Strontium Swamp Read online

  “They have played into my hands, perhaps made it easier for me, and yet I will not be happy until the task is completed,” he muttered. Diamond said nothing, knowing from past experience that all speech from the baron was rhetorical. Raising his face to look at the sec chief, and raising his voice to a proportionate level, he continued. “Hidden away in the swamp, they’ve been a bastard to find, and thorn in my paw for too long. This way, they’ve made it easy to take them by coming right out into the open. At the same time, they’ve given me a chance to show the people what they can do if they pull together, if they follow me. That much is good.”

  He lapsed into silence. Diamond waited, knowing that his role was to be silent, and act when he was ordered…when the order finally came. Eventually, Dr. Jean. continued.

  “I want you to send our best fighters to the location the scumsucker swamp rat told us about. I want twenty men, with enough blasters to take out five times that many. I want whoever is leading this arrogant little party to be spared if possible—I have plans for them. Remember, Diamond, I want them to take no chances. I want them to be there ahead of the people that live on that block and in that dorm building.”

  “Sir,” Diamond said simply. It was one word alone, but there had to have been something in his tone that made the baron look up sharply. He could see the confusion written large in the sec chief’s face, and yet the unwillingness to face his wrath by asking the questions that strained at the leash. This pleased Dr. Jean, and he decided to grant Diamond an answer to his unspoken query.

  “You are wondering, are you not, why I want a sec force to get there first and not allow the people to do the job, especially as I made great play of telling them that this was to be their chance to prove themselves.”

  Diamond, not quite knowing what to do, settled for a halfhearted and nervous shrug. It made the Baron erupt into gales of laughter. He rose from his throne, put his arm around the sec chief’s shoulder, and guided him to the window looking out over the walled ville, pulling back a heavy purple-velvet drape so that the electrically lit night intruded on the candlelight of the throne room.

  “Look at them, Diamond. They love me. Because I tell them to, because I give them jolt and guide their thoughts and actions. Because I give them food and shelter. Yes, I work them hard, but they are rewarded for it. The problem, my friend, is that they do not fight. And the food they eat is diseased. No matter how much we try, this accursed bayou is full of disease that eats at their strength and bodies. And there is the pox brought in by those gaudy shirts we have traded for; they do their jobs, but they spread dripdick and pox sores with every fuck. The people we have here are debilitated by their lives. When I get beyond the bayou, I will have strong people—sluts without disease, food that is healthy. And yes, these people will come with me. Some of them. Those that survive.

  “But not yet. And not now. I tell you, Diamond, I know these people would chill each other if I asked them. They would try to chill the swamp scum. But I cannot be sure of them, because the food and sex that helps bind them to me also makes them weak. You do not send children to do a man’s job. They are children. Your sec are the men.

  “Now do you understand?”

  Diamond looked into the face of his baron. There was a darkness in the deep pits of his eyes that chilled the sec chief to the bone. He hadn’t understood more than every other word, and yet he nodded eagerly, not wanting to anger the man who terrified him.

  Dr. Jean sighed. “Of course you don’t. Just go and do as I say, Diamond.”

  The sec chief scuttled from the throne room, leaving the baron to look out over the ville. Dr. Jean heard the door shut behind him, knew his orders would be obeyed. He sighed once more, and let the drape cover the window, leaving him alone in the candlelit throne room.

  Alone as ever.

  Shaking his head, he limped across the room to where he kept his ceremonial sword. When the leaders were brought to him, there was work to be done.

  Beside the sword was a bow of off-white powder, streaked with yellow. It was a refined version of the drug he fed to his people, more pure and powerful than anything they had known. He laid out two lines and sniffed them, gasping as they hit his sinuses and, shortly after, his frontal lobes.

  Shaking his head, he began to finger the razor-honed blade of the ceremonial sword, smiling to himself.

  There was work to be done…but work he would now enjoy.

  THE GUERRILLA ARMY had made rapid progress from the site of their firefight to the point where they would gain access to the sewers, and thus into the walled ville. With nothing to stop them, they had been unimpeded. The failure to locate LaRue had given some cause for concern, but Jak had opted to ignore his disappearance and press on. It was likely that the man just took fright and was still running. Time was too tight to worry about such things.

  The sounds of the walled ville grew louder and more oppressive as they drew closer, until they were at the point where they were almost directly beneath the walls and one of the SMG posts mounted along its length. Keeping an army this big under wraps so close to the enemy was one of Jak’s worries, but their own fears served them well in this. The atmosphere was so frightening that it kept them triple cautious and in cover.

  Jak reached the pipe first, and under his direction they made enough torches to keep the tunnel well lighted for all of them. They would have to string out and take their time getting down into the sewer itself. There wasn’t enough space for a force this big to attain access with the speed Jak would have liked.

  At the bottom of the incline he directed the swamp dwellers as they descended. He had decided to send some of them forward while the others descended, in order to keep the bottom end of the pipe clear. He would catch the leaders when the tail end of the army had descended. They set off, following his directions, with torches blazing. Talk was kept to a minimum, in case some noise travel upward.

  All the while, Jak mused on the one problem that still bothered him—try as he might, he still couldn’t find a truly satisfying solution.

  It was simply this: the narrow service shaft that led up into the walled yard behind the dormitory building would only allow for one fighter at a time to ascend. So it would take some time for all his guerrillas to make it up to surface level. Time: that was the problem. He could mount guards and send sentries to warn of anyone who came close to the building, perhaps even take out with stealth those that stumbled upon them. But he could do nothing to cut down that long stretch of time: time for an alarm to be raised, time for a sec force to come and wipe them out.

  The plan was thin enough as it was: this just made it seem like a suicide mission.

  As Marissa descended—the last of the army, having stayed up top to see the others down safely—Jak gave her the briefest of nods before picking his way through the rebel force to the point where the first fighters were now wading through the effluent from the ville. As Jak had directed, Prideaux was at the head, making sure they took the correct turns at sewer pipe junctions. The alcohol with which they had doused their torches was taking the edge off the stench in the sewer, but the smell of fear was still all pervasive.

  To be truthful, Jak didn’t blame them for being scared. In fact, part of him hoped that it would give them that adrenaline edge that would power them through the mission.

  Prideaux greeted the albino hunter with an inclination of the head. They were only a few hundred yards from the service shaft, marked by the faint rusty streaks of Marissa’s blood smeared into the concrete. When they reached the shaft, Jak and Prideaux halted the first wave.

  “I’ll go first, scout area, then signal,” Jak said softly. Prideaux nodded, and watched as Jak scaled the ladder into the dark, claustrophobic tunnel. He pushed against the metal cover, felt it give under the pressure. Gently, he moved it so that he could squeeze out.

  The yard was empty, the building beyond in darkness. It seemed to be clear: he scanned the walls, listened carefully to try to pick out anything
other than the usual sounds of activity beyond their brick confines. It seemed clear…and yet he was aware of some instinct gnawing at the pit of his stomach telling him there was something very wrong.

  Without referring to those beneath him, Jak eased himself out of the service tunnel and stretched aching muscles as he scanned the yard. There was no time to crawl back down and tell them that he was making a recce of the area: Prideaux would know this.

  Jak didn’t realize how flawed his judgment had been in this case. For while the albino began to move swiftly and silently to the walls, searching for a quick and quiet way in which he could scale them and check out what was going on beyond the confines of the yard, Prideaux was down the bottom of the shaft. He could see the night sky framed by the circle of the service hatch, the darkness seeming light against the black that surrounded it, the few stars shining through the scudding clouds. He felt an overwhelming desire to escape the shit and smell of the sewer.

  Jak had disappeared from view. He hadn’t turned back and told them there was some kind of problem. Prideaux made a decision that he had no right to make: he decided to get up the ladder and take a look himself. Scooting up the metal rungs, greedily gulping down the cold night air as it hit him, he poked his head out of the service hatch, looking around for Jak. He could see the albino, over by the far wall. Prideaux rightly guessed that he was recce’ing the area, but not that he wanted the guerrillas to wait until he had finished.

  To eager to get out of the sewer, Prideaux darted out of sight, slipping down the ladder so that he reached the bottom quickly. Jak heard something and turned quickly, but Prideaux was already out of sight. The albino resumed his careful recce, feeling even more uneasy.

  At the bottom of the shaft, Prideaux started to send up the army. Fifty people would take some time to move if he sent them one at a time, so he didn’t bother. Knowing Jak was up there, and throwing caution to the winds, he sent them up on the heels of each other, so there were four on the ladder at any given time.

  Up in the yard, Jak had found a foothold on the back wall and had lifted himself up, searching for a handhold. Two such holds and he would be at the top, looking over at the alley beyond.

  He was only halfway up when he heard the mass exodus from the service tunnel. Momentarily stunned by the stupid action, he froze on the wall, turning his head to see the guerrillas pouring out of the service tunnel. They were easy meat if anyone was watching, as they milled around without a clue as to what to do next.

  Why the hell should he think that?

  Suddenly, Jak realized what had been bothering him. The sense of oppression that hung over the ville had blunted and distorted his instincts, but they had been nagging at him all the while. Why had he felt the need to look over the back wall? Why would he think that there may be something there?

  Because there was. All his preternaturally developed instincts had told him this, and yet, like a stupe, he hadn’t been listening to them, as he was too concerned with acting like a brood mother with the guerrilla army.

  And now it was too late.

  “Cover!” Jak yelled, dropping down the wall and flattening himself to it. The rebels turned at his yell, and then started to scatter as the tops of the walls began to explode into light and sound as blasterfire rent the air.

  The members of the sec force sent by Diamond had positioned themselves at the foot of each of the three walls, spread out, and with ladders they could use to scale the walls with speed. They had waited for the first indication of a presence on the far side, and had heard Jak emerge and start to recce the territory. Hearing just one man, and knowing that there were more waiting in the sewers, each section had held its fire. Only when the emergence of the rest of the army became apparent had they decided to act.

  Ladders hit the walls, and sec men were scaling them before they had even struck the brick at the crest of the wall. AK-47s and MP-5s were the blaster of choice, with a few Uzis thrown in: anything that could lay down a good, suppressing SMG fire. They wanted to prevent the rebels from making a break for the dormitory building and finding cover. There were sec men waiting in the street beyond, but attaining the cover of the building would give the rebels a stronghold and prolong the firefight. Dr. Jean didn’t want that. He wanted the rebel army annihilated, and those leading it to be captured alive—if possible—with a view to sacrifice. That wouldn’t be easy if the guerrillas could hole up in the dorm. It wouldn’t be what the baron wanted.

  And the baron always got exactly what he wanted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As the companions drew near to the walled ville, it became apparent that something was occurring within. The atmosphere that hung like a pall over the old city changed—not just in the kind of imperceptible way that could be detected by a doomie like Krysty, but in an almost physical sense that could be felt by J.B., Doc and Ryan. It was as though the monotone note of the chanting and endless devotions to Dr. Jean had suddenly become infused with a sense of purpose unlike anything they had felt before in that region.

  “What’s going on in there? Why have they suddenly changed?” Doc muttered. “Could it be the swamp army?”

  Krysty shook her head. It looked odd, as her normally free-flowing Titian hair was now clamped so tight with the encroaching danger that it didn’t ripple with the movement; rather, it stayed close to her skull, moving as though part of the bone.

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s a different kind of feeling—anticipatory, like they were on the verge of something…like they know the rebels are coming, even though they’re not there yet.”

  “Dark night, that treacherous fuck LaRue has dumped Jak right in the shit,” J.B. said, either unmindful of, or ignoring, the irony in his choice of words.

  “Yeah, but at least it means that they haven’t got their hands on them yet, and they won’t be expecting someone else to try to get into their vile another way,” Ryan said.

  Mildred screwed up her face in exasperation. “Easy to say, Ryan, but just how exactly do we do that?”

  On their way toward the walled ville, they had talked on the run about how best to tackle both the ville and the rebel army. The problem was that Jak and the swamp dwellers had thought them long since departed, and if they attempted to catch up with them while they were in the sewers, then the rebels would assume they were being attacked, a firefight would ensue, and at the very least there would be unnecessary casualties. At the worst, they would also alert the sec within the ville of their presence. Nothing could successfully disguise the sound of a firefight underground, and it would easily be traced.

  From the looks of things, this last argument no longer mattered. But the problems of approaching the fighters without sparking a firefight still existed.

  Now their task was laid bare—to follow the guerrillas would be pointless, as they would risk being fired on, and they would only be walking straight into the same trap—whatever that may be—that was being set for Jak’s people. They had a twofold task: to gain access to the walled ville without being observed, and to get themselves into a position where they would be able to support the swamp dwellers when the firefight kicked off.

  The second part was considerably easier to achieve than the first. They now stood in the shelter of some ruined buildings that were overlooked by the wall, and were exactly halfway between two SMG posts. Both were manned by two impassive sec men in infrared goggles. The wall was of a uniform height all round, and although its ragged construction meant that there were foot- and handholds all the way around, the problem was that to use any of these brought a person right out into the open and made him or her easy meat for the blasters mounted on their turrets.

  There was only one gate in and out of the ville as far as they could see. To try to circle the entire compound looking for any other egress would be too time-consuming, even assuming that one could be found. They had to find a way in quickly to be of any use.

  In the state of agitation that Dr. Jean’s announcement over
the vid monitors had caused, the people had begun to prepare themselves for battle. The sec force had also heard the announcement, and knew that they would soon be receiving their own orders from Diamond. The sec chief had called all sentries off the walls: they knew how the guerrillas were gaining access, and they were required to take part in the annihilation of the rebel army.

  “Ryan, I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” J.B. whispered, indicating as first one, and then both of the sec posts along the wall were vacated by their sentries. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “The bastard’s preparing a hell of a welcoming party for Jak, that’s what,” Mildred murmured. “He doesn’t know about us—LaRue didn’t know about us—and so he’s going to use all his men where he thinks the danger’s coming from.”

  Ryan grinned. “Then he doesn’t know shit, does he?” he said softly. “Cover me, just in case one of those fuckers comes back when we least expect it.”

  Leaving the cover of the ruins, shouldering the Steyr so that he had both hands free, Ryan sprinted across the small open area between the ruined old city and the walled ville of Lafayette. He kept low and zigzagged to make himself a harder target, even though he was pretty sure that no one was watching him. Once he was by the wall, he looked up and around, raking his glance along the top of the wall. It was still deserted.

  Finding his handholds, and clamping one combat boot to a jutting piece of concrete, he began his ascent. Moving hand over hand, drawing deep and regular breaths as he hauled his body weight upward, the foothold being mostly for balance, he made it to the top in less than a minute. Raising his head slowly above the level at the top of the wall, he could see the ville spread out beyond him.

  There was a no-man’s-land of cleared and trampled earth that extended for ten yards before the ville really began. Some of the higher-level buildings had been visible from outside, poking up over the level of the sec wall; but most were two or three stories at most and were protected from view by the wall.