Rebel Fire (24 page)

“At least we've got food,” Virginia said.

“Let's find some seats,” Sherlock said. “Preferably as far away as possible from those men. The other end of the train, if we can.” He turned to head away, towards the rear of the train, but something in the silence behind him made him turn back.

Berle and another man whom Sherlock didn't recognize were standing behind Virginia and Matty. They must have come along from the other carriage without their noticing.

Sherlock glanced back over his shoulder.

Ives was striding down the aisle of the carriage Sherlock had been planning to head into. He wasn't looking happy.

“Don't be a fool, kid,” Berle said. “Ives is angry enough already. Don't make him worse. He kinda gets … out of control sometimes. Bad things happen then.”

Sherlock glanced back and forth between Ives and Berle. Between the devil and the deep blue sea.

His heart felt leaden in his chest. No way out. Two choices, each of which led to captivity.

No, he told himself. What would Mycroft say? What would Amyus Crowe say? When you've only got two choices, and you don't like either of them, make a third choice.

He opened the door of the carriage and stepped out into the open air.

The green, lush landscape of the New Jersey countryside flashed past in a blur. He heard Virginia gasp behind him, and Ives curse. He kept his left hand gripping the door frame and his left foot wedged against the point where the frame met the floor, and as the wind whistled past him it pushed him backwards, and he swung out and around, into the area between the carriages. He'd spotted a ladder there earlier, leading up to the roof of the carriage, and he grasped for it with his right hand. His fingers closed on a rung, and he stretched with his right leg, trying to get purchase on the ladder. After what seemed like minutes but was probably only a second or two, his foot hit a rung. Releasing his grip on the doorframe, he pulled himself up the ladder.

A hand closed on his left foot before he could pull it up. He kicked downward, feeling his heel hit someone's face. The grip released abruptly, leaving an ache behind where the fingers had clamped down hard.

Within a moment he was on top of the train.

He had to crouch and keep one hand gripping the guide rail that ran along the roof from front to back.

Ahead of him he saw the train curving away. Smoke from the funnel was streaming backwards. It made his eyes water and breathing difficult.

He hesitated for a moment. Rather than be captured he had taken the only other option—escape—but his escape was limited. He was still on the train—literally
on
the train—and he didn't have a plan. No matter where he went, Ives and the other men would find him. Find him and probably kill him. And he couldn't just escape, just jump off the train into a convenient river or something. He had to rescue Virginia and Matty.

He felt despair looming over him like a black wave, but he pushed it backwards with a massive effort of will. Time for that later. Now he had to think.

If he could scramble along the roofs of the carriages to the front of the train, then maybe he could alert the driver. Maybe he could find a way to get a message to the authorities, or get the points switched around to take them back to New York, or something. Anything!

Still crouching, he scrambled along the roof of the carriage. The wind was against him, pushing on him like a giant hand in the centre of his chest, but he pushed back. He had to. His eyes were streaming with tears where the steam was stinging them, and his breath was catching in his chest, but he couldn't stop. Matty and Virginia depended on him.

The train shuddered over some rails, and Sherlock nearly lost his grip. He swayed back and forth for a moment or two, trying to get as low as he could, before he thought he was safe.

Well, saf
er
, he thought, glancing around at the landscape that flashed past in green and brown blurs.

A river was coming up. He could see it ahead of the train, which was curving around towards a bridge that looked like it was made out of matchsticks. He felt his heart pounding.

And then it threatened to explode completely as Ives's head and shoulders appeared at the junction between the carriage Sherlock was climbing along and the one ahead of it. The man must have doubled back along the carriage and climbed up the next ladder.

He pulled himself up to the roof and stood upright. The steam from the engine, pushed backwards by the wind, billowed around him like a white cloak.

“You're not thinking straight, kid,” he yelled. “Where are you goin'? You're safer down there with the others.”

Sherlock shook his head. “You only need one of us to threaten Amyus Crowe with,” he yelled. “And I don't think you want to be saddled with three hostages.”

“Amyus Crowe,” Ives said. “Is that the big guy, the one in the white suit? Never knew his name till now, but he's persistent. An' so are you.”

“You have no idea,” Sherlock yelled, but he was scared. He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of Berle or the other man, but the chances of his being able to get away in that direction were slim. They were probably waiting for him at the next couple of carriage junctions, one of them holding Virginia, the other holding Matty.

When he turned back, Ives was holding a gun.

“You've got moxie, I'll give you that,” Ives said, raising the gun to take aim.

Part of Sherlock was wondering what “moxie” was, while another part was noticing that the train was just shifting from land onto the bridge that he'd seen a few moments before. The ground below suddenly plunged away into a chasm of rock with a glittering blue ribbon at the bottom. And a third part of his brain was trying to tell him something.

Ives fired. Sherlock flinched, but the wind and the vibration had knocked Ives's aim off, as he knew that they would, and the bullet passed harmlessly to one side.

Ives moved closer, trying to maintain his balance, and Sherlock tried to latch onto the thought that hovered just out of reach. Something he'd done recently. Something he'd
bought
.

The sling! Desperately he scrabbled through his pockets looking for the leather pouch with the two bits of leather thong attached that he'd bought at the notions store. Right-hand trouser pocket—no. Left-hand trouser pocket—no. Ives was getting ready to fire again. Left-hand inside jacket pocket—no, but his fingers brushed against the collection of cold ball bearings the storekeeper had given him. Ives was pointing his gun again, bracing it with his other hand. Left-hand outside jacket pocket—yes! Sherlock pulled out the sling and quickly slipped his right hand through the loop, then closed the other loop in his palm, leaving the leather pouch to hang loose.

Ives fired. The bullet whistled past Sherlock's ear.

He delved into his pocket with his left hand, pulling out a ball bearing, and quickly slipped it into the pouch. Before Ives could react, Sherlock whirled the weighted sling around his head twice, then released the thong he was holding. The ball bearing flew towards Ives, making a gleaming line in the sky. It caught his left ear, tearing a chunk of flesh away. Ives cried out in surprise and shock as blood splattered. His eyes went wide with disbelief.

Sherlock grabbed the loose thong again and slipped another ball bearing into the pouch.

The train was in the middle of the bridge now, and Sherlock thought he could detect a sideways motion as the bridge rocked under the weight.

Ives lurched forward and shuffled towards Sherlock, hands outstretched to grab him. He appeared to have forgotten the fact that he still had a gun.

Sherlock whipped the sling around his head again, twice, and let go of the loose thong. The ball bearing shot across the narrowing gap between them, hitting Ives in the centre of his forehead and staying there, in the dent it had created. Ives fell backwards, eyes so wide that Sherlock could see white all around his pupils. His back hit the train roof and he rolled sideways, then vanished over the edge. Sherlock heard a despairing cry as he fell, and then there was nothing but the whistling of the wind and the mournful call of the train's whistle.

Sherlock let his breathing settle and his heart calm down before he stood again and moved backwards to the junction where he had climbed up.

One down; several more to go; but he had a weapon now.

The track clattered beneath the train's wheels as it reached the other side of the ravine. The whistle sounded again. Sherlock glanced forward, towards the engine, and saw that the line ahead split into two. One led onward, straight, while the other curved away, along the edge of the ravine.

And the train was taking the curving branch, slowing down as it passed through a gap in a fence and headed towards a station that Sherlock could see up ahead.

Not a station, he realized.

A house. A large white house. And beyond it, what looked like a series of fenced enclosures, walled areas and cages, like a private zoological exhibition.

He scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could and swung himself back into the carriage. The conductor was moving down the central aisle, pushing past the uneasy passengers, calling, “Unscheduled stop. Please do not alight. This is an unscheduled stop.”

The train drew to a halt in a long
chuff
of escaping steam. It stopped alongside a long veranda that was attached to the back of the house.

A group of eight or nine men were standing on the veranda.

Any hope in Sherlock's mind that they were police, or army, vanished when Berle and the other man stepped off the train, holding Virginia and Matty firmly by the arm, and joined them.

 

T
HIRTEEN

The train was in chaos. Every single passenger appeared to be shouting at the conductor, trying to find out why they had changed train lines, why they had stopped, and where they were. The conductor didn't seem to be sure—he was reassuring people, but there was an expression on his face suggesting that he was out of his depth.

“Unscheduled stop!” he kept shouting. “Please do
not
disembark here.”

On the platform, the two men were still standing with Virginia and Matty. They were waiting for something. Waiting for him, he suspected. Off to one side he could see John Wilkes Booth. He was standing upright, but he was slowly rocking from side to side and his eyes weren't tracking anything in particular. Probably drugged to keep him quiet.

One of the men—one he'd never seen before—moved his right hand out from behind his back momentarily. He was holding a gun.

Sherlock didn't see that he had much choice, so he stepped from the train, down the short stairway to the veranda of the house.

Towards the back of the train he saw that the men who had been waiting on the platform were hauling boxes out of the last carriage. They looked like the boxes he'd seen in the garden of the house at Godalming—the ones where he thought he'd seen something moving inside. As the boxes were removed the men carried them away to a waiting cart. They seemed to be cautious about getting their fingers too close to the gaps between the slats. Two of them cursed as their box suddenly lurched and nearly fell to the ground, although Sherlock couldn't see what had made its weight shift. Maybe something inside had moved.

Although he didn't see any signal being given, the train began to heave itself away from the house with a deafening clanking as the metal connections between the carriages were pulled tight. It moved slowly at first, but increased in speed as it got further away.

“Where's Ives?” Berle asked Sherlock, raising his voice above the noise of the train. Berle was holding Virginia's arm with his right hand. With his left he was holding a carrying handle attached to a small box.

“He dropped off,” Sherlock replied. He could feel his heart thudding within his chest but he tried to keep calm and project an appearance of control.

Virginia and Matty were both staring at him in concern. He looked at each of them in turn, seeking to reassure them that everything was going to be all right, but he didn't believe that and he was sure they didn't either.

“You mean he
fell
off,” Berle said. “You
killed
him!”

“I can smell smoke,” Booth said from behind them, with his eyes still closed. His voice was distant, dreamy.

“Quiet!” growled the third man, the one holding Matty, “or I'll take a brandin' iron to the other side of your face!” He'd probably been subjected to Booth's mania all the way from New York—perhaps all the way from Southampton—and was obviously getting towards his breaking point. Sherlock studied him for a moment. He'd not had a chance to see this man on the train. He was built like a boxer and wore trousers of denim and a denim waistcoat over a collarless shirt. He had a bright red bandanna knotted round his neck.

“Don't bait him, Rubinek,” Berle cautioned. “Duke still needs him.”

The man named Rubinek switched his glare to Sherlock. “What about
him
?” he growled. “Duke don't need
him
for nothin', an' he admitted he killed Ives.” He brought his right hand from behind his back, the hand that wasn't holding Matty, and let the revolver he was holding point towards Sherlock.

“And what about Gilfillan?” Berle asked.

“He's in police custody,” Sherlock answered.

Berle closed his eyes for a moment. “This is going from bad to worse,” he said quietly. “Duke isn't going to be pleased, and I've heard about what happens when Duke isn't pleased.”

“We ain't got much choice,” Rubinek said practically. “The train's gone, an' we're here. So let's get rid of the kids an' go see Duke.”

“We're not getting rid of the kids,” Berle replied quietly, but with authority. With Ives gone he was obviously in charge. “Duke'll want to question them—see how much they know.
Then
he'll probably give them to his pets.”