Floating City (62 page)

“Where is he?”

“But you already knew that, didn’t you,” Croaker said, ignoring him. “Sure. Johnny Leonforte was working for you. If the father, why not the son? It was Caesare’s man who shadowed me in London. I took care of him, but until now it didn’t occur to me there might be more than one who saw Okami in Holland Park. Caesare took the news of Okami’s whereabouts right to you, didn’t he, Senator?”

“Where is Okami, Mr. Croaker?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Jesus, Croaker,” Vesper whispered hoarsely. “What the hell are you going to tell him when we get out there?”

“Shut up and follow my lead.”

“I ask you again, Mr. Croaker—”

“Do we have a deal, Senator?”

Silence. Then Dedalus disappeared from the end of the shaft Croaker took the opportunity to hustle them closer to the open vent aperture.

Dedalus reappeared and said, “They’re gone. Come out of your hole, Mr. Croaker. Perhaps we do have something to discuss.”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t believe you until I see for myself,” Croaker said, scuttling toward the senator. “And by the way, put down the Beretta. It does nothing at all for my sense of trust in this deal.”

Dedalus dropped the gun. Pushing Vesper out the vent, Croaker tumbled out after her. They stood in a small clearing along a densely wooded hillside. There was no one else visible, but Croaker did not for a moment trust Dedalus. The man dealt in lies the way others traded stocks or commodities. Croaker had known men like him and he knew their weakness: it was their lust for power. Here and now, tracking down Mikio Okami represented the ultimate power to Dedalus.

“Satisfied?” Dedalus asked in a neutral tone of voice.

“Hardly.” Croaker had regained his grip on Vesper and with her face and shoulder smeared with blood, she looked just as he wanted her to. The senator seemed concerned at the sight of her. After all, he had sent her into the DARPA facility, and he was facing the consequences of that act. It proved he was human, just like anybody else.

Dedalus peered at her. “Such a beautiful face. Did he break your nose?”

“I think so,” she said in a peculiar nasal voice. “I can’t feel anything.”

“Shut up!” Croaker said.

“Let her go now,” Dedalus said, the stern father figure again.

“I need to be sure of our deal.”

“I’ve done everything you asked. What more do you want?”

“Reassurances, Senator. Once I tell you where Okami is, I’ll need all your help. You know what happened to Do Duc.”

“You’ll have my protection, provided the intelligence you give me is correct.”

“Don’t worry about that, Senator.” Croaker was looking around. “Do you have transportation near here? This place is starting to give me the creeps!”

“Just over that rise,” Dedalus said as he bent to retrieve the Beretta.

“Empty it, Senator.”

Dedalus did so without protest. Vesper was eyeing the trees. “He’s lying, Senator.”

Dedalus looked up. “What?”

Croaker shook her hard. “I told you to shut up!”

“Dr. Serman is still alive. That’s when Croaker hit me, when I was trying to minister to him. I think you’d better send some people in to get him.”

“But I’ve sent—”

“Senator, he’ll die unless you do something.”

Dedalus nodded. He made a hand signal and a man emerged from the underbrush. He was carrying a handgun, muzzle down, loosely and expertly at his side.

“So much for having your protection,” Croaker said.

“Do you think I’d leave myself completely vulnerable? We hardly know one another.” Dedalus gestured. “Go into the shaft,” he directed his man. “There’s a scientist named Serman hurt in there. Bring him out.”

“Wait,” Vesper said as the man was about to climb into the vent. “I’ll have to go with him. There’s an anti-intrusion device I’ll have to get him around.”

“Do it,” the senator said, understanding immediately that she was using this chance to get away from Croaker.

“Forget it,” Croaker said, understanding dawning as well. This was the ultimate test of trust, but could he trust her? “I’m not letting her go.”

“Why not?” Dedalus smiled. “I’ve emptied my weapon, I’ve revealed my bodyguard. It’s time for you to make a gesture of trust.”

“You bitch!” Croaker shouted at Vesper. “If you hadn’t told him—”

“But she did,” Dedalus said. “It was her duty. Now, make the gesture, Mr. Croaker.”

With a low growl, Croaker pushed Vesper away from him. She went stumbling over the ground, and the senator’s bodyguard helped her back through the vent.

“Now that we’re alone, Mr. Croaker, I do expect you to tell me where Mikio Okami has gone to ground. I’ll keep you in custody until we have him. Then you may go.”

“That’s your idea of a deal? Forget it.”

“Unfortunately, I am in no position to forget it.” A small, silver-plated pistol appeared in the senator’s fist. It was the kind of weapon instructors liked to start women on because the buck of the percussion was minimal. But at close quarters like these, it was as lethal as the Beretta. “I need to get my hands on Okami and you’re going to help me do just that. You’re out of bargaining chips. Tell me where he’s hiding or I’ll put a bullet through your right kneecap. Five minutes later it will be your left knee, and so on and so on. You get the picture. You’ll tell me what I want to know, I promise you.”

“Senator?” It was Vesper’s voice.

“Yes, what is it?” Dedalus said in an annoyed tone. “Have you gotten Serman out?”

“Serman’s dead,” she said, poking her head and shoulders out of the vent. She was gripping the bodyguard’s handgun.

“Where’s Andrew?”

“I’m afraid he’s—”

Dedalus had been taught to aim and shoot by an expert. He squeezed off a shot before Vesper did, but his small-caliber weapon was not accurate at that range. His shot spun off the inside of the shaft. He was about to fire again when Vesper shot him between the eyes. His arms flew out as he toppled over backward, an astonished expression on his face.

“You missed your calling; you should have been an actor.” Vesper looked at Croaker as she crawled out of the vent. “You see,” she said, “sometimes it pays to have a little trust.”

Out in the compound, Floating City was burning, or so it seemed to Nicholas as he emerged from the lab. The truck that had exploded was aflame, and the fire had spread to two other trucks in the convoy poised to roll out of the main gate.

The danger... you don’t know... There’s more than...
There’s more than
what?
What had Abramanov been trying to tell him? What was the danger?

As Nicholas ran, he was obliged to leap across the backs of men who had been caught in the initial blast. Then, out of the billowing black smoke, he saw the huge figure of Rock, striding toward the lead truck. The LAW was strapped across one shoulder, and he held a small Cobray M-11 with the telltale T-shape of its long magazine in one hand. He had redesigned and recalibrated it into an exceptionally deadly and accurate weapon.

“Get out of there, you bastard! Fucking rat!” he screamed.

He was about to fire at the lead truck when he caught sight of Nicholas. He turned and grinned.

“So you got out. Mick warned me you would manage it by hook or by crook, but I didn’t believe him. Now, of course, it doesn’t matter.” He hefted his LAW. “Same old weapon, you’re thinking, right? Wrong. This is now loaded with the first Torch.”

Nicholas felt the tremor of Rock’s intent a split second before he began firing the Cobray. Bullets flew at him as he dived against an unmoving corpse. Rock, firing the Cobray in short, accurate bursts, was moving steadily toward him. Blood, bone, and gristle spattered Nicholas as the bullets began to eat up the corpse.

Rock came on, slamming home another long magazine into the machine pistol. In another few steps he would be within range to pick Nicholas apart. Nicholas looked around, saw an AK-47. He grabbed for it, but it was one of those Chinese-manufactured jobs and the firing mechanism was jammed.

Rock’s grin was wider than ever. “Come on, bad boy. You killed Do Duc. See if you can kill me.”

Nicholas broke down the AK-47, dismantling it as if for cleaning. Not good enough. He gripped it, one hand on the barrel, the other just above the magazine. Then he projected his psyche outward as he exerted all the pressure he could muster. The world pressed inward, light streamed past him as if he were on a speeding train, and sounds echoed in his ears as if he existed on a plane a long way off. The barrel abruptly snapped and he had his weapon.

Rock fired his first burst and Nicholas rolled along the ground, feeling the snapping of splintering stone at his ankles. But he had got the heft of the broken barrel now, and he rose from the ground. In the same motion, he leapt directly toward Rock, whose finger froze on the trigger as he swung the stubby muzzle of the Cobray toward Nicholas.

In that moment of suspended time Nicholas let fly the broken barrel of the AK-47. Deep in Tau-tau he projected a line of flight, like a shaft of invisible light, down which the missile flew. He was in a tunnel of strange dimension. He saw only the missile he had loosed. He felt its speed and the friction of the air against its steel metal edges; he felt the subtle drag of gravity exerting its influence, and he felt through a distance that had no meaning the synapses firing in Rock’s body as he reacted to the threat.

He was far too slow. A strange whistling filled the air and then a sickening
thunk!
as the thin muzzle of the barrel struck Rock in the center of his chest with such force that he flew backward, twisting with the impact. Pierced just below the sternum, he lay staring up, blood fountaining from him.

Where was Mick?

The engine of the lead truck coughed to life, and without further conscious thought Nicholas sprinted toward it. As he came up to where Rock lay, eyes unmoving and glazed, he reached down, ejected Torch from the LAW, which was far too bulky for him to take wholesale; Torch was bad enough. He ran on, sprinting in zigzag fashion through the chaotic compound.

And now the sons have met under what could only be considered unfortunate circumstances,
Mick had said.

Mick, at the wheel of the truck, threw it into first gear and it began to rumble toward the gate. Nicholas, picking up speed, closed the gap between them. Torch was heavy, but he was determined not to leave such a deadly weapon behind.

Perhaps Mick had spotted him in the side mirror because he risked stripping the transmission by crashing prematurely into second, then third gear. The truck protested, but lurched forward nonetheless, rolling ever more quickly toward the main gate.

Nicholas, his lungs burning, made a last desperate effort, leaning forward, straining toward the ropes that held the rear gate in vertical position. He wasn’t going to make it. He could not maintain his maniac speed for much longer, and in a moment the truck would begin pulling away from him. Then it lurched and seemed to pause as the right front wheel hit something, a guard perhaps. Nicholas’s fingers felt for the rope, closed around it, and as the truck righted itself and roared away, he swung aboard.

As he turned around, his chest heaving with the effort he had expended, Nicholas could see Rock. He was struggling to turn over. How could the man still be alive? He had six inches of blued steel in his chest. Nevertheless, he managed to roll over on his side. Then he reached under him, pulled the LAW into firing position.

Then the truck had gone around a bend and Nicholas lost sight of him. He sank into Tau-tau and the light turned aqueous. Time bent to his will, and even the hideous lurching of the truck seemed distant. In his mind, he could see Rock now, realizing that the LAW was empty.

The road bent again, and in the distance, the entrance to Floating City was again in view. Rock had collapsed again, or was he merely bending over? Something in his hand. Sunk deep in Tau-tau, Nicholas recognized it.

It was another Torch!

Rock slammed it home, and Nicholas again heard Abramanov’s last fateful words:
The danger... you don’t know... There’s more than...

There’s more than one!
That was what Abramanov was trying to tell him.

Buddha protect me,
Nicholas thought,
he’s going to fire Torch!

Even at this distance he could feel Rock’s murderous intent. With a superhuman effort, Rock swung the barrel of the LAW into firing position. Nicholas could see only a black hole.

Rock’s finger tightened on the trigger, and Nicholas did the only thing he could do: he projected his psyche outward as if delivering a physical blow. He could not affect an inanimate object such as the LAW, but the bolt of psychic energy detonated in Rock’s mind. Too late. Rock’s finger jerked the trigger, and with an ominous
boom!
Torch was loosed.

But Nicholas had had some effect. Though they were already too far from the main gate of Floating City to discern Rock, Nicholas saw the missile streaking through the triple canopy of foliage in an almost perfect vertical trajectory. The projection of Tau-tau had been enough to make Rock jump, turning the LAW upward, deflecting his aim.

But now, as he left Floating City behind, Nicholas remembered that Niigata had said that two small bricks of element 114m could destroy four square city blocks.
Four.

Mother of God.

Nicholas began to calculate, estimating the speed of the truck, the height the LAW could shoot the Torch missile before gravity took over and it fell to earth.

Mick was in a hurry. The truck jounced and lurched over the rutted dirt road, heading down the mountain. In the manner of all mountain roads, it continued to wind through the terrain, and now they had lost all sight of Floating City. They were putting on distance very quickly, but Nicholas did not think it would be enough.

He looked around as the grade became more steep. One side was a virtual wall of rock and thick foliage, the other an abyss. The truck careened around a hairpin turn, and he could hear a sudden roaring. His blood froze. For an instant, he believed Torch had detonated. But then he saw the cataract spinning down from high on the mountainside, spilling into a swiftly rushing river far below.