Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Have you lost your mind? Or did they brainwash you when you went in there?”

  “I agree that Brother Timothy is probably insane,” Roland said, keeping his composure. “But if he’s not—then who’s calling himself God? And what’s the black box and the silver key?”

  “They don’t exist.”

  “Probably not. There might not even be a Warwick Mountain. But if there is ... Brother Timothy could be the only one who knows how to find it. I think capturing him alive might be worth the effort.”

  “Why? Do you want the Army of Excellence to go looking for God, too?”

  “No. But I want to lead the first assault wave, and I want Brother Timothy taken alive.” Roland knew it sounded like an order, but he didn’t care. He stared fixedly at the King.

  There was silence. Macklin’s left hand squeezed into a fist, then slowly unclenched. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’d like to know right now.”

  Macklin leaned forward, his mouth curved into a thin and terrible smile. “Don’t push me, Roland. I won’t stand to be pushed. Not even by you.”

  “Brother Timothy,” Roland said, “is to be taken alive. We can kill everyone else. But not him. I want him able to answer questions, and I want to know about the black box and the silver key.”

  Macklin rose like a dark cyclone slowly unfurling. But before he could answer, there was another knock at the trailer’s door. “What is it?” Macklin shouted.

  The door opened, and Sergeant Benning came in. He immediately felt the tension. “Uh ... I’ve brought a message from Corporal Mangrim, sir.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “He says it’s ready. He wants you to come see it.”

  “Tell him I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.” Benning started to turn away.

  “Sergeant?” Roland said. “Tell him we’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Uh ... yes, sir.” Benning glanced quickly at the colonel and then got out as fast as he could.

  Macklin was filled with cold rage. “You’re walking close to the edge, Roland. Very close.”

  “Yes, I am. But you won’t do anything. You can’t. I helped you build all this. I helped you put it together. If I hadn’t amputated your hand in Earth House, you’d be dust by now. If I hadn’t told you to use the drugs to trade with, we’d still be dirtwarts. And if I hadn’t executed Freddie Kempka for you, there’d be no Army of Excellence. You ask my advice, and you do what I say. That’s how it’s always been. The soldiers bow to you—but you bow to me.” The bandages tightened as Roland smiled. He’d seen the flicker of uncertainty—no, of weakness—in the King’s eyes. And he realized the truth. “I’ve always kept the brigades operating for you, and I’ve even found the settlements for us to attack. You can’t even allocate the supplies without going to pieces.”

  “You ... little bastard,” Macklin managed to say. “I should ... have you ... shot....”

  “You won’t. You used to say I was your right hand. And I believed it. But that was never true, was it? You’re my right hand. I’m the real King, and I’ve just let you wear the crown.”

  “Get out ... get out ... get out ...” Macklin felt dizzy, and he grabbed the edge of the desk to steady himself. “I don’t need you! I never did!”

  “You always did. You do now.”

  “No ... no ... I don’t ... I don’t.” He shook his head and looked away from Roland, but he could still feel Roland’s eyes on him, probing to his soul with surgical precision. He remembered the eyes of the skinny kid who’d been sitting in Earth House’s Town Hall during the newcomers’ orientation, and he remembered seeing something of himself in them—determined, willful and, above all, cunning.

  “I’ll still be the King’s Knight,” Roland said. “I like the game. But from now on, we won’t pretend it’s you who makes the rules.”

  Macklin suddenly lifted his right arm and started to swipe the nail-studded palm across Roland’s face. But Roland didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Macklin’s skeletal face was twisted with rage, and he trembled but did not deliver the blow. He made a gasping sound, like a punctured balloon, and the room seemed to spin crazily around him. In his mind he heard the hollow, knowing laughter of the Shadow Soldier.

  The laughter went on for a long time. And when it was over, Macklin’s arm dropped to his side.

  He stood staring at the floor, his mind on a filthy pit where only the strong survived.

  “We should go see Mangrim’s machine now,” Roland suggested, and this time his voice was softer, almost gentle. The voice of a boy again. “I’ll give you a ride in my Jeep. All right?”

  Macklin didn’t answer. But when Roland turned and walked to the door, Macklin followed like a dog humbled by a new master.

  76

  HEADLIGHTS DARKENED, THREE ROWS of Army of Excellence vehicles moved slowly across the parking lot as howling winds blew snow in blinding crosscurrents. Visibility was cut to nine or ten feet in all directions, but the blizzard had given the AOE a chance to clear some of the debris off the parking lot with two of its three bulldozers. They’d shoved the frozen corpses and twisted metal into huge heaps on either side of what the AOE infantrymen now called “Death Valley.”

  Roland rode in his Jeep at the center of the first row, with Sergeant McCowan behind the wheel. Under his coat he wore a shoulder holster with a .38 in it, and at his side was an M-16. On the floorboard, behind his right boot, were a flare gun and two red flares.

  He knew it was going to be a very good day.

  Soldiers rode on the hoods, trunks and fenders of the vehicles, adding weight to help traction. Behind the advancing waves followed twelve hundred more AOE soldiers. Captain Carr controlled the left flank, and on the far side of Roland’s Jeep Captain Wilson was in command of the right. Both of them, along with the other officers involved in Operation Crucify, had gone over the plans with Roland several times, and Roland had told them exactly what he expected. There was to be no hesitation when the signals were given, and the maneuvers had to be done precisely as Roland had outlined. There was to be no retreat, Roland had told them; the first man who shouted a retreat was to be shot on the field. And as the orders were given and the plan gone over again and again Colonel Macklin had sat silent behind his desk.

  Oh, yes! Roland thought, delirious with a keen mingling of excitement and fear. It’s going to be a good day!

  The vehicles continued to advance, foot by foot, the noise of their engines covered by the shriek of the wind.

  Roland wiped snow from his goggles. Down the first line of trucks and cars, soldiers began to slide off the hoods and fenders and scrabble forward on their hands and knees across the snow. They were members of the Recon Brigade that Roland had organized—small, fast men who could get up close to the Allegiance defensive line without being seen. Roland strained forward in his seat, watching for the Allegiance’s bonfires. Even now, he knew, the Recon Brigade soldiers were taking up positions on the far left and right flanks, and they would be the first to open fire when the signals were given. If the Recon Brigade successfully drew enemy attention to the far left and far right of the defensive line, there might be a hole of confusion right in the center—and it was there that Roland planned to pierce.

  Orange light flickered ahead—firelight, glowing from one of the bonfires on the defensive line. Roland cleared his goggles again, saw the glint of another bonfire to the left and maybe thirty yards away. He picked up the flare gun and loaded one flare into the breech. Then, with the second flare in his gloved left hand, he stood up in the Jeep and waited for the assault wave to close another five yards.

  Now! Roland decided, and he aimed the flare gun just over the windshields of the vehicles on the left flank. He squeezed the trigger, and the gun coughed; the brilliant crimson flare streaked away, and the first signal had been delivered. The vehicles on the left side began to pivot, the entire line veering further left. Roland quickly reloaded and delivered the
second signal on the right flank. The vehicles on that side slowed and began to veer to the right.

  Sergeant McCowan, too, cut the wheel to the right side. The tires skidded over the snow for a few seconds before they responded. Roland was counting the time down: eight ... seven ... six ...

  He saw quick white flashes of gunfire from the far left flank, right up on the Allegiance’s defensive line, and he knew the Recon Brigade on that side had gone to work.

  ... five... four...

  Gunfire erupted on the far right flank. Roland saw sparks fly as bullets ricocheted off metal.

  ... three ... two ...

  On the left side, the AOE vehicles suddenly turned on their headlights, the blinding shafts of light spearing through the snow and into the eyes of the Allegiance sentries not more than ten yards away. A fraction of a second later, the headlights on the right side came on. Machine-gun bullets, fired in blind panic by a sentry, threw up plumes of snow six feet in front of Roland’s Jeep.

  ... one, Roland counted.

  And the massive thing—half machine and half a construction from a medieval nightmare—that had been following thirty feet behind the command Jeep suddenly roared forward, its treads flattening corpses and debris, its steel scoop raised to shield against gunfire. Roland watched the huge war machine as it swept past, gaining speed, heading for the center of the enemy’s defenses. “Go!” Roland shouted. “Go! Go!”

  Mangrim’s brainchild was powered by the third bulldozer, its driver inside an armor-plated cab; but towed by steel cables behind the bulldozer was a wide wooden platform with truck axles and wheels attached. Rising from the platform was an intricate wooden framework, made from sturdy telephone poles bolted and lashed together to support a central staircase that ascended more than seventy feet into the air. The stairs had been taken from houses in the dead residential district around the shopping center. The long staircase curved slightly forward at the pinnacle and ended in a ramp that could be unhinged and dropped outward like the drawbridge of a castle. Barbed wire and scavenged pieces of metal from wrecked cars covered the outside surfaces, with gunports cut here and there on several of the staircase landings. To help support the weight, some of the telephone poles had been driven onto iron spikes bolted to the bulldozer, and they thrust upward to hold the war machine steady.

  Roland knew what it was. He’d seen pictures of them in books.

  Alvin Mangrim had built a siege tower, like medieval armies had used to storm fortified castles.

  And then the bulldozer’s upraised scoop crashed into a mailman’s armored truck that was covered with graffiti like LOVE THE SAVIOR and KILL IN THE NAME OF LOVE and began to shove it backward, out of the defensive line. The mailman’s truck slammed into a car, and the car was crushed between it and an armored Toyota van as the bulldozer pressed forward, its engine screaming and the treads throwing back wakes of snow. The siege tower shivered and creaked like arthritic bones, but it was built strong, and it held.

  Gunfire flared from the left and right flanks of the Allegiance’s defenses, but the soldiers who manned the center were forced back in confusion, some of them being crushed to death at once as the bulldozer came powering through. Through the hole the bulldozer had opened rushed a swarm of shouting AOE infantrymen, dealing out more death from their guns. Bullets whined and sparked off metal, and further down the line a gas tank was hit and exploded, lighting up the battleground with a hellish glare.

  The bulldozer pushed the wreckage aside and kept going. When its steel shovel slammed against the fortress’s wall, the driver cut his engine and locked the brakes. A truck loaded with soldiers and ten drums of gasoline roared through the hole the bulldozer and siege tower had broken open and skidded to a stop alongside. As other infantrymen supplied a covering fire, some of the soldiers began to unload the gasoline drums while the rest, who carried coils of rope, ran to the siege tower and started up the steps. At the top, they unlocked the ramp and shoved it forward; on the underside of the ramp were hundreds of long nails, which dug into the snow on the mall’s roof as the ramp fell into place. Now there was a seven-foot-long wooden bridge connecting the tower and the roof. One by one the soldiers ran across it, and once on the roof they began to drop the ends of their ropes to the men who were rolling the gasoline drums against the wall. The ropes were already looped and knotted, and as one was slipped around the end of a drum another was tied to the other end. The drums of gasoline were hauled up to the roof, one after the other, in quick succession.

  More soldiers streamed up the siege tower, took their places at the gunports and fired down at the mass of Allegiance infantry, who were retreating toward the mall’s entrance. And then the soldiers on the rooftop began to roll the gasoline drums through the central skylight and down into the densely-packed midst of the American Allegiance, many of whom had been sleeping and still didn’t know what was going on. As the drums hit bottom the soldiers took aim and fired with their rifles, puncturing the drums and spewing gasoline into the air. The bullets threw sparks, and with a tremendous whump! the gasoline ignited.

  Standing up in his Jeep, Roland saw flame leap into the night through the shattered skylight. “We’ve got them!” he shouted. “Now we’ve got them!”

  Beneath the skylight, in the shopping mall’s crowded atrium, men, women and children were dancing to Roland Croninger’s tune. More gasoline drums plummeted through the skylight, exploding like napalm bombs in the conflagration. Within two minutes the entire floor of the atrium was awash with blazing gasoline. Hundreds of bodies were charring as hundreds more tried to fight free, trampling their brothers and sisters, clawing for a breath of air in the firestorm.

  Now the rest of the Army of Excellence vehicles were crashing into the Allegiance’s defensive line, and the air burned with bullets. A flaming figure ran past Roland’s Jeep and was broken like a straw doll beneath the wheels of an oncoming truck. The Allegiance soldiers were panicking, not knowing which way to run, and the ones who tried to fight were slaughtered. Smoke was streaming from the mall’s entrance, and still the men on the rooftop continued to drop the gasoline drums. Roland heard the explosions even over the screams and gunfire.

  Army of Excellence soldiers were breaking into the mall. Roland picked up his M-16 and jumped from the Jeep, running through the confusion of bodies toward the entrance. A tracer bullet streaked past his face, and he tripped and fell over mangled bodies, but he got up again and kept going. His gloves had turned crimson, and somebody’s blood covered the front of his coat. He liked the color; it was the color of a soldier.

  Inside the mall he was surrounded by dozens of AOE infantry who were shooting at enemy soldiers in the stores. Gray smoke churned through the air, and people on fire came running down the corridor, but most of them crumpled before they got very far. The floor shook with the blasts as the final gasoline drum blew, and Roland felt a sickening wave of heat from the atrium ahead. He smelled the intoxicating reek of burning flesh, hair and clothes. More explosions jarred the floor, and Roland thought it must be the Allegiance’s ammunition going off. Allegiance soldiers started throwing aside their guns and coming out of the stores, begging for mercy. They received none.

  “You! You! And you!” Roland shouted, pointing out three soldiers. “Follow me!” He raced in the direction of the bookstore.

  The atrium was a solid mass of flame. The heat was so terrible that the hundreds of corpses were beginning to liquefy, oozing and melting together. Searing winds screamed around the walls. Roland’s coat was smoking as he ran past the atrium into the corridor that led to the bookstore. The three soldiers followed right behind.

  But Roland suddenly stopped, his eyes widening with terror.

  One of the Allegiance’s tanks—the Love Bug—was parked in front of the B. Dalton store.

  The soldier behind him said, “Oh Je—”

  The tank’s main cannon fired; there was an ear-cracking boom that blew the rest of the glass from the store’s windows. But the cannon
’s elevation was too high, and the shell’s hot wake threw Roland and the other men to the ground as it passed four feet overhead. It pierced the roof at the end of the corridor without exploding and blasted like a thunderclap about fifty feet in the air, killing most of the soldiers who had dropped the gasoline drums.

  Roland and the soldiers opened fire, but their bullets pinged harmlessly off armor. The tank jerked forward, began to grind toward them and then stopped, backed up and started turning to the right. Its turret began to rotate, and then the cannon went off again, this time knocking a truck-sized hole through the brick wall. There was a noise of gears grinding and stripping, and with a backfire that gouted gray smoke the multimillion-dollar machine shuddered and stopped.

  Either the driver doesn’t know what he’s doing, Roland thought, or the tank’s a lemon!

  The hatch opened. A man popped up with his arms raised. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “Please don’t—”

  He was interrupted by the force of bullets passing through his face and neck, and he slithered back into the tank.

  Two Allegiance soldiers with rifles appeared at the B. Dalton entrance and started shooting. The AOE infantryman to Roland’s right was killed, but in another few seconds the firefight was over and the two Allegiance men lay riddled. The way into the bookstore was clear.

  Roland dove to the floor as a shot rang out, closely followed by a second. The other two men fired repeatedly into the gloom at the back of the store, but there was no more enemy resistance.

  Roland kicked the storeroom door open and leaped to one side, ready to fill the room with bullets if any more soldiers were in there guarding the Savior.

  But there was no movement, no sound.

  A single oil lantern glowed within the storeroom. His rifle ready, Roland darted in and crouched on the floor.

  The Savior, wearing a lime-green coat and beige slacks with patched knees, was sitting in his chair. His hands gripped the armrests. His head was tilted back, and Roland could see the fillings in his molars.