Iron and Blood

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Oh, my God,” Catherine whispered. “Did you just shoot the street sweeper?”

  A hail of gunfire sounded on Fifth Avenue. Mitch had pushed Jake to the ground and dragged him behind the low wall separating the Desmet house from the street, while he and Jacob returned fire. The false White Wings had dropped all pretense, rifle-brooms at the ready. There were at least twenty of them. Shots pinged off the wall; somewhere nearby, glass shattered.

  Kovach’s men came running, as the snipers on the roof picked off two targets. Cady swung out from the safety of the wall to fire another shot, catching an attacker in the shoulder. An assailant veered close to the house, coming into Nicki’s range. Like Cady, Nicki was a crack shot, taking one of the enemy through the leg.

  Wilfred ran into the room, alarm clear on his face. “Madam. I must insist that you and the young ladies retreat to safety.”

  Cady squeezed off another shot. “We’ve got a better angle than Jake does, and—with the trees blocking some of the upstairs windows and roofline—maybe even than the snipers do on the roof. Even with the two government agents, our sharpshooters are outnumbered. They need us.”

  The cleaners returned fire. Cady squealed and dropped to the floor as a bullet zinged through the top of the window, then rose to her feet and fired.

  “Get out of here, Aunt Catherine. You’re in mourning. You can’t be shooting people,” Nicki said, reloading. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “We’ve got problems,” Cady shouted.

  “Did you just figure that out?” Nicki retorted.

  “No, bigger problems.” Cady pointed. “I don’t think that water wagon is filled with water.”

  “Doux Jésus!” Nicki muttered. “Petrol.”

  “Charles!” Catherine shouted.

  “He’s already gone ’round to help Mr. Desmet,” Wilfred said. “Please, let me get you to safety.”

  “My great-grandmother didn’t leave the homestead when the Davey Lewis gang came through town,” Catherine said. “My mother didn’t run off when the Molly Maguires set to. And I’m not going anywhere, not as long as my son’s out there and our home is at risk.” A determined glint had come into Catherine’s eyes. “Wilfred. Fetch me Thomas’s Colt revolver.” She headed for the stairs. “I’ll be in my room.”

  Mitch, Jacob, and Jake were giving as good as they got from the deadly cleaning crew. Kovach’s men waded in with guns and fists, but the numbers still favored the attackers. If Cady’s fears about the water wagon were correct, firepower alone wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Go, Charles!” Nicki cheered as the werkman ran toward the water wagon with inhuman speed. Shots clanged off his metal body, but Charles never slowed.

  Three of the false White Wings threw themselves at Charles, but the werkman tossed them aside with ease.

  “They’re going to set off the wagon!” Nicki shouted, loosing another shot amid a barrage of vulgar French.

  “Let’s see if I can get the driver,” Cady said with a hard glint in her eye. She fired, but the bullet went astray, nicking the driver’s bench. “Damn.”

  The wagon and its attackers were out of Nicki’s range. Charles was doing his best to move the wagon backward—water tank, horses and all—but several of the false street sweepers were trying to drag him away.

  Bam-bam-bam. Kovach’s sharpshooters hit their targets. From the open parlor window, Nicki could hear cursing in Hungarian. The men restraining Charles dropped in their tracks. A fourth attacker who had wriggled along the ground toward Jake’s hiding place jerked and went still as a bullet found its mark. From the angle of the shot, Nicki was pretty certain Catherine had pulled the trigger.

  Charles brought a metal fist down, smashing the wagon tongue and freeing the horses, then he pushed the wagon toward an empty lot across the street. Kovach laid down covering fire so that none of the surviving attackers could get close. Nicki held her breath, watching as Charles put his mechanized muscle against the weight of the wagon. The wheels creaked over the curb, and the cart began to roll into the open field.

  With a roar and a blinding flash, the tank exploded. Fire danced into the sky nearly as high as the two-story homes on either side of the empty lot. A plume of black smoke and the smell of burning gasoline filled the air. Charles was nowhere to be seen.

  Sirens wailed, getting closer. Half a dozen of the surviving faux cleaners returned fire to cover their comrades, who dragged away the dead and wounded, then threw the bodies onto the remaining wagon and pulled a tarp over them before climbing aboard and heading away from the sirens.

  “They’re getting away!” Cady shouted, raising her rifle once more.

  Nicki put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Let them go. They’re taking the dead and wounded. We won’t have to explain the bodies to the police. And we’ve got to get Jake and the others to safety before awkward questions get asked.”

  Cady raised an eyebrow. “We’ve just had a Wild West shoot-out on Fifth Avenue—you don’t think awkward questions are already being asked?”

  “I think we have a much better chance of explaining it away if there isn’t a wagonful of corpses in front of the house,” Nicki said archly.

  “And the burned-out wagon?” Cady asked.

  Nicki smiled. “Spontaneous combustion. Darndest thing.”

  Their attackers headed off at full gallop. Miska Kovach was already down at street level, hustling Jake, Mitch, and Jacob from their hiding place and around to the back of the house. Cady slid the window closed.

  Just as Jake and the others rounded the corner of the house, the police wagons came clattering up. Cady watched from the cover of the heavy parlor drapes. “Uh-oh. They’re heading this way,” she gave a murmured warning.

  Brusque knocking sounded at the front door. Wilfred appeared in the hallway, forever unflappable, standing straight and tall with an unreadable expression. “I’ll handle this,” he said, making his way down the hallway without a hint of hurry.

  Nicki had a view of the hallway from behind the parlor door. A florid-faced policeman stood in the entranceway.

  “We had a report that shots were fired,” the officer began abruptly, with a thick Irish brogue.

  “We made no such report,” Wilfred replied. His glance strayed to the conspicuous crepe wreath on the door. “And since the household is in mourning, I’ll thank you to keep your voice low.”

  The officer looked abashed, and removed his hat. “Sorry for your loss,” he mumbled. “But there are spent shell casings in the street from a variety of guns. They came from somewhere.” He pointed toward the still-burning wagon. “And there was an explosion. Surely you heard that!”

  Wilfred turned his head toward the flames then back to the officer with a total lack of emotion. “Living in the city, one is accustomed to taking a variety of noises in one’s stride. We do not rush to the windows like voyeurs.”

  “I don’t know about voyagers,” the cop replied. “And I’m sorry to bother you at a bad time, but what about the blood? There’s blood on the street. What do you make of that?”

  Wilfred affected an expression of boredom. “I don’t ‘make’ anything of it. That is what we depend upon your illustrious department to discover. Now if you will excuse me, I must attend to my duties.”

  He shut the door in the officer’s confused face. Nicki had to stifle a laugh. Once his back was turned, Wilfred allowed himself a hint of a smirk.

  “With luck, he’ll go bother the neighbors,” Wilfred said, a gleam of wicked humor in his eyes.

  “Won’t they report what they’ve seen—shots traded, sharpshooters on the roof, all that?” Nicki asked.

  Wilfred chuckled. “Even if they saw it, they wouldn’t dare breathe a word. Might lower property values, or cause a scandal.” He sighed. “Although Madame may find invitations to afternoon tea less forthcoming for a while.”

  “Pish posh,” Nicki said with a dismissive wave. “Any neighbor who wouldn’t have you over for tea for taking a few wel
l-aimed shots at intruders isn’t worth the bother.”

  “Indeed,” Wilfred said.

  Catherine descended the stairs, minus her mourning cap and veil. “Is it over? Where’s Jake?”

  Wilfred nodded toward the kitchen. “They were just coming in when that insufferable policeman came to the door.”

  Catherine gathered her black skirts and ran the length of the hallway, with Nicki and Cady close behind.

  “Jake!” Catherine cried out, in a mixture of relief and alarm. Jake sat at the kitchen table with his shirt partly off. Blood streaked down his chest from a gash on his upper left arm. Mrs. James, the family’s cook, was boiling water and fetching linen bandages, while the dowdy agent who had been keeping watch outside the house staunched the bleeding with a compress.

  Agent Storm sat next to Jake, his shirt stained with blood from a bullet that had clipped him in the shoulder. Miska Kovach stood by the kitchen door, his face and shirt smudged with dirt and gunpowder, glaring at Mitch.

  “There’s hot water and iodine,” Mrs. James said. “That should help you clean up properly.”

  “Much obliged,” the dowdy agent replied. He was taller than Storm, with blond hair and blue eyes, and his voice carried a strong hint of a Croatian accent. As if he suddenly realized that he had not been introduced, the man looked up and gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  “Agent Jacob Drangosavich,” he said. “Sorry about the unpleasantness. We were afraid something like this might happen.”

  “And before you ask, I’ll be fine, Mother.” Jake managed a rueful smile. “It’s just a cut, not even a bullet. I’ve had worse.”

  Agent Storm raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know the import business was so dangerous.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Agent Storm,” Catherine said. “Who were those men, and why were they here?”

  Mitch shifted in his seat, and Nicki guessed that the wound pained him more than he wanted to let on. “Someone within the Oligarchy, would be my guess. Those weren’t common hirelings—not the way they stood their ground, or the way they gathered their dead and wounded. They were well-trained.”

  “I caught a bit of what they were saying to each other,” Kovach said. “Pretty sure it was Romanian they were speaking.”

  Romanian, Nicki thought. Like Drogo Veles. She saw a flicker of recognition in Jake’s eyes, and made a mental note to ask him if he had someone in mind once their ‘visitors’ had gone.

  “Good thing your werkman got that wagon out of the way,” Mitch said as Jacob began to wash his wound. He gritted his teeth as his partner pried a bullet loose, but the iodine wrenched a choked cry from his lips. Jacob muttered something in Croatian, and kept right on binding Mitch’s injury.

  “Whoever sent that meant to do quite a bit of damage,” Catherine observed. Nicki looked over to the corner of the kitchen where Charles sat on a wooden chair. His bronze skin was dented and scorched in places, and his clothing burned and torn, but the light in his eyes was bright and he looked to be fully functional.

  Mitch gingerly pulled his shirt on over his bandages. “I don’t know what game you folks think you’re playing,” he said. “But it’s dangerous. We can help.”

  Jake and his mother exchanged glances. “We appreciate the concern, Agent Storm, but we will be fine,” Catherine replied. “If you want to be of use, find out who killed my husband and why.”

  Mitch and Jacob collected their things and headed for the back door. “We will,” Jacob replied. “But think about this: whoever sent those assassins today isn’t content to have killed Thomas Desmet. Someone wants you all dead.”

  LATE THE NEXT night, Jake and Rick took the long way toward their destination. They rode in the back of an unmarked delivery wagon rather than use one of their carriages. Kovach and a newly-mended Charles drove. Kovach had chosen the fastest horses for the night’s work, and insisted on hastily reinforcing the sides of the wagon in case of an ambush. But he had gone with aluminum instead of heavy steel to keep the weight down, in case of a quick get-away. The real goal was to get in, haul away what Adam needed for his research, and get out without incident. Jake was skeptical that it would be that easy.

  “Relax. It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve broken in somewhere,” Rick said, and Jake could hear the excitement in his friend’s voice.

  “Maybe not,” Jake admitted. “But it’s the first time we’ve broken into Tesla-Westinghouse.”

  Rick clucked his tongue. “Actually, we’re not really breaking in. We’re just helping transport scientific equipment outside of normal working hours.”

  “Uh-huh. Equipment that hasn’t been signed out, paid for or declassified.”

  Rick grinned. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

  “Kind of scary that Adam doesn’t trust his management anymore, but if they’ve gotten cozy with Thwaites, then Adam’s not safe there and neither are his more useful inventions,” Jake said.

  “We sure don’t want Thwaites getting his hands on everything Adam’s invented—or on Adam himself. I think he’s right to want to disappear,” Rick added. He paused for a moment. “Did you find anything out about the shipment your father was importing for Jasinski?” Their wagon clattered over the bridge, crossing the Monongahela River to Wilmerding, to the headquarters of Tesla-Westinghouse.

  “Only that it’s missing,” Jake replied tersely. At his mother’s insistence, Jake had permitted the family’s physician, Dr. Zeigler, to treat his arm once he had assurances that the doctor would not report the injury to authorities. Even with stitches and a poultice, the arm hurt like blazes, but Jake had refused any morphine, wanting to keep a clear head. The gash had not been deep enough to keep him from using his arm, which was all that mattered.

  “Our shipments don’t just disappear,” Rick argued. “We have people and processes to make certain of that. And if what Agent Storm said is true, then a couple other people from Thomas’s list shipped something with Brand and Desmet and died because of it.”

  Jake shrugged, then regretted it as pain lanced through his wounded arm. “I have a gut feeling that it’s all related. And I don’t think Jasinski’s crates were just any shipment.”

  The carriage came to a stop in an alley behind the Castle. Kovach let Jake and Rick out of the wagon.

  “I can’t believe Adam nearly burned this place down with one of his experiments,” Rick muttered as they got out of the carriage.

  “Looks good as new to me,” Jake replied.

  Charles sat in the carriage driver’s seat, in better shape from the exploits of the day before than Jake was. Kovach had worked on the mechanical man, repairing the damage and buffing out the worst of the scratches and dents.

  “Don’t spend too much time chatting with Farber,” Kovach warned. “We doubled back several times, but I can’t shake the feeling that someone was trying to follow us.”

  The three men approached the rear of the building, alert for patrolling security guards or attackers lurking in the shadows. As they neared the building, a door opened on the loading dock.

  Adam Farber was waiting for them. “Rick! Jake! Miska! Great to see you!” he whispered, grinning. Before Jake could fend him off, Adam slapped Jake on the shoulder and Jake gasped in pain.

  “Good to see you, too,” Rick replied, trying and failing to keep a hint of amusement out of his voice as Jake grimaced. “Let’s make this a quick visit, shall we?” Rick tapped Morse code into a Farber-made wristwatch that sent a wireless signal to Charles to let him know it was clear to proceed. A few minutes later, and the werkmen brought the black wagon up to the doorway.

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t have come near this place again if it weren’t so important… especially after those hired gorillas… well, anyway. Lars and I have been waiting for you,” Adam said, indicating the clockwork man who stood to one side, wearing the uniform of an elevator operator.

  Jake looked askance at Lars. “Won’t he report back to management?”


  Adam chuckled. “Who do you think programmed him? Let’s get the first load into the carriage, and I’ll go back for the second batch. Security isn’t making its rounds tonight, but I could swear I saw something out there, not long before you came.”

  Jake and Rick stepped into the darkened stairwell. “How did you manage to get rid of security?” Jake asked.

  “I sent them all ‘updated’ work schedules at the last minute, making sure none of them were on shift for tonight. And if anyone asks, they’re signed and official.” Adam’s grin broadened. “I had Lars copy the signature of the temporary scheduler who just finished today. She won’t be around to dispute it or take the blame. Perfect crime.”

  Jake shook his head in admiration. “Adam Farber, you’re a dangerous man.”

  “Give us a couple of minutes, and we’ll have the wagon loaded,” Adam replied. “We’ll go down the stairs so you can unload the service elevator. Send it back down to us when it’s empty, and we’ll reload it and ride back up.” He gestured for Lars to follow him. They disappeared down the stairs to the Castle’s lower levels, the secret underground labs where the geniuses of Tesla-Westinghouse created electro-mechanical marvels and tested the boundaries of known science.

  After tense, silent minutes that seemed to stretch forever, Adam and Lars returned.

  “Rick probably told you, I’ve been working on some really interesting things,” Adam said, talking quickly and nearly twitching with excitement. Jake guessed his friend was running high on caffeine. “And after what happened, I’m glad you two could hide me and my projects somewhere safe.”

  With Kovach and Charles as sentries, Jake and Rick pitched in to help Adam and Lars load the wagon. Wooden boxes stuffed with small gadgets went in first, then crates with Farber’s tools and equipment.

  “Isn’t anyone going to notice that all your stuff is missing?” Jake asked.

  Adam chuckled. “No. They might think I cleaned the place up, but I’ve got duplicates of most of the tools, and plenty of half-made stuff that isn’t dangerous, so the lab will look as cluttered as ever.” He dropped his voice. “Although the pieces that were one-of-a-kind are what I’m trying to secure.”