Dark Resurrection (12 page)

Two hours in the broiling sun, pretending to be jubilant.

On the platform below him now, the priest read from the tail end of the scroll. Tom’s ear for Spanish was improving slightly, enough at least to gather that Ryan and his look-alike were both going to be executed after nightfall.

Something that pleased the crowd no end.

Their attitude changed when Ryan’s double rose up from his knees, overpowering the two men that held him tethered. The moment of triumph instantly deflated. The red sashes around Tom groaned, grumbled and shook their heads in dismay. They didn’t want an exhibition of strength and courage in the face of death, they wanted the prisoner to stay on his knees.

Ryan’s twin began to speak, rapidly and without a hint of fear in his voice. Because of the speed of the speech, and the way the man ran his phrases together, Tom could only pick out scattered words here and there. There was a delay while his brain recovered the meaning of the ones he recognized, but by then the double was fifty words ahead.

Instead of racking his brain trying to figure out what the
guy was saying, Tom concentrated on the way he was saying it. The look-alike didn’t act like a prisoner, despite the chains. He held himself proudly erect and he turned from side to side, addressing the enemies that packed both sides of the battlements. He was defiant, unbroken, unrepentant even though he was helpless and, it would seem, doomed. Tom found the reaction of the militiamen milling around him very strange. It was obvious that they considered the condemned man a threat, larger than life, even under these circumstances.

The double’s last sentence was spoken very slowly and very painstakingly enunciated, word by word. So slowly and so plainly that even Tom could understand it.

A shudder of shock passed through the throng, as if they had been bitch-slapped in unison, this while Tom had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud.

Talk about big balls! The look-alike had them.

Meanwhile, Tom’s fellow red sashes went berserk. Screaming in outrage, they unleashed a wild fusillade of joy juice bottles. The rain of breaking glass came from the battlements on both sides of the central compound. The prisoners and their red sash guards immediately covered their heads with their arms. One of the guards was struck in the back of the neck. The bottle burst on impact, his straw hat went flying, and he dropped as though he’d been head-shot.

The red sashes around Tom who found themselves without bottles to throw scrambled to pick up rocks from the ground. They fought over the pebbles.

It was clear to Tom that the men guarding the prisoners were unprepared for this eventuality; for a full minute they stood frozen in place. It was lucky for them and for the prisoners that there weren’t that many loose stones lying around
on the walkways. But Tom figured it was only matter of time before it was shotgun pellets instead of rocks and bottles flying down.

Finally the guards got themselves organized and hurried the prisoners through the red brick colonnade that Tom stood atop. All the red sashes, Tom included, rushed to the opposite side of the battlements. Ryan and his mirror image reappeared almost directly below them, collared, noosed, and hustled as fast as their ankle chains would allow onto the footbridge and toward a windowless, gray, stone block building that squatted on a shaved-flat atoll of coral.

The crowd yelled curses and taunts at the running men. Bottles shattered on the bridge’s stone rails and splashed into the water on either side. When shotguns started booming along the battlements Tom winced, but the discharges were aimed at the canal, not the condemned.

After the entourage disappeared safely through the arched portal of the prison, the crowd continued to yell and jump up and down, this in celebration of their sending helpless prisoners running for cover, running for their lives. The militiamen actually believed they had just won a victory for their side.

For his part, Harmonica Tom stifled the urge to yawn. At least now he knew where Ryan was being held, and he had a rough idea how many hours he had left to figure out a way to free him.

After fifteen minutes of celebration, the red sashes started filing out of the fort. Tom went with the flow, accepting countless back-slap congratulations, pretending to cheer with the others.

As he retraced his route over the narrow footbridge to the mainland, he had a momentary unflattering thought. He could
just keep going. He could back
Tempest
from its mooring in broad daylight, sail out of the bay and dump the corpses at sea. He could let the legend of Ryan Cawdor die here.

Tom considered the idea for about three seconds, then discarded it. Aside from the responsibility he felt for Cawdor and the companions, aside from his hatred for the Matachìn and their minions, it occurred to him how much larger his own legend would grow if he swooped in and saved the one-eyed warrior from execution.

Being legendary was bad for the health, but good for business.

It made folks think twice about back-stabbing and doubledealing. Besides, Tom liked the idea of giving a man like Ryan his life back. And his twin, too. Another bred-in-the-bone ass-kicker. If he could, he would free them both, along with the other companions.

After he crossed the bridge, he stepped out of the flow of the mob, which was headed back toward Veracruz to prepare for the execution, and walked around the edge of the stone quay. The channel between the fort and the prison looked deep enough for
Tempest
’s keel, but because of the connecting footbridge and the height of his ship’s masts, it had to be a motor-in, back-out situation. And the necessary left turn was very tight for a forty-foot sloop. In the dark and in a hurry, there was a big risk, if not a likelihood, of grounding the ship in the attempt.

Tom completely circled the ravelin on the peninsula side, confirming the fact that there was just one way in and one way out: through the arched portal on the far side of the footbridge.

A tough nut to crack.

Particularly if he wanted to get away with a whole skin.

When Tom returned to
Tempest,
he saw he had more visitors. Very short ones. Half a dozen children were sitting on the port deck with their legs hanging over the side. Ages about seven to ten, four boys and two girls, they were laughing, pushing at one another, and throwing rocks at something in the water below.

First thing Tom thought was the red sash he’d weighted down with concrete blocks had popped to the surface. A floater.

Not a good thing.

Tom boarded
Tempest
and walked up behind the kids, looking down over their heads into the water.

There was no floating corpse. Just three big-ass sharks swimming around in tight circles less than a yard from the bilge pump’s exit pipe. The twelve-foot-long hammerheads had been attracted by the blood he’d put in the water.

“¡Bastante!”
he told the little rock chuckers. The kids looked surprised and very disappointed that their fun was at an end. They were even more disappointed when he gently but firmly shooed them off his boat.

Tom looked down at the hammerheads. He wondered if they’d already located the other guy’s body. If not yet, they would soon. And when they did, how long would it take for sharks of that size to tear his legs off? A minute? Two minutes? Or to chew through the leather shoulder-sling tether that kept him connected to the concrete blocks? Ten seconds? Would the corpse then stay trapped under the keels of the rafted boats? Or would it slip out into the bay? Like a drifting log, a place for seagulls to rest and preen. It was too late to do anything about it now. He certainly wasn’t going to go over the side to make sure the body was where he left it.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw the kids had wandered off down the road. Tom climbed across the rafted boats to the dock. He walked over to the ruined warehouse and picked up a pair of scavenged concrete blocks from a palette.

When it got dark enough to dump the other bodies over the side, he would use chain to fasten the ankle weights. Something sharks couldn’t bite through.

Krysty’s body was simultaneously pressed into the bunk bed mattress and jolted by a muffled impact. The latter awakened her from her stupor for a half second; as she slipped back into a black pit of exhausted sleep, it happened again. The yawning lurch. The crushing weight of g-force. Punctuated by a bone-jarring thud.

In the back of her mind she knew something important had changed; something was wrong. Then she realized the constant rumble of the black ship’s diesel had disappeared; it had been replaced by the loud hiss of the hull knifing through the sea and the whistle of the wind gusting through the stays.

They were under sail.

As the schooner plowed through oncoming seas, Krysty forced her eyelids open, then with an effort, focused on her surroundings. There were no windows in the cabin she shared with Mildred. The walls were featureless sheet steel. The only light came from a caged bulb in the center of the ceiling.

Rising groggily to her feet, Krysty tried to rouse Mildred who was out cold on the upper bunk. The doctor didn’t wake at the sound of her name. There was a stripe of a white crystalline substance, like sugar grains, across her brown cheek. Mildred had been drooling in her sleep.

Putting a hand on her shoulder, Krysty gave a gentle shake.

Nothing.

Then a harder shake.

Mildred moaned and slowly opened her eyes.

As the ship climbed the back of a wave, Krysty’s legs suddenly went weak in the knees and her head started to spin. Very much alarmed, she steadied herself by gripping the edge of Mildred’s bunk.

What she was feeling made no sense. Krysty had been stuck on board ship for many weeks, and had been exposed to the elements in a variety of unpleasant sea and wind states. She was accustomed to the rolling motion and the violent wave impacts. She knew whatever it was, it wasn’t seasickness. This sensation was entirely different. She wasn’t sick to her stomach. Her mind and her coordination were what was impaired: her thinking muddled, her limbs tangle-footed. It was all she could do
not
to creep back into her bunk and pull the covers over her head.

Clinging to the bed frame, Krysty realized with a shock that she had no idea how much time had passed since she and Mildred had crawled into their respective bunks. Time was the vital element; Ryan’s life depended on it.

The last thing she remembered was breakfast, although she couldn’t recall how long ago that had been. She and Mildred had been served tall, hot stacks of golden-brown pancakes, drizzled with melted butter and some kind of sweet brown syrup, with separate bowls heaped with crisp strips of bacon.

She remembered how good the food had smelled and tasted. She had been so hungry. Barely awake, she had gobbled it down, hand over fist. Mildred had attacked her food with the same enthusiasm. They had eaten like starving animals.

Now Krysty was hungry again. Her stomach’s rumbling and gurgling was her only gauge of the elapsed time.

Three hours to digest?

Mebbe four?

Could it be past noon already? she thought in growing despair.

Mildred pushed up to a wobbly sitting position on her bunk, bracing herself against the impacts with a hand pressed to the cabin wall. “The diesel has stopped,” she said thickly, her eyes still closed.

“Sounds and feels like we’ve picked up some real speed,” Krysty said. “They must have all the sheets up.”

Mildred opened her eyes. “How long have we been running with the wind?” she asked. “How long have we been asleep?”

Krysty read her thoughts. They were the same desperate, anguished thoughts that she had.

That they might already be too late to save Ryan.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I just woke up.”

“Oh, God,” Mildred groaned. She let her face fall into her manacled hands.

“What is it?”

“The wind’s hard behind us now,” Mildred told her. “Don’t you see? No matter how far south we’ve come, to retrace our route and return to Veracruz we’re going to have to beat back against it. We’re going to have to zigzag, tacking back and forth the whole way. It’ll take us twice as long to cover the same ground, maybe longer.”

Krysty felt her knees go soft again; her head was spinning. She had to clutch the bed frame harder to keep from falling. Had she and the companions been kidding themselves all along? Thinking that they actually had the power to do something
to save Ryan? Had they chosen to ignore the real extent of their predicament and his because it was too horrible for them to deal with? Had they clung to a comfortable lie because it had gotten them through the night?

The awful truth was now staring Krysty full in the face.

No predark whitecoat technical wonder, no mat-trans system, no airship, not even a high-speed, gasoline-powered watercraft was going to pull this rabbit out of a hat. There was no way to reverse the impending course of events. Time and circumstance had finally conspired to defeat them.

If Ryan’s survival depended on the companions’ help, he was doomed.

Krysty sagged against the bunk frame. The love of her life was gone forever. Her prehensile hair drew up into curls around her neck, ears and temples, withdrawing to seek safety and comfort from the gnawing pain.

“This is the end of everything,” she told Mildred, her voice catching and breaking on the last word. Tears rolled from the corners of her emerald-green eyes; her lower lip and chin began to quiver uncontrollably. She was losing it and she didn’t care. “This is the end of us.”

Mildred put a hand on Krysty’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’ve got to go back after him,” she said. “No matter how long it takes to get there. We’ve got to take over this ship and go back for him.”

Krysty just stared at her, the tears still falling freely.

“We can’t grieve over a death that hasn’t happened yet,” Mildred said. “And may never happen. You’re letting your exhaustion get the better of you. You’ve got to keep fighting it. We all have to. Until we go back and see for ourselves, we won’t know whether they really killed him or not. Anything
is possible. We can’t count Ryan out. Not ever. No matter the odds.”

“I know that.”

“He wasn’t counting on our help to get away.”

“I know that, too.” Krysty backhanded the wetness on her cheeks and with an effort took hold of herself.

“We have to focus all our attention on turning the ship around,” Mildred said. “That’s our goal. And to reach it, first we’ve got to get out of these shackles.”

“You’re right, of course, you’re right,” Krysty said, nodding. Then another wave of weakness struck, this time even more severe. She shut her eyes and hung on for dear life until it passed. “Damn it, Mildred,” she said, “why am I feeling so dizzy? And why am I so hungry?”

“I don’t feel so great, either,” the doctor admitted. “And I could eat my own boot sole right now if I had something to cut it up with. It’s probably just a side effect of the starvation. We’ve been without full rations for weeks while rowing our butts off. All of a sudden we’re eating our fill and doing nothing. Our bodies don’t know how to react to the change. That plus the accumulated exhaustion and stress, mixed in with the roll of a strange ship. I think whatever it is, it’ll pass quickly.”

“It better happen soon.”

Krysty didn’t bring up the possibility of using her Gaia power to break the shackles. Nor did Mildred. They both knew it was an absolute, last gasp resort. Krysty was drained as it was. Tapping into that vast energy source would incapacitate her completely, making her a burden instead of an asset in the takeover of the ship.

A wave impact slammed Krysty’s hipbones against the
edge of the bunk so hard it made her moan in pain. Since she had gotten out of bed, there had been a distinct change in the ship’s movement. The yaw and pitch of the deck had become more extreme, the vibrations of the hull as it slammed into wave troughs much stronger. The sound of the wind outside had grown louder; it shrieked through the lines. The seas were getting bigger, steeper, more jumbled. The weather was definitely worsening.

Then the cabin’s door bolts clacked back. The door swung open, revealing the two female whitecoats. They stood in the corridor, their short legs braced against the roll of the deck, swaying back and forth as they bore trays of food. They were grinning to beat the band. White teeth. Sparkling black eyes.

So happy.

They stepped into the cabin and uncovered the plates they carried, releasing trapped spicy and oh-so-enticing aromas. The meal consisted of some kind of shredded meat—beef or pork—rolled up in corn tortillas and smothered in a deep red sauce and melted gobs of white cheese. On the side of the plate was a big dollop of squashed-up beans, again topped with melted cheese.

Mildred thanked the little women in Spanish as she accepted the plate and fork they handed up to her bunk.

The smell of the food close up made Krysty’s mouth water. She couldn’t hold herself back. She held the plate up to her chin and shoveled it down, groaning with pleasure, hardly pausing for breath. She and Mildred scraped the metal plates with the edges of their forks to get the last drops of sauce and melty cheese.

The whitecoats poured them cups of water to wash it down with.

As Krysty finished a second cup, Mildred tried to engage the women in conversation. She spoke at length in their language, asking questions, but they didn’t say a word in return. They just smiled and nodded at her, and smiled at each other.

Mebbe they were under orders not to speak to us, Krysty thought. Then her mind turned to other, more important things. She and Mildred needed to open their wrist and ankle cuffs; that was the first order of business. To do that, they needed a tool, something to pick the lock with.

Something metal.

As Krysty stacked the licked-clean plates on top of each other, while Mildred held the whitecoats’ attention with rapid-fire Spanish, she managed to sneak out her fork and slip it up her sleeve.

The merry little whitecoats didn’t seem to notice the missing utensil when they took away the plates and cups.

Krysty waited until they had closed and locked the door from the outside before showing Mildred the prize.

“That just might do it,” the physician said.

“Needs a bit of a minor adjustment first,” Krysty said. She used the face of the steel bed frame to carefully bend three of the tines over and out of the way, forming a makeshift lock pick with the fourth. “Try to hold your feet still.”

Krysty inserted the fork tine into the ankle manacle’s keyhole and Mildred dangled her legs off the edge of the top bunk. The way the boat was sloshing around, it wasn’t easy to hit the target.

After a few moments of fumbling around in the keyhole to no effect, Krysty had to stop and straighten. Lowering her head combined with the motion of the ship had made the dizziness return.

“Did you ask the whitecoats what time it is?” Krysty said.

“I asked them several times. They wouldn’t answer. They just giggled. Strangest whitecoats I’ve ever seen.”

“You need to hold your feet still.”

Mildred pressed her hands against her shins, pinning her heels to the bed frame.

Krysty got the tine back inside the keyhole and began digging around, trying to trip the mechanism.

After a minute or two she was forced to stop again. “This isn’t working,” she told Mildred. “We’re bouncing around too much. I can’t get pressure on the latch with the point of the pick. It keeps slipping off.”

“Let me jump down off here, then,” Mildred said. “If I sit on your bunk, it’ll give you a better angle and I can hold my feet flat on the bed. It should make it easier for you to work.”

Mildred climbed down and hopped onto the lower bunk. Krysty sat on the edge of the bed and resumed poking around inside the keyhole. The change in position offered only a slight improvement. Every time the ship bottomed out in a wave trough, Krysty had to start over.

Mildred’s eyes slowly closed, her breathing deepened, and her head dropped to her chest. When her chin hit her breastbone, she woke up with a start. “Oops, conked out there for a minute.”

“Are you okay?”

Mildred adjusted a pillow behind her back. “Yeah, I just need to get a little more comfortable.”

In seconds, Mildred was sound asleep and snoring.

Krysty kept working on the lock, but to no avail. It got harder and harder to find the pressure point inside the mechanism. She worked until she was too sleepy to concentrate. Then she had to stop.

And when she did, she, too, almost immediately fell asleep. She came to with a jerk when the ship did another resounding bellyflop. Krysty realized she was on the verge of passing out. She had the presence of mind to hide the fork inside the top of her boot before that happened.

She looked up at the top bunk. It might as well have been Mount Everest. No way could she make it up there. Krysty crawled in beside Mildred on the narrow mattress and the moment she closed her eyes she was dead to the world.