The Beasts Of Valhalla m-4

by George C. Chesbro

  I touched my head. "Don't you know?"

  "I haven't scanned you or Mr. Lippitt; I wouldn't do that without your permission. I only know what I'm able to scan from the people around here."

  "Garth's on his way to California. We think Siegmund Loge may be at the Institute for the Study of Human Potential, in northern California. He's traveling in a van with, believe it or not, a giant and a gorilla."

  Rafferty frowned. "Something's wrong."

  "What?" I breathed as I edged forward on the divan.

  "It's bad news I picked up this morning-I was waiting until we had the other things out of the way. The van was captured a few hours ago. Garth wasn't in it. There was only the giant, a gorilla, and some other animal that nobody-at least not the man I was scanning-seemed able to identify. It was wearing clothes, but it definitely wasn't a man."

  I must have made a noise-a sigh, a moan, a shout, a scream. Then I must have fainted, because the next thing I knew I was on the floor with Rafferty hovering over me and Lippitt cradling my head in his arms. I remembered about the animal wearing clothes, and I opened my mouth to make another noise.

  "You've got to hold it together, Frederickson," Lippitt said in a voice that was as firm as his touch was gentle. "If Garth is past help, that's it; if not, we'll move as quickly as possible to help him. Your falling apart won't solve anything, and it will create problems. You're needed-for yourself, and to help Rafferty and me. To help all of us."

  "I'm all right now," I said tersely as I got to my feet and pushed Lippitt away from me. I looked up into the concerned, brooding face of Victor Rafferty. "You know we're being hunted, but you don't know why Loge wants Garth and me, do you?"

  Rafferty shook his head. "The men I've been scanning don't know."

  "You'd better look," I said as I again touched my head, then removed my parka. "It will explain the smoked glasses and the battery pack around my waist."

  "Scan me, too," Lippitt said.

  A sensation like the tickling of a psychic feather joined the magnetic wind inside my mind as I rolled up my sleeves to bare my scales, held up my hands and spread the fingers; I'd cut away the webs three days before, but they were already growing back.

  It took Rafferty less than a minute to extract Lippitt's story and mine from our minds. During that time, shadows moved in his eyes and across his face-pain, horror, pity, shock, outrage, rage, determination. Then the tickling stopped. "God," he said in a near whisper as he stepped forward and put both his hands on my shoulders.

  "We want you to come with us to Washington," Lippitt said to the telepath. "You'll be able to tell us who it's safe to talk to."

  "It's too late for that, Lippitt," Rafferty replied.

  "Why? We need to put a stop to this, and fast. To do that, we need some big political and military guns."

  "Those guns could end up aimed at us."

  "But you said- "

  "I said the government wasn't involved-but it might as well be. There's a large conspiracy, and many of the people involved control the levers of power, both political and military. I can find somebody for you to talk to safely, but I can't scan over the telephone; I can't scan the people that man will talk to-or, in turn, the people those people will talk to. At the moment there are only these Warriors after you. Go to Washington, and you're likely to have the F.B.I., the military, and every local police department after you as well. Orders will go out."

  It was my turn to look at Lippitt. He looked away.

  "We have to go to California right away," I said.

  "No!" Lippitt snapped. His face was uncharacteristically flushed. "That's not the way! It's a miracle we've gotten this far, and sooner or later our luck is going to run out! We can't keep bucking the odds, Frederickson; now that there's an alternative, we have no right not to exercise it. Too much depends on us. We need help. We have to go to Washington."

  "You go wherever you want," I said as I brushed past the D.I.A. operative and headed for the door. "I'm going after my brother."

  "No!" Lippitt shouted, reaching out and grabbing my arm, pulling me back. "You're my proof, you dumb little dwarf bast- " Lippitt abruptly released my arm, flushed again and turned away. "I'm sorry, Frederickson; truly sorry. But I need you. Without your symptoms and story to back me up, they'll just lock me away."

  "Mongo's absolutely right, Lippitt," Rafferty said quietly. "Siegmund Loge has accomplished what he has through the uncanny ability to play on and manipulate people's mind-sets and fantasies. You've fallen into the same trap with your mind-set, except that you've trapped yourself. You can't believe that a country which you love so much, and to which you've devoted your life, could be involved in something like the Valhalla Project. Well, it's not, so you can take comfort in that; however, a lot of powerful people who work for that country are very deeply involved, so you needn't be a fool and risk playing into their hands. Your fantasy is that everything is going to turn out all right if you can get the right people, your people, in government involved. The chance of our succeeding alone may be hopelessly slim, but it's the only chance. You don't want to go to Washington because you think it's the best, or only, move; you want to go to validate your belief in the United States of America."

  "I want to make a phone call," Lippitt said in a strangled voice.

  "Lippitt, that's a really dumb idea," I said.

  "One phone call-to a onetime friend who now sits on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His name is General Baggins. We served together in World War Two, and I'd trust the man with my life."

  "You'll be trusting him with a hell of a lot more than just your life, my friend. It's a dumb idea."

  "One phone call," Lippitt said. "I'll tell him everything that's happened, try to convince him of the need for speed. He has the juice to have a battalion of Marines circling the Institute an hour after I hang up. Then it would be over: Project Valhalla would be stopped, and there might even be time left over to help Garth. Isn't that worth the risk?"

  "Lippitt may be right," I said to Rafferty. "Maybe you and I are being too paranoid. There must be somebody in the military structure who can help, and Lippitt's general may be the person."

  Rafferty shrugged, then went behind his desk, opened a drawer and took out a green telephone. "Go ahead and make your call, Mr. Lippitt-but do it on this telephone; the call can't be traced. Also, I might suggest that you don't tell him we're up here. If he insists on knowing where you are, tell him you and Mongo are at a pay phone on Roosevelt Island."

  Rafferty went to a window looking out over the East River, and I sat down on the edge of the desk as Lippitt picked up the receiver and dialed a number. He got the general himself after ten minutes, and then spent almost a half hour talking to him. During that half hour I watched relief and joy spread across his face like a gentle fire of mercy, burning away a thick detritus of horror and hopelessness, fear and frustration, making him seem almost young again.

  When Lippitt had finished, I spent fifteen minutes on the phone with the general, telling the same story but providing additional details when I remembered them. The general seemed sufficiently impressed with it all, supportive, grateful, and anxious to assure me that he believed our story. He assured me that a large armed force would be at the Institute within a very short time, and that every effort would be made to guarantee Garth's safety and force Siegmund Loge to prepare an antidote to whatever was poisoning our systems. When I hung up, I was almost happy.

  Neither Rafferty nor Lippitt seemed happy. Lippitt had joined Rafferty at the window. Their backs were to me, but there was something in the stiffness of their stances and the tense angle of their shoulders and necks that I didn't like.

  "Lippitt, Rafferty? What's the matter?"

  Neither man answered, and so I hopped off the desk and went across the room to join them. As they stepped apart to make room for me by the window, an olive-drab helicopter swooped past and rushed to join a force of a few of its brothers and sisters around Roosevelt Island, in the middle of t
he East River, a half mile or so to the north.

  We didn't need binoculars to see what was going on.

  Power boats of every description-including a couple with Coast Guard and Navy markings-were converging on the island from both north and south. Military and NYPD helicopters hovered over the island, occasionally descending to disgorge soldiers and black-gloved Warriors in civilian clothes. Residents of the apartment buildings on the island came out and stared in awe as teams of armed men raced around the island, in and out of the buildings, searching for a certain dwarf with smoked glasses and an old, bald-headed Defense Intelligence Agency operative.

  "I'm sorry, Lippitt," I said sincerely.

  "Yeah," Lippitt answered with a kind of grunt. "Me, too."

  Rafferty opened a wall safe, took out a.45-caliber automatic and a box of shells. He loaded the gun, put it and the box of shells in the pocket of a tweed overcoat, which he'd taken out of a closet. Lippitt and I were still staring out the window, our energy drained by entropy, our hope eaten away by despair.

  "Gentlemen," Rafferty said as he stood by the door of the private elevator in his office, "it's time to go."

  32

  We descended in the elevator to the underground VIP parking garage, hurried to Rafferty's sleek black limousine. Lippitt and I got in the back, lay down across the seat.

  "I have a private plane at Flushing Airport," Rafferty said as he got behind the wheel and turned on the engine. "Nobody in official circles knows about it, and, for obvious reasons, I keep it serviced and ready to go at all times. It's only a two-seater, but I think we can manage to squeeze Mongo in."

  "At this point, I don't much care if you strap me to the wing."

  "You're leaving?" Lippitt said to Rafferty. "Just like that?"

  Rafferty laughed. "What would you suggest I say in my letter of resignation, Lippitt?"

  That got a grudging smile out of the old man. "Right," he mumbled. "'Gone to save the world' might seem a bit grandiose."

  We came up out of the garage, turned left on Forty-ninth Street, then south on Second Avenue. Suddenly Rafferty braked to a stop. "Roadblock," the telepath said, leaning back over the seat. "Police and Warriors; they're looking in all the cars."

  "That's it," Lippitt said, opening the door on his side as I opened the door on mine. "Rafferty, we'll meet you at Flushing Airport."

  "Wait!" Rafferty said, turning off the engine and starting to open his door. "I'll come with you! You may need my help!"

  "No!" Lippitt snapped. "We don't need a mind reader to know what's going to happen if they catch Mongo and me in your car, or you with us. If the two of us are caught, you're the last person left on earth who can stop Project Valhalla. Stay with the car and get out to the airport."

  "It's an isolated hangar on the north side of the airport!" Rafferty shouted as Lippitt and I rolled out into the street from opposite sides of the car, slammed our doors shut. "Good luck!"

  Keeping low, using the stopped cars as cover, Lippitt and I sprinted across the avenue and up Forty-ninth Street.

  "There's a subway station at Third Avenue and Fifty-third!" I gasped as I sprinted, pumping my arms.

  "Right!" Lippitt shouted. "That's where we go!"

  By the time we'd gone three blocks, we'd picked up three pursuers-Warriors. They were fast, but we were damn well motivated; we made it to the subway entrance, spun around on the metal railing and leaped down the stone stairs.

  "Stop, or we'll shoot!"

  With Garth in their hands, my life insurance policy had run out.

  Lippitt and I bounded down the steps, knocking over two businessmen, three black-jacketed members of the Stinking Skulls, and one nodding junkie. We reached the platform just as a train was starting up, raced beside the accelerating train toward the black mouth of the tunnel, fifty to sixty yards ahead of us. A shot rang out, sharp as the crack of a giant whip in the stone and steel chamber, and something tugged at the left side of my parka. More shots rang out, whizzing over our heads and skipping off the platform around our feet.

  We reached the mouth of the tunnel barely a few yards ahead of the train; now it was either stop and get punctured with bullets, or jump into the path of the onrushing train. Naturally, we jumped. I landed on the gravel with my legs pumping, stumbled, but managed to keep going, darting to my left and hugging the cold stone wall as the train roared past. I'd heard Lippitt land on the gravel just behind me, but now I was alone. I kept moving down the tunnel, sidestepping along and hugging the wall, as steel whirred past a few inches from my back.

  Then the train was past, sucking sound and air with it, leaving me with a roar in my ears and a large steel wrecking ball in my chest where my heart should be. I wheeled around, took off my glasses and saw a familiar figure hugging the wall almost directly across the tracks.

  "Lippitt!"

  "Mongo!" The D.I.A. operative turned from the wall, held out his arms. "I can't see a fucking thing down here."

  "Stay where you are! Move around too much and you're likely to get fried!"

  Taking care to avoid the electrified third rail, I went across the tracks and gripped his arm. Leading the old man by the hand, staying close to the wall, I jogged down the tracks, turned into what appeared to be a maintenance access tunnel, kept running as flashlight beams bobbed past the entrance behind us. We kept running until there were no more lights, no sounds, behind us. I stopped to allow us to catch our breath, leaned wearily against the wall.

  "Shit," Lippitt said with genuine passion.

  "That about says it all. I think we've got a problem. It's a long way to Flushing Airport, and we've got a river to cross. The streets of New York just aren't safe for citizens who happen to be bald-headed or slight in stature."

  Lippitt stared off into space for some time, his jaw muscles clenched. "Fuck this," he said at last, pushing off the wall. "I've had enough of dark, underground places; one Mount Doom in a lifetime is enough. Let's get the hell out of here."

  "Jolly good idea. It probably isn't that far to the next station, or to a manhole. But what good will it do to go up into the streets? There are a hell of a lot of people up there looking for us."

  "How's that creepy internal guidance system of yours working?"

  "It's still creepy, and it's still working."

  "Which way is the East River?"

  I pointed to the rock wall on my left.

  "That's where we're going as soon as we can get out of here."

  "Christ, Lippitt, this is no time to go senile on me. The last time I looked, there were a lot of bad guys floating around in the East River."

  "You let me worry about the bad guys, Frederickson. Go."

  I stayed put. "What do you have in mind?"

  "Cutting through all this bullshit. Find us a manhole. We're going uptown."

  "Why? What's up there?"

  "The heliport."

  "Ah."

  Nervous time as we came up out of a manhole into the middle of a street, darted across, and padded down the sidewalk toward the river. We stopped at the end of the block, pressed back against the side of a building and peered across the East River Drive at the heliport on the river where an Army Jet Ranger was parked. The pilot was casually leaning against a wooden railing, talking with a burly man who wore black leather gloves.

  There was no way we were going to get across the narrow access bridge without the men seeing us.

  Lippitt picked up a sharp-edged piece of broken pavement, put it in his pocket. "Walk fast," he said, stepping directly in front of me. "Stay in step, and try to stay hidden. I'm going to kill the first man who makes a move for his gun."

  Off we went, with me feeling like second banana in an old vaudeville act as I tried to stay out of sight behind Lippitt's flowing overcoat.

  "We're going to make it," Lippitt said in a low voice as we reached the point on the bridge directly over the center divider on the East Side Drive. "They don't quite know what to make of me, and at the moment they're just stari
ng. I'll take the Warrior. You see what you can do with the pilot, on your left."

  What I did with the pilot, as Lippitt cracked the Warrior across the jaw with the piece of pavement, was jump out at him from the folds of the overcoat, shout, then kick him in the groin. He crumpled to his knees, then went down as Lippitt turned and finished my job with a hard, straight right to the Army captain's temple. Lippitt grabbed the men's guns, sprinted toward the helicopter, ducked under the idling rotors and leaped up into the cockpit. I ran around to the other side and just managed to climb up and close the door before Lippitt opened the throttle, pulled back on the joystick and sent us shooting into the air.

  Lippitt, it seemed, was an expert helicopter pilot-at least he impressed the hell out of me as he effortlessly swooped us around, then started down the East River Drive, toward Roosevelt Island; as far as I could tell, we were flying no more than five or six feet above the roofs of the cars below us, and I hated even to think about the heart attacks and collisions we were leaving in our wake.

  "See if you can spot Rafferty's Lincoln anywhere down there," Lippitt said as he hopped us gently over an elevated walkway. "If nobody saw or reported us rolling out of his car, he could be halfway to Flushing by now. If not- "

  "Not," I said as we swept past Forty-seventh Street and I spotted his car pulled up onto the long, brick plaza there.

  "Where?" Lippitt asked, pulling back on the joystick and sending us soaring aloft.

  I told him. Lippitt made a lazy circle, eased back on the throttle, and virtually putt-putted us over the tops of a couple of buildings, then descended directly down toward the plaza. Keeping back, peering over the edge of the door, I could see a lot of upturned faces. One of the faces belonged to Victor Rafferty; he was spread-eagled across the trunk of his car, and was surrounded by police and Warriors. One of the Warriors held a familiar-looking.45 and box of shells.

  As Lippitt hovered at treetop level just over the Lincoln, I rolled out of my seat back into the cargo bay, kicked open the bay door, and threw out the helicopter's rope ladder.