Jim found one of the penthouse residents, almost falling over him, as he had suspected he would. Frustration and despair threatened to consume him. How many had Daun killed 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. All 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 you poor sons of bitches down in that lobby. I’m so sorry.
“Contract,” drawled Tychus.
“You sound like you’ve got fine business ethics there, Daun. Too bad you don’t have any other kind,” snarled Jim. He stared at the corpse in front of him, scarcely visible in the faint light. It looked like a dummy rather than what had once been a living, breathing human being.
“Morals are such slippery things, ain’t they, Jim Raynor?” said Daun. “They’re so flexible. So adaptable. How are your morals doing now?”
A dummy … Jim turned his head and did a double take at what looked like another figure looming over him, this one strangely bulky and ominous but, like the body on the floor, one that didn’t move. And then he remembered how they were planning to get out. Or at least, had been planning to get out before Daun had appeared like some sort of unstoppable Grim Reaper.
“Since you’re gonna kill us,” Tychus continued, moving with surprisingly slow grace in the room, attempting to locate their hunter, “why don’t you just tell us who put the contract out on us? It’d be right gentlemanly of you to send us to our graves with that particular question answered.”
“If I had more time, I don’t think I would answer that. At least, not right away …,” Daun said. He had been in several places, thanks to the holograms, but as Jim kept moving slowly, he caught a glimpse of something in a mirror. A small red dot that moved.
For an instant, he thought it was a targeting device that Daun was using, but that didn’t make sense. If it were such a device, it would be focused on him or Tychus. Then, somehow, his muzzy brain understood with brilliant clarity.
So this was how Daun could see them so clearly. Jim wasn’t seeing a red dot that indicated a targeting laser. He was seeing Daun’s new eye. The bounty hunter already had a cybernetic arm. Thanks to Jim’s attack the last time they had met—in the lab—he now had an ocular implant.
Despite the direness of the situation, Jim found himself smiling. Daun no doubt thought he had a leg up on them. He didn’t realize that he was revealing his location. Judging from the way the mirror was positioned, Daun would be standing right about …
Jim lifted his wounded arm, biting back a shriek of agony, and pointed the pistol. He didn’t dare say anything to Tychus, and could only hope his friend was paying attention to his movements.
“… No, I’d string you along for a bit,” Daun continued. The arrogant bastard wasn’t even aiming his pistol. Though Jim could barely see Daun in the dark, he could have sworn the man was grinning, as happy as a pig in mud. “But alas, our time together, gentlemen, is running out. So I think I will do as you request, Tychus Findlay. I will enlighten you.”
Jim had a clear shot at Daun now, but he didn’t take it. His arm quivered from the strain, red-hot pain becoming white-hot with every second he delayed, but he couldn’t kill Daun. Not until he knew who had been responsible for siccing this bastard on them.
“My employer for this particular assignment is one Javier Vanderspool.”
Jim staggered. Vanderspool? His vision swirled, becoming gray around the edges. Impossible. That evil … thing … was dead. Jim had seen to it himself. He felt his gorge rise. It couldn’t be. This had to be a lie … one of Daun’s sick little games.
“That ain’t right,” Tychus said. “Jim done put that mad dog down a while ago.”
“You’re wrong.” In the center of the room, another hologram sprang to life. Jim lowered his weapon, staring. The hologram depicted a sort of giant mechanical coffin. A man was encased in it, all of him except his head. It was a dark location, and strain as Jim might, he couldn’t identify the man.
And then he spoke.
“Ezekiel Daun.”
Vanderspool. Dear God. It was true. He was alive … if you could call that living….
Blood thundered in his ears. The words were garbled; they made no sense as Daun and Vanderspool spoke. Jim and Tychus watched as Daun drew something out of a bag.
It was Ryk Kydd’s head.
Casually, Daun tossed it toward the man in the iron coffin.
Jim’s stomach heaved, but with a will he hadn’t realized he had, he refused to betray himself. Something had awakened deep inside him and was clawing its way upward, past the despair and the fear.
“It’s a start, Mr. Daun. I believe you have two more left, don’t you? Don’t come back until your satchel bulges with two other trophies: Tychus Findlay and James Raynor.”
“Don’t worry, old man. They’re next,” came Daun’s voice from the hologram. The image froze.
“And I’m afraid,” Daun said with mock resignation, “that you are indeed next. Good-bye, Mr. Findlay, Mr. Raynor.”
Jim fired about a foot below the glowing ocular implant.
The red dot vanished as Daun went down.
“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Jim murmured. He swayed and then fell to the floor.
He awoke presumably a very short while later to find himself face-to-face with what looked like a hardskin. There was a loud banging that he suspected came from his own head.
“There you are, Jimmy,” Tychus said. “Thought I’d lost you for a minute.”
“Daun?”
“Ain’t had time for an autopsy, but looks like you nailed him good. He won’t be bothering us no more. Now, get into this thing and let’s get out of here.”
Jim now realized that the banging did not come from his head but from outside the penthouse suite. And the hardskin was not one of the standard-issue suits he and Tychus were familiar with from their days as marines; it was something much more advanced.
O’Banon had promised them five prototypes of a new, superior suit in order to make their escape. Equipped with grenade launchers on the arms, able to do everything the standard suits could and then some, the hardskins would enable the men to blast their way through the wall, jump easily to the street, thanks to a slow-fall modification, and race off, demolishing anyone attempting to stop them, until they reached the rendezvous point.
“Supposed to be five,” Jim muttered. There was only one, which Tychus was holding out to him now.
“I know,” Tychus said. “Son of a bitch O’Bastard never intended for anyone but his pet Ass to survive this. That’s why he was so generous in his terms with us. He was gonna leave you and me and the other two behind.”
“Somehow I ain’t surprised,” Jim said.
“You ain’t got time for I-told-you-so’s, Jimmy,” Tychus said. With one hand, he hauled Raynor to his feet and began to help him into the suit. Jim hissed as his arm was maneuvered into position. “This thing’ll keep you alive long enough to get out.”
The banging increased. Now there was a wail of sirens from somewhere.
Suddenly Tychus’s words registered. “Tychus, you can’t stay here!” Jim exclaimed.
Tychus didn’t look at him as he snapped shut multiple clasps, sealing Jim inside the armored suit. “Jimmy, we got only one suit. And I know you wouldn’t have been part of this thing if you’d known what the money was for. I lied to you, and that weren’t right. You got a chance to get clear of all this. You’re gonna even if I have to knock you out and set this thing on autopilot.”
There was, of course, no way to set the suit on autopilot. Jim stared at his friend. “You can’t hold them off by yourself,” he said quietly.
“You insulting my masculinity, boy?” Tychus said bluffly. “Hell, I can handle these guys, no problem. And by the way, since you’re too good to take the money, it’s
all mine.”
“Tychus—”
With a hiss, the helmet sealed shut. “Go, damn it.”
Jim turned, moving toward one of the windows, the suit feeling both familiar and strange to him. He lifted one of the arms, experimentally pressed something, and blinked as an enormous chunk of wall was suddenly blown out. Jim paused, then turned back to Tychus.
Tychus had his back to him. He had shucked the fine dress shirt along with the vest that had once housed the deadly mechanical spiders, and now stood only in an undershirt, suit trousers, and boots. He had a weapon in each massive hand and was facing the door, ready for when it would give way—which it would at any moment.
“I can’t do this,” Jim said.
Tychus whirled. His face was hard, set in the expression he wore right before he dealt death and destruction on a scale that was almost not human. But there was a look in his eyes that Jim had never seen there before.
“James Raynor,” Tychus Findlay said in a calm, quiet voice that nonetheless somehow carried over the cacophony of pounding, shouting, and wailing sirens. “You once agreed with me when I said I’d never done a noble thing in my life. That I never could, that I just wasn’t capable of it. I thought you was right, but you ain’t. Go on, now. Get out, get clean, and do something with your life. You got the chance to do that. Don’t take that away from me—not here, not now.”
He turned back to the door. Jim stared at Tychus, wanting to find some parting words to sum up everything he felt for this unlikely friend. How much he appreciated the laughter, the skin-of-their-teeth escapes, the rowdiness of their partnership, the trust they’d developed over the years. But they couldn’t get past the lump in his throat. Tychus nodded briefly, then turned to meet his fate.
Hell, Jimmy, I ain’t any more capable of doing something noble than of jumping off the roof and flying.
He wasn’t going to walk away from this. Jim Raynor knew he was watching Tychus Findlay’s last stand. Then the words came of their own volition.
“I know you didn’t cheat me, Tychus.”
Tychus didn’t turn around, but he seemed to straighten slightly. “No, Jimmy, I never did. And I know you didn’t, neither.”
It was enough.
Raynor turned and faced the glaring light of the sunny day that bombarded the darkness of the room. For a moment he stood on the edge of the gaping hole he had blown into the wall. Below was green grass, and streets, and freedom.
Below was a second chance to become the sort of man his parents had raised him to be. To walk in that sunlight without looking over his shoulder.
Slowly, James Raynor lifted his arms, jumped out the window, and flew.
They were not fighting a man, Wilkes Butler thought wildly as the door gave way and they poured into the room. They were fighting a monster.
Holograms, too many to count quickly, were playing, each a danse macabre. The central figure in each one of the brutal scenarios was a man who seemed to have a cybernetic arm. Members of the local lawmen whom Butler had rounded up came to a full halt for several seconds on witnessing the bizarre scene, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. That sudden, shocked pause cost some of them their lives as the real adversary used that to his advantage.
Tychus Findlay was alone in the room. He had a gun in each hand and was firing away, screaming as he did so. Butler dove for a pillar in the vast penthouse and kept trying to get a clear shot, but Findlay was surrounded by wave after wave of law officers, who injured themselves more than him in the cross fire. Bullets and iron spikes embedded themselves in the walls and the furniture, pinging chips off the marble behind which Butler had taken cover. And all the while that nerve-shattering bellow, the war cry of a trapped animal determined to take as many with him as possible when he went down, filled the room.
Butler kept his head and took stock of the situation quickly. Findlay had two weapons but apparently no spare magazines. There were two bodies on the floor that were not law officers. Neither of them was Raynor. Raynor’s body was also not among those found in the lobby, and the single surviving witness had said both Raynor and Findlay had escaped.
Conclusion: Raynor had escaped, and Findlay was taking the fall.
Tychus Findlay therefore had nothing to lose. Butler swallowed hard.
He leaned over, took aim, and fired. Findlay grunted as a bullet embedded itself in his arm. His head snapped around, and his eyes locked with Butler’s. A grin curved his mouth as he brought one of the guns around and pointed it right at the marshal.
It clicked. Empty.
Findlay didn’t even slow down. He charged toward Butler, who stepped out from behind the protection of the pillar. Butler took slow and careful aim—
Four of the armored cops jumped on Tychus. He shook them off as if they were so many flies, but they kept coming. Three more sprang on him, including Wilkes Butler. Even now Tychus Findlay tried to rise, but he had been wounded in the fight, and at last they had him pinned.
Butler snapped a pair of handcuffs on the bull of a man and stood over him, panting. Paramedics were already swarming over the wounded. He did a quick count: almost twenty. Some of them were far too still. He turned his gaze back to the man who lay before him, blood flowing from at least half a dozen places.
“Marshal Butler,” came a voice, “this one’s still alive.”
Butler glanced away to see one of the paramedics tending to one of the bodies that had been in the penthouse before they had broken in. His eyes widened. The man had a cybernetic arm … and an ocular implant. Butler glanced up at the still-playing holograms, then back at the man on the floor.
“Hell’s bells,” he said. “That’s Ezekiel Daun.”
“Aw, for fekk’s sake,” muttered Findlay, “won’t that bastard just die already?” His voice was strangely thick, and as Butler turned to regard him, Findlay spat out a great deal of blood and a few teeth.
“Patch Daun up and arrest him,” he told his deputy. He thought about the bounty hunter’s reputation. “That’s someone who really needs to be behind bars.”
“This the best you could do, Butler?” drawled Findlay. “Just the sort of pansy-ass takedown attempt I’d expect from someone dillydallying at a convention. Couldn’t even kill me.”
Butler’s nostrils flared with anger. For so, so long, he had been chasing Raynor and Findlay. Findlay had gotten away every time, often with some scathing insult. But now the tables had turned. Tychus Findlay had finally been caught—by Marshal Wilkes Butler. He yearned desperately to find fitting words to humiliate this man, who had led him on such a merry chase—something memorable to quote as he told the story again and again over the years.
Tychus’s grin widened, though it had to be a painful gesture. The seconds ticked by.
“Well?” said Tychus Findlay.
“You’re under arrest,” was all Marshal Wilkes Butler could say.
Tychus laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MAR SARA
There was, mused Myles Hammond, about the same amount of papers to push here as on Shiloh. And there was red tape—because there was always red tape. But the furniture and supplies in his office were newer, and there was a lot less dust.
Best of all, when he pushed the papers and cut through the red tape, papers stayed pushed, and tape stayed cut. Things … got done. There were no veiled offers of bribes, no looking the other way. No trying to get something taken care of, only to find unexpected obstacles. He was now Magistrate Myles Hammond, and he was making a difference.
So it was that despite the pile of work on his desk, he was whistling as he brewed a fresh pot of coffee and his door swung open.
He did a double take and started to grin. “Well, if it ain’t Jim Raynor.”
“Magistrate Myles Hammond,” Jim said, walking up to his old friend and shaking his hand. He looked around. “Bigger office. Nicer title.”
“Better chance of actually doing something useful,” Myles said, handing Jim a cu
p of coffee.
Jim nodded his thanks and took a sip. “Better coffee here too. So … this is your little slice of perfection.”
Myles chuckled and took a sip. “No, it ain’t perfect. But it beats Shiloh, that’s for sure. At least there’s some decency here. Some damned honesty. People look out for one another instead of just themselves. They help. And my hands aren’t tied here, so I can help too.” He gave Jim a fond, proud look. “Welcome home, Jim.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Jim said, “I didn’t say I was staying. Came to take a look-see is all. And I’m still looking.”
“I think you’ll like what you see,” Myles said. “These parts … well, like I said, there’s decency here. But you know as well as I do—hell, maybe better than I do—that when there are decent folks, there’s people looking to take advantage of them. Mar Sara still needs some law to make sure that decency doesn’t vanish. A man who understands both sides of that situation could really make a fine marshal.”
Jim chuckled and scratched his nose. “You gotta be out of your mind, Myles.”
Myles raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you came all the way out here, sneaking the whole way, just to have a cup of coffee—mighty fine though it is.”
Jim shrugged and turned away, sipping his coffee. Myles continued.
“There’d be something in it for you other than altruism,” he said. Jim turned his head slightly, listening. “I can offer you clemency.”
“It was just a job you were offering back on Shiloh,” Jim said. “You can really give me clemency?”
“Absolutely. It’s within my authority as magistrate here.”
“What would I have to do?”
“Be my right hand,” Myles said. “Be my marshal. Get out there and protect the good folks and catch the bad. You do that, and I can promise that clemency’s yours.”
Jim finished the coffee and set the cup down on the desk. “Well, Myles, I gotta say, you make some mighty fine coffee here.” He moved toward the door. Myles grasped his arm.
“Jimmy—marshal’s where I can use you the most. Where you’ll be able to make the most difference and—clichéd as it’s gonna sound—do the most good. But the offer stands for anything you want. Even if you’re just working for me filing papers, you’ll have clemency.”
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