Chapter Thirteen

Betrayals

1.

ARNAUD STARED INTO the barrel of the pistol, giggling occasionally and pressing his forehead against the cool tunnel of iron. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Garrecreux’s lab, having been given an hour’s rest thanks to the arrival of Madame Moonsinge’s latest visitors—Potsdam and Klopstock.

It was Klopstock who held the gun. He sat on a chair before the stupefied Frenchman, waving the weapon around and watching contemptuously as Arnaud’s eyes followed the barrel around like a mystified toddler.

“Well this is boring,” he said aloud. “Where’s the fun, Moonsinge? Where’s the challenge? I could shoot him in the face now. Pow! Dead. And while the visual impact of doing so would, I think, be rather a thrill, it seems somehow…inelegant.”

“Be quiet, idiot,” snapped Moonsinge. She eyed Potsdam warily, a hulking threat that took up much of one corner of the room. “Anyway, you can’t kill him yet. We still need him. He’s torpid and suggestible, yes, but his skills in helping us prepare the Aleksandrite are no less diminished by its effects. Do you want to answer to our Lord and Master for delays?”

“No more than you do, my sweet. Funny you won’t say his name.”

“Would you?” she snapped back. Klopstock pouted childishly, and waved her away. Moonsinge scowled at him. “Well then,” she said.

Garrecreux, who had been hunched over a lab bench, let out a sudden howl of irritation. “Will you stop all this pointless bickering!” he yelled. He took in the look of utter contempt on Madame Moonsinge’s face, and in an instant he was on his knees before her, his arms wrapped around her waist.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, my mistress, forgive me.”

“Get up, you worm,” sneered Moonsinge. “Prepare the minerals.”

“As you wish, as you wish.” He beckoned for Arnaud to assist him in further refining and producing the various arcane compounds that came from Aleksandrite, which the Russians had named in honour of their Tsar.

Madame Moonsinge nodded at Potsdam, monstrously motionless in the corner, his arms by his side like a mannequin.

“And him,” she said. “The brute. Does he need a refill?”

“Couldn’t hurt, couldn’t hurt,” said Klopstock blithely. “Top him up.”

“I wasn’t offering to help,” said Moonsinge. “You know I can’t stand the sight of it.” Despite the curious effect her demeanour had on the men of this world, Klopstock seemed strangely immune. This was hardly an issue for her, however, as she couldn’t stand the man and was happy to admit it. A cabinet stood against one of the walls. She removed a key from a chain looped around her neck and unlocked the cupboard door.

Inside were rows and rows of phials, each full of a powdery, pale green substance whose minute facets caught the light. Each phial was labelled differently: The true extent of the versatility of Aleksandrite. She pointed down one of the rows, grabbed one of the phials and tossed it casually across to where Klopstock sat. As soon as he saw it flying towards him, he panicked, reached out, desperate to grab the phial before it shattered on the floor. Moonsinge laughed at him.

“It’s no laughing matter,” said Klopstock darkly. “This is dangerous stuff.”

“And you’re nowhere near as dangerous as you make out,” mocked Moonsinge. “Feed the demon.”

Klopstock, gripping the phial of compound tightly, approached Potsdam. The huge man did not even register his approach, and Moonsinge looked over idly from one corner.

“How are his eyes?” she asked.

“Worse,” said Klopstock. He reached up and unbuckled the goggles from the back of Potsdam’s face. They fell away and revealed the true effects of the chemical on this part of his anatomy—his eyes were glowing a bright, burning green, the whole of their surface encrusted with a spiky, crystalline residue. The flesh around them was raw and cracked, crimson capillaries spreading like spider’s web.

“He’ll be blind soon,” said Moonsinge. “Then we can finally put him down like the rabid dog he is. Garrecreux’s the same. How fortunate their usefulness is so soon coming to an end. Maybe we can have them fight to the death?”

“Mistress!” cried Garrecreux from the corner, appalled.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to listen to me, Fabrice,” she chided.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, mistress!” he pleaded, before turning to Arnaud and whispering in schoolboy conference. “Did you hear? She called me Fabrice!” Arnaud giggled idiotically.

“Well,” said Klopstock as he began to unbutton Potsdam’s greatcoat. “I know who my money would be on.”

He finished unbuttoning and, pulling the scarf away from the great brute’s neck, let the greatcoat slip to the floor. The true monstrosity of Potsdam was revealed.

The braces that caged his hands extended up his arms and cradled his torso. Tight bronze bands were clamped to his wrists and neck that made his head and hands unnaturally bloated and ruddy with blood—yet the rest of him was not so healthily fattened. What remained of his body, hung within the burnished framework of metal, was a translucent, deathly grey. Veins and bones stood out on parchment-thin skin, his abdomen distended and sagging low over his groin. The metal cage held his trousers up; the body simply dangled into empty space like a chicken strung up in a butcher’s window. The cavity smelt like sweat and sour milk.

The metal poles and joists drilled into his fingers continued up into the joints of his elbows and shoulders, with pistons and gears fed by tubes running their lengths. These tubes were wrapped around his skeletal limbs, all of them snaking and coiling until six of them were fed into the space on his chest directly before his heart. Klopstock unlocked a clasp on the front of the cage and opened a door. On the back of it was strapped a bulky clockwork mechanism, redolent with the ornate swirls and craftsmanship that typified Klopstock’s deadly art. He unscrewed a lid on the top of the engine and gently began tapping the Aleksandrite compound inside.

“I think I’ll sort of miss him when he’s gone,” said Klopstock. “Do you know how many prisoners we killed before we managed to perfect it? Dozens. A hundred, maybe. But he was the only one with the fortitude to survive. Or the stubbornness. They say he killed nearly forty people before he was caught, you know. At least half of them were children,” he added conversationally.

“You keep such fashionable company,” proffered Moonsinge.

“As do you, dear heart. As do you.”

“What of Professor Stone?”

“Dead,” said Klopstock simply, concentrating on his task. “Blown to bits. Kaput. No more. You’ve got me to thank for that. We met Imperator on a godforsaken stretch of the West Irish coast and, after a thankfully brief pit-stop in Severnaya, came right here.”

“So Stone and Fontaine are accounted for.”

“Indeed. Bedford and the woman, well… they’re too late to do anything. We exhausted that vein weeks ago, and should they unwisely decide to go sniffing around they’ll be dealt with. I hardly think a few savages will be able to withstand the might of the veritable army of bandits our…heh, Lord and Master, as you so delicately put it, has in his pocket.”

Moonsinge did not seem convinced. “Is he ready?” she said, indicating Potsdam. “I’ve a job for him.”

“Oh, goody!” beamed Klopstock. He screwed the lid back on the top of the mechanism and wound a clockwork key set into the side of the device. Potsdam seemed to straighten his back slightly as the new drugs entered his system, the gearwheels and pistons whirring and hissing gently. “There we are. Tip-top shape.”

“Excellent,” said Moonsinge. “Garrecreux, Fontaine!” the two men instantly turned at the sound of her voice like obedient dogs. “Bring him in.”

They scuttled out of the room and, moments later, returned with a man dressed in black held between them. He was struggling violently, a burlap sack over his head. Moonsinge crossed and whipped the bag away.

“Mister Coyne,” she soothed. “Why, you were oh so useful to us, oh so very happy to betray your country and your principles for the promise of so great a reward. And here it is. May I introduce you to Mister Potsdam?”

Potsdam, unheeded, strode towards Coyne’s struggling form. The appearance of his body in motion, and the emaciated torso dangled in the cage like a dead thing as the pistons drove the power, was a vile and unholy sight. The metal-encased hands shot out and grabbed either sides of Coyne’s head and lifted the traitor out of Garrecreux and Arnaud’s hands. Coyne screamed, a horrendous, panicked, animal sound.

“Ah, ah, ah!” said Moonsinge gently, as the giant relented slightly. He looked down at her with dumb and glistening green eyes.

“Take your time with this one,” she said. “Enjoy yourself. Make it slow.”

2.

ENDERBY WAS AT a total loss. Never before in all his years of service had he felt so rudderless, so constrained and frustrated. They had been working for months on the mission to discover the nature of the Russian’s secret weapon, and now they were here, he was powerless.

They had managed to ensconce themselves in a supply bay deep in the heart of the ship. At the back, he and Folkard had boxed themselves off with a few crates where they could easily evade detection and snatch enough supplies to survive. There were no portholes, and the only indication of their movement was the malignant, heartbeat thrum of the engines that assailed them through the walls.

“There’s something about this ship,” said Folkard, pressing his ear against the bulkhead to listen. “It sounds so different to Sovereign.”

There had been something of a breakdown in communications since the men had boarded Imperator. Perhaps, Enderby thought idly, the loss of the men they had commanded had left the two at loggerheads—the two of them were fine having others to lead, but now the balance of power had shifted. It was true what Folkard had said. He did know the layout of the ship far better than the agent, but that did not mean Enderby couldn’t be of some use. It was clear that the captain was deeply troubled by the Russian battleship’s similarity with the vessel he knew so well, but at the same time he sensed a renewed confidence in Folkard that came, he assumed, from sailing once again.

Enderby was a patriot and a reasonable man. He had accepted the Bureau’s offer in order to serve his country, and it frustrated him that that duty of service was being denied to him when it was potentially needed most. It seemed now that Folkard spent much of his time reconnoitring, and it was in those moments that Enderby felt at his most vulnerable. If, by chance, a luckless Russian sailor had entered to grab vittles for the mess Enderby would have snapped his neck and snatched his uniform without a second thought. And yet no such sailors came. He was left in the dark, alone, his head whipping towards each unbidden, unexpected sound, one hand constantly on the hilt of his knife.

He had even thought, once or twice, of heading off on his own to explore. The calculations in his mind ripped at him. If they stayed concealed, which he was sure they could do, they may well be taken somewhere important to the Russian plot, have a chance to expose and counteract whatever machinations they were planning. He could not risk discovery, not here, not now. The Russians would throw the corpses of himself and Folkard in the British government’s face, and war would be inevitable. He sat, biding his time, frustrated and unsure.

The last time the captain had returned he at least had some solid news, having discovered Imperator’s destination—Calcutta, India, where Coyne and Arnaud had been sent to investigate. He bitterly hoped the two were having better luck. Perhaps it was restlessness that made him disingenuous, but surely Folkard should have discovered more than that by now? Then again, perhaps he had, and if he had, why was he keeping the information from Enderby? What purpose did that serve? Did Folkard not trust him? Or did Folkard’s allegiances lie elsewhere? There was still the mystery of how Sovereign’s plans had found their way into Russian hands… Blueprints that Folkard certainly had access to.

He’d been gone for hours now, and troubling thoughts were assailing Enderby in the darkness. For now he wondered at Folkard’s behaviour, and put such qualms down to an over-active, incarcerated mind given too much time to mull over too many uncertainties. Still the worry stayed with him.

The heavy door to the bay smacked open and Enderby, ever alert, already had his knife poised before it squeaked to a halt against the frame. He pressed himself back against the wall, and only the keenest observer would have noticed him grip his knife tighter. From his position, squirreled behind a packing crate, he could not see the entrance. There came the sounds of boots on grating, and Enderby strained to count the steps. Definitely more than two, but whether it was three or four he couldn’t be sure.

The Russian squad were keeping together as a group—a solid tactic when searching for a dangerous quarry. They were moving clockwise around the room, and with a little luck and careful movement he could flank them. There was no chance he could take one out and steal a uniform, not now.

An icy thought struck him, sudden and sharp. Had Folkard been captured…or had he given away Enderby’s hiding place?

The soldiers were approaching, their footsteps slow. Enderby eased around the packing crate and bolted out to hide behind a set of steel shelving lined with tins and boxes stamped with Cyrillic. The soldiers were on the other side. He flexed his fingers across the knife’s handle and moved at a crouch down the length of the shelves. The time he’d spent stuck in this godforsaken supply bay had not been wasted, and he knew if he could reach the end a large crate had been strapped down just beside the wall, with enough space to crawl behind until the patrol had moved on. He readied himself to bolt across, held his breath, and moved out.

There was a click behind him, the solid crack of an oiled bolt-handle nestling home. He froze. Even from the noise he knew the make, one of the newer ones, the .42 Mosin-Nagant. The Russian military, technically, were still testing it. It was hardly a revolutionary design, but then, from this distance it hardly mattered. The barrel was, after all, pressed against the back of Enderby’s head.

He felt sure they must have known exactly where he was.

3.

PELTING OUT INTO the Arizona day, Bedford was blinded by the light. It was as if the tunnel entrance had rushed towards him faster than he approached it. As he suddenly found himself in the air the whole of the world assaulted him with noise and brightness. He took in the situation.

The Apache warriors that had remained above ground were gathered in a tight semi-circle around the entrance to the cave. Two were hunched forward on their knees while the others stood behind them, rifles held aloft to produce a classic wall of gunfire. To his right, some feet off, two of the horses lay dead. The others were nowhere to be seen, and Bedford suddenly realised he had unconsciously shouldered his shotgun and was already aiming down the barrel. All around the rim of the basin, black figures were darting between outcrops of cover. Bedford tried to count. A dozen? Two? The antlike smatterings of movement were impossible to assess. Once or twice the head of a mounted rider would snake into view before pulling his horse back to safety.

“Geronimo!” Bly hollered over his shoulder. “Protect Geronimo!” He quickly brought his Winchester up and fired a round.

Wapi grabbed Geronimo and yanked him unceremoniously back into the mouth of the cave. The old man protested, but weakly, and seconds later Wapi was back with own weapon readied. Boon was at Bedford’s side, cranking the handle of his custom pistol and scanning the overhang with keen, expert eyes.

“Twenty, at the very least,” he said. “And that’s only the ones up close.”

“They’re firing down,” added Annabelle, who had dropped uncomfortably onto her prosthetic knee and was cocking her rifle. “Not only are we horribly outnumbered, but they’ve got the tactical jump on us too.”

“If you weren’t here, darling, I’d be inclined to worry.”

“Oh, George, you say the sweetest things when we’re about to die.”

“Not today we’re not, my sweet. Not today.” He trailed his shotgun over the lip of the crater and let out a powerful blast. A scampering silhouette fell, the buckshot hitting him on his left side. Not lethal, Bedford could tell, but enough to put the bandit out of action and make his compatriots think twice about sticking their necks up.

“Custer’s Last Stand?” opined Boon.

“Rather an insensitive comparison,” countered Annabelle, not without a smirk, as she let off a round of her own that ricocheted mere inches from one of their shadowy attackers’ heads. “Damn and blast,” she muttered.

There was no real cover. To retreat into the cave would be a slow suicide; not only would their line of fire be pitifully diminished it would be all too easy for the bandits to crowd down from the sides of the basin and overwhelm them. No. Their only option was to stand their ground.

Yet these were a ragtag, drunken band of marauders. There was no military training, no finesse—they put too much faith in their sheer force of numbers, that enough men with enough ammunition guaranteed victory. As such they were arbitrary, careless. They took random pot-shots that betrayed the fact they cared more about their own individual skins than their group as a whole. Three, four, were picked off in careful succession by the more measured shots of the braves and their companions. But it was not a tactic that could endure. The Apache Annabelle had noted as Iki was struck with a bullet in his right breast; he fell and gurgled helplessly as the blood began to fill his lungs, the others powerless but to listen to his ghastly death-throes as they fought with their all to survive the onslaught.

Slowly, as the defenders started to become conscious of how many bullets remained to them, the attackers advanced. No longer were they antlike and far off; they would skid quickly down dusty hillsides, finding cover in the rocky outcrops on the slopes of the basin. Onward and down they piled, in such a torrent it was impossible to catch them all with rifle-fire. Soon the only option would be retreat into the cave, and after that, certain death.

The bandits were getting braver now, peeking their heads up for longer, taking more and more shots each time. Bly took a bullet to the knee, keeled over, but momentarily dragged himself back upright and fought on with his teeth so tightly gritted they drew blood. Perhaps seven or eight of the bandits started to crowd toward them across the basin floor. Three were taken out with ease but others, buoyed by their companion’s success, were joining the encroaching ranks. More than twenty of the bandits lay dead or dying, perhaps thirty or more remained.

Yet all of their attention was directed towards the cave mouth—a fatal mistake for the foremost of the attackers who, with a swoosh of wind like wildfire, stood suddenly bolt upright with the knowledge of death in his eyes and an arrow jutting horizontally through his neck. A split-second later, a second fell the same way. As the bandits turned, stunned by this new threat, three more were dispatched by Boon and Annabelle’s fire.

“Kai!” wailed Wapi, a terrible trembling in his throat as he saw the girl approach. “Kai!”

She was thundering down the hillside to the left of their position, her body steady and upright on the back of her stolen horse. With a smooth, practised motion her hand whipped behind her head to pull another arrow from her quiver; quick as a blink the bolt was drawn back and shot, only to miss and thud into the dirt. The braves took full advantage of the distraction, firing into the confusion, but as Kai belted across their line of fire they were powerless to shoot for fear of hitting the girl. Her horse rounded, slowed, and as it did so Wapi leapt towards her.

The great animal Kai had stolen was so large a target the feckless bandits couldn’t help but aim towards it. As a multitude of cordite booms resounded from the landscape’s bleached and shallow sides Wapi leapt up behind Kai, curled his body around her, and put his back towards the bullets.

They struck him mercilessly. He fell away. The horse screamed and tumbled, its forelegs buckling into the dirt. Wapi and Kai fell with it, falling cradled in the nest between the dead steed’s legs and belly, bullets thudding into the beast’s back, while Wapi held Kai tightly in his arms as she struggled to get free.

It had bought them some time, but not much. One or two of the bandits fell, but as they approached the defenders backed imperceptibly towards the darkened cave, where Geronimo knelt muttering a low, strong Apache prayer. More gunfire came, closer, more accurate, and in the dying times Bedford turned to his new wife and reached out to her hand, his eyes pleading how much he loved her, how he would strip the skin from his own bones for it not to end like this, right now.

And then came the boom of the breech guns.

The opposite wall of the dip exploded into fragments, chunks of unnaturally pale rock sent to spin like pinwheels in the air. The bodies of the bandits flew with them, some of them falling into tattered shreds of limbs and sinew as they crashed back down to earth.

A thundering came from above them, and all eyes shot skyward. Slowly sailing into view as its prow breached the cover of the mesa came Sovereign, the strong Arizona light gleaming in bursts from its metalwork, its shadow crawling across the floor of the basin. Two more retorts sounded from the guns, sending up a shower of gravel and taking more of the bandits to their graves. The rest looked up; a couple even had the wherewithal to shoulder their weapons and fire pointlessly at the pride of the British Fleet. Yet when they turned to discover the rest of their band were fleeing, scrabbling up the slopes over the bodies of their dead, they soon followed. All their horses had bolted when the cannons thundered and they were left to flee on foot, panicking and stumbling across the deadly terrain.

With the exception of Geronimo, the remaining Apaches were almost as terrified by the aether battleship as the bandits. They had seen them before, of course, lazily drifting through the atmosphere, but the might and majesty of Sovereign up close was an entirely different spectacle. As the belly of Sovereign hovered into view Boon strode forward to calm them. Annabelle threw her rifle to the floor and ran, breathless, to where Kai still struggled in Wapi’s fading grip. She skidded to the floor before them, and only when Annabelle’s face appeared in his diminishing field of vision did he slowly, and with a palpable relief, let the daughter of Yohana go.

Kai struggled out, got up, turned around. When she saw the extent of Wapi’s injuries, the strength of this precocious warrior failed her. Her whole attitude snapped, her eye widening and her face softening. Where moments before there were battle cries and blood-rage, there only now remained fear and confusion on the face of a little girl.

“Wapi,” cried Annabelle.

4.

HER HANDS QUICKLY felt around his chest and back, assessing the wounds, but they were so disparate and numerous she was at a loss as to where to start. He was slick with blood, pale, his lips trembling as he fought against the weakness overpowering him. Annabelle howled in frustration and rage. Bedford came to her side but she batted him away.

The brave reached up, his eyes fogged and unfocussed, the pupils wide with death. He could barely keep his arm aloft. Kai crowded in but Annabelle pushed her gently away as she leaned down to Wapi, his blood-soaked arm snaking up to pull her closer.

“Yohana,” he whispered. It was only now, Annabelle knew, that he displayed how frightened he was. “Kai. Be a mother to her. Your husband…a father. More than I could be.” He choked. “Promise me, Yohana.”

Before she could reply he was gone.

Suddenly there was a battering on her side. Kai, a furious tempest, was pummelling her with bunched up fists, pushing ineffectively for Annabelle to move. Stunned by the fact that the boy she once teased scorpions with was gone, she half-moved, half-fell sideways. Kai shot towards Wapi’s lifeless form, his head lolling horribly as the young girl tugged at him with arms that lacked the strength to lift him. Squealing, frustrated, she let his dead weight flop back and screamed his name, battering his chest with a child’s ineffectual smacks. Annabelle, her back to the noise, thought she would soon stop. But she did not.

She was grey with shock; cold all over. Suddenly it all seemed too much, this paradigm shift of her life. In the space of only these last few paltry days it seemed as if everything had changed. Her own fate, and the fate of those who she loved, Nathaniel, Uncle Cyrus, George…Kai. There was Kai. The name, the concept, just seemed so alien to her among everything else that had happened. She had gained a husband, a daughter, found a long-lost friend only to see him snatched from her once more, only this time forever. She began to shiver, barely able to control herself. George rushed to her side once more and once more she angrily pushed him away. What more was there to do?

In the faint and still Arizona air, heard by her ears but not registered by her consciousness, came the drone of a cutter, the distant putt-putt of its engines stuttering as it wheeled in to land. Faintly she was aware of Boon’s black-suited form running up to greet it, but he was hazy, indistinct. Kai still wailed behind her. All the strength that Annabelle had accrued through her hardships, her trying days, seemed to seep from her fingers and leach into the pale dirt. She wanted to press her face to it, feel the grit against her cheeks, go to darkness, let the world sleep without her. Even as she thought this, it disgusted her how she could feel so weak, so overcome.

She knew George still stood by her, powerless, and hated herself for making him watch her unravel.

Boots, clumping, the stirring up of dust. The flashed blue of naval uniforms and the glint of gun-barrels in the sun. Sand was in her eyes, her unbidden tears failing to clear her vision, and so it was more the movement, the poise that she recognised when she looked to see him run towards her. She screamed his name in her mind, unable to produce the words with the self-loathing that choked her throat.

She grunted.

Her arms felt like wet rope but she fought to control them, to haul herself up on all fours. She managed to do so, fell back onto her knees, he head hanging back and her arms lolling behind. The thought of Deerpak’s rancid hands filled her mind and it was this image she fought against, that made her grit her teeth. She fell forward again, grabbed at the earth and pushed out, struck against it and managed to raise herself onto unsure legs. As she did so, Nathaniel Stone skidded to a stop before her.