Behind the Ruins (Stories of the Fall) (28 page)

She
watched Creedy leave, upright in the saddle, looking jaunty and dapper. She had
noted the two black cases slung in a leather harness across the back of his
horse, and the identical ones riding behind Gregor and Hollis. She watched as
they trailed off to the North, disappearing into a gauzy morning ground fog
that would be gone within the hour. Then she settled in, with a dozen books
stolen from Gregor’s collection, and waited for the cavalry. They arrived the
following afternoon.

Nakamura
watched an engineer assemble a chest-high steel tripod while a second fussed
with the long tube of the recoilless rifle itself. A soldier stood nearby,
watching over a box of shells, each one the size of a man’s forearm.

“Do
you need anything else?” the Captain asked. The engineer adjusting the weapon
glanced up.

“No,
sir. We’ll have the gun set up inside the hour, and we’ll be ready.”

Nakamura
nodded. “I’ll tell the Colonel.” He took a few steps up the slope until he
could peer across the hillcrest, studying the bulk of the Larson facility.

“How
far are we?” He asked.

“About
fifteen hundred yards, sir, give or take,” the engineer said, rising and wiping
his hands on a rag.

“And
you’re sure this will breach the wall?” Nakamura asked.

“Yes,
sir.” He tapped the weapon’s barrel with a boot, lightly. “It will probably
take six or eight shells to make a big enough breach, but it’ll be pretty
quick. Maybe a minute, maybe a little less.”

Nakamura
studied the ranks of windows. Unbroken panes were mirror-bright with reflected
sky on the shadowed wall.

“After
you’ve made a hole, watch for flashes from the upper floors. If anyone starts
sniping, stop them.”

The
Colonel called Nakamura into his tent just before dinner. Nakamura stood to
attention, dressed in baggy green battledress. He stared at Rastowich, who was
similarly attired, with the addition of an armored vest.

“Captain.”

“Sir.”

“You’re
going to be at the command post tonight.” The Colonel bent and picked up a
silver signal whistle from his camp cot. He looped the chain around his neck.
Nakamura said nothing.

“You
don’t approve? Speak freely, Captain,” Rastowich said, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re
concerned about the books. It’s not that I don’t approve. It just makes me
nervous,” Nakamura said.

“It’ll
be fine,” the colonel said, strapping a holstered pistol about his waist. He
drew the silver automatic and checked its magazine. “I
have
done this
before, you know.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Rastowich
racked the weapon’s slide, loading it. He thumbed the safety on and holstered
the automatic, then tugged at the belt until it rode comfortably around his
hips.

“Now
to make history,” he said, retrieving a helmet from the camp table beside the
cot and sparing a thin smile for Nakamura. “How hard could it be?”

Sam
listened to the activity build in the Castle as the day progressed - feet
drumming in the nearby stairwell, the sounds of doors near her bolthole being
kicked in. She had curled up behind a rank of ancient file cabinets, stretched
out comfortably on her bedroll with her supply of jerky, now almost gone, and a
heavy black revolver close at hand.

Someone
kicked in the room’s door an hour or so earlier, but the intruder cursed and
left the darkened office without searching.

What
little light crept in from the hallway was dwindling when the first impact
shook the building, showering her with brittle acoustic tiles as the drop
ceiling jerked. She scrambled to her feet, crouching in the dark, head cocked
to the side. She heard yelling, some of it nearby, before another blast poured
more dust down on her in a gritty shower.

The
blasts kept coming, and now the yelling on her floor had been joined by the
faint sound of screaming from somewhere below. She tucked a folded pillowcase
inside her jacket pocket, checked the revolver a final time, and hid her hair
under a ratty gray knit cap.

Sam
moved out into the hall, turning left toward the stairs. She started downstairs
at a run as the blasts gave way to gunfire; sporadic at first, but rapidly
growing heavier. Smoke and dust curled up the stairwell to meet her as she
passed the second floor landing.

She
reached the ground floor and shoved her way through a knot of arguing guards
blocking the hall. They paid her no attention.

The
hallway split in a T, with the heaviest smoke and loudest gunfire from her
right. She went left, sprinting toward the kitchens, her boots clattering on
the tile floor.

She
jogged across the vast empty hall where Creedy had hosted his dinner party.
There was very little light, just a pair of oil lamps guttering near the doors
to the kitchens. The tables and chairs were scattered now, and a body - dead or
injured - lay curled on the low dais in a pool of drying blood, a crude shiv
protruding from the figure’s ribs. She wondered what the deck of the Titanic
had really been like. Somehow, she didn’t think the band really played a waltz
while the liner nosed over into her long dive to the bottom.

Two
men nearly ran her down at the doors in the hall’s far wall, sprinting from the
kitchen with their arms full of food. She slowed and watched them go, but
neither looked back and they disappeared into the thickening haze.

Sam
pushed through the swinging doors, gun held at her side. The room was lit by a
few candles and another oil lamp, and in the pools of radiance thrown about
them she could see the graceless forms of the kitchen staff. Some had been
shot, and others slaughtered with the knives and cleavers they’d used every day
to make the garrison its meals. She picked up the lamp, carrying it from slack
face to slack face, like a despairing Diogenes. There were only six dead.
Marcia wasn’t among them. Her teeth hurt with a dull, remote throb, and she relaxed
her jaw as much as she could.

When
she turned to leave, she found herself staring at a broad-chested man in
tattered hides. His eyes gleamed in the faint light, as did the barrel of the
shotgun he cradled. He glanced at her, then at the corpses, then to the
cupboards where they hung, doors flung wide.

“What
the fuck, boy? There any food left?” He ignored Sam, who held her revolver out
of sight behind her leg. “What’d you kill the stupid fucking cooks for?”

“They
were dead already,” Sam said. She tried for a husky, low voice. It sounded ridiculous
in her own ears, but the man didn’t seem to notice, and began to circle the
room, rummaging in cupboards and savagely booting the limbs of the dead out of
his way. He sat the shotgun on a counter, reaching up to pull down cans and
jars the others had left. He had his back to Sam. She lifted the pistol,
steadying the sights on the back of his head and thumbed the hammer back.

“This
place is done. You should get some of this grub and get the fuck out,” the big
man said. “Get a towel or something you can carry some food in. Everybody’s
going bugshit, and the Greens have a goddamn cannon.” He pulled another armload
of cans down, rapidly discarding those with visible rust. “Come on, there’s
plenty here.” He glanced around, saw that the skinny kid who sounded funny had
gone, and shrugged. He turned back to his work, sorting the good from the bad
while the smoke grew thicker and the gunfire louder.

Nakamura
stood with the two squads left to defend the camp, watching through binoculars
as the recoilless rifle rounds began to tear a hole in the side of the
building. It was difficult to see anything clearly. The sun had set hours
before, and full dark had come. The bulk of the Larson building was dark.

The
explosions continued, eating deeper into the side of the building, glass
cascading as windows shattered. The weapon had set something inside ablaze, and
Nakamura could see the gap in the wall glow an eerie orange in the roiling
smoke.

As
the last round hit, spewing dust and concrete in a cloud, Rastowich, leading
five squads, began to pelt across the half-mile o the wall, their horses
cresting over a low hill to Nakamura’s right, a dark blur moving with the sound
of thunder.

Garrison
guards in their high perches began to fire. Nakamura could see the strobe of
their muzzle flash. The CDF sharpshooters returned fire, keeping their
opponents’ heads down until the recoilless rifle could be brought to bear. The
first sniper nest detonated in a storm of broken glass and shrapnel before the
Colonel was halfway to the building, and the second followed suit soon after.

Some
of the garrison gathered above the wall-breach on the second floor, smashing
the windows and trying to shoot at the approaching troops, but the engineers
responded with a pair of rounds before they could fire effectively. The offices
where the defenders had gathered were transformed to smoldering collections of
shattered workstations and bleeding men in the space of twenty seconds.

The
charge reached the gap and firing began to swell as men, just silhouettes
against the glow, rushed into the Larson Facility.

Nakamura
lowered the binoculars and waited, legs slightly spread, thumbs hooked behind
his belt buckle.

Colonel
Rastowich and his troops worked their way from room to room, each squad moving as
a unit, sweeping through the defenders. It wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter;
trained troops with assault rifles against brigands with weapons in every state
of repair.

“There’s
no one in charge,” Rastowich observed during a lull, talking to a tall, lanky
sergeant named Ortega. Three of the squad watched intersecting corridors while
the rest piled tattered corpses behind a riddled sandbag barricade. They had
circled through much of the ground floor, finding defenders in confused knots
around prepared strongpoints, all of which had been set up to guard the doors.
They were little help in defending against an assault from inside.

“No,
Colonel, I don’t think there is,” Ortega agreed, spitting a grey mix of saliva
and dust. “There’s lots of them, but they’re mostly useless and confused.”

That
confusion had led to dozens of the bandits simply surrendering, and the central
courtyard had become a temporary holding area, watched over by a single squad.

“Well,
let’s keep moving,” Rastowich said, settling a bandana across his nose and
mouth. “We’ve got a lot of building to get through.”

Sam
moved through the smoke, working cautiously back toward the gunfire, peering
around each corner before committing to it. After what felt to her like far too
many peeks, her forehead itching with an anticipated bullet during each, she
peered around the paint-scabbed concrete of a corridor corner and found herself
looking at two ready CDF troopers, rifles in the firing position. She ducked
back as both barrels swung to her head, then rooted in her jacket, pulling out
the dirty pillowcase. She stuck it around the corner, her arm aching with the
imagined impacts of bullets, and waved it.

“Don’t
shoot, I’m unarmed!” She yelled, sliding the pistol around the corner with her
foot. She held her breath and waited for a reply. There was some muttering
before a voice called out.

“Step
around the corner, slow, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Sam
stepped around the corner, hands up at shoulder height. Keeping clear of the
revolver, she walked forward slowly. The two soldiers had been joined by a
third, and their three rifles tracked her steadily. When she was a few yards
away, one of them started to speak, but Sam interrupted.

“I
have important information for Colonel Rastowich. The code is Ahab. Please take
me, or that code, to him immediately.”

The
nearest soldier blinked. He was young, with a flushed face and wide eyes.

“You
have to be fucking kidding, get down on the floor or I’ll put a bullet in you,”
he said.

“Please
take me to your commanding officer, immediately, soldier,” Sam said.

“Get
on the ground, bitch, or I’m going to-”

The
third man straightened. Sam saw he had a lieutenant’s bar stenciled on his
helmet.

“Stand
down, Twitch,” he said. He stepped forward, rifle ready but the barrel lowered,
eyes studying Sam through her two weeks’ worth of accumulated dirt.

“Name
the commander again,” he said.

“Colonel
Rastowich. He’s from Boston. He has two sons, his wife is dead, and his aide is
Captain Nakamura.” Sam allowed herself a tired smile. “He likes cigars and has
a weakness for pecans.”

The
Lieutenant studied her for a heartbeat, then gestured for her to come forward.

“Twitch
- that’s private Coffey, here - will take you to the command post.”

“Thank
you, Lieutenant.”

The
Lieutenant turned to Coffey.

“Shoot
her if she does anything stupid, but be sure, right?”

“Yes
sir.”