Hard as Nails

by Dan Simmons

  Arlene chewed her lip. "I haven't asked him yet. He's been… busy."

  "Yes. Dr. Singh asks me about Joe Kurtz almost every day. I imagine Joe's been in bed a lot, recovering. It must mean extra work for you at the office."

  "Not that much," said Arlene, commenting on the first part of Gail's sentence but letting her think she was answering the second part.

  "But do you think he'll be up to coming to Rachel's birthday party? It would mean the world to her."

  Arlene knew that although Rachel was a sensitive and lovable girl, she had few friends at school. Besides Gail and Arlene—and maybe Joe—there would be only one other teenager besides Rachel at the party, a skinny, bookish girl named Constance.

  "I'll ask him tomorrow," said Arlene.

  "I mean, he does remember it's Rachel's birthday, doesn't he?" asked Gail, voice rising a bit.

  "I'll ask him tomorrow whether he feels up to coming," said Arlene. "I'm sure he will if he can. Gail, by any chance do you have Rachel's phone around? The one I gave you in the spring?"

  "Rachel's cell phone?" said her sister-in-law. "Yes. She never carries it I think it's in her room. Why? You want it back?"

  "No, but could you go get it right now? And check the battery."

  "Now?" said Gail.

  "Yes, please," said Arlene. There was movement in the cab of the pest control van. The Burned Man was shifting positions, perhaps getting ready to step out.

  Gail sighed, said she'd just be a minute, and set her phone down.

  Arlene looked at her options here. They were awkward. She wanted the Burned Man out of the way so that she could pick up this Aysha person in… she looked at her watch… twenty-one minutes. Even if the Burned Man wasn't also waiting for the Yemeni girl—although Arlene's instincts told her that he was—it would be better if there were no witnesses. The girl was illegal in more ways than one. What if she didn't want to get into the car with Arlene? Well, to be truthful, that was one reason Arlene had brought the .44 Magnum.

  So how to get this guy out of the way? And what to do if he suddenly drove toward her Buick or began walking her way? Arlene had no idea why this scarred man in the bug truck might want to grab Aysha, but she felt that this was precisely what he was going to do in… nineteen minutes… unless Arlene intervened.

  How? She had the Niagara police on speed dial, but even if she got through to someone who actually called a patrol cruiser who actually got here in time, they'd almost certainly still be here when the Canadians dropped Aysha off at the mall door. And if the people-smugglers from the north caught one glimpse of red and blue lights flashing or police cars here in the parking lot, they'd keep going and drop Aysha somewhere else, far from here.

  Maybe I could fallow their car and…

  Arlene shook her head. After getting even a glimpse of the police, the already paranoid smugglers would probably be more paranoid. The streets were empty in this wet, botched caricature of a city, and there was little to no chance that Arlene would be able to tail the smugglers without them seeing her. And if she spooked them enough, they might even kill the girl and just dump her out somewhere. Arlene just didn't know the stakes here—for Aysha, for the people smuggling her in, for the Burned Man in that bug truck straight ahead, or even for Joe.

  I could just go home. That was certainly the option that made the most sense. In the morning, Joe would probably say, "Oh, that's all right—I just wanted to chat with the girl if possible. No biggee."

  Uh-huh, thought Arlene.

  "All right, I'm back with the phone," came Gail's voice in her ear. "What next?"

  "Ahh…just hold onto it for a second," said Arlene, knowing how foolish she sounded. It was like those old practical jokes in high school where some boy would call up pretending to be a telephone repairman and get you to take the cover off the phone—back when phones looked alike and had covers—and then made you do one thing after the other to help "fix" it, until you were swinging a bag of parts over your head and clucking like a chicken.

  Joe had talked Arlene into purchasing a cell phone for Rachel a few months earlier. He was always worried that the girl might be in danger, that someone might go after her the way her late stepfather had, and he liked the idea of Rachel carrying around a phone with Arlene's numbers set to speed dial.

  Gail had been a little nonplussed at the gift—"If Rachel wanted a phone, I'd buy one for her," she'd said logically enough—but Arlene had convinced her that this was Joe's awkward way of establishing some contact with the girl, of watching over her from afar. "He can establish contact just by coming to dinner and seeing her more frequently," Gail had said sternly. Arlene couldn't argue with that.

  She'd thought of the phone right now because although its bills were paid by WeddingBells-dot-com, if someone tried to use reverse-911 on it, the records would show just the WeddingBells PO box number.

  Fourteen minutes before midnight. It was quite possible the smugglers could get here a few minutes early with Aysha—any second—and Arlene didn't have a clue what to do. If the Burned Man nabbed Aysha, she could try following the bug truck so at least she could tell Joe where the girl was taken, but the same empty, wet streets in the same empty, wet town here made that no more feasible than following the smugglers themselves.

  Arlene didn't like to use obscenities, but she had to admit that her goose was well and truly cooked here.

  "Arlene? Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine. Is the phone charged?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Dial nine-one-one."

  "What? Is there an emergency?"

  "Not yet. But dial nine-one-one. But don't hit the 'call' button yet."

  "All right. What do I tell them the emergency is?"

  "Tell them that there's a man having a heart attack—in cardiac arrest—just outside the Rainbow Centre Mall."

  "Rainbow Centre? That place up in Niagara Falls?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you there? Is there someone in cardiac arrest? I can talk you through the CPR until the paramedics get there."

  "This is just private-eye stuff, Gail. Just tell them that a man's having a heart attack outside the Rainbow Centre Mall… And tell them he's in a van near the south main mall doors and the van has Total Pest Control written on the side."

  "Wait… wait… let me write that down. What was the…"

  "Total Pest Control. Like in the cereal."

  "There's a cereal called Pest Control?"

  "Just write it down." Arlene usually enjoyed Gail's odd sense of humor, but there wasn't time tonight.

  "Won't they arrest me for false reporting?"

  "They won't find you. Trust me. After you make the call… if you make the call… just take a hammer and smash that cell phone and throw the pieces away. I'll provide a new one."

  "It looks like a pretty expensive phone. I'm not sure…"

  "Gail."

  "All right. A man undergoing cardiac arrest at the south entrance to the Rainbow Centre Mall—that one near the convention center in Niagara Falls… and he's having this heart attack in a van with Total Pest Control written on the side of it."

  "Yes." Arlene looked at her watch. Eleven minutes before midnight. It was almost too late to…

  The van had started up. Arlene could see the oil-rich exhaust in the humid air. She could hear the engine even with her window up.

  Oh, thank God. I don't have to…

  The van made a fast left turn and headed in Arlene's direction. For a second the headlights pinned her like a deer.

  She immediately dropped sideways onto the passenger seat and fumbled in her purse for the .44 Magnum. The cell phone fell off her lap and bounced and for a second Arlene was sure that she'd disconnected with Gail.

  "Hello? Hello?" Gail and Arlene were both shouting.

  The van stopped fifty or sixty feet in front of Arlene's Buick, the headlights turning her windshield a thick milky white.

  "Call nine-one-one," Arlene whispered urgently. "Call nine-one-one. On
the cell phone. Keep this line open."

  "Oh, my God. Arlene, are you all right? What's…"

  "Call nine-one-one!" shouted Arlene. 'Tell them what I said."

  Arlene lowered herself to the floor, her back against the passenger-side door. She set the cell phone on the seat, pulled her legs over the console and set her feet on the carpeted floor. She set the heavy Magnum on her knee and cocked it, keeping the muzzle pointing at the ceiling. If the Burned Man came to the passenger side, she might not be visible in the shadow of the footwell here, especially with the headlights making everything else so bright She aimed the gun at the driver's door.

  The van's headlights went off and the van's engine fell silent.

  "Arlene!" It was a screech, but not a panicked one. Gail had been a nurse for a long time. The more tense things got, the more calm Gail became, Arlene knew. On the job.

  "Husssshhhh," whispered Arlene, leaning left to hiss into the phone. "Don't talk. Don't talk."

  There was no further noise. No footsteps. But the van's engine stayed off and the van's headlights stayed dark. Arlene looked across at the driver's door window, aiming the muzzle of her weapon. What seemed like hours passed in the silence, but she knew it must have been just a minute or two.

  Oh, dear Lord. Did I lock the doors?

  It was too late to lunge across for the locking controls on the far door now. She considered reaching above her head and locking the door on her side—If he swings it open, I'll fall out backwards like a bag of laundry—but knew that the power lock driving home would sound like a gunshot. She left it alone.

  The van door slammed. Arlene set her finger in the trigger guard. She'd practice-fired this weapon enough to know that it required quite a bit of pressure on the trigger to fire. And the recoil was serious. She propped her head more firmly on the door behind her so that the recoil wouldn't catch her on the chin, cradled the big gun on her knee with her left hand under her right hand to steady it and thumbed the hammer back until it clicked.

  She could bear the footsteps on the concrete now. He was walking toward the driver's side.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  « ^ »

  As the big helicopter plummeted, Kurtz banished the blue-pill haze from his mind and body.

  He willed away the false good-feeling and tinge of good humor that overlay everything. He willed away the cloud of painlessness and let both his headache and his resolve flow back in like black ink. He willed away the soft pharmaceutical fog and summoned the hard-edged core of Joe Kurtz back to duty.

  The big Bell Long Ranger hit hard, jarring Kurtz's spine and sending the old familiar spikes through his skull, slid a few yards across slick grass, and came to a stop. Immediately Gonzaga and his man Bobby were out the side door and running. Angelina and her bodyguard, Campbell, followed a minute later, carrying Mp5s, the ditty bags filled with ammunition rattling at their hips.

  Kurtz struggled with the four point straps for a few seconds, slapped them away, grabbed up his bag, set the folded aluminum and web litter over his shoulder on a sling, and went out through the side door just as Baby Doc stepped out his pilot-side door and pulled two long tubes from behind his seat. The pilot hung one of the tubes over his shoulder with a sling and carried the other. They looked like RPGs, the old Russian and Eastern European rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

  "What're those?" whispered Kurtz. The two were jogging toward the house now in the dark, passing the dark shape of the Major's Huey.

  "RPGs," said Baby Doc and turned in the direction of the driveway.

  "Wait!" called Kurtz.

  Baby Doc turned but did not stop jogging.

  "I thought you were staying with the chopper," whispered Kurtz.

  Baby Doc grinned. "I never said I would."

  "What if you get killed?"

  The grin stayed in place. "You guys will either have to take flying lessons or start walking." He turned his back and ran toward the head of the driveway.

  There was a dead man lying in the guardhouse gazebo. Nothing stirred except the six of them jogging toward the house. The external security lights were on in the back, but the house remained dark.

  Angelina Farino Ferrara set the C-4 charge on the door, triggered the tuned detonator, and stepped back with the other three just as Kurtz came jogging up. The blast wasn't as loud as Kurtz expected, but it was pretty sure to wake everyone in the house. The door flew inward, showing steel reinforcements blown off at the hinges.

  Gonzaga went in first. His bodyguard followed a second later. Angelina and her man lunged in a second after that.

  This is nuts, thought Kurtz, not for the first time that night. One did not assault a house without knowing the houseplans intimately. He raised the Browning and threw himself through the door.

  The foyer and hall lights had come on, which was not good. The layout was as he remembered—the foyer opening on the center hall straight ahead, staircase to the right—Angelina and her man were already pounding up it—a dark, formal living room was visible to his left, closed doors along the hallway to the left and right.

  Gonzaga kicked open the first door to the right of the foyer and tossed in a flash-bang. The explosion was very loud. Bobby, the bodyguard, kicked in the second door to the right and dodged back as a hail of automatic weapons fire slashed across the foyer, shattering the chandelier and tearing apart vases and furniture in the living room across the way. Bobby fired his shotgun into the room, pumped it, fired again, pumped it, fired again. The machine gun fire stopped abruptly.

  Upstairs, two explosions poured smoke down the stairway.

  Kurtz ran across the foyer, scattering crystal as he ran. Plaster was falling from the high ceiling. He could see the glass library doors fifty feet or so straight ahead and anyone in that dark room could see him. There were too many lights in this broad hallway, and they were too recessed to shoot out, so he felt like the target he was as he dodged from one side to the other and paused where the hallway began.

  Gonzaga came out of the room behind him and fired up the staircase to Kurtz's right. A black-garbed figure tumbled down the steps and an M-16 fell onto the foyer tiles. Not one of ours, thought Kurtz.

  "You take the left, Bobby and I'll take the right," shouted Toma Gonzaga.

  Kurtz nodded and dodged left just as the library doors exploded shards of glass outward. Toma, Bobby, and Kurtz jumped against doorways. Two shotguns and Kurtz's Browning fired at the same time, smashing the last shards of the glass doors. Kurtz wanted to get to the Major's room, which opened off the left side of the library at the end of the hall, but right now he wasn't going anywhere as someone fired an M-16 again from the darkness of the library.

  The second door on the left along that hallway opened and one of the Vietnamese bodyguards peered out, ducked back behind the door, held out an M-16, and sprayed the hallway. Gonzaga and Bobby were out of sight behind Kurtz, in the rooms along the opposite side of the hallway. Shotgun blasts roared and filled the air with cordite stink.

  Kurtz pressed into the first doorway on the left—the door was locked—and waited until the spray of plaster and ricochets from the M-16 blast let up. Then he aimed the Browning at the center of the open wooden doorway and fired five slugs into it, about chest high. There was a cry and the sound of a body tumbling down the stairs.

  Basement. Kurtz wanted to go down there—it was his job to—but he had to secure the library first. He ran, firing, to the basement doorway. There was no return fire from beyond the shattered glass of the library.

  There was a light on downstairs and Kurtz could see the bodyguard's body crumpled at the base of the steps. Kurtz pulled a flash-bang grenade from his bag, flipped the primer, and tossed it down the stairs, stepping back behind the door while it exploded. When he peered around, the basement was full of smoke and the bodyguard's clothing was burning. He hadn't moved.

  More explosions from the second floor. The gunfire up there was horrendous. Kurtz wondered if Angel
ina had survived the Battle of the North Bedroom or whatever the hell it was.

  As Kurtz lunged around and crouched on the top step of the basement stairs, still focused on the library doors, Gonzaga and Bobby poked their heads out of their doorways.

  "These rooms are clear," shouted Gonzaga. "At least two down here. What about the library?"

  Automatic weapons fire exploded from the dark library again, stitching the walls along the wide hallway and making all three men duck back. Kurtz had caught a glimpse of two splaying muzzle flashes.

  "It's not clear," he called from the top step. "Two machine guns at least."

  "Throw a flash-bang," called Bobby.

  I can do better than that, thought Kurtz. He took a wad of C-4 from his ditty bag, wadded it into a rough sphere, stuck in a primer detonator, and set it for four seconds. He lunged into the hall and threw it like a fastball through the shattered doors, jumping back onto the top step just as both M-16s opened up.

  The blast blew the wide doors off their hinges and rolled a cloud of acrid smoke down the hallway.

  Kurtz, Gonzaga and Bobby ran into the smoke, firing as they ran.

  The last door on the right opened. An Asian woman looked out and screamed. Her hands were empty.

  "No!" shouted Kurtz over his shoulder, but too late. Gonzaga fired at her with his shotgun at a range of twenty feet and the woman's upper body flew back into the room as if jerked away on a cable.

  Kurtz kicked the hanging library doors open and rolled in among broken glass and splintered doorframe. The carpet was on fire. Smoke rose to the cathedral ceiling and a smoke alarm was screaming, hitting almost the same note the Asian woman had.

  Trinh and another Vietnamese had been firing from behind a long, heavy library table they'd turned on its side. The C-4 blast had shattered the table into several chunks and a thousand splinters and thrown it all back over them. The bodyguard had been blown out through the glass terrace doors—a burglar alarm raised its whoop in chorus to the smoke alarm—and that man was obviously dead. Colonel Trinh was lying unconscious on the smoking carpet. His face was bloody and his left arm was visibly broken, but he was breathing. His red slippers had been blown off and one of them sat in a bookshelf ten feet up the high wall of shelves. The colonel's shattered M-16 lay nearby.