Ironclad

by Daniel Foster

“Not necessary,” Joseph said. “I’m sorry, but you guys have to get a move on.”

  “Why?” Fishy asked.

  “You still have one more thing to do,” Joseph said. “And so do I. I’ll see you in three days at the dock.”

  “Dock?” Pun’kin began “What doc—”

  “Ask him,” Joseph said, pointing to Velvet.

  They all turned to Velvet. He smiled sheepishly and pulled five tickets out of his pocket. “I got us a ride home. Oceanliner, all the way. You guys will have to buy my food, though. I’m out of money.”

  W

  “I loved them because they were good,” Maxwell said, low and menacing. His knights and a bishop were bludgeoning two pawns to death.

  “Where is my gold?” Colson demanded in return while his queen slowly strangled the life out of a rook. “With or without you, I will build the Austrian Empire into a force that will dominate the world. It will subjugate the planet, and because of it, we will survive. All of us.”

  “They were good.” Maxwell replied flatly. “My wife and daughter were gentle and kind and good. I loved them because that’s what they were, and that’s all. You want a dark secret, but there isn’t one. Life really is that simple. My life was that simple.”

  “Where is the mother fucking gold?” Colson hissed. Pieces hacked each other to bits on the board between them. Limbs fell to the squares. Blood sprayed like water, raining on the board, raining on the desk.

  “Spread across the bottom of the Mediterranean.” Maxwell replied quietly. “Gone forever beyond your reach.”

  Colson stared at him. The boiling air between them dissipated.

  Colson’s mouth hung open. “You… aren’t lying to me, are you?”

  Maxwell sat back.

  “There’s only one way you could have…” Colson began. He stopped.

  It seemed the whole world waited for Maxwell’s answer.

  “Yes,” Maxwell said at last. “I used the Astra.”

  Colson sat back. His queen swooped in behind Maxwell’s remaining pawns and beheaded Maxwell’s king. The Game was over. Maxwell had lost.

  “Then you have done the one thing I was not certain I could do,” Colson said hoarsely. “You have turned the possibility of a European war into a worldwide bloodbath. You used the first doomsday weapon, and in so doing, you have ensured the War to End All Wars.”

  Maxwell did not reply.

  Colson bowed his head. “Thank you David,” he whispered. “Thank you. I knew you were the man I believed you to be.”

  W

  It had finally become real. Velvet had tickets. They were going home. Garret whooped. Fishy and Butterworth bellylaughed. Pun’kin slapped Velvet on the back. Velvet began to tell them all about the liner and how luxurious it was, but Joseph pulled Garret aside.

  “Garr, ooff!” Joseph said as Garret grabbed him in a bearhug.

  “I’ve missed you buddy,” Garret said.

  Joseph nodded. “I missed you too, but there will be time for that later. Right now they want to talk to you.”

  “Who?”

  Joseph opened his hands to the hounds of hell, a dozen of them, who had all gathered close to Garret and Joseph. The hounds stared up at them with unblinking orange eyes.

  “Talk to me?” Garret asked. “I’ve never heard them make a sound… Oh, right.”

  Garret pulled off his pants and shirt and shifted down to four legs and fur. He settled into his canine mind and body and emotions. Scents and sounds unfolded around him like a field of lilies. The hellhounds crowded close, touching him with their noses, licking his flanks and his face with their shady tongues. They especially licked his forearm where they had bitten him. They said not a word, but they didn’t need to. Garret understood, because canines understand.

  They had not been trying to injure him. They had been trying to bite through the wire that connected the invisible ring to his heart, the wire that bound him to the Hollow Man. They had been trying to set him free, just as he had once freed one of their own.

  They licked him and nuzzled him. This was not a favor, bought and repaid. This was the way of animals. He was now one of their own. Slowly, they began to turn from him, moving back swiftly into the Pass and the dark road beyond.

  As the last one stepped across the threshold into the dark, Garret stood and shifted up. Joseph too was walking towards the Pass. Garret caught up with him. “Joseph, let me help you with what you’re going to do.”

  Joseph shook his head and squeezed Garret’s shoulder. “I have to do this alone, and you have something important to do here.” Then Joseph met Garret’s eye. “Just make the right choice, when the time comes, Garret. Be the person I know you are.”

  W

  The chess pieces stood on the board, frozen in finality. Maxwell’s king lay dead in a heap of robes and blood. Maxwell stood, loosening his shoulders. “Admiral Ulysses Colson, I sentence you to death in the name of the United States of America, and in the name of every young man who died to stop you, and in the name of all those who have yet to die because of you.”

  Two things happened at the same time. Maxwell leaped across the desk, scattering the chess pieces, wiping away the last evidence of the Game they had played for so many years, and the door exploded inward, kicked in by the guards. They had apparently been listening to the conversation, as Maxwell had hoped. Maxwell hit Admiral Colson in a flying tackle, taking him over backwards. They both hit the floor with the crunch of bone.

  The guards were yelling, guns up, telling Maxwell to lay down on the floor with hands behind his head. Maxwell was a half a heartbeat ahead of them. He’d already gotten himself behind the injured Admiral. Maxwell hoisted the Admiral up and began dragging him backwards towards the window. Maxwell made no threats this time. He issued no warnings or promises. They were far beyond such things. Death was all that remained.

  The guards, probably Naval Intelligence officers, didn’t seem to know what to do. Their orders were going unheeded, and their gunpoint threats ignored.

  One breath later, Maxwell reached the sill of the southeast window, pinning the Admiral there with him. Maxwell had planned to fall out the northeast window, which, due to the hill shearing away, was basically a straight drop into the deepest part of the river. The officers with guns were only momentarily disoriented. If he began dragging the Admiral towards the northeast window, they would regain their wits and shoot him dead long before he could reach it. So Maxwell didn’t even bother to look at the northeast window. There was no sense pining for what could not be, even if it was survival. Beneath the southeast window, there was a stretch of rocky cliff between the wall and the river.

  Without a word, Maxwell threw himself backwards with all his strength, taking the Admiral with him out the second-story window. As the glass shattered and seemed to float around him, Maxwell heard one of the Intelligence officers fire. Maxwell felt the bullet strike him, but with sensations of tumbling and falling, he wasn’t sure exactly where he’d been hit.

  The ground rose quickly to meet them. It was covered with rocks. Maxwell did his best to turn himself to land atop the screaming Admiral. Maxwell’s efforts had thrown them away from the house towards the river, but they weren’t going to make it past the edge of the cliff.

  W

  “Be who you were meant to be, Garret,” Joseph said firmly, “And everything will work out.” He let go of Garret’s shoulder and stepped into the Pass. The Pass collapsed behind him, and the trees, the darkness, the hellhounds, and Joseph were all gone as if they had never been there.

  Garret turned back to his friends who had watched the whole thing.

  Pun’kin looked like a little kid staring in awe at his first circus. Butterworth had raised eyebrows, in question, but didn’t speak. Velvet looked from Garret to where the Pass had been, then back at Garret. Then, of all things, Velvet burst out laughing. “Your life is amazing!”

  Fishy shook his head, pursing his li
ps to keep from laughing. “So what’s this big secret thing we’re supposed to do?” he asked.

  Garret blinked. “Uh, I have no idea.” He turned back around to where the Pass had been. It was definitely gone.

  “Uh, I guess I should have asked him,” Garret said sheepishly.

  Butterworth shrugged. “I think he would have told us if we needed to know, mate,” he said.

  “I’m hungry,” Pun’kin blared. “Let’s get some food!”

  There were nods and shrugs all around. They all joined up and headed out of the building into the Sarajevo sun.

  “So what did you see in the city, mate?” Butterworth asked Garret.

  “You should have seen this girl that was looking at Fishy, she was beautiful!” Velvet interrupted.

  Surprisingly, Fishy didn’t tease. “She was looking at you, Velvet. I just happened to be in the way.” He said.

  Velvet swelled with pride, but tried to be modest, “Nah, I think she was looking at Butterworth.”

  “I’ll settle this,” Pun’kin yelled. “She was lookin’ at me! Now I’m hungry, let’s get a move on!”

  Garret laughed. It was good to be alive.

  W

  So that was how they all ended up sitting back in the same deli again, glaring at Pun’kin.

  “I didn’t get to try the buker!” Pun’kin insisted stubbornly.

  “Börek,” Velvet corrected irritably. “There’s börek all over the city, and you made us come back to the same deli again.”

  “This buker smelled good!” Pun’kin retorted.

  “It all smells good,” Fishy groused.

  Garret was about to intervene, when he caught sight of someone out the window. He leaned forward, then back, then finally stood up from his chair to get a better look.

  “What are you looking at?” Velvet asked curiously.

  “That guy,” Garret said slowly. “That’s him.”

  “Him who?” Pun’kin blared.

  “The guy,” Garret said warily. “It’s the guy who was here earlier, the guy I followed to find you guys.”

  “How did you do that anyway?” Fishy asked.

  “It was the way he smelled,” Garret answered absently, his concern still focused on the young guy with the facial hair and the serious eyes, standing quietly amid the thronging people.

  “The way he smelled?” Fishy grinned. “What were you doing to get that close to him?”

  Garret frowned and said. “He was at the bonfire.”

  He friends were now cranking their necks and standing to get a look.

  “If I followed him to you guys, then he must be part of the Black Hand,” Garret began.

  “Right, we figured that out already,” Velvet said, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had been.

  “He came back,” Garret said, his urgency growing. “Why did he come back here?”

  Garret was already moving for the door, and Butterworth was right behind him. Fishy, Velvet and Pun’kin might have been following or might not have been. Garret didn’t spare a glance back.

  The young man stood in the oozing crowds like a lighthouse in a storm. He was resolute, determined. His serious eyes were focused on something coming down the street which Garret couldn’t see. Garret broke into a run towards the deli door.

  The young man began to move towards the street. He was moving to the left, towards the bridge where the crowd was thickest. Garret would have a hard time reaching him through it.

  “Hurry up!” Garret shouted over his shoulder as he rammed his way out of the deli and onto the bricked sidewalk.

  The crowds had stopped moving now, making it that much more difficult to work through them. They had stopped moving because they were all watching something in the street. It was a big shiny motorcar. Its canvas top was down, revealing a man and woman who, to Garret’s Appalachian eyes, looked like a modern-day prince and princess. The woman was waving to the crowds, while the man was leaned forward, trying to instruct his driver, who had gotten their big motorcar ensnared in the crowds and traffic.

  “Out of the way, out of the way!” Garret yelled, elbowing his way through the crowd.

  The young man with the scant beard had made it to the edge of the street. He seemed to slip through the crowd as if he was a phantom. He stepped onto the paving stones just as the prince and princesses’ s motorcar ground to a halt before the corner.

  The young man reached into the long overcoat he was wearing in the middle of summer.

  Ten more feet! Just ten more feet and Garret would be to the edge of the street. He could fling himself at the other guy and bring him down. But then Garret saw it.

  Ten feet in the opposite direction from the corner, a little girl, no more than four years old, had just slipped her mother’s hand. The girl was chasing something Garret couldn’t see. She was running towards the road. Another smaller, far less shiny motorcar was coming the opposite way. She was going to run into the road just as it reached her.

  Garret froze for a second, but only a second. In that second, he made a choice that changed the course of history. The young man with the facial hair stepped boldly into the street, turning towards the prince’s motor car as he did so.

  Garret was already moving towards the little girl. He didn’t know what the young man was going to do, or what the results would be, but he knew for certain that a little girl would die if he didn’t grab her. So that was the choice he made.

  The young man pivoted in the street, pulling a pistol from his waistband. The prince’s glittering guards moved to cover him and his wife, but they were too late.

  Garret ran low and hard, knocking people aside, his hand outstretched for the little girl, her dress swishing determinedly around her little legs.

  Two shots rang out, but Garret didn’t see if they hit anyone because he was grabbing the back of the girl’s shirt, yanking her back just as the motorcar rattled its way by. It swerved and almost hit them both anyway as its driver looked around wildly for the source of the gunshots.

  The little girl was crying with fright. Garret picked her up and turned, running into the frantic mother. Garret handed the little girl over, and the mother took her, kissing her over and over, laying her free hand on Garret’s face, repeating a tearful phrase in Serbian.

  Garret craned his neck and turned. Pun’kin, Velvet, Fishy and Butterworth all stood in the crowd. Each was frozen in various stages of pushing their way through the throng. Butterworth had made it the closest to the young man with the pistol, but none were close enough. The driver of the long, shiny motorcar was gunning the motor, pushing his desperate way through traffic. In the back of it, guards were covering the prince and princess, but Garret caught their scent on the wind. The woman was dead, and the man was mortally wounded. People screamed, guards shouted, and the engine of the motorcar raced. It finally broke free and rounded the corner like a shot.

  In the middle of the street, the young man with the pistol lay face down because a group of enraged guards had pinned him there. But it didn’t matter. He had succeeded. Garret would later learn that the “prince” was actually Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand of the Austrian empire.

  He and his wife Sophie had just been assassinated by Mlada Bosna, working under the auspices of the Black Hand. Garret turned back around, looking for the tearful mother and her little girl. He caught them only from a distance, as the mother, clutching her daughter close, turned the next corner and disappeared. As simply as that, World War One had begun.

  Tens of millions of people died that day, though it would take four years for all of them to fall to the ground and breathe their last. They would be shot and blown apart. Their limbs would rot off in trenches. They would starve and freeze to death.

  From a particularly harsh point of view, one could say that they died because Garret had made a simple choice. Was it the right choice, or the wrong one? He would go over it and over it in his mind for years to come, but he would never
find resolution. One life was not worth trading for millions, yet neither could he convince himself that he should have let a little girl get crushed in the street in front of her mother.

  Garret didn’t want to accept either course, yet as he stood there on the street corner while people screamed and the assassin was dragged away, he recalled one of the last things his grandfather had said to him.

  Garret had been only a boy at the time, and his grandfather, the man Garret looked up to more than any in the world, lay dying on his bed. Garret had tearfully demanded to know why bad things like his grandfather’s illness were allowed to happen. His grandfather had given him the oddest answer.

  “Garret, we’re just human, and sometimes we get so selfish that terrible things have to happen to make us stop before we destroy ourselves. Sometimes those things are so bad that a lot of people don’t make it through them.”

  He’d smiled gently and laid a hand on Garret’s head.

  “But without what we learn from those things, Garret, none of us would make it.”

  Chapter 37

  That night, Garret had the best dream he’d had in years. It was a meal, simple and plain. One of the plainest he’d ever had. He was carrying his mess kit, heading towards their mess table on the Kearsarge, not far from Nancy. Not far from where they hung their hammocks. Not far from where they’d all lived and worked and sweated, and laughed and cried and died.

  No one was dead, however. They were all there. All of them. Every one of the friends Garret had grown to love more than himself. Fishy was laughing and giving Theo a hard time about something. Theo was taking it with a small smile, while using the edge of his spoon to carefully move his peas away from his carrots. He didn’t like his food to touch.

  Pun’kin had stirred his entire meal together, mashed potatoes and all into a gross looking slop and was shoveling it down with a shit-eating grin on his face. Twitch was eating as methodically and precisely as he adjusted Nancy’s sights.

  Velvet had an intelligent expression on his face as he tried to explain something to Pun’kin that Pun’kin obviously wasn’t getting. It ended with Velvet’s face under Pun’kin’s arm. When Velvet’s hat fell off into his mashed potatoes, Fishy reached across the table and messed up his hair.