Beyond the Rails 3: Slayer of Darkness

Chapter 7

Nairobi Wednesday morning

          Jinx found them at the water tower, an elevated tank with a long horizontal pipe run twenty feet above the ground allowing room for the balloon as an airship’s gondola snuggled up to the pipe. It was an awkward arrangement, with the only access to the balloon being a spindly stairway up the side of the frame to allow the operator access. She made the climb in her calf-length skirt while said operator waved his arms and shouted for her to return to the ground. She greeted him with a cheery “G’day!” and a disarming smile as he threw up his arms in exasperation. Smith stood on the deck across a four-foot gap, smiling and shaking his head.
          “Catch me, David!” she called to him, backed up the tiny distance the loading platform allowed her, took two running steps and jumped the gap. Smith’s arm broke her momentum, though she was in no danger of a fall, and she held on to it for just a second longer than she had to before establishing her balance and stepping back from him.
          “Lady,” he said in a disbelieving tone, “you are undoubtedly one of the most unpredictable women I’ve ever met.”
          “Give us a chance, David. We’re all unpredictable. Is the entire crew aboard?”
          “Indeed we are, Miss Jenkins,” Captain Monroe said, stepping out of the pilot house. “This is what we call an all-hands evolution. What can we do for you?”
          “You told me to return this morning and state my case for charter. I’m here to do just that.”
          “I see. Well, you’ll have to wait until we finish loading water, and then we’ll be glad to hear you out.”

Nairobi 9:00 AM

          The water loading was uneventful, and took another ten minutes. Valves closed on ship and tower, the hose was disconnected and reeled back in, Monroe paid in cash and made a note in his battered ledger, and Patience moved them across the aerodrome to a loading dock where they were made fast.
          “Bakari,” Monroe called down the speaking tube from the pilot house, “meet us in the mess room, please.”
          “Yes, Nahodha.”
          “This way, Miss Jenkins,” Monroe said, extending his arm toward the hatch at the bow. “Would you care for some coffee?”
          “No, thank you.”
          Monroe led her, with Smith and Hobbs in tow, to the Kestrel’s small mess room, little more than a long table with a bench for three people on each side. Bakari came in through the aft door as they arrived, and they all took seats at the table.
          “We’re all ears, Miss Jenkins,” Monroe announced. “Enlighten us.”
          “All right, I shall.” She laid her wide-brimmed hat on the end of the table and stood back up again. “I am following a trail that has led me from Brisbane to Perth to Calcutta to Mombasa and here to Nairobi. It has been a trail of messenger boys and middle men, each one leading to another, but it seems, no closer to the end of the search. Your young doctor friend encountered two of those messenger boys a week ago, when they paid him a visit in a case of mistaken identity. The doctor they were after was a dentist named Farnsworth, and it was most unfortunate that they found a botanist named Ellsworth instead. They were obviously local talent hired off a street corner. The people I’m after would never make a mistake like that.”
          “Just who is it you’re after, Miss Jenkins?” Hobbs asked.
          “Please, call me Jinx. I’m not entirely sure who waits at the end of the road. As I said, I’ve followed a trail of messengers and middle men all the way from Brisbane. They’ve led me to Farnsworth, but now it seems he’s nothing but a messenger boy as well.”
          “So here we have an enigmatic lady who goes by a nickname, who’s tracked someone she doesn’t know half way around the world,” Smith summarized. “That isn’t somethin’ you do on a lark. On the contrary, you must really have a burr under your blanket to invest this much effort into somethin’ with no visible end. So, who are you, really? Why are you so doggedly determined to follow this trail?”
          “As I told your captain last night, it’s a family matter. You can understand that after what just happened to Dr. Ellsworth, can’t you?”
          “Sure, but you understand why we do what we do. We know nothin’ about your motives, although from what you just said, it sounds sort of like revenge plays a central part in it.”
          “It isn’t revenge, David. I don’t feel comfortable discussing everything that’s involved at this point. I don’t know where this is going to lead yet. Bear with me until I get to the bottom of it, and all will be revealed.”
          “So we’re supposed to just trust you, then, while you lead us all over Kenya on a mission we know nothing about?” Monroe asked.
          “You trusted me last year when my group went into the Malinde complex with you.”
          “Trusted you? You had found a way in that we needed to utilize to rescue our friend. We still don’t know what your business was in there. The only thing we know for sure is that we saw you shoot a wounded man.”
          “Not exactly true, Captain. You also know that I saved your lives when that wheelchair madman and his half-human freak had you at gunpoint.”
          “All right, I’ll concede that, but they were two separate incidents. You still shot a man on the ground who was no longer a threat to anyone.”
          “Can a former officer of the Crown truly be such a choirboy? The African frontier is a long way from the pleasant discourse of a London drawing room. Have you never done anything distasteful to serve a higher good? Any of you?”
          “We very likely have,” Monroe answered, “but speaking for myself, I always make the effort, at least, to take the high road.”
          “That’s very commendable, Captain. You’ll have to decide where the high road lies in this case. I need transport, and I’m willing to pay a good deal of money for it. If your concern for Dr. Ellsworth won’t bring you to my side, perhaps the prospect of money will. Or maybe one of the other carriers would like some coin. If I see another ship in port, I’m going to make the same offer to them, unless you accept it first. Don’t wait too long to make your decision.”
          She picked up her hat, turned, and walked out along the central corridor toward the forward ladder.
          “That is one cool customer,” Smith said as her boots thumped across the deck toward the dock.
          “She has to be,” Patience said.
          “How’s that?”
          “A woman alone out here doing what she’s doing? I’m a well-known woman with a positive reputation and a formidable crew behind me, and I still get dismissed almost every day. Just look at that last man’s reaction to me when he hired us to fly him to Zanzibar. She shows one moment of weakness, it’s liable to be her last.”
          “Aye,” Smith said, “and the fact that she’s well aware of it means that it isn’t an act.”
          “Exactly,” Hobbs agreed. “We’ve worked with her before, Captain. If we know nothing else, we know that she’s as tough as they come, and a wonderful asset to have around in a fight. Are we going to walk away from her offer?”
          “Are you saying you want to join her?”
          “I’m saying we’re still in debt for repairs, and the sort of jobs we’ve been getting aren’t exactly going to put us in villas on the Riviera any time soon. And what happens when the railroad connects with Kisumu in the next couple of weeks? Half the jobs we get are going to dry up. It’s a bad time to walk away from a guaranteed payday, that’s what I’m saying.”
          “What about you, David? Are you up for this as well?”
          “Well, we need to find out exactly what she means by a good deal of money, but she can’t make us do anything that we don’t want to do.”
          “Bakari?”
          “I can’t vote, Nahodha. I don’t know this woman as you do, but I will tell you this. She seems very dangerous.”
          “She is that!” Smith agreed.
          “So, you’re all in?”
          “Yes, Captain.”
          “Aye, Cap’n.”
          Bakari simply nodded his agreement.
          “All right, then, let’s go find her.”

Nairobi 1:00 PM

          Despite the fact that Monroe and Smith had set out after her moments after she departed, Jinx had disappeared as completely as if she had had a two-hour head start. It wasn’t until shortly after noon that Monroe spotted her entirely by chance, eating fried potato snacks at an outdoor cafe on the bustling main street.
          “There you are,” she greeted him as he approached. “I was wondering when you’d catch up.”
          “Are you always so cocksure of everything?”
          “Generally.”
          “The impetuousness of youth. A bit of seasoning will take that out of you. May I join you?”
          “That’s what I’m here for.”
          He took the other chair at her small round table, sizing up her rugged frontier clothing, her Australian stockman’s hat, almost impossibly rendered cute by her delicate Eurasian features, and of course, the sawed-off carbine in its spring-secured rig covering her right thigh from hip to knee.
          If I’d had a daughter, an errant thought came to him, I could have done a lot worse.
          “Have you reconsidered my offer?”
          “We’ve talked about it. We have an aversion to going into things without knowing the whole story. On the other hand, we have an aversion to walking away from a paying job, too, so we thought we’d see whether we might be able to reconcile those two things. To start with, what figure are you describing as a good deal of money?”
          “Depends. What do you charge for a passenger fare?”
          “The going rate is two pounds, six. It varies with the cost of necessities.”
          “And I suppose you carry paying cargo at the same time as passengers?”
          “We do.”
          “I hate to quibble, Captain. Let’s say five pounds a day to place your ship at my beck and call.”
          “My ship only. The crew costs extra.”
          “Agreed. Five each morning, then.”
          “Now, wait a minute!”
          “Captain, as I said, I hate to quibble. I’ve offered twice your going passenger rate for an open-ended charter. Do you want it, or not?”
          “All right, let’s say tentatively, and we can come back to it. What does this charter entail?”
          “As far as you’re concerned, transportation to anywhere I need to go, a cabin, and board.”
          “And you don’t involve my crew in your business?”
          “Correct.”
          “You must have some serious resources at your disposal to offer a deal like this.”
          “My family is quite wealthy.”
          “You don’t seem like a rich girl.”
          “Neither does Patience.”
          “Touché. So what are you doing out here? I know Patty’s background. What’s yours?”
          “I told you, it’s personal.”
          “You’re going to take my ship into places and situations that you likely can’t tell me about, as you probably don’t know what they will be until they happen. The least you can do is to tell me what your goal is to help with my evaluation of the job.”
          “I told you, Captain, transportation, a bed, and food. You told me not to involve your crew in my business, so please don’t presume to involve yourself in mine.”
          “This isn’t the same. Look, I’ll level with you. Five pounds a day guaranteed is a very attractive offer, and I’m willing to respect your desire for secrecy.”
          “So?”
          “So, don’t feel obligated to tell me all the details, but if you want my ship, I will have some reasonable idea of what you intend to do with it. For all I know, you might be using us to help you rob a bank, or assassinate a head of state, and if that’s the case, I want nothing to do with it.”
          “No robberies, maybe an assassination, but of no one that will be missed, I assure you.”
          “Are you an officer of the law, then?”
          “No. As I told you, I’m on family business. The official police can’t help, won’t help, whatever. The matter I’m attempting to redress has crossed too many borders between here and Australia.”
          “Your family has been wronged, then?”
          “Something like that.”
          “And you’re out to set things right?”
          “Something like that.”
          “Is that what you were doing when we met you in Malinde?”
          “I was with a crew then. Larrikins, they call that sort back home.”
          “Meaning?”
          “Rowdy youngsters, essentially.”
          “And what were you rowdy youngsters doing in an underground complex in Malinde?”
          “The better question might be what was an underground complex doing in Malinde?”
          “It might, but that isn’t the question I asked.”
          “They had a job, I’m pretty handy with a gun. We sort of fit together.”
          “Now, how does a little Australian rich girl become handy with a gun, one might ask.”
          “One might. One might be told that the source of the little rich girl’s wealth is her family’s cattle station north of Brisbane where she grew up. Riding, herding, branding, and yes, shooting. Predators abound, of both the two- and four-legged variety, and they have to be dealt with. I’m far from a drawing room rich girl, Captain.”
          “So I see. So, is this Doctor Farnsworth going to fit together with your gun?”
          “Hardly. Farnsworth is a nobody, but even to be a nobody in an organization, you have to know something. I looked him up after hours last night, and put the fear of God into him. About two hours ago, he left his residence with a suitcase, and headed for the train station. I plan to make another after-hours visit to his office tonight and see if he left anything behind that might prove useful in my search. My hope is that he’ll leave clear directions to our next stop.”
          “Our next stop? Do we have a contract, then?”
          “If you agree. Five a day, and your crew doesn’t do anything you don’t want them to do.”
          “We have a deal, then,” Monroe said, offering his hand to shake. “You pay five each morning, and we’re at your disposal. You can move your things aboard at your convenience.”
          She shook his hand.
          “I pay by bank draft, Captain. My family’s account is with a reputable bank in Australia, and you can turn those drafts into cash at any bank of the Crown in the colony. I have a few things I need to take care of, so I’ll be aboard in a couple of hours. Pleasant day, Captain.”

Nairobi 10:00 PM

          Jinx waited for night to fall and deepen before setting out from her new sanctuary, a small cabin below the foredeck of the Kestrel. She made her way unerringly to the darkened commercial street where Doctor Farnsworth’s office lay deserted, and set up in a well-hidden nook she had spied earlier in a jumble of crates outside the general goods store across the street. A quarter hour passed, then a half, as she lurked as motionlessly as a hunting spider. Finally, seeing neither light nor activity from Farnsworth’s office, she crossed the street, slipped the lock, and made her way inside. Carefully closing the blinds, she took a short, stubby candle from her pocket, lit it with a match, and looked around the waiting room.
          The first thing she noticed was that all of Farnsworth’s carefully hoarded treasures were still in their display cases, unmoved from where she had first seen them; either he planned to return, or he was so frightened by the prospect of a Queen’s prison that he had left everything but a change of clothes in his haste to escape. A good sign, she decided. Anyone in that big a hurry had to have made mistakes.
          Nothing would have been hidden here in the midst of all the strangers coming and going for medical attention, and she moved into his inner office. A small safe on a side wall stood open. The few loose papers in the bottom proved to be nothing more sinister than invoices and a few patient records. She noted with disappointment that he had obviously taken something out of here, something he considered important, that she would never see. A gleam in the open space beside his examination chair caught her eye, and when she moved closer to investigate, she found a large metal lard tin with ash and burned paper scraps in the bottom. She knew then that he had stayed until this morning to sterilize his office, and the chance that he had overlooked anything of importance was slight indeed. Still, she had waited all day for this, so she might as well look around.
          There was nothing on the shelves but bottles of medicine and trays of dental tools, the sort of things one would expect to find in a dentist’s practice. Sitting down at his plain wooden desk, she pulled out the drawers one by one and rifled through the contents. Notepads and pencils, a fountain pen, rulers, a few medical journals and the like mocked her in her search. Becoming more and more frustrated, she tossed each drawer she finished searching off to her right, and pulled out the next one. When her plunder was complete, she had a pile of drawers in the middle of the room, and not a single clue. Still, seeing that his office had been ransacked in his absence should put the wind up him at least.
          It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered this possibility; criminals had to be careful, after all. She had simply hoped that she had panicked him enough to make a crucial mistake. There were still the man’s upstairs quarters to be searched, but he was more likely to keep things of an incriminating nature down here, in that emptied safe, specifically. She began to feel the first pangs of defeat coming on, like a wave of fatigue starting in her calves and working slowly upward. Farnsworth was the last link in the chain. If she couldn’t find anything here, she would have to return to her only contact in the area, Shangazi Ramla. The information broker didn’t come cheap, and her employers would not be pleased. With a premonition of failure, she rose from the doctor’s chair and started for the stairs, but something caught her eye in the pile of empty drawers.
          She crouched beside the pile, bringing her candle close, and slid the top drawer off the pile. There, pasted to the bottom of the second one down, casting a moving shadow in the wavering light, was a standard postal envelope. It was empty save for a single sheet of paper, though it showed the stretch marks of having been stuffed full of something in times past.
          “Hello, mate,” she muttered, “what do we have here?”
          Slipping the paper out, she whipped it open with one hand, and read the letter written in a neat, printed script:

My dear Dr. Farnsworth,
         In accordance with our agreement, I am forwarding this currency in the amount of £200 in £5 notes. Messengers who bring items to you for transfer, as well as messengers from me who arrive to collect these items, are to be paid the sum of £5 per shipment. Should there be more than one messenger, they can divide it as they see fit, but they are to be paid by the item, not by the man. Messengers will identify themselves by uttering the phrase, “There is no rest for a courier until the curry is curried.”
         Memorize these instructions, destroy this letter, and henceforward carry them out to a fault, and you will find your pay for such modest work to far exceed the labor required.
                                                           R,
                                                           A. Reinhard

          There was a letterhead, faded and smudged, but still legible even in the faint light of the candle.

Abdul Reinhard's Treasure Trove
Stone City
Zanzibar

          "Got you, mate!”