Alaska Republik-ARC Page 8

  “So which ones are they?”

  “The first one will remain unknown for the moment. I’m the second one.”

  Cassidy grinned. “You’re looking for another job, aren’t you?”

  The beard moved and Cassidy saw a flash of teeth.

  “You’re pretty quick for a guy your size. Your chances of living just changed dramatically, if you make the right decision.”

  “Which would be to hire you?”

  “Yes. You need a guide and someone who knows the Freekorps and can fight at your back.”

  “Nobody gets behind me that I don’t trust implicitly. So far you don’t fit that description. Hell, I don’t even know your name.”

  “Listen hard,” he spoke quickly, “we don’t have the time to go over it a second time. I am Roland Delcambré, a man of wit and education who has fallen on desperate circumstances. I hired myself out as a mercenary soldier to…”

  Cassidy snorted what began as a laugh.

  Delcambré’s hard, dark eyes burned up at him. “You have a big man’s attitude. Don’t confuse size with ability. You haven’t seen me shoot.”

  “Forgive me, you look more the poet than the warrior. Please continue.”

  “Perhaps I also misjudged you,” Delcambré again flashed his grin. “You’re pretty good at sucking up for a man your size.”

  Cassidy bristled and his good humor vanished. “Okay, you little—”

  The snick of a sling blade flashing to rigidity, and the slightest touch of a fine, sharp point under his scrotum, decreased the latter’s size by half.

  “The thing you big guys don’t seem to realize is that someone my size is very much closer to your weak spots.”

  “Make your point, verbally, if possible, and let’s be done with it.”

  The blade vanished.

  “I am a mercenary, and a good one. I can shoot the eye out of a camp robber at 150 yards.”

  The screeching, constantly active Steller’s jay bobbed in Cassidy’s mind for a moment. “And?”

  “I’m one of Riordan’s intelligence agents. The big guy with me is my bodyguard.”

  “Which big guy?” It took all of Cassidy’s willpower not to look around the room with new eyes.

  “The promyshlennik by the door. The one who looks like he’s deep in his cups? He hasn’t had a drink.”

  Cassidy turned his head and scratched his neck sporting a disbelieving look on his face. He spotted the bodyguard, noted the hard stare from beneath the lowered eyelids over a falsely jovial mouth.

  “Alright. I believe you. Are you as good at your job as he is at his?”

  “Much better. He’s stupid and happy where he is. I am looking for other employment.”

  “Why? Seriously?”

  “Listen, I’ve been serious from the first. You were the one with size prejudices that got in the way of rational thinking. This is your last chance to hear me out; would you like to use it?”

  “I don’t apologize twice. What’s your proposition?”

  “For half of what you earn and find, I will lead you to Riordan, if you wish, or help you avoid him: your choice.”

  “I really don’t make all that much.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. So here’s the situation. Potempkin over there is waiting for me to either scratch my chin, or pull my ear.”

  “Potempkin—what kind of a name is that?”

  “He was named after the ship his grandfather was on; they shot a bunch of traitors or something; you’d have to ask him about it right before he cuts your throat.”

  “And what would you do first to get my throat sliced, scratch or pull?”

  “Scratch,” Delcambré said, flashing his smile again. “Scratch means ‘kill’ and pull means ‘no worries.’ ”

  “You’re scared of him, aren’t you?”

  “Okay, I’m now completely convinced you are my mental equal and I would be happy to share your circumstance, no matter how miserable, if you would just say the word.”

  “Can you cook?”

  “Yes, but I don’t clean and I am utterly subservient and devoted to women when it comes to sex. Just wanted to make that clear.”

  “It seems we agree on a great deal.”

  Cristina materialized out of the crowd. “You owe me sixty coppers or the equivalent for the petrol.”

  Cassidy counted out six silver coins into her steady hand.

  “Thanks, and good luck with your questions.” She stared hard at Delcambré before disappearing into the crowd.

  Cassidy grinned. “Okay, pull your ear and let’s get out of here. I’ll hit him high and you hit him low.”

  “Gawd, you’re smart enough to be a general!”

  “Charge!”

  They both stood. Roland pulled his ear theatrically and they walked straight toward the promyshlennik. Potempkin jerked to his feet, eyes flashing up and down between them.

  “Is he the one Riordan is looking for?” He stared at Roland, who finally nodded.

  “Yeah. Come on.” He nodded toward the door and charged ahead. Cassidy stayed right behind Roland but also kept an eye on the battleship at his back.

  Once out in the fragrant, soft, impressionistic glow that passed for evening in the high subarctic spring, Roland abruptly stopped and turned to Potempkin. Cassidy could smell a hint of wood smoke in the clear, cool air.

  “You have two choices. Go back to Riordan without me, or stay here.”

  Potempkin frowned at him.

  “Oh, there is another choice: die.”

  Understanding thrummed through Potempkin like the strike of a cathedral bell.

  Grabbing the hilt of his sheath knife, he sneered, “And who would be killing me? You or this clumsy oaf with you?”

  Knives flashed in the soft light and the last thing Potempkin heard through fading pain was: “Both!”

  20

  55 miles south of Delta

  Bodecia couldn’t rouse Rudi. Pelagian had stumbled to his feet at her bidding and crawled into the leaf-mattress bed she had made in the back of the truck. She had spent a frantic twenty minutes stripping the leaves off willows to cushion the men.

  Rudi endured her increasingly heavier slaps on his face without even blinking. She stopped; her hand hurt anyway. Abruptly she rose and went to the water skin, brought it back and dumped half a gallon on his head.

  “Ahhh, what, why did you do that?” Rudi’s eyes had yet to open.

  “Wake up, now, Rudi. I need for you to move.”

  His eyes squinted open. “So bright here. Where, oh, is you.”

  He pushed himself up, groaning with the effort. Once upright he rested, breathing hard.

  “Da, what do you require?”

  “I want you to get in the back of that truck. I’ll help you.”

  “Thank you,” he said through a wheeze as she helped him stand.

  She led him to the truck and he crawled into the back and lay down next to Pelagian.

  “Will not ask where you obtained vehicle, but grateful you did.”

  She covered them with the parachute and packed more leaves in between them and the sides of the truck bed. Their gear also offered some cushioning. She glanced around the area, decided she hadn’t missed anything, and climbed into the cab with the dogs.

  The engine caught on the first turn and she pulled away from their refuge in low gear. The trail proved easy to follow, but the uneven ground caused the truck to bounce and sway. She slowed even further so the truck felt more like a small boat on a medium sea.

  Bodecia had hated being on the ship that took her to college in Vancouver, British Canada. The ocean seemed so alien, so unnatural, that she couldn’t sleep the entire four-day voyage out of fear they would sink. After she settled in the omnibus, which would take her to the campus, she fell so fast asleep that an emergency medical crew was called and they took her to a hospital.

  She grinned at the memory. Ever after, the other students called her “Rip.” At least the truck sailed s
olid ground and the rolls felt gentle rather than tempestuous.

  “This is a lot faster than walking,” she said to herself.

  The landscape bobbed up and down in all three of the rearview mirrors. She began glancing from mirror to mirror, comparing the different views of the same thing. She held on the right mirror, and then shifted her vision to the left mirror, just in time to see it explode. Two hammer-blow reports shook her at the same time.

  Stifling her involuntary flinch, she stared at the inside mirror and beheld a Russian armored car directly behind them. The gunner at the top of the small turret aimed his heavy machine gun down into the back of the truck, at Pelagian and Rudi.

  She slammed on the brakes and spoke sharply to the dogs, “Home! Now!” They leaped through the open window and vanished into the ubiquitous willows and birch.

  She envied them.

  “Who are you?” the Russian lieutenant demanded, his hand resting on his holstered pistol. “And who are these men?” A sergeant and a corporal stood on either side of him, training their automatic weapons through the truck window at her.

  “I am Bodecia,” she said in fluent Russian, “a healer of the Dená people. The large man in the back is my husband, the other is a man we found in the forest.”

  “What’s wrong with them?”

  “The man was injured in a great fall, or so he said. He has internal injuries, which I treated. My husband was shot by unknown assailants.”

  “His wounds wouldn’t have anything to do with the dead crew of one of our armored cars, would they?”

  The sergeant and corporal exchanged knowing looks.

  Bodecia thought fast. “I don’t think so, not unless they were wearing different uniforms.”

  “The Freekorps, Lieutenant?” the sergeant blurted.

  “Shut up, you idiot.” The lieutenant returned his steely gaze to Bodecia. “What kind of uniforms did they wear?”

  “I wasn’t paying close attention.” She reached out with all her senses and repeated the words that came into her mind. “But they had splashes of different drab colors all over them, like that silk in the back of the truck.”

  “That isn’t merely silk, it’s a parachute. Where did you get that?”

  “Near a crashed plane far up on the Gakona River. The pilot had jumped out but the parachute didn’t slow him down enough. We buried him there.”

  “Do you know why it crashed?”

  “We heard many guns firing. I think it was shot down.”

  “Exactly where on the Gakona River was this?”

  “Near Rainbow Mountain.”

  “Then the radio report was true—”

  “Sergeant Platnikov, if you say one more word I’ll have you shot!” The lieutenant stared at Bodecia again. “And you decided you could take Imperial Russian property with impunity. Why?” He kicked the door of the truck.

  “You had many; we had none. My patients couldn’t walk and I wished to get them to more medical help than I can provide. I didn’t realize there was an encampment there, too.”

  “Because you didn’t bother to look, or you’re lying. We don’t leave fleets of vehicles in the wilderness unattended. Everybody knows that. The penalty for stealing the Czar’s property is instant death.”

  She felt weak with sudden fear. Her hand still clutched the machine pistol at her side, but there were three surrounding the truck and one manning the heavy machine gun in the armored car. She couldn’t get all four of them before they shot her.

  “Lieutenant!” the sergeant said in an urgent tone.

  The lieutenant twisted to face his subordinate while pulling his pistol out. “I told you—”

  “Aircraft, sir.”

  “Oh.”

  “Three aircraft to the north!” bellowed the gunner on the armored car.

  “Get your glasses on them,” the lieutenant screamed. “Are they Yaks?”

  “No, sir. They’re not Russian.”

  “Can you see any identifying insignia?” Fear radiated from him.

  All three men next to the truck fixated on the aircraft. Bodecia decided this was the only chance she had to get her patients out alive. She eased into second gear and popped the clutch; the truck lurched off like an Arctic hare.

  She swung to the left for a hundred meters and then swung back to the right. Heavy machine gun fire blasted the willows where she would have been had she not swerved; then it started following her. Three aircraft roared over her at very low altitude and she slammed on her brakes to stare in the rearview mirror.

  The gunner now fired at the planes, as did all three of the men on the ground. Flying gravel, dust and rocks, thrown up by the bullets from the wing guns on the planes, obscured her view. Above the cloud of dust and debris, she saw the three planes lift and veer toward the concentration of Russian vehicles.

  When the dust settled, she clearly saw the three Russian soldiers splayed in attitudes of death in front of the burning armored car. She wondered if the planes were going to come back and strafe the truck.

  She needed some way to identify them as allies or noncombatants. Her gaze fastened on the emergency medical kit and the solution bloomed in her mind. She ripped items from the kit, crawled across the hood to the roof of the truck and was finished in moments.

  Grinning, she swung back into the cab, cranked the engine over and drove as fast as she could for Delta.

  Moments later the three aircraft buzzed low over her and the middle plane waggled his wings. Then they disappeared over the horizon.

  Bodecia laughed out loud.

  21

  40 miles south of Delta

  Magda held her hand up and Jerry halted, quickly surveying their horizon, seeking threat.

  “We need to turn here,” she said.

  He sighed in relief and followed her gaze.

  “How do you know? This is the third trail we’ve crossed.”

  “Because from here I can see Denali framed between those two trees. I can’t show you proof in one of those travel books, but you can believe my decision.”

  “Well, you’re going to follow that path, therefore I will also follow it.”

  Magda chuckled. “You’re not following the path. You’re following me.”

  “Which will take me to the same place anyway. Yes?”

  “Yes. So keep up.” Magda turned away.

  “Wait,” he said in a very authoritative tone.

  She swung back. “What?”

  “What’s on this trail? Is there anything I should be aware of in order not to get killed?”

  She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Yes, there is a Russian odinochka, which must be avoided even though I think there will be nobody there.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “There will be a woman, probably Dená, like me. But her man will be gone to the Russians. Word travels fast in the bush, especially this close to the Russians. There are always people going somewhere else, and they talk.

  “Once her man hears of the Dená attacks he will immediately hurry to the nearest redoubt to profess his loyalty and total ignorance of what is happening in Russian Amerika. These men are a waste of good women.”

  “Are they also Indians?”

  “Some. Most are part Russian, a few are French Canadians.”

  “Does Russia get along with French Canada?”

  “I thought you were the one with the worldly education of North America.”

  Jerry suspected a sneer, but ignored it. “Historically they have been at odds since Napoleon marched into Russia. Even though he went no farther than the Berezina River before having second thoughts and withdrawing: he upset the czar.

  “Despite the fact he won eastern Canada from the English, then an ally of Russia, diplomatically the two countries agree on more than they disagree. You mentioned French Canada and I wondered if there was something going on here not covered in my studies.”

  Magda smiled. “Most of the Frenchmen here are refugees f
rom French Canada. They are radicals but have their uses to the Russians. If they do not cooperate with the government, they will be deported back to Montreal.”

  “Where they would be shot.” Jerry nodded.

  “Or lose their heads to the guillotine.”

  “How long do you think they would be away?”

  “No idea.”

  “So we should avoid the…”

  “Odinochka.”

  “…at all costs.”

  “Isn’t that what I said in the beginning?”

  He thought hard while he followed her and the silent dogs. “Yeah, but I needed to know why, that okay with you?”

  “Sure, just don’t stop when you talk; we waste time that way.”

  He puffed along for a few minutes. “There anything else ahead that I need to know?”

  “Yeah. Don’t make a lot of noise; we’re in Russian country.”

  “Okay,” he said in a low voice she probably didn’t hear. “Thanks.”

  They walked along a wide valley for a few miles. A low drone caught his attention.

  “Listen!” Jerry hissed. They both froze and sank back under the trailside trees. A rapidly growing growl now hung at the edges of their ears. Both dogs peered into the sky.

  “Those are P-61s!” Jerry shouted, dancing out into the open.

  Three aircraft roared down the valley toward them, no more than 200 meters above ground.

  “They came looking for me, they came looking for me!” He jumped up and down waving his arms.

  Watching him, Magda suddenly teared up. He thought his comrades had forgotten him. With her mother and father she had witnessed much of the air attack on the ridge and knew how fierce the fighting had been.

  She wondered if Jerry knew how many of his fellow pilots had died that day. In the time since they had been together, she had completely forgotten to mention the subject. So many things had happened…

  The planes roared over them and the middle craft waggled its wings as they lifted to higher altitude.

  “They saw me!” Jerry was nearly hoarse. He turned and grinned at her. “They saw me, Magda.”

  “I’m glad they know you’re here. I just hope they can send a land party to help us.”

  He went still for a long moment and then looked around. “Yeah, they’d play hell landing here, wouldn’t they?”