Point Apocalypse (13 page)

"Wow
," McLean wiped a tear and grinned one last time. "Your FSA bosses must be really up their own asses. Did you really think I would work for you?"

The smile disappeared from his face.
Hatred glowed in his eye. His voice became icy.

"We deliver
carula, and what do we get in return? More and more dead meat: sick and useless men unable to survive here." McLean sat up and clenched his cigar until it broke sending sparks flying onto his pants. He didn't notice. He leaned forward and gave me a poke. "And now you want me to help you? Who do you all think I am?"

His whiskey splashing
his boots, Tex rose and threw the glass over the railing. He was heaving. I glanced at the doorway. Frenchie and the gorilla already stood there, gloomy-faced, clenching their guns.

"Oh no,
Mr. Posner, I don't think so! First, I want you to tell me everything
you
know. Carula, mainly. Also, I want to know why your agency wants Neumann after all these years. Leave your Varlamov story for some other idiots. You give me the accurate information. Then I'll decide where to go from there."

So! Apparently,
I couldn't count on McLean's help. I had to find Neumann all by myself. When our analysts had developed this scenario they predicted the odds of a negative outcome as negligible. They reasoned that McLean was tied down by Earth suppliers and confederate obligations. They claimed he'd been informed of the repercussions following his refusal to cooperate. But apparently, McLean was no coward. He even tried to put the situation to good account by using me.

Potential
information leak,
the Information butted in.
Mission compromised.
I froze. How on earth had the software analyzed McLean's words? What's its algorithm? Did the thing read my thoughts?

Was it a warning or a system error? It could be a false identity overlap as it had already happened with clones back in the hotel
? Up until now, all my actions fell within the programmed algorithm, bar the failed meeting with the contact.

Threat identified
, a voice resounded in my head.
Third degree alert. Carrier to leave New Pang immediately. Failing to do so will result in annihilation.

Oh great. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the spot above the bridge of my nose. It
prickled and stung a bit. Rationalizing hadn't done me any favors. The invisible helper was at the point of scorching my brains.

The FSA director was a real jerk.
He should have let me know that the information program could force me to act against my will. So it looked like they kept me on a long leash, giving me little freedom of choice.

The pain in my forehead
grew leaving me no illusions. It felt as if a white-hot rod was forcing its way through my skull.

Third degree
alert. The procedure of memory capsule formatting commenced. Its termination will activate automatic liquidation.

"In how much time?" I asked without thinking
.

Information answered,
Four minutes twenty-two seconds.

Looked like I had to hit the road whether I liked it or not.

"Agreed," I stepped toward the door. "Let's go downstairs."

"Why?"
McLean raised a surprised face. The gorilla blocked my way.

"One of my men is a chartered medical specialist," I struggled to preserve a calm expression. "He
can explain this carula stuff."

McLean
rose in his chair and looked back. "Butch!"

"Yes, boss?" Gorilla squeezed himself sideways through the doorway and stopped next to the steward
shifting glances between me and the booze on the serving table.

"Go down into the yard. Take four more boys and bring me the
prisoners."

"What
's their business here, boss?"

McLean
slapped the armrest. The chair squeaked. "On your way!"

Gorilla staggered across the room, panting and stomping his feet
, and disappeared down the staircase.

I used my glass to point at the bottle
. While the steward was pouring me another whiskey, the stairs filled with voices and stomping feet. Wong entered the room first, followed by Wladas, Butch and the bald-headed raider. Two more took the stairs and stood guard on both sides of it. My men walked out onto the verandah.

"I told you to take four men,"
McLean glared at Butch. "Idiot!" he turned red in the face.

Butch sighed, licked his lips and shrugged. "But boss-"

"Shut the fuck up!" McLean jumped up.

Wladas
by the serving table flinched. Wong pretended he was scratching his neck as he glanced at the raiders by the stairs and shifted sideways between gorilla and the bald raider. Now Frenchie couldn't see him from his room.

T
hird degree alert
, the Information wailed.
Carrier to leave New Pang immediately!

"I'm losing patience, Mr. Posner,"
McLean returned to his seat and nodded at Wong and Wladas. "Which one is your medic?"

The s
tinging in my head turned into drilling. A cramp clutched my cheek. My spine shuddered. My brain might boil at any moment now. Time to beat our retreat.

I was about to step towa
rd the doorway when I noticed three familiar figures down on the pontoon wharf. A wizened fat man in pale shorts climbed over the fence and jumped into a moored motor boat. His skinny friend threw him a barge pole and followed. My last doubts disappeared when I saw Jim, disheveled as usual, climbing the fence after them. He cast the boat off, threw the rope's end to his bosses, stepped onto the prow and kicked away from the jetty. Georgie wielded the barge pole turning the boat around.

"
Wong," I threw my drink into Butch's face, punched him in his Adam's apple and jumped toward the guards by the stairs.

I had to
admit they had excellent reaction times. Still, they forgot they stood in a fenced-off area. As soon as they raised their carbines, I used both my hands to punch them in the chest. One went ass over tits down the stairs. The other let go of his gun, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down with him.

I'd lost
precious moments. I had to dig my wrist into his chin to free myself from his grasp. Only then could I push him down the steps.

Punches
resounded behind me, followed by a slap. Wladas cried out. I turned and nearly collapsed. My head was swimming and I had to lower myself onto one knee. McLean slumped in his chair. He hadn't had a chance to draw his gun. Butch and the bald raider lay on the floor a few feet away from the senseless Frenchie in his room. Wong froze in the doorway, pleased with his work. The steward was pointing his compact pistol at him.

How could I forget the steward? That was a beginner's mistake.
Apparently, Wong wasn't without error: the steward would shoot him before the Chinese had a chance to wring his neck. If only Wladas...

Wladas
raised his hand and smashed a whiskey bottle over the steward's head. Glass flew everywhere. The mute steward collapsed in the doorway. Wong stepped over him, gave the neurotech the thumbs-up and ran to the steps.

"Jump," I croaked
and got up.

The Information
finally shut up. My forehead stopped stinging and I could breathe again. I looked down. The raider lay in the safety net below.

"
Wladas, jump, quick!" I straddled the railing and looked at him.

The neurotech stared at the
collapsed steward in the hallway, his head covered in blood.

"
Wong!" I gasped. "Help him."

McLean
stirred in his chair. An enormous bump ripened on his Stetsonless head. Judging by the size of it, Wong had hit him with the ashtray.

He tried to get up and reach for the gun.
But the Chinese on his way to Wladas restored the status quo with a deft hand chop.

"Jump," I nodded at the pier.
"When you surface, go for the jetties. Ask those in the motor boat to take you on board."

Wong
grabbed Wladas' hand. He jumped over the railing and stood on the edge. Turning to Wladas, he grabbed him under the other arm, squatted, then sprang back to his feet and flipped Wladas over his head like a wrestler on the tatami. At the last moment he kicked himself away from the verandah, tucked up and somersaulted down the cliff.

Wladas
hit the water. Next to him, Wong opened up and entered head first. In two seconds, he resurfaced, grabbed the struggling neurotech by the scruff of his neck and swam toward the jetties.

I heard a noise
on the spiral staircase. Someone was calling for help. Instead of jumping after Wong, I returned to the verandah. I grabbed a few bottles off the serving table and smashed one against the wall, then hurled another toward the stairs but missed as it fell between the banisters.

I swore and grabbed another bottle
and the lighter off the tray. I ran to the stairs pouring the whiskey onto the steps and the floor around. Then I smashed the bottle against the banister and flicked the lighter setting the verandah on fire.

The raider in the net underneath stirred and raised his head.
I hurled the burning lighter into the room. It hit the spilt whiskey on the wall. A blue flame licked the wood as it spread toward the bench and ran across the floor before climbing the rattan screen.

"Fire!" I shouted, then took in a chestful of air and yelled, "Fire!"

I climbed the railing, kicked free from it, crossed my arms on my chest and entered the water feet first.

By then,
Wong and Wladas had climbed out onto a jetty and were running toward the pier, waving their hands to the sailors in the motor boat.

I looked up. Smoke belched from the verandah. Stevedores sto
pped with bails on their backs and pointed at McLean's estate. No one looked at the pier.

I couldn't see the motor boat for the
jetties around. I decided to take my chances by not swimming ashore. Georgie and Grunt would surely try to use the commotion to leave the harbor unnoticed, and my men would tell them where to look for me. I swam to the seaweed farm.

The water was murky and thick with a noticeable stench.
A few times my body brushed something soft and slimy - most likely, the seaweed rippling just under the surface.

When I
had swum far enough away from the cliff, I turned to a jetty one side of which faced the ocean. The engine of the approaching boat roared as it sped up.

Then
my hand hit an obstacle. I stopped and waded up to my chest. A fishing net was stretched under water next to the jetty, its floats rocking on the waves. A few feet further, I saw another one; and a yet another.

Shit. The last thing I needed was to get stuck there in full view.

The engine approached. The boat must have passed the pier and headed for the seaweed farm at full speed. I climbed over the floats trying not to get caught in the net. Why did they need all these nets here? I moved toward the next one. The engine started to die away, and its wake reached the jetty causing the floats to move and push me up. My hand got stuck in the net. I moved back and immediately regretted it as my feet got caught up. My head was still out of the water but now I couldn't go anywhere, spread-eagled between the nets.

I heard voices.
Wong and Georgie came onto the jetty, Wong pointing at me.

"Jim! Get
the pole!" Georgie shouted.

He caught the pole thrown from the boat
and grabbed its other end, crouching.

"Hold
it!" Georgie shouted as the sharp tip nearly pierced my shoulder.

Wong
went down on one knee and held the pole tight as I clasped my end. They pulled it, and I cried out in pain as something snapped in my trapped foot.

"
Don't! My foot!"

The Chinese and the crane operator leaned forward
together.

"
What the fuck's keeping you!" Grunt's voice came from the boat.

Georgie waved him off
. He pulled out a knife, balanced it in his hand and hurled it to me. I nearly missed it, catching it by the blade. My cut-up fingers stung but I managed to get hold of it with my other hand that was caught in the net. I cut through the mesh until I'd freed it. Only then did I check the cuts. Blood ran down my hand to the wrist. Why did it hurt so much? It stung worse than that damn software in my brains. Could be the salt in the water, but still.

I wriggled myself around and cut through the net by my feet. Now
I could move again.

"The pole!" I reached out toward the jetty and grabbed the pole's sharp end. "Pull it!"

Georgie and Wong stood up pulling the pole like a fishing rod. They raised me out of the water and lowered me onto the jetty.