by James Axler
More sidewalk slabs, and there was no sound of the sec man walking on the roof.
"Makes sense."
To the left side were racks of longblasters lining the brown brick wall; to the right was a quadruple row of hand flintlocks. Barrels of black powder were stacked on bricks to keep them away from any water in case of heavy rain, and buckets of white sand hung from brass hooks attached to the brick column supporting the ceiling, crude protection against a fire.
In the middle of the room was a ship's cannon, set in a wall of sandbags, a fuse sticking out of the glory hole, the big muzzle pointing straight for the front door.
"In case of attack," J.B. said, reaching up to adjust his glasses, then angrily lowering his hand. "Triple stupe. The concussion would deafen, if not kill, everybody in the room."
"Unless there is another way out of here," Ryan said thoughtfully. Now he moved among the barrels, rapping them with a gun butt and listening for echoes.
Along the back wall was another door, and several long tables. One held a small brazier, bullet molds and a lot of miscellaneous lead, some misshapen lumps streaked with brown.
"They dug the bullets out of the dead to reclaim the lead," Mildred muttered, lifting a lump for inspection. "Grisly, but efficient."
"War is a nightmare," Doc remarked, pocketing a nice bullet mold. "And we are but the dreamers."
The other table was covered with pieces of flint and cigar boxes. Krysty lifted a lid and found steel chisels nestled on a bed of fragrant leaves. Curious. She lifted a piece to briefly inspect it, then felt the oil on her fingertips. Ah, it was to ward off rust. Not total fools, then.
"All crap," Jak snorted, moving from table to table, glancing briefly at the collection of crude blasters before moving on. There was nothing here of any use that he could see. "Where vault?"
The back door was heavy wood bolted in a zigzag pattern to more wood, but it proved to be unlocked. The next room was a lot smaller, containing small barrels of assorted pieces of blasters for repairs, coils of cannon fuse and more buckets of sand. There was also a third door, but this was made of burnished metal, its seamless expanse unmarred. There was a combination dial and a swing lever. The hinges, if any, weren't readily located.
"Stolen from a bank, I'd wager," Mildred said, amused by the concept of somebody raiding a bank to take the doors and leave the money behind. Dollar bills were useless these days. They didn't burn hot enough to help start a campfire, and were way too rough to use in the latrine.
"Where is the black powder and shot for the wall cannons?" Krysty asked, hands on her hips. "Don't tell me the ville is completely unarmed."
"There are four more places like this spaced along the outer wall," Ryan explained, pounding on the walls. "Shot is too heavy to move fast. You have to keep it close to the cannons."
"What do you think, John?" Mildred asked, rapping the steel door with a knuckle.
"Give it a try," J.B. said hesitantly, and started running his hands over the door. No warm spots. Then he swept it with his compass. The needle never wavered. No mag fields. Even better. The rest of his tools were in his backpack, rusting at the bottom of the harbor. Saltwater would ruin his collection of munitions, and he had no idea what it would do to his prized timing pencils. The C-4 should be okay, but everything else was most likely dissolving while they waited for daylight.
Placing his ear to the cool metal, J.B. held his breath as he slowly turned the dial listening for any clicks. Having seen this before, the companions stayed still and made as little noise as possible. Sometimes the doors opened easily, but that was only because of something on the other side that wanted out.
"Couldn't try this last time," Ryan whispered to Krysty. "Guards wouldn't leave us alone."
"The original ten-second tour," Doc added softly. "Then a most improprietous bum's rush."
Smiling in satisfaction, J.B. leaned away from the bank door and worked the lever. There was a ratcheting sound of moving gears, then the heavy thud of a big lock disengaging.
"Anything you can't open?" Dean asked.
"Not yet," he answered, sliding the shotgun off his shoulder and snicking off the safety. "Wanna take cover in the next room?"
"Here is good. Open it," Ryan said forcibly.
Keeping the scattergun in his grip, J.B. tried pulling the door open, then pushing, but it refused to budge. Chewing a lip, the wiry man attempted to shove it sideways, and the massive portal slid easily on greased tracks out of sight into the wall. Beyond was dark tunnel that angled into the ground. The floor was metal grating, the smooth concrete sides rising to curve overhead.
"Blasted sewer pipe," Doc rumbled.
"Heads straight for the palace," Krysty said, sniffing the air. There was no smell of sewage. "Vault, my ass. It's the baron's secret entrance to the armory."
"Could be," Ryan agreed, inspecting the walls and ceiling with the lantern. In the tight confines of the tunnel, the meager light was magnified to a much brighter level. "Single file, one-yard spread. I'm on point, Jak cover the rear."
As the companions entered the tunnel, Jak rolled over the barrel of spare blaster parts and placed it directly in front of the bank door, hopefully forcing it to stay open. Checking the load on his blaster, the teenager then followed the rest into the predark sewer.
Walking along, their steps rapping on the grating, making stealth impossible. The air was stale and slightly cold. Side openings for feeder pipes had been cemented shut, water trickling through tiny cracks and going down under the flooring. Every ten yards or so, there were stacked bricks bracing the arched ceiling, moss edging the brick as it followed the path of the descending moisture.
"Must be under a stream," Dean suggested.
"Or the fountain," Mildred countered.
A gentle curve in the tunnel exposed stairs going up, and Ryan automatically stopped. The place was perfect for a booby trap. He looked hard at the darkness and there was something different; the moss lining the bricks here was a lighter shade than the rest. Testing it with a finger, he found it was dry and long dead. Easing the panga from its sheath, he gingerly pried away a piece and exposed a narrow slit.
"Trap," he said softly.
Immediately, Mildred clicked her flashlight and the passageway was brightly illuminated by white light. Now they could see a piece of thin yellow twine stretched across the passageway, the color of the string almost identical to the illumination coming from the smelly fish-oil lanterns.
"Used their own lanterns to hide the twine," Ryan said, running his hands along the taut length. "Damn, it's attached to the pin of a gren. Yellow striped, Willy Pete."
White phosphorous? "Leave it be," J.B. suggested, jerking his head back down the tunnel. "In case of company."
"Good idea," Ryan said, standing and sheathing his blade. "Mildred, keep the light on it. Everybody stay sharp going over."
Carefully the companions stepped over the trigger mechanism while Ryan checked ahead for more traps. But that was the only one found. Hopefully the only one there was.
Proceeding up the cinder-block stairs at a crawl, he reached the top and another banded door. Langford hadn't missed a trick. Checking it for traps, Ryan then slid his knife into the jamb and depressed the spring bolt. A push, and the door swung open easily.
Beyond was a large room, bookshelves full of volumes lining the walls, and large steamer trucks arranged in neat rows along the carpeted floor. The glass flue of a lantern hanging from the ceiling reflected the light of their own lantern, throwing distorted shadows everywhere.
"Bastard maze," the Deathlands warrior growled, stepping into the library. The shag carpet crunched with age at every step, making more unwanted noise.
"Books! I'll start the lantern," Mildred said, lifting it off the hook. Cradling the lantern, she raised the flue and lit it with her butane lighter. The stubby wick ignited with a clear blue flame, and bright white light flooded the room.
"That's alcohol!" J.B. gasped, grabbing the lante
rn away. Quickly he yanked up the flue and turned down the wick until it died.
"Must be a quart," Ryan said. "Excellent. That's about half of what we need for the generator. See if there are any more around."
The companions spread out in a standard search pattern while Mildred hung the fish-oil lantern from the ceiling hook.
"Two more," Dean reported from a corner, lifting them into view. "But both are empty."
"Got another door," J.B. called, studying the latch, but Krysty moved past the man.
"Don't bother," she said, reaching past him and turning the knob. The door swung aside, revealing a large room with brick walls and heavy wooden furniture. A table covered with extra clothing and some blasters stood before a glowing fireplace.
"Baron's bedroom," Krysty said, checking the other side of the door. As expected, it was carved and painted to resemble brick. More of his work, or another gift from the original builders?
"Now we know how he got in and out," she said, easing the door shut.
"Let's see what's in the trunks," Ryan suggested, and the companions started tearing through the huge collection.
Breaking open the lock, Jak lifted the lid to find a nude centerfold of a woman on the inside of the lid, the photo slightly reddish from a layer of varnish. The trunk was packed with gold and silver jewelry.
"Junk," the teenager declared.
"Mebbe," J.B. said, and started tossing away the antiques. Soon they reached the bottom of a drawer. Lifting it out, both men gasped as they uncovered a rack of automatic rifles gleaming with oil. Stacks of clips covering the bottom of the trunk.
"M-16s!" Dean cried in delight, snatching one of the military rapidfires.
"Kept all the good stuff for himself," Ryan noted, lifting another autoblaster from the nest. He worked the bolt and checked the action. The rapidfire was worn, but with no sign of carbolic-acid corrosion from putting it away dirty.
Dropping the magazine, the man thumbed out a cartridge. Using the edge of his panga, he pried loose the lead ball at the front of the brass and cast it aside. Sheathing the blade, he then poured the contents of the cartridge into the palm of his hand.
"Black powder," he cursed in annoyance. "This would jam after only a few rounds. Even if the powder had enough kick to operate the blowback bolt."
"That explains these," Mildred said, lifting a wooden object into view. Deftly she slid the thing onto the arming bolt of the M-16. It fit perfectly.
"They made the autofire into a bolt action," Ryan said, studying the contraption. "Set the selector to single shot and just work the bolt every time you want to fire. Slow as hell, but better than a jam every few rounds."
"This one is full of clothes," Krysty said, frowning at the contents of another trunk as she lifted out some Navy uniforms. But then added, "And boots!"
"My size?" Jak asked hopefully. His right boot had a small hole in it getting bigger all the time, and the leather patch wasn't keeping out the water anymore.
She checked the soles for size and passed a pair to the teenager. "These should fit."
Grinning happily, he yanked off his old boots and tried the new pair. "Just fine," he declared. "Any socks?"
"Nope."
"Damn."
"I'll take some laces," Dean said, glancing at the tangle of repaired knots keeping his boots closed.
Krysty tossed him a pair, and he started eagerly undoing the stiff military string. It was the same stuff as on the booby trap, he noted and mentally filed the trick away for his own use in the future.
"How sad," Doc said, returning a book to the wall shelves. Every volume in the room was destroyed with age, and fat from being waterlogged, the pages expanded to the point the ink was bleached clean and completely unreadable. Even the leather bindings were cracked and crumbling.
"No Caesar, but time burned this library of Alexandria," the scholar said sadly. "Tempus morta ergo sum est."
"You have the syntax of a high-school student," Mildred retorted, looking over the collection. She scowled as she began to browse through the titles. Several books were private printings of experimental research, chemistry, gene splicing, DNA alterations and a lot of coded books with Pentagon and top secret markings.
"There was a biowep research lab on this island," she commented. "Or rather, wherever these books came from."
"We saw the spider," Ryan said, lifting a lump of oily canvas from a trunk full of cables, electronics and circuit boards. They looked like the guts of a computer. Why anybody had saved the stuff he had no idea. Closing the lid, he laid the bundle on top and cut away the stiff string. The unwrapped oily canvas exposed a large blue-steel revolver.
"Webley .44," he announced, hefting the blaster and breaking the top-loader in two to check the cylinder. There were four rounds inside and two empty shells.
"Even with black powder, this should work fine," Ryan stated, closing the huge British hand cannon. "Good blaster."
"I'll take it," Krysty said, and tucked the cannon into her belt The S&W was nearly empty and she needed a backup piece badly. The Webley slipped down a bit, and she had to tighten the belt to keep it in place. Now she knew why the sailors wore such wide belts. They used them as holsters.
Going to the largest trunk, off in its own corner, J.B. tricked the lock with a knife blade and forced open the lid.
"Jackpot," he announced happily. Nestled in plastic foam were rows of military grens. Underneath was another layer, and another, going straight to the bottom of the trunk. "Six layers of twenty grens. Dark night! We could hold off an army with these."
"If still live," Jak warned.
With practiced ease, Ryan opened one and checked inside. "Dead," he cursed, pouring out some white residue. "The plas has dried into dust."
"If the primers are still good, we could stuff these with black powder," J.B. suggested. "Not very powerful, but better than nothing."
"That work?"
"Sure. Did it before."
Going to the last trunk, Ryan discovered it had no lock or keyhole. There was no keyhole. It had to be one of the Chinese puzzle boxes. Probing carefully, he ran fingers along the seams and found a loose piece of wood that slide aside. As it moved, he jerked back fast as steel needles stabbed out from the trunk, then back in again almost faster than he could see.
"Son of a bitch," he growled, and stabbing with his knife, tore the lid of the trunk apart, exposing the clockwork mechanism.
"Spring driven," Ryan announced, snapping off the needles with his gun butt. The steel was smeared with a green substance that he knew to be deadly. Whatever was inside, Langford had prized very highly, more than blasters or grens. Those trunks had simply been locked, not armed.
While the companions took cover, Ryan stepped away from the trunk and carefully lifted the lid with the tip of the Steyr. The broken cover flipped up and flopped over the back. Nothing happened.
"What the hell," he muttered, glancing inside. A pad of foam cushion covered the contents, but lying prominently in sight was a tiny dead frog, yellow in color, no bigger than his thumb.
Ryan tossed it aside and started to look under the foam, when Mildred screamed as she saw the frog hit the floor.
"Sweet Jesus!" she cried, rushed forward to grab Ryan by the wrist. Slamming his arm to the floor, she drew a blade and raised her hand high.
"Is your hand numb?" Mildred demanded. "Answer me, man, seconds count. Is your hand numb?"
"No," he stated angrily. "What were you going to do, slice off my hand?"
"To save your life, yes, but it wasn't necessary." The physician sighed and dropped the knife. "It was too old, just like the grens. Much too old. You are a very lucky man."
"You saved him from a dead frog?" J.B. asked.
"Madam, really," Doc rumbled askance.
Warily Dean went over and stared at the tiny corpse. "Chilled from touching a frog?" the boy demanded skeptically. "Don't see no quills or teeth."
"Poison skin?" Jak asked.
She
nodded. "It's called the Golden Arrow Frog. Some of the Amazon natives coat their arrows with the oil on its skin to kill enemies. But they couldn't eat the creature afterward the poison was so strong. The frog naturally makes a powerful neurotoxin that kills seconds after contact."
"Liquid nerve gas," Ryan said thoughtfully, rubbing his wrist. "Good guard. Frogs can live a long time without food or fresh air. Hell, if you're right, even a dead one would kill for months."
"Year," Mildred corrected. "When one of the explorers touched the frog, his hand went numb, then his arm, and seconds later he toppled over dead. Only way to save him was prompt amputation."
"And here is what it was protecting," Krysty said, raising a glass bottle into view from the truck. Its silvery label was faded with age, and the writing wasn't in English, but they all knew what it was.
"Vodka," Ryan said.
"Plus some whiskey, rum, gin and a whole bunch of wine," Krysty recited, going through the bottles. "A lot of these are empty, mostly the whiskey and rum. But we got plenty of vodka. Guess Langford didn't like it."
"Awful stuff," Jak agreed. "Got no taste."
"But it's our ticket home," J.B. added. "That will burn in a motor just fine."
Dean scowled. "Mix gasoline and booze as fuel?"
"Not in a regular engine. But a turbine will burn anything. How many bottles?"
"Six."
"More than enough," Ryan said, pleased. "We have the fishing trawlers, and now the fuel we need. Just have to get our backpacks and we're gone."
"Let's move these trunks into the bedroom," Krysty suggested, grabbing a handle and dragging one across the crunchy carpet. "Don't want anybody to find this bolt-hole. We may need it."
"Safer for us, too," J.B. added, taking the other end. "Not going to night-creep us in your room."
"Hopefully," Mildred grunted, taking a hold of the trunk full of blasters. "But I can't wait to leave these islands."
IN THE NEXT ROOM, Silver jerked her head away from the spy hole in the wall as the doorknob began to turn. Darting into the hallway, she closed that heavier door and began to listen again at the keyhole. They were discussing their plans in detail now. Taking a small golden frog from her pocket, she bit off the head and sucked out the guts, feeling the deadly toxins tingling down her throat. Then she ate the rest, licking her hands clean with a forked tongue.
