The Amtrak Wars: Blood River

by Patrick Tilley

  Steve had known what was going to happen for several hours but the promise of help was not the same thing as help actually arriving, on time and in a form that would ensure their deliverance. So far, Roz had performed brilliantly. It was like being on a two-way radio circuit. From the moment of making contact, she had delivered regular, reassuring progress reports and then, as the four Skyhawks lined up on their target, she came through to warn him what was about to happen. He was to keep calm and stay tuned. A few seconds later, a series of muffled detonations had shaken the boat from bridge to keel.

  Steve had already decided not to tell Cadillac what was going to happen. If he wanted to, he could work it out for himself. Not that it mattered greatly. Knowing why the boat was on fire and sinking would not aid their escape, and by the time they managed to get put, the Skyhawks would – Steve hoped – have disappeared. In which case Cadillac would credit Mo-Town or Talisman with their deliverance. Steve was happy to leave it that way. To reveal that he had set up the attack with the aid of Roz would only have led Cadillac to ask the kind of questions he was not ready to answer.

  The two guards stationed in the passageway were still on duty but the one stationed near the engine room had moved towards his companion and the ladder which was now the only escape route. And although the cause remained a mystery, Cadillac was now aware from the questions and answers put by the guards to anyone who passed overhead that the fire raging above was now totally out of control and the order to abandon ship would come at any moment.

  As far as the guards were concerned the order could not come a moment too soon; a feeling that Steve and Cadillac shared. A chorus of hoarse screams cut across the sonorous drum-beat of the engine. There was a brief, chilling groan and crack of timbers then both sounds were eclipsed by a sudden thunderous roar as the central section of the blazing superstructure crashed down into the engine room burying everyone beneath. Only two sea-soldiers and a stoker, naked to the waist, who had been within reach of the forward door managed to stumble to safety pursued by a shower of red-hot embers and a brief orange tongue of flame.

  Smoke seeped through the lattice of the door. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here,’ said Steve, as the survivors staggered past. ‘C’mon. Do your stuff!’

  Peeking though the lattice, Cadillac glimpsed the two guards and the sea-soldiers clustered around the foot of the step-ladder. Screams of agony came from the inferno at the other end of the passageway. Someone, a colleague of the stoker, trapped near the doorway, was calling out to him, begging to be pulled clear of the flames. The stoker hesitated, then went back to rescue him. The braver of the two guards followed. The others shouted at them to come back.

  The confusion of sound and voices gave Cadillac the opportunity he’d been looking for. Standing back from the door, he adopted the commanding tone of Samurai-Major Morita and shouted: ‘Release the prisoners! Release the prisoners! Bring them on deck!’

  The two sea-soldiers and the guard at the foot were not sure where the order had come from but they recognized an officer’s voice when they heard one. The guard grabbed the key ring off the hook on the wall and started to unlock the door.

  Steve grabbed Cadillac by both arms. ‘You’re a genius! Y’know that?’ He pulled him down onto the bunk bench. It was better not to crowd these guys by the door. They might get the wrong idea.

  C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Oh, what an idiot! The dink had inserted the wrong key!

  There was another thunderous crash of timbers as more of the superstructure collapsed into the engine room sending a gust of smoke-laden red-hot air rolling up the passageway. The guard and the engineer, their faces raw and blistered, reappeared dragging a blackened, smoking body.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ croaked the guard. ‘He’s finished!’

  ‘You’re right …’ The engineer laid his colleague to rest with his hands placed neatly across his body. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here before she breaks in two!’

  The two sea-soldiers started up the step-ladder.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ cried the second guard. ‘We’ve got to get these two monkeys out of here.’ Having dropped and retrieved the key ring with trembling fingers he was trying, yet again, to open the lock with the wrong key.

  ‘Sod them!’ shouted his companion. ‘Let the bastards drown!’ The sea-soldiers led the scramble up the step-ladder onto the through-deck.

  Cadillac heard a voice shout. ‘Moto! Quick! This whole deck is on fire!’

  So far, Steve and Cadillac had been incredibly lucky not to have been burnt to a crisp or asphyxiated by smoke. Two things were working in their favour. The ten-foot high piles of tightly-packed timber, stacked several rows thick against the forward bulkhead was acting as a kind of fire-wall. The outer stacks were blazing fiercely and the rest were close to flash-point but they had not yet caught fire. The flames generated by the collapsed superstructure were being funnelled upwards out of the gaping hole above and were being fuelled by air sucked down the hatches and along the passageway past the room in which Steve and Cadillac were held. Any smoke was thus being drawn away from them but they could still feel the heat and knew that, at any minute, the fire could spread suddenly and dramatically to engulf them and the fumbling idiot outside the door on whom their lives now depended.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Izo Wantanabe.

  The guard jumped nervously to attention. ‘Evacuating the two prisoners, sir! As ordered!’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Can’t say exactly, sir.’ The guard gestured towards the hatchway. ‘I think it was an officer up there!’

  Wantanabe nodded. ‘Good. Off you go. Hurry! Get out while you can.’

  ‘But, uh – what about the prisoners, sir?’

  Wantanabe took charge of the key ring. ‘Leave them to me…’

  The three aides detailed to execute Izo Wantanabe and drag Steve and Cadillac from their cell to be cast into the flames saluted Morita and turned to leave. As they did so, the first 100 pound bomb struck the forward gallery directly underneath the bridge. The second crashed through the gallery below, several feet further to the right. The next four fell into the yawning furnace that had once been the midships section, and the last two struck the stern, blasting the paddle-wheel apart.

  Morita, his aides, Captain Kawanishi and the remaining bridge officers heard a deafening roar and felt the floor lift beneath them as the top half of the unburnt forward galleries blew apart then collapsed inwards and backwards. Morita experienced one last brief moment of lucidity in which he realized his body was one of several tumbling head over heels towards the blazing heart of the funeral pyre he had chosen for the assassins then his brain froze in horror as the glowing mass exploded like the sacred Mount Fuji, tearing him apart with tentacles of fire.

  It was this explosion–the almost simultaneous detonation of the four Ioo pound bombs planted amidships – that finally ripped the guts out of the boat and stopped her dead in the water. For Steve and Cadillac, this final convulsion brought them deliverance but came close to killing them in the process.

  As the bombs were falling towards their target, Izo Wantanabe flung the door open and stood there, sword grasped firmly in both hands, silhouetted against the wandering pool of light cast by the lantern near the steps.

  Steve eyed the quivering point of the sword as he and Cadillac rose to their feet. The dink was as frightened as they were. All the more reason to hang loose. In this confined space he’d have to thrust, not swing. Even so, this didn’t look good. Steve grasped the sides of his neck-board. Properly angled, he might just be able to parry a cutting blow, creating an opportunity for Cadillac to move in …

  Wantanabe hesitated, trying to decide which of his victims was the most dangerous. The one who spoke Japanese or hip more strongly-built companion? He jabbed the blade at Cadillac, savouring his moment of power over the two treacherous dogs who had ruined him then pulled back to make the killing stroke.

  Using the powers of mimicry he had fir
st displayed whilst impersonating the courtesan Yoko Mishima, Cadillac stepped towards the blade and screamed: ‘Husband! I beg you! Don’t! These are the Shogun’s men! Think of me, your wife, and the little ones!’

  Momentarily stunned at hearing Yumiko’s voice issue from the mouth of the assassin, Wantanabe faltered and lowered his sword.

  And it was in that same instant, as Steve and Cadillac hurled themselves towards him, that the four bombs exploded amidships and broke the wheelboat in two. Wantanabe staggered and fell against the back wall as the bow lifted under the weight of water flooding into the gaping hole where the engine room had been. Steve and Cadillac fell on top of him. Steve, who’d moved in first, got the top half, pinning Wantanabe’s throat against the boards with the right side of his neck-board while he tried to hammer the sword loose from the Jap’s hand. Cadillac fell across Wantanabe’s legs, grabbed his other arm and held it at full stretch while pressing one corner of his own neck-board into the Jap’s groin.

  A torrent of water was now rushing up the passageway and flooding into the room.

  Steve used his shoulder to ram his neckboard up hard under Wantanabe’s chin. ‘Right – I’ve got it.’ he grunted. ‘Let me at the fucker!’

  Cadillac rolled aside as Steve staggered to his feet. The Jap realized he was done for, but he wasn’t taking it lying down. Leaning against the wall, he hauled his soaking wet body clear of the water – now calf deep. Steve hefted the sword.

  ‘Watch him!’ cried Cadillac.

  ‘It’s okay! If he wants it standing up, that’s the way he’s going to get it!’

  But Wantanabe wasn’t quite finished. Before either Steve or Cadillac had time to react, the Jap threw himself towards the open door, seized hold of the precious keys that still hung in the lock jerked the door clear of Cadillac’s outstretched fingers and pulled it shut behind him.

  ‘Steve!’ screamed Cadillac. ‘For chrissakes! Stop him!’

  Reversing the blade to put the curved cutting edge on top, Steve raised the blade level with the ceiling then plunged it downwards with all the force he could muster. The blade sliced through the lattice and sank deep into Wantanabe’s chest before he could turn the key but as Steve withdrew it and his body slid into the rising water, his dead hand pulled the keys from the lock.

  ‘Shit!’ cried Steve. The water was now up to the level of the lattice and with the steepening downward tilt of the floor most of the back wall was under water. Passing the sword to Cadillac, he forced the door open and went in nose first to hunt for the key ring.

  Cadillac, who had found the reckless courage to face the fearsome Shakatak D’Vine, tried to master the wave of panic that was rising as fast as the water he was floundering in. This was the moment Steve had foreseen. The moment he had been dreading. The gut-ripping pain of cold steel was infinitely preferable to the nameless horrors that awaited the souls of those who drowned.

  Mutes from the high plains were always very cautious about getting out of their depth. If you were unlucky enough to die in the water, your spirit was dragged down into a black whirlpool at the centre of the earth instead of rising into the arms of the Great Sky-Mother. A whirlpool full of poisonous scorpions from which you never escaped …

  Steve’s hand rose out of the water, clutching the key ring. His head followed, gasping for air. ‘Do my hands first!’

  Cadillac took the keys and freed Steve’s wrists.

  ‘Okay. Let me do yours … and now the neckboard …’ The water was now up to their chests. ‘Terrific. Now mine. Can you reach?’

  ‘Yeah, but what about –’

  ‘I’ll do the feet. Don’t worry!’ Steve threw off his neck-board, grabbed the keys and sank out of sight.

  Cadillac waited but nothing happened. Why was Steve taking his own leg shackles off first when it was he, Cadillac, who couldn’t swim? There was only a thin wedge of air space left in the room. The panic returned as he started to tread water. Hands grasped at his thrashing feet, pulling him under. The shackles’ chains dropped away from his ankles then he felt Steve’s arm curl round his neck from behind pulling him deeper still. Into the blackness. He kicked wildly, trying to break Steve’s hold but all he managed to do was crack his own shins on the top of the door frame as he was dragged through. Water filled his mouth and nostrils –

  Oh, Sweet Mother! They were going to drown!

  On shore, Clearwater and the Kojak Mutes who lined the beach defences heard or saw nothing of the wheelboat until it burst into flames, lighting the surrounding waters with an orange glow. The clan-folk roared with delight.

  Heyyy-yaaaAAHH!! This was proof, yet again, of the power that Talisman had placed in the hands of The Chosen! And the Kojak would show themselves to be worthy and courageous hosts!

  Since the first three rapid strikes against the boat had been made in almost total darkness when it was just under two miles from the shore, Clearwater had no inkling that the havoc had been created by an outside agency. And even when the boat drew closer, and the presence of the drifting red star-fires were registered by the sharp-eyed Mutes the Kojak were none the wiser.

  It was only when the boat was struck by the final salvo of bombs and Clearwater glimpsed grey bird-like shapes flitting in and out of the furnace glow that her excitement became edged with fear. And she began to wonder if the moving points of light in the sky signalled the presence of a darker power – the sand-burrowers. Had the cloud-warrior summoned them to his aid? She decided it did not matter whether the agency was human or divine as long as the wished-for result was achieved. Talisman had power over all things and exerted his will in mysterious ways.

  Shouts from further down the beach turned her thoughts back to the matter in hand. The fishermen standing by the decoy fire at the water’s edge had seen the first dark shapes of men and horses swimming towards the shore. The warriors, who had come out of their hiding places beneath the upturned boats when the Iron Master’s vessel had gone up in flames to cheer and strut exultantly back and forth along the beach, fell on one knee and took careful aim with their crossbows.

  Zzhhh … zzhhh … zzhh-zzhonk! Zzhhon-zzhhon-zzh-honk! Six samurai in the first wave were blown out of their saddles into the water. But although the Kojak had the advantage of firing from the cover of darkness, the traffic was not all one way. Many of the advancing samurai had drawn their bows, and long feather-flighted arrows were finding targets illuminated by the decoy bonfire on the beach. As soon as they realized the source of the danger, the nearest Mutes picked up two of the fishing boats, turned them on their side and held them one on top of the other in front of the fire while it was quickly smothered with sand. Then, having discovered the boats could be used to hide behind as well as under, they laid them down several yards further back and started firing again, ducking out of sight to reload.

  The protection afforded by the skin-covered boats was more imaginary than real as several Mutes were to discover. The spear-pointed samurai arrows punched straight through the slatted roundwood floors and between their ribs before stopping but the notion they were safely hidden from view kept their colleagues in the firing-line.

  Seizing the halberd she had fashioned from a machete and a strong sapling, Clearwater led a group of similarly-armed warriors down from the dunes and onto the beach. The clan’s morale had been boosted by the wheelboat’s fiery demise and by placing herself in the forefront of the battle she hoped to inspire them even further by demonstrating that the much-feared Iron Masters bled and died just like ordinary motals.

  Karlstrom watched with mounting concern as Roz arched her back over the chair and began to choke. Her chest heaved convulsively. Her left arm was raised and bent at the elbow back towards her body, with the knuckles jammed against the base of her neck; the clawed fingers of her right hand were raised in the air as if she was trying to grab something hanging from the ceiling. Her eyes, as always, were tightly shut.

  He moved closer, ready to catch her if she fell off the chair. Now her left
arm unfolded. She seemed to by trying to lift or push something heavy away from her, then she collapsed forwards across the top of the desk coughing and spluttering as she gasped down lungfuls of air.

  Karlstrom saw her eyes flutter open as part of her mind returned to her present location. ‘Are you okay?’ He prided himself on being a pretty cold fish but no matter how many times he watched Roz do her stuff it disturbed and impressed him. He came away from these sessions filled with a sense of wonder: a feeling that he was a privileged observer of a process which – to use a word that had never crossed his lips – was little short of, well … miraculous.

  ‘Yes …’ Her voice was a hoarse whisper, her face drained of all colour. She used her hands to push herself away from the desk. ‘He’s out… they’re both out. They’re safe …’ She slumped back in the chair and let her head fall forward, hunching her shoulders as her exhausted body was wracked by another bout of coughing.

  ‘Would you like me to call a medic?’

  Roz raised her eyes to his and greeted the question with a rueful smile. ‘I am a doctor – or, at least, I was.’ She took several deep, calming breaths and, as the colour returned to her cheeks, her exhausted body was rapidly transformed into its normal healthy self.

  It was, reflected Karlstrom, really quite remarkable. Once again, Roz had demonstrated her ability to not only be aware of, but to mirror – with her own body – Brickman’s current physical or mental state. Their minds had to be linked at deep trance level but in moments of intense stress, such as when his body suffered traumatic wounding, that telepathic connection was made instantly and without warning.

  What stunned and mystified the First Family surgeons who had observed the psychosomatic woundings that Roz had endured was the incredible speed with which they healed, the absence of any scars or need for convalescence and the level of pain that would normally accompany such injuries.