“And expendable.”
Henry, gone pale with pain but still standing, cleared his throat. “They’re part of the weapon. That’s it, isn’t it? They’re supposed to be the first wave of the walking plague after they loose the gas upon the city.”
Frankum nodded, insofar as he was able.
Captain MacGruder asked, “But then why are you here? Why send the ship along? To make sure we finish the job? To watch us die?”
“To set off the weapon. But you know that!”
“And why else? Why else, goddammit!”
“To observe,” Frankum squeaked. “To observe and report, and make sure that you do your jobs without … any…” His face was turning red, but he forced out the last word anyway. “Interference!”
“From people like them?” MacGruder waved a hand toward Maria and Henry.
“From … anyone…”
The captain released his grip. Frankum’s knees folded, and he dropped to the ground, feeling at his throat as if to make certain he was still in one piece. MacGruder stalked back toward his nearest lieutenant and said, “We’re stopping here. We wait for Bradley to come back with word from Washington, and then we’ll reevaluate. And those three”—he pointed balefully at the cargo ship’s crew and captain—“are staying right here with us. Tie them up and throw them into the crawler. If they want to watch the bomb that badly, they can sit on top of it.”
“No!” Frankum objected, loudly and suddenly. “No, you can’t do that!”
“Why’s that?”
“Because … because…” He swore under his breath, yanked off his hat, and threw it at the ground in a gesture of protest. “Because the damn thing won’t hold much longer.”
“It’ll hold, so long as no one blasts it from the air. None of our crew has anything big enough to set it off. We’ll need your ship’s turret gun for that.”
“No, no, you won’t. We’re here with our ship to shoot the thing and set it off—that’s true; I swear it’s true,” he said, hands aloft again, protesting innocence. “But we’re running so late, and there’s the failsafe built in…”
“Failsafe?”
He cleared his throat. “An accidental failsafe, really. The bomb is too hard to control—it isn’t stable. Once it’s set and armed, it has half a day before the gas corrodes the interior components.” He was speaking quickly now. “Half a day, while the gas eats the metal like acid. If we don’t detonate it as planned, it’ll go off on its own.”
“Half a day?”
“We haven’t got another two hours to wait for your messenger,” Frankum insisted. “We may not have one. If you want to follow orders, Captain MacGruder,” he said, trying to keep a sour note out of his voice, and only succeeding because he sounded so afraid, “there’s still time to get Maynard to … to the edge of Atlanta. The gas will settle, spread, and roam anyway; precision in this regard was never very important.”
“Oh, God,” the captain said, though how he meant it, Maria wasn’t certain.
“Follow your orders. Finish the mission, and, and, and we’ll fit all of you into our craft somehow. We’ll get all of you out of here safe and sound, I swear it on my mother’s grave. We can take you out of the blast range—which isn’t far: the gas does the damage, not the detonation, and the gas is heavy. It’ll stay low, and we’ll go high. Just … you can’t keep us here. None of us can stay here much longer, that’s what I’m saying. And that’s the truth—that’s the God’s honest truth, and I swear it.”
MacGruder returned his attention to Maria and Henry—who by now had slid down into a seated position. He’d recovered a little of his coloring, but still looked weak. “Do either of you know how far this gas can travel? How much space it can cover?”
Maria put her hand on Henry’s shoulder. “No one knows. It’ll roam like a cloud, killing everything it touches until it dissipates.”
The captain looked mad enough to chew nails and spit tacks. But he couldn’t afford to lose his temper in front of his men, not at a moment like this, when the nervous chatter was whispering its way to a crescendo of frightened soldiers, the rumor fleeing back and forth along the caravan to anyone who wasn’t present to witness the exchange.
“All right,” he said, his teeth grinding against the words. “Apparently we don’t have time to fulfill our mission objective; we’ll never make the air base in Atlanta with this cargo, not now. These guys,” he said, with regards to Frankum and his crew, “aren’t going anywhere without us. And we’re not going anywhere without them. Evans,” he said to a uniformed soldier standing by. “Get me that map from the front car. We’ve got to find someplace to dump this. Sanders—” He signaled someone else. “As per my original request, I want these three tied up and stuck in the crawler with the bomb.”
“But Captain—”
“Not another word out of you. We don’t have time to wait for Bradley, which means we’re acting on faith. Now, the rest of you—in teams, as we talked about before—start digging. We need those wheels free in less time than it’d take you piss by the road, or else we’re all dead men.” He turned to Maria and Henry, then gave Henry a second, appraising gaze. “He’s not looking so well. We don’t have a doctor, but we can put him in a cart so he can rest.”
Maria looked down at Henry, who indeed seemed on the very verge of fainting. “Henry, I think you’d better let them help you,” she said wearily.
“No, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Here, someone get him up,” she pleaded, and MacGruder nodded toward one of his fellows. As Henry was lifted up and assisted to someplace more comfortable, Maria turned to the captain and said, “You’re doing the right thing.”
“At present, I’m only making a go of it.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“No.” Evans returned with a map roll. MacGruder took it and stretched it out across the back of a crate they’d pulled down off the crawler, hoping to lighten the load. He weighed down the paper with a rock on one side, and his fist on the other. It was a detailed production, with known farms, small towns, and topographical features all marked out. With his free hand, the captain traced out the particulars as he spoke. “We’re right about here,” he told her—and Evans, too, who lingered at his side. “Still a good forty miles from Atlanta, but there are a few little towns between here and there. And behind us, too.”
“What about … what about a lake?” Evans asked, pointing down at a wide, oval-shaped spot to the east. “We could drag it out to a lake, and toss it inside. Maybe the water would, I don’t know … hold down the worst of the gas?”
The captain shook his head. “Not a bad idea, but that’s six miles out, seven maybe. Through the trees, with no road to take us there.”
“Not a lake, then…” Maria scanned the sheet, helping hold the corner near the captain’s fist and accidentally leaving a smudge of blood on it. Her hands ached terribly, but what could she do? “What’s this right here? Is that what it looks like? A cave?”
“A cave … yes, I think so. And it’s close.”
“Then let’s pray it’s deep, too. If so, then, captain … we may have our answer!”
He double-checked the location and let go of the map. Maria let go, too, and it curled shut around the rock. To Evans, the captain said, “Take the fastest horse we have left and go back to that little town a mile or two behind us. It was just a wide spot in the road, but they had a store.”
“What am I getting, sir?”
“Dynamite. As much as they’ll sell you.”
“I don’t have any money, sir.”
“Then run up into the cargo ship and take whatever money you find. I doubt the Baldwin-Felts boys travel without any cash.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and he was off.
MacGruder returned his attention to the crawler, which now had the three agents perched atop it, looking none too happy. “How’s the digging?”
Without looking up, a soldier answered, “Another five minutes. S
omeone get inside and start the thing, would you?”
“Thomson, that’s you. Crank it up. Davis, get me four or five crate lids. Pry them off and bring them over here. We’re going to stick them under the wheels for traction.” Then, to Maria, he said, “It’s the cave or nothing at this point. We’ll toss it down as far as it’ll fall, and blow the top to keep it covered. I don’t know if it’ll hold all the gas,” he confessed to her, more quietly than he’d said the rest. “But it’ll buy us time, if nothing else.”
She put a hand on his arm. “That’ll do. When the war’s over, the president can send the army engineers to take a look at it.”
The great rolling-crawler rumbled to life behind them. Up in the cabin, Thomson wrestled with the gears, working the engine back and forth between first gear and reverse, trying to rock the thing free. On the sixth try it scooted. Its wheels caught on the crate lids and ground them to splinters … but under Thomson’s expert handling, it skidded to the left a few feet, spewing smoke and chips of wood from the crate lids as it hauled itself up, out, and onto the road once more.
The men cheered, and the machine jerked to a stop once it was clear. The road ahead was full of ruts, but the first hurdle was mastered, and it was time to proceed.
Over the engine, the captain shouted, “Move! Move everything—the carts, the horses, the other cars, everything! Get them out of the way; leave ’em on the side of the road if you have to. Now! This is all we’re taking!” he announced.
“Captain!” Frankum cried. “I can feel it moving underneath us; it’s going to blow! You have to get us down! Let us run so we have a fair chance!”
“Like the one you were going to give us? Forget it,” he told them. “That’s just the engine you feel. The bomb is fine for now.”
“I can hear it,” he insisted. “A hissing noise … a hissing.…”
“Shut your mouth, Frankum, or I’ll shut it for you. Cross your fingers and say your prayers, and maybe you’ll survive long enough for a court-martial. Thomson, Sanders, you’re with me. Davis, when Evans gets back, tell him where we’ve gone,” he said, then detailed the cave’s location—not far down the road. “We’ll turn off and try to work this damn thing between the trees—we’ll knock a few down if we have to, and we might. The cave is only a few hundred yards off the road, if I read the map correctly.”
“Don’t forget about me,” Maria said.
“Ma’am?”
“Me. I’m coming with you.”
“There’s room behind the driver. Get in.”
She climbed on board, and as the crawler lurched forward—struggling with the road, but winning, this time—they passed the cart where Henry was resting. He waved as she went, his good hand offering a weak salute. She waved back, swallowing the lump in her throat and wondered if he’d make it back across the line. She didn’t know how badly he was hurt. There might have been more wrong than she could see.
She put a hand to her torso, where the puncture wound had stopped bleeding, but was hurting fiercely all the same. It was one of the only places on her body where she was warm enough to feel anything at all.
Maria watched Frankum and his men over her shoulder as they bounced, slid, and finally rolled down to the cart’s bottom. When they disappeared, she first thought they’d been thrown—but no, they were wedged firmly in place between the bomb and the rails that kept it on the cart.
She smiled.
MacGruder gave her a look that asked her what was worth smiling over. She pointed down into the cart to indicate that their foes weren’t going anywhere. “Maybe we should toss them in with the bomb,” he suggested.
“Maybe, but your court-martial idea was probably better. Our side isn’t ruled by pirates or scoundrels, Captain. You have to play fair. On the bright side, maybe one of them will make a run for it, and you can shoot him.”
Now he smiled back. “A man can dream.”
The crawler heaved and hauled them up over the road’s raggedy bits with a motion like a ship in terrible seas. Maria found it worse than flying, even in the stormy air they’d navigated thus far that day; but she clutched her seat and—as they traversed one particularly bad pothole—the captain who sat beside her.
“There!” he called out. At first Maria thought it was a strange reaction to being grabbed by a woman, but that wasn’t his point at all. He was looking off to the right, where a dirt road passed between the trees.
The crawler shuddered to an idling stop. Thomson asked over his shoulder, “Sir, you think this is it?”
“It’s about right, so far as the map goes. If it doesn’t take us right to the spot, it’ll get us close, and there will be fewer trees to mow down. Just take the turn, if we can make it.”
“Oh, I can make the turn. I’m just not sure we can make that road. It’s barely big enough for a pair of horses.”
“Try it and see. We’re out of plans, and we’re running out of time,” he said.
He was right, and Maria knew it. The Baldwin-Felts men might have been hysterical, but that didn’t mean they were wrong. She could hear it, too, behind her: a different frequency of hum—an off-beat vibration that drummed up against her spine. The bomb’s integrity was failing. The jostle of the rolling-crawler couldn’t be helping matters, and it only grew worse when the vehicle turned right in a slow, perilous arc, then began its passage between the trees on a road even worse than the one it was leaving.
Maria thought it wasn’t possible for the ride to get any rougher, but she’d been wrong before, and here was another fine example.
“Get your head down!” MacGruder ordered her—and perhaps the rest of the men, though she took it personally.
He was right to make the command, as the trees at the road’s edge had sharp, low branches. Their limbs were bare and cold, and they whipped viciously against the crawler and its occupants. Maria huddled down low, ducking as far as she could behind Thomson, who valiantly held the thing steady and forced it forward, ever forward, in the lowest gear imaginable.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Sanders shouted.
“It can barely go this fast!” Thomson replied, jerking the steering wheel as it reeled against him, the wheels having snapped against some dip that threatened to trap them. “But if we stop, we’re damned! We’ll never get it moving again!”
So they fought onward, their bones rattling with every turn of the wheels. With each foot the weapon behind them grew a little weaker, a little louder. A little harder to ignore.
“That must be it!” Thomson hollered, pointing at a pair of structures no bigger than shacks. He drew the crawler up close beside them, and let the motor rumble.
One of the shacks was barely a roof on timbers, a covering for a hole in the ground. The structure beside it had a sign out front that said, CUMBERLAND CAVERNS! ONE CENT PER PERSON! SEE THE WONDER! AT YOUR OWN RISK! SUPPLIES AVAILABLE!
“Someone’s selling visits to the cave?” MacGruder wondered aloud.
“It’s not uncommon,” Maria informed him. “But it’s deserted now,” she said aloud, to herself more than anyone else. “It must be.”
“Thomson, get the back of this thing as close to that hole as you can manage!”
“Yes, sir! You get out and guide me. I’ll do my best!” he vowed.
MacGruder flung himself over the side and went to the rear, hollering instructions and giving whatever guidance he could—and finally the crawler was positioned with its back deck beneath the overhang, almost immediately above the open hole below.
“That’s as close as you’re going to get!” the captain called, and made a throat-cutting gesture that told Thomson to stop the motor.
When he did, the crawler fell silent, except for the pops and pings of the engine cooling almost immediately in the bitter air. But the forest wasn’t perfectly quiet, even without its raucous growling. The crisp afternoon was interrupted by the slow hiss, sizzle, and creak of the Maynard bomb shifting in its housing.
“Captain…” beg
ged Frankum. “You have to let us go!”
“And I will,” MacGruder told them. He reached into his boot and pulled out a knife, then leaned into the compartment and cut the ropes that bound Frankum and his men. “Get out now. You’re going to help us shove this goddamn thing into that goddamn hole.”
The Baldwin-Felts men agreed to this immediately. They might as well. There was no time to run.
They climbed out of the rear and rubbed at the sore spots on their wrists as Sanders untied the ropes that held the tarp over the awful device.
When he was finished with the knots, he whipped the sheet away, revealing the monstrous creation: a smooth, elongated box with round edges, banded with steel and rivets. Its nose was fixed with gleaming copper plate, and in its tail lurked a vast tangle of tubes, coils, and wires. Three tanks were mounted atop it, side by side like pig iron from the smelter. These tanks were the source of the hissing, the creaking, and other ominous sounds of something tight beginning to split under pressure.
It horrified Maria to her very core. This object could kill millions, if the weather was right. A terrific device, indeed, intimidating on the outside, even without ever releasing its deadly power. But compared to what it was capable of … it looked deceptively small. Nothing that could fit on the back of a crawler should be able to wipe out a city.
Frankum also stood staring, without speaking, until he said what Maria was already wondering. “I don’t know if we can lift it, Captain—just us men, and her,” he said. “We haven’t the strength between us, not even if we had a team of horses!”
“You idiot, the back of this thing is on a hydraulic lift. It was built to carry and dump construction supplies,” the captain said. He gave Thomson a signal, and a different motor kicked to life—something quieter and smoother, but still wildly loud in the otherwise silent woods. With painful slowness, the back compartment rose, tilting the bomb by tiny, incremental degrees. “We won’t have to pick it up and carry it; we’ll just have to climb in and give it a push, until it starts to roll.”
Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) Page 30
