Metal Emissary (2 page)

“And when out of sight?” the President stared up at the emissary’s disproportionately small head.

“Once the controller has indicated the course, the emissary continues along it. The controller can adjust the course and turn the emissary around when in range. The antenna on the back boosts the receptivity.”

Wallendorf walked up to the emissary’s massive thighs. He stabbed the tip of his cane at a point level with his eyes. “No musket ball or bullet can penetrate these triple-layered brass plates,” he turned to smile at the Minister of Finance. “Nothing will stop my boys,” he chuckled. “Nothing at all.”

“The Russians,” Bremen turned to address the President, “have yet to gain an audience with either the Shah or even the Amir of any province east of the
Oxus
. That, gentlemen,” Bremen turned to look at Richter, “is why we have invested so heavily in Wallendorf’s boys, as he calls them.” Bremen smiled. “With the British still on the back foot after Trafalgar, after all these years, we have a chance to gain a foothold in Central Asia. We can take on the bear
and
threaten the lion for control of India.”

“I admire your enthusiasm, Herr Bremen,” the President turned at the sound of the canvas tarpaulins being heaved to one side. A blaze of red hair trailing strands glowing at the ends smoked into the space between the men and the emissary.

“Why, father?” a young woman pushed past the President and stabbed her fist in the air in front of Wallendorf. The woman’s long thumb poked out of fingerless leather gloves and pointed at the Direktor’s nose. “Why?”

“Romney,” Ludvig reached for his sister’s arm.

“You,” Romney shrugged free of his grip and whirled upon her brother. “Why should all
your
projects get the green light and oodles of father’s money?”

“It’s not father’s money,” Ludvig nodded at the President and the ministers chuckling beside him. “We are under contract.”

“Contracts? For these?” Romney pointed at the emissary towering above her. “But they are just dumb robots.”

“Romney, dearest,” the muffled tap of Wallendorf’s cane upon the carpet caught Romney’s attention. Folding her hands across the greasy leather tunic buckled over her dirty blouse, Romney took a deep breath. “Hold that thought, my sweet,” Wallendorf dipped his head and stared at his daughter from beneath the rim of his bowler hat. “All Wallendorf projects are important to me. What is this about?”

“Somebody,” Romney jerked her head in the direction of her brother, “diverted funds from my racing rig and cancelled my order for new parts.”

“Father,” Ludvig took a step forward. He gestured at the emissary behind Wallendorf.

“Yes,” Wallendorf beckoned Schleiermacher with a wave of his hand. “I will write you a personal cheque.”

“But father,” Ludvig shook his head.

“I said it was a
personal
cheque, Ludvig. Schleiermacher will take care of it.”

“A steam rig?” Bremen placed his hand upon the President’s arm as he stepped past him. “To what purpose?”

Romney stared at the minister, her eyes following his fingers as he extinguished a tiny ember glowing in the frazzled ends of her hair. “For racing,” she smudged her cheeks and forehead with the back of her hand. “I am a racing driver – a steamracer.”

“Racing?” Bremen guided Romney to the entrance of the scaffold tent. Schleiermacher opened the flap of canvas as Romney walked past him. Bremen stood inside the entrance and took Romney’s hand. “I have an interest in racing.” He pulled a card from his pocket. “Please, contact my office and let me know when I might call upon you.”

“Well,” Romney took the card Bremen placed in her hand. She opened her mouth to say something more.

“Until next time, Miss Wallendorf,” Bremen waved and let the canvas flap fall as Schleiermacher exited the emissary tent.

“Quite a spirited young thing,” the President smiled at Wallendorf. He tilted his head to look at the stubby exhaust pipes extending from the boiler built into the emissary’s torso. Lowering his head he looked at Wallendorf. “When will they be ready?”

Ludvig and his father shared a smile. Wallendorf chuckled.

“What is so funny?” the President looked from one man to the other. “Bremen?”

Bremen took a slow breath. “Herr President, the first emissary sailed several weeks ago. It should be halfway up the
Indus
by now. It might even be on its way up the Khyber Pass,” Bremen smoothed his palm on the emissary’s gauntlet. “Nothing can stop us this time.”

Chapter 1

The Khyber Pass

Afghanistan

December, 1850

Lieutenant Jamie Hanover had never been further from the sea. The rock and red dust of the entrance to the Khyber Pass were unlike any terrain the twenty-two year old naval officer had previously experienced. The dust hid in the pores of Jamie’s wool greatcoat, filling the pockets on the outside, and lining the secret pockets sewn inside the sleeves and the quilted insulating layer. His boots, the hobnail kind, clacked on the rock beneath his feet, echoing up the pass and toward the strange stick figure guarding a rise at the first bend on the way to Adina Pur. Jamie clacked another three hundred yards along the pass until the figure slowly took the form of a man on a stick.

Jamie stopped, opened his dusty greatcoat and pulled out the leather tube protecting the Severinson telescope Admiral Egmont had given him on his birthday. Upending the tube, Jamie slid the telescope out and slipped the tube back inside the pocket of his cloak. Winding the ripcord around the spindle on top of the telescope, Jamie knelt behind a large, flat boulder protruding from the eastern wall of the pass. He grasped the telescope in the palm of his left hand, pulled the ripcord and smiled at the satisfying hum emanating from the instrument. Four and a half minutes of enhanced ocular vision is what old Egmont had promised him. Jamie lifted the telescope to his eye to find out if the Admiral was right.

The stubby muted-brass instrument tingled within Jamie’s fingers. The buzz around his left eye tickled. Jamie pressed his eye closer, sealing the eyepiece. Sharpening the ocular image with a twist of the bottom ring furthest from his eye, he held his breath as the stick man turned his bloody gaze upon him. Jamie swallowed. Panning vertically, from the rocky base of the pass to the sky, he zoomed in on the thick spruce pole, roughly hewn and streaked in fresh blood. Panning upward, Jamie discovered the man had no legs, just bloody stumps twitching either side of the pole. Nor did the man have any arms. The blood from his limbs made it difficult for Jamie to see the man’s uniform, but he was British. What was left of him. The lightning bugle on his collar put him in the King’s Royal Electric Rifles. The telescope buzzed to a feint tremor and the picture of the man faded from view but not from Jamie’s memory.

Jamie rested his chin on the telescope and studied the approach to the rifleman. It looked safe enough, he mused. There was no sign of raiders or any trace of a recent caravan. He pulled out the leather tube and slipped the telescope back inside, pressing the ripcord into the pocket underneath the end cap. Jamie fastened the buckle and slid the tube back inside his greatcoat. Standing behind the boulder, he felt the rifleman’s eyes piercing his own dusty blonde beard. He wondered what the man might have to say, had he the strength to say it.

It took Jamie a further ten minutes to pick his way between the rocks from the boulder to the impaled rifleman. The intensity of the man’s stare did not waver. Jamie made up his mind and hoped he would live to regret his decision. It was time to talk to the man.
Who has done this,
Jamie wondered.
And why here?
Loose rocks slipped beneath the soles of his boots as Jamie rested on his heels before the man.

It started to snow.

The dismembered rifleman stared at Jamie as the lieutenant cleared a flat space in the rocks before him. Jamie removed the canvas rifle case from his shoulder and placed it on the rocks. Shrugging off his leather pack, Jamie pulled out the canteen from the side pocket, unscrewed the lid and offered it to the rifleman.

“Are you thirsty?” The man nodded. Jamie leaned forward to dribble a stream of water into the man’s mouth. He pulled back the canteen as the man swallowed.

“No,” the man shook his head. “Enough.” A shiver ran through the man’s torso.

“What happened to you?” Jamie leaned forward, tilting his head and turning his ear toward the man’s mouth.

The man licked his chapped lips. “Who,” he choked on the word.

“
Who?
”

“Them,” the man swallowed. “Pathaan.”

“Are they here?” Jamie put down the canteen and rested his hand upon the rifle case.

“No.”

“Will they come back? Soon?”

The man shook his head, coughing with pain as he did so. “Snowing.”

“
Snowing?
They won’t come when it snows?”

“No,” the man blinked in the direction Jamie had come. “Supposed to warn you.”

“Yes,” Jamie gave the rifleman another mouthful of water. “What can I do for you?” The rifleman’s trousers flapped in the wind. Jamie reached out to still them.

“Don’t,” the man closed his eyes. The man’s pupils narrowed when he opened them again. “You a sailor?”

“I never said I was a sailor.”

“Not a soldier.”

Jamie hesitated. “I
am
with the navy.”

“Why?

“Why am I with the navy? Because of my grandfather, I suppose. He was at Trafalgar,” Jamie sighed.

“Why here?”

Jamie leaned back on his heels. “I am looking for someone.”

“Who?” the man coughed, the spasm shook a fresh dribble of blood from his severed limbs. The blood splashed onto the rocks.

“A man sent here some time ago. Another sailor. A Frenchman.”

“Where?” the rifleman coughed again, his eyes bulging until the fit passed.

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe Adina Pur. Perhaps Cabool.”

“Don’t go to Adina Pur.”

“I have to try.”

“Bad there.”

“The Admiral says this man can save the navy,” Jamie fiddled with a flat stone in his palm. “That he can shed some light on what happened at Trafalgar. Put the navy back in their rightful place. Restore their honour,” Jamie tossed the stone onto the ground, “and regain the Queen’s favour.”

“Queen and country,” the man nodded.

“I have to try. I have nothing to lose.”

“Nothing to lose but your life.”

“Is that why they left you here?”

“Yes,” the rifleman bowed his head.

“What happened to you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Lifting his head, the rifleman stared at Jamie. “Help me?”

“Anything,” Jamie shuffled closer to the man.

“Find my Aisha.”

“Aisha?”

“Yes,” tears welled in the rifleman’s eyes. “She’s a local.”

“Where should I find her?”

“Caravans leaving Peshawar,” the rifleman blinked down the pass behind Jamie. “That way.”

“I will find her once I have been to Adina Pur. I promise.”

The man shook his head. Blood flecked his lips as he coughed. “Find my Aisha.”

Jamie stood up. “I have to go on.” He picked up his rifle case and pulled out the Baker flintlock rifle. “I can help you.”

“Yes,” the man stared at the rifle. He nodded.

Jamie tossed the case onto the rocks. Holding the rifle in the horizontal position, he pushed the pan open with his right thumb.

“Powder?”

“On my belt.” Jamie swept the tails of his greatcoat aside and fumbled with the powder horn on his belt.

“Wait,” the rifleman looked down, his eyes urgent. “Breast pocket,” he coughed. “For Aisha.”

Placing the horn on the ground, Jamie held his rifle by the barrel as he pushed two fingers inside the rifleman’s pocket. Pinching something soft between his knuckles, Jamie drew a broad strip of lace into the open where it flapped around his fingers in the wind.

“Give it to Aisha.”

“I will,” Jamie stuffed the lace inside the cuff of his fingerless gloves. He picked up the powder horn. Twisting the cap off between his teeth he shook a measure of powder into the pan.

“I’m ready.”

Jamie placed the butt of the rifle between his heels and wrapped a musket ball from the pouch on his belt in a square patch of leather. Forcing the ramrod smoothly into the barrel, he tamped the lead ball and patch into the bottom. Jamie pulled the ramrod out of the barrel and slid it into the pipe on the underside of the rifle. The man stared at him.

Turning around, Jamie walked away from the rifleman.
It’s the least I can do for him,
Jamie reasoned.
I’ll make it quick.
Tugging his fingerless gloves at the wrists, Jamie shifted his grip on the rifle. Resting his little finger on the hammer spring, he levelled it. Moving his right thumb onto the cock, his four fingers under the guard, Jamie looked at the rifleman.