Torn From On High: Free City Book 2 (The Free City Series) (13 page)

The
infinitesimal clump of several dozen iron antimatter atoms safely suspended by
magnets in the center of the vacuum-tight power cell was abruptly hurled
against the conventional matter casing.

Antimatter
unforgivingly annihilates matter and the result was a nuclear explosion in
miniature.

Before
he was even aware of the horrid chain of events, Commandeer Frédéric Rameau
received a fatal dose of ultra high-energy gamma rays.

Two
microseconds later the blast tore him apart.

29. Escape!

Even
though he'd been expecting the explosion, the slave flinched when it finally
happened.

The
sturdy office building creaked and swayed for several seconds.

Smoke
and dust was everywhere.

He'd
been waiting patiently for hours in the Janitor's closet at the far end of the
hallway. Seven minutes ago the Commander had returned to his office.

Now
the slave had to suppress the urge to rush towards the office to assure himself
of the man's death. He took a deep breath and began to slowly count down from
thirty. Being overly eager to check on the results of the explosion would
likely sprinkle him with a lethal dose of lingering radiation.

Alarms
sounded.

A
horrified corporal dashed into the mangled office.

The
young soldier screeched in agony.

Was it
the carnage or searing residual radiation that had caused the outburst?

The
corporal reappeared with horrible bloody lesions on his ruddy red face.

“HE'S
DEAD!” the man shrieked.

The
slave nodded slightly from the comparative safety of the Janitor's closet door,
he had his answer.

Now he
must escape.

• • •

Clutching
a ragged floor mop, mainly as prop to highlight his apparent innocence, the
slave staggered out of Building 17 at the EurAfrican Imperial Military Base.

Firefighters
and well-armed Base sentries pushed their way past him.

He
stumbled around theatrically for several seconds, even pointing dumbly at the
building before dropping his mop and teetering off toward the Housing Block.
Beyond that goal, he had no idea of where he would go.

Several
hundred meters away, between Buildings 3 and 4, a white-clad bakery Serf caught
his arm.

The
slave stared in wide-eyed fear at the stout man.

“Come
with me,” the baker whispered, “Zmuda will want to hear of this.”

Hours
later the mute former slave was standing circumspectly at the bow of the
midmorning ferry boat dressed as a nondescript businessman making the crossing
from Tunis to Sicily. His savior, the baker, was similarly attired and kept a
close eye on the smattering of other travelers.

The
spy turned slave turned spy again watched the watery tumult caused by the bow
as it sliced through the bluish-gray water of the Mediterranean Sea. Angry
white waves roiled away from the ship and slowly flattened out into long
receding ribbons of pearly foam.

He
finally grinned at his startling success; hopefully his CRAMP cohorts were
enjoying similarly good luck.

30. News Item:
Incident at Military Base

Dateline: 29th of September,
2446; Tunis, EurAfrica, Earth

Stubborn
rumors persist regarding some sort of accident inside the sprawling EurAfrican
Imperial Military Base in Tunis late yesterday. Accounts vary widely amongst
sources both semi-official and otherwise but all indicate that at least one
high-ranking officer and perhaps several enlisted personnel perished after a
blast destroyed an office.

Public
Relations Officer Captain Rumford Johnson acknowledged only that a handgun
apparently misfired and caused some unexpected damage. The official press
release this morning indicated that an “unexplained anomaly” had occurred in
Building 17.

Several
unnamed Serfs working in adjoining buildings revealed that significant
radiation was released requiring many bystanders to endure decontamination
following the incident.

Sirens
could be erratically heard for hours at the base following the explosion. Local
residents just outside the main gates were briefly warned to stay inside. The order
was lifted thirty minutes later without explanation.

Base
investigators continue to search through the wreckage.

It had
taken them nearly two days to return to the ruins of the Fort of Djaba, Jasper
noted as he wearily studied the long-forsaken site.

Lev
and Mixion were using an antique transit and elevation rod to map the site.
Jasper was halfheartedly scribing their measurements into an old logbook.

Days
earlier Lieutenant Zmuda had hastily left them at the desert rendezvous site
just after they had discovered that Mixion had picked up traces of Daniel
Kufuzu's DNA from the Desert Serfs guarding the ruins.

A late
afternoon sand storm had precluded their own departure and the threesome
decided to put off the return to the Fort until conditions improved.

He,
Mixion and Lev Fesai were now exhausted.

Last
night they had endured a nearly unbearable 'camp out' in the open desert. The
trio had scarcely prepared for that scenario beforehand and had not packed
suitable provisions for the day and a half that they hunkered together in a
tiny backpacker's tent.

The
three junior spies were now low on water and their creaky old vehicle currently
contained a disturbing amount of wind-blown sand.

All
were hungry, dirty and disheveled.

They
had received a cryptic message from Zmuda earlier in the morning indicating
that he was back at Free City University teaching his classes and studying the
small particle beam weapon that he had purloined from the nightclub in New
Rome.

The
bone-weary spies had arrived at the ruins three hours ago and each had applied
a generous amount of the fake sun block lotion containing the y-pathogen to
their hands and arms. They hoped it would dispatch the clone of Daniel Kufuzu
that the Desert Serfs had hidden somewhere nearby.

Mixion
had decided that they would stay at the site for days if necessary until the
Serfs returned. The effort to kill Kufuzu was so important that they could not
depart until the guards had been contaminated with the toxin.

She
morbidly pointed out that even if the men killed them, the Serfs would likely
become infected after meddling with their corpses.

Lev
had been visibly shocked by that assertion.

• • •

A
rustling of dry foliage caused Mixion to swivel around from the surveyor's
transit.

“And
so you are back,” the Desert Serf bowed as he emerged from cover of the
surrounding brush.

This
time, she noted, the head Serf was alone and his long rifle was strapped
harmlessly across his back.

She
smiled at him and returned his bow. “Yes; we were waylaid many kilometers to
the northwest by a rather drawn out sandstorm.”

He
studied her for several seconds; “You look rather the worst for it, my little
dove.”

“I'm
afraid so,” she sighed.

Jasper
ambled to her side.

Mixion
noticed that the Serf seemed annoyed at the intrusion of the big Australian.
Perhaps she could use his obvious interest in her to their advantage.

“Jasper,”
she started, “what do we have in the old clunker that we could possibly trade
for some water?” She stared with great intensity at him until he finally
realized that she was attempting to manipulate the situation.

“Oh;
let me see,” he thought for a moment, “we've got a spare flashlight, a two week
old edition of the Nairobi Times and three stale chocolate bars.”

She
turned back to the Desert Serf, “What would it take to get a canteen filled
with good drinking water, my friend?”

“Please
call me Tariq,” he grinned at the effort to bargain with him. “I believe that I
will require all of these things that you speak of for merely half a canteen
drawn from the more brackish of our two wells.”

Mixion
nodded in earnest, “I suppose we will replenish our water in Séguedine.” She
pivoted toward the vehicle.

“Wait;”
Tariq caught her arm.

Mixion
smiled at her luck; the man had unwittingly picked up at least a modest amount
of the y-pathogen from the lotion on her skin. She turned to face him again.

He
stared at her with deep simmering brown eyes.

“Perhaps
I have asked too much to help a lovely young maiden such as you.” The man
struggled to contain his desire for the woman. “If you will stay for a time, I
will exchange some good water for your chocolate.”

Mixion
studied him beguilingly. “I believe we have a deal,” she offered her hand to
seal the agreement.

Tariq
eagerly clasped the woman's hand and she readily squeezed it to transfer still
more of the pathogen onto him.

“If
you will give me your canteen, I shall fill it for you. When I return we will
have a feast of chocolate and a dozen or so figs that I have collected in the
last few months.”

“Certainly,”
she replied cheerily.

• • •

Seamus
was obviously enjoying himself.

They'd
been playing halfpenny ante poker for hours with a sack of the antique English
coins that Luis had unearthed years earlier while repairing some storm damage
in the New Grytviken cemetery.

The
two men had become fast friends since Keira had delivered Seamus to the
far-flung island. They spent most of their waking hours chatting about their
lives or tending to minor duties at the facility. Seamus had even grown fond of
Moresby, Luis's stalwart old cat.

Luis
grinned at his lucky hand of cards and slid a fat copper coin across the table,
“I'll see your bet and raise you a half, old man.”

“Hah,
mighty brave for a lad who's been on a long losing streak,” Seamus teased. He
added a half pence of his own to the mound. “What do you have, sonny boy?”

Luis
could barely contain himself, “Sevens and twos in a lovely full house.”

“Yikes;
you've got me!” Seamus spread his cards on the table, “Three Jacks.”

Luis
raked his winning into a small pile.

The
old man took a sip of the lemonade that they had reconstituted just for the
occasion from the decades-old provisions left behind by the previous caretaker.

“If
the sea ice isn't too bad, I'm going to take the grappler tug out on the bay
tomorrow and clear out some driftwood. Did you want to come along?”

Seamus
dabbed his chin with a tattered old hand towel before answering, “The weather's
supposed to be windy and below freezing in the morning, I think my old joints
will be too stiff to venture outside. Perhaps the cat and I will sleep off this
debauchery.”

Luis
retrieved the cards and began to shuffle, “Suit yourself.”

• • •

True
to his word, Tariq returned an hour later dangling the canteen by the strap.

Mixion
had instructed Jasper to feign taking a nap in the off-road vehicle. She would
shout if the Desert Serf presented any problems. Lev sat in the shade of a palm
fifteen meters away slowly reading through the old edition of the Nairobi
Times. He too was at the ready should difficulties arise.

Tariq
held the canteen temptingly in front of her. He likely had handled it
sufficiently to pick up plenty of the toxin that covered the surface. If he'd
filled it by immersing the container in the well, as was the custom in the
desert, the water source would spread the pathogen to anyone who used it for
centuries to come. Hundreds of future users of the water source would be
unknowing agents in the effort to kill clones of Daniel Kufuzu.

She
smiled at the apparent success that the unwitting man had likely provided for
them.

The
woman gave him the three heat-softened chocolate bars, “Here you go. I believe
we have both received a tremendous bargain.”

Tariq
nodded and produced a handful of figs.

The
petite spy and the rugged desert dweller enjoyed each other's company for about
two hours as they shared the food and water near the tumbled-down Fort of
Djaba.

At 3
PM they parted ways, both quite certain that they'd gotten the better of the
other.

• • •

On the
day after Tariq had his brief and seemingly innocent liaison with the beguiling
black woman from Free City, Daniel Kufuzu fell ill.

At
first the Warlord complained of a sore throat. By noon the man was racked with
a hoarse cough and delirious with a high fever.

Tariq
and his workmates struggled to make the man comfortable.

At
sunset Kufuzu lapsed into a coma.

Qadir
trotted off towards Séguedine in search of a doctor.

Sometime
around midnight Daniel Kufuzu, the recently recloned and highly Exalted Warlord
of EurAfrica succumbed to the custom-made version of the y-pathogen that Tariq
had unwittingly carried into the secret cave in the Saharan Desert.

At
midday, they wrapped his body in a white shroud and buried him in a hastily dug
pit in the desert.