The Glass Mountains: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 2

by J. V. Roberts

  “Then why are you standing there? Close my door and go finish.”

  “There is another option for you.”

  “Help you fight Hause? Not interested. It’s hard to play a game when you’re rooting for both teams to lose.” Dominic slid down the back wall of the cell. A familiar pain sliced through his gut. The wound on his stomach, the one just below his belly button, the one Lerah had sewn up, it had closed and puckered, absorbing the stitches, but it still gnashed its teeth from time to time.

  “Help me get my daughter back.”

  Dominic laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re asking me for help.”

  “I’m giving you options. I could just execute you.” Dan removed his pistol and rattled it back and forth against his thigh, as if he were loosening it up to do the job right. “No one would object.”

  “But you won’t.” Dominic staggered back to his feet, suddenly aware of the power he held.

  “I won’t?”

  “No, you won’t.” Dan stepped back out into the hall as Dominic drew closer. “You, an esteemed citizen of the blessed Union, are crawling before the feet of an unwashed Outlander. I’m the only shot you’ve got.”

  “No one is crawling.”

  “Hause wrote Lerah off. I was there. I heard him. I heard you, begging. That pissed you off. Hell, I know it pissed me off and she’s not even my daughter. You plotted and schemed. You found a way to bring folks over to your side. But it’s all bullshit, isn’t it? A smokescreen so you could get access to me. I mean, asking your men to saddle up on your daughter’s behalf would be a bit too transparent. What’s the official line you’re feeding them? Hause is too soft on the Rebels? His push for peace is a scam?”

  Dan scratched at his chin; his nerves were getting the best of him. “This is a good deal for both of us.”

  “Is it?”

  “You’ve got to be sick of this cage by now. A man like you,” Dan seemed to be considering his size, “you weren’t built for small spaces.”

  “It ain’t home, but it suddenly sounds a hell of a lot more comfy than being up there.”

  “What’s going on up there isn’t going to last forever. When my boys get done with Hause’s loyalists, who do you think they’re going to turn on next?”

  “You, when they find out that you had them draw blood for your own selfish gain.”

  “I didn’t lie to them. I have every intention of wiping you and your kind off the map, just as soon as I’m done with Hause. All I’m offering you is a head start.”

  Dominic laughed. “Wipe us off the map? You really think you’re going to be able to afford the men when this is all over?”

  “I think I’m willing to give it a shot.”

  Dominic drove Dan backward with the bulk of his bare chest. “Let’s say I agree and you do get me out of here. What’s to keep me from just running once my feet hit the sand, saying fuck you and fuck your daughter?”

  “Because you care about Lerah.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I was there. I heard you with Hause, just like you heard me.” Dan holstered the pistol, a smug smile on his face.

  Dominic preferred controlling his own fate. He could have broken the grizzled military vet in half, seized the pistol, and taken his chances with the boys in the lobby. “Alright, I’ll play along. But I hope you’ve got a plan to walk me past your men.”

  “I’ve been cooking up a little something. How do you feel about holding a gun to my head?”

  “Pretty damn good.”

  ***

  “Weapons down and hands up! I’ll blow his head off!” Dominic held Dan’s throat in the crook of his left elbow while his right hand held the chrome-plated pistol against his temple.

  “Do what the man says!”

  The Union soldiers in the lobby dropped into firing positions. The sound of high caliber rounds being chambered filled the air. They were all around Dominic: in the doorways, near the stables, lining the walls. He began to get the feeling that agreeing to Dan’s foolhardy plan had been a mistake. There was a heaping serving of bravado in the room, young boys eager to prove themselves, eager to play the hero. How long before one of them grew balls big enough to send a bullet soaring at his head?

  Buddy and Loviatar stood at the center of it all.

  Buddy was being pulled in four different directions, surrounded on all sides by men with guns; the dirty little bastard didn’t know where to run. He didn’t look so tough now: his pale, ball-shaped body exposed by the daylight, the club that had caused Dominic such pain reduced to a mere nub in the presence of so much firepower. Loviatar, on the other hand, was indifferent to it all. He stood motionless, his hammer propped against the floor, waiting for a voice to bring life to his bones.

  “These men of yours aren’t too good at following orders,” Dominic hissed in Dan’s ear. He was having a hard time staying crouched low enough to shield his head; he held a good six inches on Dan.

  “I order you to drop your weapons! Caldwell! Have them drop their weapons!”

  The man standing at the center of the line of soldiers near the stables, the one named Caldwell, was older and steadier than the rest; a leader, battle worn. He stared from behind the sights of his black rifle, his tongue clamped in the corner of his mouth. He had the shot, Dominic could see it in his eyes, and all he had to do was pull the trigger. “Men, you’ve been ordered to drop your weapons.” The rifle spiraled from Caldwell’s hands and clattered against the floor. “Do it!” Caldwell was the tipping point. All around the room, men disarmed. Some sat their weapon on the floor as if it were a sleeping infant and others dropped it with the same carelessness Caldwell had.

  Dominic drove Dan towards the stables. Buddy and Loviatar still stood in the center of the room, blocking their path. “Move or die!”

  Buddy stuttered something and stumbled over Loviatar’s giant feet as he scrambled to clear the way. He fell to the pavement and his club slid across the floor, beyond his reach. “Go…on…move, Loviatar,” Buddy groaned as he rolled to his back.

  Loviatar took two big steps to his right, his eyes never leaving Dominic’s.

  “Every one of you, other side of the room!”

  Caldwell and the other soldiers lining the front of the stables did as instructed.

  Dominic released his grasp on Dan and planted him against one of the three stalls that made up the stables, the horse inside snorted and leaped back. “Get the horse out, no bullshit!” Dominic turned to watch the soldiers as Dan unlatched the stable and began saddling up the horse.

  This was their chance.

  He was in the open, nothing standing between him and a bullet. Some of them were having the exact same thought; he could see it in their eyes, the way they twitched back and forth between the weapons at their feet and the pistol in Dominic’s hand. “I know what some of you Union fucks are thinking. You’re thinking, Can I get to my gun and get a bullet in this big bastard before he shoots me dead? That’s an excellent question. You should know that I’ve filled graveyards with men that asked similar questions. They were men that were tougher than any of you sonsofbitches will ever be. Let that thought guide your actions.”

  The horse emerged from the stall, wagging its head, Dan leading it along by its bridle. Dominic stepped back next to the horse, bumping Dan aside. He put the rifle over his shoulder and swung up into the saddle. He dug his heels into the horse’s sides, sending it rocketing forward as he yanked hard right on the reins, steering the beast towards the exit. Soldiers scattered as he barreled through their ranks towards freedom. Others began diving for their weapons.

  “Get that Outlander sonofabitch!”

  Dominic flattened his body against the back of the horse as bullets began whizzing by overhead. The square of white light in front of him was approaching fast, a distant portal that swelled with every panicked stride of the horse. A Union boy standing near the door had managed to retrieve his rifle. He was p
ulling it up and setting his sights on the steed’s ample chest. At that range, there was no missing. Dominic would break a few bones during the fall and then the Union would break the rest. Dominic aimed from the hip and fired as he blew past the soldier, kneecapping him and sending him twisting to the ground. Normally he’d have just put two in his chest and dimmed his lights, but he’d promised Dan no killing.

  There was a rush of hot air and the sun on his face.

  He was home.

  12

  Two soldiers stood outside the Tower One lobby, volleying shots at Dominic as he vanished across the horizon. Dan felt a sense of relief as the hoofbeats drew further away.

  “You want to tell me what the fuck just happened?” Caldwell asked.

  “You need to take about two steps back.” Dan put a hand against Caldwell’s chest and shoved. Caldwell didn’t resist.

  “What the hell happened?” Reyes emerged from the stairwell, alerted by the gunshots.

  “Our Defense Minister let the Saboteur escape with one of our horses.”

  “I let him? What are you trying to imply?” Now it was Dan that closed the gap. “Don’t dance around it.”

  “I’m not dancing around it, you let him go.”

  “He had a gun to my head.”

  Reyes was stuttering over his words, trying to play catch up. “The asshole that killed Perkins?”

  “One and the same,” Caldwell said, his voice leaking venom.

  “He didn’t kill Perkins.” Dan shifted his weight to his back heel, ready to take Caldwell to the ground if the situation called for it.

  The men in the lobby were closing rank, watching Caldwell as he challenged the balance of power. “He didn’t do it alone, but he sure as hell was there. I told you that you shouldn’t exchange words with him without backup, but you insisted, and now he’s out the door, free as a bird.”

  “Why’d you let him go?” Reyes asked, still the mystified child to Caldwell’s outraged adult.

  Dan was beginning to feel claustrophobic as the circle of bodies grew tighter. He backed towards the open stables, greeted by the smell of horse shit and grain. “I didn’t let the bastard go, he just…well, he got the better of me. I got the better of me. Seeing the face of the man responsible for the loss of my Lerah,” he dropped his face into his hands, “it was too much. I threw open his cell without thinking, without considering his size, his training…he got the better of me, I’m ashamed to say it, but that’s what happened.”

  Caldwell wasn’t swayed by the presentation. “Your pursuit for revenge has robbed every man here of the justice they deserve. Who answers for Perkins now?”

  Dan felt the pride of rank swelling up inside him. Any other time and Caldwell would have been in chains for addressing him in such an insubordinate manner. But it wasn’t any other time. Things had changed dramatically. The men wanted leadership. Solid ground. They didn’t give a shit if it came from a king or a peasant, as long as they got to see their families and sleep in their own beds again. “They’ll all pay,” Dan was no longer addressing Caldwell as he began walking a slow circle around the center of the room, taking the time to address each man individually, “every last one of them.” It was a page right out of Hause’s playbook: win the crowd, win the battle. “I know that all of you are here because you believe in Genesis. You believe, like I do, that Genesis is the future of civilization. And you believe, like I do, that the way to secure that future is not by groveling on our hands and knees, the way the Lord Marshal would have us do, but by standing strong and proud and taking it by force, the way we’ve done for hundreds of years. When we’re finished in here, we’re going to march across the Outland, and we’re going to bury any bastard that stands in our way.” The air, that had moments ago been a noxious mix of tension and aggression, was becoming breathable again. The men were nodding to each other with renewed conviction as they began retrieving their weapons from the ground.

  “Sir, what about the food and our families? The Lord Marshal’s men have everything locked down.” He was a rat-faced kid with pockmarked cheeks. The gun in his hands looked like it weighed more than he did.

  “They don’t have everything. We control the electricity. We control the exits. The Lord Marshal won’t hurt your families, you have my word. He’s a politician, first and foremost. Hurting unarmed civilians doesn’t win approval, and that’s all he cares about.”

  The kid and those around him seemed satiated by the answer.

  “What about when he decides to come down here? What’s your plan for the inevitable assault?” Caldwell asked, still looking to tip the scales in his favor.

  “Reyes, I’m leaving you in charge of the floor. Work out rotations, get everyone in position, we’re done for the day.” He took Caldwell under one arm and began moving back towards the dungeon stairwell. “There’s something I want to show you.”

  “I’m beginning to think I made a mistake by backing you, perhaps Pinkerton was right,” Caldwell said once they were away from the men and descending the stairs towards the dungeon.

  “Pinkerton is a coward, clinging to Hause’s coattails, hoping to ride peacefully into the next life.”

  “For some men, that’s enough; they don’t need a throne or a title.”

  “For some men? We aren’t some men. We’re Union soldiers. We don’t get to choose death, death chooses us. We just do our duty and hope it doesn’t hurt too much when it comes knocking.”

  “It doesn’t have to choose you when you’re out looking for it.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “I don’t know what you’re doing,” Caldwell said, turning to face Dan on the final landing. “Everything you just said to the men back there, that’s why Reyes and I joined you. Yeah, we’re pushed back and cut off, but I’ve never questioned your leadership. You’ve always been a hell of a strategist, taking the smart moves over the bold ones. But opening the cell of one of the most dangerous Outlander’s we’ve ever come across, facing him down by yourself after ordering us to leave, what was that? That wasn’t strategy. That wasn’t smart. You put your own selfish revenge fantasy above the mission. You endangered your life and, more than that, you endangered the lives of the men up there…men that believe in you.”

  Dan let out a defeated sigh. His marriage had taught him many things, how to fake an apology being one of the most important. “I made a mistake. I do my best to lead, to make the right decisions. But I’m human. I make mistakes. This one was a doozy. I’ve always had a knack for strategy, for staying two steps ahead of the enemy, but that’s because I could see, I could anticipate.” He leaned across the railing and stared into the cavernous hallway below. “But I couldn’t anticipate this…I never thought it would come to this.”

  “You underestimated the Lord Marshal’s resolve.”

  “That I did. Then seeing the man responsible for…Lerah, well, it was just too much. I lost control. I know it’s not what you want to hear. All I can do is promise you that it won’t happen again.”

  The spiel had done its job. Caldwell now looked much like his wife used to look after an argument and an apology: angry that she no longer had a reason to be angry. “So what’d you bring me down here for?”

  “Follow me.” Dan wove around Caldwell and skipped the last few steps, landing softly on the balls of his feet. He grabbed a torch from the wall and led the way. Men shuffled away from the doors of the cells as they passed, like rats scuttling up a wall to escape the family cat. He was a man on a mission, with one target on his radar, everything else was peripheral.

  “There’s no one in holding,” Caldwell said.

  “I know that.”

  Dan stood before the entrance to the large holding cell, shuffling through the ring of keys, trying each one before sliding it away for the next. After a few minutes, he turned the right one and felt the tension release as metal gave way to metal. “Buddy isn’t fit to breathe, but goddamn, that boy has a memory on him,” Dan was referri
ng to Buddy’s ability to pick the right key the first time, without fail. Dan pulled back on the door, leaving the ring of keys dangling from the lock as they made their entrance. The room smelled of blood and vomit. Empty shackles hung from the ceiling, swaying listlessly, dried pools of blood staining the pavement beneath them. Dan placed the torch in the holder beside the door and moved towards the back wall.

  Caldwell remained next to the door, wary, confused, his eyes moving cautiously about the room, in search of the punch line. “Wanna tell me what’s going on? Not sure how comfortable I am with you luring me into dark corners at the moment.”

  “Relax, Caldwell. I can take a hit. Feel free to stand there if you want.” Dan stopped at the back wall and knelt down in the shadows. He found the brick with the notch cut out of the center and began counting.

  Eight up. Three left. Two down.

  He balled his fist and pressed hard against the damp surface of his target. The brick hesitated for a moment as years of crust crumbled and fell away. As the brick melted into darkness, the ground beneath him began to shake, vibrating up through the soles of his boots and chattering his teeth.

  “What…the…fuck.” There was a distinct terror in Caldwell’s voice. He was plastered against the other side of the room, holding onto the wall.

  The floor opened up between them, a square hole that took up half the room.

  “Grab the torch.”

  Caldwell kept staring into the newly formed abyss, leaning forward ever so slightly, shaking, trying to pierce the blackness with squinted eyes.

  “It’s less than three-feet deep, you’re safe. I need some light. Grab the torch.”

  Caldwell peeled himself from the wall. His eyes darted between Dan and the hole as if they shared some secret. He retrieved the torch and stood back from the opening, bending his upper body like a tree bowing beneath a strong breeze.

  “That’ll do.” Dan dropped down to his stomach. “Lower it just a little so I can see.” He felt the warmth on the back of his neck and a teardrop of flame fell past his cheek. He found his grip and began pulling the object up from the depths; a cloud of dust broke against his face as debris fell away.