The Plague Forge [ARC] (10 page)

The borrowed truck no longer blocked the alley entrance.
Good,
Sam thought. Pascal had done his job. Well, that or the vehicle had been stolen or apprehended by one of the street patrols. In a few minutes they’d know, one way or the other.

While Prumble waited in the middle of the alley, Sam walked around the bend and moved up to the gap they’d originally entered through. A pile of debris still lay in the road beyond from where the truck had clipped it. A few kids were collecting the larger chunks of concrete onto a shabby wheeled cart. They scattered at the sight of her.

She looked both ways and waited. The street wasn’t too crowded. None were, really, under this new regime. Nobody really knew what was allowed or frowned upon in the Jacobites’ view, and even the obvious things were enforced erratically. Only one thing seemed certain: The cult, or rather Grillo’s muscle behind it, owned the city now.

A vendor rode by on a rickety bicycle, mesh bags of jackfruit and some overripe durian hanging from the handlebars. He circled back, a salesman’s grin forming on his weathered face, but which vanished when Samantha shook her head. The man completed his circle and continued down the road, his bike splashing through potholes.

“C’mon, Pascal,” Sam muttered.

She heard the truck before she saw it. Pascal hadn’t turned on the headlights, and with the near-silent electric motors he was only thirty meters away when she spotted him through the misty rain. She turned, nodded to Prumble at the elbow in the alley. He turned and nodded to Skadz down at the other end.

Pascal rolled to a stop across the wide street. When she met his gaze, he pointed back the way he’d come. Sam looked, and her heart sank. A street patrol of toughs in Jacobite colors jogged after the vehicle. There were six of them, which meant a seventh would be lurking behind. They often kept one member back, usually the one with a gun, in case trouble arose. Sam guessed that trouble to them meant drunken mahjongg spectators who had yet to come around to the Jacobite way of thinking. A brawl might ensue, but one gunshot in the air would probably be enough to disperse such a crowd.

The way this group jogged up to Pascal’s borrowed truck, however, brought goose bumps to her arms. They were fanning out. One even came to Samantha’s side of the street, as if expecting Pascal to get out and run.

What the hell are they doing?
Pascal was dressed in Jacobite garb, and a vehicle in Darwin said “don’t fuck with me.” Yet on they came, and they clearly weren’t stopping to chat.

She glanced over her shoulder. Skadz stood behind her, gun drawn. He’d probably sensed the danger from her posture. Prumble lingered farther behind, looking more irritated than anything else.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

Skadz nodded and pressed himself against the wall. Prumble took a few steps forward, craning his neck to see what was going on.

The Jacobites reached the vehicle and surrounded it, two of them moving around the front. Pascal could still drive away, but he’d kill or injure two of them in the process.

“Out!” one of the patrol shouted.

Pascal complied. His eyes darted to Samantha briefly, looking for guidance. “Easy,” she mouthed.

The patrol surrounded him. The leader of the group moving right up to her pilot in a blatantly aggressive stance. He was saying something, agitated. Pascal started to argue something, but after a few seconds he just looked at the ground with his shoulders slumped.

The leader took a pinch of Pascal’s poncho between two fingers and tugged at it.

Fuck
. Sam drew her pistol, wishing she’d brought her shotgun. “Skadz?”

“I’m ready. Lay it out.”

“Go around. The trailer with the gun.”

“On it.” He slipped away silently.

She watched him go, and held up a hand to Prumble, motioning him to remain in the alley.

When she glanced back around, she saw Pascal doubled over on the ground. The leader loomed over him, spitting words into his ear, still tugging on the improvised garment Pascal had worn.

Sam slipped around the corner, hands behind her back. She walked swiftly toward the truck, sizing up the group as she went. There were two outliers: Gun, down the street and about to meet Skadz, and the one that had come across to Samantha’s side of the street. He looked unarmed and was thin. Their fastest runner, in case of chase, she guessed. She ignored him for now.

The leader was still crowding Pascal. She heard the word
pretender
and some pseudo-religious nonsense. He had two heavies just behind him, ready to move in and help if Pascal resisted. Their attention was fixed on the man on the ground.

The two who’d come around the front of the truck were closest, and they had their backs to her. She decided to start there.

A yelp of pain down the street, out of sight. Skadz had struck. One of the heavies heard it, looked back that way.

The one across the street by the wall finally noticed Samantha. “Oy,” he snarled. “Piss off, whore.”

Sam ignored him. The two in front of her were alert now but still looking the wrong way, confused. She closed the gap, raised her pistol, and shot the first in the back of the knee. His leg buckled and he started to go down.

Everyone jumped at the crack of the gunshot. The noise echoed down the streets like thunder.

Sam shifted her aim to the second and fired again. The round took him in the thigh, a bit higher than she’d wanted so she squeezed another around. But he’d moved, and she missed. Despite his wound, the man spun around and swiped at her, knocking her gun away.

The leader spun toward her, as did his two heavies, Pascal momentarily forgotten. One heavy carried a police baton. The other was unarmed. No, she saw the glint of metal in his hands. Her heart lurched. Two pistols? Then she realized the man was adorned with brass knuckles on both hands.

The one near her staggered when his swipe attack forced him to put weight on the wounded leg. Sam slugged him with a right hook and he flew backward, knocking his head against the front of the truck as he fell.

She glanced around for her gun as the two heavies came around to face her, putting themselves between her and the leader. The weapon, she realized, had slid under the vehicle. She’d never get to it in time.
Right.

Movement across the street. The scrawny runner had come halfway across. Indecision flashed in his eyes—join in, or go get help?—and he hesitated. A huge shape emerged from the alley and loomed up behind him. Prumble. Sam winced. She’d wanted him to stay out of sight. Any onlookers would have a hard time describing Sam and Skadz, but Prumble’s immense frame would be an almost immediate giveaway.

Pascal grabbed at the leader’s leg. The man jumped back and then kicked the pilot in the stomach. Pascal groaned and curled into a fetal position.

Better end this quickly,
she thought.

Knuckles stepped toward her. Sam grinned at him. He grinned back and swung. The meaty fist whooshed just over her, so close she felt the cap on her head shift as she ducked under the blow. In the same motion she yanked her knife free from the sheath on her calf, lurched forward onto one knee, and thrust the blade forward into his belly.

He screamed, twisted away. She lost her grip on the hilt of her knife at his sudden movement. Knuckles staggered, his scream turning into an inhuman wail. Sam clubbed him on the side of the head and he went down.

The runner in the street turned to go for help. He took one step and ran straight into Prumble. The big man lifted the poor kid up by his armpits, then slammed him down into a raised knee. Six meters away and Samantha still heard the jaw break. Prumble heaved the limp body up again and tossed it into the wall across the street.

At this, the leader broke and ran.

The second heavy with the police baton still seemed willing to fight. Samantha let him come to her; she raised her fists, her gaze dancing between his eyes and the black stick in his hand. The man moved in fast and swung in a controlled manner, surprising her with his skill. She was forced to dive backward and roll.

When she came up she noticed the leader, now fifteen meters away and fading in the gray murk of light rain. He skidded to a stop, and then Skadz appeared and tackled him.

Police Baton came at her again. She tried to duck left and her foot slipped on the damp ground. His blow caught her on the shoulder—the meaty part, luckily. It still erupted in pain and sent her to the ground.

Sam rolled twice, grunting each time her shoulder met the asphalt. She’d have a nasty bruise in the morning. Worse, if she didn’t get up and finish this asshole.

She started to stand, and then Prumble was there.

The big man came at the heavy with surprising speed. Baton swung but his footing was wrong and he didn’t get much behind the blow. Prumble blocked the riot stick with his forearm and the black baton flew from the man’s hand. Then Prumble lifted one massive leg and kicked outward. His foot plunged straight into the heavy’s stomach and pushed him a full meter back until he slammed into the door of the truck.

Prumble continued toward him, both arms held out, hands upturned, middle fingers extended.

The thug tried to run, but Pascal suddenly reached out and gripped his ankle. The Jacobite went down hard, landing next to Sam. She leapt on him and clasped her arm around his neck. “Finish them off,” she said through gritted teeth. “No witnesses.”

Thirty seconds later the truck drove away, seven bodies left behind in its wake. Sam saw pickers rushing out from a half-dozen nearby buildings before the whole scene faded into the distance. With any luck, they’d drag the bodies off the street before they stripped them clean.

Her heart hammered in her chest. This marked the first overt action they’d taken against Grillo, and in her mind leaving a trail of bodies did not equate to a good start. Even if they could get back here tomorrow, the place would be swarming with Jacobites—inner-circle types, probably—looking for answers. She’d have to hope the locals kept quiet or didn’t see enough to describe them.

On the other hand, it only took one poor beggar to describe them—a fat man, a tall woman, and a black guy with dreadlocks—and they’d be blown. She cursed inwardly. They needed to be more careful, avoid trouble until the time was right.

Darwin didn’t work the way it used to.

Chapter Six

Mexico

29.MAR.2285

Tania sat cross-legged on the floor of the
Helios,
a map spread out in front of her, a pencil tucked behind her ear.

She took a small sip of instant coffee, winced at the cold temperature, and set it aside. A quick glance at her slate indicated eight minutes before she should check in with Vanessa for the next position fix to chart. She’d made a mark every twenty minutes since takeoff, hoping to find some pattern to the path the emerald aura towers had taken. Normally Tania would have used a slate for such work, but seeing Skyler’s hand-marked map in Belém had inspired her to try the old-fashioned method. It turned out to be strangely cathartic, and the large size of the paper was somehow liberating.

The marks on her map traced a wavy line that swooped and turned, erratically if gently. She was beginning to suspect that the random nature of the path was deliberate, as if this set of towers for some reason didn’t want to be found.

The sky outside her small window dimmed as the sun neared the horizon. Soon they’d have to land, having no way to track the path in darkness.

She stared at the curvy line again, focusing on the landscape over which it traversed rather than looking for some pattern in its shape. But there was nothing obvious there, either. The path seemed indifferent to the land over which it crossed. Twice they’d lost it when it went out over water, but luckily the curves the path took were not so extreme that it couldn’t be extrapolated with reasonable accuracy for short distances. As of yet, the line had not left land for more than twenty kilometers or so. Tania had fretted about this as they’d flown up the spine of Central America. Anything more than about one hundred kilometers of water and she feared they’d lose the path for days, maybe weeks.

Her headset crackled, and Vanessa’s voice came through. “Everything okay back there?”

Tania glanced at her timer. Five minutes left before they were due to mark another position. “Yeah, I’m good. Is something wrong?”

“We’re going to need to land soon. I’ve been looking for a place on the path with power so we can top off, but it’s pretty desolate below.”

“Cap level?”

“Seventy percent, so it’s not critical.”

Not yet
. Tania looked at the general direction the path took on her map. Although it curved erratically, the general direction was north. For all she knew it could end over the next hill, or wind all the way up to the North Pole. A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth at the idea of the path wrapping all the way back around and ending a few kilometers south of Belém.

“Hold on,” Vanessa said. “Pablo’s spotted something on infrared. Yes, there’s a heat source to the northeast.”

“Okay, let’s mark the path here and go check it out. Any opportunity we have to spool the capacitors is worthwhile.”

Vanessa rattled off a latitude and longitude combination. Tania confirmed the numbers and a few seconds after she felt the aircraft bank. The tone of the engines dropped.

“Tania?” Vanessa again. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

The woman’s tone gave Tania pause. “Go ahead.”

“Tim contacted us a few minutes ago to let us know the Magpie has left Belém on the yellow path.”

“Good to hear.”

“He also said, well … look. Skyler and Ana took Russell Blackfield with them.”

Her stomach tightened. “What? Tim allowed that?”

“I’m sure they had their reasons,” Vanessa said. “He didn’t elaborate.”

Tania forced herself to remain calm. Vanessa, though no doubt loyal to Skyler, was probably right. Skyler hadn’t wanted to take anyone along, much less someone he despised. There must be a reason. But the fact that he’d done this without asking permission, or even telling anyone, meant he knew the action was ill-advised.