“Good ground, too,” John said.
One of the Marines came up the hill, trailing a spool of thin wire. Another squatted next to John, placing a box next to him. It had a plunger with an handbar coming out of the top, and a crank on the side. Bianci leaned close to watch as the Marine cut the wire and split it into two strands, stripping the insulation with his belt knife. The raw copper of the wire matched the hairs on the backs of his huge freckled hands, incongruously delicate as they handled the difficult task in near-darkness.
“Ahh, bellissimo,” the Imperial said. “We’ve been using black powder with friction primers—and since they started putting a car in front of the locomotive, that doesn’t work so well.”
“We can get detonator sets to you,” John said. “But you’ll have to come up with the wire—telegraph wire will do well enough.”
Bianci nodded again. “That we can do.” He looked down at the track hungrily. “Every slave in the rail yards tells us what goes on the cars. This one has military stores, arms and ammunition, medical supplies, and machine parts for a new repair depot north of Salini; the tedeschi have been talking of double-tracking the line from the Pada to the coast . . . why, do you think?”
“They’ll be reopening the trade with the Republic and the other countries on the Gut, soon,” John replied. “And to be able to move supplies and troops faster. They have—”
Far away to the northwest, the mournful hoot of a locomotive’s steam whistle echoed off the hills. Bianci laughed, an unpleasant sound. “Right on time. The trains run on time, since the tedeschi came . . . except when we arrange some delays.”
John burrowed a little deeper behind a scree of rock. I have to be here, dammit, he thought. The guerillas had to see that they were getting some support, however minimal. The problem was that the Santander government wasn’t ready to really give that support, not yet. It was surprising what you could do with some contacts and a great deal of money, though.
Silence stretched. Bianci raised himself on an elbow. “Odd,” he said. “They should be on the flat before this stretch of hills by now.”
* * *
“Glad you stopped,” Heinrich said, shining his new electric torch up at the escort car.
“Yessir.” The vehicle was a standard armored car, fitted with outriggers so that it could ride the rails, and a belt-drive from the wheels to propel it. Doctrine said that fighting vehicles had to have a Chosen in command; in this case, a nervous young private, showing it by bracing to attention in the turret and staring straight ahead, rigid as the twin machine guns prodding the air ahead of him.
“At ease,” the Chosen brigadier said. “Now, we want to do this quickly,” he added to Captain Neumann. “Unload boxcars four through six.”
Greatly daring, the commander of the armored car spoke: “Sir, those are—”
“Military supplies. I’m aware of that, Private.” The rigid brace became even tighter. He turned back to Neumann. “Then get the I-beams rigged and we’ll load the cars.”
Luck had been with him; there had been a stack of steel forms, the type used to frame the concrete of coast-artillery bunkers, in Campo Fiero. Used as ramps, they could get an armored car onto the train . . . with ropes, pulleys, winches, and a lot of pushing. Getting down would be easier, he hoped.
Orders barked sotto voce had the hundred-odd troopers of Neumann’s company slinging crates out of boxcars, the Chosen officers pitching in beside their subordinates. Others were unstrapping the steel planks from the armored cars waiting where the little dirt road crossed the rail line. Heinrich moved forward as the crew of sweating Protégé infantry staggered; they were still panting from the five-mile forced march to intercept the train.
But nobody saw us get on, the Chosen officer thought a little smugly, catching the corner of the heavy metal shape. Muscle bulged in his arms and neck as he braced himself and heaved it around, teeth clenched around the stem of his pipe.