Battle Hymn (15 page)

"And what about the pursuit?"

Alexi grinned.

"We smash everything on the way. Bum bridges, tear up track, cut telegraph lines. We'll sow chaos all the way up the line. At each place we arrive they'll know nothing. If we can bluff our way through, well and good. If not, we fight, try to trigger rebellion with the people who are slaves there, and move on. I'd like to think that in X'ian we might even get thousands of people rioting."

Hans sat quietly, trying to absorb all that was being offered. Part of him wanted to believe that this mad dream was indeed possible, that in a month they might be free, heading back to Rus, to safety, to living. Yet another part of him whispered that it was a fool's dream. So much could go awry. He had heard the words "assume," and "hope for" too many times in the plan presented to him.

He saw that the others were caught up in their own mad dreams, the mere telling of it convincing them that it was real. Yet, he thought, if any single link in the chain of events breaks, it will all fall apart. The tunnel is discovered, a panic breaks out on the night of the escape, the train breaks down, the switches jam, we run across armed Bantag troops while we have no weapons, word gets out ahead of us—any of a million random events could destroy even the best of plans.

"What about the flyers?" Lin asked quietly.

"What about them?" Alexi replied.

"First. If only we could seize them, there would be our escape."

"A dream," Alexi replied. "They're kept half a dozen leagues away, back toward the main encampments of the Horde. We don't know anyone there, we don't even know exactly how to get to them, let alone how to fly them. Even if we did, each flyer can carry, at best, only half a dozen humans. Hundreds would be abandoned."

"But in all your plans of escape," Lin continued, "I haven't heard your plan for how to deal with them. We can cut the talking wire, that I see, and once we are clear of this cursed place those ahead of us will know nothing. But all they need to do is send a flyer up. If it gets ahead of us with word of our escape, they'll just have to tear up fifty yards of track, smash a switch, or bum a bridge, and we'll be trapped."

Alexi nodded and Hans watched him closely, waiting for an answer. "Pray to Kesus that the winds favor us and slow the flyers down."

"And that's your plan for them?" Hans replied coldly. "Rely on prayer?"

Alexi looked around the room and then finally nodded.

"We'll all have to pray that it's not just the winds that favor us," Hans said quietly.

He scanned the group, wondering yet again. He knew that if he said no, they would listen. It rested with him. He could see the youthful enthusiasm in Gregory, believing that all things were possible, and it conjured up a memory. Andrew would say yes, but I would urge caution, urge him to think about it some more. And yet what alternative was there here? Can I lead them, knowing it's pure madness even to try? That's what they want—and it's the one thing I can still do.

Getting to the train will be the first step. Then it will be fighting all the way up the line for hundreds of miles. That's something they tried to skip over. Hell, they gave Andrew's men the first Congressional Medals of Honor for stealing that train in Marietta, Georgia, and trying to smash the line north to Chattanooga. They also caught and hung Andrews and half a dozen of his men. Hanging would be preferable to what the Bantag will do to any they catch trying to escape. Even the Moon Feast would be a blessed relief.

He looked at Tamira again, Andrew still asleep in her lap. At least they won't take them alive, he thought quietly. She smiled that bewitching, childlike smile of hers that could still make his heart constrict. Yet again he sensed that somehow she could read his mind, knew that he was contemplating her death, and knew as well that it would be a final act of love.

He suddenly realized that he had been lost in thought and that his companions were waiting.

"Each of you, get your teams organized. Gregory, you oversee digging and concealment; Ketswana and Manda, security. Alexi, intelligence on the outside. Lin, your role comes in when we get ready to break out. The building has to be ready and rations for four hundred people for a week prepared. Ketswana, I want you to know if a Bantag or anyone who is not in on the secret gets within a hundred paces of the mine. Watches are to be kept on any person we don't trust completely. Alexi, train schedules. We have to pull in the telegrapher and the dispatchers."

He saw the childlike delight in their eyes, as if a stem and elderly schoolmaster had suddenly announced a holiday.

"For weapons, it's going to be picks, shovels, and whatever knives and sharp tools we can steal from the kitchen when the time comes."

He took a deep breath.

"Assume from this moment on that we are all dead. Even if we succeed with the tunnel, getting out and taking a train are improbable at best. It's hundreds of miles to the end of the line, and again, the odds are against us. If word gets ahead of us for any reason, we're dead. Once at the end of the line we'll have to seize a boat; we don't even know if one will be there. We're not even sure of the size of the garrison there, the defenses, or how to get past them. And if we do get a boat, then what? Even if we get to the open sea, it's at least five hundred miles to republic territory.

"If possible, we'll need to recruit people who have experience with boats, anyone who has worked on the rail gangs or traveled on the line, and especially anyone who has lived or worked in X'ian."

He turned to Ketswana. "We will have to fight terror with terror. Once a person is approached, he cannot back out or refuse. If he refuses, he will soon realize that as soon as we make our break, chances are he will die anyway. In that situation he is bound to denounce us."

He hesitated. "Anyone who refuses must be killed. Is that clear?"

Ketswana nodded slowly in agreement.

"Everyone we recruit must understand as well that if we are denounced, somehow, some way, if any survive they will track the traitor down and kill him, even if he is moved to the furthest reaches of the Bantag realms. Ketswana, I want you to select two or three people that no one will ever know about, not even me. If we break out, they go with us. But if we fail, they will be the seekers of vengeance."

"It has already been done," Ketswana replied with a chilling grin.

Hans carefully studied the towering Zulu and his wife. There was such cold determination in the man's eyes that Hans felt a sense of awe. He realized that Ketswana would kill without a second's hesitation if any of them were ever threatened.

"Are you ready to start digging tomorrow?"

"As soon as we begin loading the furnace," Gregory replied.

"Then let's do it. Now get out of here. We've been together too long already."

He could not recall the last time he had felt such joy in those around him. One by one they slipped out of the room until finally he was alone with Tamira.

"Will it truly work?" she asked.

"Of course it will."

And, as always, he knew she could tell when he lied.

Leaning back from his desk, Andrew listened as Kathleen opened the door downstairs.

"Mr. President. What a surprise. Won't you come in?"

Andrew put down his pen and rubbed his eyes.

"Andrew, we have company."

The voice echoed up the stairs, and standing up, he looked down at the pile of reports. For once he almost wished he could stay with the paperwork of running an army. He scanned the room, filled now with the memorabilia that Kathleen had so proudly put on display. She had wanted to hang the original painting by Rublev, the most popular Rus artist, of Andrew surrounded by his staff at the Battle of Hispania, but Andrew had preferred instead a simple portrait of himself, Katherine, their daughter, Madison, and the boys, Abraham and Hans. His shot-torn guidon rested in the corner, and a display case against the wall opposite his desk held half a dozen books on the wars and the latest release by Gates Publishing, A History of the Thirty-fifth Maine and Forty-fourth New York. His most treasured possessions of all, his Congressional Medal of Honor and papers of commission to the rank of colonel signed by Abraham Lincoln, were framed next to his desk.

Lincoln. How his thoughts so often drifted to him, wondering where he was now, and what he was doing. Was he a lawyer again back in Springfield or, and the thought was troubling, was he still alive? He thought of Kal, waiting downstairs. Lincoln was Kal's model for how a president should look, and though the effect was near to comical—the short, stocky peasant wearing a long black broadcloth coat, a top hat, and even a beard—the effect was nevertheless touching.

"Andrew?"

"Coming."

He brushed a few flecks of lint off his vest, wondering for a second if he should struggle into his jacket. But no, this was an unofficial call, in the privacy of his home. He descended the steps, pausing at the top one to look into the boys' room. Both were fast asleep, and he smiled. Thank God they had been born after the war. The scars of it were somehow imprinted on Madison, even though she had barely been two when it ended. Perhaps it was the universal fear consuming the world around her that had lingered, but even now she would sometimes awake in the middle of the night, crying that the "bogey merki man" was coming to eat her. He listened for a moment and heard a peaceful sigh from her room, then continued down the stairs. As he stepped into the parlor he saw Kal waiting, his back turned, studying the painting that he had refused to hang in his office but that wound up over the fireplace mantel instead.

"It's embarrassing, that painting," Andrew said casually.

President Kal turned with a smile, and stepping forward, he extended his left hand, which Andrew grasped warmly.

"Storm coming on," Kal said with a smile, and for an instant Andrew wondered what he was alluding to. "Funny, when one's coming I can actually feel my lost arm tingle. Does yours bother you like that?"

Kal nodded at his empty right sleeve, and then at Andrew's empty left one.

"At times. It's been ten years since I lost it, and funny, even now, I'll suddenly try to grab something with it."

Kal looked back at the painting. "That Rublev is a wonder. An icon painter who found even bigger business painting heroes. I like this one the most. You look so calm there, your confidence radiating out to all who served with you on that field."

"I was scared to death," Andrew replied softly, "and you know it."

He smiled at the memory of the only time he had ever been dressed down by Kal. It was in the days after the disaster along the Potomac … Hans, where I lost Hans. He had lost all hope of ever retrieving the situation until Kal had met him and forced him to continue.

"We were all petrified," Kal replied, still gazing at the painting. "And you pulled us through."

"Tea?"

Kathleen came into the room bearing a simple wooden tray and a steaming pot of tea.

"I see only two cups here," Kal said. "Get one for yourself."

"No, I suspect there's political talk coming on. I've got to prepare my lecture for tomorrow's class."

"Doctor Keane, your students will not suffer for want of a preparation I suspect you've already made. Please join us?"

Kathleen smiled. "Who can refuse a presidential order?" And she left the room, returning a moment later with a third mug. Pouring the tea out for her guest, she motioned him over to the chair by the fireplace. Kal settled down with a sigh, putting his mug on a side table so that he could extend his hand toward the fire.

"Chilly out for this late in the year."

Andrew nodded, saying nothing, sensing that Kal was nervous.

Kal finally looked up. "My friend, we must talk."

"I know."

"Let's talk budget first. This latest bit regarding the airship is beyond belief. How could you allow it to happen?"

"You might not believe this, Kal, but I didn't know until the day before yesterday. I'll take responsibility for it, but those under me kept it concealed so it wouldn't reflect on me."

"That damn son-in-law of mine. Did he know?"

Andrew nodded.

Kal sighed and sat back in his chair.

"I fully disagree with the method, but don't come down too hard on him. He did what he thought was right."

"And what are you going to do, Andrew?"

"I've filed unsatisfactory reports on everyone involved. Ferguson will be docked pay and has been placed on inactive status."

"But you're putting him on inactive status anyway because of his health."

"Kal, what are you suggesting I do? Fire all of them?"

Kal took a sip of his tea and looked at the painting again.

"We can't do that," he said softly. "Fire Pat, Vincent, and Lord knows how many others. According to the law we should. But we won't."

Andrew breathed an inner sigh of relief. If Kal had pushed on that point, the way he knew several in Congress undoubtedly wanted, he would have offered his own resignation and taken the blame squarely on himself.

"We'll play the game that it was an administrative mistake."

Kal sighed again, and his gaze drifted toward the fire.

"Your Lincoln, I wonder if he ever wished that he could simply walk out the door of the White House and go back to his home and close the door."

"Most likely every day, Kal," Kathleen interjected.

Kal smiled sadly. "I never thought I'd long for the days when I was an ignorant peasant, living off the scraps of my boyar Ivor's table. If I could forget the fear of the Tugars, it would almost seem to me that I was happier then."

"Your children, your grandchildren are happier now," Andrew replied. "We might not be, but that is our sacrifice so that they can sleep soundly and without fear."

Kal stared at his old friend, as if wanting to push on but not sure how to do it.

"You want to talk about this rumor of my running for president."

Kal nodded. "Why?"

"You think it's a personal attack on you, is that it?"

"We've been friends ever since the day I was first shown into your tent, a frightened peasant, sent to figure out if you were a demon or not."