Her Majesty's Western Service (36 page)

“Winch!” the man shouted, and the rope ladder, twisting and turning, began to be hauled up.

Below, the armored cars were frantically reversing, trying to get enough elevation to fire effectively. One of the commanders drew an automatic rifle and opened up wildly at the swaying, jerking, rising rope ladder. Lots of muzzle-flash, but none of the rounds came close.

The winch was drawing the ladder toward an open trapdoor, up and into
the airship’s bridge.

A smiling man in a long brown coat was wait
ing there, pistols in his rig.

“Cap’n Perry,” the man said. “Don’t know if you remember me, being a high-level Imperial Vice-Commodore and all. But when
Cap’n Nate Nolan tells you he’s at your service, he
means
it. Your little operation bought us a new ship.”

The balance woman in the dress and the spectacularly useles
s rig stood smiling next to him. This ship’s bridge was – well, still a civilian mess, but neater and equipped with proper communications. Not up to Imperial standards, but an order of magnitude more advanced than the last bridge he’d seen this man on.

“Welcome aboard the
Red Wasp II
, Cap’n Perry. Heard you might have been in the area. Where did you say you wanted to go, again?”

“Hugoton,” said Perry immediately. “This is a priority. They’ll allow civilian transport as far as Dodge.”

Nolan shook his head.

“In case you hadn’t forgotten, Mr. Vice-Commodore, aren’t you still a wanted man with bucks on your
head? Not going to be seen to sell a friend out, I’m sorry.”

“Just take me to Dodge and I can turn
myself
in. Report to Fleming.”

“
If you really insist,” said Nolan. “But you’re sure there’s nowhere else you’d rather go?”

“We
were
sent to get that material,” Ahle pointed out.

4-106
, Perry thought.
I said I’d come back with my ship or not at all.

And Lynch knew where 4-106 was.
Or said she did. He could copy the material before giving it to her. Mail it to Hugoton, to Fleming; he had a couple of codewords that would reach him.

“Very well. Take us to the nearest place I can
wire
Hugoton,” Perry said. “Any small town along the Dodge line should do, but keep us out of SS jurisdiction. And then take us back to New Orleans.”

A smile spread across Nolan’s face.

“The Free City, huh? Got some business to do there?”

“
Everyone
,” said Ahle, “can find business in New Orleans.”

Chapter
Fourteen

The Great War, historians agree with practial unanimity, divides Early Modern history, defined as 1789 to 1881, from Modern, defined as postwar to present.

Where historians disagree on is when the Great War ended. Certainly its start is known - June 5
th
, 1881, when the Third French Republic declared war on Germany over the disputed territories of Alsace-Lorraine. Within a week, interlocking treaties - some of them secret until that point - had brought Europe into conflict, the two great alliances being the relatively modern Anglo-German powers (with lesser allies including Norway, Denmark, Holland, Greece and a wavering odd-man-out of Austria-Hungary) of the Great Alliance into war with the Royal Entente of Russia, France and Spain, their lesser allies including most of the rest of Europe.

It is beyond the scope of this work to discuss the ensuing warfare in detail, but the invention of the machine-gun had changed expectations considerably. Fluid, mobile warfare became bloody trench stalemate by midsummer, and what followed were years of grinding warfare between equally-matched powers.

The colonies were the first to show strain, native units rebelling when it became clear their home countries were too occupied in Europe to suppress those outbreaks. Other colonies, such as the generally-loyal Australians, were brought into the war more directly; the attempted Russo-Japanese invasion ofAustralia was a bloody failure, but the carnage wreaked by Tsarist troops during their brief occupation of eastern New South Wales remains a horrifying memory to this day.

But after years of fighting, social tensions at home surfaced, workers’ movements demanding international unity and an end to the war. Many of the troops ordered to suppress the ensuing General Strikes mutinied, and by 1895 the war efforts had fallen apart. In the United Kingdom this was typified by the Revolt, as three years of bloody, vicious warfare between left-wing Commune and right-wing Royalist forces effectively destroyed the old - and Restored - Empire’s heart for a generation…

From
A Young Person’s History of the World, Volume VIII.

“We found him playing dead,” Captain Metz said to Skorzeny, gesturing at the wounded man strapped to a chair in the interrogation room at the Joplin base. He’d received cursory first aid, enough to stabilize the minor head wound that had knocked him unconscious.

“He’ll
be
dead soon enough unless he co-operates,” said Skorzeny.

The wounded man looked on with horrified eyes. He could see the implements on the table next to the chair. He’d been stripped naked and firmly manacled in, wrists and ankles. From the clothes and bearing, he was some kind of a dockside thug. But that could be faked.

Skorzeny turned to address the man directly.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, friend. One way or another, I’m going to learn who sent you and
why.”

“I don’t know anything,” the man pleaded.

Skorzeny picked up a sharply-serrated knife.

“Maybe you’ll know more in a few minutes
.”

“No, really! I don’t know anything! We were just sent in to do a covering operation, that’s all I k
now!”

“A good start,” said Skorzeny. “You may come out of this intact. Who were you covering for?”

“I” – the man’s eyes looked to the table of implements and back – “I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Skorzeny, and moved forward with the knife.

The man had lasted almost ten minutes, a little above average. Skorzeny, whose uniform was now spattered heavily with blood, nodded to First Lieutenant Schierbecker.

“Did you get all of that?” he as
ked his young aide. “How we applied pain visibly and
selectively
?”

“Yessir,” said
Schierbecker, who was looking a bit blanched by it all.

“You’ll get used to this kind of thing. It’s standard practice. If we’d asked him
nicely
, do you think he would have told us all about this woman in New Orleans he works for? Or this renegade Imperial named Perry or Parry they were taking in?”

“No, sir.”

“What we’re going to
do
about her is a different method. But first things first.”

Skorzeny drew hi
s sidearm, racked the slide, and shot the prisoner through the temple.

“Next,” he said, calmly putting the Luger back in its holster, “we get on the line to our friends...”

The small escort-class airship, a narrow fighting vessel a hundred and ten yards long, nosed through the canyon where 4-106 sat, late in that afternoon. She flashed the proper code, which kept Pratt Cannon’s crew – on a dismounted rocket launcher – from blowing her to skeletal wreckage – and came in.

A very short, rig-less man dressed in bright red from the toes of his thick-soled boots to the tip of his beret, jumped out. A brace of pearl-handled revolvers hung on a bandolier across his chest.

“Pratt Cannon!” he said to the guards. “Any of you know who Pratt Cannon is? I’m here to meet him. Him and somebody named Marko.”

“Jebediah fucking Judd,” said Cannon, coming forward. The two of them shook hands. “Thought the Sonorans got you last year!”

“Sonorans think a lot of things,” said Judd. “Sonorans think too much, maybe. They got my
ship
. I got a new one, courtesy of some friends of yours. Just in exchange for a bit of work, is all. OK, a lot of work. But fuck it, new ship!”

“Somebody wanted me?” asked Marko. “You’re my transport out?”

“I’m your transport out,” Judd said. “Also got a few more men.” He took a harmonica from around his neck and blew a discordant blast.

A hatch of the slender airship opened and men piled out, carrying packs and rifles. They wore rough civilian dress, but
from their bearing and the way some barked at others, they were obviously soldiers. Forty or so of them. The 4-106 crew eyed them warily; soldiers had never been good news for the likes of this lot.

“What’s going on?” Marko asked.

“I’m just the delivery boy,” said Judd. “But it looks to me like you’ve got a platoon of Texans for added security. Maybe my other man can tell you more.”

The same Third Department man who’d taken the 4-106 documents a few days ago, appeared.

“New orders,” he said to Marko. “You’re off standby. There’s been developments. I want you to take your crew and get moving.”

“Where?”

“Taos, to begin with.” A military town that marked the Republic of Texas’ northwestern corner, right on the Sonoran border and not far from the Colorado line. “Further orders when you’re in the air.”

“You got a name, Third Department?”

“Call me Ivan. Now get your men together, and a dozen of these thugs, and move.”

“Cannon, you stay here,” said Marko. “You’re in charge while I’m gone. The rest of you – you heard the man.”

Fleming reviewed the telegram that had come to him from – Memphis – with greater and greater alarm.

Reached for his drink. Another sip.

There simply hadn’t been time to teach many codes to the supposedly-renegade Air Service officer Perry. No more than a few ciphers for keywords that might come up.

The ones that appeared were bad enough. They fit into the picture he was gathering, cleanly. Too cleanly.
Hugoton. Texas. 4-106. Maps.
Although without
proof
…

Mind, he was looking forward to hearing the story from Perry himself. How he’d been gulled into attacking a supposedly-friendly occupation unit’s base. He supposed nonlethals had been used unless forced, but he also knew exactly how that pirate
Ahle felt about the SS.

Did she sucker him that fast? I didn’t have him as the type. Must have been some other reason.

Something from Lynch’s end? More likely. He didn’t know that woman’s motivations.

Very bad news either way
, he thought. He didn’t have much in the way of resources; didn’t have anything to speak of but a fragment.

May be time to send that fragment – named Moore – to Texas, though. Just to see if there was anything left to pick up.

Screw what had convinced the vice-commodore to attack the SS. He didn’t peg the Service officer as a liar and he wasn’t the type to argue with results.

Yes
, he decided.
We send Moore with the last codes to Houston, to see if there’s anything left of the network there.

And as for Perry – there’s not a whole lot we can do. We just hope he’s wrong.

MI-7 Agent David Cornwell flinched as the heavy truck rolled past in the night. They were common enough on the Houston docks, of course, but he was in a state where everything and anything spooked him. Had been for weeks now.

Huddled in the l
aborers’ rooming house, he ticked the reasons off on his fingers. Only blind luck had kept him from getting blasted in the initial attacks. Or busted in the following sweeps. Texan authorities weren’t friendly to MI-7 or Imperials overall, with their support for the United States of America.

He’d had a private alley or two he’d kept open, despite that vainglorious idiot Fleming’s insistence
on all channels being shared within the agency. MI-7’s encryption had been broken hard, that much he knew. The Okhrana here had been wiped out in response, but the Third Department were well and truly active. He hadn’t thought those guys
operated
outside interior Russia!

They knew he was alive. They knew someone from MI-7 had escaped, and they were hunting him. His fieldcraft had assured him of that. They knew his drops. They’d busted his sources.
They were getting close.

Texas was gearing up for something. Although he couldn’t get the word out, although his sources had been busted, he could still see with his own eyes.