“Are you doing what I think?” He felt at risk for finally asking.
But she pulled herself deeper, giving stronger and replied, “Yes.”
“How?”
He knew that she smiled. “We are bound.”
For a while it was enough, he understood, but then as she moved apart, putting her mind into the distance, looking for what had so alarmed, Remy began to think again. “Explain to me how.”
She started to move away. “I don’t like it, but I am,” she hated to say it, “Cloitare.”
He was baffled. “And this means?” He pushed back to see her and found her eyes open but faraway and searching with great intensity.
She was looking at a burning landscape, metal—rent and twisted—spread across a frozen lake. White crystals showered down like snowflakes, but they didn’t melt in the flames. Instead, they settled thick on the Clementyne crest, falling across the bull until the red-jeweled eyes ceased to shine.
“There are things I know, and today I know something is wrong.” She came back from the vision afraid. She said, “Take me with you.” When he looked sad to have to refuse, she didn’t hesitate to change her voice, to plead and persuade, “Please, Remy, take me with you to the flats.”
~~~~~~
Salt Mountain was not where the General expected to be flying in the morning, and everything about Sable’s edgy demeanor had him alert. When they landed in the foothill military installation to avoid the violent drafts of the mountains, the King’s close guards wanted to move them all into waiting vehicles, but Sable stopped to stare.
Between the blades of the helicopter and the car’s open doors, she studied the elevations with unfocused eyes, looking but not seeing the landscape like anyone else. As though she wanted him to see also, she pushed back the General’s arm, resisting the direction to enter the car, and guided his attention to the mountains. She was in the peaks, moving through tunnels populated with men. She thought she could account for them with what she knew. They would be moles, hacking at the rocks for chunks of lithium, but, she tapped her head, “Nothing is clear,” and the General thought he heard her complain, “The shattered eye is blind.”
Berringer spoke softly aside to the King’s security leader, “Captain Olson, contact all the posts in Salt Mountain. I want confirmation everything is secure.”
On the road winding up, Sable was still traveling apart, farther afield, searching for the threat, for the trail of what was going wrong. She thought of the train wreck, the sudden break in the rails, and how everything could turn so disastrously fast. She moved her mind through the five cars, down the road, up the rock cliffs, and then, lost for the continued sense of danger, she pushed against the drivers, but still she could not find the source of her foreboding.
Back into the peaks, she opened her mind, silent, waiting for something to surface. She was in the distance when another electric surge against the skin made her gasp, grab her wrist, and change the focus of her concentration. “I’m fine; it was nothing,” she assured Remy, but for the briefest shocking moment, there had been a call for help and she remembered. She had heard it first within a dream, but in the panic of waking, she had lost it. Someone had reached out to her through a bond, but as she listened again to find them, the voice in pain was gone.
Sable felt a stab of terror for what it could mean. She went looking first for Nika and knew from the bliss of her mind that she was either flying or burning something down. Sable wanted to linger, but her presence cast a shadow of fear over Nika’s calm. She left Nika to find Enzo, determined to check every connection until she found the fault.
They entered the bowl of the mountains with Sable unaware. When the vehicles stopped before the pumping station, she was touching on Enzo. He was satisfied with a recent victory that made Sable think he’d beaten someone in a game and she would learn next if Max had been the loser.
While Sable traveled, the King’s plain-suited guards left the surrounding cars to enter the concrete and steel structure. The pumping house was a modern industry in a stone empire of old forts. A long, rectangular box with doors on either end, it was pressed against the edge of the field before the rock began to rise. Pipes filled with brine passed through the long wall facing the wide open flat where the King would often stand.
“I don’t like this,” the General admitted. “We are provoking our enemies with what we’re doing and having you out here is reckless.”
Remy acknowledged the concern with a nod. Outside the car was a familiar routine. Uniformed soldiers from the last two vehicles had spread to the corners of the building and then beyond into the pipes. Half were scanning the peaks with binoculars while the team’s commander radioed the stone post high on the ridge, “Taurus one here, everything secure?”
“We got stormy skies with rising temperatures and a high chance of boredom,” was the jocular report.
All the actions were standard procedure: the signal from the commander that cued Captain Olson to usher the King from the car and the team waiting to take their positions around him. Knowing she was prone to wander off in her mind, Remy pulled at Sable’s hand to make her follow. They walked the long side of the station before the pipes with the General looking across the white flat to the smudge of mountains too far away to see the farthest posts.
It was the very thing Berringer did not want to hear from the soldier on the corner: “Movement at bearing two one zero. Distance two hundred meters.” There was a shift at the corners as sights moved to the called location.
If precautions were not in place, the General knew the mountains offered a potential location for snipers, but the elevations were barren rock, and the old forts that circled the peaks were scanned with thermal imaging. It would be near impossible for any gunman to set up without being spotted coming across the open terrain. But the General knew that if he were fully determined, he and most of the special services around him had a chance of getting through.
He stopped and told Captain Olson, “Return them to the car.”
No warning preceded it. Less than one hundred meters from the vehicles, there was an explosion on the flat that shot a white plume of smoke and salt through the air. Like sleet, fine crystals rained down on the cars.
Remy pulled Sable to him. With her face pressed against his chest, she felt the family pin in his jacket puncture the flesh on her cheek and knew the sharp gems of the bull’s eyes would be redder with her blood.
The call spread from Berringer who was moving fast to the corner, “We’ve got mortars. Look for the spotters. Light up two one zero.”
Army machine gun fire made Captain Olson shout to be heard, “Into car one,” but as the team pushed forward, from the center of their formation, he felt Sable spin to toss the guard on her right and then come around to kick him off the King.
Any life at the called location was finished with propelled grenades, but Sable wasn’t letting the King go forward. The team was momentarily baffled by the unexpected resistance whirling in their midst but promptly issued stern commands to move as directed while stepping in again to regain control.
But Sable put her back to the King, ignoring his exasperated warning, “This is not the time,” and knocked away the second attempt to pull them for the cars.
Forcefully backed into the pipes, toward the wall, Remy abandoned the appeal for reason and was instead wrapping around her to pick her up when he felt the air pressure rise and a sonic shock numb his nerves. He threw Sable behind him, taking her down under him to the ground.
In fast succession, three more mortars fell across the front cars. Glass, tires, and metal ripped hot shrapnel through the pipes. Separated from the team, Sable felt it hit the King, repeated punches that drove them both into the salt.
The guards came up bloody, shards cutting across their exposed heads, hands, and legs, and fragments were wedged in their vests.
Remy straightened, pulling Sable with him to put her flush against the wall.
“You’ve bee
n hit. I felt it.” She ran her hands through his jacket to his back and felt the blood.
“Find me the mortars.” The General watched from the corner as Olson cut into the King’s jacket. Having already radioed the foothill base for armored support, he turned now to muffle the order, “Send in choppers.”
“No.” The King was calm. “The risks are too high. Look at the skies, Lucas. There will be downdrafts where they fly.”
The army commander told Berringer, “We need to secure the ridge.”
Taking binoculars from the closest man, the General pointed them forward, “Lead your team.”
With Olson ripping through the King’s jacket to stop his bleeding, Remy kept Sable before him against the wall. Surrounded by military veterans, she was the only one confused. “Why can’t the posts take out the mortars?”
“They will be hidden and they could be anywhere.” Remy remembered a night of mixed mortars and artillery from his youth. “They might be over the ridge or six kilometers away, and because they fire straight up, they can be behind an outcrop of rock, a house, or anything that gives cover. But without forward observers to tell them where they hit, they’ll be firing blind.”
Sable felt Remy stiffen under the pressure being held against his ribs. She cast her voice to the General, “Do you know about the tunnels?”
More than three voices repeated, “Tunnels?”
She answered Remy, “In the mountains is a system of tunnels for the moles to mine lithium.” She pointed behind her, toward Alena. “Mostly south and east, that direction, starting maybe one kilometer past where the first spotter was killed.”
The General was searching the mountains with binoculars. He had a balance not even Sable could disturb. In communication with the men climbing the rocky incline, the General warned, “Be aware there may be tunnel openings,” then to Sable, “Have you seen them? What do they look like?”
“I’ve never been in one, but I’ve been told there are multiple points of access from the houses in the hills and also concealed in the rocks.”
The General radioed impassively, “Movement at your zero nine zero. Distance two five zero.” In response, the wind carried the sound of automatic fire down the hill and bounced it off the rocks.
“They are not showing up on thermal,” came across the radio.
With the shots still echoing, a single explosion threw salt and smoke from a meter-wide crater before the side door opposite the General. The soldier on the corner dropped his gun and cursed the pain that bloodied his hand. Then three more volleys crashed across the entrance and roof.
As Remy pressed Sable to the wall, she felt the first dip in his strength, a heavy relaxing against her that wasn’t intended.
“We’ve got another spotter,” the General warned. “Find him.”
Sable went into the distance.
“Movement at three three zero,” the soldier on the corner called, and heard it repeated until the forward observer was found, but the radios were alive confirming, “It’s all blue on thermal. They are not showing.”
Mixed with gunfire and grenades, another three mortars fell in the center of the roof. Metal sheets crashed inward across the pumps while the team commander reported, “The enemy is not showing up on infrared.”
Sable hardly heard it. She was at the limits of her perception for what should have been unknown. What she found among the rocks was not angry; it did not hate them. It was excited, focused energy, but much more anxious than the soldiers of the King’s Army. “Four men, maybe your mortars,” her eyes were searching blindly forward, making Remy look at his chest, but she pointed over her shoulder, “just over two kilometers that way.”
“Lucas, look for mortars at one eight zero, distance two k.”
They silently considered it before Berringer radioed, “Commander, look for mortars at bearing one eight zero, one five zero from your position.”
For several minutes, gunfire echoed through the peaks. The General thought the King was looking hazy, so to keep him engaged, he repeated what was heard across the radio, “They’ve encountered two teams coming over with RPGs.”
Mortars fell again through the hole in the roof bringing two pumps to a metal rending stop. Weaker now, Remy crushed Sable’s body so that when it was over, Olson had to help him stand upright.
“We are right in the middle of it,” the Captain complained, but he knew the open flats would get them killed.
“Sable, are you going to let them try for the last two cars?” The General was hoping her sense was reliable.
Now they heard over the radio, “We sighted the mortars where you said, but they disappeared, and nothing on thermals.”
“They’re in the tunnels.” Sable could see them clearly, but all around, the mountains loomed threatening in every direction. She had not looked, did not believe there was time, and in the distance, she still felt pressing danger. Without searching, she did not want to be the one to make the decision to go forward.
Hands gripping Remy’s jacket, she pressed into him, her cheek against his heart.
Remy felt her exhale, felt her power in his chest, a yielding of her own energy that bolstered his strength. With his mind once again clear, he knew that to stay would mean his death, and to go could kill even more, and while neither was amusing, the King could not help but smile to know his master strategist looked to his prescient wife who looked to him to solve it.
“Lucas, Captain Olson is going to take Sable and me in the remaining car. After I’m stitched back together, I’ll expect you to have answers for me.”
~~~~~~
Girard arrived at the military base while surgeons dug shrapnel out of the King. She had taken over the conference room with the bagged belongings taken off the dead and captured attackers laid across the table. Only one phone from the forward observers was still intact. As had already been done by the General’s team, she sent again the last number to be called then stopped the call in the cell she held in her other hand. It had been marked as belonging to the suspected rebel commander.
Catherine had scrolled through most of the phone by the time the General arrived. For all the bloody guards she’d passed, the General looked untouched. The soldiers were calling him Stone Bear, “Standing there with mortars falling all around like he was made of stone.” Not much had changed, except in their day, he’d been called a Snow Bear and had been made of ice.
She had a laptop arranged before an empty seat with the video she’d seen of Fallon’s abduction paused on the screen. Before he sat, Berringer handed her a tablet with a wholly different image on display. Catherine walked with it to the far end of the room, speeding through the video as soldiers silently pursued the morning’s attackers through unknown tunnels ending with their capture in a garage stacked with mining tools and weapons. The helmet camera recorded the eight men’s long wait on their knees for transport vehicles to arrive. Hands zip-tied behind their backs, they repeated a single statement to every question asked: “I am a free man with Free Alena.”
The General had been long paused on the image of Ellis Dee at the airfield while waiting for Girard to finish the fast play of events. She turned saying, “Better leadership and they would have escaped.” Motioning to the laptop, “I didn’t expect that.”
“When I was first informed, I was led to believe it was done by professionals.”
“Don’t write them off yet. Lower the player.”
Behind the video were scanned images of Fallon’s forged military ID with a photo of a nondescript face and then receipt of payment for the moving truck going through his bank.
“Hell of a morning,” Berringer said.
Catherine turned a bagged pistol over asking, “Do you mind?” When he indicated he didn’t, she began breaking it down, looking for new parts, repairs, or engravings.
“The pistols and rifles were made here in Erentrude, but they date from the time of separation. They could just as easily have been issued to a conscript as belong to some
one’s grandfather,” Berringer dismissed them as unhelpful. Not on the table were the high explosives. “All the manufacturing stamps that couldn’t be filed off the mortars and RPGs are Sierran, but they sell them throughout the world. Tracking them back to the merchant.” The General threw his hands up at the impossible task. “But that,” he pushed a grey camouflaged suit across the table, “You should recognize that.”
The thermal blocking suits that had allowed spotters to creep unseen past the army posts’ infrared cameras were a technology designed by Sierra. Nearly a decade ago, Catherine had obtained the plans by abducting a scientist’s child, and Remy had threatened her with exile if she ever did it again. Maybe it was shame, but Erentrude had never put the design to use, so the suits on the table could have only originated in Sierra.
Catherine picked up the suspected commander’s phone again. Running through the photos, she found one taken in a mirror. “Is this him?” The man was nearly their age, but he’d squeezed himself back twenty years into what Catherine guessed was his old conscript uniform. He didn’t look comfortable.
She said, “We know this is the work of President Pavlović, but to prove it, we need to start by getting this man’s supplier.” She ran her finger over the posing figure, thinking how she might persuade Berringer to let her get the answers they required. “Once we get the supplier, we have a chance of following it back to Sierra.” Catherine’s voice was soft, deliberately soothing. “Just permit me a little room to link Pavlović to this and we’ve won. He’ll be too busy with his own survival to spare a thought for what we’re doing in Alena.”
Berringer didn’t want to look at her. “Catherine, tell me what you want.”
“I want to use the Guard Dog.”
The General did not expect to laugh. “Oh, Catherine,” he chuckled into his fist, “I thought you just wanted to torture him.”
“Listen, Lucas,” she brought her hand down hard on the table to show she was serious, “I would send the Dog to get information I knew I couldn’t acquire with a thousand velvet lies, and she’d always bring it back. Besides having the information now, while we can use it, I want to know how she does it.”
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 21