Down: Trilogy Box Set (145 page)

“Not that language, Pasha. The language of science. Ostrov has brought you someone, someone you know very well, a scientist. Show him the letter.”

Ostrov gave him an honorific little bow and handed over the parchment.

Paul, I’ve come back to find you. The strangelet-graviton tunnels have gotten worse. There are four of them now, permanently open without MAAC activity. No one knows what to do. You told me you know the answer. This man, Ostrov, is a friend. He will bring you to me, Urgently, Emily.

Loomis’ knees buckled and had it not been for Nikita’s attentiveness, he would have fallen. The young man helped him to a chair.

“Where is she?” Loomis asked.

“Very close, in the woods just at the start of the Aachen road,” Ostrov said. “She is in hiding with her friend, John Camp, and some of Garibaldi’s men.”

Loomis looked confused. “She says in the letter that you are her friend.”

“That’s what she thinks,” Ostrov said.

“Ostrov is a clever fellow,” Stalin said. “Maybe one day he will make a good secret policeman, like Bushenkov here. Maybe he will even replace him one day, what do you say, Vladimir Dmitriyevich?”

A less than amused Bushenkov chose not to answer.

“It was an elaborate scheme,” Stalin told Loomis. “But that shouldn’t be of any concern to you. Be prepared to leave with Ostrov and a squad of soldiers as soon as it becomes dark. They have a powerful weapon so you will have to be careful.” Stalin showed off the AK-47. “It is like this one but unfortunately they have bullets, we do not. We will have you draw out Dr. Loughty. Our men will seize her before they know they are surrounded. They won’t shoot if they think she’ll be harmed. They are too sentimental.”

“What will you do with Emily when you have her?” Loomis asked.

“She will join you in the new institute I will build for you in Moscow. You will make many powerful weapons together. You may take her as your woman if you want. Many men will be jealous, even me a little. This will be my reward to you, my English scientist.”

“I won’t participate in double-crossing her,” Loomis said.

“Don’t think of it like that,” Stalin said. “You will help keep her safe. We wouldn’t want her to be hurt or even killed.”

“Why bother with all of this?” Loomis said, shaking his head.

“All of what?”

“These wars, the power grabs. If what Emily says is true why not just sail to Brittania and cross back to Earth? Wouldn’t you like another chance at life? I know I would.”

“An interesting question, Pasha,” Stalin said taking another sip of wine. “Maybe for someone like you it would make some sense. But for me, no. I have spoken with recent arrivals from Europe. I know what they say about Stalin. They call me a mass murderer. They say Stalin killed tens of millions of my own countrymen. They forget what Stalin had to do to stop reactionaries from thwarting the principles of the revolution. They forget what Stalin did to save Russia from the Nazis. They would put Stalin in a cage and show him like a circus animal.” His face was getting redder and redder and his voice was rising to a yell. “Do I like Hell? No. Would I like to be back on Earth? No. No. No. I will stay here and so will you, and goddamn it, you will help me become the ruler of every single motherfucker in Hell!”

As the morning turned to mid-day and mid-day turned to late afternoon, John and Emily, and their entourage grew more and more restless. Within the glade, a small depression filled with rainwater kept the horses quiet. The only way to relieve nervous energy was to walk around the wagons but the appeal of pacing in tight circles was wearing thin.

John offered Emily a piece of dried meat.

She made a face and declined. “How long will we wait?” she asked.

“As long as we have to.”

“What if he doesn’t come?”

John chewed off a piece of meat and spit it out. “Good call.”

“What I wouldn’t give for pizza,” she said before repeating her question.

“This was always going to be a high-risk mission. If Loomis doesn’t show we’ll have to go back to Paris and return with a few hundred AKs. Don’t underestimate brute force as a battle tactic.”

“Paul could be killed.”

“That’s why we’re trying this way first.”

“I know. I guess my nerves are frayed.”

“That makes two of us.”

They thought Brian was asleep in the back of one of the wagons but he poked his head out and said, “Three of us.”

“Good thing we weren’t talking about you,” John said. “Want some disgusting dried meat?”

Brian hopped down. “Don’t mind if I do.”

He tried it, swore, and declared it delicious, sending them into fits.

“Glad to be your matinee entertainment,” Brian said. “So, John, I never asked. Did you ever manage to get a message to Ronnie, my agent?”

“I did. I told him what we agreed, that you were recruited for a classified government mission and would be out of the country and out of touch until further notice.”

“How’d he take it?”

“He didn't sound happy. You’ll like this though: he asked whether they were paying you.”

“That fucker! He’s looking for his ten percent. If I got a kidney transplant Ronnie would demand a piece of the organ.”

Caravaggio and Simon had been checking on O’Malley and Culpepper. They returned to the glade and sat down near the wagon.

“What’s happening?” John asked.

“It’s quiet,” Simon said. “Your two army gents said a few horses and riders passed by an hour ago heading toward the castle but that was it.”

Caravaggio pulled his ubiquitous pad from his pocket and resumed working on a pencil sketch he’d begun earlier.

“Still drawing my lady friend?” John asked.

“Of course. Who else would I draw among this group? There is but one rose.”

“It’s lovely,” Emily said, peeking at it. “And don’t mind him, he’s just being a jealous male.”

“Then perhaps I’ll paint him as Phthonos, the Greek god of envy and jealousy. John, I’ll give you green skin and red ears. You’ll be wonderful.”

John laughed. “Try it and you’ll be doing a self-portrait of an Italian guy with a black eye.”

Each of them reacted to the sound of someone running by grabbing a weapon. John cocked his musket while Brian removed an arrow from his quiver. They relaxed only slightly when Culpepper bounded into sight.

“The sergeant’s holding a man just by the road. He came on foot from the direction of the castle calling Emily’s name.”

“Did he say who he was?” Emily asked.

“I didn’t hear it if he did. The sergeant told me to hoof it and get you. He didn’t want to bring the bloke into the camp.”

They all ran through the woods and found O’Malley standing over a kneeling man, his AK-47 trained on him.

Emily rushed forward. “Paul!”

Loomis tried to stand but O’Malley wouldn’t let him.

“It’s okay,” John said. “He’s our man.”

Loomis got up and accepted Emily’s hug. “I couldn’t believe it when that man said you’d returned. You’re the bravest and craziest woman I know.”

“It’s so wonderful to see you, Paul.”

“Where’s Ostrov?” John asked.

“You’ve been played,” Paul said. “He’s with Stalin, always has been. He was sent to Paris as a spy.”

“Fuck. I knew I didn't like him,” John said. “What’s their plan?”

“They’re coming at nightfall to capture you. They’ve got your rifle. Stalin wants Emily to make primers for the bullets and then work with me on weapon development. He wants the rest of you buried. I snuck away to warn you.”

“We’ve got to hitch the horses and get out of here,” John said. “Emily, get your business done and let’s get moving.”

Culpepper and O’Malley kept up watch along the road. Everyone else headed back to the glade, Emily holding Loomis’s hand.

“He gave you my note?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you know the situation. After the last MAAC restart the four channels remained open even after power-down and they’ve been expanding spontaneously.”

“Where are they?”

“Dartford, Upminster, Sevenoaks, and Leatherhead.”

“All along the MAAC tunnel,” Loomis said. “The strangelets are auto-propagating.”

While they talked, John ordered both teams of horses hitched to a single wagon.

“It has to be that,” Emily said.

“The phenomenon won’t stop spontaneously at this point,” Loomis said. “The active sites will keep growing. New sites might form along the tunnel route. Eventually the entire area of land circumscribed by the tunnels could become an open channel.”

“All of London,” she said.

“For starters. Then that area could expand. Eventually Earth and Hell could merge into one bloody awful dimension.”

Emily visibly shuddered. “That’s been at the very back of my mind but I haven’t let myself go there. Paul, the best people in physics have been consulted. No one has any ideas. You said you know what has to be done.”

“I do. I mean I can’t be certain of course, but I’d bet my life on it if I had one to bet. The strangelets must be obliterated. It’s the only way.”

“How? How do we do it?”

“I’ll tell you but I won’t tell you now.”

She lit into him. “For God’s sake, Paul, why not?”

“I need to get away from here. Stalin will crush me for this and throw me into a rotting room. Take me with you to Brittania. I’ll tell you there.”

“Paul, I promise we’ll take you with us, but you need to tell me now in case something happens along the way. The fate of the world is on your shoulders.”

His countenance shifted. He looked harder, sounded harder. “Understand this. I don’t give a damn about the world anymore. I’ll only talk once I’m in Brittania.”

“How could you not care about the world?” Emily said, her voice rising in indignation. “Your children are in that world. Don’t you care about them?”

His shell didn’t crack. He seethed at her, “I thought you were an intelligent woman. I’ll say it one last time. Take me with you. That’s the long and the short of it.”

She left him standing there and told John the situation.

“Want me to beat it out of him?” he asked.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Only half. Get him in the wagon. We’re taking just the one for speed’s sake. It’ll be cozy in there.”

Nikita burst into Stalin’s bedchamber after the most perfunctory of knocks. The tsar was on the bed next to his precious AK-47.

“What is it, Nikita? Can’t you see I am lying next to my beautiful new rifle? She’s not soft like a woman but I find her more attractive than most, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry, my tsar, but Pasha is gone.”

Stalin was upright in a second. “Where has he gone?”

“He was not in his room. Ostrov and the soldiers were preparing to leave to seize the Earthers and sent for him.”

“Have Kutuzov and Bushenkov been informed?”

Nikita nodded quickly.

“Then bring them to my study.”

When they arrived Stalin raged at the two men to report what they knew.

Kutuzov was drunk. When he slurred a non-answer, Stalin called him a useless cow and threw him out of the room. Bushenkov was better prepared.

“I have just been informed the guards at the drawbridge saw Pasha leave on foot one hour ago. They didn’t ask his business.”

“Good heavens! Didn’t you or Ostrov have eyes on him? You just let him walk out?”

“This was not my operation. Ostrov set the timetable and handpicked the soldiers to perform the arrest. I was not even invited.”

“You’re invited now, you imbecile. Go find them. Bring them back to me tonight. Tell Ostrov what I am telling you. If you fail your severed heads will spend an eternity staring at your roasted bodies inside the worst rotting room in Moscow. Why Moscow? So I can visit you whenever I like to piss on your faces.”

With daylight fading they hit the road, a team of eight rested horses pulling the covered wagon at a break-neck speed. Brian and John flanked Simon, all of them squeezed together on the driver’s seat, Simon taking the reins, the other two riding shotgun with muskets and longbows. In the rear, the SAS men kept a lookout for followers. Loomis sat mutely, his arms drawn across his chest. Seeing Emily distraught, Caravaggio scowled at Loomis like a protective lion. Because of the rutted road and poor suspension, all of them spent more time bouncing in the air than riding the benches.

It was forty miles from Cologne to the French frontier. Crossing into Francia wasn’t a guarantee of safety but the threat of an enemy patrol might deter pursuing Russians. At least that was how John saw it. As darkness fell Simon squinted at the road, trying to see what the horses were seeing but there was no visibility beyond twenty feet. The pelting rain didn’t help. Fortunately the horses had better night vision. Even at speed they kept to the road and successfully navigated the bends.

After almost three hours Brian called to John over the clattering of the wagon. “How far do you reckon to Francia?”

“I’m guessing ten miles or so.”

“Almost home free.”

“Don’t jinx us.”

Not ten seconds later they heard someone calling out from the rear. It sounded like O’Malley.

Emily parted the front flaps and said, “The sergeant thinks we’re being followed.”

“Can he see anyone?” John said.

“He says he thought he saw a torch bobbing up and down as if it were carried by a rider. Then it went out.”

“Keep low. I’m coming back.”

John climbed through and wriggled his way to the back where O’Malley was sighting his rifle into blackness.

“You sure?” John asked.

“I saw it too,” Culpepper said.

“We don’t have all the ammo in the world,” John said, “but if you want to put a few rounds down range I wouldn’t object. There’s no one friendly in that direction.”

O’Malley said he was thinking the same thing. John warned Simon and Brian of the impending action and when the road straightened O’Malley aimed straight down the middle and fired twice.

As soon as the ringing in their ears subsided they heard some shouting, alarmingly close. Then musket blasts pierced the blackness.

“Get down!” John screamed, pushing Loomis to the floor and throwing himself over Emily.