Highlander - Donna Lettow [85]
A yellow smoke began to seep into the conference room through the air vent. MacLeod was the first to notice it. For an instant, he was back on the battlefields of the Marne.
“Poison gas!” he shouted. “Out of the room!” Then he held his breath, but he could already feel the toxic gas burning his throat, his eyes. He grabbed for Anielewicz, who had begun to choke, and dragged him into the hallway and away from the room. He thrust him at Avram. “Take care of him!”
MacLeod rushed back down the hall and into the conference room to make sure the others had made it out. One fighter nearest the vent lay wide-eyed on the floor, drowned by his own body fluid as it erupted into his lungs. Back in the hallway, water flowing from his burning eyes, MacLeod slammed the door to the conference room behind him and took a tentative breath. So far the air in the corridor seemed safe. He assessed the situation.
Zelzer, who’d also been seated near the air vent, was sprawled unconscious near the doorway. As MacLeod bent down to him, he could already hear the gurgling in his lungs as he struggled to breathe. He’d taken in too much of the gas; he’d be gone soon. There was nothing that anyone could do to save him now.
Mira was trying to help one of the couriers, a woman named Reginka, sit up against the wall. Reginka was coughing up liquid, never a good sign, but it did indicate her body was still trying to fight the gas. MacLeod had transported hundreds like her from the trenches of the Somme. Even the ones who survived would never breathe properly again. Sometimes it was more of a mercy if the gas just killed them outright.
The others seemed to have come through it, more or less. Coughing, swollen eyes, irritation, but if he could find a way to stop more poison gas from entering the bunker, they’d survive this attack. MacLeod started back down the corridor in search of Avram and Anielewicz, cautiously opening each door he encountered. Of the four rooms he checked, he found gas—and bodies—in the first two and quickly closed the doors again. Using his pocket knife, he slashed a big X in the wood of those doors so no one else would be endangered. The rooms weren’t airtight, but without a strong breeze behind it, it would take some time for enough gas to seep out through the doors to be dangerous.
In the fifth room, he found Avram and the young commander in the middle of a group of fighters. The room was large, Issachar’s game room, and the table tennis and billiards tables were given over to the stricken. Avram saw him enter and moved to him.
“How is it?” MacLeod asked.
“Bad. Real bad. Old Izzy had air vents installed in probably a third of the rooms, plus the entrance. A real stickler for fresh air. Couple of canisters of whatever the hell that was back there was all it took. We’ve got bodies stacked up in the entrance tunnels and the stairs, they couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. No numbers yet.”
“How’s Anielewicz?” MacLeod could see the young man was pale and coughing, but still seemed to have the reins of command firmly in hand as he directed the head count.
“Completely amazed you would rescue him. I’m sure he half suspected you were the one who sold us out. Who knows, goy, you may win him over yet before the war ends.” Avram shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. “We should all live so long, right?”
There was a commotion at the door to the game room. Issachar and a couple of his armed goons were trying to force their way into the room over the protests of some ZOB fighters.“Anielewicz!” Issachar bellowed from the doorway. With a resigned look, Anielewicz signaled the fighters to let them in.
Avram pulled out his pistol. “Best watch your manners, Shmuel,” he said as he passed by.
Issachar ignored him and went straight for Anielewicz, backing him up against a table, getting right in his face. “I got thirty of my people dead. Dead, Mordechai, do you hear me? Dead! I got another forty so sick they’re puking up their guts. What the