The Company of the Dead (45 page)

“I was supposed to be returning to Houston, but there are some leads I want to follow up out west.”

“Think you could provide transport for our prisoner and me?”

She rose from the workbench. “What’s happening?”

“German paratroopers have landed at Richmond. They’re fighting the japs, maybe even Union regulars. British and Canadian tanks crossed the Union border at Buffalo and Detroit. And the japs have broken through Russian lines along the old Mongolian border.”

Malcolm felt light-headed. She realised she’d been holding her breath. She said, “Anything else?”

“Kennedy’s attacking Tennessee.”

Kennedy’s eyelids flickered open. There was a dull, boring pressure along his spine and something was on fire.

He was hauled to his feet and thrown forwards. He landed hard on his knees with Lightholler on the ground beside him. His ears rang from the detonation and the air was thick with fumes.

A young police officer crouched close by, his pistol waving uncertainly in their direction, his mouthed words lost in the subsiding roar of the blast. Behind him, the building was mantled in a shroud of ruby smoke. His eyes flickered across to a group of hotel guests swarming across the debris.

Kennedy began to work his way towards Lightholler.

“Stay
down
,” the officer yelled. “Hands where I can see them.”

Kennedy reached for his back pocket. “The enemy’s in there, son.”

“
Hands where I can see them
.”

Kennedy stood up. He had his badge in his hands. He held his palms upward. “For Christ’s sake. Go do something useful.”

The officer looked around indecisively. A few police squatted behind the barrier of a nearby patrol car but it looked as if the fighting had shifted further along the street. Kennedy gave a dismissive nod and made a show of turning his back on the officer. He approached Lightholler, his eyes darting everywhere.

The fire escape door hung from a single hinge. Three Topknots lay in a twisted heap before it. The officers who’d climbed the stairs earlier were now standing around a flatbed truck as a squad of soldiers struggled with a tarpaulin. They rolled it back to reveal the harsh outline of a twelve-seven-millimetre machine-gun. Kennedy made them for heavy infantry and watched with wonder as they trained the weapon on the fire escape door.

He motioned Lightholler towards the awning of a bus shelter across the street. He felt the young officer’s eyes watching his every step.

Lightholler said, “There’s another squad at the end of the street. It looks like they’ve blocked off the whole area. I don’t see our car anywhere.”

“Watanabe said it was in front of the hotel.”

The twelve-seven jackhammered. It spat flame-sheathed metal at the fire escape. Two more Topknots, almost severed at the waist, toppled to the ground.

“Use your ID,” Lightholler said, surprisingly unmoved. “Requisition a patrol car.”

“Can’t risk flashing my badge again.”

Something passed between them.

Lightholler said, “Our problem is that you look too much like Kennedy.”

They were standing in the awning’s shadow. The officer had disappeared from view.

“You said you used to box.”

Lightholler took a step towards him. “How do you want to do this?”

“We’ve seen two squads of troops. That means at least a company of heavy infantry on deck, with more coming. Add police, militia, firefighters...”

Lightholler nodded grimly. “What do you want?”

“I want to find Watanabe and get the fuck out of here.”

Lightholler didn’t ask why. He didn’t frown or shake his head. There was just the slightest tremor in the folds around his right eye. He said, “I can make you difficult to recognise. You’ll be a little groggy.”

Kennedy scanned the street. “Take your best shot.”

“Give me your badge.”

He retrieved it from his pocket and handed it over.

“This will work better.” Lightholler had the Mauser in his hands. He held the pistol by its barrel. It sparkled for a moment in the sweep of a passing headlight. Something was making its way down the street towards them. He said, “I’m going to bring this down hard over your eyebrows. It’s going to hurt like hell.”

Kennedy bared his teeth. “Knock yourself out.”

He caught the chill of Lightholler’s smile, a flash of sudden movement, and he was on his knees, blind with throbbing pain. Hands under his arms shifted him back onto watery legs. He wobbled, wanting to drop again. He heaved and felt his mouth fill with bile.

Vision returned in the bright halo of a headlight. Lightholler was supporting him with one arm, he was talking with someone. Kennedy squinted through a stream of blood to see two distorted forms converge into a motorcycle and sidecar. The cycle wavered on an unseen tide and he heard voices replying. He opened his mouth to say something, and felt warm fluid pour down his chin. He swayed in Lightholler’s unsteady clinch, reached out a hand towards the cycle and felt Lightholler seize it in a grip of iron. The two riders hazed into view. He tried to smile and almost vomited.

“I think he took a round on the fire escape,” Lightholler was saying.

It must have been the worst attempt at a Southern accent Kennedy had ever heard. Laughter bubbled behind his lips but it was easier to stand now. The cycle and its riders had stopped their weaving motion.

“An FTMC’s been set up north of the combat zone,” one of them said. “I can rustle up a wagon if you like.”

Combat zone?

FMTC, a Forwards Mobile Triage Center; that meant at least a battalion of Confederate infantry was in the region. Local troops on hand for crowd control, or maybe just passing through Nashville, on to the border.

Kennedy managed to say, “I’m fine.”

The rider looked doubtful. He looked like he was about to say more when the sidecar’s radio crackled into life. The rider shot them a final glance and the cycle roared off with a snarl.

“Can you walk?” Lightholler asked after a moment. “We need to go up that way.”

Gazing at Kennedy’s face, his eyes may have held a hint of admiration at his own handiwork. Kennedy grimaced beneath his caul of blood.

“Did you catch any of that?” Lightholler added. “At least five hotels were attacked. Up to sixty japs are thought to be involved, perhaps more.”

They kept to the sidewalk and soon fell in with a small number of men: soldiers and police, the walking wounded. They slowed their pace.

“They think you led the japs into Nashville.”

“Honestly.” Kennedy spat blood onto the roadside. “The things I get up to.”

“When I said we were Bureau, they told me a bunch of tactical agents were on the way. They think you’re still holed up in the hotel.”

Kennedy grunted a reply. Talking hurt. Everything hurt.

They reached the end of the block. The cross street was cordoned off at both ends. Watanabe’s car, gutted, rocked where it lay halfway up the pavement in front of the hotel. An arm dangled from a broken window. Three more bodies were strewn before the entrance. Watanabe’s boys.

Three trucks and a fire engine were arrayed around the wreckage; police and soldiers were spread out along the length of the street. None of the streetlamps were working. Muted starlight wavered in black pools of water along the gutter while spotlights played against the side of the hotel. Searchlights swept the cloud-laden skies.

The night already held the taste of aftermath. The sound of gunfire, near and far, diminished to the odd isolated exchange. The cries of the wounded issued from a grey thatched marquee, thrown up a few hundred yards north of the hotel. The thready procession of injured soldiers and police made its way towards the tent. The occasional blank stare of a civilian turned to Kennedy. Lightholler drew him to one side of the group and they watched as medics came forwards to make their rapid assessments.

“Amber, green, amber, amber. We’ve got a red here.”

They slapped coloured patches onto the sleeves of the men who shambled by, or fastened them to the metal sides of gurneys as they wheeled past on cracked asphalt.

“Green,” the medic told them. He did a double-take. They wore the attire of civilians, bloodstained and torn, but his practised glance had seen more.

“Bureau,” Kennedy replied to the unasked question.

“Damn,” the medic said. “We got ourselves a regular who’s who here tonight.” But he’d already lost interest. His eyes were moving to the next man in line.

Kennedy made out another group of wounded towards the rear of the tent. Two were on gurneys while the remainder sat in a circle with their hands clasped behind their topknots. A shallow pool of blood spilled beneath them to slake the dull pavement. A squad of MPs had rifles trained in their direction while a single medic fussed from patient to patient.

“Where you taking them?” Kennedy asked. He’d made one of the gurney patients for Watanabe. The body lay still on the cart. Two paramedics were now easing him into the back of an ambulance.

“Slants are being taken to military hospital,” the medic replied gruffly.

After what had happened tonight, Watanabe would be lucky to see a surgeon by dawn, if at all.

“That’s no good, we need to question one of them now.”

“No can do.”

“Do I need to show you my badge?”

“You need to let me get on with my job.” The medic was examining a soldier’s arm. “Brachial plexus,” he said. “Green.” He tossed Kennedy a final damning look, then nodded his head towards the back of the tent. “Take it up with the lieutenant.”

The lieutenant was talking with one of the MPs. He listened to Kennedy’s request and said, “With all due respect, sir, these fuckers go to military.”

The paramedics had Watanabe secured in the ambulance bed, straps fastened over his inert body. Scarlet and black slashes spattered across Kennedy’s vision. Thoughts of Hardas and Morgan and another cold companion to add to the roster. Watanabe’s empty gun was cool against his warm flesh. Kennedy reached for the holster.

Lightholler stepped forwards, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. “Lieutenant, mind if we accompany the slant down to military?”

The lieutenant looked sideways at one of the paramedics, who replied, “Be a bit crowded, but we’ll manage.”

A staccato of gunfire ripped the night. The lieutenant twisted his head past the tent flap, following a spotlight’s beam. Kennedy joined him. A window on the hotel’s top floor flared a rapid pulse of tracer. Return fire trailed spurts of masonry up the hotel’s façade, ending the exchange.

“This slant’s pretty important?”

“Key player,” Lightholler replied.

The lieutenant stared at Watanabe’s still form. “If you say so.”

There were now angry shouts coming from the front of the marquee. Two police officers were muscling their way through the crowd towards them. A detachment of soldiers had made their way around to the back of the tent and were shouting at the ambulance drivers.

“Shit, I told them we were set too far forward,” the lieutenant muttered.

One of the paramedics had climbed into the back of the ambulance and was crouching alongside Watanabe. The other was closing the rear hatch.

A quick glance confirmed that one of the advancing police officers was the young rookie who’d released them earlier.

“You mind?” Kennedy asked paramedic.

“Just try not to breathe,” he replied as Kennedy squeezed past him. “Ride up front with me,” he added to Lightholler.

Kennedy peered out through the tinted casement. The cop approached the lieutenant.

The driver had the engine idling and his window down, calling out to a guard to shift the barricade. The paramedic was readjusting the strap over Watanabe’s legs and everything was moving just too fucking slow.

“John?”

The lieutenant was approaching the ambulance with the rookie in tow.

“
Lightholler?
”

No one else in the ambulance registered the name. Maybe they just hadn’t read the morning paper. Lightholler caught a glimpse of Kennedy’s view and swung back to the driver. “What are you waiting for?”

“I wonder what the hell he wants?” the driver said, glancing up at the rear-view.

The lieutenant was hammering his fist against the hatch.

Lightholler brought his pistol up against the driver’s temple. “Hit the siren and roll.”

Kennedy tumbled against the rear hatch as the ambulance lurched forward. He felt a spray of powdered glass burst over his face as the hatch window fractured into a spider web. He tried to squat, finding no space to move in the cramped confines of the ambulance.

He saw the paramedic, both arms crossed over his head, curled into a ball. Saw Watanabe, deathly still. Turned and saw, through the shattered window, the lieutenant’s receding face, swollen and bloodied, as he pitched forwards.

The marquee had been pierced by a thousand shards of flying metal and glass. Beyond its flapping shreds, Kennedy watched as the hotel tottered on its foundations, engulfed within an expanding fireball. From above, the syncopated throb of approaching helicopters filled the night.

Malcolm was back on the field office roof. A pale radiance suffused the clouds overhead. Moonbeams bathed the night in a soft glow. From beyond, at the edge of hearing, came the mounting drone of an approaching helicopter.

Reid had the prisoner cuffed and blindfolded. He whispered in Newcombe’s ear. “We’re off to see your pal, Kennedy. It’s going to be a sweet, sweet reunion, and the two of you are going to sing me the sweetest little song.”

A tactical agent stood close by, geared for urban assault. Below, the streets were at a standstill. Curfew was due within the hour but it looked as if all of Savannah had turned out, determined to drag the last spent butts of the evening to its soiled fingertips before the black patrol vans began their evening round-up of the city. It would be lights out. No landmarks for pilots, no targets for air raids. Dark continent.

The bars and the restaurants were full along the riverfront. News from Nashville, patchy at best, seemed to prompt last-minute excess rather than the austere moderation of impending war. Live broadcasts, shot from rooftops and hovering copters, showed a city besieged from within. A crimson horizon and the slow billow of black smoke spreading an uneven stain over the skies, but also lines of prisoners being marched into the backs of waiting army trucks.