The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time (14 page)

“What say you?” Jamal asked, thinking, here is where they welcome us as saviors. He had read a prepared statement and misread the crowd.

“NO!” roared the crowd as it surged forward, threatening to engulf Jamal and his men, who flinched back, bewildered.

“STOP!” Ellen’s shout froze the crowd. “What we have here is extortion, blackmail and a protection racket all rolled into one.”

The Freeholders stilled under the impact of her words.

“It appears King Joseph was in the Mafia before God revealed his true calling.” Laughter from the crowd caused Jamal to flush red.

Ellen whirled to face him. “Do you deny introducing typhoid into our midst?”

He smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth and spread his palms wide. “Of course I deny it. We only wish you well and we may be able to help.”

“And how might you do that?” Ellen asked, her calm tone concealing the fury within.

“We have a supply of antibiotics and vaccines,” Jamal said.

“What a miraculous coincidence.”

“Not at all,” he answered quickly. “We’ve found disease runs rampant in uncivilized areas and medications are valuable as trade goods.”

“Of course,” Ellen purred. “And where are these antibiotics?”

Those in the crowd, knowing Ellen and understanding the menace in that tone, began drawing away from Jamal and his men.

“In, ah, a safe place,” Jamal responded, eyes shifting back and forth, distracted by the movement of the crowd. Something was wrong here. Most infected communities were begging for help by now.

“I see,” Ellen said, “And what do you want for these drugs?”

“You have only to accede to our good King’s requests,” he replied. He was on firm ground here. Enough time had elapsed between the delivery of the typhoid to the spy and his appearance for hundreds of Freeholders to be stricken. They had to be desperate for the drugs. He had no way of knowing the spy had almost been caught in the act and had been forced to dump the entire allotment into the hot springs, saving none for the targeted wells.

Ellen ran her right hand across her brow and down the side of her face. “Let me see if I understand you correctly,” she began softly, her voice rising in intensity and volume as she proceeded. “You come into my homeland, make my people sick, then withhold the medication needed to cure them until we surrender to your King.”

The mood of the people surrounding Jamal was getting downright ugly.

“How am I doing so far?” she asked, with another slight smile.

“Well,” he fidgeted, “That’s, ah, not exactly how I would put it but...” He shrugged and darted quick glances from side to side. This definitely wasn’t going according to plan.

“I have a better idea,” said Ellen. “Why don’t you just do the right thing, the decent thing, the humane thing and simply give us the drugs. Then we can all part friends.”

“Uh, well, ah, I’d really like to, ma’am,” he said and the ma’am was not lost on her. What had gone wrong? Instead of being sick and desperate, these people looked dangerous. The only good thing about the situation was that the crowd seemed to be drawing back from him instead of pressing in. “But I can’t go against the wishes of my King.”

Ellen had learned a great deal about Jamal’s King from Sara and Raoul.

“Jamal,” Ellen said, shaking her head slowly. “You must know I understand you. So to be fair, I have to be certain you understand me, okay?”

He nodded uncertainly.

“Your King is a PERVERTED TYRANT!” Ellen screamed the message into Jamal’s face so violently that he flinched back away from her. “Your King is a parasite sucking the lifeblood from those who are struggling to rebuild civilization.”

Jamal spluttered. No one talked about the King like this. No one! He leapt to his King’s defense. “My King is rebuilding civilization. He brings good roads, schools, trade, law and order.”

“His law! His order!” Ellen’s scorn smothered Jamal’s defense. “We are a FREE people and we will NEVER submit to blackmail.”

The crowd roared approval.

Turning to Dan Osaka, Ellen held out her hand and said, “I need to borrow your pistol.”

“With pleasure, Madam President,” Dan said as he placed his .357 Ruger Redhawk in her right hand.

“Jamal,” Ellen said with a trace of regret, “I just can’t allow you to threaten my people like this.” Ellen flipped open the cylinder of the .357, checked that it was fully loaded and snapped it back shut. She hefted it to get the feel and balance of the gun.

An expectant silence settled over the crowd.

“I have friends and neighbors dead and dying because of you. My best friend just lost her baby daughter.”

Perspiration beaded Jamal Rashid’s brow and upper lip as he eyed the pistol in her hand. She can’t be serious. I am an Ambassador from the King!

“Now, I could ask these good people,” she gestured to the crowd, “to ‘persuade’ you to give us the medication, but if I did that there might not be enough left of you to tell us where the medicine is hidden.”

That comment brought knowing nods from her friends in the crowd and a roar of confirmation from others.

“Besides, I’ve always believed it isn’t right to ask others to do something I won’t do.”

Without seeming to aim she snapped a shot that exploded into the ground between Jamal’s feet. He jumped about a foot high, slipped on the packed snow when he landed and fell back into his men, who barely managed to keep him upright.

“Just to be sure you understand me I’ll tell you exactly what I’m going to do,” Ellen paused for effect. “I’m going to shoot you and your boys full of holes until one of you tells me where the medicine is.”

“You...you can’t do that,” Jamal stuttered. “I am an Ambassador from the King!”

“Jamal,” she said simply. “Who’s going to stop me?”

She blasted another seemingly unaimed shot that brought a gasp from the crowd and a scream from one of Jamal’s men, who sank to the ground clutching his bleeding foot.

Jamal paused to collect himself then blustered, “If you harm us, our army will fall upon you and destroy you!”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Jamal, do you think we’re stupid? Your King’s Army will fall upon us anyway. Some of them already fell upon us. They fell pretty hard. Not many of them got back up.”

Jamal opened his mouth to respond but Ellen wasn’t finished.

“No King can tolerate the existence of freedom loving, free-thinking people. We’re mutual anathema.” She paused momentarily, so that what she said next would penetrate. “And Jamal, that puts you in one hell of a bad situation, because it means I’ve nothing to lose by turning you into a human colander, understand?”

Ellen could see understanding dawn fearfully in his beady eyes. He paled.

“So tell me, Jamal, where’s the medicine?”

“Never!” he shouted defiantly. He was an Ambassador from the King! He had his pride and dignity to maintain.

Bang!

“Try again,” Ellen said coldly, as another of his men fell to the ground screaming, grabbing a bloody leg.

Jamal glanced at the wounded men, noticed their blood was staining the snow pink and jerked his eyes back to Ellen.

“N...no!” he said.

Ellen shifted the muzzle of the pistol slightly.

“Please! Don’t shoot me!” The man next to Jamal screamed. “Him...he’s the only one who knows where it’s hid.” The man was pointing frantically at Jamal. “He took it away, told us to stay put till he got back. He...”

“He’s lying!” screeched Jamal, as he backhanded the man to the ground. The man lay there, sobbing with fear. Ellen winced inside, hating what she was doing.

“You’re trying my patience, Jamal.”

“I don’t know where it’s at,” he muttered avoiding her eyes.

“You’re lying to me,” Ellen stated calmly, “You know what happens when you lie to me.”

Pow!

“AIEEE!”

Jamal screamed as the ring finger on his left hand exploded in a bloody spray. He stared at the stump, in disbelief. This shouldn’t be happening. I am an Ambassador from the KING! Then he took a deep breath and glaring his hatred, shouted triumphantly, “If you kill me, you’ll never find the drugs.”

Ka-pow!

Jamal slapped his right hand to his right ear, the bottom half of which had just been shot away. He lowered that hand in front of his face, seemingly fascinated by the blood dripping from it.

“I don’t think so,” Ellen’s voice seemed to come to him through a fog. “I believe our trackers can back-track you to the stash.”

Jamal raised his left hand and reexamined the bloody stump of its ring finger. His eyes slowly lifted from his blood-soaked hands until they met Ellen’s implacable stare.

“Jamal,” Ellen asked in a cold, flat voice, “which side do you hang on?”

His pain-filled gaze faltered for a moment. A puzzled look flashed across his face. Understanding wrenched him out of his stupor. She couldn’t mean... She wouldn’t... His eyes caught hers again. She WOULD!

“NO!” he shrieked.

He clenched his legs together and collapsed to the ground, shuddering.

“No more,” he pleaded. “I’ll tell...no more...I’ll tell...”

Ellen turned to Dan Osaka, tears filling her eyes as the pain of her actions welled up and washed away her anger. She handed him back his gun and in a choked voice asked, “Dan, would you get the information and take them to the infirmary where their wounds can be treated?” Blinking the tears from her eyes she added, “Twenty-four-hour armed guard.”

Dan nodded, then gave her a quick hug and turned to carry out his task.

The crowd watched in awe as Ellen walked back up the hill toward Mariko’s.

They think I’m strong, she thought. And I mustn’t let them down. Oh, Michael! Her heart cried silently. How I wish you were here. She recalled the words Michael had often spoken to her: “Whatever works, be strong enough to do it.” Well, she had done it. The walk from the Meeting House had never seemed so long and lonely.

One man, Jamal Rashid, stared intensely at her retreating back as he was hauled away, his eyes blazing with the force of his hatred. He saw her enter a house, the same house Dan Osaka had summoned her from. I know where you live, Bitch, Jamal thought. I know where you live!

Chapter 13: The Escape

Jamal Rashid paced the cell like a caged animal, examining it for any weakness that could aid his escape. The cell was in the basement of the Meeting House. One entry: a small metal door, secured by a two-inch thick steel bar like an oversized dead bolt, walls of mortared stone, concrete floor, a ceiling of huge, squared timbers. Not promising. Toilet facilities consisted of a couple of five-gallon plastic buckets with seats attached. No beds, just thin mattresses on the floor. Cold water for drinking and washing came through a spigot, illumination from a single bulb, protected by a sheet of thick Plexiglas and recessed into the wall that separated the jail from the rest of the basement. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz.

His only hope lay in the door, which was so small most men had to hunch over and turn sideways to get through. The Plexiglas window built into the door allowed the guard to see what the prisoners were doing and it was hinged on the outside, being wide enough so that plates of food could be passed through when it was open. That presented a possibility, but how?

The strip search had failed to find the piano wire woven into his hair and that wire could be a garrote, or pieces of it used as dart tips. Writing paper could be rolled into a blowgun tube or wadded into spitball darts. So he could kill the guard when the man opened the window to pass food into the cell. But the effort would be useless if he couldn’t reach the keys or slide open the deadbolt. He’d have to get the guard to open the door first.

*

Two days after Ellen’s interrogation, Dan Osaka returned with the antibiotics and vaccine. The medication ended the epidemic and prevented further deaths, but it was too late for too many. Five more children and two adults had died before Dan got back, bringing the total Freehold dead to twenty-one.

The following morning, Jamal and his men went on trial. By that same evening they had been found guilty of twenty-one counts of murder and sentenced to die, the executions to take place the next day.

Throughout his trial, Jamal screamed threats at everyone within earshot. But when Ellen walked into the room to testify, his blood pressure went through the roof.

“King Joseph will destroy you for harming his ambassadors!” he screeched, spittle flying, eyes blazing with fanaticism. “Then these others will see how puny your defenses are. You cannot stand against his power!” He finally had to be gagged. He was obviously deranged, but insanity was not a legal defense in the Freeholds where people were adjudged responsible for their own actions: period.

The spy, who had so successfully infiltrated the Freeholds, realized that if word ever got to the King that Jamal Rashid had been executed when the King’s own agent could have prevented it, well...there would be one less intelligence officer in the Royal Intelligence Service.

*

The night was still as a graveyard, dark, with no moon. The spy waited patiently till well after the last changing of the guard, then slipped inside the Meeting House and crept softly down the concrete stairs. He peeked around the corner into the guardroom. An unsuspecting jailer sat with his feet up on the desk and his back to the door reading American Jihad, a Raymond Dean White thriller.

The spy pulled out a tiny dart gun loaded with a soporific. Bringing it up to his lips he puffed.

The guard at the desk slapped at his neck and slumped into unconsciousness, the book falling from his limp fingers to lay broken-backed on the floor. His body slid down into the chair and his feet splayed wide on the desktop.

The spy pulled the dart from the man’s neck, then strangled him. The bruises would hide the pinprick.

A quick search revealed the keys in a desk drawer. Minutes later, Jamal and his men were free and the scene was staged to look like the watchman had gotten careless and been strangled by the prisoners after opening the cell door. No sense letting anyone suspect a traitor in their midst.

Using hand signals, Jamal got the spy to open the small door that led to the basement’s other cell. Inside, still sleeping, was the man who’d betrayed Jamal during the interrogation, segregated from the other captives for his own safety. Jamal clapped a hand over the man’s mouth and just as the startled prisoner’s eyes flew open, sliced the guard’s knife across his neck. The coppery scent of warm blood mixed with the odor of the man’s feces as he died. As a final insult, Jamal pulled the man’s tongue out through the gash in his throat, leaving him with a “Columbian Necktie.”

Now, Jamal and his men could leave. Silently, they made their way to the stables and mounted up. With one last hate-filled glance at Mariko’s house, Jamal led his men out of the valley.

*

Within minutes of discovering the escape, Dan Osaka had a posse out after the fleeing men, but snowfall through the night covered their trail and not even Aaron Goldstein flying circular search patterns in the gyrocopter could find any sign. The weather worsened. By midday, knowing he had lost the escapees, Dan reluctantly called off the search.

Later that afternoon, Ellen stopped by the McKinley’s to see how Mariko and Randy were doing. They stood outside in the cool fresh air where they could enjoy the view up and down the valley. The sun had broken through the clouds and was burning them off.

“I can’t believe it,” Randy said and the anguish in his voice touched Ellen’s heart. “We should have kept after them. We should never have let them get away.”

Beside him, Mariko ran her hands angrily through her long, jet black hair and pushed it back behind her ears, almost obscuring her white streak. She folded her arms across her chest and stood with her head bowed.

“We didn’t exactly let them go, Randy. They escaped!” Ellen had known this would hurt.

“I know,” Randy admitted. His shoulders slumped and his voice softened. No sense taking it out on Ellen. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”

He sighed and nodded toward Mariko. “It’s been a long day.”

It had been a bad day for Ellen too. Memories of the dead guard had haunted her since the escape was discovered.

Randy straightened up, scratched his head and started for the door. “I should get back inside. I’m taking down Cindy’s bed today. We figure that’ll make it easier for Mary. They shared a room, you know.”

Ellen nodded and he stepped into the house, leaving the two women alone.

Suddenly Mariko shuddered and took in a deep, shaky breath. She turned to face her friend and for the first time in days was aware enough of something outside her own grief to notice the dark circles under Ellen’s eyes and the ghosts in her face. She laid a hand on Ellen’s shoulder and said, “Don’t take it so hard.”

Ellen looked into Mariko’s gentle eyes and gave a slight shrug, amazed that Mariko was comforting her.

“Thanks, Mariko, but I just have a nagging feeling that I should have done more.”

Mariko, seeking to change the subject, asked, “Have you heard from Michael yet?”

“No,” Ellen replied, knitting her brows. “But he’s only been gone for a little over three weeks and he said it could take him that long to get to Provo.” She tried to lighten her tone, but she was beginning to worry.

Even worse was the guilt. She wished her last words to him before he left had been, “I love you,” instead of the angry diatribe she’d launched at him. The hurt look he’d given her as he turned away had said louder than words ever could that he didn’t think she was being fair. That look had haunted her these past weeks. What if something had happened to him?

If only she’d had a decent night’s sleep the night before he left. If only he hadn’t sounded so damned cheerful when he announced he was going on scout. If only...

Ellen shook her head, determined to break the mood. So many worries, so little time. And somehow...somehow she knew she hadn’t seen the last of Jamal Rashid.

*

Hobbes smelled blood. Old blood, but enough to set him on the scent. Winter was a lean time and while he normally ignored man smell the last deer he’d killed was too long ago. Both he and his mate, for it was mating season, needed food. A whimsical and faint breeze teased him as he tracked his prey, first bringing a strong odor and then shifting and giving him nothing. He widened his nostrils and inhaled. This time it was so intense it brought a picture into his mind--horses and men and the nasty stench of that thing men carried that made loud sounds that hurt his ears.

One of the men left his horse and hobbled into the woods. Hobbes drifted along a rock ledge swept free of snow by wind until he was directly above the man. Bunching his haunches beneath him, Hobbes leapt.

Jamal heard a shriek, saw a flash of orange and black, and aside from fresh blood, messed up snow and the paw print of an enormous cat, his man was simply gone.

“Tiger,” he muttered under his breath, his beady eyes scanning the shadows. Did tiger’s hunt in packs? With his luck he was sure they did.

“We’re moving out,” he said and nobody even considered protesting.

Jamal and his men rode into Nephi almost a month after escaping from The Freeholds. Jamal’s missing finger throbbed the entire trip and his ear burned constantly. Mid-winter snows and a couple of avalanches forced delays and detours along the way. Keeping an eye out for tigers robbed them of sleep.

Jamal longed for a long, hot bath, clean clothes, some decent food and tea--tea so heavily sugared it would send a diabetic into a coma. But instead he reported to his Prince.

“You saw Sara Garcia?” Prince John asked. He paced his headquarters office like a caged tiger, giant strides pounding the floor and making small items dance along his desktop. A pen rolled off the edge of his white, marble-topped desk and bounced on the maple floor. “You’re sure?”

“I can’t be positive, your highness,” Jamal hedged. “I only had a quick glimpse through binoculars, but it looked like her.”

John snatched a dispatch from his desk, waved it in Jamal’s face and said, “Nicolo’s spies say she and her grandfather are both in the Freeholds, Jamal and I think your sighting confirms that.” He smiled, revealing his discolored teeth and said, “We need to hit them fast so I believe we’ll borrow a few of Anthony’s toys.”

“They’ve already had a month to flee, your highness.”

That brought John up short. “You think they will?”

“Don’t you?”

John nodded. “It’s been their M.O. As soon as we get close they disappear.”

John paced to the bullet-proof window of his office and looked out on the bustling port of Nephi. Deck cranes adorned cargo ships and offloaded their wares onto the teeming docks. Men moved in large groups, choreographed efficiency.

“We still have to try for them,” he said.

“Or we could decapitate the Freeholds,” Jamal suggested.

John turned to him, eyebrows raised.

“I know where Ellen Whitebear lives, sire,” Jamal said, grinning like a scarecrow.