Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3)

by P J Thorndyke

  Then again, maybe not.

  He wanted to tell her that they would not be seeing each other again. His continuing work with the government was too consuming, not to mention dangerous for everybody in his life. That was why the bureau preferred its agents to remain unmarried; no luggage or private entanglements to complicate things. After all, look what had nearly happened to her just because she had met him a few short weeks ago.

  No, he could not protect her, and to pretend that he could was a dangerous kind of arrogance. He had failed in his promises to her; she had nearly become Jack the Ripper’s final victim. And the thought of yet another woman dead because of him was not something he could bear. She could make her own way in the world, he was sure of that, and any kind of relationship with him would only end in disaster.

  He would always wonder if it could have worked between them; a government agent and a whore. He imagined them living in a pleasant house outside of London or perhaps in the West Country, free from all the troubles of their pasts. But he knew it was a mere pipedream; something comforting to chew over on lonely nights when he was far from home on government business.

  Besides, there was another woman out there who had taken his heart and had still not given it back.

  He left his pint unfinished and headed for the door. Mary had not noticed him and he wanted to keep it that way. It was better that they remained figures from the past for each other. He exited the pub and jammed his bowler hat on, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets as he walked away, letting the onyx shadows of the city swallow him.

  Epilogue

  The cold wind blasting down the tunnel ahead of the locomotive was almost as cold as it would have been up on the surface. Katarina Mikolavna hunched her shoulders in an attempt to block the chill seeping down the sheepskin collar of her jacket.

  Being underground was only slightly better than being topside. These Russian industrial complexes and military installations were cold places at the best of times; harsh, grey and utilitarian. But at least she was out of the fierce Siberian winds that whipped across the frozen Bering Strait to scour the bleak headlands. Those winds felt like they could strip the flesh from your face.

  The train thundered out of the black tunnel in a cloud of vapor, its brakes screeching as it drew to a halt. It was a massive thing, all blackened iron and steaming pistons. The cranes dangled overhead, ready to pick up the materials from the oblong goods carriages below. Workers scurried along the walkways overhead like ants in a colony.

  The door to the guard van opened and the colonel stepped down, his fur-trimmed cloak reaching below the tops of his black lacquered boots. Katarina felt her heart hammering in her chest as he approached, just as it had always done when she had been a little girl and he had returned from one of his journeys to Petersburg. The colonel was a big man and had a habit of making every room, no matter how huge it was, seem barely adequate to contain him. Katarina always thought that he would make the interior of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral seem like a peasant’s cottage if he stood beneath its dome.

  “Any news on our agent’s progress in London?” he demanded of her without any greeting.

  “Reports say that he struck earlier than planned and nearly brought the city to its knees.”

  “Nearly?”

  “We could hardly have expected him to have brought the British Empire down singlehandedly, Colonel. His provocations were, after all, merely a diversion.”

  “A diversion that was spent too early and thus rendered useless to us. What are his reasons for this premature strike?”

  “That’s a bit of a mystery. He has not yet returned to us, and so we have been unable to put together a satisfying report.”

  “And Bismarck is dead?”

  “Ah... no,” Katarina said, hating the way her taut nerves made her voice waver as if she were afraid. “That’s also a bit of a mystery. It seems Pedachenko’s plan was foiled.”

  The colonel sucked the chill air into his lungs, as if sieving it through his moustache, catching invisible particles like a baleen whale. “Foiled.” The word was not a question. “I always said the Interior Ministry put too much faith in his hocus pocus. All that babble about mind control. The man belonged in a fairground. And maybe that’s where he’ll end up if he ever dares to return to us. I suppose his subject decided to eat his own shoes or something instead of killing Bismarck?”

  “Actually it looks as if Pedachenko’s work on his subject was successful but the assassination was interrupted at the last minute by somebody, perhaps by accident. We don’t know.”

  “A washout all round, then. The failures of other agents only increase the burden on us. We must pick up the slack or all is lost. Have you visited the factories?”

  “Yes. It’s all most... impressive.”

  “Merely impressive? You always were one who lacked imagination, girl. This is the future of the Russian Empire, born right here on Cape Vostochny. This latest shipment of mechanite will speed up our experiments vastly.”

  “How long until they will be ready for use in the field?”

  “Difficult to say. Holdups are due to, as always, human error. The mechanical part is flawless. Less flawless are the pilots’ dexterity in wielding them. But with sufficient training they will overcome all obstacles.”

  They had left the station now and were making their way into the cavernous hanger where a variety of vehicles were docked. Sparks flew from the welder’s torch and lit up the place in eclectic bursts. The doors at the far end were open and snow blown on the chill blast whirled in.

  A transportation vehicle was waiting for them, its mechanite furnace keeping a head of steam ready. A hatch in the side opened onto a warm interior with two double seats in black leather facing each other.

  Once they were seated, the driver slammed the hatch shut and clambered into his own seat on top, which was enclosed within a dome-like turret that would protect him from the elements. It was stiflingly hot within, and Katarina had to loosen her fur-lined jacket. The colonel did not move, being a man indifferent to changes in temperature.

  The vehicle’s tracks grated and it rumbled off. Through the thick glass in the narrow window slits, Katarina could see the walls of the hanger quickly replaced by the frozen Siberian landscape beneath the black night.

  “I expect a report on your progress in identifying the leak in our operations once we are finished touring the factories,” the colonel told her.

  “Colonel,” Katarina began, having dreaded this part of her superior’s return most of all, “there has been very little progress, I must be honest with you.”

  “I see.”

  “Whoever is leaking the information to the revolutionaries must be contacting someone in one of the villages. And these villages are so few and far between that it is impossible for me to be in all places at once. By the time I have reached one trading post, they have long since moved on.”

  “I would have expected you to have recruited local help in your task.”

  “I have tried but the people in these parts, few as they are, are not sympathetic to the Tsar’s agents. I have even tried the Yupik people but they are even less inclined to help.”

  “They are savages,” the colonel replied. “You won’t get anything from them unless you speak to them in their own language; savagery. You still have your armed units?”

  “Yes, but are you suggesting that I tear apart native settlements looking for revolutionaries? They are not known to mix.”

  “I am suggesting that you do your job, agent! Need I remind you that your continued career with the Interior Ministry is due only to the fact that I am your uncle?”

  Katarina felt her cheeks burning as she stared at the floor of the vehicle. She needed no reminding. After the confusing series of events in the C.S.A. that still had the ministry baffled, and her failure to procure Dr. Lindholm in Egypt, her career should have been over. Two failures were two more than were usually tolerated.

  “I brought you he
re to act under my supervision in a rare moment of sentimentality,” the colonel went on. “I require you to root out this traitor while I oversee the security of our operations in our colony across the strait. A third failure on your part will not only end your career but will humiliate me. And that is something neither of us can afford to have happen.”

  “Yes, uncle,” Katarina replied in a small voice, suddenly feeling ten years old again.

  They rumbled into the factory complex and the iron doors wheeled shut behind them. Katarina was sweltering in her furs but knew better than to undo her jacket. As soon as they stepped out of the vehicle, the icy hanger instantly reminded her that she was at the very edge of the world, beyond sunlight and warmth.

  In the chamber beyond stood the finished products of Russia’s top secret program; Project Ironman. They were lined up three ranks deep like terracotta warriors, awaiting the spell that would bring them to life. But it was no magic rites that would power these machine men. Each of them had a seat within their iron exteriors where one of the Tsar’s finest would sit, warmed by the mechanite furnace beneath him and the boiler carried on its back. Legs and arms would be strapped in, encased in armor and vision of the battlefield would be provided by the slit of darkened glass in the bucket-shaped helmet.

  “A massive improvement on those monstrosities they use in the Americas,” the Colonel said. “Sometimes simpler is better. No need for mind control or barbaric surgery. These things can be driven like tanks. And our pilots are so much more trustworthy than the brainwashed half-men people like Pedachenko want us to use.”

  Katarina barely heard her uncle. As she gazed over the arrayed ranks of super soldiers she felt more lost than ever. The world was going to hell and her country was carrying the battle standard.

  Her feelings confused her. At the beginning of her career she might have wished to pilot one of these terrifying machines herself, to lead her country to greatness. But these days she felt different somehow. Changed. She wasn’t sure how it had come about. All she knew was that she blamed one man in particular; a man she had been unable to forget since she had left him in Paris two years ago.

  As they passed the ranks of mechanized suits of armor, she glanced briefly at the white stenciling on their sides. Each showed the make and serial number along with a single word; the Russian word for ‘ironman’. It said

  Ле́нин

  (Lenin)