Horizons of Deceit, Book 1 Page 22

  “A wise move,” said Nathaniel. “Seeing as it’s clearly a trap.”

  “What choice do we have?” asked Bedford. Though it was said aggressively, the statement held no malice. It was merely a reflection of powerlessness, the panic of the ensnared. “We’ve been chasing shadows, Stone. Putting ourselves and our friends in danger, and for what? To turn around and go home? If there’s hope we can fight back, hope that there’s the slimmest chance that what we know to be right could prevail? Who are we to turn our backs?”

  Sovereign’s broad observation window, hitherto misted and specked with the condensation of cloud, began to clear. Suddenly, as the last of the wisps of the nimbus cleared, the city spread before them like a toy thing, a military map on which figures of soldiers were placed and knocked down. The splendour of Calcutta’s noble city, defined by solid brick buildings, wide boulevards and white brickwork, spanned to their left in a serene and careful order. Then came the river, a meandering muddy split, and beyond that the smear of the slums, a cancerous mould of smoke and ruin.

  Above the slums hung the great black battleship. Even from such a distance its scale was obscene, its stillness in the air a promise of violence. Like a bruise against the blue of the sky it sat there, angular and squat, the beckoning bully-boy of the horizon, just waiting for the weak to get close enough to punch.

  “The result of the stolen blueprints… There is no choice,” said Nathaniel. “All through this… There never was.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Horizons of Deceit

  1.

  THEY BEGAN THEIR final descent.

  The rumble of the cutter belied the silence. No-one spoke. Stone’s cutter was the first down, a small battalion of marines following in the second. Boon and Tally sat side-by-side. They had started chatting soon after being introduced, and even in these tense times a burgeoning friendship was apparent to all. They had spent the trip to Calcutta telling each other stories of times long past and just gone, with Tally quizzing the experienced agent on what Tooler’s offer might entail, and all he might have to look forward to in the service of the Bureau.

  Annabelle was rested, but remained edgy. Bedford knew it was pointless telling her to remain aboard Sovereign. For starters there was no guarantee she would be any safer there. Secondly, if she were with him he knew he could protect her better, and thirdly… Well, thirdly he knew if she were with him then he had his own angel of protection. If she were elsewhere he knew he would fret about her safety, become distracted, maybe even make a fatal mistake. With her by his side he felt better in a multitude of ways.

  The co-ordinates turned out to be a small patch of wasteland half a mile from the North-Eastern side of Black town. As the cutter approached, Barry turned back from the cutter’s helm.

  “They’ve got forces waiting, Commander,” he said to Bedford as he eased their descent. “Russian marines, a couple of dozen. Tanks too. Two other figures there, I can just about make out… Though one of them ain’t hard to miss. Christ alive, he’s the size of a shire horse.”

  Nathaniel and Tally caught each other’s eye.

  “We need to be very, very careful,” said Stone.

  2.

  KLOPSTOCK, HIS EVER-PRESENT cigarette holder clamped between his peg-like teeth, puffed contentedly as he brought the binoculars down from his eyes and smiled. The holder jutted up in his mouth like an antenna.

  “Second one!” he said, in his quick, nasal tones. “Has to be. If you will, Mister Potsdam.”

  Potsdam lurched forward, his tread heavier than usual. Strapped to his right arm with leather braces three inches wide was a boxy, mechanical contraption the size of a small chest of draws. The corner opposite the straps had been cut away to reveal the mechanism inside; a huge and tense lateral spring poking from the bottom in a semi-circle. The whole device was patterned with Klopstock’s trademark flourishes, oak polished to a sheen and gently carved fractal patterns. Parallel to Potsdam’s arm was another arm of less organic origin—that of a finely wrought, clipped-in catapult. A small, brass crosshairs flipped up automatically as Potsdam hefted the weight perpendicular to his body. His smallest movements mirrored that of Sovereign’s second cutter; he stepped back, clenched his fist, and fired.

  The catapult arm shot forward, releasing a cylinder that drew a faint black-green mist behind it. It arced into the sky with perfect aim. Potsdam reeled from the recoil but quickly righted himself, watching as the projectile flew, the peaceful and soundless seconds as it whipped through the air. It drew a perfect curve, catching the second cutter square on the port midship. The cutter shot horizontally some thirty feet; far more so than would be expected from a conventional explosive. After that, there was no pretence to lift, no hope left in those engines or for the luckless men that burned inside. The cutter dropped from the sky in a graceless plummet, slamming to the ground without fire or fanfare, a mishmash of metal in which no-one could have survived.

  “Y’know,” said Klopstock, turning around and patting Potsdam on his free arm. “The nicest thing about that was how it was all so unnecessary.”

  3.

  “YOU SAW WHAT we did,” called Klopstock from several feet away, as the door to the cutter swung open. “I assure you we’ve rewound our little trebuchet again, should you desire to leave this world as a flaming mess. Keep your weapons down, your movements slow, and…” He squinted at the figures filing out of the surviving cutter. “Why, dash it. It can’t be.”

  He screamed, loudly and uncontrollably.

  “Stone!” he screeched. “Stone, you bastard! Baaaaah-stard!” He started stamping, then jumping up and down on the spot in an irritated little circle. “And, and…that bastard Mick you dragged along! Here’s here too? Bastards, bastards, buggery cripes and blasphemy! Don’t you understand!? That was my masterpiece, the months I spent crafting… And you walked away! Walked away like, like…a pigeon! A pigeon from a… Gah!” He started to hop around again.

  He finished his tantrum and breathed out heavily. He pinched the bridge of his nose, regaining some semblance of control. Potsdam remained impassive. The bomb-maker turned and addressed the Russian platoon.

  Ne trogat kater. Okrujite ih. Svyajite ih. Zavyajite im glaza.

  The Russian soldiers began their advance, marching in rows, their bayonets ahead of them.

  4.

  THE JOURNEY IN the tanks had been rough and uncomfortable, but otherwise the group had been handled gently. Even Klopstock ignored the possibility of a swift, cheap punch while Nathaniel was prone. When they had reached their destination they were ushered out with the same firm but undamaging insistence, each of the party with a Russian hand on their shoulder, guiding the blind and bound.

  When the masks were removed, Nathaniel and his party may well have wished their captors had the compassion to keep them in the dark. But compassion was in short supply in the monstrous scene that confronted them. The first thing they saw when the blindfolds were removed was a charnel house of corpses stacked around a green and glistening stump.

  They were in a rough cave, the stump sat in a shallow dip. The bodies of the slum’s disaffected and disposable lay in piles, arms and legs entangled, elderly and children alike wrapped in rags. Wide yellow eyes stood out like headlights from emaciated faces, bones jutted from hips, a withered pile of discarded human jackstraws going soft in the omnipresent heat. The buzz of the flies was almost deafening. A semi-circle of Russian rifles was pointed towards Stone and his compatriots, steady, unmoved by the stench and the slaughter. A Russian thug on the right of the line stepped forward, producing a glinting dagger from his waist with a soft, sharp schink. He approached Nathaniel and stood behind him. The barrels of the rifles continued to point.

  A thick Russian voice came from behind, made all the more ominous by its mixing of the malevolent and the horribly familiar.

  “Nathaniel Stone,” it said. “No, don’t turn around.” As his name was said, Nathaniel felt the rope that bound his hands to his
back cut away.

  “Commander George Bedford. Welcome.” The soldier with the knife stepped to one side, snipped away George’s restraints with a flick. He moved along the line as each name was intoned.

  “Mrs Annabelle Bedford, née Somerset.” When this was said, the voice seemed to crack…Annabelle’s maiden name pronounced with an almost American twang. Annabelle stiffened.

  “Charles ‘Tally’ Cahalleret. And last but not least, Mister Bertrand Boon. Welcome. Welcome all.”

  The thug with the knife rejoined his line, slung his rifle up and pointed it at the group once more.

  “Now you may turn around. No, wait,” there was a pause. “Now I shall allow you to turn around.”

  The prisoners did so in unison as the voice continued. “You may think me proud for unburdening you of your bonds. You may think me foolish. But you think that from a lesser position, one of weakness, a place that hopes for the smallest of victories. Let me assure you that no such victory is possible. I allow you total freedom because you pose no threat to me; none at all. No more than a fly can pose a threat to a bear. You are useless. Inadequate. So much so, in fact…” He spoke a command in Russian. Vy svobodny. Vernites na korab. The guards lowered their weapons, faced to the left as one, and marched out.

  When they turned, all of them—Nathaniel, Bedford, Annabelle, Boon and Tally—were confronted by a raised stage, behind which lay the grubby windows of a small laboratory. A row of figures stood on the platform. Potsdam and Klopstock, a beautiful Indian woman who held two chains in her arms, one attached to a decrepit walking corpse, the other to Arnaud, now a grinning, insensate fool. Nathaniel almost flew forward at that point, to wrench his friend and lover from that far-off grasp. In the centre of the room, the legs of his chair jammed perilously into another, smaller pile of Calcuttan bodies, was Enderby, his mouth taped up, breath ragged through his nose.

  Above this ghastly scene was the face of a man whose appearance made Nathaniel’s blood run cold.

  He sat in a high-backed chair, the comfort of it incongruous compared to the death and desolation over which he presided. He was leaning to one side, one knee across the other in a pose of total relaxation.

  It was the face of Cyrus Grant, his eyes ablaze with madness.

  Nathaniel glanced at Annabelle. The horror in her eyes was intense, although how she managed to keep the emotions from her face was beyond Nathaniel. Bedford looked at his wife, concern and anger quite clear on his own countenance.

  Smiling like he owned the world Grant looked down upon his captives. Since their last encounter in the Admiralty labs his face had grown pale and hard. He had shaved and his hair had been neatly slicked back across his skull; a different man entirely to the one who had acted as Annabelle’s guardian, who had worked with intense rigour alongside Nathaniel to perfect the most wondrous scientific advancements of the age. Insanity, finally, had consumed his last shred of morality.

  “Uncle!” cried Annabelle, her voice faltering with heartbreak.

  “Annabelle, don’t,” warned Bedford.

  “Don’t what!?” spat Grant, and again his voice seemed to crack and once more take on his usual transatlantic inflection. “Don’t reason with him? Don’t play his games? Look at me, Annabelle.” He slammed his fists down onto the arms of his chair. “Look at me, all of you! Do you really think—and I say this to you in particular, Professor Stone—that I would have ever granted you even the smallest chance of success? All of you, no more than puppets, dancing to my tune across the four corners of the Earth.

  “You saw those stumps of the mineral trees because I wanted you to see them. You cannot imagine how long I have been working against you. Ever since the British government kindly allowed me to set up the research team, while they sent you off on your mission. Guided by the Heart, but working for me without even knowing it! We finished mining weeks ago! All I needed was a little more time to complete my plans, so I got your attention with that little bang on Horseguard’s Parade, split you up and sent you toddling off to buy the time I needed. It was insultingly easy.

  “Admittedly, Professor Stone, I would have preferred to have you die in Dublin, but life is full of such little disappointments. More so for you than me, naturally. And yet my victory is only just beginning, and it pleases me that you will witness it—you, above all, will appreciate all I have accomplished. You see, this epic deception of mine was just the start. Your dissolute Empire would never allow a man such as me any real power. You feared my genius, all of you, and so I sought out an ally that would respect and cherish it. I will find Plypolyplon, Stone…”

  At this Nathaniel smiled; it was subtle, and with everyone’s attention focussed on Grant, none noticed.

  Not even Grant, who continued in his rant. “…and from thence the might of Russia will grow to encompass the entire Solar System. And I will not do it without assistance. There is one final deception, my dear old friends, a betrayal so perfect as to make my ascension truly immaculate. Here is your worthless spy, Enderby. But what of his cohort? What of your friend, the gallant captain?”

  “Folkard,” breathed Bedford. “Dear God, no…”

  “Dear God yes, Commander Bedford. At present Captain Folkard awaits my return aboard Imperator. Together, he and I will traverse the asteroid belt to discover the worlds beyond. You took me for a raving fool, but the brave, stout, loyal Jacob Folkard… How could any of you have ever doubted him?”

  Grant watched with a sadist’s smile as the weight of his words crushed his captive’s spirits.

  “I have achieved everything I needed to here. Imperator awaits me.”

  He stood to leave, brushed an imaginary speck of dirt from his lapel, and turned to the room. “Potsdam, Klopstock—kill them all. Use your imagination. Moonsinge, come with me. I still have need of your talents.” He started to stride towards the door to the lab, but stopped suddenly and turned, theatrically raising his index finger as if he’d remembered something “Oh! And, Professor Stone?”

  Nathaniel glared at him, his expression impassive.

  “They’re going to make sure you die last, old friend. The frantsuzskiy korova will not be happy, but…” Grant waved it away with a smile. “Enjoy the show.”

  Annabelle, so silent during the whole exchange, suddenly yelled. It was a roar of frustration, of hatred, of pure, blind rage. She whipped to her right with remarkable speed and her hand went into Boon’s jacket. Quick as a dart she had pulled out Elizabeth, his custom machine-pistol, took aim and fired across the room at Grant, the shot only just missing Potsdam’s head as the brute lumbered towards them. A feral grin bisected her face as she watched the bullet fly.

  Grant’s crowing gesture was his downfall. Had he not raised his arm to mock Nathaniel, he would never have lost it.

  The round hit Cyrus Grant near the crook of his elbow; there was a flowering of flesh with the almighty burst of force. His arm twisted away and dropped in a pathetic arc, its weight snapping tendons as it fell. For a second there was no blood, and then it flowed in a sickening spatter to the floor. Grant stumbled, grimaced—but he did not fall and he did not scream. He leaned back on his back foot and regained his posture.

  He looked Annabelle in the eye as the smoke from the pistol barrel rose and wisped away. His teeth were gritted, his right hand clutching the torrenting stump by instinct. “Give her pain!” he half-hissed, half-screamed to Potsdam and Klopstock. “Give her pain beyond the limits of imagining!” He turned to Moonsinge and let her cradle him as she led him away into the laboratory and beyond, dropping Garrecreux’s leash as she went.

  As Potsdam passed Enderby in the centre of the room he struck out and batted the bound agent sideways with his tree-trunk arm. Enderby grunted as he fell, but still Potsdam advanced, each step as slow and lethal as the turning of the tide.

  Tally watched carefully as the brute stomped towards them. He turned to Annabelle and grabbed the gun from her unresisting fingers. Potsdam was no more than four feet from him. Ta
lly aimed and screamed as he pulled the trigger time and again, each bullet shredding the thick black greatcoat and bouncing off the frame that held the monster’s rotten bones. His flesh inside was revealed; a sour milk stench filled the cavern. The rancid zombie torso was punctured and bleeding, but still the behemoth advanced. Tally tossed the empty gun away. He breathed deep and hard through his nose; he concentrated.

  He reached back into his pocket, pulled out the penknife and with a swiftness honed on dangerous streets flicked the blade out. Potsdam reached towards him with a huge metallic hand but Tally, more lithe, dived out of reach between his arms. There was just enough room, and he had just enough skill, to thrust the blade forward though the gaps in Potsdam’s brass ribcage and plunge the point into the beast’s modified, ungodly heart. Pale green ooze seeped weakly from the wound; the monstrosity spasmed and twitched, uncomprehending. As the abomination fell back, his face still an unfeeling slate, he pulled Tally with him, the Irishman’s arm still caught between the bars of the cage that held Potsdam’s rancid and desiccated corpse. Tally screamed as his wrist snapped.

  Boon dashed across to free Enderby. Klopstock, his eyes wide, fled suddenly to follow Grant and Moonsinge. Meanwhile, on the platform, another death was unfolding. Garrecreux, seeing his beloved mistress abandon him, had begun to crawl towards the entrance to the lab, but Arnaud, still lost in the vile chemical’s thrall, grabbed his ankle and pulled him backwards. The degenerate scientist twisted onto his back as Arnaud pinned him down with his legs, his arms reaching up to the old doctor’s throat.

  “Le vert?” Arnaud hissed through gritted teeth. “Où est le vert majestueux?”

  “Lâche-moi, laissez-moi!” Pleaded Garrecreux. “Je peux vous donner c’est… Je peux vous donner tout cela!”

  “Pas assez,” said Arnaud, wrapping his hands around Garrecreux’s neck. He gripped tighter, furious, the old man’s eyes bulging as he choked. He had soon lost the strength to even fight back.