The Devil's Opera(122)
Moments later, pieces of wood, ash, and live coals started to fall among the crowd. The antiphonal “My God/Mein Gott” that had been sounding in the square was replaced with shrieks as the people were pelted by debris, and as live coals landed in hair, hats and scarves.
Byron took it all in for a stunned moment, cold wrapped around his heart, then snapped to and spun to Police Captain Bill Reilly, who was standing nearby.
“Bill, that’s got to be from the construction site. Let me take our guys and run there. You get the fire team on the way. We’ll meet you there, okay?”
“Go!” Bill waved his hand.
“Got your whistle?” Byron demanded of his partner.
Gotthilf pulled it out of his pocket.
“Blow follow me, and come on!”
Gotthilf put the whistle to his lips and pealed out the shrill rising and falling tones of that call. It pierced through the clamor of the crowd. Every watchman along the parade route and in the square headed toward them.
Byron didn’t wait for them to gather, but took off at a dead run, heading for the nearest bridge over the Big Ditch. Gotthilf and the others followed.
* * *
Ciclope shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness from his mind and the ringing from his ears. He suddenly became aware that he was propped up against the wall of the house across the road from the construction site, and he didn’t remember walking that far back. He looked around; the scope of the destruction in front of him was shocking, for a moment at least. But since he had been expecting a bomb to blow up, it didn’t occupy him for long.
Pietro. Where was Pietro?
There was a crumpled figure lying on the ground just outside the collapsed wall. Its clothing looked familiar. Ciclope stumbled forward, then bent to pull on an arm.
“Hey, Pietro, what are you doing?” he rasped. “Get up! We need to get out of here.”
Ciclope’s pulling on the arm turned the body on its back. It was Pietro, all right; Pietro with a hole in the middle of his forehead, oozing dark blood, vacant eyes staring up at Ciclope, a slack-jawed expression of surprise on his face. Ciclope recoiled for a moment.
“Damn.”
After a moment, he looked around to see if anyone was watching, then ran his hands through the dead man’s pockets. After all, they were partners, and Pietro wouldn’t need anything anymore. He relocated a small purse and Pietro’s revolver to his own pockets.
Ciclope rested a hand on the dead thief’s shoulder. “Say hello to Satan for me, Pietro.”
With that, he staggered to his feet and wobbled off, ears still ringing.
* * *
Reilly grabbed one of the trailing patrolmen.
“Phillip, right?”
The patrolman nodded.
“Get to the fire company; tell them to muster immediately by the hospital construction site, and to not only look at the ground, but also the roofs. Repeat that.”
Phillip recited it verbatim.
“Good. Now get, and join the others at the hospital after that.”
Phillip ran off, and Bill started up the steps.
“No, I am not moving. That was not an attack. It did not sound like a gunpowder explosion,” Gustav was stating loudly as Bill arrived at the edge of the Marine cordon, “or not just a gunpowder explosion. What is over there?” He managed to remove the imperial hand from the clutch of his daughter and waved it in the direction of the growing plume.
“I do not know,” Otto Gericke answered, “but he might,” pointing at Bill.
“Let him through,” Gustav ordered.
The Marines reluctantly opened their rank enough to let the police captain pass.
“Well?” The focus of Gustav’s imperial eagle gaze shifted to the police captain.
“My guess at the moment is there’s been an explosion of some kind, and the only thing that direction is the hospital construction site.”
“What have they got that would explode like that?” Gericke frowned. “They don’t have gunpowder or explosives.”
Bill started to shake his head, then stopped as one horrible possibility occurred to him. “They’ve got that steam crane. If something went wrong and the boiler blew…it could be pretty bad.” He pointed at the people below them slapping at coals in their hair and clothing, “And there’s a lot of roofs between there and here.”
Gericke paled. “Fire…”
“Fire company’s been called. My guys have already headed that way; I’ve got to get over there.”
Reilly dashed back down the steps and followed the route his men had taken.
Gericke’s face was still pale, but there was no quaver in his voice as he turned to Captain Beaton. “Captain, your men had best take over security, since the Polizei have gone to see what happened.”