He had maybe a ten-second lead if those were the only ones on his tail. Where could he go? On up and out to the street? There might be more goons posted at the exit. If he made it, he’d still be right in the area; they’d be casting around for him in cars and maybe aircraft. He couldn’t go back to his conapt; Lori would report him immediately, if she didn’t shoot him first.
That left the subway trains. They went all over the city and to outlying points, making connections everywhere. The agents couldn’t cover every exit in the entire subway system! So if he could make it onto a train without them following, his ten-second lead should become a ten-minute lead, and he could be out of the city before they had much notion where he was.
His body already knew this. It was pounding down the passage, heading for another train. He tucked his gun into his pants; he was now inside the security area, so it wasn’t setting off any more alarms.
He came to the landing where there was a train. The last commuters were just squeezing on. He sprinted along the platform, which was mercifully clear at the moment, and for the train.
The last commuter boarded. The departure signal sounded. The door closed.
Quaid made a flying leap and squeezed onto a car at the last second, beating the closing doors by a hair. He had made it! He stumbled, trying to avoid bumping into the other passengers. He was doubled over, but managed to keep his feet.
Bullets shattered the glass of the door just above him and plowed the far side. Richter and Helm had arrived! Had he been standing upright—
“Get down!” he shouted at the other passengers, knowing what was coming.
The train started moving. A series of windows shattered. The passengers decided to take his advice. They ducked down as well as they were able.
The train picked up speed. Quaid peered out a window-hole. He saw Richter and Helm watching, disgusted, as the train left the station. He had beaten them—for now.
He turned to find the other passengers staring at him. He realized that he was covered with blood from the corpse he had used as a shield. Well, he was not about to offer them any explanation. The less they knew about him, the better for him—and them. Richter seemed to have no compunctions about his methods; if he thought any other person knew where Quaid was, he would force that person to talk at gunpoint—and then maybe shoot him anyway.
He avoided their glances and oriented instead on the commercial on the nearest screen. It was a huckster, standing in front of a spaceship. “Don’t settle for pale memories! Don’t settle for fake implants! Experience space travel the old-fashioned way on a real-life holiday you can afford.”
The travel agency’s answer to Rekall! Quaid shook his head and sighed. He wished he could take them up on it. Because one thing that hadn’t changed, in this almost-complete demolition of his life-style, was his fascination with Mars. He still wanted to go there, one way or another, and to find that brunette, if she existed.
Did she exist? All he could do was hope that she did. His tangible life with Lori had become illusion; maybe his dream of the other woman could become real.
CHAPTER 11
Help
Richter and Helm strode angrily out of the station and stepped through the rain to their car. Richter was fuming. They had lost the quarry after all, and then gotten nabbed by the subway security men because their guns had set off the alarms again. They had had to show their IDs to get out of it. That would look bad on the records. Not to mention the four additional lower-echelon agents lost. That made eight total, plus a civilian or two. What a smell that would make for all concerned! The first takeout had been bungled by Harry, obviously a duffer who shouldn’t have been assigned in the first place. But this time it was Richter himself, and he would get no credit for just about succeeding. “Just about” was just about good enough for a demotion!
He hated the man who thought he was Douglas Quaid. He had never liked him. There was something about him he didn’t trust, but Cohaagen just couldn’t see it. He’d promoted the sonovabitch, for Christ’s sake! Richter snorted with disgust.
But he hadn’t started hating the bastard until Lori had been assigned to play the role of his “wife.” After all his Beauty and the Beast jokes, that had been almost too much to bear. And now that the man had eluded and humiliated him, that hate had festered into something white hot and barely controllable. He would see the man’s brains splattered across the landscape before he was done, and it still wouldn’t be enough. If he was lucky, maybe he’d get the chance to see the man sweat before he died.
They climbed into the car. Helm took the driver’s seat, Richter the passenger seat, where the equipment was. The rain on their clothing quickly steeped the interior with its pollution, contributing to his foul mood.
The dashboard was filled with elaborate tracking devices, electronic maps, and communications equipment. Richter furiously turned knobs and punched buttons, trying to get a reading on the quarry. Damn it, the tracking was supposed to be continuous; what was fuzzing it? Was the equipment glitching? Guess who’d get the blame if a bad tracker let him down! He knew Cohaagen didn’t see eye-to-eye with him on this procedure, and if the man got a pretext to take him off the case—
The radio came to life. “Six beta nine, we have a transmission from Mr. Cohaagen.”
Richter looked at Helm and groaned. Think of the devil!
But he couldn’t avoid it. “This is Richter. Patch it through.” He wiped the rain from his face and smoothed his hair, though it didn’t do much good. Modern science was wonderful, but at the moment he wished they hadn’t invented a way to set aside the limitation of lightspeed, making virtually instant communication between planets possible. Then Cohaagen would not be able to second-guess him on this mission, while a chase was in progress.
The video monitor lighted, flickering, then showing a grainy image of Cohaagen’s face. The man was neither as handsome nor as well spoken as he was on broadcast interviews, no surprise. He fixed on Richter, scowling. “What the fuck are you doing, Richter?”
Richter put on an ingratiating smile he knew fooled no one; it wasn’t meant to. “Trying to neutralize a traitor, sir.” And that’s the correct term! Chew on that, sir!
Cohaagen’s scowl expanded into open anger. “If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have dumped him on Earth!”
Richter smoothed out his own features, playing the obsequious underling, again without any concern for belief. “We can’t let him run around, Mr. Cohaagen. He knows too much.”
“Lori says he can’t remember jack shit.”
“That’s now,” said Richter. “In an hour, he could have total recall.”
“Listen to me, Richter.” There was static on the line, but not enough to blot out Cohaagen’s words. “I want Quaid delivered alive for re-implantation. Have you got that? I want him back in place with Lori.”
Over my dead body, Richter thought. It was all he could do to keep himself from tearing the video monitor out of the dashboard and hurling it from the car.
“Did you hear me?” Cohaagen demanded. Richter reached over and twisted a dial, causing the reception to break up. It would be impossible to tell from the other end what had caused the disruption.
“What was that, sir? I couldn’t hear you.”
Cohaagen glared. “I said xtr + b . . . lsw . . . rojwf . . .”
Richter intensified the interference, deliberately preventing himself from hearing Cohaagen’s orders. Helm gazed impassively out the windshield into the rain, affecting not to be aware of anything. He didn’t like having the quarry slip the noose any better than Richter did.
“Hello?” Richter said. “We’ve got sunspots. I’m switching to a different frequency.” How glad he was that such transmissions were unreliable when anything happened on the solar scale!
A blinking red dot appeared on the console tracking device. Helm nudged Richter, and Richter nodded. They had locked in on their man.
“Mr. Cohaagen, are you there?” Richter continued. “
Hello? Hello?” So polite, with a touch of perplexity: the recording would show that he had no idea that his orders had changed.
With a contemptuous twist of the dial, Richter ended the transmission. Cohaagen wouldn’t be able to prove anything; interplanetary signals were notorious for interference. A price was paid for violating light-speed. There had been just enough genuine interference to cover his tracks.
Richter allowed himself a small, grim smile. He turned to Helm. “Fuckin’ asshole. He shoulda killed Quaid when he had the chance,” he said. Now he, Richter, would do it instead, with pleasure. They had locked on to the quarry, and no sunspots, real or fake, would interfere.
Helm gunned the car into traffic, splashing water on commuters walking out of the subway station. Their protests carried faintly, music to Richter’s ears. He put a hand up over his shoulder and hoisted one finger, signaling them, though he knew they couldn’t see inside the car. The gesture gave him satisfaction anyway. Too bad he couldn’t show the same signal of respect to Cohaagen.
Quaid had decided not to go too far. They would be expecting him to flee the city, so would be racing to cut off the exit points. Therefore he remained close—but not too close. His alternate self had deserted him; it manifested only when immediate, effective action was required, such as killing several men in several seconds. He was on his own, and that satisfied him for now.
He got off the train a few stops down and went into a lavatory. He looked a mess, all right! He slopped water across his face and hands and dabbed at the worst of the stains on his shirt, though not much could be done about that. He had a bright idea, squatted, scraped his fingers along the floor near the wall, and got a good load of dirt on them. He rubbed this into the shirt, covering the remaining bloodstains. Now he looked mostly filthy, like a tramp, not like a refugee from a slaughterhouse. It would have to do. He combed his hair back and assumed an expression of dullness, as if he were just a tired laborer returning from a hard day in the sewer.
He boarded another train, trying to make it difficult for the goons to trace his route. But he couldn’t do this forever; he needed to get into some other region. For that he needed money.
He paused at a money vendor near the end of the subway line and got as much cash as he dared: enough to pay for a plane to another continent. The transaction would be traced, and in minutes the goons would be on his tail again; that was why they hadn’t cut off his ID card already. But though he lacked the deadly expertise of his hidden self, he did have some native cunning. Instead of going to the airport, he caught the next train back toward the center of town, and rode almost to where he had started. That should catch them by surprise. He hoped. They might figure that he wasn’t counting on the ID tracer, and was innocently going his way, and wouldn’t do anything unpredictable. He hoped again.
He got off and took an escalator up. He emerged from an archway marked SUBWAY onto the ground floor of an ancient 1980s shopping mall which had degenerated into a barrio street scene, complete with bars, flophouses, pool halls, pawnshops, and massage parlors. The mall was crowded with kids on skateboards and bikes, and there were even bums sleeping in doorways. It was like stepping into the past, and he almost felt nostalgia. Life must have been simpler before the planets were colonized!
This was the ideal place to hide. He spied a fleabag hotel across the mall. Cash would be accepted there without question, and he wouldn’t have to show his ID. He’d be able to rest, and wash out his shirt, or maybe pick up other clothing at a secondhand outlet. He was catching on to survival as an anonymous fugitive.
The coast was clear, as it were. He resumed progress and entered the hotel.
Helm drove the car rapidly through the rainy streets.
“Hey, man,” he said. “I bet you’re glad Lori’s off that case.” Richter’s jaw tensed, but he kept his eyes on the tracking device.
“It’s just a job,” he said shortly.
“Well, I sure wouldn’t want Quaid porking my girl.”
Richter snarled. His hand shot out and he grabbed Helm’s ear, twisting it painfully. The car swerved. “You’re saying she liked it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Helm struggled to control the car and to avoid having his ear ripped from his head. “No, no, of course not!” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m sure she hated every minute!”
Richter gave Helm’s ear another cruel twist and then released it. Flushed, he turned his attention back to the tracking device, which zoomed to a more detailed map section. “Circle twenty-eight. Top level,” he said without expression. And then he smiled. The old Galleria . . . Of course. Quaid thought he could hide by dodging back into the slum.
“Know something?” he asked Helm. “I think he hasn’t caught on that he’s bugged.” But he was, all right. Indeed, it had been that bug that first alerted them to Quaid’s visit to Rekall. The alarm had sounded when the man had gone off his normal route, and they had made a quick trip there to question the Rekall staff and dispatch them.
Helm skidded the car around a corner, keeping his eyes on the road and rubbing his ear.
Quaid went to his hotel room. It was about what he had expected, which wasn’t much. It was separated from other chambers mainly by plasterboard. If he cared to listen, he could hear what was going on in nearby compartments: the clinking of glasses, a shrill argument, an all-night poker game, the thudding of heavy sex, and plenty of video noise. That made this the perfect place to hide in.
But he had no sooner closed the dirty curtains at the window than the phone rang. He didn’t answer. But it bothered him: why should anyone be calling here? Was it for last night’s tenant? In which case maybe he’d better answer it, and try to pretend to be that man, in that way concealing his own presence. Still—
On the fourth ring he stepped to the side of the screen so he couldn’t be seen and hit the answer button. He didn’t speak. If they asked for a name, he’d use that name. He peered slantwise at the screen, staying clear of its pickup.
All it showed was a man’s hand blocking the lens. Well, that was another way to do it!
“If you want to live, don’t hang up,” a gruff male voice said.
This didn’t sound like a wrong number! Quaid stood still, not hanging up, but also not speaking.
“They’ve got you bugged,” the caller said. “And they’ll be busting down the door in about three minutes unless you do exactly what I say.”
Quaid, staying clear of the pickup, searched his clothes for the bug. Like a damned fool, he had never thought of that!
“Don’t bother looking. It’s in your skull.”
Quaid looked around, spooked. “Who are you?” His identity was obviously no secret from this caller.
“Never mind. Wet a towel and wrap it around your head. That’ll muffle the signal. It’s not a strong one.”
“How’d you find me?” He had to assume that this was a friend and not an enemy. Why should an enemy warn him?
“I’d advise you to hurry.”
Quaid saw the sink on the other side of the room. He walked in front of the videophone to get there. There seemed to be no point in hiding now.
“That’ll buy you some time,” the caller continued approvingly. “They won’t be able to pinpoint you.”
Quaid felt like a fool, but he wetted a large towel and began to wrap it around his head. He managed to form a clumsy turban, though it dripped down the back of his neck.
Helm guided the car, homing in on the signal generated by Quaid’s bug. The tracking device changed from a detailed map to a general map of the area. The blinking light grew dim.
Richier stared. “Shit!”
“What is it?” Helm asked.
Richter fiddled with the tracking device and whacked it a few times. “We lost him!” How the hell? Maybe he was taking a shower. Richter knew that water could mess up the signal. He clenched his fists in his lap. He wasn’t a patient man by nature, but he could learn. Quaid couldn’t stay in the shower all nig
ht, and when he came out . . .
Helm kept driving.
Quaid rewrapped the wet towel, making a better turban, but it still dripped down his neck.
“That’s good enough,” the caller said. “Now look out the window.”
Quaid went to the window and cautiously pulled aside the curtain. He peeked outside. This was no skyscraper; he was not far from the pavement.
“See the phone booth by the bar?” the caller inquired from behind him.
He looked across the limited landscape and located the bar, then the booth. A mustachioed soldier of fortune was looking right back at him, holding up a doctor’s satchel.
“This is the bag you gave to me,” the soldier said.
“I gave to you?”
“I’m leaving it in the booth,” the soldier continued. “Come get it and keep moving.”
Quaid saw the man begin to hang up. “Wait!”
The soldier paused. It was evident that he wanted to keep moving, too. “What?” he asked impatiently.
“Who are you?” He needed to know the name of this mysterious ally. Everyone he had trusted had turned against him. This man might be the only friend he had left. Quaid had to know who he was.
The soldier hesitated, then spoke abruptly. “We were buddies in the Agency back on Mars. You asked me to find you if you disappeared. So here I am. Good-bye.”
“Wait!” Quaid said desperately. “What was I doing on Mars?” But the phone had gone dead and the soldier had left the booth. Quaid pounded the window-sill in frustration as he watched the man walk quickly away. Yet what he had told Quaid was invaluable. If he had belonged to the Agency, and left it—
But he had no time for conjecture now. He dashed out of the hotel room, holding the wobbly turban on his head.
Richter and Helm circled the mall in the car. The rain continued unabated, stinking worse than ever. Richter banged the tracking device, but it didn’t help. He’s here, Richter thought. I can smell him. He whacked the device again. The interference continued.
Total Recall Page 8
