by Leo Champion
“Doesn’t affect us so much,” said Himmler. “We’re mercenaries; we’re deniable. Do we have the go order or not?”
“Sir. We’re to move out immediately. Expected arrival time is tomorrow afternoon. Destroy the Dodge City refineries, move into Hugoton itself. Kill everyone they’ve left behind, destroy every structure, then – well, run south into Texas.”
“Status on our air support? Not as though we’ll need it, against an undefended base.”
“We’re to have a squadron anyway. Cordova’s Armadillos. They’re our personal transit out, for that matter.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
Privately, Skorzeny had his doubts about whether Texas would be such safe asylum. Oh, they’d get across, but Imperial pressure for the heads of the troops who’d destroyed Hugoton – and killed a number of Imperials in the process – might result in their being handcuffed before too long. It was fine, from Skorzeny’s perspective, for the grunts to get thrown to the dogs, but he was going to make damn sure that he, his personal cadre and the Squadrons’ top officers would be safely in South America before that could happen.
“So we’re to move out immediately?” Himmler confirmed.
“Yes.”
“Very well. Convey final authorization. And get moving.”
Governor Lloyd’s office took half the seventh-storey top floor of the Hugoton Lease’s tallest non-industrial building. Until a few hours ago it had been extravagantly appointed, as befitting an Imperial governor, with mementoes of nearly six decades of distinguished service across the globe. Now it was mostly bare floorboards and a few heavy pieces of furniture that had been judged immovable given the time and resources available.
A pair of overalled workmen at one end of the room were busily disassembling a suit of medieval armor. At the other end, around a massive, now-bare, oak desk, a small conference was taking place.
“I’m not leaving,” the Governor said. “While even a few of my men remain – or even while they don’t. A captain goes down with his ship and a Governor is not expected to survive the destruction of his Lease.”
“Lord Governor,” Brigadier Henry repeated, “they’re not going to take you alive and exchange you. I’ve met Heinrich Himmler; he’s as cold a sadistic bastard as they come.”
“They’re not going to take me alive,” the Governor said. “I stay, and that’s final.”
“Very well, Lord Governor. In which case I’m also staying,” Henry said.
“You’re going to Tulsa. We’ve had this discussion.”
“And I assumed, Lord Governor, that you were leaving. Some of my men are remaining here. I’m remaining with them.”
“Brigadier, we’ve had this discussion.” The Governor raised his voice. “Buff, I want you to assign two of my bodyguards to Brigadier Henry. They are to escort him to Tulsa and report when he has arrived.”
“Sir,” said his aide.
“Richardson?” the Governor addressed the Flight Admiral.
“I have a personal airship. I’ll be staying until the last moment, myself,” said Richardson. “But no, I don’t intend to die here.”
Ian Fleming came into the office, not bothering to knock. All four – the Governor, Richardson, Henry and Buff – looked up. The spymaster’s arrival could only mean bad news.
“What?”
“Lord Governor, we just got a wire out of Missouri. SS units are beginning to leave their stations and cross the Kansas line. It’s starting. ETA about thirty hours from now.”
“Very well,” said the Governor. “We have that time in which to move everything that can be moved. Richardson, you have a plan for getting your last crew out?”
“Civilian airships,” said the Flight Admiral. “I’m not leaving a highly-trained ship crew to die here. But they’ll stay until nearly the end, to help with evacuating what we can of the ground facilities.”
Governor Henry clasped his hands behind his back, stiffly turned to look at the forest of wells and refinery stacks visible from his high window. Scattered across the grassy plains, they went into the distance. Dozens of them, and those were just the ones in this quarter. Together they produced the helium that Imperial power depended upon.
How long would it take to rebuild them, once they had been destroyed? Two or three years minimum, had been the most optimistic estimate. That was two or three years in which the Empire would not have helium, two or three years during which the Russians would have an incomparable edge if they chose to go to war.
Damn.
At the military airship park outside of Amarillo, Texas, seven legends met. Two clicking kinematographs recorded the event.
Word was that the general invasion was being cancelled. Imperials covering the border.
Can’t fuck with Imperials, the Texan officers were saying. It’d mean open war. Couldn’t survive that. Not against the British Empire itself.
Captain Paula Handley shook her head in contempt. There was nobody she couldn’t fuck with. History had made that clear. Those who went up against Cordova’s Armadillos died. Simple. Didn’t matter whether you were Brazilian, Argentine, Sonoran, whatever. Imperials were supposedly the best in the world, but to Handley they were just another addition to the list.
The Armadillos were mercenaries. They were deniable. And they were elite.
You mess with us, you go down burning.
“We move in twenty hours,” Commodore Cordova was saying. “You hear the plan? Wing chiefs, report.”
Handley was the first to speak.
“Evans and I” – a nod at Richard Evans, commander of the Dread Wyvern – “go over to Hugoton. We kill everything that moves and any threats, but save the real fun for the following ground troops. We remain on station in case trouble arrives. If it does, we destroy it.”
Cordova nodded.
“Peggey?” he asked.
“The Five Speed and Meier’s Pith and Vinegar make haste to Dodge City,” Captain Peggey Rowland reported. “We shoot the crap out of anything that might lift and any anti-air defences, then await the main force, shooting down anything that comes within range.”
“Meanwhile,” said Cordova, “Jennifer, Bill and I go to west-central Kansas, link up with the ground forces we’re covering, and make sure nobody comes in from above and fucks with us. We’ve all got that clear.”
What happened next was well-rehearsed cinematography. A Texan camera clicked as the seven captains laid their palms down on top of each other, in the center of a small circle that had only been widened slightly, to make room for the cameraman.
The royalties were generous, after all.
“Armadillos?” Cordova asked his captains.
By now it had become slang amongst teens in Texas. The response was trademarked.
“Armadillos Yeah!” they shouted, throwing their flat palms high into the air.
“You have a day for final prep,” Cordova ordered. “Now get moving – and get ready to destroy anything that flies into our paths!”
Another, this time unscripted, cheer. This time as always, Handley thought, they were going to obliterate any enemies moronic enough to bring themselves into range.
“Armadillos Yeah!”
“Hurry,” the Army sergeant was saying, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Onto the train. It’ll take you to safety. Come on!”
Annabelle Perry wasn’t worried about the general panic around her; she’d seen it before, in Gibraltar, and things had come out fine. In the end, the Army, the Navy and her husband’s Air Service would always take care of things. It was her responsibility as an officer’s wife to keep things stable in the meantime.
She was more worried about her husband.
She and the children, one of their hands clasped in each of hers, found their way onto the third-class passenger carriage. It was going to Dodge City, where command – her husband’s CO, Flight Admiral Richardson herself, an hour ago – had personally assured the group senior officers’ husba
nds and wives that they’d be safe. A hotel in downtown Dodge, away from the industrial districts the enemy might threaten, to stay until the danger passed and relief came.
Your job, the Flight Admiral had said to the senior officers’ partners, is to keep the others calm and remind them of the truth of Imperial inevitability.
To that end, Mrs. Perry thought as she sat down with Ernest and Maria, each of them carrying their own small bag of well-traveled goods, it seemed that the Army sergeant was being most disgraceful and completely inappropriate.
We’re not going to lose. This will be a temporary inconvenience at most.
Marcus will make sure of that.
Wherever he is.
Liberation Park was a broad park in central Red Cloud, one face of the square looking out onto small Stockade Lake. The other three faces – and most of the lake-facing side, with waterfront cafes – were crowded with the inns and storefronts of Red Cloud’s business district, and there was an open-air market in the park itself; intangibles like ships and whole cargoes changing hands over storefronts. Runners, mostly young Lakota teenagers, went back and forth between those vendors and their cogitator-fed higher offices in the downtown buildings.
It was Wall Street in miniature and, despite its contribution to overall chaos, Theron Marko would have destroyed the entire scene in a moment if he could have. Right now he crouched on the roof of one of the taller buildings overlooking the park, looking down the scope of a .303 rifle.
He’d have destroyed the whole bustling place in a heartbeat, but right now his sights were aimed more specifically. He’d seen Joe Junior – with an aide wheeling Joe Senior, and a fourth man discreetly tagging along behind them – go into one upscale bar a couple of minutes ago. Shaking hands as they went in.
Typical fucking politicians.
They had minutes to live.
Lynch was fishing for information. And trying to get them drunk.
Ahle, thought Perry, was already well on her way. If she wasn’t there already. But she’d kept the conversation primarily to irrelevant subjects, although they might have been of interest to the madam anyway. Right now she was describing a raid in the Rockies, perhaps a year ago. It sounded as though it might end badly for a rival of hers.
Lynch was listening, although not too eagerly. Doubtless she’d heard this kind of thing before. Perry was keeping his mouth shut. The Kennedys themselves had gone for what Joe Jr. had referred to as their “regular tour.”
Rafferty was still off with their man Colby, doubtless getting drunk and exchanging stories. Well, he couldn’t do much about that. He just hoped the Specialist wasn’t getting too smashed, although his hopes weren’t high.
“So then what?” Lynch asked Ahle.
This had to be as pointless an exercise for her, Lynch, as it was for him, Perry. But Joseph Jr. had said it would take some time to assemble a fighting force big enough to firmly defeat what was probably aboard 4-106. May as well wait here.
Marko saw the slight disturbance at the doorway of the tavern the Kennedys had gone into.
Calming himself, he aimed the rifle to eye-level.
A man wheeling a man – Joe Senior! – came out. Followed by, shaking hands again with the bouncer as he left – a man who looked like – yes, was – Joseph Junior.
Theron Marko pulled the trigger.
He was six hundred and forty yards away.
He’d once killed a Royal heir from three times that distance.
Joseph Kennedy, Junior’s shattered brains blew through the back of his head.
Marko refocused his scope on the helpless man in the wheelchair. He looked to be struggling to get up.
“Oh, no chance, oligarch,” Marko murmured under his breath. “No fucking chance, oligarch.”
Another trigger-pull smashed Joseph Kennedy, Senior’s brains into leaden jelly.
And now, Marko thought, to get out of here.
For the first few seconds after the shot, he’d known perfectly well since childhood, you stayed motionless. The immediate temptation was to bolt, but the fact was that the victims’ surviving friends would now be scanning around for movement.
Instead, you didn’t move at first. Then you moved slowly enough to not draw immediate attention.
Outside line of sight, of course, you bolted.
It was actually halfway up the external fire-escape that Marko encountered Kennedy’s men – dressed in street clothes, but their alert demeanor and the fact that they were ascending a fire escape at 11:30 am would have alerted Marko if their half-drawn handguns hadn’t.
He slashed the first man’s throat with a left-handed knife swing.
The second had time to draw his gun.
Good, are we?
Marko killed him anyway, slashing his throat open in a backhanded swing from his first thrust. A second slash practically removed the goon’s gun-hand, blood fountaining from the severed wrist.
A third stab would have ended Kennedy’s goon’s life for good right away, but Marko didn’t have the time for mercy. Or much interest in the concept.
He shouldered the already-dead fucker aside and continued his dash down the fire-escape, heading for the airship park.
“Lift!” Marko shouted, jumping through the bridge door of the Ruby Red Robber. “Lift, damn you!”
Jebediah Judd, on the bridge, knew better than to argue.
“Lift, my men!” he shouted. “Ditch ballast and lift, boys!”
The Ruby Red Robber jumped.
“Stop immediately, lifting airship!” came a powerfully-amplified voice that could only have been Port Control.
“Evade `em,” Marko ordered.
“Harder than it looks,” Judd shot back.
Shit, thought Marko. I blew away both of the top Kennedys.
“Just do it!”
Perry still wasn’t drunk, although Ahle was probably close to it, when Joseph Kennedy Junior wheeled Joseph Senior back into the personal office where Lynch had been attempting to pump him for knowledge. This time, a half-dozen-strong squad of khaki-clad escorts came with the two pirate kings.
As usual – damn it – Lynch was the unsurprised one.
“So it happened? I warned you they’d try,” she said.
“Fuck you, Markell,” said Joseph Kennedy Junior. “Thanks to you, both Felix and Marv are dead.”
“Better your body doubles than you,” Lynch said.
“And we’re out half a million in pension endowments to their families,” Senior hissed.
“Be glad,” Lynch replied evenly, “that you’re alive to write the checks. Where were you anyway?”
“Attending to paperwork in the other offices,” Joseph Junior said. “There’s always notices to review, checks to sign, so on. You’ve been there.”
“Sir, a report,” said one of the khaki flunkies. He handed Joseph Kennedy, Junior a handset on a cord.
“Yes. Kennedy Junior. Uh-huh. Roger that. Acknowledged,” Junior said, and gave the handset back.
“What was that?” Perry asked.
“That was Port Control,” said Kennedy Junior. “The man believed to have been the attempted assassin – who killed two of our bodyguards as well; they were moving to anticipate him before he got into position – escaped aboard a ship. Weapons were fired at him; too late. They missed.”
“They get a picture of him?” Perry asked.
“Nobody who got close survived,” said Junior.
“A tall, broken-toothed murderer,” said Lynch. “The same man who wiped out my organization in Louisiana. As I did warn you he might try here.”
“The same man who stole 4-106,” muttered Perry. “That bastard.”
“Trotsky’s troubleshooter, no doubt,” said Lynch calmly. “I wouldn’t have realistically expected that man, given the scale we’re dealing with here, to use any but the best.”
“Dispassionate, aren’t we?” snapped Junior. “For a woman who lost her organization due to machinations she didn’t realize she was
messing with.”
“Realistic,” Lynch glared back. “Given circumstances. My hard lesson was your free information, Kennedy.”
“Two good men died because of that data,” snarled Joseph Senior from his wheelchair. “Given our pair of bodyguards, four. But we’ll continue in Lynch’s ‘realistic’ vein and stay on-point. Vice-Commodore.”
Three pairs of eyes focused on Perry.
“Your enemies just proved their seriousness,” Joseph Senior went on. “They – he – beat the precautions we’d have taken had it been ourselves, and not just body doubles.”
“If you thought they were fucking around before,” said Joseph Junior, “they aren’t now.”
“Those people were competent to begin with,” said Lynch. “It was my mistake for thinking they were Hoover’s amateurs.”
“So do you want your airship back or not?” Joseph Senior asked Perry,
“Any time, pirate. Any damn time.”
“The company’s ready,” Senior snapped back. “Go fetch it. And keep your part of the deal we made.”
“If your men get me my ship back” – Perry glared at the elder pirate king – “then I’ll do my part of your deal.”
“John Francis is back,” said Kennedy Senior. “We have three airships ready, and a company assembled. He’ll be leading the recovery operation.”
“They’re your men so he can lead it,” Perry said, “but I insist on accompanying. This is my airship. Ahle and Rafferty too, if they wish.”
“That’s fine,” Senior said.
“When do we leave?”
“The men are boarding the ships now. They’ll be ready to leave as soon as you join them. We have a car ready.”
“Let’s go,” Perry said to Ahle. “It’s time to take my ship back.”
Chapter Twenty
We, of course, were not the only ones who had somewhere to go; the Russian royal family could follow others disdained by their own people into the frozen wastelands of Siberia.
