The Company of the Dead (26 page)

What the hell was German armour doing in Central Park?

“
Konföderierte?
” the German officer asked. “Confederates?”

“
Jawohl, Herr Leutnant, wir sind Konföderierte.
”

More soldiers were approaching from the terminal at a fast trot. The scene fell into focus. Distant thunder became the continuous low rumble of explosions, those brittle cracks, gunfire that had all but faded away.

The German stepped up to Kennedy. “
Haben Sie papieren?
”

“
Jawohl, Herr Leutnant
,” Kennedy replied.

“Would someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?” Morgan whispered. Beads of sweat streamed down his face.

“Shut up,” Hardas whispered back. “It’ll be alright.” He didn’t sound convinced.

Black-garbed soldiers formed a semicircle around them. They held their weapons at waist level, machine-guns and rifles trained on the smaller group.

“
Herr Leutnant,
” Kennedy said. “
Götterdämmerung.
”

The officer narrowed his eyes.

Kennedy repeated the word:
Götterdämmerung
, Wagner’s
Twilight of the Gods
.

Shaking his head slowly, the officer began to laugh. A slow, harsh, guttural sound. He turned then and spoke rapidly to the other soldiers before returning his gaze. “You are Joseph Kennedy, of course.”

“
Jawohl, Herr Leutnant
,” Kennedy replied. “
Sprechen Sie Englisch?
”

The officer nodded.

“May we put our arms down?” Kennedy asked.

“Certainly,
Herr Major
.”

The German officer saluted Kennedy and then extended a gloved hand. “Tobias Freilich, Third Brandenburg Regiment.”

Kennedy shook his hand.

“You were anticipated,
Herr Major
, however not so soon and not here.”

“What’s happening?” Morgan said.

“Many things,” the German replied brusquely. He turned to include the others in his gaze. Ignoring Shine, he gave small nods of acknowledgment to Hardas and Morgan in turn. On reaching Lightholler he gave a slight bow. “Captain Lightholler. Thank you for ensuring our safe, if uncomfortable, passage.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lightholler responded.

“Granted,” the German replied.

“I don’t understand.” Lightholler became aware that his heart was beating, as the adrenaline rush subsided. His shirt clung to his arms and chest, damp beneath his creased suit jacket. He gave the officer a furtive once-over. He noted the windproof jacket, the respirator pouch, the crest at his collar: a wolf’s head surmounting a jagged bolt of lightning.

You brought those fuckers halfway around the world and you didn’t even know it.

“We have been advised to offer you and your men transportation,
Herr Major
,” Freilich continued. “Retrieve your weapons, please. You must leave now though, if that is your wish.”

“Now is fine,” Morgan said. “Fine with me.”

A soldier approached Freilich and spoke in his ear. Freilich turned to Kennedy. “The
Japaner
will be returning in force,” he said. “There is not much time.”

Hardas and Shine grabbed their bags. Morgan was stumbling around, bewildered. Hardas picked up the guns, glinting shards of starlight in the tall grass.

Kennedy faced Morgan and Lightholler. “Now. Come on. We have to go.”

“You want to be here when the japs get back?” Hardas added as he pushed past Morgan.

Morgan swore to himself and picked up a suitcase.

Lightholler stumbled after the others. Freilich led them down to the captured terminus. The other soldiers fell in on either side.

Morgan’s eyes were focused on the path before him. He said, “You have a lot of explaining to do, Major.”

“You were expecting this?” Lightholler asked.

“Not entirely,” Kennedy replied.

“But you knew the Germans were here.”

“I knew they were in New York.”

“You knew they were on my bloody ship,” Lightholler snarled.

Kennedy increased his pace to match the officer. Lightholler sped up to join them. He wasn’t finished with Kennedy yet. When they reached the wire perimeter fence, Freilich halted them, briefly, to let the armoured vehicle through the gates.

“You said you expected us,
Herr Leutnant
?” Kennedy asked, taking advantage of the moment.

“I was briefed that a party of covert operatives, under your command, was present in New York. We were ordered to offer you aid; transportation if possible.” His smile was strained. “It just so happens that we have some transportation available.” He gestured grandly at the
Shenandoah
, then ushered them along the vehicle’s trail.

“Why now?” Kennedy asked. “Why tonight?”

Freilich stopped in his tracks. He snorted and shook his head. “Four hours ago an atomic device was detonated over Berlin.”

“What?” Lightholler said. “How?” The questions were a shout in his mind; he wasn’t aware that he’d spoken aloud. His ears were filled with voices.

“The
Divine Wind
,” Morgan murmured. “The Japanese Imperial airship.”

“That is our belief.” Freilich arched an eyebrow appreciatively. “The High Command identified the airship’s last known position as the epicentre of the blast. Of course, the
Japaner
deny all knowledge. Who would admit to such an act?” His voice was ground glass.

“Our first strike was directed against the barracks at Battery Park. We caught them in mid-celebration. They had been given the order to invoke martial law. In fact, they had been given a number of orders.” His face twisted bitterly. “Now we give them a taste of martial law.”

To one side, Lightholler saw fifteen, perhaps twenty men, Japanese soldiers, lined up near the wire fence. Five Germans stood before them, machine-guns raised. A cache of weapons lay in a small pile about twenty feet away. In the shadows near the terminal’s entrance he could see three or four bodies splayed on the ground, their limbs at awkward angles.

“The Emperor’s son was aboard that ship,” Lightholler said. “He was to be the next Western Shogun.”

“It would be considered a worthy sacrifice,” Kennedy replied. “The Emperor has other sons.”

They had reached the entrance to the forwards gondola.

“I still want to know what half the German army is doing in the middle of Central Park.” Morgan glared at Kennedy and Hardas.

“Starting what we have to finish,” Kennedy replied. “Any more questions?”

Morgan looked away.

Lightholler let his bag drop to his feet. A wave of exhaustion swept over him.

The airship’s engines rose to a shrill whine. He was buffeted by occasional blasts of warm air as the turbines were rotated on their axles in preparation for departure.

Freilich addressed them all, his lips compressed in a disconcerting smile.

“The 1st Regiment has secured all of the bridges and tunnels leading out of Manhattan. Elements of the 2nd are now engaging units of the Shogun’s Guard at the Summer Palace. The harbour is alight. We control all access in and out of the island. Reinforcements are on their way.”

There was the explosive crump of mortar fire. It roared across the valley.

“God speed,
Herr Major
.” Freilich turned away from the gondola.

Kennedy led the way up the ramp, Shine and Morgan in tow. Hardas brought up the rear. Lightholler, his foot on the gangway, was struck by a thought. He turned to Morgan.

“You called the Japanese airship the
Divine Wind
.”

“That’s the English translation of her name. Back in the 1200s, the Mongol hordes dominated Asia. They dominated the known world. They sent an armada to invade Japan but it never arrived. A typhoon laid the entire fleet to waste. The Japanese believed it was a gift from their gods, sent to destroy their enemies. They named it the Divine Wind. The
Kamikaze
.”

Kennedy and Shine sat at one of the tables in the cabin’s lounge by the gondola’s bow. Morgan had disappeared below, ostensibly to check out their berths. Three other men sat in the open area of the gondola. Lightholler made them for Confederate airmen, possibly commercial crew, off-duty and slumming it back south.

It was half an hour since the airship had cleared Central Park, since Lightholler had learned about Berlin and what had been unleashed from the cargo holds of his ship. He stood, numbly, waiting for Morgan by the winding stairwell. A few carefully worded questions might clarify any number of things. Hardas, arms folded, the ubiquitous cigarette dangling from his lips, watched him through narrowed eyes from across the cabin.

The only passengers permitted aboard the
Shenandoah
were those with proof of Confederate or German nationality, and only a handful of those had chosen to embark. They sought berths in the aft gondola, beyond the hangar.

The stigma of their association with the Brandenburg Division suggested that there was more to Kennedy and his companions than met the eye. They were left to themselves. The Brandenburgs had cut their teeth defeating the first British tank formations in 1917. They’d accompanied Kaiser Wilhelm’s victory march into Paris at the end of that year. During the European War they’d swept behind Soviet lines to crush Stalin’s dream of communist expansion.

Over the last fifty years they had been brutally employed in the colonial wars of German North Afrika and the Middle East. It was even rumoured that a division had been sent to Vietnam, thus prolonging Japan’s disastrous campaign in that region. They were the most feared military corps on the planet and Lightholler had brought them to New York. In doing so, he may have ensured the city’s destruction.

Berlin, in her death throes, had unleashed her wrath upon the Japanese Empire. New York was only a stone’s throw away from German-aligned Canada. An assault force could arrive in the beleaguered city before dawn. Moreover, if Kennedy’s sources were correct, there were at least eighteen divisions of German infantry massed beyond the new Mason-Dixon line; there was a German fleet assembled offshore. The Japanese forces, stationed on the West Coast and along the southern border, would have a hard time deploying on all fronts.

There were three regiments of elite German troops deposited in the heart of the Japanese Occupation. If there was anything Lightholler had learned from his time at Sandhurst it was that the primary purpose of inserting troops behind enemy lines was to give your ground forces incentive to get in there and relieve them. That alone was reason enough for Lightholler to go along with Kennedy. Whatever was happening in New York was merely a hint of what was to come. The tip of the iceberg.

Morgan was taking his time downstairs. Kennedy stood, and walked over to one of the gondola’s wide curtained windows. Lightholler joined him.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked.

Kennedy shrugged. Behind him, through the thick plated glass, New York was a battlefield.

Lightholler placed a palm against the glass. He thought about Berlin. Below, the remains of the Sinatra Island aerial tramway were already in flames. Only a skeleton, shrouded in thick smoke, remained of the Summer Palace spires that had once gleamed over the city. He paced along the gondola wall from window to window, edging past scattered tables and chairs. Mushrooms of smoke hung over the bridges leading into Manhattan. The barracks at Battery Park were aflame.

“Over here,” Hardas called out. “This what you’re looking for?”

Lightholler crossed the lounge.

“That ship might just be bad luck after all,” Hardas said.

“Why don’t you shut your mouth,” Lightholler growled.

“See for yourself.” Hardas drew a cigarette from his pocket and went over to join the three strangers by the cabin’s rear entrance.

Lightholler peered into the darkness below. The
Titanic
lay crooked at her mooring, plumes of smoke rising from her scarred deck. Further out to sea, he made out the silhouette of two Japanese battlecruisers. He watched the silent puffs of smoke bloom from the decks of the two ships. Tracer trails illuminated the paths of their shells as they shattered in scarlet licks on the ocean liner’s deck.

Lightholler grabbed the satin sash of the window’s curtain in a balled-up fist. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“There she goes,” Kennedy said.

The
Titanic
seemed to leap out of the water. Her centre, rent from topdeck to waterline, rose up, dragging her sagging bow and stern in an eruption of boiling water.

“There must have still been some ammunition stowed aboard her.” Lightholler leaned his forehead on the glass.

Thick billows of black cloud obscured their view as the
Shenandoah
continued her ascent.

Lightholler allowed Kennedy to lead him back to their table. Morgan, returned from below, pulled up a chair next to Shine. Hardas had struck up a conversation with the strangers and was seated at their table. Every now and then a burst of laughter emerged from their group, ringing blasphemous in Lightholler’s ears.

Morgan offered him a cold glass of water.

“I could do with something stronger,” Lightholler murmured.

Morgan withdrew a flask from his coat pocket. If he was aware of Kennedy’s stern expression, he chose to ignore it. “Bourbon,” he said, gathering empty glasses and pouring out a measure for each of them.

Kennedy slid into a chair. “Captain,” he began hesitantly.

Lightholler ignored him. He turned to Morgan and said, “My ship’s gone. My command’s gone. I’ve been implicated in the filthiest piece of subterfuge since the Greeks left their horse outside the gates of Troy. And I’ve nowhere left to turn. So tell me, is that the way Major Kennedy recruits his staff?” He eyed Morgan squarely. “What did he do to
your
life? How long were you researching the
Titanic
before you found out that it was all grist for the mill, something to fuel this fantasy field trip?”