Roonie-Two put a hand on her grandfather-husband’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. “It’s time,” she said. “Chill me and the baby, Poppadaddy. Me and Three. Do it now.”
When Elijah didn’t move, didn’t speak, she reached out and lifted the G-12 he held, putting the hot muzzle against her own temple.
The sounds of running feet echoed from the halt. The stickies were coming once more.
“Now, do it now,” she wailed, looking over her shoulder with terrified eyes.
“TRY TO THINK on the bright side,” J.B. told the slaves as they struggled to turn the enormous wheel. “One way or another, this is the last time you’re ever going to have to do this.”
Mildred was horrified and repulsed by the scene. Though she knew it was necessary, that there was no other way, it was hard for her to watch the agonized effort of the mutie slaves, to see their rad-blasted faces twisted in pain, the muscles of their naked bodies corded, shaking with the strain. As the slaves turned the wheel, wrapping the cable around the drum, it was as if they were winding a spring tighter and tighter. The more cable that filled the drum, the wider it became, and the more difficult it was to turn. The slaves
i
were pushing as hard as they could, but merely inching the wheel around.
Doc held the clutch lever, feathering it as the gears ticked, and somewhere invisible above them, the car rose in the shaft. In the ceiling over the old man’s head, the heart of the clutch, a huge steel dog, clattered against gear teeth.
The floor indicator dial said 21 and it was swinging up to 22.
Over the sounds of the slaves, the chitter of the oppressive mechanism, they could barely hear the noise of battle. It was no longer steady, but came and went, and there were long silences between bursts of gunfire.
“I’d better get to it,” J.B. said when the indicator hit 23. He picked up the AK and checked the 30-round
mag. There were plenty of rounds left. “Once the car gets to twenty-four. Doc,” he said, “lock up the gears. And stay clear of the machinery, just in case.”
The Armorer returned to the elevator shaft. When he stuck his head inside and looked up, he couldn’t see the bottom of the car, but he could hear the grinding of the machinery and see the cables moving around the pulleys. He hopped into the empty shaft and lay down on his back. Dropping the fire-selector switch to full-auto, he shouldered the weapon.
As he waited for the signal, J.B. had a moment of doubt. His plan wasn’t quite the sure thing he had made it out to be to Doc and Mildred. Theoretically a steel-jacketed slug passing through the floor of the car and striking the stainless-steel wall would cause a spark. Theoretically he had about twenty chances to set off the firebomb.
“Twenty-four!” Mildred called to him from the power plant
J.B. sighted up at the center of the shaft and let the AK rip. The hard chatter of the autofire in the enclosed concrete space obliterated the sounds of the hits one hundred yards above.
But he knew right away that he’d scored.
High above him the shaft blossomed with flame, and the whole building rattled with the power of the explosion.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Now, Poppadaddy, do it now!” Roonie-Two cried.
The baron took his fingertip out of the G-12’s trigger guard. Tears streamed down his craggy face. “I can’t do it, gal,” he told her. “I can’t chill ya. You’re all I have left in the world.”
“Bastard!” she shrieked at him. “You’re not thinking about us. You’re just thinking about yourself. Listen to what you’re saying. You’re still trying to keep what you got. Me and the babe, we aren’t things. We hurt. Do you want us to suffer? Don’t we mean anything to you? You’ve got to have mercy, Poppadaddy, you’ve got to give us up!”
Elijah shook his head.
“Coward!” Roonie-Two yelled at him. “Think of us, you miserable coward!”
“I won’t do it, gal,” the baron said. “I don’t have it in me to harm you or that child.”