Latitude Zero

by James Axler

  "I'd say thirty seconds is all you got left to make this place stink, Mendoza. Thirty seconds is tops."

  "It's real near, boss," he stammered.

  Once again the starter motor whirred and mumbled to itself, failing to kick the engine into life. Mendoza, rank with the sweat of fear, licked his lips and tried it again.

  "You're goin' to flood it, Gil," Rafe warned unnecessarily.

  "Into the last ten seconds, Mendoza. Then there'll be more bleeding."

  "It's coming, boss, coming."

  Rosa laid a hand on Strasser's thigh and smiled at him through sleepy eyes. "I bet he says that to all the girls."

  The engine of the arma wag finally dragged itself protestingly into rattling action, the cab filling with light blue fumes.

  Strasser coughed and waved his hand to try to clear the air. "Get moving."

  "Where we going?"

  "South."

  "Across the river?"

  "Sure."

  "Down that winding road?"

  Strasser gritted his teeth so hard that everyone in the wag heard the sound. "One more question and I cut your fucking throat. We're going south toward the Grandee. Heard of a hidden redoubt down that way, along with some other secret places. That's where we're going."

  For one unbelievable moment it seemed as if Mendoza were going to ignore the furious warning from Cort Strasser and ask yet another question. But he finally shrugged his shoulders and crashed the small, cramped wag into forward motion.

  ONCE THEY WERE clear of the gorge the sound of the river faded away behind them to a gentle murmur. The wind whispered through the trees, carrying the refreshing scent of the pifion pines. Above them the sky was darkening with the promise of a sullen, clouded evening.

  "Don't forget Strasser's got that Russkie sniping rifle," J.B. said.

  "Poor light for shooting," Ryan replied, "but we can come in closer through the forest, circle in around."

  "How many left?" Jak asked.

  "What, Strasser's shootists?"

  "Yeah. Lot on loco wag."

  Mildred interrupted. "I watched as carefully as I could and I'm sure that there were at least eight or nine of them. There can't be very many left alive now."

  "How do you know that the leader of that monstrous regiment wasn't with them in their descent into the river?" Doc asked.

  "I don't," Ryan said. "Just got a feeling. I reckon he's still up there in the ville, or on the run out of it."

  Krysty held up a hand. "Quiet."

  They all stopped, Jak shuffling his feet in the shingle, which earned him a glare from the woman.

  "What is it, lover?" Ryan strained his own hearing to try to catch what it was that had snatched her attention.

  "Wag."

  "In the ville? Coming this way?"

  "Yes. No."

  Ryan understood. "Big one?"

  "No. Small, with a real rough engine, coughing and choking. Sounds like it's heading in… in that direction." She pointed a stabbing finger toward the southwest.

  They were still nearly two miles from the nearest buildings of the small township, and Ryan knew that it would be pure foolishness to go rushing blindly in.

  "Take us a good hour to get there," he said. "If that's Strasser, he could easily be twenty miles away by the time we get there, and I doubt the son of a bitch'll have left us any transport around the place. Not likely."

  "With the bridge down, how are we going to get back to move south?" Krysty asked.

  Ryan grinned. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, lover."

  WITH THE GATHERING clouds, the dusk came creeping across the hills at uncanny speed. The road that Strasser had picked to take them away from their unrelentless pursuers was an old tourist trail that snaked across the face of the cliffs, down toward the misty crystal glitter of the spray. Over the years it had suffered badly from earth slips and rainwash. Now its surface varied from barely adequate to razor-edge dangerous. Gil Mendoza, barely recovered from his flirtation with death, gripped the small steering wheel, his foot permanently on the brake, peering out through the ob-slit at the narrow track.

  "Can't you go any faster?"

  "No, boss. Not without turning us over the side of the trail."

  "All right, all right. Once we get to the bottom we should make better time."

  "But, boss, there's—"

  Strasser leaned forward and gripped the driver by the back of his scrawny neck, fingers biting in like steel claws. "Just drive."

  "SOON BE FULL DARK."

  "No lights showing anyplace," Jak said. "Can't see nobody."

  Ryan glanced automatically across to Krysty who half smiled, but held her peace.

  Once they'd come to within the mile, they'd all filtered off to the right, keeping close to the fringe of trees in case Strasser's narrow eyes were squinting at them along the barrel of his SVD PSO-1 with its telescopic sight.

  Now the ville was less than a quarter mile away from them.

  "You hear the wag?" Ryan asked Krysty.

  "No. Not for a half hour or more. Must be long gone by now."

  STRASSER LOOKED OUT the side ob-slit, seeing that they'd finally descended to within a couple hundred feet of the river. Below lay the gorge with the tumbled ruins of the beautiful train, its inlaid walnut paneling and Waterford mirrors in splintered fragments.

  "It's near dark," he said.

  "Doing my best, boss, but you see what the trail's like."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Strasser nibbled at the ragged corner of a nail. "Will Cawdor come after us? And how close can he get?"

  "No other serviceable wags in that shit ville," Rafe replied.

  "True, comrade, true." The skull-faced man sighed deeply. "But I just got a feeling that he's going to come anyway. Like a shadow you can't shake off your shoulder. Like seeds in a melon. Like warm blood on your hand when you gut some bastard. You can't get away from it." There was a long silence, and the wag lurched slowly onward. Strasser suddenly leaned in his seat and clipped Mendoza hard across the back of the head. "Put your fucking foot to the metal, you triple-stupe bastard!"

  THE TOWN WAS deserted. The sickle moon peered over the surrounding mountains as the six friends walked slowly among the ghostly hulks of the ruined, tumbling buildings. The township had suffered far greater damage than Salvation.

  There was no evidence that it had been occupied for many years, and Ryan's hope of finding some sort of transport plunged. J.B. picked up the tracks of Strasser's arma wag, leaving the ville and turning south at the crossroads, heading down a winding trail that looked as if it were going to plunge straight into the river, way below,

  "Think we'll ever see him again, lover?" Krysty asked.

  Ryan rested the flat of his hand gently against the carved plane of her cheek, looking deep into her eyes. "What d'you think? What d'you see, lover?"

  Her fingers, strong and capable, tangled with his. "Can't see. See only dark, lover. That's about all."

  "Same here. I know he's got clear away, but I just have a feeling, like a shadow that sits at your shoulder."

  "THEY DON'T WORK, boss." A tremor of naked terror shook the man's voice.

  "Ah."

  Rafe risked his own well-being again. "There was no way of knowing we'd want to use the wag so soon, or at night."

  Strasser coughed. "And the bitching exhaust doesn't work. All right. The lights don't work and we're on a narrow trail, right by the river. What do we do? The slut here could get out and walk in front of us. How about that, Rosa?"

  "Don't like walking, Cort, baby. Like sitting. You know that. Like the way I sit on your—"

  He touched her soft lips with the muzzle of the Stechkin. "Take care, Rosa. Be real careful what you say."

  "Could camp here. No way they can get around us, and there's only this track. Be easy to guard it. What d'you say, boss?"

  "I didn't say a thing, Rafe. Let's go a mite farther." He nudged Rosa. "Out, bitch."

  MILDRED SPOTTED THE sign
on the top floor of a row of weather-beaten stores. "Look," she said, pointing. "There."

  Doc read the faded sign. Trail Riders. Off-Trail Bikes.

  "Two-wheel wags you push with pedals," Ryan said. "Seen them around a couple of villes. Hard work. That what they are?"

  "Let's go see." Mildred led the way up a dangerous, rotting flight of stairs, the treads painted in alternate strips of red, gold and green.

  The door was gone, and the interior gaped silently in the semidarkness. Night had almost come, but they could still see the piles of tangled metal.

  "Well, I'll be…"Doc said.

  "Stop here for the night," Ryan decided. "If Strasser's gone, then he's gone. Be up at first light and then we can see what we got here."

  MENDOZA WAS DEAD.

  When Rosa had come out of the night, tottering on her high heels, to announce that the road ahead was irrevocably blocked by a huge slide of red earth, the driver had turned to announce to his boss that he'd known that all along.

  "You didn't let me tell you," the man had complained.

  Strasser snapped his neck with a single, savage blow to his nape.

  "Throw that in the river. And we'll camp here."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  FROM THE PILES of bicycles that were cluttered together, it took well over an hour to come up with enough serviceable machines for all six of them. Even then, to their mutual disgust, there were only four solo bikes, which left Mildred and Doc as the reluctant collaborators on an electric-blue tandem.

  Breakfast had been some strips of tough jerky, washed down with water. Ryan was still worried that the devious Strasser might appear from some dark hole and strike at them. He couldn't believe that his enemy had truly gotten clear away.

  Fortunately the tires on the bikes were a rot-proof plastic material and stood being pumped up without more than a couple going stubbornly flat. The store held a display of service manuals for the machines, so readying them presented few problems. Riding them was a different matter.

  Jak took to the new skill with his customary ease, quickly discovering the excitement of wheelies. Ryan, Krysty and J.B. coped without too much difficulty. Back in Harmony ville, as a young girl, Krysty had ridden a beat-up old bicycle. The old truth held good. "Once you've done it, you never really forget how," she said.

  The bikes had sixteen gears, and that took some mastering. But within a half hour all four could ride up and down the main street of the settlement, and turn, without falling.

  Doc and Mildred didn't find it so easy.

  First off there was the problem of who was going to ride up front and steer, and who would sit at the back and just provide the pedal power.

  "I'm going at the front," Doc insisted. "As the senior partner—"

  "No way, Doc. I'm younger, so I should be doing the steering."

  Doc considered that. "Then I provide all of the power… Perhaps that is the best idea after all. Very well, madam, I agree."

  Mildred had second thoughts. "No, wait a minute there. I'm not sure I want your nose up my ass."

  Doc bridled. "I assure you that such a feeling is entirely mutual, madam!"

  "Why's one part got a bar across it and the other doesn't?" J.B. asked.

  It was a fair question, and it stopped the argument in midflow. Mildred coughed. "Well, from what I recall, never being a cyclist, the piece with the crossed bar is for men. One without is for ladies, to accommodate their skirts."

  "So the man takes the lead!" Doc said, unable and unwilling to conceal his triumph.

  "Looks that way," Ryan agreed.

  "Well, now that I think about it, I have a feeling that most of these tandems, were made this way. Suppose it was to spare the lady's dignity," Mildred said huffily.

  Doc bowed to her. "Then let us both hazard our dignity, dear lady, and risk all on this velocipede? Shall we go?"

  They went.

  "Like drunk Siamese twins," Krysty commented, shaking her head and fighting to control her helpless laughter.

  "Like gators with tails tied," was Jak's description.

  "Like Doc and Mildred doing the best they can," Ryan said.

  WITH CORT STRASSER so far ahead of them, there was no longer any kind of pressure. No rush. No hurry. It wasn't until late morning that they'd mastered their machines enough to risk the steep descent down the switchback towards the tumbling spray of the invisible river.

  Jak was in the lead, swerving confidently from side to side, often taking his hands off the faded chrome of the bars. The others watched him with mixed emotions.

  "He sure is good on that machine," Krysty observed.

  "I would personally take some pleasure in the cocky little devil falling off on his ass," Doc grated.

  "Sounds like you're cut up, Doc," J.B. said, wobbling around a deep pothole.

  "Cut up!" the old man squawked, standing on the pedals. "Not even Tomas de Torquemada and the finest brains of the Spanish Inquisition could have invented such a subtle instrument of torture as this knife-edged saddle."

  "Shut up and work," Mildred panted. "At least we'll soon be going downhill."

  "Is that going to be better?"

  "Sure, Doc." Looking ahead she reached for the caliper brakes. "Hang on, everybody. Here we go!"

  "THE GOOD NEWS," Ryan said, "is that nobody's been seriously hurt."

  The cycling expedition had eventually ground to a halt around two-thirds of the way down the vicious bends of the trail. Not all of them had made it that far.

  Jak had gone first. Grinning over his shoulder, he'd never spotted the half-buried length of rusted girder. It had jammed his front wheel, and the boy had gone flying over the bars, turning a complete somersault in the air. Only his superb reflexes had enabled him to control his body, twisting so he broke the fall by landing half on his shoulder. He rolled with the impact, sliding in a cloud of dust, finishing perilously close to a sheer drop to the river.

  J.B. came off next, skidding sideways and losing control. Stepping from the fallen bike, he brushed the dust off his pants. "The horse was easier," he said ruefully.

  Krysty had a brake cable snap, sending her wheeling faster and faster down the steep hill, with Ryan pedaling at breakneck speed to catch up with her. He threw his arm out for her to hang on, both bicycles slewing sideways in a clatter of loose stones and sand.

  Ironically it was Doc and Mildred who avoided an accident. Moving sedately downhill, the brakes squealing, they both leaned in on the sharp corners. Their slower pace left them well behind the others, but the chain of falls eventually caught them up with everyone.

  Ryan brought them to a halt. "If we go on I reckon someone could get badly hurt."

  Jak was trying to get the clots of crimson dust from his tangle of white hair, examining the graze on his elbow. "Bikes fun but fucking danger," he said. "Let's walk."

  "TRAIL STILL SHOWS that arma wag heading on," J.B. said. The deep ruts of the studded tires were unmistakable, following the winding track.

  The Armorer had to shout to be heard above the noise of the river. Looking back upstream they could see the jagged remains of the locomotive and the carriages, still being pounded by the merciless water. Downstream it looked as though the gorge widened out a little and the fast-flowing current became a tad less lethal.

  On level ground again, they were able to ride their bicycles. Everyone found the going much easier, though Jak was noticeably more cautious and didn't indulge himself in so many flash stunts.

  "Looks like it might lead south," Ryan shouted, pedaling alongside Krysty.

  "What?" She shook her head to show the sound of the rapids had drowned out his voice. "Said river goes south!"

  He took his left hand off the bars to point and nearly lost control of the bike.

  "Shame these little boogers don't float," she yelled. "Could just drift along all the way to the Grandee."

  The idea had already crossed Ryan's mind, and he'd been trying to scan the frothing edge of the river as they ro
de along, inviting the risk of a fall. But there'd been only an occasional piece of floating driftwood, chewed and splintered by the sharp-toothed boulders.

  The cliffs loomed far above them, the orange and gray stone dappled with patches of bright green where small bushes had managed to establish themselves in narrow cracks.

  A colony of swallows darted at the top of the ravine, etching crazy shadows against the blue of the morning sky. It was a beautiful place and Ryan let his thoughts wander, as they did with increasing frequency, to his future. A future that he liked to think of in terms of settling somewhere with Krysty.

  Somewhere with a small house, well fortified. Good grass and sweet water.

  "Ryan!"

  Jak's breaking voice shrilled into the middle of his daydream, jerking him to the reality of where they were. And who they were chasing.

  The boy had been pedaling a little ahead of the others, vanishing around one of the steep curves that followed the oxbow river. Moments after his disappearance, the boy came back, hair flowing over his shoulders like a torrent of incandescent fire, calling out a warning to the others.

  THE HUGE EARTH slip, two hundred yards across, made it obvious why Strasser had abandoned the arma wag. And the clear trail showed that he, with a woman and a man, had clambered over the obstacle.

  What was infinitely more interesting was what lay on the far side of the mountain of earth.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  THE HUGE LANDSLIDE, combined with the barren isolation of the place, had kept it sacrosanct ever since the roiling black clouds of sky-dark. The few stragglers who'd made a home in the ville high above had never bothered to tackle the perilous descent to the raging waters. They didn't need to. From the old trestle bridge they could peer with a superstitious fear into the rainbowed gorge.

  Before the missiles sang across the sky, that gorge had been one of the great tourist attractions of the Southwest. Not far away had stood the Best Western Running Rapids, a brand-new building with its four pools, atrium and leisure suites, each with individual redwood hot tub.