The Council of Ten (31 page)

“You were very good,” Teeg told her.

Two other men, both smaller and neither as ugly, had entered the lab and were carefully planting what must have been explosives.

“After we’re finished with the two of you, it will look like an accident,” the giant told her, fingering a black detonator.

Drew reached the door through which he planned to enter the building out of breath and far too noisily. It didn’t matter.

Pam was all that mattered.

He had met her enough in this building to be familiar with its layout, right up to the location of the main lab within. The problem was entry into that lab. There must be just one door and no windows. Almost certainly there were ventilation shafts he could use, but he didn’t have the time to search for them, and neither did Pam.

The rear service entrance to the building was just as he had left it that morning. They had taught him how to pick most any lock during his stays at the mercenary camp, neither a complicated nor difficult practice if one had the right tools. The darkness lengthened it a bit, but he was inside within two minutes, making a rapid pace down the long angular corridors in the dim light, stopping only once at the door with the familiar logo denoting hazardous materials etched on it.

Pam was their bait. They couldn’t risk killing her until they had him. This gave Drew reason for hope, although not much. His only weapon now was a glass bottle gripped in his right hand. It would work nicely on one man, but he fully expected to find more than that within the lab.

He swung onto the corridor leading to the main lab. He had to know she was all right, had to be sure. A little farther on, he stopped.

“Pam,” he called out softly. “I’m lost. Am I getting close?”

“Three doors down on the right. I left the door open for you.”

Drew swallowed hard. He was almost surely walking to his death unless he could find more than just a single glass jar to use as a weapon. His eyes swept the corridor and locked with something on the wall. Taking as much air in as he could force down, he moved toward it.

With the giant’s hook pressed firmly against her throat, Pam could hear the echo of Drew’s steps growing louder. She wanted to shout a warning, but reason kept her words down. She had given him the proper signal over the phone. He knew what he was walking into and even if he didn’t, to scream now would be to guarantee her own death and his as well. She had to trust him, biting her lip to make sure she stayed silent.

His footsteps slowed, almost to the door.

“God, I had an awful night,” she heard him sigh. If only she could warn him about the giant’s two henchmen poised on opposite sides of the lab with their guns drawn.

Drew’s shadow crossed into the room. Pam opened her mouth to scream with all her restraint gone.

Then suddenly she was blinded by a white haze that filled the room and blotted out all vision.

Drew had pictured her exact location from her voice and aimed the ultrapowerful fire extinguisher in that direction because that was where he expected her captors to be. Because chemical fires are the most difficult to put out, the building was equipped with a number of extinguishers that produced white foamy jets of incredible range and scope.

Teeg was blinded by the first assault as Drew continued his sweep. He knew immediately that Pam’s other captors were spaced apart and swung the extinguisher around, hoping its jets would move faster than their bullets. A barrage of automatic fire from the right was wild and Drew knew the foam had done its job there. He felt its last spurt emerge as he swung to the left and felt something hot burn into his side and spin him around. The spin was fortunate in a way, for it saved him from the bullet that otherwise would have struck him squarely in the forehead. He felt a graze that singed his side, desperation the only thing that kept him from losing consciousness.

His assailant charged at him, angling his pistol for a better shot. The empty extinguisher rolled awkwardly across the floor, and Drew yanked the bottle of clear liquid from his belt and popped the cork top off, flinging the contents forward as the man steadied his gun.

The bullet flew hopelessly errant as the acid compound burned into the man’s face and eyes. He staggered backward, wailing horribly and clutching his burning face.

But the issue seemed only delayed, because a giant whom Drew recognized as the man with the hook in Nassau was charging him, and out of the corner of his eye Drew saw the foam-covered man steadying his machine gun once more.

There was a flash of motion and Drew realized it was Pam charging into the gun-wielding man just as he was about to fire. His burst cut a jagged line across the room, punching holes in the computer data banks, smoke and sparks rising with the smell of burnt wires.

The man tried to right his aim, but Pam was all over him. She was big for a girl and always a great athlete. She screamed as she tore at him, clubbing, striking, and scratching, forgetting about the machine gun for now.

Teeg rushed at Drew with his hook raised. Drew saw it start into its descent and twisted sideways from its path. He then came in under the giant, trying to knock him off balance with as much of a blow as he could muster. The best he was able to manage was to send both of them reeling headlong toward the heavy door leading into the inner lab.

The black detonator slid across the floor of the outer lab.

The force of Teeg’s bulk snapped the latch from its grasp and the door pounded inward. Teeg and Drew stumbled inside, Drew holding on with both his hands to the giant’s hook.

Pam continued to struggle with the other man, but he found her face with an elbow and pummeled it twice. Pam had never been struck violently before and the sudden pain and flow of blood from her nostrils nearly stripped her consciousness away. But the man she was battling had neglected his machine gun just as she had, and now Pam was able to gain control over it an instant ahead of him. She twisted the barrel around so it was square on his midsection as her finger closed on the trigger.

The machine gun clicked on an empty chamber. Pam freed one hand and did one of the few moves she recalled from her limited martial arts training, pounding the heel of her hand with all her might into the man’s throat.

She wasn’t sure if she killed him or not, but suddenly his face went purple and he was gasping for air. His grip on the empty rifle let go and both hands clutched for his throat.

Pam lunged to her feet.

In the inner lab, the struggle had taken to the floor with Teeg hovering on top, the final death bite of his steel hook stopped only by Drew’s hands locked on the base. He was aware of his own screaming and the pain within him that seemed everywhere at once.

Pam rushed to the door and tried the latch. It was jammed from the inside where the hook was just inches away from Drew’s throat.

Driven to despair, Pam realized Drew’s last hope lay with her, and she rushed back to the console. Wasting no time, she jammed both her hands into the gloves controlling the Hands and went to work.

Teeg smiled as he readied the hook for its final plunge.

Drew wailed in agony, the last of his strength ebbing.

And with that, one of the pincers suddenly descended and latched onto Teeg’s hook. The giant felt a jolt and was powerless to stop the pressure from pulling him to his feet.

Pam worked the mechanism feverishly, joining the second Hand to the giant’s opposite shoulder and rotating the joystick so that the Hands worked together to yank him away from Drew. Free, Drew rolled once, then tried unsuccessfully to climb back to his feet.

The giant struggled against the hold of the Hands, tearing his shoulder free of the grasp and the flesh with it, held only by the lock on his hook now.

Pam struggled to bring the now free Hand back down for purchase, shouting into the microphone at the same time.

“Drew, get out! Get out!”

Drew gazed up at the window and pushed himself on, crawling for the door. At last he reached up for the knob. Even that proved an enormous effort. His body was racked with pain, the feeling of burning coals singeing his flesh in the areas where he’d been wounded.

Teeg flailed at him with a bloodied but freed arm, still fighting to loosen his hook from the grasp of the left Hand. Finally, with an ear-wrenching scream, he tore it free and rushed forward.

Drew made it into the outer lab just in time and slammed the door behind him.

It wouldn’t catch. Somehow the crash of bodies into it had knocked out the alignment. From the inside, Teeg began to pull. Drew kept it shut, but it took all his strength, which was failing rapidly.

Pam had started to lunge from her chair to help when her eyes fell back on the glass case containing the undissolved powder and still holding the gas that had killed the rat. It would have remained active; it could wipe out 26.5 square miles the computer had told her.

Drew grimaced in pain, hands locked on the door handle to hold firm. The door began to buckle.

Now
, Pam realized,
it had to be now!

And she twisted the right Hand back over the experiment table directly in line above the glass case. Without hesitating she brought the pincer down hard. The glass shattered.

The gas escaped.

“Seal the door, Drew!” she screamed. “For God’s sake, seal it!”

Drew could feel the slackening in the giant’s efforts as he did. Teeg staggered backward into his line of vision through the observation glass. He reeled about the inner lab, crashing into one wall and then another, clutching for his throat. Bottles and jars fell to the floor. The giant’s features were scarlet, his face that of a drowning man with no hope of reaching the surface in time. Saliva frothed at the corners of his mouth.

“My God,” muttered Drew, easing himself toward Pam. “What the hell is happening?”

In the inner lab Teeg crumbled to the floor, retching and writhing, holding to life with the last of his reserves.

“That powder, it’s some sort of poison!” Pam said frantically, not able to watch the rest. “Mix it with water and it drains the air of oxygen, swallows it up incredibly fast. Right now there’s not one molecule of oxygen left in there.”

“What about us, out here?”

“The seals are all airtight. We’re safe.”

In the inner lab the giant had ceased his struggling. He lay on his back, parts of his body twitching spasmodically.

The man against the far wall, one eye clear enough to see, had located Teeg’s black detonator, which had been separated from the giant during the struggle. He reached for it with a trembling hand.

Drew’s legs were going wobbly. He swung to right himself and caught the hint of motion. He registered what the man was doing in an instant and pushed himself into motion.

Too late.

In one eternal second, the man pressed down on a button.

It seemed to Drew as if his ears had been ripped out. The blast rocketed him into the air. He landed hard on the floor with a bitter sulphur smell heavy on his nostrils as flames were suddenly everywhere. He shook himself alert and grabbed hold of his bearings. He had been blown halfway to the door. Before him the entire front wall was a mass of smoke and flames, the inner lab thankfully unscathed.

“
Pam!
”

He crawled forward into the crackling heat to reach her.

“
Pam
!”

No reply. Drew crawled on, taking in scorched breaths that made him feel like hot coals were swishing about his mouth, as the crackling flames spread through the entire room.

He found Pam near the console, blown out of her chair, face black and charred. Her eyes were closed and Drew couldn’t let himself consider that she might be dead. He suddenly found himself on his feet, carrying her.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

With that scream, he propelled himself forward through the flames. When he reached the corridor only his pant leg was on fire. He smothered it against the floor as he started to lay Pam down, collapsing over her as he leaned down to check for a heartbeat.

There was another, secondary explosion and flames poured into the corridor. Drew shielded Pam with his body, then dragged both of them across the tile until the last of his strength gave out and the flames made a determined rash for him. Drew had nothing left to fight with. He closed his eyes.

Then he felt the hand grab him from behind and yank viciously. Drew felt himself being dragged and heard the scraping of his shoes against the floor. The air turned comfortably cool, the acrid stench of smoke and flames vanquished.

“Pam! Pam!”

“I’ve got her, boy,” came a voice struggling to stay calm.

And the last sight Drew recorded before consciousness fled him was the face of Jabba the Hutt.

Part Six:
Bonn

Chapter 27

THE TIMBER WOLF LEFT
for Bonn early Sunday morning on an odyssey that would not see him reach Germany’s capital until early on Monday. Anxiety nagged at him, frustration mixing with confusion. He had more pieces to the puzzle now, but the overall picture made no sense.

After escaping from Tumblefig’s farm in Wapello, Iowa, he had headed to another of Trelana’s distribution points by way of stolen cars, three to be exact, never staying in any one long enough to risk capture. Dearborn, Michigan, was a good choice, not only because of its reasonable proximity, but also since its profile was distinctly different. From farm country to a working class city—the range was incredible. But something held these two locales together besides being apparent centers for cocaine, and Wayman could only wonder whether another underground shelter would lie beneath 1812 Mohican Lane—the Dearborn drop.

He had arrived in the city late Thursday night but not too late to order up a huge meal from room service, which included the best bottle of port the house could offer. Twenty minutes after finishing the meal without bothering to savor the wine, he was sound asleep.

Wayman rose at ten the next morning and had a cab take him to the address in question; 1812 Mohican Lane turned out to be located in the southeast section of Dearborn off Miller Road. It had once been a huge factory laid out in the shape of a square with a formerly sturdy fence enclosing the combination parking lot-courtyard that fronted the complex. All that remained now was a shell with boards taking the place of windows and tired brick worn by poor treatment and the elements. The entire area, in fact, was desolate with the exception of a few kids churning by on their bicycles and a rare car, rusted and clanking, inching down the street as if looking for a place to expire.