"But why--?"
"Yukana, this is no time to explain. I'll tell you later. Right now you and Absod and I have work to do. Are you strong?"
"She got up to that roof, Buke." Absod had finished her report. "And we've got the okay to take our position in the loft. Flex-cars will back off and the fogging unit will hold, too. But they'll both cover the scaffold, keep the habitantes from coming up onto the roof in case they get that notion. The men know now that the scaffold is there." She looked at Yukana. "How big is the hole you can see through from the loft?"
"Not very big. Nobody can see it unless they're really looking hard. But we could take out another panel. Are we going to jump them from up there?" Yukana's Sisterband identity began to re-emerge.
"No, but we might want to use tanglestick. That's--"
"That's a spray that drops down over a criminal and captures and freezes him, like a spider's web," finished Yukana. "It doesn't hurt them, though."
"Right," smiled Absod. "Well, we'll have to see when we get there. Will you help us get your folks out of this?"
"Yes, Ma'am, Captain!" She held up her hand in the half-womb salute.
Absod grinned, fitting her own thumb and forefinger to Yukana's to make the full-womb salute. "Good, tyrotrooper! Let's go!" She nodded to Bukhari and the two Daggers stepped into their spooning position, placing Yukana in front of them. They uttered an incantation barely audible to Yukana, and then the three of them pushed upward into the sky, and swooped down toward the shul.
And thus it was that Tyrotrooper Yukana Asachi secured a leave from Captain Aru Boko's Lowland Foot-Shrieves and the Fighting Sisterband in order to carry out a high priority mission with the Flying Daggers.
* * * * * * * * *
Sub-Aga Dimitria Iorga laid open the flatscreen for Marshal Alexa Litulescu, miles away at Bucharest's western dispatch center where she faced her transmitted image of Iorga's flatscreen diagram. The projection showed not only the exact location and capability of all flex-cars and Foot-Shrieves, but also a plot of the shul itself, including the two Flying Daggers who crouched with their young guide above the gathering room of the building. A dotted line circumscribed the area occupied by the hundred or so hostages, and depth swipes demonstrated the relative layout of benches, steps, bimah, and lighting fixtures. Four red triangles blinked at points approximately equidistant from each other on the perimeter of the dotted line. As Iorga made her report, brief whistles accompanied the occasional shifting of the squares that represented Femmedarmes or flex-cars outside the building.
"What you see," Iorga told her superior, "is projections from sonar-Kurlian units combined with sub-vocal descriptions from Bukhari-Gert-Absod as they observe from above." The Femmedarme's voice faded momentarily as she leaned back to check the elevation and location of her own parked flex-car. "The two 'Darmes are in constant verbal flow, reporting everything said or done in the room below. Their guide is able to identify every one of the hostages. We are recording all we get from them for reference. And we're working to define the positions of individual hostages inside the dotted line."
Iorga paused. "The habitantes are taking their orders from Ángel Espartero. Ángel stands here now," she said, pointing to the triangle on the west side of the hall, "still with the short-barrel uzi in the rebbe's back." She highlighted the blue circle by the triangle. "Here's the sharpshooter, Gabriel Girardon, across from him in front of the Ark on the east wall. Gabriel's nervous, keeps wiping sweat, rubbing his arms.
"Every now and then Ángel raves," the Sub-Aga continued. "He apparently had Girardon make a little show of his marksmanship, then he and Cuza appeared at the street door holding the rebbe in front of them as they repeated their demands."
Marshal Litulescu pointed with her own lumerod to the shul's street door. "That was here?" she asked.
"Right," Iorga said, following the light, "south side."
"No chance to stun them?"
"Not with the rebbe in front of them." Iorga then drew her own lumerod to another pairing of a triangle and a circle, this time at the building's north side. "When Victor Cuza came back into the hall, he took up a position here at the bimah. He has his gun in the neck of one of the women . . . ah, they say her name's Hasora, Hasora Nelavrancea. Bukhari reports that it is not an automatic weapon as we first thought, but probably a single barrel shotgun, as best she can determine from right above him there at the bimah." She moved her lumerod toward the foyer, across from Cuza.
"Lucas Dobruja carries the big M-60. He's guarding the street entrance. Bukhari and Absod report that he had ripped up the ceiling with that thing." She paused. "Both Dobruja and Ángel are mass killers," she added. "Either one of them could take a notion at any time to wipe out all of the hostages."
The Marshal drew in a long breath. "No accident that they are the ones with the automatic fire-power." Another pause. "Looks like all four are fairly close to the big group."
"Yes," answered the Sub-Aga, "all four of them are approximately ten feet from the crowd."
"Close enough to scare everybody out of their pants," muttered Marshal Litulescu.
"Bukhari says they're plainly scared but very calm. They've got a regular conversation going on, with lots of people from the group speaking up. Every now and then Girardon or Dobruja will yell at them to shut up, or Ángel or Cuza will threaten to waste the rebbe or Hasora. Then they do get quiet, but only for a little while. They're trying now, if you can believe it, to reason with the habitantes." Iorga paused. "Ma'am, Ángel gave us half an hour. That was. . . seventeen minutes ago. We're holding for your orders."
"And you keep on holding. I'll have Magister Lutu's go-ahead for negotiations as soon as she and Hedwoman Miaorescu complete their conference."
There was silence from the Sub-Aga. Then, "Ma'am, with respect, I don't think they'll negotiate. They aren't just trying to escape. And they're not just demanding that they'll be protected from Habitante Testing. They say that the whole proposal for the Testing and the Protocols is unconstitutional and inhumane. They want assurance that no habitante will ever have to be subjected to such dictates."
"Sub-Aga Iorga," came the Marshal's chilly reply, "I am acquainted with those demands. You yourself referred them to me, very clearly and efficiently. But nobody, not I, not Hedwoman Miaorescu, not the Kitchen Table or the Central Web, not all three of the Magisters or the whole of the Kanshoubu, can guarantee those things." Litulescu's voice was tinged with despair. "The most they could do is grant these four men immunity to any future use of the Testing or the Protocols, and even that would encourage others to riot for the same favor."
The Marshal was brisk again. "But yes, we negotiate. We try everything and anything that might insure the well-being of the people in that building. Is that understood?"
"'Stood, Marshal."
"Other questions or comments?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Good. I'm out." She broke the connection.
Sub-Aga Dimitria Iorga had seen Cuza's eager face as he held the shotgun to the rebbe's temple. She'd heard the arrogance in Ángel's voice as he shouted out the unnegotiable demands. She shook her head, looked at her chronometer, and returned to her monitoring duties.
* * * * * * * *
In the gathering room, small groups sat on the benches or stood holding each other, watching their four captors, encouraging each other with glances and barely perceptible nods. No longer focusing on the bimah, they faced in every direction, variously drawn or repelled by the threat that met them on all sides. Girardon had forced Avrom and Livia from their protection of the Ark to seats on a bench. Widow Sandvei sat fanning herself. Vabili Tatosbuc stood with his arm around a taller man, his life partner, Eleazer Ben Asher. The eyes of both of Yukana Asachi's mothers constantly roamed the room, still in search of their offspring. Other children were holding close to adults or sitting with puzzled faces in conspicuous inactivity.
Up in the loft, Femmedarme Bukhari lay with a stunner poised at a small concealed
opening in the ceiling. Absod and Yukana lay a few inches away by another hole, a second stunner resting beside them. When someone spoke aloud down in the gathering room, Absod would repeat the words a split-second later into the sub-vocal transmitter on her wrist, even as she continued to listen. When there was no one speaking in the room below, Yukana would take up her soundless whispering into Absod's ear, and Absod would repeat those words into the transmitter.
"The one with the prayer book is Naomi Isachs," Yukana breathed. "She's a postal worker. And a writer. Nicolai is beside her, her daughter. Bela is her husband. He's with their other daughter, Silvie, over there, in front of the man at the street door."
Absod moved her lips against Yukana's ear. "That's Dobruja."
Yukana watched Dobruja with his big gun striding stolidly back and forth across the entranceway, covering both the front doors and the gathered people. His boots marked a sharp rhythm on the wooden floor. Occasionally a slap to the side of his weapon coincided with one of his steps, escalating the room's uneasiness.
Across from him on the bimah and almost under the Femmedarmes in the loft, Cuza was shifting from one foot to the other, watching the crowd, occasionally glancing at the end of the shotgun which nestled behind Hasora Nelavrancea's ear.
"What's your name?" Hasora's voice was even, almost conversational.
He looked at her. "Cuza. I'm Cuza," he stammered.
"Cuza. My name is Hasora." She held her shawl easily around her shoulders.
Cuza nodded sharply. Hasora nodded back. Mild panic crossed Cuza's countenance. He pushed the gun tighter against the woman's neck, placed a deliberate scowl on his face, and looked out over the crowd.
Rebbe Sarah Bas Miriam was imbued with cool intention. She stood calmly against the muzzle of Ángel's uzi. Ángel leaned a little upon the west wall, breathing shallowly. At every opportunity, Rebbe Sarah spoke. She spoke to give strength to her people, she spoke to disturb her captor. Each time she spoke, Ángel would jerk to attention and command her silence, pushing the uzi harder under her ribs.
When Rebbe Sarah was not speaking, others were, to each other and to the habitantes. They quoted Moshe, the Talmud, obscure and even spurious texts. They told stories. They questioned, challenged, cajoled, admonished, and in every possible way agitated politely, testing and pushing the limits of their captors' endurance until one or another of the four men exploded again into invectives and threats. After a lull, someone else in the assemblage would dare to speak.
Gabriel Girardon was not in good shape. His big body sweated and ached and itched. He had replaced the Weatherby rifle's four-shot magazine and stood now letting it drift from one figure to another in the crowd, sometimes drawing a careful bead over the iron sights, more often simply pointing the weapon and watching his targets shift nervously. He risked letting go of the trigger long enough to rub his arm. Jesus, his flesh crawled.
We're all on the edge, he thought to himself. No sleep in the last eighteen hours, and then pulling off a number like that, a prison revolt unparalleled in history. He had to hand it to Ángel. Their plan had gone like clockwork, right up to the big hitch, when they lost their chance for Femmedarme hostages and had to improvise.
He figured civilian hostages were even better. And this bunch was fascinating -- for all their curls and costumes, they were high-spirited and downright brazen. He shouldered the Weatherby and settled the sights on the older woman fanning herself and hugging a small boy. Then on two men with their arms around each other. Everybody, in fact, was holding somebody. He played the rifle in a slow figure-eight over the crowd.
His mind flashed back to the Depot, to Big Stone lying in his own blood, smiling and talking about the animals with his last breath. Gabe pursed his lips and pushed down the pressure that rose behind his eyes. Such a good man. Baldy, you were such a good man. Then there was Ángel with his thin little smile, Ángel stroking the hot shotgun. Fucking fool.
Well, Ángel was having his problems today, across the room there with the rebbe. Now that was a piece of work, he thought, the rebbe. She was faintly familiar, like maybe he'd seen her on space westerns or holofests. He relaxed his vigilance a moment to work his neck in a circular stretch and wipe his face on his sleeve.
She had acted up again, that woman, calling out to the other people and reassuring them of their ultimate safety. She was giving Ángel too much lip. He'd blow her into the middle of next week without batting an eye. This time, he noticed, Ángel had responded by seizing the rebbe's sash, jerking it from her body with his free hand and slipping it under both of her upper arms so he could hold her arms behind her. Gabe scratched his wrist against the rifle stock.
In the loft, Yukana whispered, "Bela is talking now." She leaned down to hear.
Bela Isachs had turned between two benches, directing his words to the whole group and to each of the habitantes.
". . . that many of us here, perhaps most of us, are in absolute sympathy with your demands. We hold that no one has the right to tamper with the body of another, and that includes habitantes. But what you ask for no one is able to grant at this time." Bela started to walk with Silvie toward the rest of their family several yards away.
"Hold it!" shouted Gabriel, waving his rifle. "You don't move!"
Bela protested gently, "I am simply trying to--"
Gabriel fired a shot into the ceiling. "Stop, I said!"
Bela froze in his steps.
The shot pinged off a light fixture near the watchers in the loft. Momentarily, Absod paused in her transmission. Then she and her companions touched each other in reassurance that they were safe.
Cuza exploded at Ángel. "Balls, Ángel! Let's blast out of here! These--"
"Shut up, Cuza!" Ángel left off his attempt to immobilize the rebbe's hands behind her back. He dug the gun under her ribs and scanned the room. "Time, Lucas!"
Dobruja stopped his pacing and consulted his wrist watch. "They got seven minutes." He stood spread-legged and dropped the M-60 to his hip, waving it back and forth in a belligerent promise.
Ángel snatched at one of the rebbe's rebellious arms. "What's happening in the street?"
Dobruja stepped back into the foyer and crouched, peering out the broken window. "Flex-cars haven't moved. Nothing's moving."
"Then we don't move. Not yet." Ángel scanned the room.
The wait went on. Dobruja punctuated the silence with his resumed pacing. Cuza swallowed. And swallowed again. Gabriel swiped his face with his sleeve and panned the rifle over the crowd. Ángel tightened his one-handed hold on the rebbe's sash.
In the loft, Absod began transmitting again. "Only a warning shot. We are holding stunfire, as ordered, unless they fire on one of the hostages. Our range is doubtful anyway, except for Cuza directly below us." She continued describing the scene, concentrating on Ángel now, who was fretting visibly because the rebbe's arms kept resisting his binding of them behind her back.
"Brother Gabriel!" Ángel boomed suddenly "Focus on this target!" He pointed to the rebbe's forehead. As Gabe shifted his rifle, Ángel very deliberately laid his uzi on the floor beside him and wrenched Rebbe Sarah's arms behind her. He began securing them with a jerk that drew her body into an erect and strained posture.
The ambience of the gathering room had begun to shift. Breaths got shorter. Bodies grew rigid. Eyes moved in quick glances and met other eyes. Livia Radischev's hand found Avrom's and wrapped it in a slow strong squeeze. Hasora, pushed against the podium on the platform, stretched her head to the side, as if to slip away from the muzzle at her neck. Cuza responded to her gesture by expelling a rough expletive and pushing the barrel deeper under her jaw.
Widow Sandvei, no longer fanning herself, was drawing her nephew's small body closer to her on the bench and filling her other arm with two girlchildren. She closed her eyes and listened to the rhythms in her head. Then she let the rhythms touch her vocal cords and began gently to hum a little tune, a niggun. One of her neighbors began humming softly with her
and then brought the wordless melody into a full sound.
Livia and Avrom, across the room from Widow Sandvei, picked up the melody with their voices. Others in different parts of the shul began to join in the open-mouthed humming, tentatively at first, and then more pointedly.
Dobruja stopped his pacing and looked around the shul, trying to locate the singers in a mass of slightly open-mouthed people. "Shuddup!" he shouted, "Shuddup!"
Throughout the shul the volume rose.
"Shuddup, shuddup!" Dobruja yelled again. "Stop the ya-ya-ing!"
The ya-ya-ing grew perceptibly louder.
The instant after Ángel's command, Gabriel Girardon raised his rifle and found himself in a distorted world. At the end of his aim stood Rebbe Sarah Bas Miriam. Her face seemed huge, completely covering his field of vision. The crosshairs of a telescopic sight rested on her brow, just as if he were sighting through a high-powered Leupold 1-4X. He blinked both eyes and lowered the rifle.
The whole scene was normal size again -- the rebbe resisting Ángel, Ángel behind her affixing her bondage, the scattered energies in the room beginning to coalesce into some dangerous pattern, the rifle sporting no scope at all but only its ordinary iron sights. Gabe fought off a fuzziness in his head. He wiped a wet hand on his thigh and re-shouldered the weapon.
There was her head again, like on a huge screen, and the crosshairs, too, quivering on her temple. As she yielded finally to Ángel's successful capture of both her arms, Rebbe Sarah tilted her chin further upward in defiance. Gabriel began shaking. He did know her! He'd seen this woman before, the translucent skin, the strong jaw . . . Stone's doxy! The vixen tattooed on Big Stone's arm! At that moment, the rebbe turned her full face toward the rifle barrel and fixed Gabriel with flashing black eyes. Philipa, his Wicked Step-Sister!
Gabriel uttered a low cry and stepped backward, struggling to keep the rifle on target. And still her face filled his vision. He blinked both eyes open again and looked around, drinking in with glad relief the reality of normal-sized people nodding their heads and singing, the truth of Dobruja's shaking the M-60 as he railed at the louder intonations, the sight of Ángel drawing the rebbe into a rigid stance as he tightened the sash into a knot at her back. Thus heartened, Gabriel took his aim again . . . and stood galvanized, staring incredulous at the magnified target, at the black eyes that probed his own.
The Kanshou (Earthkeep) Page 18