Noble House

"I think that would be all right. There's no need to be alarmed, Ian. He said I'd be all right if I took care of myself, and I told him I'd be ever so good so he needn't have any worries on that score." Kathy was surprised that her voice was calm and her hands and fingers rested in her lap so easily, betraying none of the horror she felt within. She could almost feel the disease bugs or microbes or viruses seeping through her system, feeding on her nerves, eating them away oh so slowly, second by second hour by hour until there would be more tingling and more numbness in her fingers and her toes, then her wrists and ankles and legs and and and and and Jesus Christ God almighty . . .
She took a little tissue out of her purse and gently dabbed beside her nose and forehead. "It's awfully humid today, isn't it?"
"Yes. Kathy, why is it so sudden?"
"Well it isn't dear, not really. They just couldn't diagnose it. That's what all the tests were for." It had begun as a slight dizziness and headaches about six months ago. She'd noticed it most when she was playing golf. She would be standing over her ball, steadying herself, but her eyes would go dizzy and she could not focus and the ball would split and become two and three and two again and they would never stay still. Andrew had laughed and told her to see an optician. But it wasn't glasses, and aspirins did not help, nor stronger pills. Then dear old Tooley, their family doctor forever, had sent her to Matilda Hospital on the Peak for tests and more tests and brain scans in case there was a tumor but they had shown nothing, nor had all the other tests. Only the awful spinal tap gave a clue. Other tests confirmed it. Yesterday. Oh sweet Jesus was it only yesterday they condemned me to the wheelchair, at length to become a helpless slobbering thing?
"You've told Andrew?"
"No dear," she said, pulled once more back from the brink. "I haven't told him yet. I couldn't, not yet. Poor dear Andrew does get into a tizzy so easily. I'll tell him tonight. I couldn't tell him before I told you. I had to tell you first. We always used to tell you everything first, didn't we? Lechie, Scotty and I? You always used to know first…." She was remembering when they were all young, all the lovely happy times here in Hong Kong and in Ayr at Castle
Avisyard, at their lovely old rambling house on the crest of the hill amid the heather, overlooking the sea—Christmas and Easter and the long summer holidays, she and Ian—and Lechie, the oldest, and Scott, her twin brother—such happy days when Father wasn't there, all of them terrified of their father except Ian who was always their spokesman, always their protector, who always took the punishments—no supper tonight, and write five hundred times I will not argue anymore, a child's place is to be seen and not heard—who took all the beatings and never complained. Oh poor Lechie and Scotty . . .
"Oh Ian," she said, her tears welling suddenly, "I'm so sorry." Then she felt his arms wrap around her and she felt safe at last and the nightmare softened. But she knew it would never go away. Not now. Never. Nor would her brothers come back, except in her dreams, nor would her darling Johnny. "It's all right, Ian," she said through her tears. "It's not for me, not me really. I was just thinking about Lechie and Scotty and home at Ayr when we were small, and my Johnny, and I was oh ever so sad for all of them. …"
Lechie was the first to die. Second Lieutenant, Highland Light Infantry. He was lost in 1940 in France. Nothing was ever found of him. One moment he had been there beside the road, and then he was gone, the air filled with acrid smoke from the barrage that the Nazi panzers had laid down on the little stone bridge over the stream on the way to Dunkirk. For all the war years they had all lived in the hope that Lechie was now a POW in some good prison camp—not one of those terrible ones. And after the war, the months of searching but never a sign, never a witness, not even the littlest sign and then they, the family, and at length Father had laid Le-chie's ghost to rest.
Scott had been sixteen in '39 and he'd gone to Canada for safety, there to finish schooling, and then, already a pilot, the day he was eighteen, in spite of Father's howling protests, he had joined the Canadian Air Force, wanting blood vengeance for Lechie. And he had got his wings at once and joined a bomber squadron and had come over well in time for D Day. Gleefully he had blown many a town to pieces and many a city to pieces until February 14, 1945, now Squadron Leader, DFC and Bar, coming home from the supreme holocaust of Dresden, his Lancaster had been jumped by a Messerschmitt and though his copilot had brought the crippled plane to rest in England, Scotty was dead in the left seat.
Kathy had been at his funeral and Ian had been there—in uniform, come home on leave from Chungking where he had been attached to Chiang Kai-shek's air force after he was shot down and grounded. She had wept on lan's shoulder, wept for Lechie and wept for Scotty and wept for her Johnny. She was a widow then. Flight Lieutenant John Selkirk, DFC, another happy god of war, inviolate, invincible, had been blown out of the sky, torched out of the sky, the debris burning on the way to earth.
Johnny had had no funeral. There was nothing to bury. Like Lechie. Just a telegram came. One for each of them.
Oh Johnny my darling my darling my darling . . .
"What an awful waste, Ian dear, all of them. And for what?"
"I don't know, little Kathy," he said, still holding her. "I don't know. And I don't know why I made it and why they didn't."
"Oh I'm ever so glad you did!" She gave him a little hug and gathered herself. Somehow she put away her sadness for all of them. Then she dried her tears, took out a small mirror and looked at herself. "God, I look a mess! Sorry." His private bathroom was concealed behind a bookcase and she went there and repaired her makeup.
When she came back he was still staring out of the window. "Andrew's out of the office at the moment but the moment he comes back I'll tell him," he said.
"Oh no dear, that's my job. I must do that. I must. That's only fair." She smiled up at him and touched him. "I love you, Ian."
"I love you, Kathy."
22
4:55 P.M. :
The cardboard box that the Werewolves had sent to Phillip Chen was on Roger Crosse's desk. Beside the box was the ransom note, key ring, driver's license, pen, even the crumpled pieces of torn newspaper that had been used for packing. The little plastic bag was there, and the mottled rag. Only its contents were missing.
Everything had been tagged.
Roger Crosse was alone in the room and he stared at the objects, fascinated. He picked up a piece of the newspaper. Each had been carefully smoothed out, most were tagged with a date and the name of the Chinese newspaper it had come from. He turned it over, seeking hidden information, a hidden clue, something that might have been missed. Finding nothing, he put it back neatly and leaned on his hands, lost in thought.
Alan Medford Grant's report was also on his desk, near the intercom. It was very quiet in the room. Small windows overlooked Wanchai and part of the harbor toward Glessing's Point.
His phone jangled. "Yes?"
"Mr. Rosemont, CIA, and Mr. Langan, FBI, sir."
"Good." Roger Crosse replaced his phone. He unlocked his top desk drawer and carefully put the AMG file on top of the decoded telex and relocked it. The middle drawer contained a high-quality tape recorder. He checked it and touched a hidden switch. Silently the reels began to turn. The intercom on his desk contained a powerful microphone. Satisfied, he relocked this drawer. Another hidden desk switch slid a bolt open on the door soundlessly. He got up and opened the door.
"Hello, you two, please come in," he said affably. He closed the door behind the two Americans and shook hands with them. Unnoticed, he slid the bolt home again. "Take a seat. Tea?" "No thanks," the CIA man said. "What can I do for you?"