by Gordon Ryan
“No, I’m not going to kill him. Don’t you know me better than that? I’m going to get him down from there and let him sleep.”
Dmitri let out a sob. His whole body slumped forward. Tess went to the wheel and relaxed the chains. He collapsed toward the floor. She had Peter bring over the chair and then she helped Dmitri sit down.
“You were so sure of yourself,” she told him. “Arrogant. A few days of lost sleep and look at you.”
He trembled all over. “Just let me lie down. Please.”
“Find a good, secure room,” she said to Lars. “Not this dank pit. We’ll need it anyway. It’s the only way in and out of the garage. Let him sleep a couple of hours, then give him food and water and a hot bath. Assuming we’re still alive then.”
Dmitri couldn’t climb the stairs without Lars practically carrying him up. Tess looked around the room and settled on the bench where she’d left the torture devices, just to remind Dmitri. She swept it all onto the floor with a cry.
“Clear out this room. Melt this stuff down burn it, or whatever.”
“So that’s it?” Peter asked. “Are you sure he told you everything?”
“He told us enough.” She took a deep breath, then a second and a third. When she spoke again, she’d regained control. “The bit about taking people captive we can use. And we know we can’t just hole up and wait out the siege, and hope someone rescues us. The world is going to have bigger troubles than us in a couple of days. But we can use that, too. I’ve got to find Niels.”
“What are you thinking?”
“It’s simple. They need to attack the castle. We need to let them in.”
Chapter Thirty-seven:
Jim Grossman got up at five in the morning on November 30th to watch the Weather Channel. He’d made his first delivery to King’s Island with little trouble, but there was another storm on its way. This time of year the cold air from the north warred with warmer southern air and the transitions meant lots of wind. The Weather Channel predicted sixty to seventy mile gusts that evening.
There was almost no traffic on the lake this late; even the Coast Guard had slashed its patrols. Jim would be in serious trouble if the sailboat went down. And the cargo this time was heavier than a few men; he’d be riding low in the water.
His wife came downstairs in her nightgown. He flipped the channel to ESPN, feeling as guilty as if she’d just caught him watching porn on pay-per-view.
“Jim? Something wrong?”
“No, nothing is wrong, just couldn’t sleep is all.”
Barbara opened her mouth to say something, but the phone rang. They both started. She answered the phone, then handed it over with a frown.
He took the phone and covered the mouthpiece. “Who is it?”
“Some guy with a foreign accent. Sounds like a long-distance call. Really long distance.”
“Jim speaking.”
“It’s Black Horse,” the man said on the other end.
“No, no,” Jim said. “No problem. This is Eastern Time Zone, not California.” He realized as he said it that California would be even earlier in the day than Vermont, so that didn’t make any sense.”
Jim’s wife watched with a curious expression, so he told her, “It’s about the new radar. A technician from Sweden. Better take it in the garage so I can hear better.”
“Did you see the weather?” Jim asked once he’d shut the garage door behind him. “You want to wait a couple of days?”
There was a delay before Kirkov’s reply came. “No, I didn’t see the weather. What’s happening?”
He told Kirkov about the heavy wind tonight, followed by the sleet. Hell of a time to be sailing on the lake.
Another delay, and Jim thought for a moment he’d lost the connection. “No, you’ve got to come tonight,” Kirkov said.
“I know where it is, but that’s not the problem. I can’t sail in this weather. That’s what gets guys killed. It should clear up in a day or to and I—”
“You don’t have to sail this time,” Kirkov said. “Doesn’t matter anymore if someone hears the motor. Take whatever boat you need, just get the stuff to the island. Tonight.”
“A bigger boat with a motor would help,” he admitted. “I know a guy—”
“That’s good. In fact, it’s better, because with the motor boat you can come to the beach this time, instead of the docks. You know where that is, right? It’s closer, not as far for us to carry the stuff.”
“Yeah, I know where it is.” He hesitated. “Okay, I’ll be there.”
“Good. My battery is half gone and I have other calls. Are we clear, then?”
“Yes, fine. See you tonight.”
Barbara was waiting when he came out of the garage. “What was that about?”
“I told you. I had some questions about the new radar for the boat. What happened is—”
“How many years we been married?” she interrupted.
He stared at her and knew he wouldn’t fool her by stretching the lie. “Okay, it’s a side job I took and I didn’t want to worry you cause I don’t know who I’m working for. Some eccentric guys on King’s Island.”
He thought about what he’d seen in that box and wondered. Just how eccentric were they? Drills, batteries, grenades. What the hell were they doing, anyway?
“You’re not sailing in this weather are you?”
“No, I’m not sailing. I’ll take Dave’s Mainship. Look, it’s just a couple of miles to the island and then back again.”
“I don’t like it. And who are these guys, anyway?”
“It’s nothing, really, but they pay well. You know, a good job is hard to find this time of year. I’m just carrying supplies and it’s good money.”
“I thought you said we were doing well.”
“We were last summer when I told you that. Now, I need some cash. The bank doesn’t take IOUs for the mortgage just because there are no tourists on the lake.”
“I could pick up an extra shift at Shaws.”
“That’s not enough, Barb. Look, this job has some funny hours, but it pays well and I’m almost done. Should be enough that I don’t have to clean roofs this winter.”
If there was one thing she hated more than Jim on the lake in bad weather it was seeing him shoveling snow off people’s roofs after a big storm. The hourly pay was great, but every winter some guy in Vermont fell off a roof and broke his neck.
“Okay, but promise you’ll be careful.”
“I will, I promise.” He meant it.
“And you won’t do anything illegal,” she added.
“Don’t worry about that. Seriously.”
He turned to drop the cordless phone in its cradle and hoped she didn’t see the lie on his face.
Chapter Thirty-eight:
Dmitri could barely remember leaving the dungeon. He remembered staggering barefoot through the castle with someone’s hand on his arm, something about stairs, and then collapsing on the bed.
He lay in a bed stacked with blankets. It was dark and he was shot through with exhaustion. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, whether it had been five hours or fifteen. There was no window in the room, so he didn’t even know if it was night or day. Whatever he’d slept, it wasn’t enough. Dmitri almost rolled over and went back to sleep.
But everything came back to him. He dragged his body out of bed. His muscles ached and his feet hurt to touch the ground. He could barely turn his neck from side to side, it had drooped forward for so many hours.
That was no good, so he kneaded the muscles on his neck and bent and stretched. After maybe twenty minutes he felt half alive again. It was chill, standing in a nightshirt and underwear, and this helped him wake up. Time to get out of here. He went to the door and knocked.
“Lars, are you out there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” The voice was muffled from the other side of the door. “What do you want?”
“What time is it?”
“Should I check my digital watch?”
“Sorry, I’m just wondering if it’s night or day,” Dmitri said.
“Go back to sleep. You’re lucky we don’t just kill you to get you out of the way.”
“Come on, Lars, I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Shut the hell up and stop bothering me.”
“I drank so much water that I need to pee.”
“That’s what the chamber pots are for.”
“Someone cleared everything out of my room,” he said. He had no idea if it was true or not. “There’s not so much as a coffee cup to pee in. Don’t want me to try anything, I guess.”
Dmitri kept moving his neck and his muscles, trying to ignore the pain. He had to stay limber or he had no chance.
Lars muttered something in Danish, then the lock turned and Dmitri heard him lift the bar on the other side. Dmitri tensed his muscles.
There was a bit of light in the hallway from a candle in a sconce. Lars stood back a pace with a dagger in his hand. It was the same one he’d taken from Dmitri.
“You play any games and I’ll kill you,” Lars said.
“That what Tess tell you to do?”
“Damn right, she did. And I’d do it anyway, you bastard.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try anything.” He unwound his tense muscles, then put a hand to his neck and massaged there, making sure to wince visibly. “I’m a wreck anyway.”
“It’s that way,” Lars said. He pointed with the dagger to his left.
Dmitri took two steps and then swiveled on the balls of his feet and drove his fist into Lars’s gut. The bigger man staggered backwards with a grunt. Dmitri fell on top of him and twisted his wrist. The dagger slipped free and Dmitri snatched it up. He grabbed Lars by the head and jabbed the point under his friend’s chin. The fight dropped out of the man.
“One whisper and you’re dead. Do you understand me?”
He kept a fistful of hair and the dagger in place and forced Lars to crabwalk backwards and into the room. Lars didn’t fight, as Dmitri had guessed.
Dmitri took Lars’s sword and scabbard and left them at the doorway, then ordered Lars to the bed. He grabbed the candle from the sconce just outside the room and used it to light two more in the room He used the dagger to cut strips from the bedding, which he then used to tie first Lars’s hands and then his feet, and finally his mouth.
Dmitri stopped and looked at the stricken expression on his friend’s face. “You couldn’t help it, Lars. You’re just a big guy who looks like a Viking. And it was a game to you. It’s not a game to me, so I had the advantage, you understand?”
He strapped on the sword, then looked around the room until he found his pants. No boots, so he took Lars’s. They were too big by about two sizes, but they’d have to do.
“And I’m grateful,” Dmitri continued. “You could have made me suffer more in that hole. You had plenty of reason to do it. But I could tell you didn’t like it. I don’t like it either, I hope you know.” He slipped the dagger into his belt.
That gag was tight, but Lars would probably chew his way free shortly. Or someone would walk down the hallway and wonder why the room was unguarded. Or something. He didn’t have long to make his escape.
Problem was, he didn’t know where he was, exactly. Maybe in the keep, maybe in the apartments above the manor house or the barracks. He needed to reach the dungeon, and from there, try to escape through the vaults like Yekatarina had.
Dmitri slipped out of the room and barred the door behind him.
#
Tess and Niels were in the armory when Dmitri entered. Peter had stocked the room with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth helmets, shields, breastplates, swords, shields, and the like, but she needed spears to cut and sharpen into ballista bolts. She and Niels selected the most likely candidates and stacked them on the table to be taken later to the blacksmith.
There was a door on the far side with a staircase that led to apartments above the barracks and armory, and from there, to the walkway on the outer curtain. It burst open and in rushed Dmitri with a wild expression, swinging a sword. It was a few hours before dawn and most of the castle was outside, fighting fires or manning the gatehouse against attack. The rest would be snatching a few hours of sleep.
Dmitri wore oversized boots and he stumbled as he took the last stair, otherwise he would have had a clear swing at Tess’s bare head. She staggered back against the table, spilled swords to the floor. She grabbed one of the swords, rather than fumble with her own, still in its sheath. Dmitri gave one more feeble blow, which she blocked, and then she and Niels bludgeoned him back toward the door.
“Drop your sword!” she shouted.
He didn’t obey, so she knocked it back, then Niels lowered his shoulder and slammed Dmitri into the wall. Moments later and they had him on the floor, disarmed and with Niels’s knee on the man’s neck. Tess pinned his arms.
“Where’s Lars?” she asked. “You didn’t—?”
“No, I didn’t kill him,” Dmitri said through clenched teeth. “He’s in the room, tied up. I didn’t hurt him.”
A moment of relief, followed by frustration. “Dammit, Lars.” She turned to Niels. “Hold him while I grab that rope. We’ll move him to the keep, I know a more secure room. Oh, and we’ll find a better guard.”
When she came back with the rope, Niels said, “You know, it occurs to me we could do something with this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe someone told them we caught Dmitri. They’ll be hoping he escapes, or expecting him to throw open the gates or something.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Dmitri said. “That won’t work. I was just trying to get away, get the hell off this stupid island.”
She didn’t know if that was true or not, but it didn’t matter. “How close is the gatehouse to being ready?”
“Close enough,” Niels said, “Do you want to give it a try?”
“It might not work,” she said after thinking it over for a moment, “but even as a diversion it would give a chance to get the ballista onto the walls undetected.”
Chapter Thirty-nine:
A fight broke out above the gatehouse at dawn.
It came after an eventful night. A fire smoldered on the roof of the great hall. All night, one side struggled to put out the fire while the other side tried to spread it. Kirkov’s men fired again and again with the smaller trebuchet, landing burning rags and pitch on the roof. The castle defenders threw buckets of water and smothered breakouts with hides and wet tapestries.
The larger trebuchet struck two heavy blows in the middle of the night. The bombardment had weakened the walls to the left of the gatehouse and these two shots opened a hole in the castle wall. It was high above the ground, still, but a few more days of punishment would reduce the defenses on that side to rubble.
Kirkov was assessing this latest development when he saw figures struggling on the wall. The fight went into the gatehouse and then a moment later a body flew out the window and landed in front of the gates. The portcullis chains clanked and then opened. Kirkov could barely believe his eyes, or his luck.
He grabbed one of his men and shouted a quick command, then set off at a run for the tents. Men were lowering the tents. Kirkov had other plans for tonight and none of them involved sleeping. He sacrificed the tents for other purposes.
He ordered them from the tents and sent them racing for weapons and armor. That portcullis was still open.
Yekatarina arrived at a near run. “What are you doing?”
“Dmitri took the gatehouse. Must have locked himself inside. We’ve got to get there before it closes.”
“How would he do that? They’ve got him locked away somewhere, I’m sure of it.”
They’d sent around a small scouting party to find the back entrance plugged and men on the walls with lamps on poles over that edge of the castle, watching for approaching enemies. And no word from Dmitri since he’d freed Yekatarina. She was convinced that T
ess had taken him prisoner, but Kirkov didn’t believe it.
“Even if they did, he got free somehow. Look!”
She switched to Russian. “Think about it, you idiot. The wall is crumbling. The boat comes tonight and then we don’t need the gates. Why the hell would we fight our way through the gatehouse? We’d still have to knock down the doors on the other side of the gatehouse.”
“I don’t care what you say,” he said with a glance at the portcullis. Still open for now. “Dmitri killed someone and threw his body over the edge. Get every other man in camp and send them, I’m going now.”
Kirkov ignored her protests and grabbed a helmet and shield. He joined the group of fifteen, twenty men who were ready to charge into the keep. A quick scan of his camp told him they would need at least five more minutes to gather the larger attack. He would have to take the gatehouse and hold it until they arrived. By then, the enemy would counterattack, but it would be too late.
He hated to attack the castle at a run, but there was no choice. Every second was precious. They were thirty meters from the walls, then twenty and still no response from above the gates. Men clanked and gasped all around him. Sweat poured down the inside of his helmet.
A shout came from his back and he felt a stir of excitement. Yekatarina had already gathered the second wave, and they were following. But then his men faltered. Some looked over their shoulders. Kirkov stumbled into someone as the entire formation came to an abrupt halt.
He looked back and he felt first dismay, then anger. Yekatarina had formed the men into ranks, but they’d only advanced a few tens of meters across the field between them, and there they stopped. They weren’t coming to join the attack, they had advanced only so far as necessary to protect his retreat.
The shouts from camp were warnings for him to give up the attack. He glanced back at the walls and only now saw men stirring on the walls near the gates, but it didn’t look like a trick, it looked like men trying to break into the gatehouse so they could lower the portcullis.
The men around him looked at Kirkov with confusion. “No, we can’t attack now. Go, retreat.”