Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) (17 page)

“Head for the exit,” said Lazarus.

They moved slowly, a wide circle of workers enveloping them like a pack of hungry wolves. Lazarus noticed several of the soldiers edging along the walkway to the stairs by the exit, hoping to cut off their escape. He fired a couple of shots at them and made them think twice.

Somebody got too close to Mr. Clumps and the mechanical fired without hesitation, killing the man instantly. The crowd fell back, unnerved.

“Now!” Lazarus yelled and they turned and fled.

It took only a heartbeat for the workers to recover their wits and give chase. Several shots rang out from the walkway, but missed their targets who were quickly through the exits. Soon, the three escapees were pounding along the platforms towards the tunnel. Lazarus felled a soldier that appeared out of nowhere and leaped over his body as it slumped to the ground.

It was useless to lead a mad chase down the tunnel with fifty factory workers after their blood, but Lazarus had a better idea. “After me!” he cried, cutting left through an archway that led to the culvert and the armored vehicle hanger.

“We’ll be killed!” Mary said, eyeing the water that thundered below the iron bridge. “What’s to stop us from being sucked under and drowned?”

“Can’t you swim?” Lazarus asked her.

She shrugged. “Dunno. Never tried. Not much call for it in Limerick, unless you go in the sea which is too cold by half.”

Lazarus groaned. “Well you’ll have to learn pretty sharpish or we all wait here and face the mob.”

The crowd of workers was fast approaching down the corridor.

“Look, I’ll hold onto you,” Lazarus told her. “All you have to do is keep kicking with your feet and only take a breath when you get the chance.”

“Where does all this water go, anyway?”

“Some reservoir, I expect. Or maybe direct into the Thames.”

“All right then. But you hold on to me bloody tight, mister!”

“Good. Ready?”

“No,” said Mr. Clumps.

“What?”

“I can’t join you.”

“Why ever not?”

“I’m not waterproof. My furnace would be dampened and I would sink to the bottom.”

“Christ, I never thought of that! What can we do?”

“You both go. I’ll fight my way down the tunnel and we’ll meet on the surface.”

“All right, but I want no heroics from you, Clumps. Just push through and get to the nearest station or exit you can find. We’re headed for the nearest police station. You do the same and I’ll put out a telegraph for you.”

“Get moving then,” said the mechanical and he lumbered off back the way they had come, his pistol lighting up the brick arches with orange flashes.

Lazarus grabbed hold of Mary’s hand and jumped, pulling her down with him to hit the foaming torrent below.

Chapter Sixteen

In which the revolution begins

They rose up in a flurry of bubbles and broke the surface, gasping for air. It was dark—the echoes of dripping water told Lazarus that they had emerged in one of London’s underground reservoirs. Mary’s dress and petticoats were sodden and she weighed a ton.

“Keep kicking!” Lazarus told her, frightened that she might pull him under.

“I’m trying!” she spluttered.

A faint light flickered across the water’s surface far out in the blackness. Lazarus made for it with Mary’s arms over his shoulders. It was a hard swim, but eventually his knees banged against the brick steps that led up towards the light. A vertical ladder of iron rungs led up to a barred inspection cover through which light streamed.

Lazarus put his shoulder to it, heaved it up and slid it across. They emerged, sodden and cold, in what looked like a park lit by moonlight. They wrung the water out of their clothes and stamped about in an attempt to get warm.

“I’ll catch my death like this!” Mary complained.

It was no exaggeration. The October night was chill and the wind cut through their soaking garments like a knife. They had to find somewhere warm, and get into some dry clothes quickly.

“Any idea where we are?” Mary asked.

“Not a clue. Still in London, at least.”

They headed over to the iron railings that fenced the park and spent some time looking for a cab. When they got one, Lazarus told the driver to take them to the nearest police station.

The sergeant at Muswell Hill Police Station eyed them skeptically as Lazarus told him that they had recently escaped from an underground (in every sense of the word) revolutionary society that intended the overthrow of the British state. He was even more skeptical when the bedraggled and dripping man on the other side of his desk claimed to be a government agent, with an urgent message for Whitehall which must be sent immediately.

It was a frustrating ten minutes as Lazarus told and retold his story, while they stood dripping wet with the sergeant frowning at what he clearly considered a raving madman and a prostitute who had recently taken a drunken plunge in the River Lea.

Eventually the message got through that they were to be taken seriously. They were given blankets, hot tea and were allowed to dry themselves by the little potbelly stove in the parlor, while the sergeant saw that Lazarus’s message was sent. It would go directly to Morton’s office.

“My superior will have the military flush Pedachenko’s revolution out of its warren, like rats from a sewer,” Lazarus told Mary as they sipped their tea, steam curling up from their clothes.

She did not answer and he sensed that in her heart she still poured scorn on him.

“Look, I’m sorry about Mansfield,” he said. “But I really acted in everybody’s best interests. I couldn’t very well leave him in Limehouse while Clumps and I went on this jaunt with the revolutionaries.”

“I don’t suppose you left anybody to guard over him at his hotel?” Mary asked. “Police or anybody?”

“No, I can’t allow his condition to become known. But you must trust me on this, Mary. I would never do anything that would put you or any other girl in danger. I promise.”

“What’s become of Mr. Clumps?”

“I mentioned him in my dispatch. They’ll find him and have him sent here.”

It became apparent that some sort of excitement was unfolding by the main desk. Sergeants and inspectors hurried in and out of offices with bits of paper and there was a general feeling of tense agitation.

“What’s up?” Lazarus asked the sergeant at the desk.

“Sounds like your underground boys have made their first blow against us,” the sergeant replied gravely. “Somebody just detonated a device in the London Stock Exchange.”

“Christ almighty!”

“The wire’s on fire with it. We’re all being notified to watch out for any similar attacks. This sound like your Russian fellow?”

“Absolutely. There is no shortage of explosives in his lair. He must be accelerating his plans after our escape. He knows that I can lead the authorities to his lair and is starting his war right now!”

“Then he must be halted in his tracks,” said a voice. A tall man with a dark brown side parting and a long moustache stood in the doorway, removing his hat. Lazarus recognized him as Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. A second man with large side whiskers stood beside him. Lazarus felt he had seen him before but couldn’t remember where. They both wore great coats and had just come in from the cold. “But what we need to know from you, Mr. Longman,” Warren went on, “is where he will strike next.”

“I can’t answer that, sir,” said Lazarus. “I was put in charge of training his troops for a morning, but was not privy to his master plan.”

“You mean to say,” broke in the bewhiskered man at Warren’s side, “that you had a hand in training this army of lunatics at his command?”

“This is Inspector Frederick Abberline from Scotland Yard,” said Warren. “He used to work for A Division and knows your superiors very well.”

Yes, Lazarus might have seen Inspector Abberline at Whitehall but it was far more probable, he felt, that he recognized those graying whiskers from the press reports of the police’s investigation into the Ripper murders. Abberline was one of the chief officials on the case.

“My involvement was minimal,” Lazarus explained, “and entirely necessary to keep my cover.”

“Your cover?” said Abberline with a snarl. “I don’t know what orders Morton gives you fellows, but it goes against my gut to be forced to let you prance all about this city as if you were above the law. If I had my way you’d all be locked up for obstructing justice. I know all about the red tape that Morton slips you boys under, red tape the rest of us have to stick by.”

“Calm yourself, Frank,” said Warren. “We don’t have time to vent our frustrations concerning other agencies. Now then, lad. Anything you remember that might be of any help?”

Lad?
thought Lazarus with indignation. If these old fools had seen half the things he had in the pursuit of his ludicrously dangerous missions all around the world in the service of the empire, they’d be treating him with a damned sight more respect.

“It’ll be a symbol of capitalism or state control,” he answered at length. Then it came to him. “Greenwich Observatory!”

“What has the observatory got to do with capitalism?” Warren asked.

“When my associate and I were brought down to Pedachenko’s underground lair we were met by an armed patrol who said they had been checking the exits at Greenwich and the Docklands. As the home of the Prime Meridian, Greenwich Observatory is a symbol of the status quo. Pedachenko was ranting about bringing down all that is and starting from scratch. He’s gone after the economy and now he wants to attack time itself!”

“Right, sergeant,” said Commissioner Warren to the man at the desk. “Wire to Greenwich Station and tell them to get every copper they have to form a perimeter around the observatory. Pay special attention to the park. Get all the night time strollers out of it. And have officers keep a watch on who comes out of Maze Hill Station. I’ll be there in a tick.”

“Room in your cab for two more?” Lazarus asked the Commissioner.

“Two? You’re not thinking of taking this blower along, are you?” said Abberline with a glance to Mary.

“Watch who you’re calling names, copper!” Mary interjected.

“Do you want to spend the night in the nick?” Abberline said to her, his fist held threateningly under her nose.

“She comes with us,” Lazarus affirmed. “The stock exchange was just the beginning. I hope you’ve got all your coppers to hand, Commissioner, because London is set to become a warzone within the hour. And I’m not letting this woman wander off home through it all alone. Where I go, she goes.”

“For the love of Christ,” Warren wheezed. “But only because there is no time to argue.”

They all scrambled into the Commissioner’s Clarence outside, and the driver gave the horses such a lash that they shot off down the street like a bat out of hell.

“Run many people over in your line of work, Commissioner?” Mary asked him.

Lazarus gritted his teeth. He would have to have a word with her about insolence when time permitted. But the Commissioner’s face was a picture, he had to admit.

When they rolled up outside Maze Hill Railway Station they saw that the Commissioner’s wire had been received. Officers in uniform stood guard at the exit, analyzing anybody and everybody who emerged through its doors. They gulped at the sight of Commissioner Warren in his silk hat and cape, sweeping towards them like a phantom.

“Have you fellows got all the entrances to the observatory bolted up tight?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” one of them replied. “Inspector Bellamy is there himself.”

“And the park is clear?”

“Um, I don’t know about that sir. Inspector Bellamy said to focus all our efforts on evacuating the observatory and making sure nobody gets in.”

“Damn him!” Warren cursed. “They could come at us from any side and we wouldn’t know about it until they were too close.”

They hurried into the park and made their way towards the observatory’s northern entrance. There were still a few people wandering the nighted green under the trees like specters in the moonlight. When they got to the observatory, Commissioner Warren let rip into Inspector Bellamy about insubordination.

Lazarus felt that this was not wholly deserved. After all, the poor inspector had only a handful of men and he had been right to evacuate the building. But Warren was a man under intense pressure these days. The press did not make light of the inability of the Commissioner and the men under his command to catch the Ripper. Baseless accusations were hurled at him and it seemed that he could not win on either front. If he swamped Whitechapel with uniformed men then he was accused of being a tyrant, yet if he sent them in plainclothes, nobody noticed them and bemoaned the lack of a police presence to protect them.

Well, few will be bemoaning the lack of coppers on London’s streets by the end of this night
, Lazarus thought to himself grimly.

Orders were given to rid the park of all its occupants and little by little, under the stern commands and gentle prods of the constables’ truncheons, people began to dissipate. But for every one that left the park, two seemed to take his place. It became apparent that the police cordon was a subject of excitement, and drew spectators from the streets surrounding the park.

“The damned fools don’t know that we’re trying to help them,” grumbled Inspector Abberline. He turned to Lazarus. “Why don’t you nip back to the station and inform the officers there to start telling people that they’re not to go into the park.”

Lazarus was about to tell the inspector that he should send one of his own bloody men on his errands, when he spotted a figure in a flat cap and open jacket that had slipped by the policemen and was heading towards them. “There!” he cried. “Stop that fellow!”

Abberline called the attention of two nearby officers and told them to apprehend the man.

“No!” Lazarus snapped, noticing the container swinging in his grip. “He’s carrying something.”

It looked for all the world like a tin of something one might purchase in a hardware shop; varnish or paint.

“Keep away from him!” Lazarus ordered the men.

The two coppers halted in their tracks and looked back at him dumbly. Lazarus drew his revolver. “You there!” he cried out to the man with the tin. “Stand still! Don’t come any further! I’m warning you! I’ll shoot!”

The man, as if deaf, continued his brisk pace. Lazarus knew it was futile to try and persuade him. This was undoubtedly one of Pedachenko’s mind-controlled puppets. He would waste no more time attempting to negotiate. He fired once and hoped the hit would not be fatal.

He was to be disappointed. The man stumbled and fell. As soon as the varnish tin hit the grass there was an almighty explosion. Turf was torn up and showered like confetti through a billowing cloud of smoke, in which body parts rained down with heavy thuds.

“My God,” said Abberline. “What could his intention have been? There was no way he could have detonated that device and made it out alive.”

“Pedachenko has hypnotized his men into suicidal followers,” Lazarus said. “I suspect it was a similar story at the Stock Exchange.”

“Suicide bombers,” Abberline mumbled in disbelief. “What in God’s name is the world coming to?”

Commissioner Warren appeared behind them. “They’ll need to break out the shovels for that one,” he said in a flat tone. “But we’ve got worse problems.”

Lazarus and Abberline turned to him.

“There’s a mob running riot in the East End. They’re storming factories and sweatshops, beating up foremen and persuading the workers to join them.”

“Have the military been called in?” Lazarus asked him. “Pedachenko’s got war machines; armored things with guns.”

“The 8th Hussars and the 11th Horse Artillery are on their way,” Warren replied. “As well as two infantry regiments. But they won’t get through for some time. I’ve had every available constable, life guard and volunteer marshaled at the stations on Leman Street and East India Dock Road. We’re for Leman Street. On the way you can tell me more about these war machines of his.”