Ride the Star Winds (27 page)

“But we could ambush the armored cars, sir. There’re low walls along the road as they approach the Residence.”

“Captain Sanchez,” Grimes told him severely,
“we
cannot afford to break the law, such as it is.
They
must be seen to fire the first shot. Besides,” he went on, “our firearms won’t make much impression on their armor.”

“We could get the officers,” said Raoul, “before they button up. And the kitchen staff has been making Molotov cocktails.”

“Their intentions may be peaceful,” said Grimes. “Mind you, I shall be surprised if they are. But, until we know for certain. . . .” He bit into his roll. He did not, now, feel much like eating but he had to consider his reputation—Gutsy Grimes, the man who would not miss a meal even though the Universe were crumbling about his ears.

“I’ll get back on top, sir,” said Sanchez at last. “I’ll let you know what develops.”

“Do that, Raoul,” said Grimes through a mouthful of roll and marmalade.

Eventually he got up, patted his lips with his table napkin, filled and lit his pipe. Accompanied by Su Lin he took the elevator up to the roof. They joined Sanchez on the lookout platform. Grimes took the proffered binoculars, looked at the advancing armored column. There were a half-dozen of the drab-painted six-wheeled vehicles. Their hatches were open; in each one stood the begoggled car commander. It was all very pretty and, thought Grimes, remarkably archaic. From a staff mounted on the leading car flew a large, white flag.

So there was to be a parley first.

Oh, well,
thought Grimes,
I
might as well hear what the man wants to say.

He went down to the portico, stopping off in his quarters to collect his cap. He glanced at himself briefly in the wardrobe mirror. In his rather shabby uniform, with his cap at a rakish angle, with that scarlet dressing gown sash into which the pistol was thrust, he looked like the pirate that many supposed him to be. Then, outside the main entrance, he was standing there, Su Lin and Sanchez beside him and behind him the Residence staff, all armed, their colorful liveries making them look like a smartly uniformed army.

The leading car came to a halt about twenty meters from the portico. The officer climbed down from the turret. He was a man whom Grimes did not recognize. He was carrying, on a stick, another white flag, a small one.

He came to attention before Grimes and then, it seemed, thought better of it. He fell into what could be described only as an insolent slouch.

“You are John Grimes?” he asked.

“I have that honor,” Grimes replied.

“You are under arrest. I have to inform you that any resistance will make things all the worse for you and your people.”

“You’ve come to the wrong shop this time, Major Johnston,” said Grimes.

“My name is not Johnston,” said the major, obviously baffled by the historical allusion.

“Maybe not. And this isn’t Sydney, New South Wales. And now, sir, I’m ordering you off my premises. And take your mechanized tin cans with you.”

“Very well, sir. You have been warned.”

The officer turned, marched back to his armored car. Grimes and the others retreated inside the Residence. The big, solid doors slammed shut but they could not keep out the sound of the highly amplified voice that was shouting, over and over again, “Come out! Come quietly! Come out, or I open fire!”

This ceased when a marksman on the roof scored a hit on the sonic projector. Almost immediately there came the rattle of heavy machine-gun fire. The doors shuddered but held. Nothing came through them—but it could not be long before they were literally chewed away. The doors held—but windows shattered. “Down!” Martello was bawling in his sergeant’s voice. “Down!”

People were dropping to the floor but none of them was a casualty.

Yet.

Grimes went up to the roof, found his way to the parapet that was little more than a low gutter rim. He crouched behind it, beside one of the chefs who was pouring automatic fire down on the cars. He tapped the man on the shoulder. “Hold your fire until it can do some good,” he admonished. “Ammunition doesn’t grow on trees. . . .” The man grinned at him cheerfully, inserted a fresh clip into his weapon and blazed away again. But if the defenders were the rankest amateurs the attackers were not much better. Had they continued to concentrate their fire on the main entrance they would have been through it in minutes. But they seemed to be playing at Red Indians attacking a wagon train, circling the Residence. And they were not using their laser cannon. That made sense, Grimes supposed. Lasers could start a disastrous fire and Estrelita O’Higgins had made it clear that she did not want the building too badly damaged. Meanwhile, these circling tactics ensured that nobody escaped. Perhaps the intention was to starve the defenders out.

Then Bardon would have a long wait, thought Grimes wryly. The Residence’s larders were very well-stocked. There was a deep freeze that could almost have accommodated a herd of mastodons.

It was a situation approaching stalemate—until one of the armored cars broke down. Martello’s tale of slovenly maintenance had been a true one. The defenders on the roof concentrated their fire on the stalled vehicle. There was a chance, just a chance, that a lucky bullet might find a chink in the armor. Eventually the major decided that he had better do something about it. Three cars moved into position to shield the disabled one from the fire from the roof while a fourth one moved into position just in front of it. A tow . . . thought Grimes. A tow. . . . That meant that hatches would have to be opened so that somebody could climb out to fix the towing wires. Where were those Molotov cocktails that he had heard about?

And somehow they were there, ready to hand, ten bottles with rag wicks, not yet ignited, filled with some clear fluid. An aroma more intoxicating than unpleasant was making itself known despite the reek of cordite. And Su Lin was there, her golden lighter in her hand. Grimes got recklessly to his feet, holding one of the bottles. “Light it!” he ordered the girl. She obeyed. The flame blowing back from the flaring wick scorched his arm as he threw.

The missile fell well short, bursting spectacularly but harmlessly.

“I should have played cricket when I was a boy,” remarked Grimes glumly. He raised his voice. “Are there any cricketers here? Any fast bowlers?”

(If only the Residence staff were Indian and not Chinese . . .)

“Cricket?” Martello’s rough voice was contemptuous. “Baseball was my game, Commodore. Still is. An’ I’m a pitcher, not a bowler . . . Gimme!”

He snatched the bottle from Grimes’s hand, waited until Su Lin had ignited the wick, then threw. Neither range nor direction could have been bettered. He threw again, and again. From the armored cars there was screaming. At least one of the Molotov cocktails must have found an open hatch.

He let fly with two more bottles.

He was a good target standing there, too good a target. A burst of machine-gun fire caught him, threw him back onto the gentle slope of the roof. Crabwise, Grimes scrambled to him but there was nothing he could do. The entire front of the big man’s body was . . . shredded. Shredded and pulped. Even his face was gone.

I
shall never know what really made him tick,
thought Grimes, gulping back his nausea.

Then he heard the explosions.

Crouching, he made his way back to the parapet. Two of the armored cars were burst open, literally. Their ammunition must have gone up. A third was on its side, its wheels spinning uselessly. A fourth, its rear wheels gone, looked ludicrously like a circus elephant trying to sit down.

The two survivors had turned and were retreating, fast.

The turret hatch of the down-by-the-stern car opened. From it was poked a rifle barrel to which a white rag of some kind had been tied.

“Hold your fire!” ordered Grimes.

Su Lin repeated the command in a language that the New Cantonese could understand.

Slowly a man clambered out through the hatch, slid down to the ground, stood there with hands upraised. He was joined, after a long interval, by two others.

“We surrender!” shouted the first man, a sergeant.

“We don’t want you!” called Grimes. “Just get the hell out of here!” Then, “No! Stop! Look after your mates first!”

They managed, at last, to persuade those in the overturned car to open up. Only two men crawled out.

“Where’s the other?” shouted Grimes.

“Dead, sir. His neck’s broken.”

“I want to see him!”

“Why?” whispered Su Lin.

“Haven’t you heard of the Trojan Horse?” he countered.

The corpse was dragged out. The man was obviously dead, his head almost twisted off his body. And, thought Grimes, nothing could possibly be living in the two still-smoking wrecks.

The five men shambled down the road.

“You’re too soft-hearted, Grimes.” said Su Lin. “You should have made them bury their own dead before you let them go.”

“I never thought of it,” admitted Grimes.

He was conscious of the smell of burnt meat drifting up from the destroyed cars. He thought ruefully that disposing of the mess left over after a space battle is so much easier than disposing of similar mess on a planetary surface.

Chapter 44

The gardeners
formed the burial detail and seemed more annoyed at having to mar the beauty of the Residence lawn than by the true, gruesome nature of their work. Martello was laid to rest a little apart from the others. Someday, thought Grimes, the sergeant would have his monument, a statue depicting him in the uniform of a baseball player, not of a soldier, frozen in stone or metal in the act of pitching.

Grimes, as Governor, conducted a brief service, one that he modeled on that used by the Federation Survey Service, whose personnel observed a wide variety of religions or none at all, that was used for enemies as well as friends.

“These men,” he said, “did their duty as they saw it. They will be missed by their friends and relations. Let us not dishonor their remains. May they rest in peace.”

Then Sanchez, with a work party, set about salvaging weaponry from the wrecked cars. He hoped to be able to dismount both the heavy machine guns and the laser cannon from the two not too badly damaged vehicles. Su Lin and Grimes went to his sitting room to see what news programs, if any, they could find on the playmaster.

They were lucky.

Almost immediately they found a channel on which a grave-faced newscaster was keeping his listeners up to date on what had been happening.

“. . . the criminal John Grimes. According to reports that we have received, Colonel Bardon, as instructed by President O’Higgins, sent a force of six armored cars, under Major Jackson, to arrest the ex-Governor. It seems that Grimes and his criminal associates have barricaded themselves in the Residence and are refusing to give themselves up to justice. Two of the military vehicles have returned to the city, to the barracks, where Major Jackson is making his report to Colonel Bardon. The remaining four are maintaining the siege, ensuring that the notorious ex-pirate and his gang do not escape to terrorize the countryside.

“A statement issued by Colonel Bardon assures us that the situation is well in hand.”

There followed a report on a game of soccer. Su Lin switched channels. The commentator whom she found could have been an archbishop in mufti.

“. . . must be made to realize that we, as a proud and independent planet, cannot, will not and must not accept as gubernatorial figureheads men of dubious character. . . .”

Su Lin switched channels again.

“. . . minor rioting in the Vanzetti Plaza district . . .”

There were shots of police charging demonstrators, of demonstrators pelting police with rocks, bottles and other missiles. There was an explosion, after which the facade of a building crumbled in almost slow motion. A mist of tear gas hung over everything.

And there was the shouting: Grimes! Grimes! Grimes!

“Somebody is acting at last,” said Su Lin happily. “I wish I could see who they are. Oh, hell! Here come the water cannon!”

And so that riot, thought Grimes, soon became a washout.

“We shan’t get the real blowup,” said Su Lin earnestly, “until there’s a direct confrontation between you and Bardon, and you win. You’ve seen how O’Higgins and Bardon have handled the first engagement. Almost certainly there was TV coverage of the action; I shan’t be at all surprised if Raoul finds cameras in the armored cars. But those shots will never be shown. Not unless—
until—
we win.”

“And I can’t see us winning until there’s something better than that abortive riot we saw. And I can’t see any sort of uprising until we show the people that we can beat Bardon.” He thoughtfully filled and lit his pipe. “But why doesn’t he use his ground-to-ground missiles? He must have some in his armory. . . .”

“Because he wants you alive. He’s not fussy about the rest of us—but he wants
you.
There must be a show trial. And
he
will be on trial as well as you. He must be seen to have acted with moderation despite great provocation. He must present the image of statesman as well as soldier. And then, after you’ve been found guilty and deported, who will be Governor
de facto
, soon to become Governor
de jure
?

“Bardon, of course.”

“I’d never have given him credit for that many brains,” said Grimes.

“It’s dear Estrelita that has the brains, not him.”

“Estrelita may be the statesman, but not the soldier. What Bardon does next is our immediate worry. Mphm. My guess is another attack, by land, tomorrow morning. With full TV coverage—not to be released unless things go well. If I were him I’d use a squadron of hover-tanks. . . .”

“Sergeant Martelio cast doubts upon their serviceability.”

“I hope he was right. I hope most sincerely that he was right. Meanwhile, we’ll maintain full watches during the night and have all hands on deck at sunrise.”

Chapter 45

Grimes
—just in case Bardon did mount a bombing attack, either from aircraft or by rockets—ordered that bedding be shifted down from the ground floor into the basements of the Residence. He decided, however, that he would remain in his palatial quarters. Su Lin had almost convinced him that he would be more use to O’Higgins and Bardon alive than dead. He was willing to take chances with his own life—but not with the lives of others.