The Amtrack Wars - Earth Thunder Part 59

Cadillac sidled up to Roz and whispered: 'Okay, I've planted the bug.

Is she gonna go through with it?"

'Oh, yes,' said Roz, her voice breaking. 'Don't worry.

She's not going to let anything stop her now." She backed towards the false beam and followed Cadillac through into the pa.s.sage before releasing her mental grip on Mis.h.i.+ko.

Whispering a declaration of undying love, the Herald stepped back and vanished. Mis.h.i.+ko found herself standing in an empty room, with her arms stretched out in front of her. She could still feel the lines traced over her hands by his fingers as he slipped from her grasp.

Wrapping her arms around her ribs, Mis.h.i.+ko fell to her knees on the mattress bed and rocked slowly back and forth, nursing the unbearable pain of separation. Soon, my love. Soon....

Roz and Cadillac sat sideways on the narrow set of steps that led up to the secret doorway into the Shogun's bed-chamber with their backs against the same wall. The lamp, its wick trimmed to conserve the precious oil, stood on the floor of the pa.s.sageway below. The dim light did not reach all the way up the stairs- an arrangement which suited Roz because it meant that Ieyasu's head-bag was lost in the shadows. Her elbow was parked on the same step as Cadillac's feet and between them was the radio, tuned to the listening bug he had placed under the small black lacquered table. If all went well, it would broadcast the sounds of death and its aftermath sometime between now and dawn, and would help them gauge when it was safe to enter to obtain the final piece of evidence they needed.

Cadillac sensed that Roz was deeply troubled by the trail of violence she had helped to unleash and the knowledge that the blood-letting had barely begun. He reached down and tried to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. It felt hard and unwelcoming.

'Roz, listen - I know what this is doing to you. But now we've started, we have to see it through. Just remember this woman is no different from the rest of them. These people are merciless. If she didn't want vengeance, we couldn't have made her do this."

Roz averted her face. 'Good. That makes me feel a whole lot better."

She drew a finger across both cheeks to dry them. 'You don't seem to have grasped she's not just driven by hate. Mis.h.i.+ko's about to kill herself because of her love for a dead man. She can't bear to live without him."

To Cadillac, this all sounded depressingly familiar.

He sighed wearily and received an unexpectedly painful punch in the thigh. 'Owww!!" 'Don't try and yawn this one off, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Have you any idea what that means - to love someone that much?

The one worthwhile emotion in this world and what have we done?

Exploited it for our own ends in the cruellest of deceptions. We pushed her into. this by building up her hopes and what's she going to end up with? Nothing!

You may find that a big joke, but it makes me feel sick inside."

Cadillac rubbed his thigh and prepared to ward off another punch. 'At least she'll die happy. Disappointment is an emotion you can only suffer from when you're alive."

'It must feel good to have a pat answer to everything."

She brushed away his hand as it reached out for her shoulder again.

'This is the wrong time for us to fall out, Roz. I know what love is, and I know what we've done and why. If you still think I'm the bad guy by the time we get home take it out on me then. Meanwhile we've got work to do."

'Sure,' she sniffed. 'Just blowing off steam. Don't worry. The doctor will still be on call."

Cadillac 'decided it would be wiser not to respond. That was the trouble with words. They could always be twisted around to give them a meaning you never intended. Once uttered, words could never be un-said- and no amount of apologising could ever erase them from the mind. 'Could you pa.s.s me up the lamp? I'd like to take another look at this alternative escape route Mis.h.i.+ko sketched out for

US.".

Roz handed him the lamp without a word. The fate of Lady Mis.h.i.+ko and her children was not the only thing troubling her. Roz now knew, without any shadow of doubt, that Steve was in the Summer Palace. The shock of his arrest and the rough treatment meted out by his captors had triggered a clean contact. The mind-bridge was open again.

Steve's companion was a woman- and with that image had come the feeling of power. She was a member of the First Family. Someone close to the President-General-someone whom Roz had never met but who knew her almost as well as she knew herself.

Cadillac had floated the idea of capturing the envoys and trading them for Clearwater and her child, but since their argument in the hot tub he hadn't said anything further. And with the envoys now in the slammer, he had probably decided it was one problem too many. If so,'

he would have to think again because Rozalynn Roosevelt Brickman wasn't leaving without her kin-brother ....

The dungeons of the Summer Palace were situated below the main courtyard. A square, raised stone structure with heavy iron grilles in the side which served as a kind of clerestory, surmounted a vertical shaft that ran from top to bottom of the subterranean cell-block and provided the only natural light to reach into the pa.s.sages running off it.

The cells nearest the shaft were provided with some light and ventilation; those at the far end of the pa.s.sageways remained shrouded in gloom during the day.

The air was stale and fetid, and at night the pitch darkness was only relieved by the occasional glow of a lamp carried by a patrolling prison warder.

It was in one of these less favoured units on the second floor down that Steve and Fran now found themselves, after being hauled out of bed by six frenzied armed men who had pushed them around and yelled abuse in their faces as they complied with the order to dress. The trail bags with their hidden radio packs had then been rammed against their chests and they were given a few more seconds to pack the rest of their belongings before being hustled down a bewildering maze of pa.s.sageways into a foul-smelling j.a.panese underworld.

There was no point in protesting. Steve knew when these guys were hyped up anything could happen and it was likely to be very unpleasant.

That didn't stop Fran trying, but before she'd uttered three words, she had been silenced by a rain of blows to her head and back delivered by the Soldiers behind her. Steve got it in the neck too, just for being there. The nightmare journey had ended in a dank corridor with a cell-door being slammed shut behind them as they were sent sprawling on their faces in a bed of straw that reeked of urine and human excrement.

Having been raised in the Federation, neither of them felt claustrophobic, but the sudden transition from relative luxury to a dark, stinking cell had left them feeling totally disoriented. No one had offered a word of explanation, but it was obvious something had gone badly wrong. A major upset in which they were deemed to be implicated. This was definitely not a fun place. The clammy stone walls smelt as if they were coated with blood, sweat and fear.

Steve was alarmed at the sudden downturn in their fortunes, but he wasn't frightened. For in the same instant as he collided with the floor, the wall he had built around his mind blew apart, allowing Roz to enter.

The telepathic bond between them was like a videophone line down which he could send words and pictures.

But for Steve that was where it ended. Roz had the uncanny ability to search him out with her mind and locate his position with the aid of a map. And because Steve had been the only one, so far, to have suffered serious injury, the mysterious process by which her body produced replicate wounds appeared to be another unique attribute.

The link was clean and strong, just as it had been when he'd sent out the desperate May-Day appeal from the locked cabin of the wheel-boat, but the unexpected contact left his mind reeling.

Roz wasn't in Wyoming. She was here, in the Summer Palace- with Cadillac!

They were involved in an operation against the TohYota.

That was the reason for the present uproar, and why he and Fran had been arrested.

Terrific. Just what he needed!

What the h.e.l.l did Cadillac think he was up to? Steve didn't give a d.a.m.n about the deal the Federation had been trying to set up, but he did care about the fallout.

Even if Roz was able to make good her unspoken promise to spring him from this rat-hole it would still leave everything totally messed up.

The overthrow of the present ruling family might be a good enough reason for returning empty-handed, but if the P-G found out the deal had been blown by Roz and Cadillac, 8902

Brickman S.R. could kiss goodbye to the high life and look forward to getting his b.a.l.l.s roasted.

His involvement with both of them was too deep for him to disclaim all responsibility. Even though he and Roz hadn't been inside each other's .heads since she'd left the Red River wagon-train, he couldn't prove it. Karlstrom and the P-G were bound to believe he was in this up to his neck. Prior knowledge and active involvement. A tough rap to beat.

If the flak came his way, Fran would step aside. You could bet your last credit on that. It made better sense to try and get Fran out on his own. At least that would earn him an E for Effort. Yeah... plus an A for an Amazing escape from a locked underground cell.

The only way it could be done was with outside help. Between them, Roz and Cadillac had the skill and the power. If they concealed their true ident.i.ties from Fran, Brickman S.R. could avoid being fatally compromised. All well and good, but AMEXICO had men inside Ne-Issan with their ear to the ground - guys like Sidewinder. If the Toh-Yota fell and the s.h.i.+t hit the fan, the truth was bound to come out.

Steve found himself smiling as these thoughts ran through his head. It was one crazy kind of world where being rescued was the worst thing that could happen to you.