Hangfire

by David Sherman

  The larger of the two buildings proved to be a comfortable bungalow, more than big enough to accommodate the five of them. The water cisterns were full of fresh water from the rains, and the pantries were stocked with gourmet food and drink.

  "Old cuz liked his creature comforts," O'Mol said as they made a brief survey of the pantries. "He liked his ‘creatures’ too." He nodded at Pasquin, who did not ask O'Mol what he'd been doing out here the one time he'd made the trip. "There's a generator in that other shed. If one of you boys can get it going, we can have power in here." Because the cove was so sheltered by the cliffs all about, the place was always in deep twilight, even on the brightest days. Pasquin went outside and in a few minutes the lights and other utilities sprang to life.

  O'Mol rummaged about in the closets, pulling out towels and dressing gowns. "Whew! These are a bit fusty after sitting in here for a couple of years, but they're dry and they'll fit us until we can dry out our own clothes."

  "I'm not going to complain about ‘fusty’ after that ride we just had on the open sea," Dean remarked.

  Katie produced a bottle of fine brandy and some glasses. O'Mol raised his glass for a toast. "Here's real poo to my sham friends and shampoo to my real friends, which all of you could use after that long trip we just made!"

  "You don't smell very much like a rose garden yourself," Katie replied

  "Touché!" O'Mol exclaimed. They sat around the tiny living room wrapped in the gowns, sipping on the brandy, waiting for their clothes to dry.

  "Everything depends on you now," O'Mol announced. "My organization, what there is left of it, is powerless to operate without me. I think now it was a mistake to exercise such tight control, but there it is."

  "Everything depends on you, Mr. O'Mol," Pasquin corrected. "You don't get us back to Placetas to contact Culloden, and Nast can't send in the cavalry to clean this shit hole out."

  O'Mol nodded. "Call me Olwyn, will you?"

  "How long do you think we can hold out here?" Claypoole asked.

  "We can ‘hold out’ as long as the food and water lasts. Weeks, maybe months. But how long do you want to stay here? That's the question."

  "We were supposed to contact Culloden Thursday, but that was delayed until yesterday and now we've missed that meeting. So we're two days late sending the message that it's ready for Nast to come in. We don't know where he is or how to get in touch with him to tell him what's happened. We must get back to Placetas and get hold of Culloden."

  "Hard to do right now, with what you and Grace—" O'Mol paused for a moment. "Grace," he said quietly, "she was one of the best. Do you think they got her?"

  "Yeah," Claypoole answered. He took Katie's hand in his.

  O'Mol shook his head as if to clear it. "How are you going to call Nast in? And where is he?"

  Pasquin smiled. "We can't tell you how we're going to contact him. As to where he is, somewhere here on Havanagas. He didn't tell us where. Just rest assured—if you can get us back to Placetas in one piece, we can get through to him"

  "Hooboy," Claypoole exclaimed, "Mister O'Mol—Olwyn—you think we raised hell back at that farm? You just wait'll Nast and his boys get here. The damned mob'll think an army landed on top of their heads! We'll see how tough Johnny Sticks is then!"

  "I'll get you back to Placetas. Today's Saturday. We'll head back Monday, soon as it gets dark. In this weather it'll take us ten, twelve hours, put us back into the Franklin River just before dawn. I know where Culloden lives. We'll figure out how to get there once we're back in the city. You up to another voyage in this storm?"

  "No!" they all answered at once, and laughed. They lifted their glasses and toasted O'Mol.

  They talked about themselves for a while. O'Mol admitted he'd never been married. "And what about you?" he asked the Marines.

  "We aren't allowed to marry until we reach the grade of staff sergeant," Dean said.

  "How do you two feel about that rule?" he asked Katie and Claypoole.

  At first neither answered. Frankly, beyond getting Katie out of the clutches of the mob, Claypoole had no idea what would become of her. "Guess we'll get married," he said at last. Katie let out a gasp of surprise. Dean and Pasquin just looked at him in wordless surprise.

  This conversation was déjà vu for Dean. "I remember something like this on Wanderjahr, old buddy," he said, "that time you told me—well, you explained how ‘unrealistic’ my chances were of marrying Hway. Need I go on?"

  "I'll wait for you, Rock!" Katie said. "You get me out of here and I'll marry you, goddamned straight I will!"

  "You'll wait a long time before this idiot ever makes staff sergeant," Dean said, slapping Claypoole lightly on the top of his head.

  "I got three more years on this enlistment, Deano, and if I can't get the Commandant to give me an exception to the regulation, I'm going back to PFC—‘poor fucking civilian.’ Count on it. I can write a letter to the Commandant and send it through channels, can't I? Regulations can be excepted, can't they? It isn't that I'm a bad Marine. I bet the brigadier'd approve it in a minute."

  Dean and Pasquin just looked at each other. "Well," O'Mol said at last, "this calls for a celebration." He uncorked the brandy bottle and poured everyone's glass full with what remained. "Here's to you, Rock, Katie! I'll do my best to get you out of here and I'll dance at your wedding!"

  Then they opened tins of imported Carthusian oysters and caviar harvested on Melbourne—one tin cost a lance corporal's annual salary—and ate them on salted crackers. Rummaging through the cupboards, they found a supply of fine Davidoff Anniversario No. 1 cigars and lighted them up, Katie too. O'Mol opened another bottle of the exquisite brandy and poured liberally all around.

  Outside, nature raged and the seas pounded the cliffs. Homs Ferris, Noto Draya, their counselors and minions raged in their fortresses, casinos, and parks all across Havanagas. But down in the cove on an uncharted islet in the vast Ligurian Sea, the five fugitives ate and drank and laughed and told stories far into the night. When at last they sought refuge in slumber, it was the peaceful sleep of the good and the brave.

  Thom Nast raged inwardly. "What the hell has gone wrong now?" he asked Brock. "They should have sent the signal Thursday. Jesus, it's Saturday, and not a peep from them. I think the families got them, Welbourne."

  "Maybe they got Culloden, and your boys are stranded in some casino somewhere, drinking and playing blackjack with the ladies. I told you we should have had some way for them to contact us if anything went wrong. Don't we have any doughnuts around here?" Brock was a good beat cop and a good special weapons and tactics man, but he was very short on tact. And doughnuts.

  Nast did not reply. Culloden was not important to Nast's plan, so long as his deep-cover agent was still operating. His Marines didn't need any way to check in with him. All he really needed was someone to mash the button. If his deep-cover agent hadn't been compromised, he still had that someone. "Okay. Wednesday there's a big gladiatorial contest in the Coliseum. Noto Draya and Homs Ferris will be there. They love to bet on these events. What's the flight time to that hemisphere?"

  "Four hours," Chief Riggs answered.

  "The seasons down there are the reverse of up here, so the weather will be excellent. The contests start at noon. We'll leave here at eight hours. We'll ‘drop in’ on the bastards before the first match is over, when they'll be most vulnerable. We'll snatch them right out of the Coliseum, right in front of everybody."

  "What good will that do, boss, if we don't have the goods to put them away?" Brock asked, always the honest street cop. Back home he'd never stop a citizen on the street without probable cause. Now, of course, he was under the orders of the Ministry of Justice.

  "I'll have it," Nast said with confidence. Well, then again, he thought, maybe I won't. He really didn't care.

  In the Bavarian city of Würzburg under the reign of Bishop von Ehrenberg (1623-163l), nine hundred people, including persons of high standing, were burned at the stake for the c
rime of witchcraft. Those who admitted their guilt and repented were strangled first and then burned; the others were burned alive.

  The Renaissance theme park on Havanagas featured a burning every day, Monday through Sunday, at noon, weather permitting. In that hemisphere in that season the weather usually permitted, but if it turned inclement, the trials, which were held indoors, emphasized torture so the tourists would feel they'd gotten some of their money's worth. The crowd that morning was small, about two hundred people. They sat around a huge gallery, in the center of which was a dais for the judges, witness boxes, the usual appointments of a courtroom. Off to one side stood the executioner and his assistants, masked and stripped to the waist, their instruments ready. In the real historical setting the tortures were administered else-where, but the Renaissance theme park collocated them so the tourists would not have to move to another location. Once the trial was over the victim went right to the stake, which was just outside.

  The program for that morning's trial announced the woman would not admit her guilt or repent, so the spectators sat in anticipation of witnessing a live burning before lunch.

  A young woman in chains stood before the court. As the trial unfolded a well-modulated voice, supplied through individual headsets the tourists could rent, commented quietly on the action, like a sportscaster at a golf tournament. The spectators in their gallery boxes could clearly see what was going on below.

  Witnesses were brought in who swore they saw the woman flying through the air. One said she had been present at a sabbat in the forest and saw the accused having intercourse with a demon. The accused hysterically denied her guilt and called upon the audience to intervene and help her. "I'm not a witch!" she screamed. "This is real! Murder! Murder! They're murdering me!"

  She was then bound tightly into an iron chair studded all over with sharp points. "This is called the witch chair," the commentator intoned softly. The accused witch screamed piteously as the guards tightened her bonds, pressing her flesh onto the points. At a nod from the presiding judge, the executioner stepped up and with pincers ripped off a fingernail and into the bleeding flesh he drove a red-hot pin. The victim's shrieks reverberated throughout the gallery, and some of the tourists shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Questioned again, she babbled about how someone was trying to punish her. Several more fingernails were removed.

  Released at last from the chair, the accused was hauled, literally supported between two guards, before the judges and questioned by several men dressed in clerical robes. More witnesses were called. One testified to how the accused had killed her cattle by pronouncing strange words as she passed by their fields. Another accused her of poisoning her husband with a spell because of an argument they'd had in the market about the price of vegetable she was selling.

  "She shall now be given the ladder," the commentator announced. The ladder had rungs studded with sharp wooden points. Arms twisted over her head, the accused was hoisted up on this device and suddenly dropped, hoisted up again and dropped, and so on for several repetitions.

  "Gosh," a twelve-year-old from Sisyphus visiting with his parents exclaimed, "this is so real! Dad, do you think they're really going to burn that lady?"

  "Well, that's why people come here, son, because on Havanagas they know how to recreate the past. Just watch carefully. This is a valuable lesson for you. Back a thousand years ago they really did torture and burn people at the stake for being witches. This'll give you a real appreciation for the civilization we live in today."

  "Now the court has ordered application of the Bamberg torture," the commentator intoned. "This consists of a series of varied and prolonged scourgings. It is so called because it was invented by a bishop of the German city of Bamberg over a thousand years ago." During the Bamberg torture several tourists got up and left. The accused fainted several times during her ordeal and had to be revived with the application of cold water. At a quarter to twelve the presiding judge announced their decision: death by burning.

  Everyone filed out into the courtyard where the stake and faggots had already been set up. The accused, barely conscious after her ordeal, was stripped and chained to the stake. While priests invoked God's blessing and solace, burning brands were applied to the faggots. The flames rose quickly and the victim began to scream. Although the onlookers stood back fifty paces or more from the pyre, they could feel the heat of the flames on their faces. The girl's skin began to burn and her hair flared up like a torch.

  "This is so realistic you can actually smell the burning flesh," the mother of the boy from Sisyphus exclaimed. "I read in the brochure where sometimes people get sick at these shows."

  "It sure is," the son agreed, shifting uncomfortably. Burning flesh! Wow! He'd have something to tell the kids back home after this was over! "Phew, is that stink her burning?"

  "I think it's her hair," his father answered. "She had a lot of it. But you can smell burned meat too, can't you?"

  "Goddamn you! Goddamn you all to hell!" the girl screamed as the flames rose and increased in intensity. Her head slumped forward and then the flames completely surrounded her and the screaming ceased.

  "Ohh," the boy's mother exclaimed, shivering, "I think a cat just walked over my grave!"

  "Careful, Mother," her husband chided playfully, "around here they might consider that evidence of witchcraft!" The three laughed nervously.

  The crowd lingered until the fire died down. All that was left of the girl by then was a blackened, doubled-up skeleton secured to the stake by the iron manacles about its wrists and feet.

  "Wow, Dad, that was really something!" the boy said as the crowd gradually dispersed into the cafés about the square. "How'd they do that?"

  "Special effects," his mother said.

  "Well, you think that was good, Darryl? The best is yet to come, son. Wednesday we're going to Rome to watch gladiators fight! Anybody want a latte?"

  Out in the square workmen cut Tara's blackened corpse from the stake.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sword Simon Cherub was a squad leader in Heaven's Vision. His job was neither to fight nor to lead fighters in holy battle, though both he and the men he led were highly trained fighters who had fought fiercely in their previous units. The regiment named Heaven's Vision was the eyes of the Army of the Lord. The regiment supplied a platoon to each of the twelve brigades assigned to Operation Cleansing Flame—Sword Cherub's platoon was attached to Thaddeus Brigade. The squad, one of four in its platoon, was divided into two teams for the opening phase of the operation, as was each of the Heaven's Vision squads assigned to the operation. Each of the ninety-six teams prowled a grid approximately ninety kilometers on a side, an extremely difficult area for five men on foot to cover, especially since they had to move about unseen. Nobody seriously expected the Heaven's Vision reconnaissance teams to locate the rebel base before the rebels struck again. Archdeacon General Lambsblood, who was in overall command of Operation Cleansing Flame, did however expect them to spot the rebels when they made their next raid and then track them to where they went, so the Army of the Lord could follow and smite.

  Sword Cherub's squad was assigned to ranchland. He chose to lead the team with the most difficult terrain: scrub fit only for grazing by widely scattered kine. The scrubland gave the great advantage of longer sight lines than were usually possible in orchard farms or through the rows of windbreak trees found on grain farms, but there was the disadvantage of poor concealment. The herdsmen roaming about on the lookout for dangers to their charges could easily spot the team if its members weren't vigilant. Nobody had any way of knowing whether those herdsmen were with the rebels, so it was imperative that the soldiers of Heaven's Vision not be seen by them. That was why Sword Cherub, the most experienced and skilled member of his squad, chose to lead the team himself.

  They had been out for a week and a half, and Sword Cherub was beginning to feel unclean. Not dirty. As a soldier he was often dirty and was used to it. Unclean. The need for unobtru
siveness and constant vigilance had kept him and the team away from Sunday's church service. In two more days they would miss a second church service. Cherub was not particularly devout; a soldier could not afford to be so devout that he could not bear to miss Sunday service. But he was devout enough that missing two services in a row gave him serious pause.

  Because of the chance of being seen, the team did most of its moving at night. At dawn that day they'd settled into a shallow, boulder-bordered hollow near the top of a rock-strewn low hill. When the sun came up, Cherub had found the location to be even better than he'd originally thought—it gave clear view of a village and the herdsmen between it and the village. His map told him they were twelve kilometers from the village called Twelfth Station of Jerusalem. Two twelves, most auspicious, he thought, and felt slightly less unclean. Perhaps today the rebels would launch their next attack. The operation, or at least his team's part of it, might well be over before the coming Sunday, and he and his men would be able to go to service.

  The boulders that bordered the hollow were sufficiently jumbled that men lying or sitting still could peer between them without being seen unless someone came very close. They were large enough to cast shade sufficient to keep the soldiers from baking in the harsh sun. The gaps between the boulders allowed slight breezes to waft through the hollow, enough to keep the flying gnats that were the bane of men in the scrubland from congregating too densely on them. Sword Cherub assigned his men to watch and sleep by twos in three-hour shifts. He himself would watch and sleep at irregular intervals to ensure that each of the men had the advantage of his experience for at least part of his watch.

  The morning passed without incident. On the land stretched out below, herdsmen wandered about checking on the small bands into which the kine gathered for grazing. The forage was too thin for the herd to graze together, but the kine were too strongly herd animals for many of them to wander about alone in search of fodder. Those few who did wander alone were more likely to be brought down by predators, removing them from the gene pool, decreasing over generations the willingness for solitary pursuits among the kine. Once, the soldiers were entertained by watching three herdsmen chase away a wolf, a predatory lizardlike animal somewhat smaller than its Earthly namesake.