Down: Trilogy Box Set (99 page)

“Very wrong. Your successor, Henry Quint …”

“
He
got the job?”

“Unfortunately yes. Quint exceeded the limits of Hercules I and went straight to Hercules II parameters.”

“Thirty TeV?”

“Yes, thirty.”

“And you produced strangelets,” Loomis said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

“We did. And gravitons.”

“Christ! And the combination …”

“The books, please!” Yagoda shouted.

“We need to close the inter-dimensional hole,” Emily said. “We don’t know how to do it.”

“Now, Pasha!” Yagoda exploded.

“I’m sorry,” Loomis said. “I’d better look at them.”

Emily watched the man who now called himself Pasha, running his fingers over the books reverentially before opening the cover. His face softened. Perhaps he was remembering sitting in his cozy study in Sidcup on a Saturday night with a good book and a glass of whiskey. To read he held the book quite far from his face. He used to require reading glasses but here he seemed to have none. She remembered sitting in his office at MAAC doing what she was doing now—watching him read one of her reports and waiting for his comments the way a child waits for a parent’s approval. And when that approval came, gently laced with some sage comments and suggestions, she used to be truly happy, floating from his office on a cushion of air.

“Sorry about the loose pages,” John said.

Loomis began examining them.

John leaned in and whispered something light to cut the tension. He wondered whether the blast furnace book had made the bestseller list in 1917. Loomis smiled.

He got to the last page and turned his attention to the book on steam boilers. That one got the same methodical treatment.

Half an hour passed. Trevor was getting increasingly agitated. He kept looking over at the doorway where Arabel had disappeared.

Loomis closed the cover and rubbed his weary eyes.

Yagoda stopped his annoying pacing. “Well?” he demanded.

“Look,” Loomis said in English. “As is abundantly clear, I know little about these seminal technologies. However, I would say that these books provide practical details on large-scale industrial production techniques. I believe one could adhere to the texts and make large furnaces and steam boilers. That is not to say that a process of trial and error would be needed to reduce the engineering to practice, but the books are enabling. I haven’t been here very long, but I haven’t met a single nineteenth- or twentieth-century engineer. Unlike me, these people probably led virtuous lives.”

“Paul, you made one mistake,” Emily said, her lips quivering and eyes filling with tears. “You were the most virtuous man I ever knew.”

His smile lasted but a second. “Let me tell you what I did, Emily. I came home early after a meeting was canceled. I found Jane in bed—in our bed with our next-door neighbor, a smarmy fellow, a chartered accountant who talked about golf incessantly, a man I tolerated at best. But he was fit and robust and laughed a lot and I was, well, the man I was. She was naked, on top of him, moaning with pleasure. I had never heard her moan like that. They didn’t see me and I slipped out. I instantly became a different person. I didn’t recognize myself, even my thoughts. Everything seemed automatic. I went to the downstairs closet where I kept my father’s shotgun. I loaded both barrels and put two more shells in my pocket. I climbed the stairs. They were finished and lying side-by-side. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t give them time to say anything or cover themselves. I fired at close range and quickly turned away from the result. I reloaded and put the barrel in my mouth and reached for the trigger. An instant later I was intact, in a pleasant meadow looking up at a featureless sky. I was here. Any virtue I may have possessed was erased by my act.”

“Oh, Paul,” she said.

“Paul is gone, Emily. I’m Pasha now, a beast who works for other beasts.”

John had noticed that Yagoda had left the room after Pasha’s pronouncement on the merits of the books. Now he was back with another man who, although before John’s time, was instantly recognizable—the small powerful figure of Joseph Stalin.

“So, Pasha, the books are good?” Stalin said in English.

Loomis looked at him with terribly sad eyes. “Yes, they are useful, I would say. Very useful.”

“These books,” Stalin asked. “Only copies.”

John answered with a lie. “They’re the only ones.”

“Good, good,” Stalin said.

John spoke up, “Then we have a deal.”

“And who are you?” Stalin asked.

“I’m John Camp. I’m a soldier.”

“American soldier,” Stalin said cheerfully. “I had many American friends. I wonder how many are in Hell in America. One day, maybe with these books I will build fast ships to go to America and see how it is. Maybe I see cowboys and Indians.” He laughed heartily in anticipation of his next sentence. “Maybe I see Roosevelt.” He pointed at Emily. “Who are you?”

“Emily Loughty. Sam and Belle are my nephew and niece.”

“That is nice. Big happy family. What do you do?”

“I’m a scientist, like Paul.”

“Very nice! I like scientists.” He turned his gaze on Trevor and Brian. “And you two?”

“I’m a soldier too. And a policeman,” Trevor said.

Brian said, “I can’t believe I’m talking to Joseph Stalin. Unreal. I work in television and the movies.”

“We have no movies here. Maybe one day, eh?”

John stepped into the conversation. “Do we have a deal?”

“A deal, a deal …” Stalin pondered. “Tell me, where is Garibaldi?” Stalin asked.

“What does that have to do with a deal?” John asked.

“He comes into my country with a big army and you ask me what this has to do with deal?” Stalin fumed.

“He’s not far,” John said. “He’s waiting with that big army for us to return with the children.”

“He likes children?” Stalin asked. “I like children too. They are precious to me. The books are very nice but I need better deal.”

John saw Emily’s hateful stare.

“Oh yeah,” John asked. “How much better?”

“You bring me Garibaldi’s head and we have deal.”

John stood up. “That’s not going to happen.”

The soldiers were finely attuned to Stalin’s gestures. At a slight, upward movement of his head they drew weapons, swords and pistols, and began moving from the walls in a tightening noose.

“John?” Trevor said, testing his fists.

“Don’t,” John said. “You’re making a big mistake,” John told Stalin. “This is a good deal. These books can change everything. We go home with our people, no one gets hurt.”

“You think I care if people get hurt?” Stalin said. “When life was precious thing I liquidated millions to achieve goals for Russia. Here nothing is precious except for children.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Loomis yelled. “Take the bloody deal and let these people leave.” He chose one of the slowly advancing soldiers and blocked his path, a symbolic but useless gesture.

“Take him away!” Yagoda shouted, and two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and began pulling him to the door.

“Leave him alone!” Emily shouted.

Loomis called to her as he was about to be dragged through the doorway. “Emily, I know how to plug the hole.”

“How, Paul? How?” she screamed, but he was gone.

Brian and Trevor were braced for contact. “What do you want us to do, guv?” Trevor asked.

“Stand down,” John said. “We can’t win this. We tried, we failed.”

They let themselves be taken.

“If we’re not back by tomorrow afternoon, Garibaldi is going to attack,” John said, his arms pulled behind his back.

“Castle is strong,” Stalin said.

“It won’t hold up to his weapons.”

“We have these weapons too.” He made the whistling noise of a singing cannon. “I give you until morning to agree to bring me Italian’s head.” He stood before Emily and because of his height had to look up at her. “Then I torture this woman to see if it change your mind.”

“You’re a fucking bastard,” John seethed.

“This is Hell, Mr. Camp. Here we are all fucking bastards.”

It wasn’t a prison cell but it wasn’t a comfortable guest room either. The locked room was in the castle tower, several floors below the breezy chamber where Emily had been kept during her last confinement at Marksburg. This room was outfitted with the basics. Straw mattresses on the stone floor, a basin of drinking water, and a slop bucket in one corner. The men turned their backs when Emily had to use it.

The single window was too small to wiggle out of even if they had the time to dislodge the bar. As the sky darkened so too did the room and without candles it would be pitch dark soon. They sat with their backs against the cool stone walls.

“This sucks,” Trevor said. It was a minor variant to what he’d been saying for hours and John was getting irritated.

“Yes, Trev, of course it sucks. We know it sucks. That makes us all grade A suckers. What else were we supposed to do? Pound the castle with cannon fire and rockets with the kids inside?”

“We had to try the non-violent way first,” Emily said. “We tried and failed.”

“Don’t mind me,” Trevor said. “I don’t like being locked up and I especially don’t like Arabel getting split from us.”

“Giuseppe and the others will get us out,” Emily said without much conviction.

“When the Italians attack this tower is going to get smacked hard,” Brian said. “It’s the easiest target and a direct hit’ll bring a few thousand tons of stonework down on our noggins.”

“God, I hope Arabel and the children aren’t here,” Emily said.

“So, you got a plan worked out, bossman?” Brian asked John.

“The only thing I can think of is raising a racket in here, making them think that one of us is sick or that two of us are brawling, anything to get the guards to come inside. Then we overpower them, etcetera.”

“Oldest trick in the book,” Brian said.

“Probability of success?” Emily asked.

“Not high,” John said. “But what else do we have?”

“You can agree to Stalin’s terms,” Emily said.

“And take out Giuseppe?” John asked. “Are you really suggesting that?”

“No, of course not. But it gets you out of here. One of us gets out which is better than none of us.”

“Oh, please,” John protested.

“You could tell Garibaldi not to hit this tower,” Trevor said. “You could give him the layout of the place. That’ll be helpful when he storms it.”

“Zip it guys,” John said. “I’m not leaving you.” He said it to everyone but he was looking at Emily.

“Then send Emily,” Trevor said. “Or one of us.”

“I’ll think about it,” John said.

The last traces of light disappeared.

The room was dark and silent. They had stopped talking. The others could tell Brian was dozing by his incipient snorts. One after another they fell asleep until deep into the long night John was the only one awake.

He had his arm around Emily. Her head was heavy on his shoulder. Although his limb had fallen asleep nothing was going to make him move it and disturb her.

Until—

There were two dull cracks outside their door followed by a sharp cry then a third crack.

Trevor awoke and started to say something but John shushed him. Brian woke up with a “What?” Emily’s head lifted from John’s shoulder.

They all stood up, squinting into the blackness.

There was a sound of a key in the lock.

John whispered that he would take one side of the door, Trevor the other, Brian the middle ground. He pushed Emily down to the mattress and told her to stay low.

The fumbling continued. John felt along the wall until he was sure he was to the right of the door.

The lock caught and the door swung open.

The light of a brightly burning torch momentarily blinded him.

A huge figure filled the doorway illuminated by candlelight from the hall.

Trevor pounced first, just as Emily recognized the great bald head with its scraggly fringe and shouted, “No! He’s a friend!”

Trevor was already on the ground, having been swatted away by the giant of a man.

John recognized him too from Himmler’s caravan.

“Andreas!” Emily said, rushing to hug him. “Dear Andreas.”

“You thought about Andreas?” the eunuch asked in German.

She fell into German to answer. “Of course I did.”

“You remembered me?”

“Yes! I remembered you.”

“Did you go to your home?” he asked.

“I did.”

“Why did you come back?”

“I had to save the children.”

“I saw them,” he said. “I wanted to play with them but the Russians would not let me. I do not like the Russians.”

John was outside the room, surveying the damage. Three Russian soldiers were collapsed on the floor near a stout, bloody axe handle. John commandeered their pistols and swords and distributed them to Trevor and Brian but Emily begged off.

“Andreas,” she said in German. “Do you know where the children are being kept?”

“In King Frederick’s palace. No, it is not his palace any more. Silly Andreas. Joseph is the king. They are in a chamber two floors above the great banqueting hall.”

“Can you take us there?”

“It will be difficult. There will be soldiers.”

“We have to try.”

Emily told the others what she had learned and Trevor asked John, “How do you want to play it, guv?”

“We’re going to have to go right into the lion’s den,” he said. “Our best hope is that the lion’s asleep.”

They ran into trouble right away but they knew it was coming. Andreas told Emily that two guards were patrolling the entrance to the tower. They had seen the eunuch enter so with Emily’s instructions, John sent Andreas out first to banter with the guards using the two Russian words he knew—
da
and
nyet
, over and over. When they were distracted by his antics, John, Trevor, and Brian made fast, silent work of them then dragged their unconscious bodies behind a wagon. They crossed the outer bailey easily and John peeked through the gate that led to the main bailey and the palace.

The bailey looked deserted except for some tethered horses that must have caught his scent for they began to whinny. He heard some Russian voices coming from across the courtyard but the torches illuminating the bailey didn’t cast their light far enough to make them out.