Latitude Zero

by James Axler

  "Bridge," Jak said, pointing a quarter mile ahead of them.

  It was immensely high, made from weathered timber and cross-laced with steel and wire. There was no handrail and only a narrow walkway on the right-hand side, less than a yard away. Beyond the gorge they could see the scattered buildings of the ville, with the train standing there, smoke trickling from the gleaming stack.

  "There the villain hides," Doc announced.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  "THAT IS TRULY a perilous drop," Doc said, peering down over the rickety rail.

  "Five, maybe six hundred feet," Mildred agreed.

  "I'm amazed that heavy loco wag and all the coaches made it across. You can feel it shaking under your boots," J.B. Dix stamped his feet to prove his point.

  The river tumbled and pounded its way over saw-toothed rocks, throwing up a shimmering rainbow veil of spray. Far below, on the western bank, they could just make out a narrow road, worming its way toward the south.

  "If that was navigable, we could take it down toward the Grandee," Krysty said.

  "White water rafting was popular among some of the thin-lipped fellows who worked on Overproject Whisper. Said it made their blood race. I admit that it never occurred to me that anything other than ice coursed through their veins."

  Doc's words made everyone lean, cautiously, on the rail and stare into the sounding deeps of the gorge. To Ryan the idea of taking any sort of water wag over those foaming rocks smacked of total and utter insanity.

  "What next?" Jak asked, turning away and looking toward the distant ville. "Fuck!"

  "What?"

  "Light off glass. Some bastards watching."

  Ryan looked around at the darkening sky. "It'll be Strasser. He'll be surprised if he sees us."

  "How do we get in at him?" J.B. asked.

  Ryan turned from the hypnotic attraction of the distant river and looked along the narrowing rails that arrowed deep into the heart of the township. His guess put it at around two and a half miles, with the valley close in on either side. The trees would give them plenty of cover if they wanted to try to attack Strasser in his headquarters.

  The wind rose in a whistling gust, and he felt the movement of the high wooden trestles trembling beneath his feet.

  And an idea came to him.

  "WHAT D'YOU SEE, RAFE?"

  The lieutenant laid down his nunchakus and took the high-power glasses from his boss's hand. He focused them where Strasser pointed, beyond the locomotive, toward the distant, shimmering skeleton of the bridge. The clouds were sailing lower, and the light wasn't as good as it had been.

  "Mebbe people."

  "Mebbe?"

  Rafe sniffed, then tried to bring the image to greater clarity. "Yeah. People. Four. Six. Eight. No more'n eight, boss."

  "You make any of them?"

  "Hell, no! Not at this distance."

  Strasser snatched the glass back. "By dog guts and stinking death! It must be Cawdor. But how did he get this far this fast? Horse wouldn't have done it for him."

  "Maybe he's a witch," said Rosa, who sat in a broken chair on the porch of the old house.

  "Sure, Rosa, sure. They're witches, and they flew up here on white rats." Strasser turned toward her, his face working in one of his frequent rages. The tip of the quirt slashed down on the arm of the chair, missing her wrist by a scant inch. The metal tip tearing a furrow in the wood.

  "Sorry, Cort, sorry. Please, don't—"

  "Still more of us than them, boss," Rafe interrupted, saving the woman from a whipping.

  "That's true. But we lost us twenty or more to One-Eye. We chilled some of those peasants, but not any of them."

  "They're just coming in straight along the rails," Rafe told him. "They got a lot of nerve, no?"

  Strasser watched for a few minutes, biting his twisted lip. "No good trail off either side, is there? So, if we took them by surprise we could hunt them down before they even got back to the bridge."

  "Be close, boss."

  "Sure, sure. What's the odds? This side of the bridge or that side. Don't matter which it is. We can split them up. Maybe chill some."

  Rafe picked up the glass and looked through it once more. A shaft of sunlight darted through the chem clouds and illuminated the valley, turning the dull metal of the rails to glittering silver and giving him a better view of the attacking group.

  "One's got red hair, boss. And one…one's got white hair. Or some kind of white hat with—"

  "Triple-stupe son of a poxed gaudy slut! That's the snow-head kid, Jak."

  "Six in all. Shit." The sun went in again, and it was no longer possible to see with any clarity.

  Strasser picked up his Russian sniper's rifle from the three-legged table. "Doesn't matter. We'll go for them. Here's how we do it."

  STRASSER COULDN'T resist the bait that was dangled ahead of him. The idea that he could take Ryan Cawdor out in the open, helpless, was too attractive. To take power over the helpless was Cort Strasser's ideal of paradise. But he was too careful to risk his own neck out there.

  With Rafe, Rosa and one of his gunmen, named Mendoza, Strasser retreated deeper into what had once been a trendy little tourist town. One of its attractions had been a military museum, and Strasser had been delighted to find a small arma wag from World War Two that he'd been able to put into running order. It was now fueled up and ready to go.

  Just in case something went wrong.

  All the remaining survivors of his gang were aboard the train—four in the driving cab and the rest scattered along the coaches, the barrels of their M-16s protruding through the windows. Strasser had ordered them to raise steam and not engage the forward gear until the needle on the gauge was teetering into the red.

  It was a matter of fine judgment for the black-clad former sec boss of Mocsin to wait until Ryan and the others were fully committed, out in the open, yet not let them close enough for the one-eyed man to use his lethal long gun.

  The distance from the bridge to the ville was about two and a half miles. From a standing start, the locomotive would reach the bridge in somewhere near four minutes and thirty seconds.

  Ryan and his companions couldn't hope to cover a half mile of rough ground in less than five minutes, which made the sum fairly easy for Strasser to calculate.

  "About a half mile, boss," Rafe said, watching carefully through the glass.

  "Give them the signal."

  The sallow-faced man leaned out of the window and fired off the stubby Very pistol. A maroon star shell floated into the dark sky. The loco wag gave a piercing whistle and began to move into shuddering life.

  From their high observation point, Strasser and the other three watched and waited, seeing the tiny dots halt and then begin to move quickly back along the tracks.

  "We'll take them." Strasser sighed. "What's in that hut by the bridge? Not a place they can hole up in, is it?"

  Mendoza replied, "No chance, boss. Just full of junk. Railroad stuff. Bits of wood and rail, rags and grease and stuff."

  Strasser turned slowly, his eyes blazing.

  Mendoza backed away, seeing death in the etched lines of uncontrollable rage.

  "What? What's that?"

  "Just the stuff in—" He stopped as the whip tore across his face, opening the flesh of his cheek with the silky ease of a razor. Blood gushed over the man's shirt as he lifted his hand to the deep gash. "Boss! Why?"

  "You said grease, idiot!"

  "Yeah."

  Strasser looked away, watching his train as it gathered momentum across the floor of the valley, the smoke streaming behind it. His nails clenched into the palms of his hands with impotent anger as his tactical brain saw the threat.

  RYAN'S PLAN was simple. Even with a good glass he knew they couldn't identify everyone at such range, or even count them accurately if they kept moving. He also knew that when it came to the sprint, Doc and Mildred wouldn't keep up. So, they'd talked it through.

  As soon as they saw the jetting of smo
ke that told them the loco was on the move, they all began to run back toward the bridge. But once they'd covered a hundred and fifty yards, Doc and Mildred cut away along a narrow deer trail to the left, vanishing among the trees, leaving J.B., Krysty and Jak to run on alone.

  "RAFE!"

  "Boss?"

  "Go and get the arma wag ready."

  He turned to Mendoza. "And stop that fucking blood will you? Rosa, wipe his face."

  The woman stood and walked languidly across the floor, touched the stream of crimson with her finger, raised it to her lips and sucked at it, eyes half-closed.

  Rafe hesitated in the doorway. "Why aren't we waiting, boss?"

  Strasser's eyes gleamed in the pits of wind-scoured bone. "Because I think Ryan Cawdor's thought up an ace on the line for us."

  "How?"

  Strasser didn't reply, and his lieutenant walked quickly from the building.

  "How?" Rosa asked through red-smeared lips.

  "Watch."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AS HE RAN, Ryan was conscious of the sticky, slippery grease that coated his hands. He'd tried to wipe some of it off on the tufts of dry grass near the end of the bridge, but there hadn't been that much time.

  A risky glance over his right shoulder told him that the train was gaining fast. Its brightly painted cowcatcher ate up the yards as it thundered closer to them. Even in that one stolen look he saw the white puff of smoke from a rifle, fired by someone leaning from the window of the cab, but he wasn't aware of the bullet coming anywhere near.

  "Gonna be close!" Krysty yelled, sprinting lightly at Ryan's elbow, hair like streaks of living fire.

  Jak tried to look behind at the train and tripped over some loose ballast, recovering his balance with miraculous agility.

  Ryan wished that he'd hidden the G-12 caseless before setting out on the dangerous scheme. The strap was loose, and the butt kept jolting him in the small of his back. But there was no time now for second thoughts or hesitation.

  They were less than four hundred yards from the end of the bridge, but the locomotive was huffing and puffing at their heels. Ryan didn't hear the sound of the shot above the noise of the pounding engine, but he saw the flick of dust at the edge of the track, where it was overgrown with twining weeds. From the rattling, jerking cab of the loco wag, it was good enough shooting.

  Now he saw J.B., kneeling in the undergrowth among some laden thimbleberry bushes, holding his Steyr pistol in his right hand, waiting patiently for the moment.

  The runners were twenty yards from their mark. A strip of ragged cloth tied to the lower branch of one of the adjacent pinon pines.

  There had once been a U-shaped drainage ditch, but over the years it had been partly filled with leaf mold and blown earth. But it was still a deep hollow, more than six feet across.

  "Watch your feet on the rails!" Ryan yelled, seeing that the steel at their feet was now dulled with a thick layer of smeared grease, grease that ran all the way onto the towering trestle bridge over the gorge.

  A bullet hit the oiled metal by Ryan's feet and sang, sparking off into the shadowed gloom beneath the trees.

  They'd reached the mark and all three dived together into the soft dirt of the hole. The lumbering bulk of the loco wag was above them, the sudden screaming of brakes almost deafening.

  Normally, at the speed that it was traveling, the train would have had no problems in grinding swiftly to a halt, giving the surviving members of Strasser's gang a good chance of pursuing and chilling Ryan and his companions.

  But the thick layer of age-old grease and oil that had smothered the rails gave the braking system no chance.

  From the cover, Ryan crouched to watch the last carriage roll past them. He glimpsed a swarthy face, peering at him, boggle-eyed, from the observation car at the back.

  The wheels were no longer revolving, skidding along the rails, drawing ever closer to the high bridge, where J. B. Dix was waiting.

  Back at the ville, Cort Strasser stared back, stone-faced, seeing events unfold precisely as he'd feared.

  "GO, BABY, GO," Krysty breathed, craning her neck to watch the sliding locomotive.

  "They'll jump," Jak predicted.

  "Doubt it." Ryan shook his head. "They'll be angered, but they won't guess."

  The cowcatcher on the front of the loco wag was now moving onto the bridge, the ponderous weight making the entire structure quiver and shake.

  To the side, J.B. narrowed his eyes behind the glinting lenses of his spectacles, finger curling over the trigger of the 5.6 mm blaster. He'd be aiming for the chunk of plas-ex that was jammed between two of the main bracing timbers. J.B. always tried to keep up his supply of armaments whenever he could, but he'd run perilously low on the high-impact explosive.

  In another half minute he'd know whether he'd had enough.

  Now the train had reached the end of the greased strips of steel, its wheels finally beginning to bite and slow its impetus. The front of the locomotive was virtually in the middle of the bridge, the wheels spinning again as the driver slammed the engine into reverse.

  "Now," Ryan whispered.

  The crack of the pistol was muffled by the pounding of the loco wag. J.B. winced instinctively, ready for the expected explosion, but nothing happened. He peered through the branches and hissed between his teeth with exasperation. There was a gouged splinter of white wood about a half inch below the dark shape of the plas-ex. The Armorer took careful aim and fired again, conscious that the ornate train was already beginning to crawl backward from the bridge.

  The detonation was surprisingly quiet, overlaid by the raging rapids far below and the shrieking of the loco wag's whistle. But J.B. had carried out the placement of the plas-ex with the greatest care, picking a spot where main timbers would be torn apart, ripping away supporting cables and iron bars.

  Ryan climbed onto the track, staring at the drama beginning to slowly unfold before him. Krysty and Jak were at his side, and Doc and Mildred were jogging down behind them, stepping from sleeper to sleeper.

  The bridge began to unfold itself, like a child's tower of twigs. Wires twanged and parted, and metal twisted and sheared. Wood splintered, sending showers of dust into the gorge. Hundreds of century-old nails and screws were projected from the collapsing bridge, pattering hundreds of feet into the air, falling all around the stunned watchers.

  Slowly, like a dignified spinster giving way to alcohol, the train began to tilt to the right, the whistle still screeching in a spear of white steam.

  "Gaia!" Krysty sighed. "That's such a sad and sorry shame."

  "They'd have chilled us if they'd gotten the chance," Ryan replied.

  "Not them. That lovely old loco wag."

  "Yeah," Jak agreed.

  The locomotive was going, tipping away from them, dragging the carriages along with it. Two men jumped from the rearmost car, slithering onto the falling bridge, scrabbling for a hold on the rocking timbers. Ryan took careful aim with the Heckler & Koch G-12 and shot them both through the chest, sending them screaming soundlessly into the maelstrom.

  J.B. moved out from the pines, staring with an awed fascination at the carnage that he'd wrought.

  The whole bridge was going, pulling itself apart, the crashing beams dislodging other struts until the air was filled with debris. The loco wag's whistle was shrieking, someone's hand locked to it in a frozen paroxysm of dying.

  Ryan ran to join the Armorer, and the two friends watched together. The noise of the river was swamped by the cracking of wood and the high-pitched twanging of snapping wires. Ryan thought he glimpsed a face pressed against the glass of the last car, and there were certainly two men leaping to their deaths from the cab.

  By the time that Krysty, Jak, Doc and Mildred had reached the jagged timber that marked the edge of the bridge, it was over.

  All that was left were a few dangling lengths of wood, festooned with a twisted nest of rusting wire. On the far side of the gulf the twin rails protruded
for a few feet. On the near side, they'd snapped off clean, level with the chiseled brink of raw stone. Far, far below them, nothing could be seen through the impenetrable wall of misty spray thrown up by the racing river.

  "That it?" Krysty asked.

  "Looks like it, lover."

  "Was Strasser on the train?" Mildred asked. "Couldn't see him."

  "Me neither. I somehow have the feeling that the bastard's too triple smart to put his own cock on the block." Ryan looked at J.B. "You didn't see nothing, did you?"

  "Anything," Krysty corrected. "Anything, lover. Not nothing."

  J.B. gave her one of his rare, thin smiles. "I tell you, Ryan, that I didn't see either anything or nothing. My guess is that the ice-heart's back in that ville. Or he's off and running someplace."

  "Then I venture to suggest that our conversation here is somewhat superfluous. Should we not be considering pursuit of that swift and evil fellow?"

  "Doc," Ryan said, "you never said a truer word. Yeah, let's go. Fast and careful."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  "YOU GOT just one more minute, Mendoza. Then I cut off your pecker and jam it down your useless throat."

  "You're making Gil real nervous, boss," Rafe warned.

  "I'm making him nervous? That what you said, amigo?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  "But fucking nothing, my man. You saw the way that witch, Cawdor—that Rosa here says can do magic—pulled the best disappearing trick in history."

  "You mean the train, boss?" Rafe asked, trying for a confident laugh and ending up with a thin, nervous giggle.

  Strasser glanced out of one of the wired windows of the arma wag, seeing the afternoon light already fading. "Yeah, Rafe, you could say that I mean the fucking train. Bang! There it goes. Bridge and all."

  In the driver's seat, shaking like an aspen branch in a hurricane, sat Gil Mendoza, panting and sweating as he tried to get the engine to fire. The blood still seeped from the gash on his cheek, but he ignored it as he turned the starter knob for the twentieth time. He heard the sullen cough from the antique engine, and a splutter that raised his hopes for a moment. But it still didn't start.