James Axler (13 page)

Doc recognized the rumbling sounds of the engine as it warmed up once more to leave, its brief stopover concluded. He jumped back on the train from his crouched position beneath, bringing the longblaster with him, and returned to the compartment. He stood at the window, a step back so that he wouldn’t be seen, and studied the tower as the train trundled past. The construction crew was already back at work, the bright blue jets of welding torches clear in the darkness. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

THE COMPANIONS WERE awake when the rays of dawn peeked over the horizon and began to shed light in the cramped cabin. The air in the enclosed space had become warm and stuffy, smelling of sweat and leather from their boots. Krysty sat up in the bunk, her knees pulled tight to her chest, gently rocking with the movement of the train. Mildred had asked if she wanted a sedative, as she had several different types in her bag, but Ryan had rejected the idea. “If trouble comes calling we’ll need her awake,” he told them, even though it meant leaving Krysty in pain. If they had to make a swift exit he didn’t want to have to carry Krysty if he didn’t absolutely have to.

Doc told them about the construction work he had seen during the night.

J.B. tried to marry the readings from his minisextant with the topographical information presented on his creased maps, but he couldn’t work out precisely where they were yet, let alone where the towers they had passed were located.

The train pulled to a halt just as Ryan and J.B. were checking their weapons in preparation for their search for Jak. Mildred stood at the window, looking up and down the tracks to try to see what was happening.

“Another tower?” J.B. asked.

Mildred shook her head. “Can’t see any.”

Ryan slung the SSG-70 Steyr, rolling his shoulders to accommodate the familiar weight, and indicated that Doc and J.B. join him as he entered the corridor beyond the cabin. The three of them paced swiftly down the corridor, and Ryan opened the door at the end and lowered himself down between the adjoining cars.

The one-eyed man pressed against the forward car, looking toward the front of the long vehicle. First J.B., then Doc peeked out to see what he was watching. All around the train, at a distance of roughly twenty yards from the tracks, stood a fence. Pieces of corrugated steel stood next to wire mesh and wood panels, and some of the fence was made up of tree trunks, branches removed but left rooted where they grew, the panels of the fence slotted around them. The fence never fell below seven feet in height—not an impossible climb, by any means, but certainly a deterrent. A few sec men strolled slowly around the perimeter, blasters in their hands. A set of chain-link gates had been closed at the far end, behind the train. The compound made an effective stopping point, easily defended from local interference, but Ryan realized it might also double as a prison for him and his companions if they weren’t careful.

The air held that fresh smell that Ryan associated with the ocean shore.

Doc’s whispered words broke into Ryan’s thoughts.

“Some kind of stopover,” he said, incredulous.

“Saluting the dawn,” J.B. concluded, “like dirt-poor primitives.”

Ryan beckoned J.B. forward, and together they sneaked silently alongside the train toward the ceremony, leaving Doc to wait at the juncture of the cars. Doc stepped back into the shadows, removing the LeMat from its holster and resting it easily against his leg. Should anyone question the older man’s presence he wanted all of his options within easy reach.

Ryan and J.B. walked past eighteen cars, two of which had rounded sides, making them bloat outward like a well-fed boa constrictor, and both men silently committed the details of each one to memory. As they neared the dawn ceremony, Ryan turned back to his partner and whispered from the side of his mouth, “This is not a good idea.”

J.B. continued walking straight ahead, his gaze set on the participants of the ceremony as they laughed and spoke among themselves. “Too late now,” he said.

“Ho, brothers,” called a bald sec man when he spotted them. Ryan and J.B. felt a wave of relief when the man offered them no challenge, but Ryan could see the tremoring in the man’s stance that indicated jolt dependency. High on an ultimately lethal drug, the man was probably not the most observant of the train crew.

“You’re not late, they ain’t ’peared yet.”

They noticed that other sec men were still stepping from the train, joining the pack that waited in the rising sunlight, and several musicians stepped from the bloated cars carrying simple instruments—fiddles and guitars—with which they entertained the crowd as they walked through. Ryan counted around eighty sec types in all, as well as the gaudies and a handful of weaker-looking men who were mistreated—kicked at, spat on and berated—as they trudged through the group. As he watched, a few more sec men joined the crowd, hopping down from the roofs of the train cars and bringing the grand total up to perhaps ninety, an effective little army. All of the guards were armed, but there was no uniformity to them. Their weapons and clothing were individual. Many of them carried blasters, though some had simpler weapons such as knives and swords, Ryan saw, a scimitar glinting with the rays of the sun, a machete stained with coppery rust.

The sky was a bright shade of red above them, the rising sun blazing over the horizon, casting long shadows of the group and the train. Rain-heavy thunder-heads blew through the sky, blotting the rays of the sun for brief moments as they drifted onward.

Ryan scanned the crowd but there was no sign of Jak.

“He’s not here,” J.B. confirmed as they took up a spot at the edge of the loose grouping.

A burly man wearing a dark-colored vest walked toward the crowd from a car near the front of the huge train and the haphazard, lively music ceased. Wide-shouldered, the man walked with a heavy, determined tread. He wore a blaster holstered low on his right hip, a leather tie securing it just above the knee. As he got closer, Ryan could see that the man had several white streak scars across his face and down one arm.

Behind the scar-faced man came three people—a man and woman in their thirties accompanied by a much older man with wispy white hair and spectacles perched on his nose.

Ryan had seen all four of them before, when he had watched the activities at the second tower. Scarface seemed to be some kind of foreman, giving out orders to the sec crew. The other three had been working at the tower when the firefight with the scalies had broken out, and Ryan recognized their type—whitecoats or similar, definitely brainy types.

When he reached the front of the crowd, the burly foreman began speaking in a barked shout. “We’re at journey’s end for the night, brothers.” At this, a cheer came from the crowd before the man continued.

“Anyone who needs sleep or company can take it. The bridge comes alive in two hours, and we’ll cross Sakakawea then and be on our way. Until then, day shift in place, construction crew with me, everyone else use the time wisely. We’ve got a lot of track to cover and I don’t need anyone falling asleep.”

“We’re three stops behind schedule,” a young whitecoat said, raising his voice as several of the sec men guffawed and heckled him. The foreman chastised them with a single, shouted instruction, and they quieted.

“We’ve made up a little ground from the previous night, but we’ve still a way to go, and it is critical that we get the circuit operational on time.”

“Why?” someone called from the crowd, clearly meaning it as an insult.

 “Well,” the man told the crowd, “that’s really not down to me…”

“The preliminary tests have been encouraging.” The young woman butted in, taking the attention off her colleague. “If all goes to plan this should be the last go-round. Then the baron will be able to move on to phase four.”

Ryan and J.B. couldn’t help but notice the smiles and looks of relief on the faces of some of the sec crew at this news. J.B. also noticed several sec men pointing across in their direction and talking among themselves.

“Ryan,” he murmured, tapping his friend with the back of his hand. “Time to go.”

Ryan didn’t question his colleague. He simply took two steps backward, as though trying to get a better view over the crowd of the speakers. Then he and J.B. turned and walked back toward the rear of the train.

Behind them, the conference continued.

“Interesting,” Ryan said to the Armorer, keeping his voice low as they walked briskly down the length of the train. “I don’t know what it is we’ve stumbled into, but I’m thinking it looks mighty big, J.B.”

“Agreed.” J.B. pointed to an open door ahead on the side of a car and Ryan took the lead, jumping up onto the raised step and ducking through it. J.B. followed, trotting up the step and out of the sunlight.

The interior smelled of incense, heavy and cloying, and thick drapes hung over the windows, blocking out the dawn light.

A single table stood in the middle of the expanse, oval and big enough to seat four, a fat candle burning in its center. A lone figure sat at the table, a woman wearing a hood. She looked up at their entry, lit by the candle in front of her, and Ryan saw the deep lines of age crisscrossing her face. She was hunched in on herself, her hands hooked into claws through rheumatism, and there was something glistening on both of her cheeks.

“Come in, gentlemen,” the woman said in a whispery voice.

As they stepped closer to the elderly woman, Ryan saw what it was that sparkled on her cheeks: twin tears of blood. And then he felt the world drop from beneath his feet.

DOC WATCHED as his companions ducked into one of the cars a little way down the gleaming length of train. He watched momentarily as three armed men followed them, then ducked back into the cool shadows between cars, knowing it wouldn’t do to be caught out here. He holstered the LeMat, reached up to the metal bar at the side of the open car door and pulled himself up.

His head had barely eclipsed the sill of the step when he spotted the moving feet, padding along the corridor of the car away from him.

Damnation!

He ducked back, crouching beside the open door. If he stepped into the car now, the stranger would be immediately aware of him. And that wouldn’t do. No, that that wouldn’t do at all.

SITTING ON THE BUNK with Krysty, Mildred heard the sounds of movement in the adjacent cabin. Whoever was in there had woken up, and she heard a loud groan—a yawn—followed by the quiet, distinct sound of a belch.

She had quite forgotten that there were likely other people in the compartments around them. Ryan had listened at all the doors when they had staked out this car, she recalled, and he had decided that this compartment was the least dangerous. Mildred shook her head.

Ryan and his instincts.

There were further sounds of movement, then she heard the door to the compartment ahead of them slide open, and the heavy tread as someone exited the room.

With the train stationary, the walker’s movements shook the car slightly, a light trembling that passed to Mildred’s feet through the wooden floorboards.

“You awake, Scott?” a man’s deep voice boomed from just outside the cabin. A moment later the man rapped three heavy blows on the sliding door, rattling its glass panels. As silent as a cat, Mildred stepped from the bunk and put a hand against the handle of the door, instinctively pulling her double action ZKR 551 revolver from the holster at her side.

“Come on, Scotty,” the man’s voice continued, “we gotta go. Day shift’s on.”

Mildred looked at the target revolver in her hand, thinking about the noise it would produce if she were forced to use it in this confined space. Krysty looked at her from the bunk, and Mildred pointed to her backpack. Krysty winced as she pulled herself from the bunk, clearly in a lot of pain, and quietly passed the backpack to Mildred, exchanging it for the ZKR 551 in her hand.

At the door, her face inches from the glass, Mildred could hear the man cursing his sleeping friend. It wouldn’t be long now, she realized, pulling a hypodermic syringe from her bag.

The man called Scotty again and Mildred felt the pressure on the door handle as his hand pulled at it. “If you’ve left without me, ya fink, so help me I’ll skin ya alive!”

Mildred held the door handle with her left hand as she adjusted her grip on the syringe, deftly rolling it through rotating fingers.

“Nukin’ door’s stuck,” the man outside growled, then he pulled at it again and Mildred let go.

The door slid back with a dull rattling on its treads, and a bearded, muscular man burst into the room, looking startled by his own swift entrance. Mildred jabbed the syringe into the man’s neck the instant it cleared the door frame, and it stuck fast, translucent contents pouring into his thick, blue vein.

The man turned to look at her, his face red with anger. “What the hell? Who are you?” he bellowed.

“What the hell’d you just do to me? Stuck somethin’…”

He reached up, yanking the syringe from his neck and giving it a momentary look before tossing it aside. The syringe flew across the tiny cabin, droplets of translucent liquid splashing from its needle as it spun through the air before hitting the glass of the exterior window at the far side of the compartment.

He swung a punch at her, his heavy fist cleaving the air with an audible whoosh. Mildred ducked and the man’s fist slammed into the cabin wall above her head, shaking the glass and frame of the sliding door. She pushed forward, driving a knee into his gut, knocking the wind out of him. He stumbled back a half step, arms reaching as he regained his breath in a short gasp.

“What have you done with Scotty, slut?” he snarled at her, his rank breath pouring from his mouth with the words. His hand reached forward in a blur and suddenly he had a hold of Mildred’s plaits, painfully pulling her toward him by her hair.

Mildred punched at his chest, his sides, but she couldn’t get any purchase while he held her like that, couldn’t get any weight into the punches. And then a dark shadow whipped across the corner of her vision and something heavy slammed into the back of her attacker’s head, knocking both of them to the cabin floor, Mildred underneath. Mildred expelled her breath with a loud grunt as she hit the hard floor.