My window was still open, so I could hear shouts behind me over the roar of the engine. Ahead, the path weaved like a white snake through the coarse grass and scrub. I was going as fast as I dared and the vehicle was staggering and plunging over the rough ground. The weapons I’d stolen had already broken loose – I could hear them sliding around behind the partition. I was at the limit of the plateau when the first bullet thunked into the back of the van. And another.
In my head the seconds were ticking away. It must be less than a minute to detonation. I badly needed that distraction to put off my pursuers.
A moment later I was over the edge of the plateau and on the descent. I’d covered about fifty yards when there was an enormous clang, and the rear-view mirror lit up with brilliant daylight. The van’s doors had swung open.
Fuck it! I should have locked them.
I braked to a halt. I’d worked hard to get that stuff and no way was I going to have it scattered all over the hillside. With the remote and the key in my hand I opened the door and jumped down. More bullets went singing overhead. I hesitated. Right now they’d be running to the top of the rise and from there they’d have a clear line of sight. They’d rake the van and at this range I’d be a sitting duck. They could even toss in grenades. Did I have time to lock the doors before they could get there? Where were those bloody bombs? The answer came almost immediately. The timers had hit zero.
There were four explosions in quick succession and the shockwaves sent a wall of pale dust out over the plateau and down the slope. I just had time to get an arm over my face and eyes before it hit me with stinging force. To steady myself I put a hand out to the van and felt it rocking on its springs. Another explosion, then another, and the air was foggy with dust. This was much better than a distraction. Even if they were standing up there now, this lot would screen me.
I ran back, closed the rear doors and locked them, then jumped into the driver’s seat again. The steering wheel was gritty and the windscreen almost opaque, but I was already on the move as I raised the side window and set the windscreen washers going. They made a grating sound and muddy water trickled from the ends of the sweep. It didn’t help; outside, the visibility was still zero, and I had to drive blindly towards where I’d last seen the path. Eventually the dust thinned and I found myself careering over hummocks of coarse grass. I steered quickly back to the path and ploughed on, listening for the succession of explosions as the remaining charges detonated – seven, eight, nine, ten. More explosions. That would be the munitions going up.
Through the cleared sectors in the windscreen I could see the path stretching in front of me and I pressed on as fast as I dared over the rough ground, slackening speed only to put the safety back on the semi-automatic and replace it in the holster. At the moment those soldiers would be running around in circles wondering where the hell the attack was coming from. Sooner or later they’d realize what had happened. Even if they had a few vehicles left somewhere most of them would have to grab whatever weapons they had to hand and chase after me on foot. But I knew I’d stirred up a hornets’ nest and it wouldn’t be long before the hornets came swarming after me.
I switched on the NavAid, just to get the compass bearing. It seemed I was travelling pretty much due north all the way. By the time I was half-way down I could see my destination clearly – the big double-E-shaped building and the smaller garage outside it. I followed the path round to the rear of the main building and when I saw the gap in the fence I braked to a halt before I reached it.
This was different to the journey out. Then I was in a metal box with a couple of small windows in the doors and one in the partition. Up here in the cab I had windows on the driver’s and passenger’s side and a great big windscreen in front of me, and I was massively vulnerable to that radiofrequency field. The floorpan would absorb some of it but I couldn’t rely on that; I wouldn’t drive through a minefield, and I wasn’t going to drive through this. While the engine was still running I used the NavAid to get the coordinates for my current position, grabbed one of the pens from the shirt pocket, and wrote them on the back of my hand. Then I switched off the ignition, opened the door, and hopped down. I stepped away from the van and looked back along the way I’d come. The mountain top was obscured by heat haze – or it could have been dust – but above it a column of black smoke was rising high into the sky.
I took the phone from the pocket of the soldier’s shirt and checked there was satellite reception before punching in the number for my own office at Fort Piper. It was answered by my ADC, Sergeant Bagley. That pained, put-upon voice was almost music to my ears.
“Sergeant, Colonel Slater here. Give me Major Geiger – on the double.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pause. Click. “Geiger.”
“Tommy, this is Jim Slater.”
I heard a gasp. “Jim? Where’ve you been? Everyone’s looking all over for you—”
“No time for explanations, Tommy, I’m in a tight spot. I need air cover. Can you put me through on a secure line to United States Air Force West Texas? Tell ’em it’s coming from the highest level.”
“Sure thing. And you’re where, Jim?”
“Mexico.”
“Jeezus! We’re still in deep doodoo over the Honduras thing and now you want the USAF to fly through Mexican airspace—?”
“Can’t help it, Tommy. We’ll pick up the pieces later. Hurry, man.”
I waited, biting my lip. Finally I was through.
“United States Air Force West Texas. Sergeant Halloran speaking. How kin I help yew?”
“Sergeant, this is Colonel James Slater. I want air support here, fast. Are you operating Rotofans?”
“Yes, sir, we sure are.”
“Well what sort, dammit?”
“Transport configuration, sir.” Triumphantly.
That’s a fat lot of use.
“Sergeant, I’ve got a rebel militia on my heels. I need ground attack. Haven’t you got any GA versions there?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t you have any GAs at all?”
“Yes, sir. We have Buzzards.”
I sucked in my breath. One of these literal types, straight out of the quartermaster’s stores.
“Listen to me, Sergeant. Scramble those Buzzards right now. And then follow up with three of your transport Rotofans.”
“Where to, sir?” He sounded shaken.
I turned the back of my left hand and gave him my coordinates.
“Your people are to attack camo’d men and any vehicles in the vicinity of a building at those coordinates – it’s shaped like two capital letter E’s, back to back. They are not, repeat not, to attack the building itself or civilians in that area. Then they need to hit the rebel camp. It’s just six ks to the south of this position. It won’t be hard to find; there’s a damned great column of smoke coming from it. Got all that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Repeat it.”
He read back the coordinates and the targets.
“Good, now do it. And I mean now, Sergeant. Shift your butt, or I’ll kick it all the way to Washington. Understood?”
I heard him swallow. “Yes-sir, right away, sir.”
I clicked off and checked my watch. I knew he wouldn’t take orders from me – I wasn’t in his chain of command. But if he ran straight to the Commander’s office there was a good chance his boss would see it was an emergency and overlook the impropriety. How long would it take them? If they got off the ground quickly they could be here in maybe forty minutes. Those militiamen will be running downhill; they could be here before that.
I sucked in a breath and was about to return the phone to my pocket when I noticed I was still wearing a camo shirt myself. I tore it off, dropped it on the ground, and put the phone and pens in the top pocket of my own shirt.
Right. Now to do what I came here for.
42
I unlocked the van doors. Everything had slid up behind the cabin so I climbe
d in, picked up the two launchers and loaded them both. The RPGs were big and heavy with hardened tips. I shoved both the launchers as far as the doors, got out, and with one in each hand walked to a point level with the middle wing. Then I went down on one knee, placed one launcher on the ground and hoisted the other to my shoulder. I pointed it at the far wing, targeting the windowless end section. In my head the wall wasn’t there, just a mental picture of the transmitter installation: the copper cage, the tall metal columns, the high tension cables… I lined up the sights to hit the centre of the copper cage, squeezed the trigger, and the grenade roared off and struck the wall.
The blast made me flinch and duck my head. Pieces of masonry arced through the air – even at this distance I could hear some landing behind me. Smoking bricks bounced end over end across the grass and one came to rest just feet away. I lowered the launcher and blinked. I wasn’t expecting it to ping off a brick wall; these things were designed to pierce heavy armour. What I hadn’t expected was the sheer size of the charge it carried. Where there’d been a solid wall there was now a black hole several metres across, belching smoke and dust. I cast an incredulous look at the grenade loaded in the other launcher at my feet, and returned my gaze to the hole. How much of the blast had gone outwards? I wasn’t interested in the wall, it was what was inside that I needed to destroy, and the pressure wave could have been dissipated. I couldn’t take the chance. I picked up the second launcher, sighted the centre of the hole and fired. The grenade went through, the hole lit up with a brilliant flash, and the windows blew out all down the adjacent corridor. I ducked my head again as splinters of glass and debris flew out and hailed against the middle wing. Seconds later they were still pattering to the ground all around me.
Now fresh clouds of smoke were pouring from the enlarged breach in the wall. Had I done enough? Colin said the transmitter equipment was built to last. Had it withstood the explosion? Was that deadly signal still radiating unseen from the underground antenna? I’d know soon enough. I dumped the launcher, got to my feet, and ran back to the van. There I paused, took a deep breath, clenched my teeth, and ran right through the gap in the fence. I felt nothing, not even the nausea and sorrow and anxiety I’d experienced earlier on when I rode through it in the van. I punched the air. I’d done it! The transmitter may have been secure, and it may have been over-engineered, but it wasn’t bomb-proof.
I turned the handle of the kitchen door. It was locked. I didn’t hesitate, just drew the pistol and shot the lock out.
The kitchen staff were rooted to the spot, watching me wide-eyed as I ran through.
I was out of the kitchen, into the dining room, then out of the dining room and along the corridor to the factory. The moment I burst through the door a siren close at hand set up a deafening wail. I winced, looking all around me. Above my head was a metal detector arch, and the siren was in the corner of the ceiling. The semi-automatic the detector had picked up was still in my hand so I raised it, fired twice, and the siren flew to pieces. The combined noise of the siren and the pistol shots was tremendous in this relatively confined space, and the silence that followed it was so thick you could almost reach out and touch it. I turned around. All the machines had stopped. I saw a sea of pale faces, all looking in my direction. I returned the pistol to its holster.
I spoke in Spanish, loudly and clearly. “I am Colonel James Slater of the United States Army. I have destroyed Dr Müller’s transmitter. He cannot hurt you any more. There is nothing to keep you here.”
The silence continued for several seconds, then a cautious, questioning sound, a murmur of disbelief. Most of them had been here too long to harbour a hope that this might happen. The murmur grew louder. I held up a hand.
“I have arranged transport to fly you all to Texas. It should be here in less than one hour. We will see about getting you home from there.”
Someone shouted “Somos libres!”, and a huge gabble started up. A girl sitting at a nearby machine dropped on her knees, grabbed my hand and kissed it again and again. Then I noticed Maria. She’d picked up a large pair of scissors, and she was brandishing it open like a dagger.
“Queremos venganza!”
Now they were all grabbing scissors and shouting “Venganza!” Maria led the way through the door and out into the corridor, the others pouring after her. The arch would only let through one at a time so the crowd was soon backed up.
I couldn’t see Delfina anywhere but I recognised a girl waiting impatiently for her turn and stepped forward. “Beatriz, where is Delfina?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She tugged at the sleeve of another girl. “Camila, do you know where Delfina is?”
Camila met my eyes and her face fell. “Mrs Müller asked for her.”
I blinked at her. “When?”
“This morning. I’m sorry.”
This morning? Oh my God.
I pushed past the girls and raced down the main corridor towards the far wing, passing more yelling girls on the way. I was barely aware of the entrance lobby coming up on my left as I ran through to the end of the main corridor and turned, ready to shoot my way through the security door. There was no need – it was hanging open, suspended precariously by the top hinge. The corridor beyond was filled with smoke, drifting out slowly through windows in which only a few shards of glass remained. The once-blue composite on the floor was white with dust and pieces of plaster which crunched under my boots as I rushed on. On my left, the door to Müller’s office had been blown flat, the doorway a gaping hole. The next door was skewed half in and half out of the opening, held in place by a stubborn bottom hinge. Behind it would be the room that connected internally with Müller’s office. I figured the room after that would be the one I wanted.
I paused in the threshold. The room was a shambles. The doorframe was empty, the door lying among the wreckage inside. Items of furniture were tipped over, a large part of the ceiling had fallen in, and the air was fogged with dust. I picked my way through the debris, coughing, my eyes smarting.
Looks like no one in here. Perhaps it’s the next one.
I turned and noticed some sort of padded table almost upside-down. It was hung with a variety of leather straps. I was about to pass it by when I pulled up short; one of the straps was fastened around a slim ankle. I gently detached the strap, gripped the edge of the heavy table, and tipped it back.
Delfina.
I put an arm round her shoulders and as I lifted her gently to me her head flopped loosely onto my chest. My blood turned to ice. I looked more carefully, put my cheek next to her open mouth, felt for the pulse in her poor twisted neck. Then I clasped her to me and buried my face in her hair.
Delfina…
I heaved a deep, despairing breath and with the movement her dress shifted and I caught sight of a smudged trickle of blood down one thigh. There were no rips or bloodstains on her dress.
I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t caused by the explosion.
A heap of plaster and ceiling tiles on the floor moved and I heard a groan. As I looked up, grey hair emerged, then the face of an elderly woman, white with dust. She was trying to lever herself up with her right hand alone. Her left arm was dangling oddly.
There were shouts from the corridor and four of the girls burst in. They hesitated for a moment as they saw me cradling Delfina. Then they spotted Mrs Müller and converged on her with whoops of triumph. Two of them grabbed the woman’s left hand and yanked her out of the debris by her broken arm. She screamed. The girls shouted with elation, and she screamed louder still.
“Hilfe! Hilfe!”
Should I intervene?
I looked down at Delfina, at the blood on her thigh. Did she cry for help when that woman was doing things to her? Did the other girls? And did anyone help them? No. So do I help her? Do I hell.
I lay Delfina down. There was nothing I could do for her now. I had other business to attend to, including the one person responsible for all this.
I went back dow
n the corridor, Mrs Müller’s screams echoing behind me. Almost as loud were the exultant cries of the girls as they extracted their revenge. But my resolve had hardened.
I wanted Müller.
43
Müller’s office, being furthest from the blast, was in slightly better shape than the one I’d just left. All the same everything was in disarray. There was no sign of him in here. I pushed through the connecting door at the back, the one through which he’d taken Delfina.
Müller was facing me on the far side of the room, legs apart, palms flat against the wall. He looked dazed. His already pallid features were white with dust, and fragments of plaster were stuck in his hair.
I strolled over and stopped in front of him. He must have perceived my manner, because his eyes narrowed to puffy slits. His voice was hoarse. “What have you done?”
I folded my arms. “I just blew your radiofrequency transmitter to bits.”
His eyes widened, then he blinked. “Impossible!”
“Not really. I paid a visit to the LRA camp. Your friends have some nice little toys over there. In the right hands they make one hell of a mess.”
“I don’t believe you. You could never get out of here!”
“No?” I snorted. “I couldn’t, but I did. You’d love to know how – wouldn’t you? – but I’m not going to tell you. All I’ll say is this. In ways you could never imagine in your wildest dreams, Dr Müller, you came up against the wrong person, and you lost. Your reign of terror is over. I’ve opened the prison doors and set the girls free. You’re fucked, Müller, finished.”
The Reich Legacy: A Jim Slater novel (The Jim Slater series Book 3) Page 23