Roll and Duck: A Lady Scarlet Short

     I pressed my back against a wooden crate. My pistol was in my hand, held upward.

     Agent Conrad Morgan was to my right, also standing against a shipping crate. He was on the other side of a narrow walk path between stacks of containers. His Webley was out and ready.

     Conrad showed me his left palm and I nodded.

     He turned his head and peeked around the crate into the heart of the warehouse, toward the loading doors that led to the docks on the Thames River. After an agonizing two seconds he pulled back and stood flat against the crate again.

     He held up three fingers then reduced it to two before tapping them against his gun.

     Three men, two with guns.

     I nodded and held my hand out at a little above waist height.

     Conrad tossed his head in my direction, held up one finger, and tapped it to his gun.

     The gunman standing on the right had the little girl.    

     My fingers twitched on the grip of the gun. I shifted my feet, signaling him I was ready when he was.

     Three days ago, Ginny Hargrove, the six-year-old daughter of a London businessman, was kidnapped from her home. Three masked men had kicked down the front door, fired several shots in the air, and dragged her from the family table while they ate. The Metropolitan Police had no leads and had turned the investigation over to the International Police Commission.

     Conrad and I had been assigned to find her. We’d checked on several business associates and rivals of Daniel Hargrove. Our investigation had eliminated all but one in his immediate circle.

     His brother-in-law, Lucas Jenson, was up to his lapel in debt. He needed money to pay his creditors or he was facing ruin. That the ransom was just enough to cover Jenson’s shortfall wasn’t enough for the Met to swarm his London warehouse.

     It was more than enough for a pair of Commission agents.

     Conrad’s eyes went cold. He took in a deep breath. Slowly and silently he let it out.

     I took the time to clear my own mind. For a brief moment I saw nothing but the darkness of the warehouse. The world became silent, except for the sound of my own heart beating.

     Conrad bobbed his head once, twice, and a third time.

     I waited just the slightest fraction of a split second and followed him as he sprang from around the crate. His gun swung to cover the left quadrant in front of us. I had everything on the right.

     Conrad’s voice echoed around the inside of the cavernous space. “Guns down. Let her go. On your knees. Hands behind your heads!”

     I leveled my pistol on the man holding the little girl. He had his arm around her shoulder, but pulled her close by the neck as Conrad and I stepped closer. He waved the gun at me.

     Ginny’s eyes were huge as she saw my weapon. I couldn’t let myself look at her, not even to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. In the moment it would take to give her a smile this could all be over.

     “I said guns down,” Conrad repeated.

     The man hoisted Ginny up by her neck to cover his chest. He held the gun out as far as it would go. I couldn’t hit his chest without hitting her and I was fully exposed.

     “What are you waiting for?” someone said. “Shoot them!”

     Ginny began to kick as the man’s arm cut off her air. He squeezed her even tighter.

     I let my eye wander ever-so-slightly to the right to where it caught hers. She was frightened. Who could blame her? She had no idea we were the good guys. For all she knew, she was being kidnapped again.

     I gave her a quick wink. “Let her go. Get on your knees. Hands behind your head.”

     “Or what?” the man asked.

     “I’ll put you on the ground.”

     He laughed.

     I aimed my weapon low and fired.

     The man fell as his knee shattered. He pulled the trigger, but he was off balance while falling. His shots went wild, hitting the far wall and filling the room with countless echoes.

     I lunged forward, zagging first right to avoid his shots then zigging straight in. I scooped Ginny from his arm. Before the man hit the ground, I grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket, twisted his collar, and used him to shield Ginny and myself. Five more shots went off while I dropped the man and rolled for cover behind another stack of crates.

     I set Ginny down and touched her on the cheek. “Are you hurt?”

     “I want to go home.”

     “That’s where we’re going, Love.” I pointed my finger at the floor. “Stay right here.”

     As I stepped out from behind the crates, I heard the thunder of footsteps and more gunfire. From the sound of things, there were at least a dozen men running in from the office area to where we were.

     Conrad pounded one of the men across the skull with the butt of his pistol. The other was already down, clutching his side and moaning. When Conrad turned, we made eye contact. This hadn’t been part of the plan. We hadn’t known we’d be facing an army.

     I took Ginny by the hand and held her with my left arm as I sprinted back to the crates were Conrad and I had formulated our attack plan. Conrad beat me there. The only exit from there was the door we’d used to come in. When Conrad tried it, the door was locked.

     He jiggled the knob and pulled several times. “Agent Durnham said we’d have backup. We should have waited until they got here.”

     “Jack will come through. He always does.”

     The horde was getting closer.

     I set Ginny down and used my left hand to brush the hair out of my eyes. When I did, I noticed the gold and gray swirl pattern on the envelope of an airship moving past the windows on the far wall. My heart skipped a beat when I realized the backup had arrived.

     I grabbed Conrad and spun him around to face the loading doors that faced the docks. “We’ve got to get to the other side.”

     His eyes sank back into his head and his jaw dropped open. “That would have been easier from over there.”

     He pointed to the scene of our gun battle.

     There was a wheeled cart against the outside wall. Two crates were stacked on top of it, but that made it better. That gave us cover we could use.

     I grabbed a crowbar and pried the side off the lower crate. It was full of powder sacks. I let a few fall out then grabbed several more and threw them aside.

     “Ginny, come on. Get in.” I patted the open space I’d made and began to push.

     Conrad fired his gun at the hallway as the first wave of warehouse thugs came through. “I’ll push. Get behind the crate.”

     I handed him my gun and gently pushed him away as he tried to take position behind the cart. “Open the door.”

     He looked up, nodded, and like a Western cowboy, laid down covering fire as I wheeled us faster and faster toward the far wall.

     Splinters flew as bullets landed all around us.

     Ginny screamed.

     “It’s alright, Love. Cover your ears.”

     She screamed again.

     Conrad slid the last several feet to the door. His body slammed against the outer wall, but he grabbed the lever and pulled. The door began to open as the chain and counterweight began to move.

     But it was never going to open before we got there.

     A shot passed within inches of my left shoulder. It hit the crate in front of me. I ducked and closed my eyes just in time. I felt the wood fragments hit my face, but nothing stuck.

     When I opened my eyes there was a cloud of white flour dust.

     Conrad moved back to stand between me and the storming goons. I pulled the cart hard, trying to stop it. My boots didn’t have the traction I needed and the upper crate crashed into the door. I dashed around the right side of the lower crate and grabbed Ginny from her hidey-hole.

     The two of us ducked under the partially open door and sprinted down the dock. Conrad fired his last shot and rolled after us. A moment later the upper crate fell, creating a cloud of white smoke in our wake.

     I took Ginny by the arm and pulled her close. “Hold me tight.”

     She wrapped her arms around my waist as we dashed toward the end of the dock and what should have been the ugliest amphibious airship ever conceived by man. She was skimming the river as she passed the warehouse, engines at idle, with the portside hatch open. We had to duck under the wing to get there. With my right arm cradling Ginny and my left swinging forward to get every last bit of swing I could muster, I leapt from the end of the dock.

     We crashed through the hatch on onto the deck. I was under Ginny and had to kick myself clear of the opening for Conrad before I could stand. When I did, I held her by the shoulders and checked her over.

     “Are you still alright?”

     She said nothing, but nodded.

     I stroked her hair and set her in one of the seats. “Let’s get you strapped in. Have you ever flown before?”

     She shook her head while I fastened the belt around her lap.

     “Well, you’re about to.”

     Despite everything, her face brightened and she turned toward the window.

     There was a huge splash behind me. When I turned I saw Conrad in the water, struggling to reach the hatch. I bent down and reached out for him just as a bullet hit the side of the cabin.

     “Come on, Conrad! You can do it!”

     He flailed an arm at me and I caught the tips of two of his fingers. With a quick jerk of my arm I pulled him up and in. He crawled away from the hatch as two more shots ricocheted off the hull.

     Once the hatch was closed, the airship began to pick up speed.

     “Strap yourself in,” I shouted at Conrad as I moved forward to the cockpit.

     I tossed myself into the second seat, beside a thin blond man in his mid-thirties. There was an unlit but well-chewed cigar in his mouth, under his shaven lip. His name was Izzy Cunningham and we’d worked together before.

     Another bullet struck the ship as I strapped myself in.

     Izzy looked over and bounced his eyebrows. He pushed the throttle to the stops and pulled back on the flight yoke. “Welcome aboard, Miss Prudence.”

     As the ship nosed skyward something broke loose in the back and tumbled the entire length of the cabin before hitting the back wall.

     I turned to look and saw Conrad, upside down, wedged behind the rearmost seat.

     “Strap in. It might get bumpy.”

     He pulled himself up. “Might it? Well. Let me just-”

     Izzy turned sharply again to avoid the suspension cables on the Tower Bridge.

     Conrad fell over again and bounced between the side wall and the floor.

     I turned to the pilot. “Be nice, Izzy.”

     “Friend of yours, Miss Prudence?”

     “Yes. And a colleague to boot.” My skin crawled. “And I’m sorry. I told a bit of a lie when we first met. My name isn’t Prudence. It’s Vivian. Vivian Hawthorn.”

     He leveled the ship out and turned toward me. His eyes were blank and his jaw hung open. “What?”

     “I’m sorry, Izzy. There was a price on my head and I had to lie.”

     His lips curled up in a wicked, twisted smile. “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck last night.”

     His eyes rolled to the side and a poster tacked to the half-wall that separated the cockpit from the passenger cabin. It was a wanted poster with my picture on it – or rather “Lady Scarlet’s” picture.

     “All’s forgiven if you’ll sign it.”

     I couldn’t contain my grin. “It’s a deal.”

     “And be sure to put a bunch of big fat X’s and a few O’s in there.”

     “Anything you say, Izzy.”

     He looked back forward as he banked the plane toward the center of London. “Everyone good back there?”

     “Yes!” Ginny squealed.

     Conrad groaned.