James Axler - Red Equinox

"Nothing?" Ryan asked.

"It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools. I had no tools to blame."

"How about now," J.B. suggested, "with what we brought?"

Doc scratched the side of his nose in a vaguely ruminative manner. "Perhaps. And, then again, perhaps not."

"Yes," Rick muttered. Then, much louder, "Yes, we can!"

"Sure?"

There was a sudden, startling and hectic glow in his sunken eyes. "We can, Ryan. Don't doubt it, buddy. Just get the guys lifting barges and toting bales and all that shit. It'll take us the best part of six or eight hours." Another fit of hideous, racking coughs shook his whole frail body. "If we're lucky, that is."

The boy who led the pack of sec brats was only a year or so younger than Jak Lauren. He had the same sharp planes to the bones of his face and the same blank killer's eyes.

He wore a cut-down woman's jacket in pale blue artificial silk, the sleeves hacked out and the front daubed with maroon circles of paint. The pants were small sec-issue, tucked into a worn pair of canvas boots. The ubiquitous strangler's cord — the badge of the leader in a wolf pack — was tucked into the narrow belt.

The gang was a little larger than most. Zimyanin had counted eighteen of them, about half girls.

"You understand what I want you to do?"

For several seconds the boy said nothing, his face showing as much emotion as a slab of weathered stone. The officer wondered if he might be deaf, or very simpleminded and was about to repeat the question. But the kid's mouth clicked open and words came out slowly.

"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar." Another long, long pause. "We will approach and enter the large house there. We will kill all we find. If we are seen and stopped, we come back and we report to you."

"No, no, no! Don't kill them all . I want the one-eyed man, the cripple and the woman with red hair spared and taken alive. Alive! You understand what that word means?"

"It means not dead, Comrade Major-Commissar. Not dead."

"Good."

"But, Comrade Major-Commissar," the boy continued, "if we have to make them all not alive, what then?"

"Then you make them all not alive. But I most earnestly want that one-eyed man not dead. Him more than the others."

"Yes," he replied, nodding.

As the boy walked slowly away to pass on the orders to his gang, Zimyanin watched him. "What a strangely gifted child," he said quietly in English. "Such a credit to his parents. Not that anyone would ever claim the credit for having birthed that monster."

The wrenches were a hundred years old, the metal corroded and frail. To try to use them with a man's full power behind the effort would mean a handful of twisted rust. Everything had to be done so gently and cautiously.

Ryan was only too conscious that every hour sliding past doubled the threat from the Russian security forces. He was already regretting leaving Gregori Zimyanin alive. It would have been worth the price of a bullet to remove him from the game. But regrets were a valueless currency, and Ryan didn't waste much time thinking about it. But he did make sure that anyone not working down in the cellars of the mansion was up top, watching for the inevitable attack.

After two hours of intensive labor, Rick said that he felt that they were actually making some real progress.

"Got most of the lock opened up. Damage isn't as bad as it might have been. Bring me in closer. Gotta be able to see real good. And help me to a drink, one of you."

His swallowing was painful to see and hear. The disease was now racing so fast through his body that he needed continuous support. He was sweating constantly, though the subterranean rooms were bone-cold.

"How much longer do you figure, Rick?" Krysty asked as she took the mug of water from the freezie's lips.

"How long's a piece of string, lady? How high's up? How when's now? Just gotta keep doin' it my way. Suck it up and spit it out. I'll sit this one out, if you don't..." A coughing fit choked off the slurred, rambling words.

Zimyanin called over the elderly captain who was acting as liaison with the local militia. "While the wolves go in, I want something in reserve."

"The little ones will not fail you, Comrade Major-Commissar."

"I do not believe they will succeed, but I am prepared to take that chance, Comrade Captain. I think that they will find themselves outmatched."

"They have removed many undesirables from these parts," the other officer protested.

Zimyanin gave a harsh barking laugh. "A mongrel might kill a hundred rats and think itself czar of the world, Comrade Captain. Then it will meet a bear."

"I understand. The Americans are dangerous, Comrade Major-Commissar?"

"Do the lakes freeze in winter, Comrade Captain? Yes, I believe they are more dangerous than anyone you will ever again encounter. Which is why I want all the reinforcements possible. Send men and roust out every male peasant between thirteen and fifty for ten miles around."

"You want me to?.." the older man began, his face puzzled.

"In olden times generals used the words 'cannon fodder,' Comrade Captain. I want as many bodies as I can to throw against that house. Better to have fifty men too many than one too few."

Ryan was taking a break, squatting on the floor near one of the long elegant casements on the second story, keeping watch out across the silent fields. It had become colder, and his breath hung around his mouth like lace.

There were two races going on: one to repair the gateway before any sec men tracked them down, the other to repair the gateway before Rick Ginsberg slipped from the present into the past.

He'd walked slowly around the mansion with J.B. an hour ago, trying to guess where an attack might come, where there were weak points and where they might hope to make some kind of a defense.

"Like stopping a war wag with a sheet of wet paper," had been J.B.'s comment.

Ryan hadn't argued with it.

What they'd agreed was that they couldn't hope to fend off a serious assault on the house. There were too many ways in and not enough people to defend them. On the plus side, it was a solidly made building and it would take some hi-ex to take it apart. But if the Russians brought along gren launchers, then it wouldn't take that long to bring the walls down, though the secret stairs and the basement area would be difficult to penetrate and destroy.

Ryan glanced around the room and out onto the landing at the top of the stairs. That was where they might hold them up for a while. There had been a second flight of steps from the first floor, but it had been burned out years earlier. If the Russians wanted to take them, they would have to come up the front stairs.

J.B. had suggested the possibility of burning them out, as well, but the smoke would have attracted too much interest too soon. Better to let them come in and chill as many as possible.

Seeing friends fall, and being splashed with the blood and brains of companions, often acted as something of a deterrent.

The intricate work on the inside of the mat-trans lock was being carried out by Doc Tanner, working with a small screwdriver and a soldering unit while Rick watched every move. Krysty was the nurse to Doc's surgeon, handing him the tools he needed and acting as a third hand when some particularly complex and delicate maneuver was called for.

The comp-units still chattered quietly to themselves and panels of colored lights flickered and danced across the display boards.

At one point Rick turned to Krysty. "Don't forget. There are two more cryogenic complexes. Could be folks frozen like me, but maybe not so sick. Ryan knows where they are. I told him what I knew."