Blood Red Tide (Bad Times Book 2)

by Chuck Dixon

  This was Dwayne’s area of expertise. She was more than content to let him take the lead. That they’d survived this long was due to his resourcefulness and toughness, toughness of mind as well as body. But there were still so many things that might go wrong, so many variables and misadventures that lay between them and any possible return to the future. The Now, as the Rangers called it.

  “But still, something could happen,” she said.

  “Anything can happen. If I didn’t know that before I sure as shit know it after meeting you and your brother.”

  “We might not make it home. We could stay here. Die here.”

  “I wish you’d stop thinking about that, Caroline.”

  “I’m not thinking about it. I’m accepting it. Tell me you haven’t prepared for that possibility. Mentally, I mean.”

  “I’ll make a Ranger of you yet.” She could hear the smile in his voice despite the darkness that hid his features.

  “Then there’s something I need to tell you, Dwayne.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Look, if this is how you feel about me, then you should know that—”

  She cut him short: “Rick Renzi didn’t die.” Dwayne was silent.

  Caroline told him about her friend Jane in London and what she’d learned by studying the skeletal remains of Richard Renzi.

  “There’s no way we can go back for him. I’m so sorry,” she concluded.

  “Yeah. The barrier. These last trips made a wall in time we can’t cross,” he said.

  “If I had only found out a few days sooner. I’m so terribly sorry,” she said and leaned toward him to place her head on his shoulder. He was quivering, and she reached as far as the chains would allow to give his arm a comforting stroke. He hooted, and she realized that he was shaking with contained laughter. Caroline sat upright and regarded him with surprise.

  “Ricky trapped in a place where there’s no beer or cigarettes,” he snickered. “He must be making life hell for those man-eating little fuckers.”

  “That’s funny to you? He lived the rest of his life— forty years or more—with those animals.” She was appalled.

  “You don’t know Ricky, honey. He wouldn’t have made thirty the way he was living. Staying in Bedrock is maybe the best thing that could have happened to him. Like prehistoric rehab.”

  “That’s it? What happened to ‘no man left behind?’” she stammered. It made him laugh harder.

  “I’ll tell you this,” he said once he’d recovered. “I am sure-as-shit curious about what went down after we left.”

  The Lion of Ba’al rowed into the sheltered harbor of Rhodes a lamb.

  With the ferocious ram and breastworks gone and the war shields stowed below deck, she looked like any other trader plying the seas and raised little notice as Ahinadab guided her toward the opening in the ring wall that encircled the harbor. Lazy soldiers leaned on spears atop the wall and watched the ship cruise past without comment or challenge.

  The city of Rhodes hugged the natural curve of a bay, buildings gleaming white under a clear afternoon sky. A carpet of red-tiled rooftops led up toward grander structures of marble pillars and a walled fortress of stone stucco-ed with lime. At the end of a pier stood the Colossus of Rhodes—one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. It was a statue of a naked Helios, a titan of Greek mythology. It stood ten stories tall at the crown of leaves atop its head and another thirty or so feet of an extended arm holding a torch.

  It was all bronze from the knees up and probably gleamed like a new penny when it was first put up. Now, after twenty or more years, a dull patina covered the surface, and the head and shoulders were dusted white with bird shit. A flock of gulls was perched along the top even now, and there was a pelican nest atop Helios’ head.

  Caroline studied it with open amazement as they scudded beneath it. To Dwayne, it looked like a gay Statue of Liberty.

  The Colossus did not stand astride the sea gate as legend portrayed it. It stood on a massive plinth set at the end of a pier that jutted into the sea with massive marble feet close together and one knee slightly bent.

  The Lion, sail furled and oars backing, warped to a berth where men waited to catch lines and secure the vessel to the quay against stout wooden mooring piers. Ahinadab, in his best robe with his girdle polished, was the first to step down onto the quayside. The captain, accompanied by Xin, tossed copper coins to the dock men who tied up the Lion’s lines. Xin left his ax with the rowing boss. As Caroline surmised, the ax was a badge of rank as well as a weapon of intimidation. The rowing boss was skipper while the captain and first mate were ashore. Traders looking to do business met Ahinadab when he and Xin were only a few steps onto land.

  Praxus explained that ships that sailed from the sight of land were rare and the most daring captains were highly sought after. A talented Phoenician trader could make Carthage or Ostia or Alexandria weeks ahead of more cautious competitors who hugged the coastline. Ahinadab was most prized because he was thought to be thoroughly mad but highly favored by the gods.

  “I’ll swear to that on both counts,” Dwayne said when Caroline had translated.

  “When will we be sold?” Caroline asked Praxus.

  “I cannot know. Perhaps we will be purchased outright. Most likely we will be taken to auction.” Praxus shuddered at that and said no more.

  The cause of Praxus’ anxiety became clear to Caroline when she and Dwayne and the boy were brought to the marketplace. They were manacled wrist and ankle. Dwayne was bound with ropes. Nooses were looped over their throats and secured to a single leash, which was used to pull them along the deck and out onto the quay for the trip to the market.

  Caroline looked back for a last glance at the Lion of Ba’al. Ahinadab stood at the port freeboard and called to Xin, who was in charge of taking them for auction.

  “Ahinadab tells Xin to insist on the best price and to not get drunk,” Praxus said. Xin jerked the boy’s rope collar at the mention of his name.

  Caroline wasn’t sure which was worse as they were led like animals through the market crowd: the ones who ignored them as if they did not exist, or the ones who took an interest in them as though they were livestock. They followed Xin down lanes crowded with stalls filled with cloth, pottery, fresh fish, and meat.

  Animal carcasses hung alongside cheeses and all surrounded by clouds of flies shooed away by boys apathetically waving rattan flails. There were merchants with beads, oil, sandals, weaponry, wood carvings, ivory carvings, dishware, brassware, wine, and cakes. One stall had a fire going under a broad iron grill where a sweating man flipped patties of ground meat.

  There’s your McDonald’s, Dwayne, Caroline thought.

  They were elbowed, kicked, and pawed as they made their way through the crush at the center of the twisting lane. They were less than nothing and targets of derision, scorn, indifference and, in some cases, lust. A grunting man in Arab dress took Praxus by the arm and openly rubbed a hand on the boy’s crotch while humming to himself. Xin strode back and whipped the pervert with the end of the lead rope, more angered at being delayed than having his merchandise molested.

  The lane emptied out into a broad square surrounded by three-story buildings all around. At its center was a raised wooden platform encircled by a crowd of men shouting eagerly and waving hands to be seen. Atop the platform stood a quartet of naked men. They were filthy and thin and stood with heads lowered. A chubby man in a yellow robe, the first actual overweight person Caroline had seen since arriving here, moved before the men waving a stick of some kind at the crowd who laughed and called out to one another.

  This was a slave auction. This is what awaited Dwayne and her.

  The fat trader held one of the men on the block upright by the hair and forced his mouth open to show his teeth. He pinched the flesh of the miserable man’s biceps and thighs and made remarks that raised guffaws from the men at the foot of the stage. He made each of the four slaves stan
d on first one leg and then the other. He ordered them to lift each other’s genitals and the crowd exploded in mirth.

  He turned to the crowd and spread his hands. The audience grew silent. The trader pointed his stick at the quartet and held up four fingers. They would be sold as a lot. The bidding began and was furious at first before petering out to two men and finally ending. The four were walked from the stage down a flight of steps at the rear.

  Xin urged his charges forward with a sharp tug until they reached the bottom of the steps. Caroline stumbled, and Dwayne stopped his progress to allow her to fall against him for support. Xin called out to the trader who came to the edge of the platform.

  Praxus translated the exchange.

  Xin said he had some fine specimens for sale. Romans and an educated Greek.

  The trader said that he was interested but had many slaves for sale before them. Xin would have to wait.

  Xin countered with a promise of a bonus atop his regular commission if the trader would put his merchandise on the block ahead of the queue. Praxus added that Xin was anxious to get drunk despite Ahinadab’s orders to the contrary.

  The trader considered this and finally nodded concession while gesturing Xin to bring his slaves forward.

  It all seemed so normal, and matter of fact, this trafficking of human souls. Caroline was struck by the inhuman callousness of it. She was certainly not naïve after all she had seen and experienced. But at least the man-eating protohumans of the valley in Nevada were acting on pure animal instinct. This was naked commerce of the vilest sort. Slaves stood docile, waiting their turn to be sold to the highest bidder. She wondered how they could go to their fate without any sign of defiance or protest. Then she saw the rough men lounging close along the face of the stage, armed with thick clubs. One man held a cat—a whip with many strands of leather tipped with metal barbs. Many of those waiting to be sold showed signs of beatings, old and new, on their torsos, arms, and legs.

  It struck her that each and every one of those waiting their turn on the block was naked. Involuntarily she hesitated before setting a foot on the first step to follow Dwayne to the stage. Xin cuffed her across the back of the head and she climbed the steps, pulling Praxus behind her on their shared line.

  Xin shoved them roughly forward into full view of the surrounding crowd which began to mutter to one another their appraisal of this new offering.

  The trader raised hands to quiet the crowd and went into his pitch. Praxus stood silent, and Caroline did not ask him to translate. She could only stand and fight down the urge to shake convulsively as her mind reeled with the dreadful possibilities to come in the next moments.

  Dwayne’s line was cut, and he was pulled forward. He turned and met Caroline’s eyes with a hard look before being jerked to the stage edge by the leash in Xin’s fists.

  She wanted to believe that the look meant “Courage.” But it was just as likely it meant goodbye.

  The trader tore away what was left of Dwayne’s swim trunks and tossed the filthy rags aside. The crowd pressed forward in interest. The trader touched Dwayne’s arms and chest with the end of his stick and made remarks that set the buyers laughing. He used the stick to lift the Ranger’s penis to assure the crowd that this particular piece of livestock was not gelded. Standing on tiptoes, to reach his mouth, the trader pried Dwayne’s lips apart and the crowd gasped in awe. The miracles of modern dentistry once again. A furor swept the crowd and the trader motioned for silence, then slapped the stick against Dwayne’s chest. The mob, which had doubled in size as the curious moved in from all sides to see what all the hubbub was about, shouted out a flurry of bids with the trader pacing back and forth to register them all with urgent thrusts of his stick.

  It was over in moments, and Dwayne was led from the stage by a pair of thugs. From where Caroline stood, she could not see who had won the auction for Dwayne. She now had only two fervent wishes in the world: that these next few moments go by quickly and that she be purchased by the same buyer who had purchased Dwayne. They were feeble, sad little hopes, but they were all she had to hang onto.

  Caroline was cut from the line running to Praxus and drawn forward by Xin. The trader was into his rap and gesturing at Caroline with his stick to little audible interest from the crowd. She kept her eyes on the planks of the stage as she felt Xin’s hands tugging at her clothing. He had her naked in moments, and she fell to her knees under his rough attentions. The trader took her by the wrist and pulled her upright and the entire square hushed.

  She kept her eyes cast down, and so could not see Xin’s expression of shock or the dismayed frown upon the trader’s face as the mob roared with sudden laughter. The trader pitched her as a boy slave but was now made a fool of by the slender female form on display before him.

  Xin cursed bitterly, but the trader joined the crowd’s laughter and brayed in delight. He ran his stick along her flank and held her arm up to better display her breasts, which he squeezed painfully to the amusement of the mob. Caroline’s flesh reddened in deep humiliation, and that caused the trader to make another jest that she could not understand but which produced fresh guffaws all around. A few more minutes of ribald routine were followed by another display of astonishment at the results of years of orthodontics and regular cleanings. The bidding began.

  Caroline forced her eyes upward in an effort to watch the bidding. She wanted to see who was buying her. She scanned for signs of Dwayne, but he wasn’t anywhere that she could see. Had he been purchased and taken away by his new owner already? Was Jimbo somewhere here as they theorized? Was a rescue in the works?

  A sea of hands was waving below her in an obvious bidding war that the trader had to shout over to be heard. Faces of men stared up at her with hungry looks and mean, humorless leers—lookers not buyers. She raised her head to peer past them.

  There, in the middle of the crowd, two men stood side by side in dark cloaks with hoods raised to throw their faces in shadow. They were both distinguished from the rest of the mob. Both were easily a head or so taller than the rest. One of them held a hand up to bid, keeping his fingers splayed and raised to indicate he was prepared to outbid all comers.

  53

  The Highest Bidders

  Caroline nearly collapsed in relief. Rangers. They had to be. Two tall, broad-shouldered men traveling incognito. It was Jimbo along with Boats, or maybe Chaz, come to buy their freedom. She clung to that thought. It made sense. It had to be so.

  The bidding came down to three and then two and finally to the cloaked men, one of whom stood with arm rigid above him until his was the only hand raised.

  She caught Praxus’ look of frozen astonishment as she was led past him and down the steps. Dwayne was standing at the rear of the stage with some of the armed handlers by him. He was fighting down a grin as she approached. He’d been bought by their friends as well, that much was clear by his barely suppressed smile.

  They were both surprised when the auction for Praxus ended and the skinny naked boy was shoved over to join them. He glared at Caroline with resentment.

  “A girl? You were a girl all along?” he hissed.

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “And an ugly girl at that,” he sneered, and she kicked him in the shin, causing him to howl.

  “Settle down. We’re not in the end zone yet,” Dwayne whispered to her.

  “Can you see our buyers?” Caroline asked.

  “They have their backs to me,” he said. He could see their cowled heads over the mob. They were paying off the trader at the foot of the steps. The fat man nodded from where he stood on the second step. One of the men counted coins from a leather sack into his chubby hands. The fat man counted the coins and placed them in a purse that hung from a belt depended below his protruding belly. The two hooded men moved away, and the fat man gestured eagerly to a pair of toughs. Xin stepped up with hands cupped before him for his end of the take.

  The toughs, a pair of men whose faces matched their
ugly profession, prodded Caroline, Dwayne, and Praxus with the ends of their clubs, herding them forward like sheep through the parting crowd. They left Xin and the slave trader bickering loudly.

  Dwayne put an arm around Caroline as best he could. She pressed against him, as they followed after the pair of hooded men walking toward the arched opening of an alleyway. Praxus and the pair of toughs followed close behind, urging the trio along with thrusts from their clubs.

  They entered the narrow alley for delivery to the two men waiting there in the shadows. One of the toughs said something and the taller of the hooded men nodded. The toughs departed, leaving the newly purchased slaves alone with their buyers.

  Caroline opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a sudden coughing noise. She turned to see Praxus drop lifeless against a wall of the alley, a fan of blood and brains spread above him.

  One of the men parted his cloak to reveal a wicked black handgun with a smoking silencer attached to the end of the barrel.

  54

  The Anomaly Dance

  Caroline stepped in front of Dwayne. The Ranger was starting toward the pair of cloaked men. With wrists bound and ankles hobbled, any attempt at resistance would only get them both killed.

  “I only really need one of you,” the man with the gun said in accented English. South African.

  Caroline and Dwayne followed the gesture the man made with the silencer and stepped deeper into the alley.

  The man was Bohrs. Caroline knew him, as he was a security officer for Gallant Ltd, a company owned through several other shelter corporations by Sir Neal Harnesh. Bohrs was a frequent companion of Augustus Martin, the Gallant exec assigned to oversee the Tauber Tube operation in Nevada.

  “We’re heading back to the port. Any shit from either of you and I’ll put a bullet in the troublemaker,” Bohrs said and withdrew the handgun into his cloak. He lowered his hood, the need for disguise over. He might have been a handsome man with surfer good looks if not for a pair of lifeless gray eyes that could have belonged to a wolf. His companion, also a hard-eyed man missing half his left ear lobe, sported a wicked scar about his neck that might have been made by a noose.