Fiddlehead

by Cherie Priest

Page 53

 

  “A marshal? Why would the president send a marshal?” Frankum tried to redirect the inquiry, but he didn’t do it smoothly—and before the crisis could be forced any further, he gave up the pretense of innocence. “I didn’t have any way of knowing who they were. Besides, you have your orders, I have mine. Mine say to keep all crafts away from this convoy, and I was doing my job. ”

  “Mr. Epperson,” Captain MacGruder said to Henry, but kept his eyes on Frankum. “Were you flying in a federal craft? Did you make any attempt to identify yourself?”

  “A federal craft in Confederate airspace? No, for Christ’s sake. And we weren’t given the opportunity to identify ourselves; we were attacked without warning upon approach. ”

  Frankum flashed a quick glance at the sky. Then, as if it had just occurred to him, he asked, “Wait a minute. Where’s Kramer?”

  “Kramer?” Henry echoed.

  “Captain Kramer,” Frankum said crossly. “He was following us out, in his little supply ship. He stayed behind us; he was supposed to…”

  “To what?” Maria demanded. “Kill us? Shoot us down? I hate to disappoint you—or, rather, I don’t mind it in the slightest: We survived that encounter somewhat more cleanly than we survived our dustup with your craft. The ashes of that other ship are, at present, raining down softly over Georgia. ” She added a fluttering motion with her numb, bruised fingers for emphasis.

  “You took it down? In your little two-seater?”

  “She’s a mighty good shot. ” Henry was exaggerating, but Maria was pleased nonetheless.

  “Look, look, look. ” Frankum held out his hands, both attempting to defend himself and shush everyone else. “What I want to know is, how do we know these two came from the District? And why are you so fast to assume they’re telling the truth? You’re just going to let them waltz out of the woods and derail this operation? This very expensive operation, months in the planning? I don’t guess they had anything with the presidential seal on them?”

  Henry said, “No, but—”

  “So we take their words for it? Blow the whole mission, on the word of two spies?”

  “We aren’t—”

  But MacGruder interrupted, “No, I’m not willing to blow the whole mission. But I am willing to delay it a bit. I don’t even have much choice, given that we still have to extract this damn thing from the road,” he said, scowling at the rolling-crawler. “Texian technology … you’d think it could handle a Southern road. Jesus. Anyway, since we’ve got a minute, I just now put Bradley on a fast horse to Atlanta, to the taps there. ”

  “But the taps are down, all over the place,” the air captain argued.

  “Yes, but if they’re up again anywhere, they’ll be up in the city. We’ll just take a break and ask the president ourselves what he wants us to do. ”

  “But, but, that’ll take hours!” Frankum sputtered. “And you can’t just send the president a note and wait for orders—you already have orders!”

  “And I’m following them, until I hear differently,” MacGruder said coolly. “But it’ll take an hour or more to get this damn cart dug out, and once we’re back on the road—well, at our pace we’re lucky if it’s another four hours to the city. Bradley ought to catch us before we reach it, and we can reevaluate the matter depending on what he says. ”

  Frankum stayed calm, but his men were getting antsy. Maria watched them fidget and exchange nervous glances, though their captain’s expression was a fierce threat to maintain their composure. The man to his left lost it first. He asked, “Hours?”

  The word was small, but it was almost too frightened to be heard.

  “Hours,” MacGruder nodded.

  “We don’t have hours. ”

  “Shut up,” Frankum said to his man. Then, to MacGruder, “Hours aren’t in the plan, and you know it. ”

  “Plans change. ”

  “You’re stalling. ”

  “I am stalled,” Captain MacGruder declared. “And what does it matter if we reach Atlanta come sundown? The city will go to hell as easily at dusk as midday. ”

  Frankum shook his head, and his eyes darted back and forth between his crewmen. “We were supposed to be there by now. We should’ve been halfway back to the Mason-Dixon by now. ”

  “Plans change. We adapt. Without flexibility, we’re all doomed to fail. ”

  “I’m not,” Frankum insisted. “And I have obligations elsewhere. I don’t have to hover with you fools while you get your act together. ” He snapped his fingers, and pointed at the cargo craft. “You two, get back in the ship. We’re taking off. ”

  “No, you’re not,” MacGruder said, flatly.

  “We need more hydrogen; we’ve burned off too much sitting around waiting for your men to fix this. If we don’t go get more, we won’t have enough to pick you up and get us all clear of the blast. ”

  “You’re not leaving this caravan until everybody leaves it. ”

  Maria saw an opportunity to deepen the wedge between them, and she seized it. “That was never part of the plan,” she blurted out. All eyes turned to her, so she said it again. “It was never part of the plan for any of you to survive the trip. ”

  MacGruder came forward, until he stood directly in front of her. “Out in the woods you said this was a suicide mission for me and my men. ”

  “That’s right. That’s one reason the president rejected the program. ”

  “There were others?”

  “Once he learned what the weapon really does, yes. President Grant doesn’t want to create a legion of walking dead men any more than you do. ”

  As she spoke, Frankum and his men began a slow retreat, designed to keep from attracting too much attention.

  It didn’t work. MacGruder’s men stopped them with rifles primed, promising violence if anyone tried to leave the area. The captain himself whirled around on one heel, stomped up to Frankum, and seized him by the collar. He dragged the pilot off his feet, pulling him forward, and slamming him up against the nearest cart.

  Frankum’s eyes bugged out, darting frantically back and forth. He sought his men but found only MacGruder’s face wearing a very big frown.

  “Is she telling the truth? Were you supposed to leave us here?”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “So help me understand. She’s telling the truth—she is, or you wouldn’t be writhing like a worm on a hook. You’re caught; now be a man and tell us what we’d be in for if we followed the orders that so conveniently rely on you and your company. ”

  Frankum rallied a nasty laugh, choked off by MacGruder’s hand against his throat. “Inconvenient fools, the lot of you. ”

  “We’re inconvenient? So we die with the mission?”

  “Why do you think there are so many of you?” he spit. “How many men do you think are required to move that damn crawler and haul the fuel to keep it rolling? Not the thirty you’ve got. It could be done with a dozen. ”

  “So this is a death sentence? For being inconvenient?” MacGruder squeezed harder at Frankum’s throat, twisting his fingers in the fabric of the man’s coat collar. “I know that they want me silenced, and I know why; but the rest of these men are innocent. ”

  “And expendable. ”

  Henry, gone pale with pain but still standing, cleared his throat. “They’re part of the weapon. That’s it, isn’t it? They’re supposed to be the first wave of the walking plague after they loose the gas upon the city. ”

  Frankum nodded, insofar as he was able.

  Captain MacGruder asked, “But then why are you here? Why send the ship along? To make sure we finish the job? To watch us die?”

  “To set off the weapon. But you know that!”

  “And why else? Why else, goddammit!”

  “To observe,” Frankum squeaked. “To observe and report, and make sure that you do your jobs without … any…” His face was turning red, but he
forced out the last word anyway. “Interference!”

  “From people like them?” MacGruder waved a hand toward Maria and Henry.

  “From … anyone…”

  The captain released his grip. Frankum’s knees folded, and he dropped to the ground, feeling at his throat as if to make certain he was still in one piece. MacGruder stalked back toward his nearest lieutenant and said, “We’re stopping here. We wait for Bradley to come back with word from Washington, and then we’ll reevaluate. And those three”—he pointed balefully at the cargo ship’s crew and captain—“are staying right here with us. Tie them up and throw them into the crawler. If they want to watch the bomb that badly, they can sit on top of it. ”

  “No!” Frankum objected, loudly and suddenly. “No, you can’t do that!”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because … because…” He swore under his breath, yanked off his hat, and threw it at the ground in a gesture of protest. “Because the damn thing won’t hold much longer. ”

  “It’ll hold, so long as no one blasts it from the air. None of our crew has anything big enough to set it off. We’ll need your ship’s turret gun for that. ”

  “No, no, you won’t. We’re here with our ship to shoot the thing and set it off—that’s true; I swear it’s true,” he said, hands aloft again, protesting innocence. “But we’re running so late, and there’s the failsafe built in…”

  “Failsafe?”

  He cleared his throat. “An accidental failsafe, really. The bomb is too hard to control—it isn’t stable. Once it’s set and armed, it has half a day before the gas corrodes the interior components. ” He was speaking quickly now. “Half a day, while the gas eats the metal like acid. If we don’t detonate it as planned, it’ll go off on its own. ”