Labyrinth (19 page)

He let go the fingers he was certain he had snapped and pounded her nose hard. The hag screamed again and blood gushed from both her nostrils. The hand he had snapped backward before shot forward and down. Chris felt the pressure on his groin like a vise closing and lost his breath. The hag shrieked as she squeezed as tight as her hand would let her. Locke tried briefly to pry the grip off but the fingers had taken hold like a pit-bull's bite.

Finally, with the pain stealing all his breath, Chris latched his right hand over his left and pulled. The hag's pistol came free and tore through her ragged sweater. Her eyes swelled with shock and she clamped her fingers harder over Locke's groin in a grasp born of desperation.

This time it was Chris who found the breath to scream in agony as he brought up the pistol and smashed it across the hag's face. She pitched to the side with a grunt. Blood poured down the side of her face.

Locke slid down the wall, his mind holding onto consciousness through the horrible pain in his groin. Holding the pistol tightly in both hands, he leaned over and puked his guts out.

The hag rushed him from her knees.

Chris turned the gun on her, cocked its hammer.

She stopped. Locke pushed himself to his feet.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The hag spit at him.

“I'll kill you slowly,” he threatened. “A bullet here, a bullet there. I owe you a lot of pain.”

She spit again. “Hah! You have all caused enough pain for a lifetime, you bastard.”

“All? What are you—”

“Their souls scream out for vengeance. You
killed
children! You are the scum of the earth!”

Then Locke realized. “The people who tried to kill me in London sent you!”

The hag spit a third time. “San Sebastian will not be forgotten. All of you will pay.”

The tunnel rumbled with the approach of a train.

“Kill me,” she ranted. “It doesn't matter. Another will take my place. We are many and we will see you all burn in hell!”

The train roared closer.

The hag struggled to her feet, ignoring the blood that covered her face. Locke moved toward her. She stepped backward, keeping her distance.

“Who are you people?” he asked her. “You've got to tell me who sent you! Who do you think I work for? Please, you've got to tell me.”

“You will all die! San Sebastian will be avenged!”

The train thundered forward, catching them in the spill of its front lights.

The hag glanced at it and smiled.

“No!” Chris screamed, already in motion, reaching for her with his free hand. “Noooooooo!” It was too late. With a horrible wail the hag leaped off the platform directly into the path of the onrushing train. The train hurtled by, leaving nothing.

Chris leaned over and vomited again.

Kill me. It doesn‘t matter. Another will take my place. We are many and we will see you all burn in hell!

The hag's people wanted him dead because they thought him part of the very force he was fighting. He was, incredibly, on their side. But they didn't know it. And he didn't know who
they
were.

Everywhere he turned he found new pieces that didn't fit the puzzle. Chris started back toward the platform, limping again.

It was time to head to Schaan. Maybe the Sanii Corporation had some answers.

Peale waited in the shadows across the street from the Schaan Station. There was only one exit from the small building, so he knew exactly where his target would be emerging. He tightened the silencer around the Browning's barrel and steadied it over his left arm, squeezing one eye closed to check his aim.

Peale knew Locke was good and also knew from a tape recording of his conversation with Felderberg that he would be headed for the Sanii Corporation there in Schaan. Peale never bothered to question Locke's motives or aims. He had killed the blond man's employer and that was all that mattered. Peale had never lost a man he was protecting before. The score had to be settled, and his soldier's mind did not seek additional complexities. Life was easier that way.

People began squeezing from the station and Peale waited for his target. He had spoken barely thirty minutes ago with his people in Vaduz to learn that Locke had eluded them at the station there. Peale had expected as much. He held the pistol tighter, hunching lower in the darkness.

Locke emerged from the station, eyes nervously searching for a taxi. There were none to be found immediately. He started walking. Peale noticed his limp, glad for it because it would assure him of more than one shot if needed.

Peale focused his eye, ready to pull the trigger.

There was a scratching sound behind him and he swung quickly. A dark figure whirled before him. Something glimmered and Peale felt a tingle in his wrist as he spun away and tried to refocus in the darkness.

Long blond hair danced before him.

God, it was a woman!

Peale started his gun up to finish her, found it was gone, and looked down to see his hand was … gone too.

He realized the tingle had been the sensation of a blade slicing through his flesh. He screamed horribly as it came for him again. He dodged but it ripped into his shoulder on the side already missing the hand.

Now his mind accepted death as inevitable, but the woman had to be taken too. She came at him again but he rolled free, noting that she actually held two knives, one in each hand. They were
Kukhri
blades, weapons of the Gurkha soldiers from India.

Peale's roll had taken him to his lost gun, still clenched in his severed hand. He tore it free and lurched to his feet, screeching to fuel his fury and deaden his pain.

The
Kukhri
knives came down together, meeting in his chest and carving it in two before he ever found the trigger. Peale's last sight was of his killer, blond hair waving about the coldest eyes he had ever seen.

He took their memory with him into eternity.

Chapter 15

THE MEETING STARTED LATE,
much to the distress of the participants who had traveled far and wished above all not to have their absences from the places they were supposed to be noticed and recorded.

They had come from several corners of the globe to the small Austrian village of Greifenstein on the bank of the Danube. From there they were driven up the narrow mountain road to Kreuzenstein Castle, which had been bought and refurbished several years before by the woman who was their leader. The ancient castle had become their symbol, its regal towers and steeples reminding them of the nations they represented and sought to destroy. Kreuzenstein had stood for eight hundred years and had needed to be rebuilt only once, after being destroyed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War. It had weathered many storms and sieges, had been a refuge from the Black Death and a strategy center in World War II when bombs had exploded everywhere but within its walls.

The members of the Committee looked on that as divine providence. The choice of the castle as their headquarters had not been random.

There were four of them present that day, all members of the executive board, with only the British representative missing. They met in a huge room that years before had been used by kings and princes for lavish balls to entertain visiting royalty. The hard oak table, easily long enough to accommodate the Committee's one hundred direct representatives, was being used that day because the woman who had orchestrated the most daring operation they had ever undertaken preferred it for reasons of tradition.

They had been speaking quietly among themselves for nearly twenty minutes after the sun had set beyond the windows when the double doors opened and Audra St. Clair strode majestically in. The four men rose out of respect as well as etiquette.

Audra St. Clair was past seventy now but she looked a full twenty years younger. Her silver hair was styled traditionally, and the gray hat she wore was a perfect complement to the tweed dress that elegantly covered the fine lines of her body. Her face was remarkably free of wrinkles and other marks of age, as if her power could overcome time along with nations.

“We have much to discuss, gentlemen,” she announced, taking her customary seat at the head of the table. “I apologize for my lateness but I've just received a report from the agent I dispatched to Liechtenstein to clean up the mess Mr. Mandala has gotten us into. Let us begin today's agenda by considering this poorly handled threat to our security.”

Mandala leaned forward. His features were strikingly dark, as though perpetually tanned. His hair was combed neatly off his forehead to cover the tops of his ears, and his long, radiant teeth sparkled like daggers. It was his eyes that were most striking, liquidy black and piercing.

“I was simply doing as ordered, madam” came his response. “I offer no excuses.”

“And I'm not looking for any,” St. Clair snapped. “Excuses are meaningless to the Committee.”

Mandala leaned back and held his tongue. He was not used to being chastised. Men, as well as women, had died for far less than the old bitch's words. But at this point he didn't dare cross her. His time was coming. He flashed the smile that had won him friends, influence, and women, suggesting his acceptance of St. Clair's criticism.

“I also believe your handling of San Sebastian was rash and overdone,” the Committee's chairwoman continued. “You jeopardized everything for the elimination of that town.”

“All the same,” began the American representative, a silver-haired man who, with the Committee's help, had risen to an extremely high position in U.S. government, “if it wasn't for the unexpected presence of the American agent, the massacre wouldn't have become a factor.”

“The fact is that it happened,” said St. Clair, “and it forced us to realign our strategy.”

“For the better in many ways, I think,” noted Werenmauser, the German, a large, heavy-lipped man with bulging cheeks. “Thanks to San Sebastian, Locke was drawn in. And thanks to Locke, we are eliminating the only holes left in our very long trail.”

“In addition to encountering our mysterious enemy face to face for the first time,” added the curly-haired Russian, Kresovlosky. “An enemy who has been doing its utmost to subvert our efforts in South America for some months.”

“Not exactly face to face,” said St. Clair. “We still don't know who they are.”

“The identity of the man your agent disposed of in London should help us find out.”

“He carried no identification,” the chairwoman reported. “No papers or clues of any kind. We will learn nothing from his corpse, I'm afraid. We must rely on Locke at this point to lead us to them.”

“But leaving Locke alive presents too much of a risk,” argued the American nervously. “He has become too dangerous to be considered an asset any longer.”

Audra St. Clair leaned over the table. The flickering light from the chandelier danced and darted across her face. “He is simply a puppet on a string we pull. We can direct him any way we desire. Cutting that string now would be a gross error.”

The American shook his head. “I don't think you understand my position. For the rest of you membership on the Committee is a simpler matter to conceal than it is for me. My movements are scrutinized constantly. I am taking a terrible risk by being here now. If Locke slips from our grasp and gets too close, I'll be the first one exposed.”

“Apparently it's you who doesn't understand, Mr. Van Dam,” the chairwoman said firmly. “Locke is the only thing standing between us and a rather significant force potentially capable of bringing harm to Tantalus. We will continue to monitor his movements, filling in the holes he shows us, and ultimately he will lead us to our unseen enemy.”

“Where exactly is he now, can you tell me that, madam?” Van Dam said sharply. “Well, there's a man named Calvin Roy in the State Department with the nose of a bloodhound. He authorized Locke's deployment in the first place, and sooner or later he might sniff out our puppet and yank him beyond our reach.”

“It would have to be quite soon, Mr. Van Dam. Tantalus will be activated eight days from today.” Audra St. Clair turned to the Russian. “Mr. Kresovlosky, your report please.”

The Russian cleared his throat and opened a manila folder on the table before him. “Production of canisters will be completed on schedule by the middle of this week. Arrangements have already been made for shipping to Target Alpha for dispersal. The canisters have been fitted to the exact specifications Mr. Mandala requested.”

“I am in the process of retaining all necessary equipment and personnel.” Mandala picked up on cue. “To guard against the possibility of early discovery and potential countermeasures, I have also retained a rather large and well-equipped security force. Everything will be in place plenty of time before final activation.”

“And the timetable for appreciable results?” St. Clair asked Kresovlosky.

“Based on data collected from our experiments in San Sebastian, I would say four days for Area Mary, a week for Areas Peter and Paul, ten days for Mark and Matthew, and up to two weeks for Luke.”

Audra St. Clair simply nodded. “Let us turn now to Mr. Werenmauser.”

The German rubbed his huge cheeks. “We are ready to go at my end. Final experiments are taking place in Schaan this week to determine optimum packaging. I estimate shipping can begin to Targets Delta, Gamma, Sigma, and Zeta within ten days. I expect no difficulties or complications.”

“What about our crews?” the chairwoman asked.

“We would be best off not to move them in until after the effects of Tantalus have begun to surface in America. We can use the resulting chaos as camouflage for the sudden influx of personnel into South America that might otherwise cause a stir and lead to many questions. By the time the true answers are made known, we must be sure Tantalus has reached its full effect and the world is powerless to do anything about the follow-up portion of our plan.”