As Connach disappeared from Morgan’s view, a shriek of escaping steam erupted from the tractor’s boiler, followed immediately by a thudding explosion as the machine’s boiler blew itself into uselessness. The Mercian had chosen his side, Morgan thought with satisfaction, as he pulled the trigger and disintegrated the padlock. He hoped that the report would be lost to the Vulkanetruppen in the greater confusion of sounds from the sacrificed tractor.
By the time Connach reached the tunnel entrance, Morgan had the cover raised high, revealing the black maw of a shaft, which dropped, straight as a plumb line, into the earth.
“Good work,” Connach commented and pitched the iron and bronze remains of the lock into the hole. “Into the shaft by teams,” he said. “After you men reach the bottom, fan out along the sides of the horizontal tunnel. Do not stand in the center depression nor activate a glow globe.”
As the commandos climbed into the shaft, the tractor belched a tall column of flame and smoke. Morgan paused on the third rung and looked back toward the pair of civilians who had won precious time for them.
One of the soldiers had pinned the farmer’s wife against the side of the wagon. He groped her while she twisted, trying to escape her helmeted tormentor. Axtgirtle made a vain attempt to pull the soldier from his wife but was kept at a distance by the second Vulkanetrupp. The soldiers’ coarse laughter floated across the field.
“This will not be forgotten, Kerry,” Connach promised, tight-lipped.
“I won’t let you forget,” Morgan answered grimly and dropped to the tunnel floor. Above him, Connach pulled the heavy door closed carefully so that it wouldn’t ring like a gong. The sky was snuffed out; the cries and crude laughter from outside were stilled.
Connach was still enraged. Morgan could hear him slam his boots against the rungs as he descended.
“Kerry?”
“Right beside you.”
“Good. Activate a glow globe now but be ready to kill it at any moment.”
Morgan recited the short prayer for light. It worked better than it had in the caretaker’s apartment. Practice, or magic? He no longer cared. It worked. The blue glow illuminated the soldiers as they stood or squatted along the narrow ledge that ran along one edge of the quadrirail tunnel they stood in. Shiny rails indicated that the section was active. That was definitely not good. He let his eyes play over the rough walls. Cables, some as thick as a man’s arm, were clustered in looping groups of five. They covered the walls as far as he could see in either direction.
“What are these?” he asked Connach.
“Power for the city, communications. The water and sewage lines lie beneath the bottom rails
. . . all the comforts of your world. The arteries and veins of the Free States are the quadrirail tunnels,” Connach explained like a tour guide.
“When the time comes, you may be forced to slash Caerwent’s wrists in order to save her life.”
“I have already considered that. It’s pretty drastic because the entire city will suffer. It’s only thinkable because it will cripple Thorkell even more. The Viks are not known for brilliance of their artificers. By the time they figure out how to get the lights turned back on, my people will turn their lights off, permanently.” Connach turned to his troops.
“Kerry, give me your globe. I’ll lead. If a train comes I am going to douse the light. Stay where you are and make love to the walls. A man can get sucked into the rail bed by the turbulence of a passing car. Let’s move!”
The insurgents edged along the maintenance walk; following the bobbing firefly that was Connach’s muted light. Greenfeld, just ahead of Morgan, was having a difficult time. He seemed afraid to brush the wall with his injured limb and tottered perilously close to the drop-off.
“Jesus, David. Be careful,” Morgan called.
“I’m trying, but I can’t feel the wall with my left hand and I’m afraid I’ll get crunched by one of those cable fasteners.”
Massive cable clips jutted from the wall at regular intervals, and Morgan had already made painful contact with two of them. He fully understood Greenfeld’s caution.
“Keep trying,” he urged. “Get closer to Chullain and follow his movements.”
The light went out without warning.
“Car!” Connach’s cry cut through the darkness. The whining rush of wind that heralded a speeding cylinder ate the echoes of his terse warning. The pressure of the car’s passage made Morgan’s eardrums ache. It was like scuba diving with a head cold. He had made that mistake once. Then came a second rush that was a sudden lack of pressure. Morgan sensed, rather than heard Greenfeld slip from the ledge. His grab was automatic. Fingers closed around cloth—Greenfeld’s tunic.
He heard a stifled cry of agony as the wadded up material held, and Greenfeld swung back and forth, facing outward toward the rail bed. Morgan clenched his teeth, bunched his muscles, and attempted to hoist Greenfeld back onto the ledge. He could not. The strap of the Jew’s M-16 cut into his armpits, cutting off vital circulation, weakening him.
“Light!” He rasped.
“Can’t!” Connach returned. “I feel another car coming!”
Greenfeld twisted, groaning, under Morgan’s hand.
“Ax-Wielder!” Morgan grunted more than called. “Turn in my direction and follow my voice. Greenfeld’s over the edge.” He heard the sound of a rifle being grounded then the shuffle of the big man’s feet. “One . . . two . . . three,” Morgan counted. On “three” Chulainn bumped into Morgan, nearly upsetting him.
“Below!” he hissed, feeling the strength drain from his fingers.
“Godamn it, David! Stop moving around!” His insensitive fingers were beginning to loosen.
“Why don’t you try hanging around like this without twitching, you son of a bitch! If you can, I’ll give you a fucking trip to Miami Beach myself!” Greenfeld cried angrily. Morgan felt him attempting to hold still.
“One . . . two . . . three!” Morgan screamed at Chulainn. “Grab and pull!”
The Ax-Wielder muttered something that Morgan could not translate and fastened his fingers around Greenfeld’s tunic above Morgan’s hand. Morgan felt the weight lessen.
“Heave!”
“Car!”
“Pull, man!” Chulainn panted.
The whine of the approaching car pushed once again at Morgan’s ears. He heaved, his breath escaping in a yell, as he demanded one more impossible task of his body. Chulainn grunted in his ear, and Greenfeld moved. He was lofted over the edge just as the piston of compressed air hit them.
“Hold on!” Morgan shouted to everyone and no one in particular.
Next came the following vacuum and the diminishing Doppler effect of the already distant car. Both men somehow managed to hold onto the helpless Greenfeld and the ledge at the same time. Connach’s light went back on.
“Everybody all right?” Connach called back.
“Greenfeld’s…. “
“Had both breath and shit scared out of him,” supplied the man with the broken arm.
“Yeah, we almost lost the only apprentice rabbi in the Free States, and in a very undignified accident,” Morgan told Connach, trying to break some of the tension he felt.
“Watch out, playboy,” Greenfeld said, “If this war goes right for the good guys, I’m going to marry a mainland cutie and father the biggest damn ghetto you’ve ever imagined . . . Tel Aviv West. Then all you goyim are gonna be sorry you ever gave David Greenfeld any static.”
“Greenfeld!” Connach called.
“Sir?”
“Move up forward with me so you can see those cable fasteners. We don’t want to lose you at this early date.”
“See,” Greenfeld poked Morgan playfully in the ribs. “Those Mormon folk claim that the Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, right?”
“I think so.” Morgan was not sure.
“That’s why these people absolutely love me. We’re family.” He was gone before Morgan could respond
.
Morgan smiled. Greenfeld was a man he could trust to guard his back. Greenfeld would survive the expedition if Morgan had anything to do with the outcome of the raid.
Connach plunged on, apparently knowing the Caerwent tunnel systems very well. The platform stops were spaced about one kilometer apart by Morgan’s reconnaissance. The commandos passed the first platform with its indolent guards without incident. A car had pulled to a halt at the station and was both debarking and embarking passengers. The car held still for only a brief time, but it had been enough for twelve desperate men to drop to the graveled rail bed and reach the opposite side of the platform with its hidden ledge. As his men passed behind the pencil-shaped car, Morgan prayed quite seriously to the God of his father that the first car would not depart, nor would a second speed in while they stood, unprotected on the rails. None came.
The second platform was empty, but only of cars. A pair of bored guards lounged on one side of the stop, smoking a passed pipe, talking desultorily. One by one, the black-clad soldiers of Caerwent’s liberation lowered themselves to rail level and crept without noise to the far side, spurred, Morgan guessed, by bloody visions of a hurtling quadrirail cylinder. Connach moved first, then Greenfeld, followed by the aircrew.
Morgan’s turn came last. The drop was an easy two meters. He simply slid over the edge on his stomach and gently levered himself to the ground with his arms. The idea of an oncoming car sharing his space frightened him, and his old head wound throbbed. The air smelled strongly of ozone and old urine. Neither the Mercian guards nor the commandos were too fastidious about looking for the corner gas station when nature pressed. He sniffed at the tainted air as if it might give him a clue to the dangers that the short distance might hold for him. He looked at his right hand. The ring and atmosphere were uniformly uninformative.
He drew a deep breath and expelled it silently but apprehensively. He stepped quietly to the corner of light, feeling an old sensation playing sporty riffs on his spine. The soft doeskin boots he wore made no betraying sound; the guards were looking the other way. He unslung Greenfeld’s rifle and held it first in one hand, ready to do battle, then sank to his knees, cradled the weapon in his arms and prepared to execute a proper low crawl. His old drill instructor would approve.
Go!
He moved, but keeping the plastic stock from noisily striking the exposed rail slowed him to half speed. It was, however, nearly as noisy as full speed. He reached the center of the exposed rail bed before he heard the rush of air and the banshee electric keening. Morgan knew at that instant that he was a dead man, yet he rolled flat against the platform wall, slamming the M-16 stock hollowly against the stone facing.
“Yost! Waas waar . . .?”
Footsteps scraped above Morgan’s head. All the Mercians had to do was look down and one Californian was dead. All the car had to do was arrive before the Mercian did and he was dead. The range of options stank.
The scraping overhead continued in his direction. So did the compression of air. Morgan expelled all his breath and placed the M-16 between his legs where it would not add to his bulk. I’d have one hell of a time trying to use it anyway, once the quadrirail smears me from Caerwent to Duleek. Extract of guerrilla, folks . . . try a new revolutionary sensation.
“Nur daas U-Waagon, Kerl,” the voice of the second guard reassured the first as the car screamed into the station. Morgan, expecting only a messy death, willed himself not to cry out and betray the others. The first pieces of gravel, launched by the compressed air, pelted him like buckshot. The artificial wind replaced the air in Morgan’s nasal passages, but it did not bring the death he expected. Neither did the car.
The vehicle halted, instead, with its curved doors directly above him. A few centimeters of air alone separated the flattened commando from the smooth hull. A loose rivet-head dangled far enough to be felt through his shirt. If he had eaten a few more French fries at Begley’s Grinders at West Harbor, he might have been but a memory and a long, bloody smear. Above him, loud Mercian voices proclaimed a loosely disciplined changing of the guard. Those soldiers were expecting no trouble. No alarm had gone out yet. The dead Suevians and Mercians must not have been connected with an organized resistance. Axtgirtle must have kept his silence and had not betrayed them. The commandos were still safe. Safe, Morgan thought, ironically, crunching sand between his teeth, fighting the urge to draw deep breaths when his racing heart demanded oxygen. That, he had practiced frequently since joining Connach, he acknowledged.
When the car pulled away from the platform without incident, he shook himself like a wet dog and forced himself to resume his crawl somewhat faster than it had been on the first half of his journey along the rail bed.
Connach was waiting on the other side to hoist him up onto the ledge. He made no comment but instead gave Morgan a frosty, appraising look that infuriated him. I think he would have liked to end some of the upheaval in his life ten meters back there at the platform. Damn the man! The remaining six men covered the hazardous space with a great deal more spirit and speed than the six that had proceeded them, including Morgan’s final effort.
Connach moved the warriors along the ledge, stooping periodically, searching for something between the cables. He stopped before a low door set chest high in the stone wall. Morgan watched him try the latch. The door opened without difficulty. Then Connach bent almost double and ducked through the opening. Almost immediately, light blazed through the small doorway and the soldiers stood dumbly, blinking in the unaccustomed glare. Connach stuck his head through the entrance and looked at his small command with amusement.
“Do I need to call you individually, or would you accept a general invitation?”
Morgan moved through the rabbit hole first. As he straightened up on the other side, he stared in amazement at the two-chambered apartment in which he stood. The larger room was filled with shovels, picks and plumbing paraphernalia. Three deep wheelbarrows were propped against the tool wall. In an open wardrobe a dozen or more workman’s smocks hung on hooks. The rest of the room contained a pair of stools, a writing desk with a farspeaker upon it, and a simple sleeping couch. The second chamber was a small washing room. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.
“Repair crew station,” Connach told Morgan. “There is one every couple of stops, but if they’re all like this one, I’d bet that there hasn’t been a lot of repair work going on since Thorkell took over as Minister of Public Everything.” He ran his fingers over the dusty desktop. A clean swath was left on its gritty surface. “I used to play here with Martin and . . . another boy when I was quite young. This station was our keep . . . whenever the crew was out, of course, and these tools were our pikes, our lances, our swords.” Connach’s eyes clouded briefly as if with the memory of long ago games, then he snapped back just as abruptly to the present. “All right, my lads. If we can pull a little masquerade off today, we can sleep in a safe place tonight. If we cannot ….”
The incomplete sentence hung on the air like a sentence of death but no man’s face registered fear. They felt it, Morgan knew, but their Celtic pride prevented any outward display. Latinos had a lot to learn about the fine art of being macho.
Connach outlined what had to be done in a few terse phrases and shrugged out of his pack. He began to peel the black clothing from his body. “Every man except Morgan and myself is to change into one of the workman’s smocks. Kirkpatrick, you will need to put on a pair of gloves and one of the floppy hats hanging over there as well. Keep your head down when we get to the outside and pray that the Viks we meet will pay no attention to you. You and I,” he said to Morgan, “get to become Vik bowmen at last.”
“Thanks. I love lice and fleas,” Morgan answered as he pulled off his own dirty but varmint-free tunic and pulled his Mercian uniform from his pack.
The stolen uniforms were grossly unsuited to the tropical humidity which invaded even the subterranean world. Connach’s fit as if he had ordered it tailored i
nstead of having it stripped from a corpse. Morgan’s was a tolerable Sad Sack imitation and the stiff Mercian boots cramped his feet. He looked like a typical Mercian soldier and felt like hell.
“Priest!” Connach called. “Give us a prayer for success.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thorkell smiled at the Druid priest who clung weakly to the pair of Vulkannetruppen soldiers flanking him. He did not look much like a priest any more, Thorkell thought with satisfaction; his hair and beard had been cruelly shaven—hacked would be a more appropriate term for the butchery—and his cheeks, throat and scalp were crosshatched with infected cuts. He had been dragged, naked, into the room, and Thorkell noted with pleasure, that his genitals had been as roughly treated as had been the rest of his body. The Reged priest’s scrotum was swollen to nearly twice its normal size and was as livid as the tortured flesh of his back and ribs.
The Governor-General of the Occupied Territories gazed dispassionately at the pathetic figure on display before him. He snapped his fingers, without taking his eyes from the raw meat of the man’s body. He held out his empty drinking horn and allowed an attendant to refill it with good, stream-cooled, Mercian beer, imported from Londstaadt where people still knew how to prepare things properly.
“Priest,” Thorkell said, allowing a tone of boredom to enter his voice. “Have you anything new to offer me?” He smacked his lips appreciatively at the draught of cooling liquid, knowing full well that his prisoner had been refused all food or drink during the period of his “questioning.” He deliberately tilted the horn to let a dollop of the amber brew splash on the flagstone floor. A few drops wetted the priest’s feet, and Aethelric Thorkell’s newest pet, a two-meter long horror whose recent ancestors had been common gecko lizards, dragged its heavy body over the tiled floor and began lapping up the spill. As the long purple tongue touched the priest’s leg and lingered over open sores, Thorkell smiled to see the Kelt scum try to pull away.
The Celtic Mirror Page 22