by Carrie Patel
Jane glanced at Malone as the train decelerated to half-speed. The inspector was still asleep. This might be her best chance to slip away.
The hatch above yawned invitingly beyond the stacked crates. It would be a quieter and easier exit than the heavy door in the side of the car. Jane stood, and when she was confident of her balance in the rumbling car, she climbed.
The train had slowed to a crawl by the time Jane poked her head out of the hatch. A bracing wind pulled tears from her eyes as she looked at the rolling meadows and patchy forests just emerging from the twilight. Up ahead, she saw the cause of the trouble – a tree lay across the tracks.
Which seemed odd, because the tree line stopped a hundred yards away. But there was no time to consider it – Malone sounded like she was stirring in the car below, and if the stop didn’t wake her, the commotion of the train crew clearing the tree away surely would.
She climbed down the side of the train and dropped onto the grass, stumbling. She was stiff, hungry, and not entirely sure where she was, but she was free.
She sprinted for the forest.
Her injured knee twinged with every other step, but the trees loomed larger and closer. She promised herself she would slow down once she reached cover.
So she swallowed her agony and threw all her energy into the last ten yards.
Jane kept running as the low wisps of branches swatted at her face. She sucked deep breaths of the cold, damp air. She registered the distant movement of a deer – or whatever the Continental equivalent was – from the corner of her eye.
Something collided with her from behind. She fell to the ground as strong arms wrapped around her waist.
She hit the grass, catching herself on her forearms. The cold earth knocked the wind from her, and over her own agonized groans she heard several voices around her whispering urgently.
“Move, schnell!”
“Wass does she do here? She flet–”
“Just bring her.”
Jane was half-carried and half-dragged to a long stack of brush. There were more than a dozen armed people hiding behind it, and she glimpsed other such shelters between the trees. Now, it was hard to see how she’d missed them.
Rough hands held her in place, and something sharp poked her side.
“You will be tranquil, ya?” a man asked, showing her a knife as plainly as though it were nothing more than a harmless curiosity. Most of his expression was hidden behind a sandy beard, but his eyes were deadly calm.
She nodded, and her minder turned to watch the train.
With nothing else to do, Jane watched, too.
Twenty or so of the guerrillas loped alongside it in single file, their bodies close to the cars. They steadily made their way forward.
Meanwhile, the doors of the lead car slid open. Eight crew members tumbled out, trotting toward the tree blocking the track.
Jane realized she could scream, but she suspected that would only get her killed. She had no reason to believe it would make a difference, anyway.
A whistle like birdsong split the air, and scores of people – everyone but her minder, it seemed – burst from cover behind the trees, roaring as they rushed the train. One of the unlucky crew members fumbled for something at her belt; there was a loud crack, and she fell.
The other seven raised their hands.
While one contingent surrounded the seven crew members, the rest of the irregulars divided up and climbed aboard the train cars. Jane heard frightened shouts from the passengers and barked orders from the troops, but thankfully, nothing worse.
After several minutes of this, the train reached a kind of equilibrium, quiet and still but for the pacing guerrillas and their one-syllable shouts.
Jane glanced back toward the car she’d fled. The door was ajar, and one of the women peered inside, a rifle at the ready.
She felt another sharp poke in the ribs.
“You were in refuge there.” Her minder nodded toward the car.
“Could not afford a ticket,” Jane said, attempting the Continental accent again.
The man frowned, one plump lip ripening through his beard. “Wass others mit you?”
She had no love for Malone, but she wasn’t prepared to turn the woman over to these bandits, insurrectionists, or whatever they were. “Just me,” Jane said. “Sole.”
He watched her a second as if giving her a chance to change her mind, then looked back toward Jane’s abandoned freight car. Another man stood in the open door and shook his head.
Jane trapped the sigh of relief in her chest.
“You are picking a boocoo dangerous time to be voyaging alone,” her minder said.
“Lucky I have you now,” she said.
“Come,” he said, leading her toward the troops gathering by the tracks. There was an anxious, jubilant energy amongst the crowd, as if they were thrilled with what they’d just pulled off but only half-believed their luck. A shorter man paced amongst them, exchanging words and cheek kisses with fraternal solemnity. From his posture and the way the others sought him out, Jane discerned that he was probably in charge of the group. There was something familiar about him that drew sweat from her brow despite the cool air.
He passed close enough that Jane could have touched him. Then he turned, and she saw the ragged scar along his cheek.
She remembered that face – that scar – from the posters at the airship station. It was Geist. Malone’s ally, the man who wanted to kill Roman.
She lowered her head. If he was here, that could only mean he was still on Roman’s trail. Though Jane couldn’t yet be sure what he knew or what he – like her – had only guessed.
Jane allowed herself a brief moment of relief as she felt herself pushed past Geist and onto the train she’d just fled.
* * *
Malone had awoken to twilight in the train car. She’d been aware of something having changed without knowing quite what it was, and it was only after several groggy seconds that she realized the train had stopped and that Jane was gone.
But the sky through the hatch was the orange of a warning label, uncluttered by city or smoke.
Something had stopped them in the middle of nowhere, just like she and Geist had stopped the train to Nouvelle Paris the day before.
She’d awoken very quickly after that.
Exiting through the hatch or the great rolling doors seemed too conspicuous. Fortunately, there were doors on either end of the car, each opening toward the next. As long as there was no one with a clear line of sight toward her car, she wagered she’d be able to slip out unnoticed.
Better than waiting to get caught.
Moving quickly and quietly, Malone cleared the crates stacked near the forward door. She inched it open and squinted out of the sliver at a dark line of trees some one hundred feet away.
No sign of anyone yet.
Rhythmic patter broke the morning calm. It took Malone a moment to realize they sounded like footsteps, and a lot of them.
And they were drawing closer, approaching from the back of the train.
She could duck inside the car and hope they passed her by, but she needed to look for Jane, and she needed to know what was happening. The idea of being deaf and blind to whatever was underway seemed almost worse than getting caught.
Malone eased the door shut behind her and slid to the tracks below, scooting behind a row of massive wheels seconds before several pairs of feet – twenty on either side, she guessed – dashed by.
She scanned the space on either side of the train. No sign of Jane.
It was a tight squeeze beneath the cars, but there was just enough clearance for her to crawl forward so the enormous wheels shielded her from view. Between those wheels and the morning dimness, no one would spot her unless they were looking for her.
She’d begun working her way forward when she heard a whistle and saw scores of people dashing from the trees toward the train. She crawled behind another line of wheels.
Malone didn’t re
cognize any of these people, but they looked like Geist’s. And she suspected there weren’t many other organized groups with a habit of stopping trains.
Whatever was happening, it was different from when she and Geist had slipped aboard the train outside of Nantes-Neugeboren.
A gunshot split the air. The men and women who had emerged from the forest were stomping through the freight cars, knocking over crates as they searched.
Malone peered between the wheels again. There, striding toward the train with a stiff-legged posture she’d come to recognize, was Geist. There was still no sign of Jane, but there was no way the laundress could have slipped past his men.
She was either being held somewhere in the woods, or she was already dead.
Yet even though Jane had been causing serious trouble for weeks now – and showed every sign of continuing to do so – Malone sincerely hoped the young laundress was alive somewhere and as well as circumstances permitted.
Meanwhile, she took advantage of the guerrillas’ distraction with the train cars to crawl forward, slowly making her way toward the locomotive.
She’d only advanced a couple of cars when a pair of figures emerged from the trees. She quickly recognized Jane’s outline and saw her being led toward the train.
Malone swallowed a curse. If Geist figured out who Jane was, he’d spare no effort in extracting Roman’s whereabouts.
Given how poorly her luck seemed to be going, Malone had to assume that he’d succeed at both endeavors.
As she watched, Jane was pushed along to the front of the train, that stubborn, unreadable expression rigid on her face.
Not long after they disappeared, the train began to move.
Just as she had at the Porte Nord mooring tower, Malone realized that allowing Geist’s plans to play out was the simplest, surest way of ensuring that any chance of opening the vault died with Roman. All she had to do was wait, and the train would roll past her.
It was a tempting prospect. But she’d never been any good at giving up on a case, even a hopeless one. Besides, Geist was reminding her entirely too much of Sato, and she would not make the mistake of elevating another firebrand.
Nor would she leave Jane to whatever tortures Geist might inflict on her.
She waited for the front of the next car to pass overhead. When it did, she grabbed at the coupling, pulling herself up while jogging madly backwards. She lifted herself free of the tracks just as the train began to pick up speed.
Malone climbed the ladder to the top of the car. She was near the middle of the train, and Geist, Jane, and most of the former’s men had gone towards the front. She headed that way, moving as carefully and quietly as she could. She didn’t know what she’d do when she got there, but she still had a dozen or so cars’ worth of travel to figure it out.
Chapter 27
The Train To Cologne
As the train began to move once more, Jane was ushered into a service car just behind the locomotive. The lead passenger car, which was just behind that, was already overcrowded with its original passengers and the addition of Geist’s troops. The narrow service car was spacious by comparison, even though it was constricted by shelves and cabinets and clogged with a handful of other prisoners. Crew, by the looks of their uniforms.
They all sat with their heads down and their hands clasped over their bent knees.
“Avant,” said Jane’s escort, prodding her in the back.
Stepping over the seated crew, she scanned the countertop for anything useful. Stemware hung from wire racks, and heavy pans clattered dangling from hooks.
And there, near the rear end of the counter, was a knife block. She made it a point not to stare as she was led past it.
“Setz,” her escort said, pointing to a space between two of the seated crew. On the left was a man with graying hair, an elaborate crimson and blue uniform, and the kind of steely presence that made Jane think he’d been in a position of authority before people with guns had shown up. The man to her right looked barely older than her, with twitching eyes and lips that threatened tears and pleas.
She sat and watched her escort’s curly ponytail as he retreated to the forward end of the car. Another guard with a shaggy mop of hair took up position at the rear, near the passenger car, and tapped an irregular rhythm with one foot.
Jane had encountered enough soldiers of various stripes to recognize that these two were not cut out for the job. They were soldiers by necessity, not profession, which could make them either more or less dangerous, depending on their temperament.
She couldn’t face either of them right now, much less the rest of Geist’s contingent. But she could, perhaps, learn something of where they were headed, and why.
Jane scooted toward the graying crewman, inch by agonizing inch, until the sudden stiffening of his shoulders told her he’d noticed her.
“Where are we going?” she whispered. She supposed they could still be headed to Cologne-de-le-Kur, but nothing was certain.
He angled his head toward her but said nothing. Maybe he hadn’t understood her phrasing. Or maybe he didn’t know.
“We… voyage?” she tried. “Where–”
“You will keep the silence,” said the shaggy guard at the rear end of the car.
This set the younger crewman next to Jane into a blubbering fit of hysteria. “Pleece! Liberate me. I will spreck to no one!”
“Tranquil,” said the ponytailed guard. “You will be staying here, und when we arrive to Cologne-de-le-Kur, then we shall liberate you all.”
That answered one of Jane’s questions, at any rate.
“You will arrive en tard,” said a woman seated at the other end of the row. Her voice was sharp with defiance. “The senure returns und the people are knowing it.”
“Silence,” the shaggy guard repeated.
“Never,” said the woman, her pitch rising. The younger crewman next to Jane began weeping; his older counterpart kept his face stony and still.
“You will keep silence or you will be dining on your dents,” said the shaggy guard, taking the first slow steps toward the rebellious crewwoman. The promise of violence trailed him like a shadow.
Jane saw it unfolding in her mind’s eye – another challenge from the prisoner, followed by a blow or a bullet from the guard. All because of the crewwoman’s fealty to Roman, a man who had never desired anyone’s allegiance.
She could not let that kind of violence happen for his sake even though he wasn’t here to witness it.
“I must use the bathroom,” Jane announced.
All heads turned toward her. Even the weeping crewman fell silent.
“Pleece,” she added.
The ponytailed guard sighed and beckoned for her to rise. “Just keep it tranquil, ya?” he said with a scowl aimed at the other guard.
As Jane rose, the older crewman next to her lowered his head in a tiny nod.
The shaggy guard muttered something indistinct, backing toward his post.
“Come,” Ponytail said, heading toward the rear of the car. Jane followed, casting a quick glance at the knife block.
The shaggy guard glowered at her as she squeezed past him.
“Prudence,” he said, pushing the rear door open with a hard shove.
The roar of the tracks momentarily deafened her. For a moment, Jane stood frozen in the doorway, watching the ground blur by and thinking of the roaring, churning sea below Salvage.
She became aware of a nudge and an indistinct voice at her back. There was a small gap in the narrow walkway that connected the service car to the passenger car behind it. Two coupled bars of metal rattled below the gap, and Jane shuddered to think that this was all that connected them.
Then the door to the passenger car opened, and Jane hurried to safety.
Several dozen people were packed into a space intended for half their number. As Jane entered, most of them looked in her direction.
Just as quickly, they looked away and resumed furtive whispered conve
rsations.
“The toilet,” Ponytail said behind her, pointing over her shoulder and toward the far end of the car.
Even the open windows and ceiling vents did little to cool the overcrowded car. Jane stepped over people seated in the center aisle and maneuvered between others perched on the outer edges of the seats.
It was slow going, but it gave her a chance to hear something of what the passengers were whispering.
“– sole a rumor–”
“It is vert. I heard–”
“– cannot esteem them, what are they knowing?”
A sharp whistle pierced the air. A voice near the front of the car called out. “Silence, pleece!”
But the crowd had already discovered their captors’ limits, or so it seemed. After a moment of quiet, the whispers resumed.
“– in an airship, ya–”
“But it is he? It is certain?”
Dread shivered through Jane’s spine. She feared they were talking about Roman, but she needed to be sure.
“Pardon,” she said, sidling past a man and a woman squeezed together in the aisle. “What is this everyone is sprecking?”
“You are not knowing?” the man asked.
“The senure appeared to Nouvelle Paris,” the woman said, her expression beatific. “Und these brutes say his airship appeared aus of Cologne-de-le-Kur.”
So Roman had continued on, presumably to destroy the vault on his own. The idea brought Jane a thrill of joy and a rush of nausea.
That certainly explained Geist’s urgency. But if he’d caught wind of Roman’s movements, then it was likely Rothbauer had, or soon would.
Leaving Roman trapped between two advancing forces, one of which would imprison him, and the other of which would kill him.
“Rasch, rasch,” said the ponytailed guard, poking her in the back again.
Jane pressed forward. The bathroom was just a few crowded feet away.
She slipped inside, but as she pushed the door closed, a boot appeared in the gap.
Jane looked up at the ponytailed guard.
“You cannot be sole,” he said, glancing at the floor between them.
