The League of Night and Fog Read Online Free PDF Page A

tense to “would have known” but tried to be hopeful—would know how to conduct himself in this sort of situation, but I was never trained for it.
    Still, he didn’t think he could go wrong if he used his common sense. Don’t look around to see if you’re being watched. The recent disappearances had demonstrated that the enemy was remarkably organized and skillful. A “tail”—he allowed himself what he believed was the correct melodramatic expression—surely wouldn’t be careless enough to let him know he was being followed. He’d made sure to bring his guidebook along. Though the nape of his neck itched from the strain of resisting the impulse to look back down the path, he forced himself to peer at the guidebook and then at the abundant plants before him. Thepath led upward. He reached a bench flanked by shrubs and paused, facing west, apparently to survey a building that his book explained was Government House, the home of the governor for New South Wales. His actual motive for pausing, though, was to obey the instructions Pendleton had given him.
    Pendleton was another reason Kessler felt nervous. In his prime, Pendleton’s father, Icicle, had been one of the most feared men in Europe. Though Icicle would now be in his seventies, there wasn’t any reason to assume he wasn’t still dangerous. Rumor had it—Halloway was the source—that Icicle’s son was equally to be respected, trained by his father. This meeting, exposed, in a public place obviously chosen for its cover and its many escape routes, could pose a danger from Icicle’s son as much as from the enemy.
    As instructed, Kessler sat on the bench. From the far side of shrubs where the path curved around and continued, he heard the voice of the man he’d spoken to on the phone.
    “All right, so you’ve got your meeting. Make it quick.”
    Kessler’s instinct was to turn toward the bushes, but the voice anticipated him.
    “Look straight ahead. Keep staring toward Government House. If anybody comes along, shut up. And this better be important.”
    Kessler swallowed. He started explaining.
13
    O n the bench on the opposite side of the bushes, wearing jogging clothes, wiping his sweaty forehead as if exhausted and needing a rest, Pendleton peered north toward the State Conservatorium of Music. Its design dated back to 1819, and Pendleton wished that he lived in that simpler time. No instant satellite communications. No computer files. No jets that made Australia no longer a hard-to-reach outpost. “The planet isn’t big enough to hide in,” his father had said. Of course, the obversewas that without those modern conveniences of communication and travel, he and his father would not have been able to practice their trade.
    His face hardened as Kessler, unseen behind the bushes, explained.
“What? All of them? Disappeared?
For God’s sake, why didn’t the message you sent make that clear?”
    “I didn’t draft the message,” Kessler said. “It seemed obscure to me as well, but I understood the need for caution. Since my own father had disappeared, the reference to ‘recent losses’ made me realize the implications.”
    “Implications?” Pendleton’s voice, though low, had the force of a shout. “We thought the message meant that some of my father’s old acquaintances had died! We thought we were being invited to a wake! We didn’t come all the way to Australia to risk exposing ourselves by going to Canada for toasts and tears!”
    “Then your father’s all right?”
    “No thanks to you! Coming all this way! Maybe letting our hunters follow you!”
    “The risk seemed necessary.”
    “Why?”
    “Just a moment. Someone’s coming.”
    Pendleton debated whether to stay or disappear.
    “Two kids and a dog. They went up a fork in the path. It’s fine,” Kessler said.
    “Answer me.
Why did you come?
We made it clear we want nothing to do with the rest of you.”
    “Halloway told me that’s what you’d say. I’m aware Icicle