The Mandate of Heaven (22 page)

The only response to this declaration was a profound silence.  Like a bottomless well, it seemed to swallow all light and sound.  Leaving nothing but a void in its wake.

“Very well.  Up.  Get off him,” Caruso ordered, glancing down at Garrett.

With a hate filled glance in their direction, Garrett stumbled to his feet, taking a step back from the prostrate form of Alex, still lying dazed on the floor.

“Up,” Caruso ordered again, but this time his gaze remained fixed on Alex.

“Not damn likely,” Alex wheezed.  “I think he broke a couple of my ribs.”

The grunt of pain, as Caruso brutally kicked him in the chest, was enough to make everyone wince, sending Alex into another paroxysm of coughing.

“I’m going to count to three—” Caruso announced threateningly.

“Well, I can count to at least five,” Alex choked back.  “Perhaps you got sent down from school early on account of all your bullying?” The scream from Alex’s lips reverberated around the room, as Caruso stamped down on his hand with the heel of his boot.

“There are two ways we can go about this; either you can submit to my retina scan while you’re still alive or we can take a DNA sample from your corpse.  Either way I
will
confirm your identity.”

“Is there a third option?  I’m quite susceptible to bribery.  Right about now I’d give you my life story in exchange for an analgesic.”

“I’m not an unreasonable man,” Caruso said, withdrawing a silver plated revolver from a holster at his waist.  “Therefore I’ll offer you up to five chances, for you to change your mind.”  He proceeded to open the breech and dumped five bullets onto the floor, leaving one in the cylinder, then spinning it.  “Last chance to give me your name.”

“Go to hell.”

“There goes your first chance,” Caruso shrugged.  Pointing the revolver at the back of Alex’s head and pulling the trigger.

Click
.

*****

Jessica flinched at the sound, easily overheard in the deathly quiet room.  Nobody moved a muscle, scarcely anyone seemed to draw breath, as if the slightest movement might prompt Caruso to once again pull the trigger.

“Do something,” Jessica pleaded, wincing as a few seconds later another
click
echoed throughout the room, as for the second time the firing pin found an empty chamber.  Her whole body wracked with tremors as she realised that at any second a gunshot could echo, and Alex would never take another breath.

Forever.

“I thought that you wanted to go home?” Sanderson whispered back softly.  “Surely this is the most expeditious way?  All you need to do is to denounce him and everything will be over.  You can be in the arms of High-Lord Stanton within the hour.”

The words seemed to twist inside of her, the voice no longer belonging to Sanderson but her own insidious thoughts.  For hadn’t she considered the very same action countless times before?  He’d kidnapped her by the High-Lords.  Sneaked into her home, into her very bedroom and stolen her from her family.  The Prefect was right, Alex
was
a thief, a criminal, her own father wouldn’t hesitate to pass a death sentence for his crimes.

“No!”

It was only when the crowd of onlookers all turned in her direction, did she realise that she had cried the word out loud, not just in her thoughts, but her heart.  For while Alex was a thief, a criminal, he had not prospered from his actions; all he did was for the benefit of others, even her.  For she harboured no doubt that if he hadn’t come that night, then she would now be very much dead.  She had been living under a misapprehension, that somehow Alex owed her for taking her away, when it was actually very much the other way around—she owed him, her life.

“Stop him, or I will,” she said, turning to look Sanderson squarely in the eye.

Sanderson hesitated for a moment, obviously taken aback by such a forceful declaration from her, momentarily releasing his hold on her.  She didn’t wait for his decision, stepping out from behind him and forging headlong into the crowd.  But her earlier proclamation seemed to have opened some sort of floodgates, as if she alone had voiced out loud the shared thoughts of the room.  For the crowd was surging forwards along with her, towards the small group in the middle.  Still the next words shouted out stopped Jessica, and all the others, dead in their tracks.

“Men, shoot the next person that moves.  Then shoot the two people standing either side of him or her.”

The loud clicks of the submachine guns being cocked and the safeties being switched off, was almost as menacing as the sight of the two weapons being raised to face the swelling crowd.

“Let’s speed this up a little, shall we?” Caruso prompted.  “It seems that the crowd is getting restless.”

Click.  Click.  Click.

“You know you’re really one lucky son-of-a-bitch.” Caruso shook his head in amazement.

“Actually you had it right the first time,” Alex replied, looking up past Caruso, as if he could see death hovering at the periphery of the room.  “I’m a complete bastard.”

Crack.

*****

It seemed to Jessica that the shot must also have hit her.

For the very instant she heard the sound, a gaping hole opened up in the pit of her stomach and she would have fallen, had it not been for the tight crush of the crowd, all around her.  She screwed her eyes up tight, refusing to witness the scene, knowing that it would be imprinted on her mind for years to come.  Still, when a loud cheer went up from the crowd, she opened them again, just as quickly.  For instead of the scene that she had imagined, she saw Caruso spin round, a shocked and dazed expression on his face.  Garrett’s fist, that only moments before had been pummelling Alex, careered off Caruso’s jaw.  The revolver went flying from his hands, spinning across the hardwood floor, disappearing into the feet of the crowd.  He seemed to hover there for a moment, seemingly suspended in time, before he went crashing to the floor.  An audible
thump
reverberated around the room as the back of his head collided with the ground, then he was still.

She cared very little, if he was dead or alive.

Relief flooded through her when she observed Alex, alive and well, stagger to his feet.  A startled oath from the centre of the room, suddenly reminded her that Caruso hadn’t been alone.  But obviously Alex hadn’t forgotten, because when the guard whirled round to face the threat from behind, Alex caught his weapon with both hands.  Wrenching it free from the man’s grip, he brought the butt of the weapon straight up, beneath the jaw of the guard.  With another
crack
, the man went down like a pile of bricks.

The second guard, quickly calculating the odds with the two men behind him, one now armed with a machine pistol and a hostile crowd in front, hesitated.  Just long enough for Sanderson to extricate himself from the crowd and relieve him of his weapon.

“A nice piece this,” Sanderson exclaimed approvingly.  Ejecting the magazine, he peered inside the clip, before pushing it back into the weapon, sliding the telescoping bolt backwards and forwards, nodding approvingly at the smooth action.  “I don’t have this particular model.  I’ll have to keep this for my collection.”

“I’m glad that it meets with your approval, Sergeant-Major,” Alex said dryly, lowering his own weapon.  “I’m grateful for your earlier assistance, by the way.  You know, when you came to my rescue, while I had a gun pointed at the back of my head and all.”

“You had everything well in hand,” Sanderson replied dismissively.

“And as for you,” Alex spun round, taking a step towards Garrett with a wild look in his eyes.  “Would you like to tell me why it took you so long to make up your damn mind?”

“I couldn’t come to a decision,” Garrett shrugged unconcernedly.  “Whether the Prefect should kill you, or I.  In the end I decided that I had the stronger claim to shooting you.”

“Well thanks, anyway,” Alex sighed, rolling his eyes.  “With friends like you two, it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, whenever I think of my enemies.”

“What are we going to do with these men?” Jessica interrupted, before another round of arguments could kick-off.

“We’ll dump them outside, along with the rest of the trash,” Alex replied indifferently.  “It’s probably time to leave anyway, before somebody comes looking for them.”

“It’s too late for that,” Caruso groaned, flinching when two submachine guns were suddenly shoved in his face.  “You didn’t think that I came here alone, did you?  I brought an entire company with me.  Furthermore, they know exactly what’s going on in here, as they’ve been listening in the entire time.”  With that he withdrew an earpiece from his earlobe, before tossing it onto the ground, at their feet.  “I warned you, now they’ll kill every last one—”

He was abruptly cut off when Alex hammered the hilt of the machine pistol into the side of Caruso’s head, knocking him to the floor, unconscious.

“Yes, we’ve already heard that speech once today, we don’t need an encore,” Alex muttered.

“What do we do now?” Sanderson asked worriedly.  “They’ve had more than enough time to surround the building.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice,” Jessica suggested with a sigh, stepping on the earpiece, grinding it under the sole of her boot.  “As it’s not a good plan, if you announce it to all, beforehand.”

“Good plan,” Alex nodded approvingly.  “We’ll go with that one.”

“What plan?  I only suggested—” Jessica spluttered, when yet again a sharp
crack
, echoed throughout the room, closely followed by a second.  Before she could finish, two grey projectiles flew through the broken windows, one coming to land at her feet.  “What the hell?” she muttered, unthinkingly reaching down to pick it up.  Much to the looks of horror from the rest of the group.  She dropped it a moment later, when a thick noxious looking gas started to pour from the shell, followed soon after from the second projectile.

“Gas!” a voice called out from the crowd.  Pandemonium swiftly broke out, as the crowd scrambled to back away from the toxic fumes.

“We need to get out of here,” Alex insisted sharply, pulling her tightly to his side so as not to get separated in the chaos.  “Keep your eyes closed and try and take shallow breaths.  Your enhanced respiratory system should filter out the worst of the toxins.”

“Well that’s fine for me,” Jessica retorted.  “But what about everybody else?”

“We’ll have to make for the exits,” he replied grimly.  “Better to take our chances out there, than choke to death in here—Sanderson!  By the High-Lords what do you think you’re doing?”

For Sergeant-Major Sanderson, far from getting as far away from the gas as possible, was kneeling over one of the shells, inspecting it curiously, before picking it up, running the projectile under his nostrils, in the way that a connoisseur might sample a freshly unwrapped cigar, prior to lighting it. 

“It’s an M259 smoke grenade,” he said shaking his head despairingly, walking across to the nearest pitcher of beer, he dropped it into the glass.  “Bunch of idiots out there can’t tell the difference between the M259 and M295.  They’re probably all out there right now, celebrating, thinking we’re casting up our accounts and choking to death.”

“Well, won’t they be surprised when we all walk out of here, alive and well,” Alex mused out loud.  “We just need a distraction, to keep the initiative…”

“You can’t be serious,” Jessica spluttered.  “You heard what Caruso said, that they’ve got an entire company outside.”

“Hmmm, helpful of him, to give us that bit of tactical intelligence,” Alex reasoned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.  “That way we can count the bodies at the end and make sure we’ve got every last one of them.”

“There’s only five of us, we can’t take them all on.”

“Five of us?” Alex looked up, surprised.

“Well yes, I suppose, I mean, you’re all doing this to help me.  So I think I should help you out, in return.”

Alex looked at her with a puzzled expression then, as awareness dawned, he tipped his head back and laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” she muttered.

“While I appreciate the offer of help,” Alex smirked, patronisingly.  “It really isn’t necessary.  You see Templeton, Baracoa and Murdoch didn’t just come here for the decor, but instead for the company.  Specifically, because this is the preferred watering hole for what was Easy Company, 1st Battalion the 104
th
, Space Marine Regiment.

“
Was
?  Why?  What happened to them?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Alex smiled, but the laughter didn’t reach his eyes, which glittered with a sudden, frightening intensity.  “High-Lord Stanton accused us all of treason and sedition, we were all dishonourably discharged, and in absence, sentenced to death.”

“But you said that you didn’t know High-Lord Stanton,” Jessica objected.

“I said that I didn’t know him
well
,” Alex disagreed.  “That doesn’t exclude the fact that I knew him
well enough,
to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.”

*****

Having slipped outside, to avoid the need for further explanations, Alex shook his head in bemusement.  The expression on Jessica’s face had almost been worth the pain of recalling the memories, ones he’d thought long dead and buried.  But those paled in comparison to the physical wounds he still carried, the chest wound still ached in such cold, damp weather.