The black powder mills, Nicki Jo's last task, were in full operation. Gary had paid her a sizable bonus for her achievements. She had met every milestone either on time or earlier than planned.
"We'll keep your house waiting for you, Nicki Jo," Marjorie said.
"Thank you. I expect I'll be back in a couple or three weeks. I'm meeting Katherine in Magdeburg and we're spending a few days with the people at the Imperial College. I just don't know at this time how long we'll be there."
"I'm glad Katherine got out of Essen. I've been worrying about her all the while she's been gone. It will be good to see her again."
"I'm not sure how she managed that. I think she may have taken a ship to Luebeck and from there on to Magdeburg."
The three men stood back from the fray. Finally, at the urging of the coach's driver and guard, Nicki Jo entered, and the porter closed the coach's door. She waved to her friends as the coach moved out toward the north road, accompanied by hired guards, to Erfurt and on to Magdeburg.
"Well, I need to get back to work. See ya," Gary said to the other two men and walked off.
BEGIN: SUHL TO BMBG
TO: ABEL ABRABANEL
FROM: GARY REARDON
DATE: JULY 7, 1635
MESSAGE: TEMPLATE 27 STOP MILESTONE 123 SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED STOP 6 TONS PER WEEK STOP ENTERING PHASE 4 STOP
The radio station's operator looked up, "More messages, Herr Reardon?"
"Yes. Just like the last times, Karl. Here is the list of recipients."
The station operator glanced at the clock. "These will go out in about six hours on the evening net, Herr Reardon. I can barely hear Grantville right now, and they can't hear me at all."
Gary knew well the propagation effects of the Maunder Minimum that restricted radio transmissions, usually, to the evening hours, at dusk, and in the morning at dawn. The operators called it the gray line effect—that period just before and after dusk and dawn. "I understand. If you can't send them tonight would you please send me a message?"
"Certainly, Herr Reardon. If not this evening, we'll try again in the morning. I'll let you know whenever they are sent."
"Danke." Gary placed a silver guilder on the counter, ". . . for your efforts."
The radio operator's eyebrows rose at the sight of the coin. He swept it off the counter and slipped it into his pocket, nodding respectfully. He would have insured Herr Reardon's messages were sent as quickly as possible and privately, too, but it was nice for Herr Reardon to reward that confidentiality.
An hour later, Gary rode up to the Suhl, Incorporated, administration building. He had taken Archie's advice and had bought a horse for his daily commute. It was much better than the hour-long walk it would normally take to reach the Reservation. Should we provide a shuttle service? Another item for his to-do list to think about.
Portions of the admin building, the upper floor, were still empty. He entered and greeted the receptionist who sat behind a counter just inside the main door. He was a new hire and had been on the job only a week.
"You have some visitors waiting for you, Herr Reardon. They're in the waiting room."
"Their names?"
The receptionist glanced at the register that every visitor had to sign, "Herr Lang, Herr Thalmann, and Herr Exel, Herr Reardon."
Gary recognized the names. They were the three who owned the black powder mills in Suhl. Last fall, each one had promised to supply Suhl, Incorporated with black powder. Each had signed a contract. Then, when bribed by the spy, Zoche, they had each reneged on their contracts.
"Give me five minutes and then escort them to my office. Send a security guard to my office first."
"Jawohl, Herr Reardon."
Gary turned left and walked down the hall to his office. He reached Pat Johnson's office, which was next to his, and saw Pat was inside. He opened the door and asked, "Pat, would you join me in my office? Lang, Thalmann, and Exel are here." Before Pat could answer, Gary closed the door, walked a few more steps down the hall and entered his own office. He had just seated himself behind his desk when Pat entered through a doorway between their offices. Gary gestured for Pat to sit in the chair that would give him a view of the visitor chairs and of Gary.
As Pat was sitting, a security guard, one of Anse Hatfield's men, entered. "Just stand over there along the wall, if you would, Eric. I want you to be visible. I don't think our visitors will get violent but I think your presence will help keep them in control of themselves."
"Jawohl, Herr Reardon." The guard positioned himself along the wall, spread his legs, crossed his arms, and stood guard.
The receptionist knocked on Gary's office door, opened it and announced, "Herr Lang, Herr Thalmann, and Herr Exel, Herr Reardon."
"Thank you, Mattheus. Show them in."
The three men walked into the office. Lang strode in, looked at the chairs before Gary's desk, walked over, and sat before Gary could give an invitation to sit. Herr Thalmann and Herr Exel were more hesitant, but quickly followed Lang's lead.
So that's how it's going to be. So be it, Gary thought. No reconciliation, just snub me from the start. If they had been more . . . respectful, he might have cut them some slack. Maybe. Not now.
"What do you want?" Gary asked bluntly.
Thalmann opened his mouth to speak, and then stopped. He glanced at Lang and shut his mouth. There was a brief moment of silence then Lang spoke. "You will stop stealing our customers or we will sue you and shut you down."
Gary smiled and said nothing.
When Gary gave no response. Pat Johnson spoke instead. "Stop? We aren't stealing anything. We're selling a better, cheaper product. If your former customers prefer us over you, that's just too bad—for you."
Lang opened his mouth to refute Pat's statement but Pat silenced him by pointing a finger at Lang and continuing. "We didn't want to build a powder mill. We wanted to help existing Suhl merchants—you! Each one of you promised to supply us and then refused. You failed to deliver. You refused to do business with us, not we with you. If anyone has a complaint, it is us with you for breaking your contracts. If you are unhappy that we're making our own black powder, selling powder that is better and cheaper than yours, you have no one to blame except yourselves."
Lang sputtered. Thalmann and Exel glanced at one another but remained silent. "Do you have anything else to discuss?" Gary asked. "No? Then Guten Tag, Meine Herren. Eric, please escort these gentlemen off Suhl, Incorporated property."
"Jawohl, Herr Reardon. This way, Meine Herren."
The three rose and walked out. Thalmann and Exel had not said a word. Obviously, it was Lang who led the group. As they left, Lang stalked off in the lead.
"Think they'll be back?" Pat asked.
"Not yet, but yes, they will. Our powder mill is now operating, and we've a surplus to our needs. We can increase the amount we sell to their customers and drop our price another ten percent to put the squeeze on them."
Pat nodded but said nothing. He wasn't as vindictive as Gary was but he agreed that a lesson had to be learned. Suhl, Incorporated, would treat any honest businessman fairly. But try to screw Suhl, Incorporated . . . and you'll regret it.
"Have you received their current valuation?" Gary asked.
Pat stood. He nodded and replied, "Several times. It keeps changing—downward. They're not being underwritten by Zoche anymore."
"I'll give them another month," Gary stated.
"That sounds about right."
"What will be your price?" Gary asked. He preferred to let Pat be the dog in this fight. Pat was more . . . conciliatory. No, that wasn't the word; Pat would put them out of business and do it in such a fashion that everyone would know why it was being done, and everyone would approve the action. Gary could not do that. Oh, he'd put them out of business, probably in the same way Pat did, but the citizens of Suhl would consider Gary a tyrant, arrogantly imposing his power on three small factors. No, Pat was the better one to handle this.
Pat di
dn't immediately answer. "I'm feeling generous, Pat. I think ten cents of the dollar would be fair," Gary said with a smile.
Pat looked out the window and watched the three climb into a coach for the trip back to Suhl. "Some people are so short-sighted." He turned from the window. "Are we back on schedule?"
"Almost. The production lines are all working. We're continuing to stockpile ores and materials for the primer fabrication plant. We have four bunkers full of .45 Long Colt, sealed, crated and ready to ship, and another three bunkers of .45-70. We're still playing catch-up finishing the interiors of the brassworks and the chemical plant. As work teams get finished, we're putting them to work building the remaining berms."
"Good," Pat responded.
****
"Gary, Lang has closed his doors," Pat reported as he walked through the interconnecting door between his office and Gary's. "Ruben just sent me the news. He thinks Thalmann and Exel will close, too, within a week." Their meeting with Gary and Pat had occurred a month ago. The three had lasted longer than either of them had thought they would.
Gary looked up and the news, and a smile spread across his face. "Think it's time to make them an offer?"
Pat rubbed his jaw. "No, not yet. We can do that after the lawyers swoop in to collect their debts. Then we'll deal with the lawyers. Lang and the rest can take it and be glad to get it. If not from them, then from the new owners."
"Who is our property lawyer?"
"Ahh, I can't remember his name at the moment. He's new."
"Put him on it. Tell him what we want, why, and turn him loose when you think it's time."
"Will do."
Gary ticked another item off his mental list, returned to his desk and began reading the next report from the stack before him.
****
Archie Mitchell woke to the shaking of his house. He heard some small object fall and shatter in the next room. Marjorie had been awakened, too. He could hear Dieter and Greta stirring upstairs, and Marta was crying.
"What was that, Archie?" Marjorie asked.
He wasn't sure. Something had shaken the house. Earthquake? No, he had felt those before when he had been assigned to The Presidio in San Francisco. What could have happened—the Reservation!
"I think something blew up at the Reservation. Go upstairs and tell Dieter we need to head out there."
Archie was saddling his pinto when Dieter ran up. "I'll be right with you," he said as he paused to saddle his horse.
Archie tightened the saddle's belly band and mounted. Dieter joined him, and they headed for the Reservation. The Reservation was three miles outside of Suhl to the west. Archie and Dieter lived not far from the western gate. Archie knew Pat Johnson and Gary Reardon would be coming but they lived on the other side of Suhl. Archie and Dieter would arrive first.
They reached the Reservation twenty minutes later. The administration building came into sight, and lamps were visible inside. That was normal. The security guards worked out of the admin building. This evening, there should be ten guards patrolling the grounds and buildings. "Let's stop here first, Dieter. Someone here should know what happened," Archie said. They dismounted and tied the horses' reins to the hitching rail in front.
They were met at the door by the security shift supervisor. "I thought you would be coming, Herr Marshal."
"What happened?" Archie asked.
"One of the bunkers blew up. Number 9. We're checking the other buildings and bunkers but, other than some broken windows and some minor roof damage, the damage isn't bad . . . except for that one bunker."
"Where is Bunker 9?"
The supervisor walked over to the map of the Reservation mounted on the wall. There was an index on one side. Each building and bunker was numbered. The supervisor looked at the map and pointed to one bunker. "Here," he said. "It's on the edge of the storage area, more than a mile from here. That's probably why the damage was so slight."
What could cause the bunker to explode? "What was stored there?" Archie asked.
The supervisor took a binder from a desk drawer. In the binder was a list of the bunkers and what was stored within each. Some contained finished ammunition. Others had finished primers and others, Number 9 among them, contained DDNP. "DDNP," he replied.
Archie turned to Dieter and said, "Let's go."
Before he left, Archie told the supervisor, "Herr Reardon and Herr Johnson will be here soon, as well as Herr Rohn, I expect. Tell them we'll be at the bunker site."
"Jawohl, Herr Marshal!"
It was a short ride to the bunker site. The moon had appeared after the evening's earlier overcast had dispersed. Moonlight lit their way.
They smelled the odor from the explosion before they reached the bunker. It had been a standard bunker, a sunken stone and concrete building covered with earth and surrounded by a twenty-foot-high berm. The entrance had been through a dog-leg designed to keep most of the force of any explosion within the berm. From Archie's visual examination, it had not worked. The dog-leg was gone. Two security guards were present. One was sitting on the ground. The other was tending his partner.
"You okay?" Archie asked riding up to the pair and dismounting. He recognized both of the guards. One was a former gunsmith apprentice who joined the security force for its higher wages. The other was a militiaman.
The one sitting, the former apprentice, said, "The explosion knocked me off my horse. I broke my arm, I think."
"What about you?" Archie asked the other guard.
"I'm all right. We were a quarter of a mile away and had several berms between us when it exploded. My ears are ringing, though."
"Mine, too," said his partner.
"Glad you're okay. Do you know what happened?"
"There was an intruder. We found some wagon tracks coming in from outside—not through any of the entrances. We were following them when it all blew up." The protective berm around the Reservation was one of the tasks still uncompleted. There were gaps, here and there, mostly along the furthest side from Suhl. The intruder had entered through one of those gaps.
The bunker was a smoking hole in the ground. The grass on the sides of the berm was gone, blasted clean by the force of the explosion. The dog-leg entrance was gone, too, completely erased. Archie sniffed the air. He had popped enough primers to identify the odor from the exploded DDNP. But . . . there was another smell, one he couldn't quite identify. "Do you smell that, Dieter?"
Dieter sniffed, sniffed again. "Black powder, I think. It's faint but . . ."
That was it. Archie walked around examining the scene. There wasn't much left inside the berm. Most of the force of the blast had been directed upwards just as Nicki Jo had planned. "Let's check outside," he said to Dieter.
They walked outside the berm in time to see Pat Johnson arrive with Gary Reardon. "Got an injured man inside," he told them.
"Check the ground, Dieter. That powder didn't come here by itself. Our powder mill and bunkers are on the other side of the reservation."
More mounted guards arrived with lanterns. Archie gave them instructions to check the ground around the nearby berms looking for anything suspicious. Any nearby tracks outside the bunker had been wiped clean. The search would have to spread out if they hoped to find anything.
****
Archie and Gary looked at the splintered wagon, illuminated by the light of a dozen lanterns. "Damn fool," Gary muttered. The remains of the wagon, two horses, and the driver were only a hundred and fifty yards from the exploded bunker. Most of the force of the explosion had been directed upwards . . . but not all. The dog-leg entrance to the bunker had been blown out allowing some of the explosive force to vent horizontally—directly towards the bunker and berm where the wagon driver had stopped to watch.
"You know him?" Archie asked. The body was mixed in with the wagon. In several pieces. The head was, surprisingly, intact. Mostly.
"Yeah, Joseph Lang. I put him out of business. Zoche bribed him to break a contract with us. He's the rea
son why we were forced to build our own black powder mills."
"I don't know what he was thinking. He was too close. A bunker full of DDNP makes a much bigger explosion than a keg of black powder," Archie observed.
"Is that what he did?" Gary asked.
"I think so. There was a keg still on the wagon when the bunker blew. It blew, too. I think he rolled a keg of black powder against the bunker door, lit a fuse, and took off."
"Why didn't he go further away?"
"He didn't know the explosion would be so big. It would have been a safe distance for a black powder explosion."
"Stupid."
"Yep," Archie agreed.
Georg Rohn walked up. He had been checking the scene as well. "How much DDNP did we lose?" Gary asked him.
"I'll have to check the records but I think about seven hundred pounds. We have more stored in other bunkers," Rohn answered. "We have enough empty bunkers that I spread the DDNP storage as far from one another as I could."
"Will this affect our production lines?"
"No. We've more than enough for the primer line. This bunker was for the new blasting cap line."
Gary watched the guards carry off what was left of Joseph Lang, what they could find of him. The remains of the two horses would be removed later.
"Dieter and I will write up a report for Judge Fross and the Suhl watch," Archie told them. "I'll send you an official copy, too, Gary. I'll label Lang's death as, Death by Misadventure, as our former British compatriots would say."
"Death by idiocy," Gary replied.
"Yeah, that, too."
XV
September, 1635
Suhl
"Well, Anse, it's not quite Labor Day, but It'll do," Archie spoke into Anse Hatfield's ear. Hatfield was wearing his third hat, as he liked to call his part-time job overseeing the corporation's security force. He divided his time between working with Ursula Johnson reviewing the books of U. S. Waffenfabrik, supervising the foremen of his trucking company, training drivers for the Suhl National Guard unit and building Suhl, Incorporated, security with Dieter Issler. The noise from the crowd made conversation difficult, especially for old soldiers whose hearing wasn't all that good to begin with.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 73 Page 11
