The Glass Mountains: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 2

by J. V. Roberts

  “Who else?” Hause demanded as he shoved past a bleary-eyed pencil pusher carrying a stack of manila folders.

  “That’s all I know…for sure.”

  “We’ve got to assume that Caldwell and Reyes have corrupted the men under their command.”

  “Yes…sir.” Sweat dripped into Pinkerton’s one good eye. He momentarily went blind and stumbled up the next three steps.

  Hause looked back and shook his head with disgust. “Jesus Christ, Pinkerton. Pull yourself together.”

  “Yes…sir. Sorry…sir.”

  “Why are you just now bringing this to me? My own Minister of Defense tried to overthrow me and you expect me to believe that you knew nothing? All you boys are thick as thieves.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Perhaps they knew my loyalty to you and to the Union and didn’t want to risk having their treachery exposed.”

  “That’s very convenient for you, Pinkerton.”

  “Sir, as soon as I knew about it, I took action. I caught up with them outside of the Great Hall and I encouraged them to surrender.”

  “Encouraged?”

  “They had me outgunned. My words were the only weapons at my disposal.”

  “The line between cowardice and survival is a thin one, isn’t it, Pinkerton?”

  “Yes, sir, I suppose it is.”

  He was double the coward: too scared to fight with Dan and too scared not to fight against him. He’d tried to warn Dan the best he could. The truth was, at first, he didn’t know which way he was going to go on the issue. He’d given Dan’s proposal a lot of thought. He’d lost a whole damned night of sleep thinking about it. The idea of rebellion had its allure. It whispered sweetly in his ear, stimulating the little spark of chaotic youth that still lurked deep inside. But practicality had won the day. When he’d heard Hause turn the crowd, that’s when he knew on which side of the line he was pitching his tent. He loved Dan, he considered him a brother, and the last thing he wanted was to see him get hurt. But he had to think long term.

  Hause stopped on the sixteenth floor. There were two soldiers standing on the landing in full battledress, with rifles at the ready. Hause got in close on the first one and began talking down his nose at him. “Take a team over to Tower Two and lock down the farms. After that, you take half of them and lock down mechanical. You do it in that order. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Hause stepped up to the next soldier as the first one moved out. “Take a team…no, take two…and get down to the armory. The bastards can’t fight a war without weapons.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  After the two soldiers departed, Hause stood there, his back to Pinkerton, breathing in deep through his nose, his shoulders rising up around his ears.

  Pinkerton approached cautiously, wading through the knee-deep, bubbling cauldron of rage. “Uh, what would you like me to do, sir?”

  Hause sighed and rubbed at his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “You know Dan almost as well as I do, yes?”

  “I believe I know him pretty well.”

  “Lead this fight for me. End this war before it begins. Do that and I’ll make you Defense Minister.”

  “You have my word.” Pinkerton was smiling brightly as he worked his way down the stairs. When Hause was no longer in sight he broke into a clumsy jog, his feet carrying him faster than they had in years.

  ***

  The room was filled from front to back with sweaty soldiers. Caldwell and Reyes had done well. Their boys were kitted out and ready to roll when Dan walked in.

  “Your Captains have briefed you, so I’m sure you all know why you’re here. You don’t have long, so I’m going to lay it out to you plain and simple.” Dan took a deep breath, already feeling sweat beading up around his collar. “We’re going to start with the lobbies and work our way up. We go floor-by-floor. There’s one stairwell in each building, so as long as we clear each floor thoroughly, there’s no chance of us getting flanked. Reyes and his team will clear out the Tower Two lobby. Get those merchants out and lock it down tight. Caldwell and I, we’ll take Tower One. The goal here isn’t to shed blood. Anyone that wants to join up with us can. But if they raise a weapon or stand in your way, put them down.”

  “We’re not taking prisoners?” the voice belonged to a dark skinned soldier with a clean buzz cut.

  Dan shook his head. “We don’t have the manpower for that. I know you don’t like the idea of shooting fellow soldiers. Trust me, I hate it. This is new territory for all of us. Ideally, the Lord Marshal will see reason and this will end before it begins. But we have to be ready for the worst. Your Captains have relegated a few of you to me. I want four of you to go and lock down the armory.” Dan counted off four heads from the crowd. “Go now, there’s no time to waste on that. We need to control the flow of weapons.” The chosen four filed out of the room. “Any more questions?”

  A man in the second row, with oversized earlobes, raised his hand. “How many men do they have?”

  “It’s hard to say. You’ve got Hause’s personal guard. You’ve got Pinkerton and his men. Hause might decide to arm civilians against us. We just don’t know. But that’s worst case scenario. Chances are it won’t get to that point. Anyone else?”

  Silence.

  “Alright. Let’s move.

  6

  Dominic woke from a depthless sleep.

  The faint rattles of gunfire sounded like someone was tapping their knuckles against the other side of the ceiling. The battle was being waged somewhere on the surface, far above him. Within seconds the main dungeon guard, Buddy, was tearing ass down the hall, his belly proudly leading the way, the cell keys jingle-jangling against his hip. He was calling for Loviatar, ordering him to take up his hammer and follow.

  Perhaps the Rebels had finally made their play.

  Having Buddy off the hall was a small relief. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d awoken to find Buddy standing over him, twirling his favorite black club. He’d never had the sack to come at Dominic alone, Loviatar was always there, watching from the shadows, clutching his hammer, his eyes bulging from behind his leather shroud, thirsting for a reason to smash Dominic’s head. He wouldn’t give him one. He could take a beating, especially from a melted down piece of shit like Buddy.

  Dominic stood, wincing at the fresh bruises that lined his ribs. The cell smelled of stale piss. He stumbled to the door, catching himself on the bars, pressing his face against the cool metal. There were voices shouting at the other end of the hall, one of them belonged to Buddy. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying; the words broke against the walls and reached his ears as shattered syllables. Footsteps echoed in the stairwell as more gunfire reached down from above.

  It had to be the Rebels.

  The Wastelanders occupying the cells to his left and right probably felt a similar surge of excitement. If the Rebels pushed through, it meant freedom. But, for Dominic, it just meant that a different hand would be tying the noose around his neck. The Rebels were the only ones that wanted him dead more than Hause and the Union.

  “Hey, Saboteur, you there?” Derek’s frail whisper was his only identifying feature. He’d arrived two days after Dominic, blubbering and coughing blood. He was a caravan rider. He’d been accused of swindling some tower bitch out of a necklace. The accusation was all the Lord Marshal had needed to bury him. When Derek spoke, Dominic would close his eyes and picture the young man pressed up against the bars: probably thin, with wispy hair and deep-set eyes. It gave him something solid to latch his sanity to while drifting the eternal sea of time and darkness that had become his existence.

  “Got nowhere else to be.”

  “You think it’s the Rebels, come to bust us out of here?”

  “It’s someone. If it’s the Rebels, I doubt we’re their reason for being here.”

  “It’s got to be. There’s no one else out there looking to shoot up the Union.”

  “I reckon you’re
probably right.”

  “Boy, I hope so,” Derek’s voice warbled with excitement. “It’d be our lucky day, a lucky day for the both of us. I could get back to my folks and the caravan. You could find your lady.”

  “My lady…too much time has passed. She is no longer waiting for me.”

  Lerah.

  He’d made her a promise, given her his word, Wherever they take you, I’ll come for you. If Dominic was anything, he was a man of his word. His word blocked bullets and dulled blades. It’d taken him through the war. It’d gotten him and Lerah out of Reeman. But in the dungeon of Genesis, it seemed to have met its match. Behind stone and iron, hundreds of feet below the surface, his word had been rendered useless. Too many guns and bodies now stood between him and Lerah.

  “Don’t yap like that, hope is all we got down here, it’s the only thing they can’t take; don’t go giving it up so easy.”

  “The dark has a way of opening your eyes and giving you perspective. Rebels don’t like me much. Union don't like me much. No matter who comes down that hall, I’m not getting out of here in one piece.”

  “I ain’t done nothin’ to piss them off.”

  “No, I don’t reckon you have, I’m sure they’ll fold you back in without a hitch.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you did to get them so riled up at you.”

  “Not a story worth rehashing.”

  “Both of y’all are talking ass-up,” the voice belonged to Bones, Dominic’s other comrade in chains.

  “Go ahead, Bones. Get it out.” Dominic knew there was no use in trying to quiet him. Once Bones got to picking at a thought, his words came like an avalanche; whether he had to go around you or through you, he was going to reach his destination.

  Bones smacked his lips and clicked his tongue as if the words were a ball of glue he was trying to dislodge from his mouth. “Rebels ain’t coming down that hall. You really think Rebels stand a chance on Union turf? I bet they don’t even make it past the lobby.”

  “At least you’re not setting yourself up for disappointment.” Dominic thought Bones had a valid point. The Union would lock down the Towers. Every floor would become its own little fortress. They had the food, they had the weapons and the ammo, and they knew the battlefield; the Rebels didn’t stand a chance.

  “If the Rebels are attacking Genesis, then their emotion has overrun their good sense,” Bones said.

  “Or times have gotten desperate out there,” Derek replied.

  Dominic folded his arms against the door and propped his chin atop his wrists, he stared through the bars into the hall, watching the torchlight swim in the shadows. “Things change, but they don’t change that quick.”

  “I suppose not,” Derek mumbled, his light noticeably dimmer.

  The battle seemed to be heating up. The gunfire was constant, one string picking up where the other left off. Then there was an explosion. The ground rattled and loose bits of dust and plaster fell across the top of Dominic’s head.

  “Not sure how I feel about them using explosives, us being down here and all,” Derek said.

  “Didn’t sound like it had much punch.” Dominic had been blown up enough times to know the difference.

  “Surprised the Union is blowing up their own shit,” Bones said.

  “What makes you think it’s Union dropping the bombs?” Derek asked.

  “Rebels don’t have the time and resources to blow people up. They need the gunpowder for bullets and the scrap for trade,” Dominic said.

  “Still surprised they’re blowing up their own shit.”

  “I’m not.” Dominic could still feel the heat on his face from the explosive that had brought down the wall in Pepper’s Pub. “Push comes to shove, they don’t give a fuck.”

  “Maybe we’re fucked after all,” Derek said.

  Bones laughed. “You been fucked since that cell door slammed.”

  7

  Dan, Caldwell, and their team took the Tower One lobby without incident. There was a lot of yelling and confusion at first, but once they were able to surround the room, and get everyone calmed down, things had gone smoothly. The few soldiers present were compliant and agreed to join them, bolstering their numbers by a half-dozen.

  As Dan stood by the stairwell, discussing their next move with Caldwell, one of the four soldiers he’d ordered to take the armory came stumbling down the stairs. His head was cracked open and he had a bullet wound in his side.

  He fell into Caldwell and Dan’s arms, coughing and out of breath.

  “Take it easy, son. What happened?” Dan asked.

  It took a moment for the young soldier to gather his voice. “They killed us. They already had men there waiting. We didn’t stand a chance.”

  “This is not good,” Caldwell said, stating the obvious.

  Dan shook his head. “We can fix this. Get him into the lobby and get him stabilized. Give me six of your best men. We’ll take the armory.”

  “What about me?”

  “Check on Reyes. See how he’s doing over in Tower Two. If he’s got it locked down, link up with me.”

  “On it.”

  ***

  Dan led a contingent of six men out onto the third-floor stairwell of Tower One. They were greeted by a hail of gunfire from above. The bullets sparked the metal around them. Dan signaled to the two men at the rear of the column. They leaned out over the railing and laid down cover fire while Dan led the ascent towards the fourth-floor. High caliber rounds cracked past their heads. The view was constantly changing as Dan shifted his fan-of-fire. With every step, a new blind-spot appeared. They were almost to the fourth-floor, just two more steps, but those last two steps were by far the most dangerous leg of their journey. If there was someone waiting on the fifth-floor they’d be able to see down onto the fourth-floor landing without a problem; Dan and his men would be dead before they could turn their heads. Dan was tempted to peak around the small bend, but it was a gamble, the sort of gamble that wouldn’t give him a chance to win his money back if he lost. If there was someone waiting on that landing, there was no way of knowing who was on the other side of the trigger; could be some sweaty palmed recruit or it could be a fucking dead-shot. He had to figure out something. Retreat was no option. The fifth-floor contained the armory. It’d be a hell of a pressure point if they could take it; definitely worth the stretch.

  Dan turned to the man at his back and drew him in close. “Fourth-floor is a kill zone.”

  “Yes, sir! What’s the move?” The kid had never seen battle. Had never shot his gun with deadly intent. His face was too fresh and there was a nervous tremble in his chin. An hour ago he’d been tending the stables, brushing and watering the horses. Caldwell had ripped him from one of the stalls and dropped him to his knees in front of Dan. He was given two choices: fight with them or die with horse shit on his boots. Dan didn’t know his name and he didn’t want to. It probably wouldn’t matter in the next few minutes anyway.

  “You and that boy behind you are going to lay down a wall of fire on that position when I give the signal, pucker their assholes a bit. I’ll take care of the rest. Get back there and let your partner know the play.” Dan heard footsteps on the stairs between the volleys of gunfire and turned to find Caldwell and a handful of men gathering at the rear of their company.

  Caldwell slapped Dan on the back as he crouched beside him. “How’re things, boss?”

  “Shooting and getting shot at. What’s the word?” Dan flinched as a wayward bullet ricocheted off the railing in front of his face.

  “Good news and bad news.”

  “War always is.”

  “We’ve got the first and second-floor of Tower Two locked down tight.”

  Mechanical was on the second-floor. “Good, that means we control the electricity.”

  “We sent the caravans and Outlanders back out into the Wastes and locked down the lobby. We got most of the men down there to join us.”

  “Most?”

 
“We had to put a couple of them down, they weren’t going to budge.”

  “New guys?”

  Caldwell shook his head. “Old timers. Pinkerton’s sort.”

  Old soldiers weren’t just set in their ways, they were cemented in them. Nothing was an adventure for them anymore, it was old hat. They’d seen it all. They’d done it all. They knew what worked and what didn’t—or so they thought. Hause’s leadership was something that had worked for them for too many years, there was no going back. Dan hated knowing that the blood of fellow soldiers was on his hands, but there was no other option. “We can’t see what’s coming at us from the front if we’re constantly guarding our asses.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “Hause’s men hold everything else in Tower Two. That means the farms, all of the food, the clean water.”

  That wasn’t good. “We’ll worry about that when we have to. Ichako should have some food behind the bar, stored up for the caravan riders.”

  “There won’t be much and it won’t keep long.”

  “It’ll have to do for now.”

  “You and your boys making a go at the armory?”

  Dan nodded. “We could use the help.”

  “You’ve got it, just call the play.”

  “We’ve got a hell of a blind spot. I’m willing to bet the last coin in my pocket that there’s a group of them waiting for us to pop our heads out.” His men were still laying down cover fire from the third-floor landing, the concussions filling the air and blowing chunks out of his sentences, but Caldwell seemed to be following along just fine. “Those two boys behind you are going to do a little pray and spray. I’m going to charge out and start drawing beads on their asses; I could use an extra gun to help me clear it.”

  “You’ve got it.” Caldwell checked the magazine on his rifle and chambered a round.

  Dan waved the two-man fireteam into position. They squeezed to the front of the pack, staying so low that their knees almost dragged against the grated floor. They exchanged a silent three-count and slid out onto the landing, firing as they moved, holding down the trigger, making no effort to conserve ammo; it was all about shock and awe. Their magazines would click dry in a matter of seconds, but that was all the time Dan and Caldwell needed. They ran in behind them, foot over foot, their sights fixated on the fifth-floor landing. Dan saw three men, retreating backward towards the center door as the bullets embedded in the wall just above their heads. He and Caldwell drew up to full height. They each squeezed at the same time. Both of them landed headshots, killing two of Hause’s men. The third turned to run and was just about out of sight when Dan planted a bullet in the center of his back. He fell out of sight, screaming.