Queen Victoria's Revenge by Harry Harrison

window or the door. He was reading a book, which he lowered just long enough to show Tony the silenced revolver he held beneath it. Then he strolled over to stand close behind him.
    â€œYou naughty chap. You know we must be going. Here, I know your tastes, I am sure this is what you want.” He took a toy sheep from the counter and handed it to Tony. It rested on his hand, empty glass-bead eyes staring into his from under curled horns made from pipe cleaners, fuzzy rabbit fur wool, black wooden legs peeking out below. “I’ll even pay for it. Now we must be going.”
    â€œGood-bye, sir,” the proprietress said cheerily, ringing up the sale. “Those sheep are nice, aren’t they? Made by a local girl, does everything herself.”
    When the door closed behind them the colonel ground the gun viciously into Tony’s already sore side where guns had been ground before.
    â€œYou stupid fool. If I did not need you I would shoot you here and now. I will next time … I lose my patience. Now walk along the road until the car comes back. Your pathetic attempt at escape has not only earned you nothing but has raised my anger. Beware. Now, we are out of sight of the building, hands in the air—higher. Do you have more of the grenades?” The gun emphasized the question and Tony decided that lying was out of the question.
    â€œIn my pocket, I’ll…”
    â€œNo you won’t! Just stand where you are until the car gets here.” It arrived all too quickly and Tony was brusquely and efficiently searched, the grenades transferred to one of the violin cases. Shoved and insulted, he was hurried back into the VW and the trip resumed. The road wound on through Tarbert, and a few miles farther on they turned off on a smaller road that followed the Sound that led to Carradale.
    â€œWe will be there soon, and no more foolish games from you,” the colonel said, tracing their course on the map with a well-manicured finger. “When we arrive you, Jorge, will park the car and stay with it. I will stroll about the town with this creature Hawkin, who will be looking at faces and will co-operate with me or he will be loathsomely dead before the day is out. While we do this the rest of you will stroll as well, keeping us always in sight, but staying apart as though simple tourists here for a day’s outing, wandering musicians with your instruments ready to play at a moment’s notice. Guard my back at all times and beware of suspicious circumstances. Always remember the gun in my pocket, Hawkin. I will use it if I have to.”
    Over a hump-backed bridge and through meadows and forests the road twisted, then straightened out and widened as it reached the few shops that made up the village center. The colonel took it all in with his Cyclops eye.
    â€œA butcher, nothing there, general goods, post office—there! The hotel, sure to contain a bar and a bar possibly to contain those we seek. Stop next to it.”
    â€œWe’ll have to order a drink to appear natural,” Tony hinted.
    â€œA single whisky, no more. Inside.”
    Inside was a long room with a dart board at one end, being industriously punctured by two elderly men with arthritic, palsied fingers. They blinked moistly at the newcomers, then turned back to their more interesting game, plunking the darts into the target numbers with incredible ease. Youth was also catered to by a pinball machine that was tinkling and clunking steadily under the attentions of an adenoidal, spotty teen-ager. Between these extremes lay the bar, where a half-dozen men were downing large glasses of beer. Tony looked at them closely; he recognized none of them. “Not here,” he murmured.
    â€œTwo whiskies,” the colonel ordered, standing so his shoulders were near the wall, his eyes upon the room. A young, exceedingly pink girl behind the bar took two wine glasses and pressed them each in turn up under a bottle of