Chapter Twenty-Four
K ara took a slow, careful step toward the man. “What is in the box, Mr. Preston?”
“Never you mind. Just get out of the way.” There was a desperate edge to his tone.
“It’s the last piece. The missing piece to the device Petra is constructing, isn’t it?”
Preston stared at her, incredulous.
“We know Petra is forcing you to do her bidding. That she has threatened to harm Tom if you don’t cooperate,” Niall said.
The engineer gave a sharp laugh. “I am beginning to see why she despises the pair of you. How could you possibly know that?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Just move . I very badly wish to find a safe place to set this down.”
“Very well. But we are coming in with you.”
As Kara and Niall stepped aside, Preston passed them, muttering and still stepping carefully.
They all trooped inside after him. Preston went through the main room and on to the bedroom, where he placed the box in the middle of the bed. Straightening, he heaved a sigh of relief, then looked around.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked Dalton, staring at him in surprise.
“This is Mr. Dalton,” Kara said sharply. “He intended to marry Katherine Prentice. Petra’s sister. The one she murdered,” she reminded him.
“Which makes clear his motivation for helping us to stop Petra’s machinations.” Niall raised a brow at Preston. “What we don’t understand is why you are helping her. You cannot actually imagine she will follow through on her end of any bargain you strike with her.”
Preston rolled his shoulder, as if he’d gone stiff carrying that box so carefully. “Listen, you have had your own dealings with Petra. I understand that. But I know her. Bone deep, I understand her. I know the only chance I have of keeping Tom alive is to do as she says. I don’t know the odds of her keeping her word if I follow through, but I know with certainty that if I do not, she will go to extreme measures to follow through on her threat. She will kill Tom. She will bide her time if she has to. She will travel to the ends of the earth to find him, wherever I hide him. She would gnaw her own foot off to get to him. She is that tenacious.”
“I don’t know what you have in that box, Mr. Preston, but I know she means to use it to assassinate someone,” Kara said.
“Likely more than one person,” Niall added.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Preston sank into a chair by the hearth and dropped his head into his hands. “Tom is my brother. I’ve always had the keeping of him. I was the only one who looked out for him. I cannot just…” He looked up at Niall. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand. Would you sacrifice your wife?”
He and Niall stared at each other for a long moment.
It took less than that amount of time for Kara to realize that she would never trade Niall’s life. Not even with what they knew.
Niall cleared his throat. “Maybe there is another way. Show me what is in the box.”
Preston straightened. “Why?”
“She had a gunsmith designing her devices. Forging is what I do,” Niall reminded him. “Let me look at it.”
Preston blinked. Kara could see his mind starting to whirl. He stood and crossed to the bed. “Be careful, for God’s sake.” He lifted the lid gently.
They all gathered around to peer inside.
Kara frowned. An insert had been placed in the box. Nine holes had been hollowed out of it, each one lined with thick padding. Resting in each soft hollow was a small metal object.
“May I?” asked Niall.
“Lift one out, if you must, but do not put any pressure on it,” Preston said.
Brow furrowed, Kara stared. The object was cylindrical, and featured a screw fitting on the bottom. The rest of the cylinder looked like it had been fashioned of thin metal. Her mind pulled up a recollection of the objects in the crates at the farm. “Some of Petra’s devices had square nuts attached at the holes. These screw into them? But what is the cylinder?”
Niall looked at Preston. “It is a percussion cap, isn’t it?”
Shamefaced, Preston nodded.
“I don’t understand,” said Kara.
“It’s larger and adapted, but it’s like the piece used in a rifle or pistol to make a spark and ignite the powder.” Niall gave Dalton a wry look. “Suddenly the gunsmith makes sense.” He glanced again at Preston. “What is inside?”
“Mercury fulminate,” Preston answered.
Niall’s eyebrows rose. “A much larger amount than would normally be used in any sort of arms,” he breathed. “You really did go to a quarry, then?”
“Yes. They keep larger amounts about because they use it in detonators on their explosives.”
Kara was putting it all together in her mind’s eye—and growing horrified. “So, you screw one of these into each of those holes on the devices. And what sets them off?”
“Contact,” Preston said quietly. “They are made to be easily crushable, which is why I beg you to be careful,” he said to Niall. “You set it off prematurely and it will be useless to Petra. And if one goes off in the box, they might all catch and be ruined—and Tom will be as good as dead.”
But Kara was still talking it through. “Contact. All the saints in heaven,” she breathed. “The screw top. The gun powder. She fills those devices full of gunpowder, attaches these protruding caps all over it—and what was it? If any of the caps are struck, they cause a spark, all that gunpowder ignites…” It was a horrific thought. “An explosive shell that you don’t need a cannon to shoot.”
“Someone could carry it in a pocket,” said Niall.
“And what, just toss it into the crowd?”
“Or at someone specific,” Niall reminded her.
“The damage it could do,” Kara said, her horror growing. “That much explosive? Dozens could be killed with just one device.” Her gut clenched. “And she had two crates full of them.” She turned to Preston. “How many caps are in that box?”
“Five layers of nine. Petra said she needed five bombs for the first attack.”
“First attack?” Niall said, appalled.
“And we still don’t know who she means to go after.”
“It’s Palmerston.”
Kara gasped, and they all turned toward the bedroom door.
“Gyda!” Her friend looked like she had indeed rested. She looked fierce, ready, and…dangerous.
“Stayme figured it out. It’s Palmerston. He’s been chafing over his loss of control over foreign policy. The prime minister is irritated, but with the Russians concentrating troops on the Ottoman border, Palmerston won’t stay out of it. He means to speak out, to urge that the Royal Navy should join the French in the Dardanelles, as a solid warning to Russia.”
“Palmerston has always worked to preserve the balance of power in Europe. He won’t stand for Russia expanding into Ottoman territories,” said Niall.
“They said their target was standing in Russia’s way,” Kara said. “Petra and her Russian crony. Stayme is right, then. It’s Palmerston whom they mean to assassinate.”
“We are not going to allow it,” Gyda stated flatly. “Petra Scot is not going to harm anyone else, and certainly not the home secretary. Stayme has already gone to warn him. We are not going to allow it.” She directed a glare at Preston. “Are we, Mr. Preston?”
*
Niall saw the dismay on Preston’s face start to turn to defiance. He took a step forward before tensions could escalate. “We are not going to allow it,” he agreed with Gyda. “But neither are we going to let her harm Tom. We are going to put an end to her machinations once and for all.” He held up the percussion cap. “And I know how we are going to do it.”
“I asked at the quarry,” Preston said with a shake of his head. “We cannot break the seal to remove the mercury fulminate without setting it off. It will be obvious that they have been rendered useless.”
“We don’t have to alter them. I can replicate them. When are you supposed to deliver these to Petra?”
“Tonight. At the King’s Tower. Long enough after the workers are done for the day, so we will not be observed.” Preston’s gaze dropped away. “I knew she must be targeting someone in Parliament. The House of Lords is meeting tonight.”
“With five of those devices, she could destroy half of them in one go,” Gyda said angrily.
“Not if we give her alternate caps,” said Niall.
“Do you have enough time to accomplish it?” asked Kara. “Just getting to your forge at Bluefield and back will take time.”
“I know half the smiths in London,” Niall replied. “I can find a spot to work on them in Town. And the design is simple enough. I’ll have Harold help me, and we can turn them out quickly.”
“We have already pulled a trick like that on her once before,” Kara reminded him. “With the locket portraits.”
“Yes. We have. But these are coming from Preston. She must know he could never replicate them.”
“That’s true enough.”
“Go and get started,” Gyda urged him. “Kara and I will get all the details about the meeting point from Preston. We will begin to formulate a strategy for the meeting.”
Preston hesitated. Niall could see the man weighing his decision. At last, he nodded.
“I named the sovereign’s entrance as the place to meet,” he said. “And I did it for a reason. Let me show you.” The engineer pulled out paper and began to sketch.
Niall waited until they were all absorbed before he wrapped the percussion cap carefully in his handkerchief. Tucking it into his pocket, he hoped like hell that tonight would be the end of it. He wasn’t above a bit of extra skullduggery to make sure it was.