's journal, and as for Destine knowing him, then that is absolute hogwash! I don't know what you're getting at, but you're wasting your time.'
'Cornelius, explain – who is this Aloysius?' said Faroud.
'He was an old tutor of mine,' snapped Quaint, more in reply to Joyce than to Faroud. 'Alexandria, the seamstress that I spoke of? Aloysius was her father. He disappeared back in the early thirties whilst he was…' Quaint's mouth went very dry. '…whilst he was working on an excavation site. Good lord! What happened, Joyce? What did you have to do with Aloysius's disappearance?'
'This is an interesting little game we're playing, isn't it?' taunted Joyce. 'Like a little clockwork mouse. I just wind you up and watch you chase your tail. So…do you still deny that you have Bedford's journal?'
Quaint's voice was like gravel crunching underfoot. 'I do.'
'Very well.' Joyce nodded at his guard and, immediately, the Hades Consortium assassin grasped a handful of Quaint's silver-white locks and wrenched his head backwards. 'I won't be fooled by this little act of yours, you know. Your companion already admitted that Bedford's diary was no longer in her possession, that she had given it to her companion for safekeeping…and we all know who that companion is, do we not?'
'Joyce, she is wrong! You are wrong,' insisted Quaint.
The conjuror's mind was reeling. How could Destine have been speaking of Aloysius? They had never met, and he had certainly not mentioned Bedford's name in her presence – the man had been missing for years. It was sheer lunacy. Destine had never been to Egypt before. The facts were set in stone, they disproved everything Joyce was saying and yet…just as so many facts failed to fit together, so many more made perfect sense. If it was some kind of bluff, then it was an absurd one. However, if it were not…then it was even more absurd. Quaint waved it away. It was all just a bizarre coincidence.
Then he remembered something: he didn't believe in coincidences.
'That book contains some particularly incriminating evidence against me, Mr Quaint,' continued Godfrey Joyce. 'You know Bedford's name and you know of his disappearance, and you could only have learned that from his journal, so why don't you stop these foolish games and tell me where it is.'
'I swear to you, Joyce, I haven't got what you're after!' yelled Quaint. 'I only know what happened in Umkaza because I worked it out for myself.' Trying to wrench himself from his guard's grip, he made a dart forwards – just as he felt the cold edge of a sword brush the underside of his chin. He relaxed himself carefully.
'A fruitless waste of energy,' Joyce said, stepping towards Quaint's kneeling form. 'You will tell me what I want to know, curse you! Tell me or you die right here and now.'
'What happened to Aloysius, Joyce?' demanded Quaint, oblivious that his position was not one well suited for making demands. 'What did you do to him?'
'The events are all quite grippingly serialised within his journal, no doubt,' said Joyce. 'Why don't you tell me where it is and we can share a nice little story time?'
Quaint was desperate to learn more. 'Tell me what happened in Umkaza!'
'Umkaza was a long time ago…but my life will be shot to bits if that nasty episode ever gets out. The British government won't touch me…the Consortium will probably kill me…' Joyce cocked the pistol's trigger and sighted its barrel at Faroud's brother again. 'That's why I need Aloysius's diary…and you have until the count of three to tell me where it is, or this little Scarab thug's brains will decorate the desert.'
'He is but a boy! He has nothing to do with this!' yelled Faroud, straining at his bonds. 'Cornelius…just give him what he wants!'
'I wish I could, it sounds riveting,' muttered Quaint.
'One…' Joyce began.
'Cornelius…I beg you,' pleaded Faroud. 'He is my brother!'
'Faroud, I don't know what the hell he's on about, I swear!' protested Quaint.
'Two…' said Joyce, gruffly.
'Cornelius…you must be mistaken!' snapped Faroud.
'I'm not!' yelled Quaint.
'Quite a double act, you two. Perhaps I'm aiming the gun in the wrong direction,' said Joyce, as he moved over to Faroud and jabbed the barrel of the pistol into his forehead, hard enough for all the pigment to fade away from the Aksak's dark skin. 'If the boy's life means nothing to you, then maybe your tongue will loosen now that your friend is in peril.'
Quaint remained silent, his eyes ablaze with anger.
'Cornelius, he will do it, you know he will,' screamed Faroud. 'He'll shoot me.'
'You should listen to your friend, Mr Quaint…I'm not bluffing,' sneered Joyce.
'Neither am I,' growled Quaint. 'I don't have what you want!'
'Three,' said Joyce, tightening his finger on the pistol's trigger. 'Time's up!'
A shot rang out in the desert.