The Concarnadine Chronicles #011 -- "Red"
Title: Red
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #011 :: "Red"
Word Count: c. 1350
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Mr.Linkletter is on the move
Author's Notes: Back to the main story-line.
“Red”
“How is that possible ?”
“We aren’t sure - we’ve got some surveillance but it’s inconclusive. Can you bring the magic man in, for a consult ? After all, he is the one who claims to know about this business.”
Barratt’s snort was audible down the telephone line on which he and Rejker were speaking.
“And I suppose it would be too high-profile were you to call him yourselves ?”
“That’s right,” Rejker replied flatly.
“All right - I’ll see what I can do.” Barratt put the telephone down, paused a moment, and then shouted “Ruthven !”
“Yes, sir ?” Gabriel Ruthven appeared at the door to the office: “Something I can do ?”
“Get your coat, go down to the Durbar, and see Tremair, the manager. Find out where Concarnadine is, and how to get a message to him. If he’s there, talk to him yourself. Tell him that the link’s been let loose, and Durban wants advice.”
“Does this have to do with -- ?”
“Gabe - just go: that way, if anyone asks … ”
“I know, governor - if they ask, I can say I knew nothing.”
* * * * *
“I had to tell Medallion - I’m sorry, but - ”
“Don’t worry,” Rejker assured Barratt. “Barnaby will deal with him, if your man even bothers to say anything. We ‘lose’ people all the time - not that we ever had them in the first place: officially, at least.”
They chatted for a couple more minutes and then, almost to their unsurprise, Concarnadine walked out of a patch of shadows at the end of the corridor.
“All right,” he sad, with no preamble: “What happened ? How stupid -- !?”
“Calm down !” Elizabeth’s voice was a surprise: neither Barratt (who had, in any event, been concentrating on Concarnadine) nor Rejker (who ought, he told himself, to have been aware of everything in his surroundings) had seen her, or had any idea of her presence until she spoke. “Let’s concentrate on the facts, and leave recriminations for another day - or month.”
“As far as we can tell, he walked through a wall,” Rejker said, with some asperity.
“Show me.”
The somewhat distorted image (the camera was at ceiling height, and in a corner; accordingly, Linkletter was seen foreshortened and at an angle. As time elapsed, he seemed to be writing something either on the wall or in thin air in front of it. Then suddenly he either stepped into the wall or fell into it, and was out of camera range.
“This is all else we have - it’s from the outside cameras,” Rejker said. This was a view of the courtyard immediately in front of the language school’s entrance. There was a black car parked, and as someone who looked very like Linkletter stepped out of the school’s doors, the car’s door opened and he was tugged inside, before the car sped off.
“And that’s it,” Rejker said, and looked at his two guests. Concarnadine, in turn, looked at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, gripping her pendant, kept her eyes fixed on the monitor screen, frozen on the image of the car speeding away, as though expecting something to show up there.
“It was him,” she said suddenly. “He got word out somehow and - ”
“How did he walk through the wall ?” Rejker demanded to know.
“That was easy,” Concarnadine replied, urbanely. “Except that it was done for him. He just identified where he was, and the Earth element in the wall was Unbound, and the Air in the room was Bound, and he was pushed or carried through.”
While Rejker and Barratt were considering the implications of that, Elizabeth, unseen by either of them, squeezed her Jewel more firmly. A tiny point of brilliant light manifested itself, and then whizzed into the monitor screen.
* * * * *
The Oxford Street traffic made talking difficult but Elizabeth managed to make herself heard.
“Well ?”
The bland look Concarnadine turned on her might have fooled Rejker or Barratt but for someone with Elizabeth’s talents ….
“Come on, Con - it’s not as though you haven’t made it clear enough how much you want to settle with He Who Ought Not To Be Named. And now, the man you reckon is his chief lieutenant just walks out of - ”
She stopped: Concarnadine had turned aside, into a coffee bar, and she followed, to a booth right at the back. Two lattés later: “You don’t think he wanted to leave, do you ?”
“I think,” Concarnadine said, in a low voice, “that Euan Linkletter wants to do what he thinks is best for Euan Linkletter. I think that, so long as Barnaby and Rejker had him under their thumbs, he was going to pretend to work with them, but give up as little as he needed to. In fact, I think the only reason he admitted anything, that he helped at all, was that we - you and I - were there to keep him honest and point out just how much we already knew. Confronting him with Ilona Comeyn jarred a bit more loose, but it also gave him the idea of going back over to their side of the fence, of saying he’d been spying on us all the time.”
“But mightn’t he have told us more ?”
“I don’t think so,” Concarnadine replied; “For one thing, both you and Urtu-ab reckoned he was about done, and for another, Rejker and Barnaby didn’t have the right questions.”
Elizabeth looked at him and leaned across the table.
“All right - what are you planning ?”
“I’ll tell you when we get home. Finish your coffee - the bloke Rejker sent after us has just had to move along.”
* * * * *
“All right - so tell me.”
Concarnadine turned an eye on her and said: “Aren’t you going to tell me what it was you did in the monitor room ?”
“Oh, that was just a little something that I don’t know if it will work or not. You, on the other hand, have a concrete plan in motion, otherwise you wouldn’t be so sanguine about losing Linkletter.”
“He’s not lost, just misplaced, and you know me too well. All right.” He looked round the room, satisfying himself that his wards were still in place, then continued:
“Once Linkletter saw Ilona and the Caribbean chap, I knew he’d plan on going back over to them. The man is a civil servant, which makes him a natural double and triple-crosser. You and Urtu-ab did a good job between you, reading his mind: now we simply see where he turns up and what he says.”
“You’re expecting him to come back ?”
“Of course. If they didn’t believe him, then he’ll want protecting, and he’ll come back. If they did, then they’ll want him to come back, as a spy.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“In either case, he’ll have to tell us something more, to get our sympathy. And in either case, he’ll go back to the other side again - either because that’s what he’s been told to, or because he’ll reckon that, if we’ve taken him back once, we always will be willing to. So, we’ll learn a little more - and you and the Sphinx can tell if what he says is true or not - and we can track him going back, and find out where they are.”
“We already know that, though - Urtu and I scryed it on the map.”
“That was where they were when Linkletter was with them - don’t forget, they may have moved since.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth, to add another comment, when suddenly her gaze went vacant, and her hand went to her Jewel.
Concarnadine was careful not to disturb her and, after a few moments, a point of light materialised in front of her, and then zipped into her Jewel, where it glowed before softly fading.
Elizabeth took a deep breath and her eyes opened again. Concarnadine stepped forward, to embrace her as she slumped. He lowered her into a more comfortable position, and went to get water. By the time he returned, though, she was fully recovered.
“Thank you. That was my little experiment - it chased the car almost all the way to Watford. And now it’s come back and given me the location. About two miles from where Linkletter identified before.”
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #011 :: "Red"
Word Count: c. 1350
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Mr.Linkletter is on the move
Author's Notes: Back to the main story-line.
“Red”
“How is that possible ?”
“We aren’t sure - we’ve got some surveillance but it’s inconclusive. Can you bring the magic man in, for a consult ? After all, he is the one who claims to know about this business.”
Barratt’s snort was audible down the telephone line on which he and Rejker were speaking.
“And I suppose it would be too high-profile were you to call him yourselves ?”
“That’s right,” Rejker replied flatly.
“All right - I’ll see what I can do.” Barratt put the telephone down, paused a moment, and then shouted “Ruthven !”
“Yes, sir ?” Gabriel Ruthven appeared at the door to the office: “Something I can do ?”
“Get your coat, go down to the Durbar, and see Tremair, the manager. Find out where Concarnadine is, and how to get a message to him. If he’s there, talk to him yourself. Tell him that the link’s been let loose, and Durban wants advice.”
“Does this have to do with -- ?”
“Gabe - just go: that way, if anyone asks … ”
“I know, governor - if they ask, I can say I knew nothing.”
* * * * *
“I had to tell Medallion - I’m sorry, but - ”
“Don’t worry,” Rejker assured Barratt. “Barnaby will deal with him, if your man even bothers to say anything. We ‘lose’ people all the time - not that we ever had them in the first place: officially, at least.”
They chatted for a couple more minutes and then, almost to their unsurprise, Concarnadine walked out of a patch of shadows at the end of the corridor.
“All right,” he sad, with no preamble: “What happened ? How stupid -- !?”
“Calm down !” Elizabeth’s voice was a surprise: neither Barratt (who had, in any event, been concentrating on Concarnadine) nor Rejker (who ought, he told himself, to have been aware of everything in his surroundings) had seen her, or had any idea of her presence until she spoke. “Let’s concentrate on the facts, and leave recriminations for another day - or month.”
“As far as we can tell, he walked through a wall,” Rejker said, with some asperity.
“Show me.”
The somewhat distorted image (the camera was at ceiling height, and in a corner; accordingly, Linkletter was seen foreshortened and at an angle. As time elapsed, he seemed to be writing something either on the wall or in thin air in front of it. Then suddenly he either stepped into the wall or fell into it, and was out of camera range.
“This is all else we have - it’s from the outside cameras,” Rejker said. This was a view of the courtyard immediately in front of the language school’s entrance. There was a black car parked, and as someone who looked very like Linkletter stepped out of the school’s doors, the car’s door opened and he was tugged inside, before the car sped off.
“And that’s it,” Rejker said, and looked at his two guests. Concarnadine, in turn, looked at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, gripping her pendant, kept her eyes fixed on the monitor screen, frozen on the image of the car speeding away, as though expecting something to show up there.
“It was him,” she said suddenly. “He got word out somehow and - ”
“How did he walk through the wall ?” Rejker demanded to know.
“That was easy,” Concarnadine replied, urbanely. “Except that it was done for him. He just identified where he was, and the Earth element in the wall was Unbound, and the Air in the room was Bound, and he was pushed or carried through.”
While Rejker and Barratt were considering the implications of that, Elizabeth, unseen by either of them, squeezed her Jewel more firmly. A tiny point of brilliant light manifested itself, and then whizzed into the monitor screen.
* * * * *
The Oxford Street traffic made talking difficult but Elizabeth managed to make herself heard.
“Well ?”
The bland look Concarnadine turned on her might have fooled Rejker or Barratt but for someone with Elizabeth’s talents ….
“Come on, Con - it’s not as though you haven’t made it clear enough how much you want to settle with He Who Ought Not To Be Named. And now, the man you reckon is his chief lieutenant just walks out of - ”
She stopped: Concarnadine had turned aside, into a coffee bar, and she followed, to a booth right at the back. Two lattés later: “You don’t think he wanted to leave, do you ?”
“I think,” Concarnadine said, in a low voice, “that Euan Linkletter wants to do what he thinks is best for Euan Linkletter. I think that, so long as Barnaby and Rejker had him under their thumbs, he was going to pretend to work with them, but give up as little as he needed to. In fact, I think the only reason he admitted anything, that he helped at all, was that we - you and I - were there to keep him honest and point out just how much we already knew. Confronting him with Ilona Comeyn jarred a bit more loose, but it also gave him the idea of going back over to their side of the fence, of saying he’d been spying on us all the time.”
“But mightn’t he have told us more ?”
“I don’t think so,” Concarnadine replied; “For one thing, both you and Urtu-ab reckoned he was about done, and for another, Rejker and Barnaby didn’t have the right questions.”
Elizabeth looked at him and leaned across the table.
“All right - what are you planning ?”
“I’ll tell you when we get home. Finish your coffee - the bloke Rejker sent after us has just had to move along.”
* * * * *
“All right - so tell me.”
Concarnadine turned an eye on her and said: “Aren’t you going to tell me what it was you did in the monitor room ?”
“Oh, that was just a little something that I don’t know if it will work or not. You, on the other hand, have a concrete plan in motion, otherwise you wouldn’t be so sanguine about losing Linkletter.”
“He’s not lost, just misplaced, and you know me too well. All right.” He looked round the room, satisfying himself that his wards were still in place, then continued:
“Once Linkletter saw Ilona and the Caribbean chap, I knew he’d plan on going back over to them. The man is a civil servant, which makes him a natural double and triple-crosser. You and Urtu-ab did a good job between you, reading his mind: now we simply see where he turns up and what he says.”
“You’re expecting him to come back ?”
“Of course. If they didn’t believe him, then he’ll want protecting, and he’ll come back. If they did, then they’ll want him to come back, as a spy.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“In either case, he’ll have to tell us something more, to get our sympathy. And in either case, he’ll go back to the other side again - either because that’s what he’s been told to, or because he’ll reckon that, if we’ve taken him back once, we always will be willing to. So, we’ll learn a little more - and you and the Sphinx can tell if what he says is true or not - and we can track him going back, and find out where they are.”
“We already know that, though - Urtu and I scryed it on the map.”
“That was where they were when Linkletter was with them - don’t forget, they may have moved since.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth, to add another comment, when suddenly her gaze went vacant, and her hand went to her Jewel.
Concarnadine was careful not to disturb her and, after a few moments, a point of light materialised in front of her, and then zipped into her Jewel, where it glowed before softly fading.
Elizabeth took a deep breath and her eyes opened again. Concarnadine stepped forward, to embrace her as she slumped. He lowered her into a more comfortable position, and went to get water. By the time he returned, though, she was fully recovered.
“Thank you. That was my little experiment - it chased the car almost all the way to Watford. And now it’s come back and given me the location. About two miles from where Linkletter identified before.”