The Ninth Dominion (The Jared Kimberlain Novels) (18 page)

The scrap car piles stretched on for over an acre, but none of the mounds of junked cars seemed the right place to hide the severed pieces of the
Marlin
. That task would be better served in Gerabaldi’s last and largest section, which was lined with piles of commercial scrap and salvage. Moving closer, the Ferryman could see a massive stack of disassembled rides from an amusement park. A huge clown’s head peeked out from near the middle. The standards of what had once been a roller coaster leaned against the pile and towered above it.

An equally large mound of steel salvaged from demolished and burned out buildings lay directly across the way. There was no real order here in this section as there had been in the others. Instead, everything just seemed to have been heaped up. Much of the steel was twisted or scorched black. It seemed to be hoping for a second life, but by the rusted, worn out look of things that had already been long in coming.

Beyond the steel refuse, past a yellow loader even more massive and ominous than the black ones back in the auto yard, lay the boat scrap. Some looked reasonably whole, while little enough remained of others even to distinguish what they had been. There were tops with no hulls and hulls with no tops. Chunks of decks and gunwales. If someone at Gerabaldi had wanted to hide the remains of the
Marlin
, this was where it would be. Hidden from sight, though, probably within another mound that might show evidence of being shuffled about.

The Ferryman made his way toward a wide, haphazard stack of junked smaller craft. He could pick out the remains of pontoons and speedboats, cabin cruisers and outboards. They had been lost to accident, neglect, or simply to age. With no value left they had ended up here. Kimberlain could picture the monstrous pronged payloader he had just passed shoveling away huge masses of the pile to make room for the
Marlin’s
remains and then sealing the hole up again.

When a scan from the ground gained nothing, he located firm footing and began to scale the mound. It was much like rock climbing, only with steel that bit into your flesh and footholds that wobbled beneath you. Halfway up, Kimberlain’s foot slid down a slope of curved steel. He grabbed hold of the remains of a foredeck to halt his plunge and steadied himself, breathing deeply. He gazed upward.

The fragment that had almost sent him plummeting was black and narrowed down to a thick point at the end. It was almost like what a bullet might look like if it had been cut into segments and then sliced in half.

A bullet or a submarine.

The Ferryman pulled out his flashlight and inspected the black steel more closely. He shoved the empty hull of a speedboat aside far enough to give his head and shoulders room to pry through. His flashlight illuminated a series of numbers, white outlines jumping out from the black surrounding them. Kimberlain felt his neck prick with excitement; they were the last three numbers in the
Marlin
’s register. He peered further into the pile with his light but found nothing else. No matter; he had what he came for, a link that might help take him all the way to Andrew Harrison Leeds. Someone at Gerabaldi would know something. His next task, tomorrow, was to find out who and what.

He retreated down the mound and had placed his foot on an upside-down cruiser hull just above the ground when the lights snapped on directly before him. Kimberlain threw up a hand to shade himself from being blinded and heard a powerful engine roaring to life. He realized it was the monstrous yellow loader bearing down, and he readjusted his balance to leap from its path.

The loader slammed into the hull he had been standing on. Its powerful prongs cut steel like butter. The loader pulled back from the wreck with the sounds of grinding and twisting metal marking the path of its withdrawing prongs. Kimberlain was moving away now, staying close to the line of boats. The loader turned his way and started coming after him.

The Ferryman quickened his pace, but the yellow loader’s driver had chosen an approach angle that cut him off. Its prongs reached for him, and Kimberlain desperately scaled the pile of boat wrecks.

The steel ends sliced effortlessly through steel just beneath his dangling feet, then drew back for another try. The driver raised the prongs and angled them upward, then threw the machine forward once more. Kimberlain managed to dodge to the side this time; his legs kicked furiously while his hands clung to the frame of an ancient Bayliner. The loader drew backward once more and pulled part of the mound directly beneath him with it. Kimberlain was left dangling.

The loader charged again, and Kimberlain swept his lower body away from its thrust, swinging with one arm above the up-angled prongs. The prongs shredded steel and then crunched back out. The loader didn’t draw back much at all this time, just came straight forward and sliced through rusted steel boat hulls when Kimberlain twisted away again. He saw the loader buckle a bit as it tried to back away, the monstrous tires spewing a cloud of junkyard dirt behind them as the prongs refused to give up their hold. Looking upward, he got his first clear view into the cab.

It was empty. The loader had no driver.

The immediate ramifications of that struck him hard. His gun would do him no good now. This was a machine he was fighting, seven or eight tons probably and all of it steel. But someone was controlling it.

Andrew Harrison Leeds must have been anticipating his every move, lying in wait for him, toying with him from the time he left the note stuck to his cabin door… .

With the robotized loader still struggling to free itself, the Ferryman seized the offensive. He pried a shard of twisted steel free from above him, then pushed off and dropped onto the loader’s right prong. The machine pulled free at last and continued backing up as if unaware of his presence, then started to raise the assembly to force him off. Kimberlain turned the resulting momentum to his advantage, sliding down the prong onto the top of the loader’s hood section.

He raised the piece of rusted metal he still held high overhead and thrust it downward with all his strength, denting the loader’s massive engine grill. He slammed the steel shard down again, then a third time, and a fourth. At last the grill gave, exposing the rear section of the engine.

The machine lunged forward madly, gears whining as if to protest the invader atop it. Kimberlain braced for the collision he knew was coming by pressing himself as close to the loader’s empty cab as possible. Its freshly straightened prongs stabbed the pile of boat wrecks and continued forward until its engine section was flush against it. When this maneuver failed to dislodge the Ferryman, it backed off and slammed forward again.

He was jarred loose from his precarious perch and might have tumbled off if the loader had tried the move a third time. Instead, it retreated only slightly and began to raise its prongs upward, attempting to bring a section of the boat wrecks up and over to crush him.

Turning toward the cab again, Kimberlain’s hands swept into the exposed engine section. He swiped and jabbed with the steel shard to no avail. The piece was too thick to permit enough access and maneuverability. So he abandoned it and jammed his bare hands inside the loader’s turning insides.

The prongs were coming up with a collection of wrecks, shedding a few to the sides while the rest buckled and settled against each other. This was his chance, here and now.

The Ferryman felt about the hot, revving engine, as the heap behind him continued to rise skyward. He knew that if he grazed a churning belt he would lose a finger or hand. Touch the wrong spot and he’d be burned horribly. His hands closed on rubber that felt like spark plug wires, and he pulled them free.

The loader sputtered, engine grinding, but its prongs had almost reached a forty-five-degree angle and were still coming. Kimberlain’s hands found what felt like a fan belt. He pulled out his right hand and grasped the steel shard once more. He guided it into the hole in the hood and jammed it hard against the fan belt, producing a squealing sound. The smell of burning oil reached his nostrils an instant before smoke began to pour up all around him. The loader’s engine died. The prongs stopped moving, a rusted outboard dangling from their grasp.

Kimberlain slid off the loader’s hood and eased himself to the ground. He stood there with shoulders against its black steel.

It was Leeds! Leeds had done it all!

He wondered how the madman had pulled it off, but nothing should have surprised him when Leeds was involved. Best to get out of the yard now while he had the chance. He had what he came for; Leeds couldn’t take that away from him.

Kimberlain jogged away from the loader’s corpse. He would retrace his steps and be gone from here before the madman could throw any more tricks at him. He passed back into the auto yard and heard the rumbling an instant before the lights caught him. The rumbling turned into a roar of two monstrous engines, as the twin black loaders advanced toward him.

Chapter 19

KIMBERLAIN KNEW HE
could not outrun the loaders, and if he tried to dodge them, they would alter their routes and trap him anyway. So he stood his ground, wondering what the loaders would think of that if they could see.

But someone could see, someone controlling them from afar.

Leeds …

“Try this, you sons of bitches… .”

With the loaders all but upon him, Kimberlain hit the ground where he had been standing. His move came at the last possible instant before the loaders would have crushed him, too late for the driverless machines to react. They smashed into each other, sparks flying as their prong assemblies smacked together. Flat on his stomach, on the ground between the monstrous tires, Kimberlain heard the gears screaming in protest. He crawled out from beneath the rear loader and scampered away.

The twin iron monsters hit reverse simultaneously to pull back from the collision. But their prongs locked, providing the Ferryman with time to escape. A grinding sound made him turn their way again, and he watched as the loaders separated at last. They spun toward him side by side.

There would be no escaping until they were incapacitated. He needed a weapon, but what?

His eyes fell on
Scarlett
when he was halfway to it. The fact that the smaller, red loader had not joined its two larger brethren seemed to indicate that Leeds did not control her. And if Leeds didn’t, well …

The Ferryman lunged into
Scarlett
’s cab as the larger loaders gained ground fast. This smaller loader had an entirely different front assembly: pronged, yes, but with oscillating joints like elbows that could twist and bend in humanlike articulation.

Kimberlain jammed a small device that looked like a rounded hairbrush against the ignition. He pressed a button on the device’s back that sent electrical signals designed to “fool” any machine’s starter system.

“Come on, baby! Come on!” the Ferryman shouted as he twisted his universal starter to find the proper charge.

Scarlett
roared to life, as one of the black loaders pulled ahead of the other and bore down on the smaller machine. Its bright lights poured into the cab. Kimberlain’s hands located the joysticks that controlled
Scarlett’s
arms, as he gassed the accelerator and shoved the stick forward.

Scarlett
lunged at her larger enemy and Kimberlain had just enough time before impact to twist the front assembly perpendicular to the ground. As the black loader closed, he braked hard and applied gas at the same time. The result was to force
Scarlett
into a fishtail that took her from her bigger cousin’s path. At the same time, Kimberlain worked the joystick to bring her cocked front assembly down hard to the left.

It clipped the big loader in the front quarter panel just beyond the left side prong. Impact threw the bigger loader wildly off course, slamming straight for a neatly stacked pile of car wrecks that tumbled down upon it as it plowed through.

Kimberlain swung round in time to see the second loader almost upon him. This time he turned
Scarlett
to face it head on. As the enemy charged in, Kimberlain pulled
Scarlett
’s oscillating assembly up toward his cab, bending its steel arms inward at the joint. He snapped it out and down at the last, relying on moments and impetus. He was not disappointed. Impact on the larger machine forced the loader’s prongs to their lowest point at near ground level. Its bulk slowed in response time considerably, and the black monster was helpless when Kimberlain drove
Scarlett
forward and slammed her front assembly into the larger machine full throttle.

The loader’s front steel section buckled and bent. Smoke poured from its grill. Kimberlain moved to strike at it again, but it drove forward. He tried to parry its ascending prongs, but they soared up and over him. They lashed downward against
Scarlett
’s oscillating assembly and pinned it before the Ferryman could pull away. Steel ground against steel with a horrible shriek. Kimberlain tried to pull back, but it was no use. The best he could manage was a stalemate as the two iron monsters struggled for position, spinning, with dirt and scrap yard debris hurled behind their tires.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kimberlain saw the other loader burst through a pile of flattened cars, climbing atop the last few stubborn ones en route to the battle. If the loader he was hooked up with now could merely maintain the stalemate,
Scarlett
would be finished.

The freed loader was heading straight his way, certain to try to sandwich him between it and the one he was battling. The things fought like great beasts from a prehistoric era of steel. Their engines snorted and huffed, with clawlike prongs whistling against each other.

The second loader had angled itself for a charge against
Scarlett
’s rear. Kimberlain could sense it coming and needed only brief glimpses to adjust his timing. When only ten yards remained between them, he spun
Scarlett
’s wheel and floored the accelerator. The resulting momentum carried
Scarlett
around the loader she was locked against, switching their positions too late for the second loader to stop its charge. It rammed its prongs through its twin’s engine and cab compartment. The dying loader bled smoke and oil. Flames sprang up from its already-mangled hood top.