StarCraft II: Devils' Due (32 page)

lucky. Tychus quickly popped open the hatch on the

roof and stuck his head up.

“My arm’s pretty bad, Tychus,” Jim said. “I don’t

know if I can climb this.”

“Wel , Jimmy, I sure as hel ain’t leaving you to the

authorities,” Tychus said, hauling himself up to sit on

the roof of the car, “so you’d better try.”

It was a hot day, and the vehicle that Wilkes

Butler had rented was not the most comfortable, but

he bore it stoical y. Because he was certain that his

vigil would bear fruit.

He had been up al night, but it had been worth it.

His research efforts had turned up what Butler was

almost certain was the reason Jim Raynor and Tychus

Findlay were on Bacchus Moon at this particular point

in time.

One, he knew they would have done their research,

and would likely not have scheduled a “visit” during an

Interstel ar Marshals Convention if their little caper

could have been done at any other point in time. For

instance, if they’d had some kind of gambling gig in

place, they could have waited four days.

No, they were here because they
had
to be here.

Which meant that something specific was going on.

Further research and cal ing in a few favors had

revealed the likely target: the Covington Bank was

going to be the repository of several mil ion credits for

a period of thirty-seven hours. And that sounded

exactly like the sort of thing that would interest Findlay

and Raynor.

Butler had alerted the bank to increase their

security, even giving them descriptions of Raynor and

Findlay, and had been rather snippily told that “The

Covington Bank, sir,
always
operates under the

highest level of security available. I’m sure your tip wil

be appreciated, but I am also sure it is unnecessary.”

That had not been motivation for him to press the

matter. He almost thought that such arrogance

deserved what it got, but he was a lawman, and he

badly wanted to col ar these two. So he had had

stakeouts operating from the moment he figured out

what was going on, and now it was his shift from 0800

to 1600.

He had sat up when he saw the two approaching

shortly before one. He almost didn’t recognize them;

they were certainly nattily dressed. But that was not

what surprised him the most. There were three other

men entering the bank with them, equal y wel

dressed. Five total, then. Odd: usual y Raynor and

Findlay worked alone. Butler didn’t like this. He didn’t

want to make a move without knowing the identity of

these new comrades. Quickly, Butler vidsnapped a

few pictures before the other three went in and

transmitted them to his office with instructions to “find

out who these three are.”

The reply came back fairly quickly. Two were

unidentifiable; the third, a fair-haired man, had a list of

aliases as long as Wilkes’s arm. The names didn’t

concern him. What did was the information tacked on

at the end: “believed to have been or stil be in the

employ of Scutter O’Banon.”

O’Banon was bad news. It surprised Butler that

“his” criminals, as he thought of them, had fal en in

with such bad company. This changed the game. He

would need backup, and that would take at least a few

minutes. He would not be able to col ar them quietly

now. To further complicate matters, once backup did

arrive, a family, two parents and three children clearly

playing tourist, had decided to stop for a rest on the

green lawn in front of the bank and feed the birds.

Wilkes fumed quietly. Time was ticking by.

In fact … he checked his chrono and frowned. It

seemed to have stopped. His gaze fel on his

dashboard: it was dark. Butler returned his attention

to the bank. They had been in there a mighty long

time. His instincts told him that something was very

wrong indeed. He got out of the vehicle, his hand

dropping to his weapon.

At that point he heard an explosion—muffled but

unmistakable—from inside the bank. Butler seized his

comm unit and found that it was dead. He swore. He

turned and waved to one of his men, who had parked

a distance away, and pointed at the bank. The man

nodded and tried to comm in for backup … then

Wilkes saw his face fal as he realized his equipment,

too, had somehow been shorted out.

Damn them.
He pul ed out his weapon and raced

toward the bank. Help would be coming eventual y,

but not immediately. For the moment, Wilkes Butler

was on his own.

The climb up the elevator shaft was difficult.

Actual y, the climb up the elevator shaft was pretty

much hel . What seemed like kilometers of shiny

metal loomed above them. Four stories would have

been chal enging; fourteen seemed impossible. There

were, thankful y, service ladders attached to the sides

at various points. No doubt those who paid the

exorbitant costs of a luxury penthouse demanded that

if there was any problem getting in and out of said

penthouse, it would be attended to immediately.

Tychus pul ed Jim up out of the elevator car and

glanced up—and up—at the ladders. “Can you hang

on to me, Jimmy?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Jim answered honestly. “I’l try.”

Tychus muttered and undid his belt. “Ain’t good

enough.” Quickly, he made a loop with his belt and

strapped it around Jim’s shoulder, crossing it

diagonal y over his chest on the side opposite the

injury. “Hang on to me as best you can, and I’l hang

on to this.”

With a curse, Tychus tied the bags containing the

credits to the bottom rung of the first ladder, patting

them fondly. “Soon as I get you up to the suite, Jimmy,

I’m coming back for this. Love you like a brother, man,

but you ain’t about to cost me my retirement.”

Jim managed a grin. He wrapped his arms around

Tychus and clung for dear life. Tychus gripped the belt

holding Jim with his left arm and used the right to

climb, jerkily and one-handed, up the ladders. At one

point, though, Jim’s worry turned out to be completely

justified. His arms gave way, and he dropped about a

foot. Tychus grunted as his arm was nearly yanked out

of its socket. His hand missed one bar, and they both

dropped. At the last second, Tychus’s powerful hand

grabbed a rung, bringing them both to an abrupt halt

so painful that Jim blacked out for an instant.

The last several ladders were a blur of pain to Jim.

Later, he would dimly recal Tychus muttering and

shoving and positioning him, sometimes ungently, but

never, ever letting him give up. Jim knew, even in the

red haze of agony, that no other man could have done

this but Tychus Findlay.

For one thing, no other man would have been so

stubborn.

Final y, they made it. Jim crawled out into the dark

corridor of the fourteenth story and lay panting. The

pain was unspeakably bad; worse, it was starting to

render his right arm almost useless. He was utterly

dependant on Tychus, and they both knew it.

“On the left,” Jim murmured, trying to get to his feet.

Tychus saved him the effort by grasping his good arm

and hauling him up. Jim nearly blacked out, but he

fought to stay conscious.

There were only two penthouses on this level.

O’Banon said he would “take care” of the residents in

the one across the hal to ensure they would not be

disturbed. The door had recently been fitted with an

old-fashioned lock and key in addition to the

extremely complicated alarm system that was now

completely useless. Jim had to grin as he watched

Tychus fumble for the key, so smal in his massive

hands, and open the door.

Stil holding Jim by his good arm, Tychus swung it

open.

“Holy shit,” Tychus said.

They had apparently opened the door to one of the

deeper levels of Hel .

For the first horrified instant, as the primal parts of

their brains registered only what they saw and not the

source of it, they simply stared at the multiple scenes

of torture and carnage displayed before them.

Ezekiel Daun was everywhere. Right in front of

them, laughing at a woman who was bleeding from

dozens of stab wounds but who was yet far from the

mercy of death. Over by the fireplace, cutting off the

head of Ryk Kydd. In the doorway to another room,

col ecting fingers from someone who begged him to

stop. And there, and there, and
there
—

And the sounds. They had begun the second the

door had opened, and the cacophony was

overwhelming. The begging, the pleading:
“No,

please, what is it you want? I’ll tell you anything!”

“Please stop … please … oh, God, just kill me!”

“Who are you? Who the hell
are
you?”
And Daun’s

voice, promising more pain and suffering, and

sometimes just … laughing.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” his voice came to them. “I can

smel your fear. It’s like perfume. Luck has been on

your side, but not anymore. Which way do you want to

go? Strangled? Stabbed? Mr. Raynor already has

one gunshot wound. I can give him matching ones.”

This couldn’t be happening. After al the tension of

planning the heist, finding out about the source of the

money—the fight—Jim was already near breaking.

This threatened to put him over the brink.

Daun. Always Daun. They couldn’t escape him, no

matter how they tried.

Then suddenly Tychus’s lips were near his ear, and

the bigger man hissed, “Stay strong, Jimmy: the

bastard loves to gloat. Let’s keep him gloating.”

Shaking, hanging on by a thread, Jim nodded.

Tychus was right: Daun did love to gloat; he loved to

scare them, and even though they had somehow

managed to elude the bounty hunter twice—which had

to be some sort of record, he thought wildly—Daun

wasn’t about to just shoot them and be done with it.

Tychus had already drawn his weapon, and now

Jim did likewise, his wounded hand slowing him. He

tried to remember what the escape plan had been.

Things were fuzzy now, and he realized he had lost a

lot of blood. Focus, damn it, Jim, focus….

They had to get out of here, away from the

fourteenth story. What was the escape plan? Ash had

told them; why couldn’t he remember—

“You son of a bitch,” Tychus said, “you think you’ve

got us? Wel , remember what happened the last time.

We rubbed your face in it, you sick bastard. I’m going

to give you a one-fingered salute when we give you

the slip this time.”

He was pointing his gun in various directions, ready

to shoot but not until he had a certain clear shot. He let

go of Jim, and Jim nodded, indicating he could stand

on his own. Tychus pointed to one side of the room

and then began to move slowly toward the other.

Daun’s laughter came from somewhere.

“I’m almost tempted to let you live, you know. Keep

you for my own amusement. I’ve not had so enjoyable

a chase in a long, long time. But alas, I am a

businessman, and I have a contract to fulfil .”

Climb down? Jim thought frantical y. No, that wasn’t

it. Jump. Something about jumping down and running

away too fast to be fol owed. But that was crazy talk. It

was impossible; no one could jump from this height

and hit the ground running fast enough to elude their

would-be captors—

He began to move, slowly and unsteadily, around

the penthouse, using the light given off by the

holograms and the fire burning so incongruously

cheerily in the fireplace. Ash had said that the

resident had—

Jim found one of the penthouse residents, almost

fal ing over him, as he had suspected he would.

Frustration and despair threatened to consume him.

How many had Daun kil ed now, trying to get him and

Tychus? How many had died down in that bank

lobby? This had to end. Had to.

But it wouldn’t. They couldn’t beat him. It was too

hard, just too hard. Al the dead, whirling around him

like ghosts, crying out for vengeance. He couldn’t give

it to them.

I’m sorry, Ryk. I’m sorry, Hiram, and Clair, and all