The Crocodile's Jaws: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No.7) (8 page)

'They will kill me if I am seen talking to you.'

Yet even as she opened the door to go out, she slipped a
piece of warm bread from under the folds of her clothes to Zohar.

'Eat it. My name is Neha.'

Nikolai was back within a few minutes.

'The little bastard has got his medicine. Come now, and
remember he stays with my men here, so if you try anything funny, we'll cut him
so badly there won't be anything left to stitch back together.'

Zohar shuddered and she stood to face Nikolai, her eyes
blazing with fury.

'Touch him and I will rip your throat out. Now take me to
your captain.'

Alice walked to the bridge of the submarine, flanked by two
marines armed with assault rifles. The captain was humming some tune when she
appeared and he smiled at her.

'Alice, there are so many ways in which you can help me. I'm
struggling to choose which way to take, but I've been browsing this tablet that
you carry, and I now know that I don't need to choose. I can have it all.'

Alice listened silently as he continued.

'When we learned what was happening out there, I got in
touch with Konrath. In my time, the United States was the world's only real
superpower, so I assumed that he would still be the man in charge. Turns out
the US is a wasteland and they're still recovering from their civil war and
depend on the farms in Wonderland to feed their people. Still, I made Konrath a
simple offer. I would get leadership of his nation, get a land to call my own,
and I would spare his people. Otherwise, I would destroy his nation. Imagine me
as the President of the known world, with my little Crocodile off the coast as
my insurance policy.'

Alice had heard of the threat from Robertson, but what the
captain said next left her stunned.

'Konrath did not agree, but there were men more agreeable to
my proposition. He had a heart attack, which I suspect was delivered from close
range with a pistol to the head, and Robertson wanted to deal. The problem is
that I don't trust him—he is a greedy man, and he wants the power I have. It
seems Konrath was an idealist and a bit of a fool. He had ordered the
destruction of all the old nuclear missiles they could find so that they could
never again be used to threaten people—and just a week before he died, it was
celebrated as a great achievement. So Robertson is in charge, and has no
weapons that could threaten me so far away. He wants control of the weapons on
this ship to make him the most powerful man in the world. So we've been
negotiating and dancing our little dance for a few days, and now you show up,
and I realize I have some leverage after all.'

Alice's mind was abuzz with the implications of all she had
heard. Had Konrath really been deposed in a coup? Had Robertson used her as a
pawn in his struggle with the captain?

'You see, I doubt Robertson cares about you, so your role as
a prisoner is of little consequence. But from your tablet, I now have detailed
maps and co-ordinates of your Wonderland and all the farms that are feeding
your people and those of the Homeland. He surely cares about those food
supplies, and turning Wonderland into radioactive sludge would mean Robertson's
people starve and perhaps turn against him.'

Alice recoiled as if she had been struck. The thousands of
people who had come to count on her were in the most terrible danger and she
had to act fast to save them. She took a step towards the captain when he
smiled. A marine dug his rifle into Alice's back, and she spun on her feet, slamming
the heel of her right hand into the bridge of the man's nose. He went down in a
heap, screaming in pain and clutching his broken nose. The other marine was
about to fire when the captain asked him to stop.

'If you hurt me, my men are under orders to deliver a
missile straight into the heart of Wonderland, so you may want to choose what
you do next more carefully. You may kill me, but you will not know how to stop
my man, who at this moment is in the weapons room, awaiting news from the
bridge.'

Alice stopped, feeling trapped, feeling helpless.

'What do you want me to do?'

'I want you to speak to Robertson over the video link I see
you have in your tablet, and tell him the reality of the situation. He will
find it more credible coming from you, and he should know that if he thinks he
can come after me, he is sadly mistaken. Then I want you to talk to your people
at Wonderland and tell them that I am an ally, a friend with technology that
can help. My Crocodile will stay in the waters, with its missiles aimed at
Wonderland and the Homeland, and I will come to Wonderland. Why rule over the
ruins of the Homeland when I can stay near the nice farms of Wonderland and
create my empire there?'

***

EIGHT

John scrambled for cover as a jeep drove past, and he waited
for a good five minutes till he was sure enough that there were no more men out
there. Only then did he emerge from behind the old building that had sheltered
him for much of the day since the firefight.

He still cursed his luck and his inability to do more to
help. Early on in the firefight, a grenade had exploded nearby and he had
caught some shrapnel in his left arm. That had been painful, but he would not
have been put out of the fight if another one had not landed a few seconds
later. He had felt himself being bodily lifted by the impact and his head had
struck something hard. When he had come to, Alice and the boy were gone. He had
roamed the area for hours, but found no sign of them. He did find Bunny Ears,
bleeding from several bullet wounds to the torso, and what looked like the
remains of a good half-dozen of their attackers strewn around the area. Bunny
Ears had fought ferociously, but he had been too far to help Alice.

John glanced inside to see Bunny Ears, brooding and hissing
under his breath. John had heard from Alice about how loyal he had been to her,
and now John saw it for himself. For someone who had believed Biters to be
little more than mindless monsters, he was seeing with his own eyes that Bunny
Ears felt emotions that were very human. Bunny Ears was blaming himself for the
loss of Alice, and had been roaring, virtually going around in circles, when
John had pleaded with him that all that would do was to attract attention to
them and get them killed. After a few minutes, John seemed to have gotten
through and now they were deep inside the old city of Karachi, with no idea of
where Alice might be or the condition she might be in.

John walked behind Bunny Ears. While they had spent several
days on the road together, this was the first time he had been alone with Bunny
Ears without Alice there. He knew that he should be able to count on Bunny
Ears, but years of conditioning were hard to undo in an instant. So he kept his
distance, and unconsciously, his finger stayed on the trigger of his rifle.
Bunny Ears didn't seem to notice or care and shuffled closer.

'Aaaaa… lii… sss.'

John was shocked. He had never heard a Biter speak before,
and hearing Bunny Ears say Alice's name made him wonder just how human Biters
actually were despite their external appearance.

'Buddy, I want to find her almost as badly as you do. I had
thought I was going to look after them. I'm the trained soldier, right? And I
messed it all up. The problem is where do we start? This was a huge city, and
they could be anywhere by now. The two of us can't possibly cover enough
ground.'

What was of course left unsaid was that he didn't even know
if they were alive. Bunny Ears walked out soundlessly and began sniffing in the
air. John had heard that Biters had a much more evolved sense of smell and used
it to seek out humans or avoid danger, and now he saw that in action. As Bunny
Ears grunted and set off on a fast trot to his right, John gathered his gear
and followed him.

'When in doubt, follow your nose, I guess.'

They had walked for twenty minutes when John spotted the
jeep that had passed them. It was parked near a large building that looked like
a warehouse or factory of some sort ringed by a wall that was broken in several
places. John whispered to Bunny Ears to fall back as he took a closer look
through the scope on his rifle. There were two men armed with rifles in a tower
near the gate.

'Anything worth guarding in this shithole must be something
important, and the only people we've come across who can organize such a thing
are the ones who attacked us.'

Bunny Ears glared and started towards the building, but John
held out a hand, feeling the cold, clammy skin as he touched his arm.

'Buddy, there are two guards I can see. For all we know
there might be more in there, and without knowing what we're up against, we
could get slaughtered without achieving much. Let's hang around a bit and learn
a bit more about this place. Then we hit it, ideally at night. These guards are
the drugged-up locals, not the uniformed foreigners I saw at the ambush. I
doubt they have night vision scopes.'

He didn't know how much Bunny Ears registered, but at least Bunny
Ears held back while John dashed across the street to take cover behind an
abandoned and burnt-out newspaper kiosk. He could now see into the complex
through one of the gaps in the wall and he spotted several people inside,
coming in and out of the main building. Two men came out, got into the jeep and
drove off. Thirty minutes later, they were back, carrying a box. As the jeep
drove past, bouncing on the ruined road, something fell out its back. John
picked it up to see that it was a box of pills.

'Bloody cough medicine. I'm sure they're not running a
charitable hospital in there.'

He got back to where Bunny Ears was, and knelt beside him.

'There are at least twenty people in there, but most seem to
be workers. I spotted maybe five armed men other than the two guards on the
tower. You know what we've got here, buddy? This is a factory making drugs that
our scaly-skinned friends seem to be high on. I don't know why, and I don't
know how they're linked to the men who took Alice, but they will be the key to
finding out. I wish I had some more reinforcements to help out, but for now, it
looks like it's just you and me.'

Bunny Ears looked at John, and John could have sworn the
Biter grinned. Bunny Ears held out his good hand, as if motioning for John to
wait, and then trotted off.

'Imagine. I spend all the last years trying to kill Biters
and now I have to take orders from one.'

***

Neha was back, ostensibly to tend to Zohar's injuries, but
as she leaned over Zohar, she whispered to Alice.

'If you can do half the things the men here say you can, you
can get us freedom at last.'

'Us?'

Alice was surprised that there were others on board who were
captives of the captain and his men. Neha further lowered her voice, as if
afraid that giving voice to her hopes would attract the attention of the armed
men just outside the door.

'There are two cooks, three cleaners and me. Not to mention
the dozens of people outside to get food and supplies. All little more than
slaves.'

'What do you do, Neha?'

A look flitted across Neha's face, a mixture of shame and
fury, and it was apparent what an attractive woman like her would be doing on a
boat like this.

'I am not the first one, or the only one. The captain
fancies me, so I stay on the boat, and if I do not submit, he says he will kill
my father who works in his drug factory on the mainland. Please promise me one
thing, Alice.'

As Neha gripped Alice's shoulders, she looked straight into
her eyes.

'No matter what happens, no matter if I live or die, please
avenge the hundreds whose lives have been ruined by killing the monster who
calls himself the captain of this ship.'

As Neha walked out of the room, Alice was left sitting
there, staring at the wall, thinking of all the ways in which people managed to
destroy each other's lives. Tyranny did not require a group of powerful men
like the Executive Committee or the Central Committee; it did not need an army
of mercenaries like Zeus to enforce it. Instead, tyranny lay coiled in the heart
of every man, whether the captain or Robertson, waiting only for the excuse of
motive or opportunity to uncoil itself. And servitude lay not in hiding from
air strikes or Zeus raids, but from the innate willingness to submit to brute
force in every free man and woman. The ability to shove that aside, to let the
desire for freedom override the need for self-preservation, was at the heart of
every struggle against tyranny. Alice had fought huge battles before, and now
she would have to fight again, for herself, for Zohar, for Neha and for her
parents and others who were caught up in the grip of the captain and his men.

Nikolai appeared at the door.

'Okay, we've set up the video link on your tablet. It's
showtime.'

Alice walked to the bridge, once again ringed by armed men.
The captain knew that was not the most powerful leverage he held over her. That
was instead the gun that Nikolai had pointed at Zohar's head and the missile
that would obliterate Wonderland at his command.

Alice picked up the tablet and within a few seconds,
Danish's face appeared. Arjun was behind him.

'Alice, we saw your mail and it's amazing that you found
someone there. People with technology and tools that we could use. A naval
installation, you said? How many of them are there? Is the airfield there in
working condition?'

Alice had sent the mail on the captain's instructions. She
cringed at the fact that she was deceiving those who counted on her, those she
had vowed to keep safe. Yet there was no option. She just hoped to buy herself
a bit more time so that she could plan an escape and destroy the captain and
his ship.

'Yes, they have a lot of supplies and would be thrilled to
be a part of a city like ours. The airport here is still unusable, but now that
they know that their days of isolation are over, I'm sure they will get it
repaired.'

She thought back to what John had said—about the stretch of
highway potentially being used as a landing zone. She had not yet revealed that
to the captain, and he had not yet thought of the possibility. He had instead
put several men to work on trying to see what they could salvage of the
airport. There were a couple of former engineers among the local crews he used
to get supplies, and they had said that they would need heavy machinery and
even then, it would take a month or more to get even one runway open.

What Arjun said next made Alice flinch and the captain gripped
the table in front of him so hard his knuckles reddened.

'President Robertson was on the line with us yesterday and
when he heard of where you are, he told me that his men have an idea. It seems
their satellites have shown a large stretch of highway near Karachi that is
clean of debris and could be used as a landing zone. He is sending a transport
aircraft to land there and get people out.'

Alice remembered John having passed on that information to
Robertson, and she had no doubt that he was sending a strike force to take out
the captain. When the tablet shut off, the captain shouted to no one in
particular.

'That bastard Robertson thinks he is smart. He is dealing
with me, but at the same time is double-crossing me and sending forces to
attack me.'

Then he leaned over the table to look Alice in the eye.

'You are already proving very useful. Thanks to you I know
what my enemies are planning and when they land, we will ambush them, kill them
all and take their aircraft to our new home in Wonderland. Of course, Robertson
is bluffing on one count. If he did have operational satellites, he would have
known all this sooner. Was it you who gave him that idea?'

He looked closely at Alice's reaction and turned to Nikolai,
who was standing at the doorway, holding Zohar, his right hand looped around
the boy's neck.

'Nikolai, it wasn't her. She's many things, but she is not
trained in such matters. The man with her was a Special Forces operator from
what I gather from the mail she sent her people earlier, and he is out there. I
cannot risk having someone like him on the loose, helping guide in Robertson's
men. Find him and kill him.'

***

It was now just past sunset, and John kept taking occasional
glances through his scope in order to get a better idea of the defenses at the
place. A lamp had been lit in the guard tower, and he could see more lamps lit
inside the complex. Clearly the workers at this factory did not get much of a
break. It looked like they were going to be working through the night.

The jeep appeared again, and this time there was a blond man
on board, together with two local gunmen and the driver. In the back of the
jeep there was a very different sort of cargo from what John had seen earlier—human
cargo. The two local toughs dragged out an old man and a young woman, who
appeared to be his daughter from the way the man tried to shield her from the
men. One of the men slapped him and he fell. The blond man walked up and
grabbed the man who had slapped the prisoner and threw him down effortlessly in
a shoulder throw.

'You fool. We got him to work here because he was a Doctor and
knows more about making this shit than the others. Hurting him won't help us.
I'll have the girl first and then you can enjoy yourself. She's from the
Crocodile—the captain told me that she was talking to the Biter witch and sent
her here as punishment.'

It was clear to John what was going to happen if he didn't
intervene. He was alone, he was outgunned and the chances were slim that he
would walk away alive. Still, he could not sit still while a woman was raped. A
woman who had been in contact with Alice and could lead him to her.

What the blond man said next chilled John.

'The captain says that there is only the one American
special forces man out here somewhere. I don't want to have to look for him in
the darkness, so stay sharp and we'll have some fun tonight and go hunting for
him tomorrow morning.'

John was certainly not going to wait around to be hunted
down by these men, and he was not about to give up. That left only one option—to
take the initiative and become the hunter rather than the hunted.

The old man lunged at the blond man who sidestepped him,
sending him sprawling to the ground. The men laughed as the old man scrambled
on the ground to get up, and the blond man held a rifle to his head, addressing
the girl.

'I'm trying to keep him alive. Tell your fool of a father
that I will shoot him if he tries anything.'