Chapter 43

Inside the bus, the passengers ducked their heads and stayed low in their seats. Outside the windows, the cityscape streamed past while police sirens wailed overhead, joined by the thudding of helicopter rotors.

A police negotiator with a loudspeaker called down from above, urging the hijackers to lay down their weapons and give themselves up—early surrender meant early rehabilitation and leniency. The reply came as a burst of orange sparks from the muzzle of a robber's gun. The helicopter climbed and banked, the negotiator's curses still echoing from a loudspeaker he hadn't had time to switch off.

Raucous noise outside; deathly silence within.

Baron took barely a minute to size up the bus and his own situation. Five masked bandits had robbed a bank and, after a running battle with the police, commandeered this bus marked "Tower of London to Waterloo." For reasons still unclear, Baron had woken up on that same hijacked vehicle.

He had two obvious choices.

First, reveal himself as an enforcer, eliminate the hijackers, and vanish before the police or other enforcers could identify him.

Second, play the part of an ordinary hostage, restrained by the Mimic's Chain, and wait for rescue—risking that the delay would make him miss the deadline set by the Timed Death Sentence.

Speaking of the Timed Death Sentence...

Baron remembered something urgent. "What's the date and time?" he whispered to the blond man beside him, who was curled over with his head in his arms and his face half-hidden.

"Constantine, you're awake!" the blond exclaimed, delighted. "I thought you were so badly injured you'd died. I was about to have you cremated."

Jack wasn't joking; Baron could see the cremation application form in his hand. His own name filled the deceased line, while Jack was listed as his half-brother.

So if I'd woken any later, I'd have been sentenced to cremation instead of the Timed Death Sentence, Baron thought wryly.

He asked for the details of what had happened after he'd passed out.

Jack's tale began on the Inside, with a white-pearl model of a clipper called the White Pearl—something he'd bartered from an old Indian witch and kept in a glass bottle. It was the stuff of Caribbean pirate legend...

Baron cut him off. "Focus. The hijackers are looking at us."

Jack glanced up; sure enough, the robbers' eyes swept over his mane of gold hair.

Jack dropped his voice. "Last night I was drinking in Lambeth. Early this morning I found you unconscious in an alley."

Baron caught the key words—last night, early this morning—and whispered, "You still haven't answered my question: what day is it?"

"Why so strange, Brother Constantine..." Jack met Baron's stare and relented. "Twentieth of November, 1987." He glanced at the bus clock. "Seven forty-three in the morning."

Twentieth of November, 1987—so I crossed over yesterday. Baron felt his stomach sink, then understanding dawned: Prol's Backward Day recurred every three days. Apparently four Prol days roughly equaled one Britannian day.

Outside, the sirens wailed again as police loudhailers blared: "To the hijackers in the bus, this is New Scotland Yard. We regret to inform you..."

The criminals only laughed. Using the bus's own PA system, they taunted the police: for every foot the squad cars advanced, they would shoot one passenger.

Jack muttered that the bus held more than thirty people; at that rate the cars would have to be parked inside the luggage rack.

The robbers yanked Jack to his feet, pressed him against a window, and jammed a gun to his temple. "See? This is what happens to anyone who crosses us!"

The trigger clicked. A flash, a deafening crackle—amplified by the bus speakers—sent passengers screaming. In the lead police car, the officer in charge slammed his fist on the dashboard; each dead hostage would be a black mark on his career.

He watched the blond head loll outside the window, his fist clenched in silent oath to make the criminals pay.

Then the blond head lifted. Jack blinked, rubbed his scalp, and strolled back inside.

Officers stared in disbelief. Only the helicopter crew overhead, reporters and police alike, had glimpsed what really happened.

An airborne constable radioed in: a passenger had apparently seized one of the hijackers' guns and was now fighting the rest.

The commander's heart leaped—then lurched again. Unarmed against armed men? That passenger's nerve was insane.

Over the bus speakers came the meaty thud of fists, the hijackers' curses, passengers' shrieks—then sudden silence, followed by a rapid staccato of gunfire that set the commander's heart skipping rope.

"What's the situation inside the bus?" he asked the helicopter, keeping his voice calm. He already feared this rescue would end his career; his tone carried an unaccustomed softness.

Static crackled, then the pilot's uncertain voice: "Superintendent Smith, the hijackers appear to have been beaten unconscious by the passenger who took the gun."

Smith exhaled. "Don't sugar-coat it—just give me the casualty estimate."

"I'm serious, sir. They're all down."

Smith raised an eyebrow; in the field, air officers didn't joke about such things.

"Sir, the bus is slowing."

Constable Leon at the wheel called his attention. Smith watched the bus roll to a halt. Suddenly its speakers blared a driving beat—The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There," released 1963.

The door hissed open. Hijackers tumbled out, followed by sobbing passengers who hugged one another in relief.

Officers on the ground counted heads. When they confirmed no hostages had been hurt, cheers erupted.

Passengers surrounded two men in celebration. One was a plain-looking middle-aged man—Constantine wearing the Mimic's Chain. The other was the blond who'd been dragged to the window, now hailed as a second hero.

The blond man swaggered, a cigar clamped between his teeth, a bottle of rum in his hand. Swinging to the music, he poured rum over the cheering crowd while clutching an excited woman close.

Gone was any sign of the panic he'd shown with a gun to his head.

Police muttered among themselves: the passengers said the real savior was the nondescript man, so why was this golden-haired fellow kissing women and popping champagne...

Leon, thrilled, reported: "Sir, no hostages harmed—operation a complete success!"

Though the police had done almost nothing, zero casualties counted as victory. Scotland Yard's reputation among Britons was safe.

And Leon felt proud to be a constable of Scotland Yard!

"Leon, how many times must I tell you not to call me 'sir'?" Smith adjusted his sunglasses. "Superintendent Smith, on duty."

He stepped out, applauding as he approached the men who had rescued his career.

As he drew closer, something nagged at him. "Hold on."

He passed Baron without a glance and stopped before the tall blond. "Have we met?"

Jack, still groping the pretty passenger, replied, "You must be mistaken, Officer Smith. I'm a law-abiding citizen, a true son of the Empire—my ancestors paid their taxes to Buckingham Palace."

Smith nodded, about to turn away—then froze. How did this man know his name?

Memory flashed: a wanted poster. Smith's face went white. "That's the Museum Phantom, Jack Don! Stop him!"

Too late—an engine roared. The phantom thief herded the rescued passengers back aboard. Doors hissed shut; Jack pulled on a mask and slid behind the wheel. The bus lurched toward a new escape.

Destination: Waterloo Station.

...

The hero who had saved them—Baron—was left on the pavement. Watching the British police scramble, he scratched his head and decided to hail a taxi.