Paladin Blake & The Secret City Page 8

  The Commerce was turning more slowly, even with the Aegis missing her number four and seven engines. Something wasn’t right.

  Paladin raised his binoculars. The enemy zep’s starboard engines slowed and stopped…and she hadn’t lined up her firing arc.

  “What’s she doing?” Paladin muttered, and then to Tennyson he said, “Maybe we’ve got a lucky break. Ready to fire when we’ve come about.”

  “Ready to fire, aye,” Tennyson said.

  The Aegis drifted clockwise, her guns coming to bear on the Commerce. The Commerce-

  even with her dead engines-still had momentum, still turned at a snail’s pace toward them.

  With a dozen guns bristling from her double decks, Paladin knew if he didn’t get in the first shot, he might not get a shot at all.

  Paladin held his breath.

  “Target is in our sights,” Tennyson reported.

  “Fire!” Paladin yelled.

  The Aegis’ seven-inch artillery thundered. Paladin flinched from the report and the fiery flashes. The Aegis’ deck tilted as their zeppelin tipped, slammed by the deck guns’ recoil.

  The first shell impacted on the Commerce’s nose. Explosions traced an arc along her side-dots of fire and streaks of oily smoke, accompanied by the screech of metal.

  The smoke cleared. The first gas bag had been ruptured-but to his horror, Paladin saw the other shells had left blackened scars and streaks of exposed metal across her heavily armored sides…and no other damage.

  “Reload,” he barked into the intercom. “Quick!”

  The Commerce drifted into firing position. Her guns aligned with Aegis, but she didn’t shoot.

  “What’s she waiting for?” Paladin murmured. He squinted through his binoculars and watched as she rotated past her arc of fire…then stopped and slowly turned back toward them.

  Then he saw why: her starboard engines had halted, but now they were turning again, spinning in reverse. They hadn’t cut the engines on that side-they had thrown them full reverse.

  “Tennyson, brace yourself.”

  A double row of fire erupted from the gun decks of the Commerce. Clouds of smoke swirled and billowed as the Commerce’s broadside guns barked. Faint vapor trails swirled from the incoming shells.

  The Aegis shuddered. Windows on the bridge shattered and scarlet curls of flame roiled across the ceiling. Paladin slammed into the control panel, found himself airborne…then smashed into the deck face-first.

  Paladin wiped away the blood streaming into his eyes and staggered to his feet. The Commerce spun in place-her nose wheeled toward them, then away. Her captain had nerve, Paladin had to admit. It was a tricky move-switching engines on either side forward to reverse-with the quickest turnaround he’d ever witnessed.

  He grasped the wheel, spit out a tooth, and pawed for the intercom. “Tennyson! Bail out.

  They’re-“

  The Commerce rotated until her port gun decks aligned with the Aegis. Before Paladin could complete his warning, the enemy zep fired.

  She looked like a storm, a thunderhead cloud streaked with flashes of lightning. Then Paladin saw nothing-he woke up stunned, sprawled on the deck, blood trickling out of his ears.

  His stomach rose. Overheard, the frame groaned. Wisps of smoke rose from the ladderwell to the lower decks. Several of the Aegis’ gas bags must have been hit. They were crashing.

  “Tennyson?” he yelled at the intercom.

  The Commerce turned and gunned her engines and steamed straight toward them. They’d pass right over the crippled, falling Aegis. She wasn’t even enough of a threat anymore to finish off? No. They had more important targets.

  Paladin reached for the radio. The metal panel was torn away and busted vacuum tubes and sparking wires spilled onto the floor. He keyed the radio, hoping it could still transmit.

  ” Perseverance, come in. We’re dead in the air. Get out of here! Warn off the Texas Marines!

  The Commerce can fire her artillery before she gets into your range.”

  No answer.

  “Damn,” Paladin spat. He glanced out the window. The Aegis was two thousand feet about sea level and dropping fast.

  He craned his neck to get a look at the Commerce as she cruised closer. They’d hardly scratched her armor. He’d never seen anything like it. He had to get off another salvo and try to stop the juggernaut. But even if he could have fired again, their guns now pointed a hundred feet too low. There was no way to change that. They were falling. They’d keep falling. No way to aim.

  Or was there?

  He slammed his fist into the intercom. “Tennyson, tell me you didn’t bail out.”

  There was a cough through the speaker, then, “I…I am still here.”

  “Glad to hear it, old friend. We still have fuel in the tanks?”

  “We would not be discussing the matter if they had ruptured,” Tennyson remarked.

  “There’s no time to explain this, Tenny-but I want the starboard guns loaded and locked on their tracks.”

  There was a pause, and then Tennyson said, “I’ll have the crew on it.”

  “Great. Now I want you to purge the starboard fuel tank. Then pump the reserves into the port tank.”

  “That will require a moment.”

  “You’ve got just that, Tenny-a moment.”

  Paladin glanced up. The Commerce was a quarter mile away and closing. They’d get one shot at this. Only one.

  “Done,” Tennyson said. Purging and pumping, now.”

  The Commerce was a hundred feet away-almost on top of them.

  Paladin said, “Tell the gun crews to hang on tight!”

  A moment passed…and nothing happened. Then, the Aegis tilted. Her steel frame creaked and shuddered. Guide wires and cables snapped. Paladin’s gambit had paid off.

  A zeppelin used water as ballast, pumping it through pipes strung throughout the airship’s rigid internal frame. The Aegis was no exception, though her ballast tanks had been shattered in the initial salvo from the Commerce.

  But there were still thousands of pounds of aviation fuel aboard the Aegis.

  As the starboard tank dropped twenty thousand pounds of fuel, and as the port tank filled, the zeppelin became unbalanced, rolled onto her side-and pointed her port guns straight into the air.

  The Commerce drifted directly overhead.

  “Fire,” Paladin cried as he clung to the brass railing. “Everything we’ve got!”

  Six thunderclaps of cannon fire blasted from the gunnery deck.

  The underside of the Commerce detonated with smoke and sparks as the artillery penetrated her lower decks-probably the only section of the zeppelin they had neglected to armor. Fire blossomed and belched out of the mid-decks as their fuel tanks burst. Fireworks erupted from the double gun decks as their munitions were touched off by the blast.

  Paladin whooped triumphantly.

  The Commerce, wreathed in flames, hung in midair for a heartbeat then fell-directly atop the Aegis.

  Bright light poured thought the open blinds of Paladin’s Santa Monica office window. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the bottle of fourteen-year old bourbon and the photograph of his father sitting on the wing of his plane. Paladin uncorked the bottle and poured a shot. He clinked it to the picture frame. “Here’s to another ‘success,’ Dad.”

  This “success” had cost him, though.

  One hundred and fourteen dead. Most of them were the men and women aboard the Alamo.

  There were causalities on the Perseverance, too, and heavy losses in Caption Ryan’s Sharpshooter squadron. Not to mention the thirteen killed on the Aegis when she had been crushed under the wreckage of the Commerce.

  All in all it had been one of Paladin’s deadliest operations. Had it been it worth it?

  Le Coeur du Minuit was out of business. The pirates’ air power had been shattered and the Texas marines landed and mopped up what was left of their ground forces. If Paladin knew Texas justice there’d be a few hundred
quick-and-speedy trials and just as many quick-and-speedy hangings.

  Flora had been arrested as well, but-with a word from Paladin to the right judge-the Texas authorities immediately released her with their profuse apologies. Flora had come out of the incident unscathed by the pirates and Die Spinne and the law. She was out at the pier hangar now, delivering lunch to Tennyson, probably smiling and laughing as though nothing had ever happened. Paladin had already arranged-through Dasheill-an extended stay for her at Oceanview Sanitarium in Santa Barbara.

  Of course, he still had no idea how to tell her about his plans to send her to Santa Barbara.

  Facing the Commerce was going to seem easy by comparison.

  As for Le Coeur du Minuit, Texas had claimed it for their Republic (although they were in heated negotiations with French Louisiana to sell them back their own island). Texas had given him a medal of honor. The medal came with a formal request-the next time he rallied their troops, he should ask the President in Houston first.

  Louisiana sent Paladin keys to the city of New Orleans in appreciation for ridding them of the

  “pirate menace.” The mayor had extended an invitation for him to visit, so they could properly repay him. Considering, however, how much money that corrupt Louisianan government officials would lose from their “lease arrangement” with the pirates, Paladin had little doubt what kind of payback they had in mind. He had politely declined the offer.

  Anvil Manufacturing and the I.S.A. were curiously silent on the entire matter. Paladin had filed a report with them, describing how pirate forces had captured the Commerce, and how she was subsequently destroyed. Their cargo had presumably been lost.

  “Presumably” meant that their tanks and artillery pieces were now sitting under lock and key at Blake Aviation’s secret Burbank warehouse. The last thing that Paladin was going to do was return those arms.

  As for the buyer of the weapons of war-Karina Von Gilder had vanished. Reports and rumors placed her on the docks when the battle for Le Coeur du Minuit had started. Survivors from the Commerce said they offloaded their cargo onto steamers, most of which were then captured by the Texas Navy. But they also claimed to have loaded the majority of Anvil Manufacturing’s rifles and ammunition onto a submarine.

  Paladin would bet anything that Karina was on that submarine. He hoped she vanished for good this time, but he had a feeling she’d pop up again when he least expected it.

  Tennyson knocked and quietly entered Paladin’s office. He wore a cast on his right arm, but otherwise looked as fresh as ever in his clean white coveralls.

  “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

  “No.” Paladin wrinkled his brow. “I would have called you on the intercom.”

  “But Miss Flora informed me that you required my assistance.”

  Paladin flicked on the Intercom, “Flora?”

  “She gave me this.” Tennyson struggled with his left hand to unbutton his coverall’s front pocket. He finally retrieved a folded letter and handed it to Paladin.

  It read:

  Dearest Brother,

  How can I ever thank you for your rescue? I suppose I can’t. Tennyson let slip the wonderful surprise itinerary you have planned for me in Santa Barbara. I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. I have traveling plans of my own, you see.

  Love,

  Flora

  Paladin heard a splash near the pier, then the sputter and the roar of a Devastator’s Tornado G450 engine. He snapped opened the blinds and watched as the Devastator skimmed over the water, banked, and headed south.

  “She flies?” Tennyson whispered incredulously.

  “All the Blakes fly,” Paladin said. He crumpled her note and tossed it into the wastebasket.

  “Let her go.”

  Paladin had had enough of his family-Flora and Matthew and even his father. He scooped up the last bottle of Dark Knight whiskey in existence and dropped it into the trash as well.

  He was his own man now. The past wouldn’t control his life and his destiny any longer.

  Besides, there were more important things to take care of. Paladin turned to the map of North America on his wall. Pushpins and lines of string traced the air lanes protected by Blake Aviation; they crossed and crisscrossed from Seattle to Baja, Cuba to the Maritime Provinces.

  “Tennyson get a map of the world in here. And then call your contact in London. We’re setting up an office there-nothing fancy, just a set of eyes and ears. Call our friend in Geneva, too.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” Tennyson replied.

  Maybe this escapade had been worth the price paid in blood after all. Paladin now understood that pirates and bushwhackers and raiders weren’t the only thing he had to worry about. There were bigger forces conspiring to do evil, here in North America…and abroad.

  Paladin would learn more about them. And then, he’d make it his job to stop them.

  Martin Heiselberg looked like a man who had lived the good life too long. By Paladin’s reckoning he was nearly as wide as he was tall. He wore a conservative black suit and bow tie and sported a thin gold band on his pinkie (which Paladin suspected might have been his wedding ring). With considerable effort Heiselberg rose from his mahogany desk. He offered his limp, sweaty hand to Paladin.

  “Mr. Blake, may I say it is an honor to have you visit Anvil Manufacturing.”

  “Thanks,” Paladin replied.

  The view from the nineteenth story office window caught Paladin’s eye-a panorama from Lincoln Heights to downtown to the I.S.A. Institute of Technology-a conglomeration of skyscrapers and steaming factories, bridges and swarms of aerotaxis.

  “Every time I look at it,” Heiselberg said, “I know I’m in the best country in the world. Even more impressive than your Hollywood?” He sat back in his chair.

  Paladin cleared his throat. “I try to think of myself as a citizen of the world. Blake Aviation Security can’t afford to take political sides or show favoritism to any one country.”

  Heiselberg nodded appreciatively. “A wise business policy.” He gestured for Paladin to sit.

  “What can Anvil Manufacturing do for you today?” A nervous laugh escaped him. “I trust we’re not under investigation?”

  “Not at all,” Paladin lied. “I only wanted to discuss the possibility of you supplying Blake Aviation with sidearms. Your reputation for quality is known from coast to coast.”

  Heiselberg brightened. “Anvil Manufacturing can provide anything you require. We might even be able to work out a bulk discount. Let’s say-“

  The phone rang. Heiselberg frowned and picked it up. “I said no calls.” His face went blank. “Oh, yes, I see.” He handed the receiver to Paladin. “For you. An emergency.”

  Right on time, Paladin thought.

  He took the receiver. “Yes, Eliot? How many? Well get them to the hospital as quick as you can.

  I need you to-” He looked up at Heiselberg. “Would it be possible to take this in private?”

  “Of course. If you could just step into-“

  Paladin shouted into the mouthpiece: “No! I told you three, Eliot. I don’t care if it is the Princess of Hawai’i. I want three.” He shot Heiselberg a glare. “I appreciate this. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  Heiselberg sighed. He struggled to stand from his overstuffed chair. “I’ll…just be outside then, Mr. Blake. Please, take your time.” He flashed a disingenuous smile and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  “Okay, Eliot, it worked. Hang on-and keep talking in case anyone picks up an extension.” Paladin set the mouthpiece on the desk, got up and jammed his chair under the door’s handle.

  He could have tried to dance around the information he wanted from Heiselberg, played a game of verbal cat and mouse, and maybe stumbled upon the information he needed. Paladin knew his limitations, though. Being sneaking and sly were a stretch for him.

  He opened the filing cabinet first. Their contents had been sorted by date. Good. There was only one shipm
ent that left the same day as the Commerce. Paladin scanned the manifest: seven thousand repeating .30-caliber rifles, three hundred thousand rounds of ammunition plus reloading machines, five thousand .45-caliber sidearms, pieces to assemble five-inch field artillery, water-cooled .70-caliber antiaircraft guns-and Paladin had to reread the last entry twice-one hundred tanks.

  This wouldn’t make Le Coeur du Minuit a fortress-it would make it unassailable. But why? They already had the silent approval of the Louisiana government to do business. What was so important about the island that they had to arm themselves to the teeth?

  Unless this wasn’t for the island. Maybe Le Coeur du Minuit was just a midway point for wherever Karina was really sending these arms.

  Paladin shut the cabinet and went to Heiselberg’s desk.

  Under the gleaming mahogany top there was a large center drawer and three smaller ones stacked vertically. In the larger drawer sat five guns on a velvet pallet. Paladin hefted a .32 automatic. It was a little too light for his tastes-ever since Dashiell had gotten him to carry the .45s. He set it down and tried the small drawers.

  The first contained stationary, pens and envelopes. The next drawer was empty save for a small bottle of syrupy brownish liquid that Paladin doubted was bourbon. He smelled it: sickeningly sweet and smoky. It made him gag.

  The last drawer was locked. Paladin tried to jimmy it, considered busting the thing open, then thought better of it. Instead, he removed the first two drawers and got a hold of the wood panel beneath with his fingernails. He tugged and pulled and the wood splintered, cracked-then gave.

  Inside this last compartment was a dagger; a pearl-handled .38; an envelope stuffed with I.S.A.

  C-notes; and a man’s signet ring, heavy and gold with a green stone set flush in the center. Carved in the stone in relief was an eagle clutching an emblem.

  For a split second Paladin thought he recognized it. The pale man had a ring almost exactly like this. Only that one had an eagle grasping a star-a Unionist symbol for their “Brotherhood of America.”