The Iscariot Sanction Read Free Page B

Moreton of the Hyde Yeomanry had been sent to deliver papers to the owners, and was never heard from again. Now the Order of Apollo was involved, and the evidence was overwhelming. Freight trains to and from Hyde had been loaded and unloaded at the factory every day this past month; so where were the products of all this toil?
    John watched from the gloom as dozens of sweating, soot-blackened workers filled moulds with molten lead. Artillery shells, cast by the hundred, heading to the black market. John scowled. As if the world wasn’t in enough trouble from the Riftborn, that warmongers and crooks should also conspire to weaken the Empire and strengthen its enemies.
    John kept to the shadows as best he could, treading lightly past gigantic stacks of crates and sacks. He stopped occasionally to peek into an open crate or peer under a loose tarpaulin upon a wagon, only to confirm matters. Every cart was laden with shrapnel shells, cases of bullets or kegs of powder.
    He crept towards a black iron staircase that rose up into the even blacker heights of the building. John bounded silently up the first few stairs. Almost too late, he realised he had allowed his mind to stray with feelings of righteous indignation, and had been inattentive. The flare of a lucifer had registered only as John cleared the first few steps. In the hollow behind the staircase, a soot-faced factory worker had been loitering, sparking up a cigarette, and he stared at John from between the gaps of the metal treads.
    The labourer stepped out of the shadows. John froze instinctively.
    ‘Now then, sir,’ the man said, in an abrasive Mancunian twang, ‘I don’t think the boss is in. What can we do you for?’ His question was fair, but his tone was adversarial.
    John straightened and turned around, taking a few steps down towards the man. ‘Well, my good man…’ he began, but did not finish. Instead, he pounced forward and struck the man in the windpipe, before slipping around behind him and wrapping his arm around the labourer’s throat. He squeezed until the man passed out, blue-faced.
    That was like something Lillian would do
, he mused. John was not usually one for violent confrontation, though he fancied himself a more than capable fighter. His sister, however, was a noted wildcat, and deuced formidable with it.
    Now, John scanned the vicinity until he was certain no one else had seen or heard any commotion, and dragged the unconscious man to the nearest pile of crates, covering him with a tarpaulin before continuing on his way.
    John carried on up the stairs, more cautiously this time, circling around the edge of the sweltering factory floor to a dizzying height. At the top of the stairway was a long, thin catwalk, with a full view of the manufacturing operation on one side. From this vantage point he watched the employees scurrying like worker ants, illuminated by the flickering red light of the furnaces, then turned his attention to the row of doors ahead.
    He walked past the first door, marked ‘Foreman’, and stopped at the second, marked ‘General Office’. Once he was certain there was no one about, he opened the door and slipped into the darkened room.

THREE

    ‘Same to you n’ all, you stuck-up cow!’
    The dolly-mop took her leave of Lillian Hardwick, still chuntering in a gin-slurred cant as she pushed through a group of bemused Jack-tars and back into the smoky embrace of the Jolly Sailor public house.
    Sir Arthur braced himself as Lillian, face hard and eyes ablaze, strode back to him, trying her best to ignore the taunts and unsavoury jeers of the sailors and dockers.
    ‘So this is all I am worth?’ Lillian snapped. ‘I was assigned to help you because a woman’s touch might persuade these… these bang-tails… to be more free with their information? Perhaps you would have more luck extracting information if you came back later and paid the going rate.’
    ‘Don’t be vulgar, Lillian,’ Arthur chided. But in a way, she