第99节

his suspicions about the type of explosives that had been used

in the attack and where they might have come from.

When he finished, his hosts exchanged thoughtful glances and muttered

amongst themselves. Outside the windows, the overground stretched away

into the distance, muted tints of grey, brown and yellow under a pale

wintry sky.

Steve sat there, not knowing whether they were going to turn on him and

expose his duplicity before throwing him under the train, or award him

a Gold Merit Star. But nobody tore into him. Fran sent a 'Well Done'

signal with her eyes, and Bull's aide asked him if he'd like a drink.

Steve asked for a KornGold - a tangy synthetic

orange-fiavouredcordial.

The generals ordered the more potent Southern Comfort and stood up to

stretch their legs.

Nobody in the wagon appeared to have the slightest suspicion that there

was a murderer sitting in their midst. Someone who had helped

slaughter Hartmann and his execs - Buck McDonnell and the others - in

an unforgivable but necessary act of betrayal. Talking about it again

had made Steve wonder how he managed to sleep at night with so much

blood on his hands. The blood of friends as well of enemies ....

Bull heightened the colour in his cheeks with a generous shot of grain

alchohol,land laid his folded arms on the table. 'Thank you, son. We

appreciate your frankness in this matter. Let me give you some more

background on why we asked you to come on this ride. And this too is

strictly between us, okay?"

'Absolutely, sir."

'Last spring, CINC-TRAIN had a mutiny on their hands. Yeah, I know

what you're thinking - inconceivable.

The crews called it a protest, but technically it was a mutiny." He

motioned John Adams to take up the story.

'Only Red River stayed in line. Basically what they wanted was

official recognition that there was such a thing as Mute magic. But

they also demanded a relaxation in certain disciplinary measures - the

removal of ASE's from all trains, and elimination of judicial sanctions

against crews who failed to achieve their operational targets.

'The protest was quiet, orderly, contained within the division and the

whole thing was settled inside forty-eight hours with the aid of a

closed-circuit video address by the P-G. As to whether or not any of

the concessions we made were justified is immaterial. The point is,

demands were made and - more importantly - this whole thing blew up

without warning. Internal security totally failed to pick up on

this.

You can imagine how this made us look."

Yeah, thought Steve. Like a bunch ofBull cut in. 'One of the demands

was for the reinstatement of the executive officers of The Lady, led by

your old boss, Commander Hartmann. It went against the grain but we

agreed - and that put us in an even bigger hole when AMEXICO decided to

use The Lady as a decoy."

'And dressed her up as Red River .... ' 'That's right. We ain't never

gonna know how those M'Call Mutes managed to get close enough to plant

those explosives under that wagon-train but if Hartmann's crew had been

on the ball it could never had happened. That night watch must have

been sleepin' on the job. That's the only answer. Whichever way it

was, it pointed up even further the woeful state of on-board

discipline. It wasn't just sloppy. It was criminally fuggin'

negligent!

Okay, so they paid the price - but once again it's CINC-TRAIN who ends

up holding the bag - for a decision made by Karlstrom and the PG!

'But that isn't all!" continued Bull. He pointed to his cousins.

'Andrew here oversees the construction of our wagon-trains and Zach is

in charge of the Design Bureau. Those explosions didn't just cripple

The Lady, they showed up every design fault and constructional weakness

of the current model and damn near blew these boys' careers away!

Right, Zack?"

'Yehh! Only it wasn't through lack of foresight on our part! The

prototypes were built way before my time, but there's nothing in the

original specifications about making the wagons capable of withstanding