Boudicca stepped in and brutally caught Pitt in the rib cage with her elbow. He could hear the sharp snap of one, maybe two ribs cracking, and felt the stabbing pain in his chest as he crumpled to his hands and knees. He stared dumbly at the design in the carpet and wanted to hold onto the floor forever. Perhaps he was dead and this was all there was to it, a floral design in a carpet.
Despairingly, he realized he could go no further. He groped for the fireplace poker, but his vision was too blurred and his movements too uncoordinated for him to find and grasp it in his hands. Vaguely, he saw Boudicca lean down, take him by one leg and hurl him crazily across the floor, where he collided with the open door. Then she walked over and picked him up by the collar with one hand and smashed him a hard blow in the head just above the eye. Pitt lay there, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, swimming in pain, sensing but not really feeling the blood flowing from a gash above his left eye.
Like a cat toying with a mouse, Boudicca would soon tire of the game and kill him. Dazedly, almost miraculously, drawing on a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Pitt somehow struggled slowly to his feet for what he was certain would be the last time.
Boudicca stood there beside the body of her father, smirking with anticipation. Complete mastery was etched in her face. “Time for you to join my father,” she said. Her tone was deep, icy and compelling.
“There’s a nauseating thought for you.” Pitt’s voice came thick and slurred.
Then Pitt saw the malice slowly fade in Boudicca’s face and felt a hand gently ease him aside as Giordino entered the Dorsett family study.
He stared at Boudicca contemptuously and said, “This fancy maggot is mine.”
At that moment Maeve appeared in the doorway, clutching a pair of blond-haired little boys by the hands, one on either side of her. She looked from Pitt’s bleeding face to Boudicca to her father’s body on the floor. “What happened to Daddy?”
“He caught a sore throat,” muttered Pitt.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Giordino calmly. “A couple of servants proved overly protective. They locked themselves in a room with the boys. It took me a while to kick in the door.” He didn’t explain what he did with the servants. He handed Pitt the nine-millimeter automatic taken from John Merchant. “If she wins, shoot her.”
“With pleasure,” Pitt said, his eyes devoid of sympathy.
Gone was any display of confidence in Boudicca’s eyes. Gone too was any anticipation of merely hurting her opponent. This time she was fighting for her life, and she was going to use every dirty street-fighting trick she’d been taught by her father. This was to be no civilized boxing or karate match. She moved wolflike to position herself to deliver a killing blow, mindful of the gun in Pitt’s hand.
“So you came back from the dead too,” she hissed.
“You never left my dreams,” Giordino said, puckering his lips and sending her a kiss.
“A pity you survived only to die in my house—”
A mistake. Boudicca wasted the half-second with unnecessary talk. Giordino was on her like a cattle stampede, legs bent, feet extending as they came in contact with Boudicca’s chest. The impact doubled her over with a gasp of agony, but incredibly, she somehow retained her stance and clamped her hands around Giordino’s wrists. She hurled herself backward over the desk, pulling him with her until she was lying, back against the floor, with Giordino face-down on the desktop above her, seemingly defenseless with his arms stretched out and locked in front of him.
Boudicca looked up into Giordino’s face. The evil grin came back on her lips as she held her victim helpless in a steel grip. She increased the pressure and bent his wrists with the intention of breaking them with her Amazon strength. It was a shrewd move. She could render Giordino disabled while shielding herself with his body until she could retrieve a revolver Arthur Dorsett kept loaded inside a bottom desk drawer.
Pitt, waiting for a signal from his friend to shoot, could not line up the automatic on Boudicca under the desk. Barely conscious, it was all he could do to keep from collapsing, his vision still unfocused from the blow to the forehead. Maeve was huddling against him now, her arms clasped around her sons, shielding their eyes from the brutal scene.
Giordino seemed to lie there immobile, as if accepting defeat without fighting back, while Boudicca kept bending his wrists slowly backward. Her silk robe had fallen away from her shoulders, and Maeve, who stared in awe at those massive shoulders and bulging muscles, having never seen her older sister unclothed, was stunned at the sight. Then her gaze drifted to the body of her father sprawled on the carpet. There was no sadness in her eyes, only shock at his unexpected death.
Then slowly, as if he’d been conserving his strength, Giordino pulled his wrists and hands upward as if curling a set of weights. Incomprehension followed on the heels of shock in Boudicca’s face. Then came disbelief, and her body quivered as she exerted every trace of strength to stop the relentless force. Suddenly, she could grip his wrists no more, and her hold was broken. She immediately went for Giordino’s eyes, but he had expected the move and brushed her hands aside. Before Boudicca could recover, Giordino was across the desk and falling on her chest, his legs straddling her body, pressing her arms to the floor. Held immobile by strength she had never expected, Boudicca thrashed in frantic madness to escape. Desperately, she tried to reach the desk drawer containing the revolver, but Giordino’s knees kept her arms effectively pinned against her sides.
Giordino flexed his arm muscles, and then his hands were around her throat. “Like father, like daughter,” he snarled. “Join him in hell.”
Boudicca realized with sickening certainty that there would be no release, no mercy. She was effectively imprisoned. Her body convulsed in terror as Giordino’s massive hands squeezed the life from her. She tried to scream but only uttered a squawking cry. The crushing grip never relaxed as her face contorted, the eyes bulged and the skin began turning blue. Normally warm with a humorous smile, Giordino’s face remained expressionless as he squeezed ever more tightly.
The agonized drama lasted until Boudicca’s body jerked and stiffened, the strength drained out of her and she went limp. Without slackening his hold around her throat, Giordino pulled the giant woman off the floor and draped her body across the top of the desk.
Maeve watched in morbid fascination and shock as Giordino tore the silk robe from Boudicca’s body. Then she screamed and turned away, sickened at the sight.
“You called it, partner,” said Pitt, his thoughts struggling to adjust fully to what he beheld.
Giordino made a slight tilt of his head, his eyes cold and remote. “I knew the minute she socked me in the jaw on the yacht.”
“We’ve got to leave. The whole island is about to go up in smoke and cinders.”
“Come again?” Giordino asked dumbly.
“I’ll draw you a picture later.” Pitt looked at Maeve. “What have you got for transportation around the house?”
“A garage on the side of the house holds a pair of minicars Daddy uses-used for driving between the mines.”
Pitt swept one of the boys up in his arms. “Which one are you?”
Frightened of the blood streaming down Pitt’s face, the youngster mumbled, “Michael.” He pointed to his brother, who was now held by Giordino. “He’s Sean.”
“Ever flown in a helicopter, Michael?”
“No, but I always wanted to.”
“Wishing will make it so,” Pitt laughed.
As Maeve hurried from the study, she turned and took one last look at her father and Boudicca, whom she always thought of as her sister, an older sibling who remained distant and seldom displayed anything but animosity, but a sister nonetheless. Her father had kept the secret well, enduring the shame and hiding it from the world. It sickened her to discover after all these years that Boudicca was a man.
They found Dorsett’s island vehicles, compact models of a car built in Australia called a Holden, in a garage adjoi
ning the manor. The cars had been customized by having all the doors removed for easy entry and exit and were painted a bright shade of yellow. Pitt was eternally thankful to the late Arthur Dorsett for leaving the key in the ignition of the first car in line. Quickly, they all piled in, Pitt and Giordino in the front, Maeve and her boys in the back.
The engine turned over, and Pitt shoved the floor shift into first gear. He pressed the accelerator pedal as he released the clutch, and the car leaped forward.
Giordino leaped out at the archway and opened the gate. They had hardly shot onto the road when they passed a four-wheel-drive open van filled with security men traveling in the other direction.
Pitt thought, this would have to happen now. Somebody must have given the alarm. Then reality entered his mind when he realized it was the changing of the guard. The men bound and posed inside the archway office were about to be relieved in more ways than one.
“Everybody wave and smile,” directed Pitt. “Make it look like we’re all one big happy family.”
The uniformed driver of the van slowed and stared curiously at the occupants of the Holden, then nodded and saluted, not sure he recognized anyone but assuming they were probably guests of the Dorsett family. The van was stopping at the archway as Pitt poured on the power’ and raced the Holden toward the dock stretching out into the lagoon.
“They bought it,” said Giordino.
Pitt smiled. “Only for the sixty seconds it takes them to figure out that the night-shift guards aren’t dozing out of boredom.”
He swerved off the main road serving the two mines’ and headed toward the lagoon. They had a straight shot at the dock area now. No cars or trucks stood between them and the yacht. Pitt didn’t take the time to look at his watch, but he knew they had less than four or five minutes before Sandecker’s predicted cataclysm.
“They’re coming after us,” Maeve called out grimly.
Pitt didn’t have to look in the rearview mirror to confirm, nor be told their run for freedom was in jeopardy because of the guards’ quick reaction in taking up the chase. The only question running through his mind was whether he and Giordino could get the helicopter airborne before the guards came within range and shot them out of the sky.
Giordino pointed through the windshield at their only obstacle, the guard standing outside the security office, watching their rapid approach. “What about him?”
Pitt returned Merchant’s automatic pistol to Giordino. “Take this and shoot him if I don’t scare him to death.”
“If you don’t what—?”
Giordino got no further. Pitt hit the stoutly built wooden dock at better than 120 kilometers per hour, then jammed his foot on the brake pedal, sending the car into a long skid aimed directly toward the security office. The startled guard, unsure which way to jump, froze for an instant and then leaped off the side of the dock into the water to escape being crushed against the front grill of the car.
“Neatly done,” Giordino said admiringly, as Pitt straightened out and braked sharply beside the yacht’s gangway.
“Quickly!” Pitt shouted. “Al, run to the helicopter, remove the tie-down ropes and start the engine. Maeve, you take your boys and wait out of sight in the salon. It will be safer there if the guards arrive before we can lift off. Wait until you see the rotor blades begin to turn on the aircraft. Then make a run for it.”
“Where will you be?” asked Giordino, helping Maeve lift the boys out of the car and sending them dashing up the gangway.
“Casting off the mooring lines to keep boarders off the boat.”
Pitt was sweating by the time he pulled the yacht’s heavy mooring ropes from their bollards and heaved them over the side. He took one final look at the road leading to the Dorsett manor house. The driver of the van had misjudged his turn off the main road and skidded the vehicle crosswise into a muddy field. Precious seconds were lost by the security men before they regained the road toward the lagoon. Then, in almost the exact same instant, the helicopter’s engine coughed into life followed by the crack of a gunshot from inside the yacht.
He sprinted up the gangway, fear exploding inside him, hating himself with the taste of venom for sending Maeve and her boys on board the boat without investigating. He reached for the nine millimeter, but then remembered he had given it to Giordino. He ran across the deck, muttered, “Please, God!” tore open the door to the salon and ran inside.
His mind reeled at the shock of hearing Maeve plead, “No, Deirdre, no, please, not them too!”
Pin’s eyes took in the terrible scene. Maeve on the floor, her back against a bookcase, her boys clutched in her arms, both sobbing in fright. A blood-red stain was spreading across her blouse from a small hole in her stomach at the navel.
Deirdre stood in the center of the salon, holding a small automatic pistol aimed at the twin boys, her face and bare arms like polished ivory. Dressed in an Emanuel Ungaro that enhanced her beauty, her eyes were cold and her lips pressed tightly together in a thin line. She stared at Pitt with an expression that would have frozen alcohol. When she spoke, Deirdre’s voice took on a peculiarly deranged quality.
“I knew you didn’t die,” she said slowly.
“You’re madder than your malignant father and degenerate brother,” Pitt said coldly.
“I knew you’d come back to destroy my family.”
Pitt moved slowly until his body shielded Maeve and the boys. “Call it a crusade to eradicate disease. The Dorsetts make the Borgias look like apprentice amateurs,” he said, stalling for time as he inched closer. “I killed your father. Did you know that?”
She nodded slowly, her gun hand white and as firm as marble. “The servants Maeve and your friend locked in’ a closet knew I was sleeping on the boat and called me. Now you will die as my father died, but not before I’ve finished with Maeve.”
Pitt turned slowly. “Maeve is already dead,” he lied.
Deirdre leaned sideways and tried to examine her sister around Pitt’s body. “Then you can watch as I shoot her precious twins.”
“No!” Maeve cried out from behind Pitt... “Not my babies!”
Deirdre was beyond all reason as she lifted the gun and stepped around Pitt for a clear shot at Maeve and her sons.
White rage overcame any shred of common sense as Pitt leaped, hurling himself toward Deirdre. He came out fast, saw the muzzle of the automatic pointing at his chest. He did not fool himself into thinking he could make it. The distance separating them was too far to bridge in time. At two meters, Deirdre couldn’t miss.
Pitt hardly felt the impact from the two bullets as they struck and penetrated into his flesh. There was enough loathing and malice inside him to deaden any pain, forestall any abrupt shock. He pounded Deirdre off her feet with a crushing impact that distorted her delicate features into an expression of abhorrent agony. It was like running into a sapling tree. Her back bowed as she toppled backward over a coffee table, pressed downward by Pitt’s crushing weight. There was a horrible sound like a dried branch snapping as her spine fractured in three places.
Her strange, wild cry brought no compassion from Pitt. Her head was thrown back, and she stared up at Pitt through dazed brown eyes that still retained a look of deep hatred.
“You’ll pay...” she moaned wrathfully, staring up at the growing circles of blood on Pitt’s side and upper chest. “You’re going to die.” The gun was still locked in her grip, and she tried to aim it at Pitt again, but her body refused to react to her mind’s commands. All feeling had suddenly gone out of her.
“Maybe,” he said slowly, looking down and smiling a smile as hard as the handle on a coffin, certain her spine was irreparably fractured. “But it’s better than being paralyzed for the rest of my life.”
He dragged himself off Deirdre and stumbled over to Maeve. Bravely, she ignored her wound and was consoling the little boys, who were still crying and trembling in terror.
“Its all right, my darlings,” she said softly. “Everything
will be all right now.”
Pitt knelt in front of her and examined her wound. There was little blood, just a neat hole that looked like nothing more than a slight stab wound from a small object. He could not see where the plunging bullet had expanded inside her body and torn through her intestines and a labyrinth of blood vessels before penetrating the duodenum and lodging in a disc between two vertebrae. She was bleeding internally, and unless she received immediate medical treatment, death was only minutes away.
Pitt’s heart felt as if it had fallen into a chasm filled with ice. He instinctively wanted to cry in bitter grief, but no sound came from his throat, only a moan of sorrow that rose from deep inside him.
Giordino couldn’t stand the delay any longer. Dawn had arrived, and the eastern sky above the island was already glowing orange from the sun. He jumped from the helicopter to the deck, ducking under the rotating blades as the van carrying the security guards raced onto the dock. What the devil had happened to Pitt and Maeve? he wondered anxiously. Pitt wouldn’t have wasted an unnecessary second. The mooring lines were hanging slack in the water, and the yacht had already caught the outgoing tide and had drifted nearly thirty meters away from the dock.
Haste was vital. The only reason the guards had not fired on the helicopter or yacht was because they were afraid to damage Dorsett property. Now the guards were only a hundred meters away and closing in.
Giordino was so engrossed in keeping his eyes on their pursuers and his mind on what was delaying his friends that he failed to notice the sound of dogs barking from all parts of the island or the sudden flight of birds ascending and flying in confused circles in the sky. Nor did he sense an odd humming sound or feel the quivering on land and see the sudden agitation of the lagoon’s waters as the sound waves of staggering intensity, driven by an immense velocity, slammed into the subterranean rock of Gladiator Island.
Only when he was within a few steps of the door to the main salon did he glance over his shoulder at the guards. They were standing transfixed on the dock whose planking was curling like waves across a sea. They had forgotten their quarry and were pointing to a small cloud of gray smoke that had begun to rise and spread above Mount Scaggs. Giordino could see men pouring like ants from the tunnel entrance in the volcano’s slope. There seemed to be some activity inside Mount Winkleman as well. Pitt’s warning about the island going up in smoke and cinders came back to him.
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