by Mick Farren
Cordelia and Jesamine, with a handcuffed Harriet Lime in tow, were to travel in the immaculate Benz, along with Sera, her driver Jacques, and Madden as an extra armed bodyguard. They would be the lead vehicle and pathfinder for the others. Sera’s Benz created such a convincing impression of Mosul brass on urgent nocturnal business, that, should they encounter a routine checkpoint, the Mosul giving the order to stop would be more nervous of higher authority than fearful of armed guerrillas. The Benz was to travel a few minutes ahead of the rest of the motorcade. If they ran into a problem on the road, the plan was elegantly simple. No showing of forged papers or any other kind of deception. They would simply kill the soldiers at the roadblock as quickly and efficiently as possible, before any alarm could be raised, and proceed on, leaving the road clear for the rest of the convoy, that would remain close together in one body, except for the truck carrying Old Temps’s explosives, and that would follow at a quite considerable distance, with one car of volunteer gunmen driving behind it to protect the rear. Raphael would be riding with the main force that would attack the Mosul camp, and free the slave laborers, either to escape and cause a huge chaotic diversion, or to move the Paris Gun, if so needed. Argo, on the other hand, was going with Old Perdu’s crew, that included Penhaligon, whose objective was to blow up the gun and wreck the pyramid.
As Raphael swung up into the liberated Mosul truck that was to carry them, and settled himself between Cartwright and Bonaparte, Jesamine’s voice spoke in his head. “Raphael?”
The psychic linkage was being tested. He did his best to respond without being obvious to those beside him in the truck. “Jesamine?”
“Are you hearing me?”
“Without a problem.”
“Cordelia?”
“I’m in.”
“Argo?”
“Loud and clear.”
Jesamine sounded satisfied. “We’re moving out in the Benz right now. Let’s hope it stays loud and clear.”
JESAMINE
The interior of Sera’s black Benz contained more passengers than was strictly comfortable. Jacques drove and Madden sat beside him with a shotgun across his lap. Madden still wore his Ranger uniform, although Sera had expressed some concern. “Isn’t it a little obvious?”
Madden hadn’t seemed worried. “By the time they see me, they’ll be as good as dead. And anyway, Jesamine and the others are doing the same.” He had been totally unwilling to change into anything more anonymous. “If they catch me, they’re going to hang me anyway, and I’d rather be hung as a Ranger than a spy.”
Sera, accustomed to being obeyed with little or no question by the Falconetti rank and file, seemed distinctly irked by Madden’s attitude, but Jesamine and Cordelia found it comforting. It was good to have a familiar psychopath in the car with them, as they led the drive into danger, and they were especially glad he was there when the oil lamps and red flares of the first Mosul checkpoint were spotted. Madden had turned in his seat and grinned at the two of them, crowded in the back with Sera and Lime. “You ladies should check the silencers on your pistols. We don’t want any noise right now.”
Jesamine already had the silencer screwed firmly onto the muzzle of her revolver. She steeled herself. To hesitate would be fatal. She remembered what Madden had told her earlier. “Aim and shoot, without thinking of them as men. They are targets, merely in the way.” He had also laughed and added, “But don’t worry too much about having to do any killing. Jacques and I should have it all under control.”
Jacques had started to slow the car. He glanced back. “Looks like a routine roadblock, with just three of them manning it. A couple of soldiers and an Agent from the Ministry of Virtue.”
Madden put aside his shotgun, and held his silenced revolver down beside the door. Cordelia glared at Harriet Lime, whom she seemed to have made her personal responsibility. “If you’re tempted to try something, first remember how that orange suit is a shoot-to-kill signal to every ignorant Mosul with a loaded gun.”
Lime sat very still with her cuffed hands in front of her. She said nothing, which angered Cordelia. “Do you understand what I just said?”
Lime finally nodded. “Yes, I understand.”
“And if they don’t kill you, I will.”
Jacques stopped the car a little short of the roadblock and waited. It was nothing more than an antique armored steamer pulled across the road as a barrier that any approaching vehicle would need to drive around. The two soldiers approached the car on foot, one leading, and the other a few paces behind. The one farthest from them had unslung his rifle, but the closer one had not even bothered. His eyes were screwed up against the glare of the Benz’s powerful headlights. Madden signed to Jacques that he would dispatch the two soldiers while Jacques should concentrate on the Agent by the steamer. Jacques indicated this was fine by him. In a single, easy movement, Madden was out of the car, down on the surface of the road, firing around the door. His pistol made a quiet pifft, and the first Mosul staggered backward as a heavy caliber slug hit him in the chest. The second one had not fully grasped that anything was wrong before the second pifft, and he, too, was shot. Jacques had to negotiate the Benz’s steering wheel, and was maybe a second behind Madden. Two silenced shots came in rapid succession, and the Agent from the Ministry of Virtue went down.
Madden and Jacques moved forward, checking that the fallen Mosul were in fact dead, and when satisfied that no one was shamming, they picked up each body in turn and dumped them in the weeds and long grass at the side of the road. With the bodies out of the way, they turned their attention to the steamer. Madden, for once, had no answer, and he looked to Jacques. “You know how to drive one of these things? I don’t have a clue.”
Jacques shook his head. “I can give it a try, but…”
Inside the car, Sera cursed. “Fucking men!”
She opened the passenger door and stepped from the car. “At least one of us knows what to do.”
She swung up into the driving seat of the steamer, valved off excess steam, and then heaved on the heavy gearshift, and put it in reverse. The machine lurched backward off the road, and Sera, who was wearing the leather flight suit that had previously been Lime’s, jumped clear as the wheezing bulk started to upend itself in a ditch. She walked back to the car, wiping grease from her hands. “You know, those poor bastards’ only means of communication was a couple of signal rockets in the steamer. No one will know they’re dead until someone comes to relieve them.”
As she got back in the car, she smiled at Madden, perhaps as a token apology for her earlier ill temper. “Nice work, Ranger Madden. Very clean.”
Madden winked. “Wait until we hit the Mosul for real, Miss Falconetti. You’ll see some real clean wet-work.”
ARGO
The truck in which Argo was traveling came upon the Benz, another car, and three trucks parked under the cover of a grove of trees. The pyramid loomed so large that anyone could be forgiven for thinking they were right on top of it, until Old Temps Perdu reminded them just how big the Amiens Pyramid really was. “We’re still a good half mile away, maybe more.”
He climbed down from the truck and made known the next phase of his plan to the group from the other vehicles. “While you wait for the others to catch up, I’m going ahead right now. I need to look at the gun before all hell breaks loose.” He indicated Argo. “I’ll try to keep in touch via the young major’s mumbo-jumbo, but if that doesn’t work, the truck with the explosives needs to keep its engine running, and head straight for the gun as soon as the first attack starts. It’s vital you all remember that.”
Sera Falconetti, who was de facto leader of those who had so far arrived, nodded. “No problem, Old Temps, it will be done.”
“I don’t want to be at the fucking gun and lacking the wherewithal to blow it all to hell.”
“Don’t fret, old man. I’m telling you it will be done.”
Apparently satisfied, Old Temps climbed back onto the running board of the tru
ck and leaned in to speak to the driver. “Okay, real easy and lights off.”
In the back of the truck, Argo, the Ranger Penhaligon, and nine of Falconetti’s best arsonists and cat burglars rode in silence as they rolled quietly forward, headlights off, blind in the darkness, until Old Temps decided that they had gone as far as they safely could along the main road to the Mosul labor camp. “Take her off the road and stash her behind those bushes yonder. It won’t be no hiding place come daylight, but, come daylight, it won’t matter.”
As the driver eased the truck forward, doing as instructed. Argo, Penhaligon, and the others grabbed their kit and weapons, swung down to the road, and gathered round Old Temps. He turned immediately to Penhaligon. “You think you can take us up to the gun on foot, Ranger?”
“Easy. Just follow the ditches and hedgerows for as long as we can; then a brisk sprint at the end.”
“If we’re seen, we risk the whole attack.”
Penhaligon looked surprised that the warning even needed to be given. “The bastards will never know what hit them.”
The eleven men on the Paris Gun detail started off into the darkness. Argo cleared his mind, concentrating completely on one moment at a time. He was not thinking what might happen in the future, and he was especially not thinking about the pyramid. Even at a distance, the thing was emitting waves of black anxiety, and he did not want to open up to it, unless absolutely forced. He focused solely on the simple stuff, like where he was putting his feet, and keeping in sight of the man in front of him; in Argo’s case, a shifty-eyed Falconetti thief called Lapin. Penhaligon led them from one piece of natural cover to another, stopping, ducking down, and then moving in bursts of fast and silent motion, along a dry ditch, around the perimeter wire and the floodlights of the labor camp, in and out of the shadows of what seemed to be unused outbuildings, and piles of construction materials. The whole Mosul site proved relatively unguarded, as though those in command believed no one would have the crazy audacity to stage any kind of attack.
The group finally found themselves sheltering in the shadows between stacks of timber that looked like railroad ties, with the pyramid looming over them, and the Paris Gun a scant hundred and fifty paces away. Like the pyramid itself, the Paris Gun was so big that it confounded all ideas of relative size. Argo’s first impression was that it seemed shorter and more squat than he remembered from pictures, with much of the lower part of the barrel concealed by the thick cylindrical levers that absorbed the recoil, and it was not until Penhaligon made what he had called his “brisk sprint,” and a human being was in the picture, that Argo finally realized just how huge the thing really was.
Before Penhaligon made his run, he carefully laid the groundwork for himself, and those who would follow. He gathered the other men around him, and pointed. “You see the guard tower on the near corner of the slave camp?”
They all nodded, and Penhaligon continued. “The guard on it seems to be the only one interested in this area. He now and again shines a light over here to take a look, but it’s several minutes between inspections. Plenty of time to make it over, and, once we’re beside the gun, he can’t see us. I’m going over on my own first to check for bad news we don’t know about, then the rest of you should come across in threes. Just keep one firm eye on that tower monkey, and, if he looks like he’s swinging his light your way, hit the deck and freeze.”
Penhaligon waited until the light was just gone from the area he had to cross, and took off running, low and cautious. Halfway across something must have spooked him, because he dropped like a flat shadow, and waited, but then he was up again, and, in a matter of seconds, beside the gun and beckoning for the others to follow. The first group, Argo among them, waited long minutes until the light came again, but, when it was gone, they managed to cross the open space in one uninterrupted, desperate dash. The second group also made it across without incident, but the third, that was four in number, dropped and froze halfway across, as the light unexpectedly turned in their direction. They would never know whether the guard had half-noticed something, or if he was just looking on a whim, but he failed to spot their prone figures, and they, too, reached the gun unscathed. When Old Temps had all his chickens safely home, he turned his attention to the gun itself, running his hands over one of the great steel wheels, and talking to himself in a voice that verged on awe. “This fucker is unique. Maybe the only work of art to ever come out of the Ruhr.”
Penhaligon had looked at him with a puzzled expression. “You sound like you don’t want to blow it up.”
“Oh, I want to blow it up, my boy. Make no mistake about that.” He looked sharply at Argo. “Weaver.”
“Yes.”
“Can you do the whammy, and let your ladies know we’re in place.”
“I can try.”
“Then try.”
Argo knew this would be required of him, but he was also dreading it. He opened his mind, and, as he had feared, the pyramid forced its way in like an invisible wind, filling his head with a clashing plague of venom-filled wordless chatter. All he could do was soundlessly shout above it. “Cordelia! Jesamine!”
The voices that came back were faint and distorted, but they were there. “Argo, we hear you.”
“Inform everyone that the team on the gun is in place.”
“We’ll do that.”
He must have shown sign of the strain, because Perdu was looking at him with concern. “Trouble?”
Argo shook his head, and stared at the pyramid. “No trouble. But that fucking thing is alive.”
RAPHAEL
To call it a hill was an exaggeration, the slight rise was nothing more than a mild roll in the otherwise flat countryside, but it gave them a slightly elevated view of most of the Mosul slave labor camp, and also afforded them a hidden vantage point. Steuben had made it clear to all around him that one of the most prized Ranger skills was making the terrain work for you, rather than against you. Steuben, Falconetti, Slide, and Windermere lay flat on their stomachs on the damp grass, watching and waiting, looking for the weaknesses in and around the camp and construction site while the main body of their force waited some yards back, crouched and ready for the order to go. Raphael’s first surprise was at how quiet it all was. The Amiens Pyramid project did not work a night-shift, which seemed odd. When he had been an unwilling recruit in the Mosul Provincial Levies, there had been much barrack-room talk about the labor camps, and, for most of the young conscripts, it had been a choice of forced labor or the army, and they told stories of slaves being worked to death in twelve-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day. On the other hand, to be assigned to guard a labor camp was the desired miracle that would save them from near-certain death in combat in the Americas.
Falconetti seemed quite as amazed as Raphael, although for slightly different reasons. He gestured to the two rows of workers’ huts enclosed in the electrically lit rectangle of barbed wired, with a watchtower on each corner, and the guards’ barracks and other buildings beyond. “It all looks so easy. The damned place is hardly guarded.”
Slide nodded. “A prison is always easy to take. The concentration is always on the business of keeping in, not keeping out.”
Falconetti shook his head. “I don’t get it. They have the big secret, but without enough guns to protect it.”
Slide smiled. “That’s because they believe their secret is still a secret, and that no one would attack what looks, from the outside, to be nothing more than the needless renovation of an unpleasant monument.”
A voice called in Raphael’s head, distorted and somewhat dizzying from the interference of the pyramid. “Raphael. It’s Cordelia.”
“I hear you, although not well.”
“Argo has made contact. Perdu’s team is in place, and ready for the explosives truck to come to them.”
“And what about the White Twins?”
“Lime has heard nothing yet.”
“You believe her?”
“I think so. She
knows she’ll be killed if she fucks with us.” She paused as though distracted. “What?”
Raphael was confused. “Cordelia?”
“Raphael, wait…”
“What?”
Only the noise of the pyramid remained in his head, and Raphael glanced in the approximate direction of where Cordelia, Jesamine, and the others in that team were waiting for the supposed arrival of the White Twins. To his dismay, he saw headlights on the road. He nudged Slide, who looked in the same direction. “That can’t be one of our cars or trucks, driving so close to the camp with full headlights.”
“If it is, the driver’s a damned fool.”
Falconetti snarled angrily. “I didn’t recruit any damned fools.”
“So what the fuck is it?”
Slide shook his head. “Beats me.”
“Could it be the Twins arriving unannounced?”
“I sure hope not.”
JESAMINE
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a fucking car. And coming this way.”
“Is it the Twins?”
“It had better not be.”
Jesamine, Cordelia, and Sera all rounded on Harriet Lime. “If you’ve fucked us, you die.”
Lime knew they weren’t bluffing and her response was pure desperation. “I swear, I heard nothing.”
Sera looked urgently up the road. “Maybe it’s just a normal piece of late-night camp traffic.”
They now had their own roadblock in place. The Benz was parked across the road, ready to halt all incoming vehicles, and it was too late to clear it before the strange car was upon them. Madden and Jacques readied their weapons, but Cordelia was shaking her head. “This can’t turn into a firefight. If we start shooting now, the whole damn camp will be alerted. The element of surprise will be lost for the other groups.”
