“Yeah,” Gunner said with a groan as he laid his cheek back on the stock of his rifle. He needed a rest, afraid that what was coming next would be too much for him. “You did the right thing. Wake me when it’s time to move out.” He was asleep so quickly that he didn’t see the green smoke rising up out of the woods. Green meant they were going on to Plan B.
The single plume of smoke was soon answered by a hundred more drifting up out of the forests north and east of Hoquiam. As soon as these could be seen by the Guardians hiding west of the city, deep pits were set on fire and out of the mouth of each belched terrible clouds of black smoke. Next the Queen’s fleet ran their sails up and began zigzagging north with the setting sun turning their white sails a shifting orange.
The ships, and the fires, and the pits filled with Jillybean’s smoke generating concoctions were all a great deal of fluff since no attack was coming. It was only a vast distraction so that three men could slip into the river a half mile upstream without being seen.
Gunner got an hour’s worth of sleep before Neil tapped him on his hump. “It’s time.” He sniffed obviously as if Gunner couldn’t smell the bitter smoke that had slowly wafted across the dark city and was now sifting through the trees and underbrush.
“Help me up, will…” A burst of distant gunfire cut him off. The three paused waiting for more, each hoping it meant someone had pumped a few rounds into the Black Captain’s back. When nothing more was heard, Gunner muttered, “We stop until we see him dead.”
Troy, his face smeared with dirt, appeared out of the dark and helped to heft him up. He was young and strong, but even he found Gunner’s bulk a strain, and once more he worried that it was a mistake to bring him. He felt the same thing about Neil. He was something of a Magoo-like character: half-blind, embarrassingly forgetful, and apparently skating through life depending on luck. Luck wasn’t going to save them when they crossed the river and made it into Hoquiam—if they made it into the town that is.
Crossing the river was the easy part. For the last hour, Jillybean had made sure to fill the water upstream with parts of trees and dug-up bushes, so that when the three slid down the river on a partially submerged raft under a canopy of artfully arranged branches, it wouldn’t stand out.
It was getting into Hoquiam that worried Troy.
With the smoke, and ships flying every which way, the Corsairs were all on high alert. They would be right there above the river, maybe thirty yards away from the sewer pipe. Would Gunner curse over nothing and give them away? Would Neil forget himself and ask one of the Corsairs for directions? And if they got into the pipe, what were the chances that Gunner would simply die in the tunnel and clog it up with his body? Troy thought the chances were higher than seventy percent. And if they got into the city would Neil manage to blunder into a tray of champagne glasses? It seemed stupidly farfetched and yet this was Neil. Only he could find a way to do something so ridiculous.
Then, of course, they had to get to the launch point.
It was only a mile trek for Troy. For the battered, dying old soldier it was a marathon of pain and exhaustion. He reeled and staggered, his breath wheezing in and out of him as if his lungs had been replaced by a mud-filled accordion.
Troy couldn’t help but wonder why Jillybean hadn’t chosen any two other people? Not that there had been many hands raised for what would be a suicide mission, but there had been a few, and every one of them would have been infinitely better suited for the mission compared to Gunner and Neil.
“We need to talk,” he said as they stumbled into the little clearing beside the river.
In the dark, with her rags and bald head, Jillybean looked more like a boy of thirteen than an ex-queen. “Actually what we need to do is lay him down,” she retorted. “There you go, Gunner. We’ll get you back on your feet in no time.” With a penlight stuck between her teeth, she ran a needle up a vein into the crook of his good arm, hooked him up to a new IV bag, and had Neil squeeze fluids into him. She then brought out two syringes. “One’s for now and the other is for later.”
Gunner cracked an eye. “What is it?”
“It’s my own cocktail. It’ll both keep you going and numb you at the same time. It may also make you jittery. And you will crash after. Use the second one only when you have to.” She stuck the first syringe into his IV and in seconds, Gunner went limp with relief.
“You can’t be serious,” Troy said. “Please choose someone else.”
“I wish I could,” she answered. “I wish I had the luxury of letting three strangers go off to die for us. Nothing would make me happier. Unfortunately, I’m cursed with precognition.” He hesitated, not knowing what that was and assumed it had to do with her insanity. “It means that I can see the future.”
Troy glared at her. “Only the Queen can see the future, and even then…” Even then he didn’t know if he believed it.
“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I see many possible futures. Or at least I try to. I have to out think my enemies. I have to respond to my enemy’s reactions before I act to begin with. Do you understand? If I do A then he will likely do B, but he could C, D, and E. There’s also random events I have to take into consideration. That’s why I have chosen Gunner and Neil over a pair of Guardians.”
Once more he pictured Neil tripping and knocking into the champagne flutes, only now there were a hundred of them stacked in something of a pyramid. “I still don’t see how they would be better…”
“Suppose that a man’s throat needed to be slit from behind. You have one second to decide whether it fits your moral code. Do you hesitate? What happens if a guard asks for mercy and gives up. Do you and your Guardian friends tie him up and gag him or do you smash his head with a brick?”
“Honor would demand that I…”
She talked over him. “Honor demands that you do the right thing even if means letting that cancer of a man live. Honor demands that you let his evil spread, because without honor how would you look your fellow Guardians in the eye? That’s not something Gunner and Neil have to worry about. No one looks them in the eye and all they’ve ever done was sacrifice their bodies for the good of…” Her breath suddenly hitched in her chest and she turned away. “They’ve sacrificed for me and for others and this time will be no different.”
“You don’t know that,” Neil said. “It could be a cakewalk this time.”
Without turning around, she said, “You’re right, Neil. You only die in eleven of the thirteen scenarios I’ve envisioned.” She spun about suddenly and they saw her great blue eyes were filled with tears. “Whatever happens, you are not to throw your lives away. Remember, I am not done.”
Neil grinned. “You have another plan? It must be truly horrible if this one is better.”
“It won’t be needed because you three will prevail. Now, we have no more time. You must go.”
The three tried to climb aboard their camouflaged raft and discovered that it was too narrow. Only Gunner could put his full weight on it. Neil and Troy hung off the sides, trying to peer through the thin screen of branches. Knowing that silence was the key, Jillybean equipped the raft with the last scuba tank left to her fleet. It enabled them to cross the river, and with short bursts they steered toward the drainage pipe that Troy and Neil had used to escape the town.
Its entrance was four feet under water, which was the least of their worries. Easily their biggest concern was that looming not far above the drain was the first line of trenches. They were so close they could hear one of the men scratching his ass.
They knew that any sound they made would be immediately picked up, which made getting off the raft something of an impossibility for Gunner. His hump kept catching on the branches, making them scritch alarmingly. Thankfully, Jillybean had foreseen the problem. A crash of gunfire erupted on the far bank. Bullets began whipping just over head, thudding into the earth or making high pinging sounds as they nicked off the wire. The return fire was inevitable and under the cover of a
hundred guns going off at once, the three ducked down beneath the water and squirmed up into the pipe.
Gunner squirmed like a giant slug, filling the pipe with his bulk, making Neil think of the Lord of the Rings for the first time in a decade. He was practically small enough to be a hobbit and he pictured himself as Samwise Gamgee, stealing into Mordor. The similarities were too perfect. The dark was all pervasive and the stench had to be as bad as Shelob’s lair. There was fear in the stifling, black air, and everything was drenched in darkest evil.
He was dwelling on this when he ran his face into Troy’s muddy boots. Gunner had stopped and was gasping in pain.
“It’s just a little further,” Troy whispered.
To Gunner the dark seemed endless and time even more so. They had been seven minutes in the pipe but to him it had seemed like an hour. “Jus…just need a sec.” He was close to passing out again. Fainting, he thought. I’m close to fainting. It was embarrassing. Fainting was for girls and wimps. He took a deep gurgling breath and inched on. And on. And on.
By the time he felt a tiny cold breeze wafting down from the opening, he only had enough strength to make the climb up into the city. After that he fainted and had to be dragged out a piss-smelling puddle by Troy.
“What do we do?” Troy asked. “Do we give him the other shot?”
It felt too soon to Neil. “We wait. He’ll come around.”
Soaking wet and freezing, they sat in the dark, listening to guns rattle, first behind them, and then around the perimeter of the trashy little town. Jillybean had planned this to keep the Corsairs from flooding the area around the pipe with men. Unfortunately, it also made the streets extra dangerous. Squads of black-garbed Corsairs ran here and there, chasing the gunfire. Then, when it ended, they came sauntering back. There was always one or two within sight.
Gunner sat up on his own and looked blearily around. He grunted, “So this is Hoquiam. It’s exactly as nasty I expected it to be.”
“It’s even worse that it had been,” Troy told him. There were more bodies in the streets and more rats in the gutter. The putrid smell in the air was made almost unbreathable by the fear that ran like an electric current along it. Even Troy felt a touch of it. He refused to show it, however. Neil seemed to lack the wit to be afraid and was thus immune to fear, while Gunner, even perhaps dying from a serious wound, was the thing that stalked people’s nightmares. He had lost his mask and the shadows pooling in the holes and ravines of his face made him look even more ghastly than ever.
“We can’t stay here forever,” Gunner said after a minute. His hand was already getting twitchy and he felt drawn-out and thin inside. The drugs were wearing off. “How far is it?”
“Six or seven blocks,” Troy answered. “Not far. If you can’t make it…”
Gunner shoved himself to his feet, growling, “I can make it, choir boy.” He pulled his battered Glock and checked to see if a round was chambered. Satisfied, he re-holstered it. Neil and Troy did the same with their M4s. When they were ready, Troy took point, keeping as close as he could to the overgrown bushes on the south side of the road. When he came to a street crossing, he paused, looked both ways and then darted across.
“What the hell are you doing?” Gunner demanded. “Do you see anyone else acting like that? Just walk normal.” Although he had chastised Troy for not walking normal, Gunner wasn’t really any better. He was still staggering and wheezing. It was all he could do to remain upright.
“Soldiers!” Troy hissed after only a block. A group of six were ambling down the street, seemingly unconcerned that they were in the middle of a siege. Neil took Gunner by the arm and pushed him to the left and down a cracked and buckled driveway. They marched through a bumper crop of weeds, crossed an adjacent lot, and hurried down along the side of a dark laundromat. Its siding had once been stark white; now it was covered in swirls of graffiti. To Neil it looked as though someone had puked up forty gallons of partially digested skittles on the side of the wall.
It was somewhat mesmerizing and he wasn’t paying attention and managed to trip over an old rusting washing machine someone had thrown through a side window.
He surprised a slave who hadn’t heard them coming. She froze in fear, but when she saw Gunner’s face she sucked in a huge breath to scream. “Don’t,” he hissed, his gun suddenly appearing in his hand, faster than possible. Troy stepped between the two, his arms out, afraid that this was one of those moments Jillybean had talked about. Was he going to shoot her to keep her quiet? Would he strangle her with that giant hand of his?
“It’s only a slave girl,” Troy said.
“Yeah? I see that.” He leaned closer and muttered, “What are you doing, Corsair?” Troy gaped at him in confusion and Gunner growled, “Send the bitch packing.”
“Right,” Troy said, remembering that they were supposed to be blending in. They were Corsairs, and Corsairs were mean and cruel. He turned and glared at the slave. “You should go home…woman.” Gunner cleared his throat and spat something black onto the ground. Troy knew it was a hint. “I mean, go home…b-itch.” The word got caught up in his mouth, making Neil snort laughter. It was an awful animal sound. The woman fled as if she thought Neil might eat her—something that had fleetingly crossed his mind.
The second she was out of sight, Troy said, “I don’t know what you were laughing about, Neil. I don’t think I ever heard you curse either.”
“I can curse, trust me on that score,” Neil said, still grinning his gargoyle grin. “Try this on for size: butt-crack. And how about this: piss-face. Fart. Wiener…”
“Stop it,” Gunner grunted, cutting across Neil just as he was getting warmed up. “You can two practice being idiots later. Right now we have to move on.” He pointed westward with the Glock.
Troy went first as Gunner debated sliding the gun back in its holster. It had hurt to pull it as fast as he had, and he worried that doing that once more could cause internal bleeding. He kept it out as he followed after Troy.
The streets were even less crowded the deeper they made it into Hoquiam. They grew strangely silent as well and there was a restlessness to the air. It was a waiting feel and Gunner didn’t know if it was just him feeling it. His destiny was coming closer with every grueling step. He needed his second shot, badly. Every part of him hurt, just as every part of him seemed to be weakening. It was becoming too much to even hold his head up. Even his basic senses were failing. At some point, he found Neil had tucked himself up into his armpit and was helping to carry his weight.
Gunner forced himself to hold out until they were just down the street from Jillybean’s church. “That’s it,” Troy said, his fury making his throat tight. The corpses dangling from its walls were visible even in the dark.
“Hmm,” Gunner said in a phlegmy growl as he eyed the surrounding buildings. Right across from it was a large, square, three-story post office. Its roof was the most obvious spot for a shooter. “Troy, once you set off the explosives, you head up to the roof of that white building. Neil, I want you on the first floor. You’ll be guarding his back. Once the shooting starts, you hold them off down there. If you have to retreat, retreat upwards. I’m going to be in the building cattycorner to yours. It’s got a good view of the front of the church and I’ll be able to pick off almost everyone that may try to flank you.”
And it’s closer and it’s only two stories. He didn’t think he could do any more than two flights of stairs at this point. “Remember. We’re after the Captain. Don’t shoot until you have a bead on him. Everything else is secondary. Any questions?”
Instead of a question, Troy whispered, “Heavenly Father, please bless us and bless our mission.” He then drew the Sign of the Cross and sighed.
“Amen,” Neil said. “No questions for me either. Kill the Captain. Protect Troy. Seems pretty easy.”
It was easy, in concept. Gunner was sure reality would be different.
Troy left first, looping around the block to come at the church f
rom the rear. Neil left next, walking straight down the road as if he was without a care in the world. He was actually very hungry. He was in the midst of an entire town where anyone not wearing a collar was fair game. “And no one would know,” he whispered to himself.
Gunner sucked in a deep aching breath and forced open the door to the building, set diagonal from the church. It was dark and cold inside, but not cold enough to preserve the meat that had been left out to rot. Two bodies were laid out on the tile right inside the front door. The stench coming off them would have had a normal man bent over and puking. Gunner barely had a sense of smell left and merely sneered at the dead—they had been Corsairs and didn’t deserve his pity. He stepped over them and went to the staircase.
Twenty-two steps later, he made it to the top. His hand shook and sweat dripped from his brow. “A little further.” He told himself that the second of Jillybean’s shots would be his reward to make it to his position. When he finally made it, his hand was shaking too much for him to punch the needle down into the meat of his thigh. He slid it in nice and slow, and moaned in happiness as he did.
A block away, Troy approached the church and for the first time in his life did not feel the presence of God. The back door made him uneasy and he slipped around to the front where he immediately second-guessed his decision. The bodies nailed to the front of the building were falling apart. They rained sickening, greasy wet drops on anyone who dared to pass beneath them—it was the exact opposite of being doused with holy water.
Taking a deep breath, he dodged under the bodies and came up against the side of the building. Again, he felt uneasy. It was as if the church had been desecrated down to its foundations. It was now a place of evil. Even the front door moaned as if in pain as he stepped inside. “Lord bless me,” he said as a harsh chemical smell slapped him in the face. For half a heartbeat, he would have sworn it was brimstone, the devil’s breath. It stopped him in place until he remembered the strange ingredients that made up Jillybean’s bombs.
Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained Page 53
