Read Online Island of Doom: Hunchback Assignments 4 (The Hunchback Assignments) by Arthur Slade - Free Book Online Page A

or stacks of files?
    “Are you certain you want to do this?” Octavia asked. “I don’t know that we can trust her.”
    “I do have ears,” Colette said.
    “I want you to hear,” Octavia answered. “This could very well be a trap.”
    “Why this whole complicated ruse, then?” Colette asked. “If it were a trap I could have agents swoop down on us at this very moment.”
    “Modo is the strongest man I’ve ever met. To even stand a chance of capturing him you would need to draw him into your lair first.”
    For a moment Modo thought Octavia was having himon, but her face said otherwise. She really was bragging on his behalf. Well, it was the truth. Even Tharpa couldn’t beat him at arm wrestling.
    “I know you find this hard to believe, but I trust her, Tavia,” Modo said as he patted Octavia’s hand. “She may have been a French agent, but her word is good as gold, that is one thing I learned on the
Ictíneo
. And I need this information.
We
need it. I believe Mr. Socrates would agree with me.”
    “There is no time like the present,” Colette said. A light flashed to life inside the carriage and Modo was momentarily blinded by it. She’d shone what looked like a pocket lucifer directly at him.
    “You have a battery-powered lamp?” Modo asked. “I didn’t think the French were so advanced.”
    “Oh,
la petite lumière?
It is an old technology. The English are not the only ones with batteries.” She peered at his face. “It continues to amaze me how much you look like Bélanger. Now, you remember the map I drew for you?”
    “I’ve memorized it.”
    “Then you will recall that the office you want is in the center of the fifth floor? And that it belongs to Lucien Quint?”
    “Yes, of course I do. You need not repeat the instructions,” he snapped. Perhaps he
was
getting nervous. “I have the plan in here,” he said softly, tapping his skull. “You have prepared me well.” He paused. “Both of you.”
    “Then we shall begin,” Colette said. She knocked three times on the ceiling of the fiacre and the driver drove up to the front gates and stopped. Modo opened the door and stepped down onto the street.
    “Sois agressif!”
Colette whispered. “Remember to be gruff. Not your usual polite self.”
    “Indeed I shall,” he replied gruffly, then smiled.
    “Take great care,” Octavia said. “Don’t go running around like a bull in a china shop.”
    “The two of you are acting like mothers,” he hissed, then turned away before either could get another word in. Truth was, he’d be happy to be out of the wagon, away from them.
    He strode to the front gate. Behind him, he heard the fiacre pull away.
    “Arrêtez-vous!”
the guard commanded.
    “Arrêtez-vous, Monsieur,”
Modo said, correcting him.
    “Mot de passe,”
the guard said.
    “Ashenden!” Modo barked, for Colette had given him the password. The name had no meaning that he could discern, though he found it odd that they used a British surname.
    The man nodded and said in French, “Welcome back, sir.”
    Modo, pleased his appearance had fooled a guard, didn’t give the man another glance. He carried on to the main entrance, passing a second guard station. Two hounds growled and their master pulled back on the leashes. “Shut those hogs up,” Modo spat in French, then opened the door to the Deuxième Bureau.
    He marched smartly down a brightly lit hallway. Of course the French would have electric lights; they liked showing off the latest advances. Modo found this new type of lighting to be garish, not nearly as warm and natural as gaslight. He tried to set aside his worries that the brightness would make it easier to spot any mistakes he’d made in his transformation.
    How many papers about England, about Queen Victoria, about Mr. Socrates, about Modo himself would be filed in this very building? If he had hours to spend he could uncover a lifetime of secrets. But there was only one secret that Modo wanted to uncover