The Devil's Path (An Alexander Scott Novel Book 1) Page 4
The man vanished from sight.
Turning over, Scott instantly jumped to his feet and peered into the curtain all around, trying in vain to see where his attacker had gone. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Scott saw a dark shape charging towards him. Pivoting on his heels, Scott managed to turn his side towards his onrushing attacker. The man had a long knife in his hand, and with a loud cry, the thug thrust his blade towards Scott’s unguarded stomach. Sensing the coming move, Scott brought his left arm down and blocked the thrust. Reaching out with his right hand, Scott grabbed his assailant’s arm and twisted it over. Screwing up his left fist, Scott shot it straight into the brute’s twisted face, sending him staggering back on his feet.
Blood shot from the goon’s split lip, but he was nowhere near finished. With a snarl, the man stepped back slightly and then with a curse on his lips he lunged forward again, like a cobra trying to strike its prey, aiming once again for Scott’s stomach.
Turning on his heels, Scott barely had time to move out of the way as the sharpened blade sliced through his shirt, like a knife through butter, and cut him along his midsection. A searing pain gripped Scott as if a swarm of bees had just stung him all at once. Seeing the thug’s extended arm begin to recoil for another strike, Scott shot his left hand down, grabbed hold of the arm, and then with all his strength, he pulled his attacker off his feet and towards him. Before the thug could even react, Scott brought his forehead down hard onto the man’s nose, breaking it with a popping sound of cartilage being shattered. With a moan, Scott’s attacker dropped onto his knees as blood poured from his nose all down the front of his face and onto the deck.
Seeing the knife still in his attacker’s hand, Scott brought his knee straight into the side of his injured opponent’s blood-covered head, all the while twisting the man’s knife hand until Scott thought the man’s arm was going to break.
The man had had enough. The knife fell to the deck.
Scott lashed out with his foot, kicking it off the deck and down into the unseen ocean below them.
Scott could hear voices calling out. It was the ship’s crew still looking for him. “Over here,” bellowed Scott, trying to draw their attention.
Struggling to get his ragged breathing in check, Scott grasped one of his attackers by his collar, hauled him up onto his feet and then looked into his red, tear-filled eyes.
“Why the hell did you attack me?” said Scott, angrily shaking the man hard with his hand.
The man said nothing, but Scott could tell in his eyes that he understood the question.
“Mister Scott,” called a voice from out of the fog.
“Over here, and bring the Master at Arms with you. I have a couple of people over here up to no good,” yelled back Scott.
In the blink of an eye, the Asian thug saw his chance, bringing up his right leg; he kicked Scott hard in the stomach, breaking his hold on the man. Like a gymnast, the man vaulted back, out of Scott’s reach, took one look over the side of the ship, and then with a grin on his face, he leapt over the side of the ship.
Scott, winded, struggled forward to the railing and looked over the side. He saw nothing…nothing at all. The fog still covered the water racing past below them.
A hand landed on Scott’s shoulder. Pivoting on his feet, Scott instinctively lashed out and delivered a solid punch straight into the surprised face of a junior ship’s officer, sending him tumbling onto the deck.
Another man stepped out of the fog and walked over the knocked-out officer with his hands raised. “Easy does it sir,” said the sailor.
“Sorry,” said Scott. “He surprised me.”
“I can see that, sir. What happened here?”
“We were boarded. There were three of them,” said Scott, trying to collect his thoughts. “I shot one in the leg, killed another, and just watched another one leap over the side, into the ocean.”
“Certainly not, sir?” said the sailor, looking over the side of the ship.
“The bag,” said Scott, looking about on the deck for the canvas haversack the thugs had been carrying. Not seeing it, Scott pushed the sailor aside and dashed down the deck to where he had last seen the bag. A second later, he found it still lying there on the deck. Getting down on his knees, Scott looked for where it was tied off; finding it, he quickly began to unravel the rope. A second later, a young woman with disheveled red hair popped her head out.
It was the woman Scott had seen earlier on the deck.
“Are you alright?” asked Scott, helping her out of the sack.
“Do I look alright to you?” she shot back angrily as she stepped out of the bag and self-consciously ran her hands over her rumpled blue dress.
“You look fine to me,” said Scott with a warm smile, looking into her emerald-green eyes.
“I am sorry for my outburst, sir,” said the woman. “I think you for saving me from those being taken by those men, Mister…?”
“Oh, sorry, where are my manners?” said Scott, extending his hand. The woman gently took it. “Please let me introduce myself. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Scott.”
“My name is Katelyn Nolan, but only my father calls me that. My friends just call me Kate,” said the woman, delicately shaking Scott’s hand.
Several sailors, led by the ship’s white-haired captain, ran over and joined Scott.
“Are you alright?” asked the captain, looking at Kate.
“I am, thanks to Mister Scott,” said Kate appreciatively.
Scott looked over at the captain. “Sir, there are, or were, three intruders on your ship,” said Scott. “I killed one for sure. Another man jumped.”
“Good god,” exclaimed the captain, who quickly gave orders for the ship to be searched from top to bottom immediately. Seeing Kate’s ruffled appearance, he thanked Scott and then sent her under escort to the ship’s doctor.
“Captain…over here,” called a voice in the swirling mist.
Captain Jones, accompanied by Scott, quickly made his way over to a sailor standing with his hand on the ship’s railing.
“What is it?” asked Jones.
“Sir, we found this grappling hook and rope ladder attached to the railing here,” said the sailor, pointing to the metal grappling hook still firmly secured on the side of the ship.
“Well, it would seem that you may be right, Mister Scott,” said the captain, looking out over the side of the ship into the fog, trying to see if there was another ship close by. He could see nothing.
A young officer joined them and said, “Captain we didn’t find any bodies on the main deck, but there is a lot of blood back there.”
“I killed one for sure,” said Scott, shaking his head. “His body has to be somewhere on the ship.”
“Perhaps, unless the one you say you wounded managed to drag away the dead man’s body during the fight and then toss it and himself over the side,” said Jones, offering an explanation as to why there were no bodies found.
“They must have had a boat tied up alongside your ship,” said Scott, peering into the night. “So there must be another close by.”
“Makes sense, but why would they want to kidnap one of my passengers?”
Scott looked over at the captain, his mind wondering the same thing. What possible value would a second-class passenger be to these people, and why risk boarding a ship at sea to grab her?
“Sir, I’m not sure the girl is all she pretends not to be,” said Scott. “Sir, it would be wise to check your ship’s manifest for a Miss Katelyn Nolan and then please arrange for her to meet us in the stateroom in thirty minutes,” said Scott, positive that there was more than met the eye about the red-haired woman.
A little while later, Kate Nolan was escorted by a couple of the ship’s crew to the stateroom. She had washed up and fixed her long red hair in a bun on the back of her head. Scott noticed that she looked unfazed by the attack and held her head up proudly. He judged her age to be somewhere just shy of thirty years old.
“Yes, very much so, captain,” said Kate graciously as she accepted the tea. “If it weren’t for the heroics of Mister Scott, I hate to think what would have become of me.”
Scott smiled politely and waved for her to take a seat.
Kate took a seat with a genial smile and nod of her head.
“Miss Nolan, do you have any idea why those men would try to kidnap you off this ship?” asked Scott.
“None,” replied Kate, sipping her tea.
“Curious,” replied Scott as he reached behind him and pulled up a worn black leather suitcase, which he placed on the coffee table in front of Kate.
“Recognize this?” asked Scott, looking into Kate’s eyes. He had expected a reaction, but she looked over as if it were nothing.
“Yes, of course, I do. It’s my suitcase,” said Kate.
“I had the captain fetch it for you while you were being seen to by the ship’s doctor,” said Scott as he nudged the suitcase closer to Kate.
“Miss Nolan, I had your personal effects brought here, so Mister Scott could take a look at them,” said Jones, running his hand absentmindedly through his thick white beard.
“Captain, I must object to a man going through a woman’s personal effects…it’s unseemly and not proper,” protested Kate, looking up at Scott.
“When the safety of this ship, its passengers, and crew is at stake, Miss Nolan, I can and will do whatever I damned well want to,” said Jones bluntly.
“Captain, I apologize if I said something wrong,” replied Kate, lowering her head from Jones' withering gaze.
“No apology is necessary,” said Jones, quickly collecting himself. “But I believe Mister Scott has a few questions for you,” Jones said, taking a seat.
“Thanks,” said Scott to Jones before fixing his gaze back on Kate as he calmly picked up the suitcase and turned it over until he could read the initials K and OS stenciled on it.
A weak smile formed on Kate’s lips. “I had to borrow some luggage from a family friend?”
“Of course,” Scot said with a friendly smile as he placed down a red leather-bound journal together with a small stack of letters bound together by a thin white ribbon on the table in front of Kate.
Kate’s eyes widened at the sight of the letters. She looked away and began to fidget with her hands.
“Miss O’Sullivan, I think that I can call you that now,” said Scott. “I took a cursory glance at the journal, and I am truly intrigued, since it is written in a code that I cannot decipher, but the letters sent to you from England by your father, Professor Robert O’Sullivan, were what gave your true identity away.”
Captain Jones looked over and said, “Mister Scott many women travel under an alias when they are seeking to start a new life. I understand things don’t always work out for them, so I have learned over the years not to pry, as it is none of my business, but what I still don’t understand is why people would be so hell bent in getting their hands on her, that they boarded my ship to get her.”
“That part is simple, in fact, it’s the only thing that makes sense about tonight,” said Scott, looking over at the captain.
“Well, I wish you would tell me what is going on here,” said an exasperated Captain Jones.
“Captain, could I ask you to clear the room?” asked Scott, looking over at the two sailors standing guard by the entrance to the stateroom.
With a nod of his head, the men left, leaving only Scott, Captain Jones, and Kate in the room.
“Sir, I must ask that you give me your word that what is about to be discussed will never leave this room,” said Scott seriously.
“Aye, Mister Scott, you have my solemn word.”
Scott looked over at Kate and then back at Jones. “Sir, this girl’s father has gone missing in England, and I have been asked to find him. I believe that someone was after Miss O’Sullivan in order to find out what she knows about her father’s disappearance.”
“But boarding a ship at sea is an act of piracy,” said Jones irritably. “It’s almost unheard of these days and never in the North Atlantic.”
“Captain, that may be so, but someone was willing to take the risk just to get their hands on Miss O’Sullivan. Now Kate,” said Scott softly, “please be honest with us. Do you have any idea who would have wanted to take you off this ship?”
Kate looked up. Her deep-green eyes filled with tears. “No…no, I don’t. All I know is that about a month ago men that I had never seen before, foreigners, I believe came to the house looking for my father. When I told them that he was in England, they became quite agitated and left. It was then that I started to get this awful feeling that I was being watched. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I just knew that I wasn’t alone,” said Kate, wiping the tears from her eyes. Scott handed her his handkerchief. “About a week before we set sail, a friend of the family came to the house and gave me father’s journal,” she said, delicately picking up the red leather book in her hands. “He said that he had been instructed by father that if he hadn’t heard from him by this time, then he was to assume that something had gone wrong and that he was to give me my father’s journal.”
“The one written in gibberish?” said Jones.
“It’s a form of shorthand that only my father, and I can read,” replied Kate. “We invented it when I was a child, so I could help my father with his notes.”
“So with all the major southern ports blockaded by the Union Fleet, you decided to make your way north and book yourself passage to England to try and find your father,” Scott said.
“That’s correct. I think my father is in grave danger, Mister Scott,” said Kate, opening the journal. “My father’s last entry is dated the day before he left for England. He wrote that should I be handed this book that I am to make my way to London and try to find out where he had gone, and that is precisely what I intended to do,” Kate said, her voice full of conviction.
Scott stood up and paced back and forth for a moment. “Of course, it makes a lot more sense now,” said Scott.
“What does?” said Jones.
“Why I am here.” Scott looked over at Kate. “There is no doubt that you were being observed by both your mysterious stalkers and by agents from the United States Secret Service. They followed you up north and when you purchased your passage to England that is when the U.S. government decided to bring me in on this. I suspect they hoped that either, I would find your father or that I would run into you, which I have, and you would lead me to him. Either way, my government wants your father found and brought home safely to the States.”
“Aye, that makes sense,” said Jones. “Whoever is after your father, Miss O’Sullivan, has the money and wherewithal to hire a ship with men who can navigate through the fog and find my ship in like a needle in a haystack. That’s mighty fine seamanship,” said Jones admiringly.
Scott turned and spoke. “Kate, do you know what your father was doing in England? Do your letters or perhaps the journal tell you what is important that people would be willing to kill for?”
Kate shook her head. “Sorry, Mister Scott, I am just as in the dark as you are as to why he went to England. I have scoured his notes and have not been able to find a logical reason as to what is going on. That is why I was going to England to try and find him…he’s all I have left in this world,” said Kate, choking up.
“Ok then, we need to keep you safe until we reach England,” Scott said resolutely. “Captain, Miss O’Sullivan can use my room, and I’ll bunk with one of your officers if that’s alright?”
“Not a problem,” replied Jones. “I’ll kick young Masterson out of his cabin. Furthermore, I am going to place a man outside of Miss O’Sullivan’s new room until we reach Southampton.”
“Gentlemen,” stammered Kate, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Just promise us you’ll stay in my room unti
l we reach England in a couple of days” time,” said Scott.
Kate meekly nodded her head.
“Then it’s settled,” said Jones as he stood to make the arrangements.
As soon as they were alone Kate turned to face Scott. “Mister Scott, I truly do want to thank you for saving my life, but I don’t understand why are you doing this? We’re from Virginia and proud of it.”
Scott locked eyes with Kate. He was not in the mood to debate politics. “Miss O’Sullivan, I’m a soldier, and I do as I am told, but a man far wiser than me said that this was bigger than finding one man. I didn’t truly understand him until tonight. I am starting to think that this is greater than all of us, and I suspect that it is going to get one hell of a lot worse before it gets better,” said Scott. “I have to be honest with you, Miss O’Sullivan I am not sure that we will ever find your father, but if there is a chance, no matter how small, I give you my word that I will do my best to bring him home to you.”
Chapter 6
London, England
A loud blare from the train’s whistle announced to Scott and Kate that they were coming to their destination, Charring Cross Station in the heart of London.
Scott had not set foot in London in almost fifteen years. He was amazed and at the same time somewhat disheartened, to see that the city where he had spent one lazy summer with his mother had changed so drastically. The city was now the home to over three million people, all crowded in on one another. It looked to Scott that they could not squeeze one more person into an already jam-packed city. Many were native Britons who had left behind their family farms and migrated into London looking for work. A growing and thriving immigrant community with people from all over the British Empire and Europe was also taking hold in the ballooning city. All around him, Scott could see construction. It seemed as if the city was alive like an ant colony, constantly repairing and expanding its home.
It was with great reluctance that Scott had agreed to take Kate O’Sullivan with him. He had initially threatened to send her straight back to Boston, where he would see that she would be locked up for the duration of the war. However, when she rightly pointed out that only she could read her father’s notes and that there could be more hidden away in his lodgings, he grudgingly gave in.