Jamal Rashid stood to the right of the King, shifting his weight from foot to foot. It was he who cleared his throat and spoke. “Your Majesty, I have the pleasure to present to you Mr. Jacques Lachelle of the Troubled Land Band, a most talented group of musicians.”
“I understand your talents extend beyond music,” the King said with the merest glint of humor in his eyes.
Jacques wondered if one of the microphones in the “waiting room” was wired into here. He nodded to the King and said, “I hope so, Your Majesty.”
King Joseph leaned forward, resting his head on folded hands. “Tell me then, musician, since you have demonstrated a penchant for damaging my property and since two of your band members turned out to be spies, how far am I to trust you?”
“Only so far as our interests be de same, Your Majesty,” Jacques replied with a smile, making Jamal wince. “But den, eef I be een your place, I trus’ no one.” Jacques looked pointedly at Nicolo, who paled.
The King threw back his head and laughed. He liked Jacques’s accent and his nerve. Jamal and Nicolo joined in uncertainly and somewhat nervously. Neither of them thought it particularly funny. Joseph noticed their discomfort and laughed even harder. Nothing he enjoyed more than a good joke at the expense of his inferiors.
“Damn me,” said the King when he’d recovered his composure. “But you are bold. I like it. Shows you have courage and the good sense to back it and you’re being honest. I respect that.”
Jacques enjoyed the fact that Nicolo was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Then the King changed the subject. “Tell me, musician, can you play? Are you as good as Jamal says you are?”
“Ees dere a piano?”
King Joseph clapped his enormous hands together. Instantly, Irene drew a pair of drapes aside, revealing a baby grand. Jacques cracked his fingers and strode to the piano. Before taking his seat, he turned back to the King.
“Wat kin’ of music please Your Highness?”
“What music do you think fits me?”
Sensing another test, Jacques eyes went once more to that nose, a better clue to Joseph’s character than the King’s clothing. “Dere only be one music dat feets a mon lak you.”
Jacques seated himself at the piano and proceeded to launch into a pulse-pounding, foot-stomping rendition of Bob Seeger’s, “Gimme That Old Time Rock and Roll.” Like most musicians, he had no accent when he sang. He knew he was on a roll from the King’s reaction to the tune, so he followed it with, “Rock Around The Clock” and Elton John’s, “Rocketman”. Jacques was so hot that by the time he was through, even Nicolo was impressed. The music was such powerful fun it even brought some life into Irene’s face.
While Jacques played, all thoughts of Anthony’s death and the invasion were banished from Joseph’s mind and when he finished, the King actually applauded.
“Jacques,” the King said, “I hereby appoint you Minister of Arts and Culture. That will be your official title. Unofficially, you and your band will be my Court musicians. How long will it take you to get the rest of your band here?”
Jacques did some quick figuring. Three days across the Gulf to Nephi, two to pack and embark, double that and allow for a fudge factor.
“Aroun’ t’ree week, Your Majesty.” Strike while the iron is hot, he thought. “Of course, some slave help speed t’ings up and dere mus’ be place for de Band to live an’ practice, an’ money to repair or replace dose instruments dat be damaged on de way here.”
“Done,” said the King, then added with a touch of good humor, “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Jacques said. “I t’ink I mus’ return to Nephi, to get t’ings started.”
“Understandable,” the King said. “Now, how many slaves will you need?”
Jacques shrugged. “De Band have more dan forty musician. Best eef each one have a personal servant, to avoid jealousy.”
The King erupted in laughter. For the second time in just a few minutes this musician had lifted his spirits. “You stop just short of being a scoundrel, Jacques. But your music has put me in a generous mood.” He paused for a breath, then added, “You may pick fifty slaves. Now come with me. It’s refreshing to talk to someone who isn’t afraid to speak up.”
Jacques slipped a wink at Irene as he moved around the piano.
“Jamal,” King Joseph said as he rose from his throne. “See to the former Minister of Arts and Culture, will you?”
“At once, your Majesty,” Jamal replied as he left the room, wondering where best to dispose of the body.
King Joseph cast a glance down at Nicolo and said, “Dismissed.”
Bonetti strode purposefully from the room, as if he had just remembered something important he had to attend to, but his mind was racing furiously. That Jacques Lachelle was in the pay of the King was now obvious. And he, the Commander of the Royal Intelligence Service, hadn’t known. The fine sheen of sweat on Nicolo’s brow betrayed his nervousness over this new situation and made both Jacques and the King smile, though for different reasons.
Much later that afternoon, Jacques selected fifty slaves from the Taos contingent, the O’Rourke’s among them. The King loaned him Irene for the day with orders for her to, “help Jacques pick proper stock.”
Jacques had noticed how freely the King spoke in front of Irene and what he really wanted was to pick her brain. The depth of her knowledge astounded him once he convinced her to open up. She knew the names of every spy in the King’s service. He thanked God that he and Jamal, along with his new slaves, were leaving for Nephi early the next morning. He had to get the names of those spies to Ellen Whitebear and Adam Young!
*
Luna City
The austere beauty of space was something General Pavel Yurimentov hoped he’d never become accustomed to. The yin and yang of black shadow and white images, whether distant stars or the suits of his fellow astronauts as they hopped across the surface from their moon buggies toward the solar arrays, held him spellbound. Tiny puffs of moon dust jetted from the surface with each leaping step. The ground was mostly flat here, harsh yellow rocks and a powdery dry film of dust. In the distance jagged peaks--the rims of ancient craters--stood stark against the demon black of space.
Laughter sounded from his speaker as Linette Laverne and Celia Olafsdotter traded quips like schoolgirls on a field trip. A slight grin formed as he realized he felt it too, the freedom of being outside the cavernous confines of Luna City. People from Earth yearned for the liberty of simply moving around and though there was some danger associated with their task the ability to take huge leaps like some comic book superhero lightened his heart. The children, never having known anything else didn’t seem to miss it, and somehow that bothered him. As a man who’d sailed the Black Sea he missed the open sky and the kiss of wind on his face.
Iota rose and began its meteorite vacuuming journey across the heavens. “Yuri’s Broom,” the younger set were calling it and the knowledge filled him with pride in his son. But now they were at the arrays, clambering up the utility ladders, and it was time to get to work.
*
Pavel Yurimentov used his chin to trigger a burst of cool air across his face shield and clear it. His suit’s climate control unit wasn’t working right so his visor kept fogging over. He hummed Ravel’s Bolero while he worked, using the hydraulic caulk gun to force silicon gel into tiny holes in the solar array, covering the light copper mesh inserted to bridge the broken circuits.
Four panels away, Linette Laverne measured, trimmed and soldered the mesh in place. Farther along, Ceilia Olafsdotter vacuumed specks of debris that filled the holes, while still farther down the array Isabella Cortez and Leila Yoruba swept the panels clean. It was quite literally patchwork, but Heinz had told them it was working. Power production, which was off by almost twenty-four percent before Iota cleared the skies enough for them to risk doing the repairs, was almost back to normal.
“Aaah!” Isabella yelled as she slipped and tumbled alm
ost to the bottom of the array before catching a panel corner and jerking herself to a stop.
“Ugh,” she winced as pain shot from her left wrist, but she held on, grimacing as she twisted herself around and got a better hold. If she’d gone over the edge it was a four meter drop to the surface and that could have damaged her suit--something she’d rather not imagine.
Her radio blared as her co-workers walked all over each other asking if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” she said, flexing her wrist. A minor sprain and a few bruises were a small price to pay for keeping the lights on.
A two thirds full Earth hung overhead with Orion in the background. The sight raised a lump in her chest and she swallowed hard, blinking unbidden tears away. Home, always in sight, never in reach.
She automatically recorded the image, noting a pair of large cyclonic storms tracking toward Western Australia. The meteorologist in her wondered briefly if they were category fives.
Enough sightseeing, she thought. Time to get back to work.
She pulled her telescoping Swiffer-type duster, attached by a loop to her wrist, up from below, stowed it and climbed back to her previous position. This time she attached the suction cup that was supposed to anchor her in place if she fell--a practice she’d ignored for the past few shifts to speed her work.
“You sure you are okay?” Pavel asked.
“It may cramp my guitar practice for a few days, but I’m fine and my suit’s fine,” she replied.
“Good,” Pavel said. “Stay sharp.”
An hour and a half later they completed their shift and headed back for the airlock. Weeks of work lay ahead.
Chapter 34: The Massacre at Bloody Lake
Cautiously, the spy retracted the long, flexible whip-antenna. Disconnecting it from his radio, he gently laid both it and the radio back in their beautifully concealed hiding places. He glanced about nervously, but it was too dark for anyone to have seen him. Besides, his accomplice would have warned him.
The rain had stopped and the waters were going down. The remainder of Jim Cantrell’s forces would cross the lake tonight. The spy smiled as he considered the riches and power the information he had just sent would bring him. The message would insure the defeat of the Allied army, while assuring that much of the credit for that defeat remained with him.
*
The outboard motors growled as they strained to push rafts and boats across Zion Lake. Jim Cantrell fidgeted in a small boat in the middle of the Allied army. “Half-assed Navy is more like it,” he complained to himself. They had five miles of open water to cross. Jim hated taking the risk, but heading south to where the lake was narrower would have taken them too far out of their way and they were already behind schedule.
The crossing was churning his guts, making him second guess his decision to ferry his men and supplies across in two large groups, rather than sending dozens of small parties across separately. But going in large groups would save time on the other side when he was regrouping for the march and time was all-important since he was already worried they would arrive too late to do their job. In the back of his mind that phrase “too late” played like a stuck record.
And Sara. She stayed behind with Doc Merriman’s hospital to tend the wounded. She and the rest of the medical corps would cross with the second group of soldiers, leaving only a few medics and orderlies to look after those allied troops too wounded to travel.
What the hell? He cocked an ear to catch the sound again. Suddenly, the enemy planes roared up over the mountains that had masked the sound of their approach and dove to attack. The vicious taka-taka-taka or their machine guns shredded the night as they strafed along the line of rafts and boats, their bullets punching holes through metal, wood and men. The rafts were too slow and unwieldy to get out of the way of those tracer-marked streams of death. In an instant, the placid calm surface of the lake had become a thrashing maelstrom of panicked, dying men.
Ignoring the bullets that sliced the air around him, Jim screamed through a bullhorn, “Get under the rafts!” The heavy wooden floors of the rafts offered meager cover from the deadly guns, but any barrier between his men and those bullets was better than nothing.
The two enemy planes banked around for another pass.
“Get the hell under the rafts!” Jim screamed again. His men were coming out of their shock and beginning to obey. Small arms fire leaped futilely upwards as men fought back the best they could. Jim stood in his boat. The bullhorn dangled uselessly in his left hand while with his right he fired his .45 at the approaching planes. The water around him churned into a pink froth from the blood of wounded and dying men. His men! He had led them to this. In that brief moment, when he was certain his mistake had cost the Allies any hope of victory, he wanted to die.
Raymond Stormcloud had other ideas. Dropping his useless weapon, he tackled Jim out of the boat and out of the line of fire as the planes zipped by.
Jim came up spluttering and angry, but Raymond’s words cooled him down.
“Live now. Kill them later,” he said and the eminently practical nature of that advice sank home.
As they swam for the nearest raft, Jim saw the enemy planes split up to attack his shore bases. At least the men on shore had some warning. Grabbing a splintered log with one hand, Jim looked back toward the shore, toward Sara, too small to be seen and prayed for her safety. There was nothing he could do to for her and he cursed the fate that always placed him elsewhere when his loved ones were in danger.
The enemy plane would have been invisible in the darkness, but its position was marked by the line of tracers raining down from its nose. A corpse bumped into him and, for a second, Jim stared into Ralph Watson’s lifeless eyes before the young man’s body drifted past. First Evan, now his brother, he thought.
“Damn this bloody lake!” The scream came from Jim’s heart.
From out of the darkness a cry for help answered him and Jim realized he was needed here and now. He unlaced and kicked off his boots, then swam through the bobbing corpses toward the fading voice. As he neared the man, he stripped off his cotton pants and tied knots in each leg. Then, grabbing them by the waistband, he whipped them over his head and down onto the surface of the water. The surface tension of the water in the saturated cotton fabric of the pants effectively made the pant legs airtight, trapping air inside and converting the pants into a life preserver. It was an old Navy maneuver, taught to all sailors and marines. Holding the waistline below the surface of the water to keep the air trapped inside, he slid the makeshift life preserver under the man’s outstretched arm. Pointing him toward the raft, Jim headed for another wounded man.
*
At the first sound of gunfire, Sara stepped out of the hospital wagon to see what was going on. A hand clamped over her mouth and a strong pair of arms pinned hers to her side. A pinprick was all she felt as the hypodermic needle slid in. It was the last thing she would feel for days as she slumped into unconsciousness.
Doctor Merriman withdrew the needle and nodded to his henchman. The man threw Sara over his shoulder and headed for the horses he had staked out earlier. Merriman satisfied himself that they hadn’t been observed, everyone being spellbound by the fireworks out in the lake. He gathered the reins of his mount and walked silently into the night.
The first thing he did upon catching up to his companion was to search Sara thoroughly for any weapon, a search so diligent he even found her new suicide capsule, one she’d made secretly and secured in a hidden pocket of her bra.
“Now, what’s a nice girl like you doing with a nasty thing like this,” he tut-tutted as he and his fellow spy tied Sara onto a horse. Merriman secured the reins of her horse to the pommel of his saddle and led off. The sooner they got to Nephi, the sooner he could resume his true duties and the sooner he could return to California. He was tired of living among savages.
Chapter 35: The Slick Arrives
Ellen Whitebear’s hair whip-streamed and her eyes watered as s
he poked her head outside the Huey and glanced at the landscape speeding past below. Rats! Forgot the goggles again. She wiped tears from her eyes. She slid the door shut and shook out her hair. From time to time she thought about cutting it shorter so it would be easier to care for, but Michael liked it long. She took a rubber band out of a pocket and gathered it up into a ponytail so the wind wouldn’t whip it into her eyes, tucked it down the back of her blouse, then leaned forward into the cockpit.
“How much longer, Terrell?”
The ex-chopper pilot and mechanic had finally been able to dig up a tail rotor to replace the one destroyed in the Breckenridge fight. He’d only had the Huey up and running for a couple of days.
“Just a few more minutes.”
Ellen absent-mindedly patted the mini-gun that rested on its swing-out mount beside the door. Garret Haley, a Freehold’s gunsmith, son of Don and Marcia Haley, had salvaged a 20 mm Gatling from one of the downed Cobras and jury-rigged a mount and ammunition feed system. Then he and Iskos Theodoratus, the Greek who ran the Freehold’s machine shop, substituted the new gun for the M60 that was normally mounted in the door. The mini-gun could spew forth thousands of rounds per minute. The increase in firepower was awesome.
The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time Page 35
