Golden Heart (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles) by P. J. Thorndyke Read Free Book Online

stored in a bunker under the main building,” Vasquez said. “We’re running low on helium, too. There’s a store of that over there,” he said, pointing at a storage building that had once supplied the airship docks. “This is as far as the Santa Bella goes, but I want her fitted out for a quick extraction once we’re done.”
    “We’re going on by foot?” Lazarus asked.
    “I ain’t risking her up in the mountains where there’s no flat ground to land on. Hok’ee and I’ll fetch the helium. You two head over to the main building and make yourselves comfortable. We’ll fetch the supplies and eat before setting out.”
    Lazarus and Katarina found the main building swept, tidy and surprisingly well stocked considering the dilapidated state of the base.
    “I wonder if any other bandits use this place,” said Katarina. “It seems too neat to be the sole responsibility of those two.”
    “Well, there are plenty of rogues in these parts,” Lazarus replied as he kindled the stove. “Although Vasquez is the only one I’ve heard of with his own airship. Civilian airships are forbidden. Airspace is for military craft only.”
    “I can’t imagine that man in any sort of military outfit,” she said.
    “Well, he didn’t last long. They gave him the boot years ago.”
    “Do you know why?”
    “No. But it cost them one of their dirigibles.”
    Katarina was poking about in cupboards and opening doors to other rooms filled with junk and dust. “I wonder where he keeps his weapons.”
    “He said there was a bunker under the main building.”
    “I don’t see any trap door,” she replied, tracing lines in the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Maybe the entrance is outside.”
    “Why don’t we wait until Vasquez and Hok’ee get back? I don’t see why we need more weapons, anyway. You and I are both armed adequately.”
    “We’re going into the mountains. In Russia, one never goes into the mountains without a good rifle. Too many wolves. And here there are mountain lions, bobcats and other things. Besides, do you trust Vasquez?”
    “Trust him? Not nearly as far as I might throw him.”
    “My thoughts exactly. I want to see what else he’s hiding. Stay here if you want, Englishman.”
    Lazarus sighed and drew an armchair towards the fire as she went out. She was lovely to look at, there was no getting around that. But she was as prickly as an Arizona cactus, and if he trusted Vasquez little, he trusted her less.
    She was back before Vasquez and Hok’ee had returned. “Find anything?” he asked her.
    “There’s a trapdoor out back but it’s padlocked.”
    “I wouldn’t have thought a padlock would stop a woman like you.”
    “And what do you mean by that?”
    “Only that your dress and corset seem to be the only things that set you apart from the other killers and soldiers of fortune in this world.”
    She seemed offended by that. “I see. You Englishmen like your women in your cozy parlors pouring your tea and keeping your beds warm at night. Anything else frightens you. Tell me, Longman. Are you married?”
    “Married? No, I think that steamer departed long ago for me.”
    “Why do you say that? You can’t be any more than thirty. Or was there a special someone? Someone who couldn’t— or wouldn’t— marry you and now you insist on playing the broken-hearted man of a tragic novel?”
    Lazarus narrowed his eyes at her. “Has anybody ever accused you of being too forward? Or are all Russians like that?”
    She sniffed. “You only despise my forwardness because you secretly wish you could be so yourself. But you’re just too English. Your repressed nature simply won’t let you.”
    Lazarus felt a decidedly uncharacteristic flare of patriotism. “If all Englishmen were as reserved as you seem to believe, then our Empire would surely never have cloaked half the globe.”
    She smiled. “Oh dear, have I offended your honor?”
    He immediately felt foolish. How had this woman ignited a