Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

The moment rolled forward, fast. The Caché paused beside Pax. His right hand brushed his left in a nervous gesture. He glanced at the board. “It is the least of my worries whether you believe me or not. Your queen is in danger.” He strolled on.

Not a twitch from Pax. Not the blink of an eye.

What did I just see?

Owl fumed. “You knew I was bringing men here. He comes to report. I will not ask how you know him.”

“I saw him in England. He’s one of your Cachés.”

“So. I thought it was that. You are notorious for that work, you know. For sweeping them out of hiding, one after another. They all feared the Black ’Awk. You. The Faucon Noir.” She took away his newspaper and folded it under her arm. “At least this one was loyal to France, unlike most of them. I am disgusted with you, ’Awker. You cannot come to France and object to French spies. I do not go to Covent Garden and begin putting knives into your friends. We are not even at war. You must be logical.”

He was only half listening. The hand movement. The fingers.

Eight years ago. The height of the Terror. Robespierre was just dead on the guillotine and everyone holding their breath, expecting riots. He’d spent a long, dark night with Owl and Pax, pulling a baker’s dozen of Cachés out of the house where they kept them. Out of the Coach House.

Spies in training. Deadly. But they were also just a dozen scared kids, cornered, backed off to the wall of that attic.

They weren’t going to budge. In a minute or two, one of those kids would raise an alarm and people were going to get killed—him, being first and foremost among them.

Pax had said, “Is there anybody on the stairs?” There wasn’t. He’d turned back in time to see Pax wriggling his fingers and saying, “It is the least of my worries . . .”

The exact phrase. That was when the Cachés started listening.

Paul Dacre made the same curl of the fingers—the C of thumb and forefinger. Then the first and second finger lifted and closed to touch the thumb. The same signal. Exactly the same.

Pax met his eyes.

Pax had showed up one day at Meeks Street, son of a Service agent killed in Russia, only survivor of his family. Nobody knew him.

The Service traced hundreds of orphans up and down England, looking for Cachés. They never looked at Pax. Because he was one of them.

On the board, Pax set his finger on the king. He tipped it on its side.

Owl stood silent, holding the tray, watching everything.

He said, “Get your man out of here. Tell the owner it’s time to close up shop.”

He went over to destroy his friend.

HAWKER CROSSED THE CAFÉ, KEEPING HIMSELF BETWEEN Pax and the front door. One thing he didn’t need was Pax escaping into Paris before they had a chance to sort this out.

Pax sat like a man kicked in the belly—that first instant when you’re stunned, hot and cold, and you stop still because the next breath is going to let the pain loose.

He came up to the table, picking the spot behind Pax and to his left. The weakest point. It was where you stood to defend a friend or watch an enemy.

The bloke Pax was playing with had been annoyed when he was losing. Now he was annoyed Pax had given him the game. He was prepared to argue about it, point by point.

You can’t please some people. Waste of time trying. “You. Leave. They’re closing in a minute.”

That didn’t cut off the comments. Seemed like conceding was an insult to both players and a lack of respect for the game. Some Spanish fellow had played for three days straight because he wouldn’t concede. Some Frenchman had played even longer. Some Russian . . . It could only go downhill from here.

He shifted to a rougher accent, a street argot from the east of Paris. “You shut your trap and scuttle out of here. You’re annoying me.”

There is no substitute for frank discourse. The old man stopped huffing about the honorable history of chess and took himself off.

Pax raised both hands to the table and pressed them down, fingers spread, showing he wasn’t reaching for his knife. The world had twisted into a shape where Pax had to convince him of that.

There wasn’t going to be a fight. He kept an eye on Pax’s shoulders, on muscles up and down the neck, on the tendons of his hand, but it was just training and habit. Pax wouldn’t go for him. And he wouldn’t give any warning if he did. “We have to talk. There’s a storeroom behind the counter.”

“Quiet spot.” Pax said it as if they’d planned this, working together. “That’s good.”

“After you.”

He’d seen Pax backed to a wall, fighting like a maniac. Seen him staggering, with his eyes swelled shut, peering through blood, crawling out of that ditch in Cassano behind the battle lines. Seen him silly drunk. He’d never seen him with his eyes completely empty.

The café was full of men collecting coats and hats, taking newspapers back to the counter to drop in the pile, making note of where the pieces lay on the board, finishing the last of their brandy in a couple swallows. Pax wove through like they were made of straw. The Caché who’d given him away was talking to Justine. Pax passed him without a glance.

The room behind the counter was the usual cubbyhole—storeroom and kitchen, a little hearth, a table, some rough benches. The walls were lined with shelves holding cups, plates, glasses turned upside down, wine bottles lying sideways, and piles of napkins, ironed and stacked neat. A broom kept company with a bucket. The copper water cistern was behind the door.

Pax walked in and stopped, keeping his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t turn around. Maybe he was counting towels. Maybe he was waiting to get executed, abrupt-like. Pax could be a damned dramatic son of a bitch. Should have been on stage.

What do I say? What can I possibly say? “I never understood the business about not stabbing a man in the back. It’s safer, for one thing. And if I have to kill somebody, I’d just as soon not watch his face.”

“You’re a sensitive soul,” Pax said.

He came up to stand beside Pax and stare at the inventory of the Café de la Régence. “I’m not sure what comes next. I think I ask questions and you lie. At some point, one of us hurts the other. Matters deteriorate from there.”

“Let’s skip that part.”

“That’s my preference. But damned if I know what I’m supposed to do.”

“You’ve caught French agents before.”

It was a stab of shock, hearing Pax call himself a Frenchman. Ten minutes ago, they’d been on the same side. Two minutes ago, they hadn’t said the words. Now they had. “You admit it?”

“That’s a cat that won’t stuff back in the bag.” Pax pulled his mind back from wherever he’d sent it and faced him, making the turn slowly, with his hands out from his sides to show a lack of weapons. Not that it mattered. Pax didn’t need weapons. “I was careless, eight years ago, letting you see the hand signal. I thought I’d kept it hidden.”

“That’d be one of your Caché secrets.”

“We had a few. I needed to use that one. Those kids were about to tear us to pieces.” Pax looked past him, keeping half an eye on the main room of the café, making sure they weren’t overheard. “They would have, you know, in another minute.”

“Bloodthirsty lot.”

“We weren’t nice children. That attic they were in . . . It was cold as a Norse hell in February. They gave us one blanket, summer and winter. We were soldiers of France, they said. Soldiers sleep on the ground in any weather.”

“I bet soldiers don’t like it, either.”

“We had to say we liked it. Had to say we wanted to give the day’s food to the army. They’d do that to us unexpectedly when we were hungriest. We never knew when.”

“That was a mistake on their part.”

“It made us good liars, if nothing else.”

“I’m trying to work this out. The timing. You would have been—”

“I was one of the first. When they brought me, the strongest kids were bullying the others, taking their food and their blanket. We made rules.” His lips twisted. It was almost amusement. “I made rules. It turned out, I was the strongest kid.”

“I know all about your rules. ‘Don’t wear green. Strike low and strike often. Never budge from a good lie.’”

“With them it was more like, ‘Elect a leader. Never betray another Caché. Protect each other. Take care of the little kids.’ ”

In the café, the noise was dying down. The woman who poured drinks and took money at the counter headed their way, got to the storeroom door, ready to stick her head in and say something. She met his eye and had second thoughts. Walked off without whatever she was looking for. Good decision on her part.

Pax went on talking, not making sudden moves, holding his hands still and open. “We named ourselves the Cachés. They started using it later, but it was us, first. They didn’t know what we were hiding from, was them.” He thought a while. “The ones who came after me kept the rules. In all the Cachés you uncovered, not one of them led you to another.”

“Not one.”

“When we walked into that attic that night, the kids had a leader, speaking for all of them. They kept the small ones in the back. They knew the hand signal. That was mine. I made that up.”

“It gave you away. They have some word . . . that Greek God of bad luck.”

“Nemesis.”

“That sounds like it. Who were you, before you went to the Coach House and took up being a Caché?”

Pax shook his head.

“Fair enough. It doesn’t matter.”