Alvarez waved Rich Hall through to the front of the platform. ‘Okay, here it is,’ he said. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve only done this a couple of times before.’
He opened the shockproof case and pulled out four black rubber feet. ‘Shoes.’ Rocking the bomb carefully side to side, he wedged the feet underneath it. ‘The payload needs to be electrostatically isolated from ground, or this won’t work.’ Next, he picked up a drab plastic box, its upper face broken only by a winking red LED, a button, and a key slot. ‘Okay, now for the duct tape.’ With that, he pulled out a reel of duct tape and a box cutter, and taped the box to the top of the bomb. Finally, he held up a key: ‘Arming key.’ He inserted it in the slot and gave it a half turn, and addressed Alvarez: ‘ARMBAND is not yet armed. To activate it, it’s necessary to give the key another half-turn, then push the button. It beeps, then five seconds later, it does its stuff. You do not want to be touching it when that happens.’ He picked up his case and stepped back. ‘You have control now.’
‘I have control,’ Alvarez echoed. He nodded at Wall: ‘You’d better leave the platform now, sir.’
Is that all? Judith blinked again, feeling obscurely cheated. It was like black magic – a device that could transport a payload into another universe? – and yet it seemed so mundane.
‘Agent Herz?’ Colonel Smith prodded her.
‘Oh? I’m sorry.’ She nodded. ‘Major Alvarez?’ she called.
‘Ma’am.’ Alvarez and Hu were out of uniform – nobody wanted inconvenient questions about what army officers were doing in a field outside Concord – but nobody would mistake them for civilians, not with that crew cut and attitude. ‘I have the checklist.’
He knelt down beside the package and unclipped a panel on the detonation controller strapped to the side of the bomb. Pulling open a laminated ring-bound checklist, he began to flip through pages, periodically double-checking a switch position. ‘Check, please,’ he told Hu.
‘Check.’
‘I need the PAL code now.’
‘Here are your numbers.’ Herz read out the eight-digit sequence from the letter. The audience fell silent, like witnesses at an execution. As, in a manner of speaking, they were: Alvarez and Hu the hangmen, adjusting the noose; Herz the prison governor, handing over the death warrant; and parties unknown standing on the trapdoor . . . Well, at least they won’t feel a thing, she told herself. More than you can say for their victims, over the years. ‘Remember, we want a sixty-second delay. If the package doesn’t disappear in front of your eyes within ten seconds, then turn the ARMBAND key to the “safe” position and enter the abort code. Are you ready?’
‘We’re ready,’ Alvarez called.
‘Ready!’ Hu echoed.
Alvarez carefully closed the cover on the detonation controller, but – Herz noted – neglected to latch it shut. That wasn’t in the checklist, at a guess.
The silence was oppressive. Finally, Dr. James cleared his throat. ‘Major Alvarez, with the authority vested in me by the executive order I have received, I order you to proceed.’
*
Three days ago, the bulk of the Clan’s mobile security force had concentrated in a field near Concord, arriving in buses disguised as costumed medievalists. Now, in the predawn light, they’d made it three miles down the road – riding in the backs of steam-powered livestock trucks, disguised as filthy, fight-worn anachronists. Their leader, the duke, and his paramedic and bodyguards, led by the lady Olga, had split off ten minutes ago, heading for an uncertain rendezvous and a waiting ambulance. That left Carl, captain of Security, with a reduced command and a monstrous headache; but at least it was better than being bottled up in that stone death trap.
‘You’re sure this is the spot.’ He fixed Morgan with a well-practiced stare.
‘Yuh-ess.’ Morgan yawned hugely. ‘My apologies, sir Captain. We are two miles southwest of the gates of the Hjalmar Palace, fifty yards north of the milestone, and the cross yonder’ – he gestured – ‘marks the center of the road.’ The road was little more than a dirt track, but had the singular advantage of being a known quantity. ‘Last night the pretender’s forces were encamped a mile down the road from the gatehouse, dispersed in tents through the woods to either side. Watchers on the hill slope, of course. I cannot be sure – we have no recent intelligence – but I don’t believe the camp extended more than two miles down the road to Wergatsfurt. So we should be a few hundred yards beyond their rear perimeter, as of last night.’ ‘Right.’ Carl turned to Helmut. ‘Are the men ready?’ ‘As ready as we can be.’ Helmut’s normally taciturn demeanor was positively stony. Which wasn’t good.
‘How much ammunition did we end up leaving behind?’ ‘For the Dragons? Most of it. Stefan’s got just eight rounds. The SAWs are better – we divided up the belts. I’d say, three thousand rounds and two barrels per gun. And of course the light arms, we’re fully equipped from the castle’s armory. But food and water – it’s not good.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to do the job before that becomes an issue.’ Carl paused in thought. ‘Have the men dose up with prophylactics before we cross over. We need a marker for the crossover point on the other side’ – he pointed at the rough wooden cross that marked Morgan’s survey point – ‘and make sure everyone knows that if we move to retreat, that’s the rendezvous point. Have Olaf’s section position their M47 fifty yards forward of that marker, with one of the SAWs for covering fire’ – Carl paced towards the perimeter of the fenced-in field to which the Lees’ trucks had brought them – ‘the M47’s priority will be to take out the enemy M60s lest they bring us under beaten fire. Get Erik’s people to cross over here. Hmm. If there’s any sign of the Pervert’s bodyguard, Little Dimmir’s lance can concentrate on nailing them with support from Erik’s people, and Arthur’s SAW section if they’re dug in there.’ He continued laying out the deployment as Helmut and two sergeants followed him around the perimeter, making notes. It was all ad hoc, dangerously under-planned and hasty, but if there was one thing they didn’t have, it was time for a careful setup. Finally, he finished: ‘That’s it. Brief your men and get them into position. We go in, hmm, zero-six-hundred, that’s just under half an hour. Get moving!’
*
Otto’s itchy sense of unease grew stronger with every step he took towards the moat. Ahead of him, the roar of the royal cannon provided a drumbeat punctuation to the sounds of advance: men shouting, chanting the king’s name; boots tramping out the rhythm of the march in time to the beat of their drummers; horses clattering on the cobbled roadbed, neighing, jingling of kit; and periodically a spastic belch of machine-gun fire arcing overhead, crackling and whining off the stony roofline of the walls.
They’re not shooting back, he realized, a hundred yards past the gatehouse, as he paused in a dip in the ground. Sometime in the past couple of hours the witches had cleared out. Which means –
‘Forward for the Gruinmarkt!’ The voice behind the cry was half-hoarse, but instantly recognizable as the royal life guards took up the call. ‘The witches have fled before us!’ The life guards flooded forward like a pack of hounds following an injured deer.
‘Well, fuck it,’ Otto grunted. ‘Jorg!’
‘Sir.’
‘Tell Heidlor to set his guns up here and range in on the keep’s door. Indirect fire.’
‘Sir!’ Jorg paused. ‘But aren’t we – ’
‘Damn your eyes, do it!’
Otto raised his glasses and studied the near horizon, shockingly close. In the predawn gloom the castle was a brooding presence up ahead, its upper ramparts topping the huge dry moat beyond the rise. They’ve had two days to prepare for this, and they like blowing things up. What would I do in their shoes? ‘Jorg!’
Jorg, panting, hurried back towards him. ‘Sir?’
‘Tell Heidlor to range in on the keep’s door and to keep a watch out behind us, ranged in on the road past the gatehouse.’
‘The gatehouse, sir? But we came that way – ’<
br />
‘Exactly.’ Otto bared his teeth at the man; Jorg ducked his head hastily and ran back towards the gunners and their overloaded mules.
Otto settled down, kneeling, to watch the lines of advance. The lack of fire from the castle worried him, but he had scarcely raised his glasses again when a loud and hearty hail demanded his attention. ‘Ahem, my lord Neuhalle!’ The interruption leaned over the pommel of his horse to look down at Otto. It was Geraunt, Earl Marlburg, one of the king’s younger and more enthusiastic vassals.
‘Yes, Sir Geraunt?’ Otto stared up at him, annoyed.
‘His majesty sends word!’ Geraunt was obviously excited. He drew a message tube out of his sleeve and extended it towards Otto. ‘A change to your disposition. You are to turn around and withdraw to the gatehouse, there to cover the approaches to the castle, he says.’
‘Right.’ Otto took the tube. A wave of palpable relief washed through him. Not that he was a coward – certainly the past month of campaigning had given the lie to that – but the idea of advancing into a booby-trapped castle did not fill him with joy. If the king wanted him to stake out the approaches to the castle, against the stab in the back with a witch’s knife that Otto himself anticipated, then that was a reassuringly known quantity. More importantly it suggested that his majesty was, if not exactly sane, then no crazier than any other fox. ‘Can you tell me what his majesty intends?’
Sir Geraunt hunkered down, putting his horse between Otto and the keep. Otto looked up at him: ‘His majesty is most exercised; he says the witches have fled before him, and probably laid mines to bring down the keep, so he intends to secure the inner walls, then bring in sappers to find the – ’
The world flashed white, twice, in a tenth of the beat of a heart. Everything glared as bright as the face of the noonday sun, except for the knife-edge shadow of Sir Geraunt, freakishly cast across Otto’s upper body and head.
Otto blinked as a wave of heat washed across his skin. A giant the size of a mountain had opened the door of a kiln full of molten iron big enough to forge the hammer of the gods, and the glare surged overhead, stifling and oppressive. The sensation of heat faded over the duration of two heartbeats and he opened his eyes, but everything was blotchy and purple-white with afterimages. Was that an explosion? he thought numbly, as reflex or shock made him collapse back into the ground cover. What was left of Sir Geraunt’s mount, with what was left of Sir Geraunt still astride it, began to fall sideways into his depression. Neither of them lived, which was perhaps a mercy, because while Sir Geraunt and his horse were intact and unblemished on the side that fell towards Otto, their opposite side – that had faced the castle – was scorched to charcoal around a delicate intaglio of bone.
The castle was no longer there. Where the keep had crouched within its courtyard, shielded by the outer walls and their rammed-earth revetments, a skull-shape of dust and fire was rising, its cap looming over the ramparts like a curious salamander crawling from its volcanic home to survey its surroundings.
As Otto fell, a tornado-blast of fiery wind pulsed across the burning grass that covered the approaches to the castle, casting aloft the calcined bodies of the men and animals who had been caught in the open at the moment of the heat flash. Burning sticks and a shotgun blast of fractured gravel caromed off the ground. A scant second later the shock front reversed, sucking back towards the roiling bubble of flames as it rose from the center of the fortification on a stem of dirt and debris.
Otto inhaled a mouth-watering stench of cooking meat and hot air and tried to collect his scattered wits. Something was holding his legs down. He couldn’t see anything – just violet afterimages stubbornly refusing to fade when he screwed his eyes shut. Panicking, he tried to kick, but without vision he couldn’t see the dead horse lying atop him. His back was a dull mass of pain where he’d fallen, and the smell – Have they taken me down to Hel, the choosers of the slain? he wondered dizzily as he turned his damaged eyes towards the furious underside of the mushroom cloud.
*
Carl stared at the turbulent caul of smoke rising above the ridgeline and swallowed, forcing back the sharp taste of stomach acid at the back of his tongue. His head pounded, but his eyes were clear. Around him, soldiers stared slack-jawed at the ominous thunderhead. The predawn sky was just turning dark blue, but the fires ignited by the bomb brought their own light to the scene, so for the moment their faces were stained ruddy with a mixture of awe and fear.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ asked Helmut.
Baron Hjorth cleared his throat. ‘It can’t be,’ he said confidently. ‘They’re all supposed to be under lock . . . and key . . .’ He trailed off into an uncertain silence.
Carl took him by the elbow. More soldiers were spilling in out of the air, staggering or bending over in some cases – two world-walks in three hours was a brutal pace, even for the young and fit – and Carl had to step around them as he steered Oliver a hundred meters up the road in the direction of the castle. ‘That.’ He gestured. ‘Is a mushroom cloud. Yes?’
Oliver blinked rapidly. ‘I think so.’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve never seen one before.’
‘Well. Where the fuck did it come from?’
‘Don’t ask me!’ Oliver snarled. ‘I didn’t do it! God-on-a-stick, what do you take me for? All our bombs are accounted for as of last Tuesday except for the one Matthias’ – he stopped dead for a moment – ‘Oh dear.’
‘If that bastard Matthias – ’
Oliver cut him off with a slashing gesture. ‘Trust me, Matthias is dead.’ He closed his eyes, composing himself. ‘This is someone else. Sending us a message.’ He opened his eyes. ‘How old is that . . . thing?’
Carl glanced up, uneasily sniffing the air: The tang of wood smoke spoke of pine trees on the reverse slope ignited by the heat flash. ‘I don’t know. Not old – see the stem? It hasn’t drifted.’ His guts loosened as he realized. If I’d timed this just a little later we’d still have been there. He licked his thumb and held it up. There was a faint breeze from the south, blowing towards the castle. ‘Um. What, if anything, do you know about fallout?’
‘The poison rain these things shed? I think we should forget the Pervert and get your men out of here. Forced march. If you want to set up guns south of Wergatsfurt and catch any stragglers you’re welcome to them, but if they were camped a mile yonder’ – he gestured towards the cloud – ‘I don’t know. They might have survived, if they dug in for the night. Although I don’t give much for their chances if that fire starts to spread.’
Carl grinned humorlessly. ‘Have you ever known the Pervert to refuse a chance to stab us in the back, my lord? Dawn attacks a specialty, remember?’
Oliver shook his head.
‘Come.’ Carl turned his back on the cloud. ‘I’ll leave two men to scout the area in an hour’s time. The rest – let’s hit the road. I’ll have time to worry about whoever’s sending us messages when I’ve hunted down and killed the last of the pretender’s men.’
Behind them a dark rain began to fall on the battlefield, fat drops turbid with radioactive dust scorched from the stones of the castle and the bones of the men who had followed their usurper-king into the radius of the fireball. The survivors, burned and broken – those that could move – cupped their hands to catch the rain and drank greedily.
*
Otto Neuhalle, and the ten survivors of his company, were among them. They did not know – nor could they – that the man-portable nuclear weapon responsible for the fireball had a maximum yield of only one kiloton, and that such bombs are inherently dirty, and that this blast had been, by nuclear standards, absolutely filthy; that it had failed to consume even a tenth of its plutonium core, and had scooped up huge masses of debris and irradiated it before scattering it tightly around ground zero.
Dead men, drinking bitter rain.
REALIGNMENTS
‘If he’s dead, we’re so screwed.’
Brill’s fingers whitened on the steering wheel, bu
t Miriam took Huw’s gloomy appraisal as a conversational opportunity. They were coming less frequently today, as the reality of driving across a continent took hold. ‘Isn’t that a little pessimistic?’
Huw closed the lid of his laptop and carefully unplugged the cable from the satphone. He slid them both into their pockets in the flight case before he replied. ‘It’s not sounding good. They got him into the high dependency unit more than seventy-two hours after the initial intracerebral hemorrhage. He’s still alive, but he’s confused and only semiconscious and, uh, I’ve done some reading. More than forty percent of patients with that kind of hemorrhage die within a month.’
Yul, sprawled across the van’s third bench seat, chose that moment to emit a thunderous snore. Elena, who’d been lying asleep with her head in his lap, shuddered and opened her eyes, then yawned. ‘What?’
‘He’s not dead yet,’ Miriam observed. ‘He’s not going to die of anything nonmedical, not with Olga looking out for him. And he’s got the best treatment money can buy.’
‘Which is not saying a lot.’
Brill hunched her shoulders behind the wheel, pulling out to inch past a big rig. ‘Listen, Huw, why don’t you just shut up?’ she snapped.
‘Wha . . . ?’ Huw gaped.
‘Hush, Brill, he doesn’t know my uncle – his grace – like you do.’ Miriam glanced in her sunshade mirror and spotted Elena sitting up, clearly fascinated. ‘Sorry, but he’s right. I hope he does pull through, but the odds aren’t much better than fifty-fifty. And we ought to have some idea about what to do if we get there and . . .’ She trailed off, diving back into her thoughts.
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ said Brill. ‘I’m sorry, Huw. I should not exercise myself over your words. Many will be thinking them. But I feel so helpless.’ She thumped the steering column. ‘I wish I could drive faster!’
‘If you get pulled for speeding, and he does recover – ’ Elena began.
The Revolution Trade (Merchant Princes Omnibus 3) Page 14