The Widowmaker Reborn: Volume 2 of the Widowmaker Trilogy

by Mike Resnick

  “No melodramatics, daughter,” said Hill calmly. “His life isn't being threatened now, so you have no reason to threaten mine. And if you shoot me, my robots will kill you even faster than the Weapon will kill him.”

  “We can't stay like this forever,” said Nighthawk.

  “Then it's time to talk business,” agreed Hill.

  “Okay.”

  “But my business is only with you, Widowmaker. My daughter may inherit my paltry little estate someday, but what you and I have to say is of no concern to her.”

  “Fuck you!” snapped Cassandra, extending her arm so that her pistol was even closer to her father.

  “Such language in a refined young revolutionary,” said her father with mock distress.

  “My arm's getting numb,” said Nighthawk. “We've got to start talking soon.”

  “As soon as we're alone,” said Hill.

  Nighthawk turned to Cassandra. “I don't know how much longer I can stay conscious. You'd better do as he says.”

  “No goddamned way!” she protested.

  “I'm in no position to argue!” he snapped. He looked back at Hill. “She can't go back to the outer office. She'll be a sitting duck if any of your men show up there.”

  “What do you propose?” asked Hill.

  “I don't know,” grated Nighthawk, grimacing in pain. “Is there some other way out of this room?”

  Hill looked around. “Well, there's always the balcony.”

  “Fine. Lock her out there til we're done.”

  “What if she jumps down and runs away?”

  “She'll break a leg, or your men will kill her.”

  “I'm not going anywhere!” snapped Cassandra.

  Nighthawk stared at her. Will you stop being tough and stop being noble and just remember who's waiting downstairs and what he's holding?

  “I suppose we'll have to wait until you pass out and she gets tired of pointing her gun at me,” said Hill. He shrugged eloquently. “I never could do anything with her.”

  Jesus! You still haven't figured it out!

  “Get the fuck out of here, you dumb bitch!” he yelled.

  She glared at him, her face reflecting her fury, and stalked out onto the balcony without another word.

  Good. Now just get over your mad long enough to look down before I pass out.

  Hill closed the door behind her. “Well, here we are, Widowmaker,” he said easily. “My offer still stands: you can walk away safely, and the money will be in your attorneys’ account tomorrow.”

  “Fuck my attorneys,” said Nighthawk. “I'm doing this for me, not him.”

  “Ah!” said Hill with a smile. “Enlightened self-interest. That certainly makes you more comprehensible to me.” He paused. “Let me make sure we understand each other. I release you, I pay you off, and you leave my office. I don't know how many men you have out there"—he waved his hand in the general direction of Friday's bombs—"but you call them off and take them away with you.” He paused and stared at Nighthawk. “Ibn ben Khalid you leave behind.”

  “Agreed.”

  Where the hell are you?

  “Good. Now all that's left to discuss is your fee. I think three million credits sounds exceptionally generous.”

  “What happened to five million?”

  “That was before you threatened my life. Besides, you've surely done a couple of million credits’ damage to my property this evening, don't you think?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I'll give you two options,” said Nighthawk. “You can pay me three million or eight million, it's up to you.”

  “What's the difference?” asked Hill, curious.

  “For eight million, I don't come back and kill you.”

  “More threats? You are a very slow learner, Widowmaker.” Hill sighed and stared at him for a long moment. “I'll tell you what I'm going to do,” he said at last. “I'm going to accept your proposition and pay you the eight million. I truly don't relish spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for a man of your abilities.”

  “Good,” said Nighthawk. “Then we have a deal.”

  “That's right.” He lowered his gaze to the Weapon and uttered a single word: "Bite!"

  Nighthawk bellowed in pain as he felt his hand severed at the wrist. He almost passed out as Hill ordered the door of the safe to open.

  Nighthawk, finally free, rolled on the floor, then tore off his belt and wrapped it around his wrist to try to staunch the bleeding. As he did so, Hill reached into the safe and withdrew red-stained stacks of currency.

  “To coin a phrase, here is your blood money, Widowmaker. And while I believe that you intended to keep your promise not to hunt me down, I think a little encouragement is always beneficial.”

  Nighthawk reached for his laser pistol, which way lying on the floor, but one of the robots pointed a deadly finger and shot it away.

  “Breaking your word already?” asked Hill.

  “The bleeding hasn't stopped,” mumbled Nighthawk. “I've got to cauterize the wound!”

  “Allow me,” said Hill, reaching into his desk and withdrawing a laser pistol. He aimed it at the blood-drenched stump and fired. Nighthawk bellowed again and doubled over in pain. “Number Four,” said Hill to one of his robots. “Go out onto the balcony and kill my daughter.”

  “Yes, Governor,” replied the robot, walking to the door that led to the balcony.

  There was a brief humming sound, and the robot became a small gray puddle on the floor.

  "You remembered!" muttered Nighthawk as Cassandra strode into the room, fired the imploder at the other three robots, and then turned the Weapon into jelly.

  “What the hell did he do to you?” she demanded, finally noting Nighthawk's arm.

  “Don't worry about it!” grated Nighthawk. “Let's just get the hell out of here!”

  She turned the imploder toward her father, who pointed his laser pistol at her.

  “It's still a Mexican standoff,” he said calmly.

  “You think so, do you?”

  She fired the imploder, and he was a puddle of liquid and juices before he could fire back.

  “I forgot all about Kinoshita until you cursed at me,” Cassandra said, helping Nighthawk to his feet. “That was so unlike you that it startled me and made me think.”

  “I must be weaker than I thought,” he said unsteadily. “It feels like the whole room is shaking.”

  “Oh, shit!” she said. “It is! That bastard must have tied his life readings into the house system and rigged it! Now that he's dead the whole goddamned wing is falling apart!”

  “Grab the money!”

  She pulled a pair of bags out of her pocket, opened them, and quickly tossed one pile of money into one and a smaller pile into the other, as the room began shaking more violently. “Now what?” she asked.

  Nighthawk staggered to the balcony door. “Throw the bigger bag down to Ito! And give him the imploder, too!”

  She raced to the railing of the balcony, threw the money and imploder over it.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “That secret passage you mentioned. Where is it?”

  She was about to lead him to it when the floor vanished beneath her and office wing of the mansion collapsed.

  33.

  Nighthawk groaned and pushed a timber off his chest. He reached down to remove another one from his leg, then realized that he was missing his left hand. As badly as that hurt, the pain in his crushed shoulder was worse.

  Suddenly a tall, lean figure was standing over him, pulling timbers off his torso and legs.

  “Cassandra...” he mumbled.

  “She's all right. Don't waste your strength. Just lay still and I'll have you out in another minute.”

  He tried to focus his eyes, and finally realized that he was looking at Pallas Athene.

  “What happened?” he asked, confused.

  “The goddamned house collapsed,” said Pallas
Athene. “I assume you killed Hill?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded her head. “I've heard of this baby before. It's called the Vengeance System. You're lucky to be alive.” She pulled the last piece of lumber off him and stared at him. “What the hell happened to you? You didn't lose your hand from this.”

  “It's a long story.” Suddenly he sat up. “Where's Blue Eyes? We left him on the roof.”

  “Dead. He's about forty feet off to your left. Broke his neck in the fall.”

  “Damn!” He leaned back, exhausted from the effort. “Where's the rest of your team?”

  “Scattered from here to my ship,” replied Pallas Athene. “All dead.”

  “Too bad.”

  “They knew the odds.” She paused. “So did you get Cassius Hill?”

  “She got him.”

  “I'm glad you left it to her,” said Pallas Athene. “After all, she's Ibn ben Khalid. It was a damned generous thing for you to do.”

  “Generosity had nothing to do with it,” replied Nighthawk. “She saved my life.”

  “Sure.”

  “She did!” he said heatedly.

  “Okay, she did. Keep your voice down and don't waste your strength. You haven't got a lot to spare.”

  “Pull out my communicator,” he said.

  “Where is it?”

  “One of my pockets, or inside my belt.”

  She frisked him gently and produced it.

  “Activate it. Band 1193.”

  “Done.”

  “Johann, how's it going?”

  No response.

  “Johann, are you there?”

  Silence.

  “Are you sure it's on the right band?”

  She checked again. “1193, just like you said.”

  “Shit. Try Band 2076.”

  “Okay.”

  “Eddie, come in. Tuesday Eddie, come in, damn it!”

  No response.

  “Is anyone else alive besides you, me, and her?” he asked weakly.

  “Beats me. Where's Kinoshita?”

  “He'd better be halfway to the spaceport by now,” rasped Nighthawk. “Or the whole thing was for nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?” she said. “We killed Cassius Hill, didn't we?”

  “Right,” he said. “We killed Cassius Hill. Get me onto my feet. If I stay on my back for another minute, I'm going to pass out.”

  She helped him up, and braced him for a moment until a wave of dizziness passed.

  “Where's Cassandra?”

  “Over here,” said Pallas Athene, walking over to a crumpled body.

  “I thought you said she was all right!”

  “She is, considering. She has a major concussion and maybe a few fractured ribs. She was awake a couple of minutes ago; she could be a lot worse.”

  “Friday!” said Nighthawk suddenly. He adjusted the radio band. “Friday, are you there?”

  “Of course I am here,” said the alien's familiar voice. “This has been a wonderful night. A glorious night. I knew I was right to team up with you, Jefferson Nighthawk!”

  “Is Melisande all right?”

  “She is dead.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “They swept the area with lasers. She never saw it coming, and I doubt that the man who killed her ever saw her. These things happen.” There was a pause. “Have you any further orders, or should I return to my ship?”

  Nighthawk swayed as he surveyed the carnage around him. “Stand by,” he said at last. “I'll get back to you shortly.”

  He deactivated the communicator.

  “The best killers survived,” said Pallas Athene. “That's usually the way in war.”

  “At least it's over,” he said. “The enemy's dead.”

  “You're not thinking clearly,” she corrected him.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The general is dead,” she explained. “The army's still intact, minus a few thousand casualties, and tomorrow there'll be a new general.”

  “No,” he said. “It wasn't a war. It's done.”

  “It won't be done as long as you're alive,” she said. “Even those who hated Hill's guts will still try to hunt you down. You came onto their turf and you killed them where they lived. That requires vengeance.”

  “I don't plan to spend the rest of my life running,” said Nighthawk.

  “Then you'll make a stand and fight,” replied Pallas Athene. “After all, you're the Widowmaker.”

  “I'm just his surrogate,” answered Nighthawk. “What we did tonight was save the real Widowmaker.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “It doesn't matter; I understand.” He looked around once more. “You killed everyone out front?”

  “For the time being,” she replied. “There'll be thousands of reinforcements bearing down on this place once they know what's been going on.”

  “They won't know until sunrise,” said Nighthawk. “We jammed their signals and destroyed their transmitters.”

  “Okay, they won't know until sunrise,” she said. “So what?”

  “That's all the time we need.”

  “For what?”

  “To end the war forever.” He pulled out his communicator. “Friday, how far are you from the Governor's mansion?”

  “Perhaps a mile,” answered the alien.

  “Get here in the next half hour and blow the damned thing to smithereens. Then make it back to Sylene any way you can.”

  He tossed the communicator onto the rubble, then turned to Pallas Athene. “I left a vehicle about a mile up the road, behind some shrubs. Do you think you can find it?”

  “If it's still there.”

  “Go get it and bring it back here.”

  She turned and started walking away without a word.

  Nighthawk rummaged through his pockets and pouches with his remaining hand until he found what he was looking for: his metal ID card and passport cube. He placed them on the ground, reached for his laser pistol, suddenly realized that he didn't have it anymore, and walked over to Blue Eyes’ corpse, where he appropriated the dragon's laser.

  He returned to the card and the cube, put the weapon on a low-intensity setting, and fired it at them. The card turned black, and its edges curled from the heat, but when he took his finger off the trigger he could still make out part of his name and number. The cube melted, but he aimed the beam away from it before it was totally destroyed.

  He waited a few minutes for the card and cube to cool, then picked them up and put them in a pocket. Finally he walked over to Cassandra, knelt down next to her, and gently stroked her hair.

  She opened her eyes. “You're alive,” she said.

  “I'm a hard man to kill.”

  “When we couldn't find you, I thought you we're buried under half the house,” she said. “Then...” She frowned. “Then I can't remember anything.”

  “You passed out.”

  She was silent for a moment, and then looked up at him. “We did it, didn't we?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “I knew we could. And now it's finally over.”

  “Not quite. But soon.”

  Pallas Athene pulled up in the darkened vehicle. “There's no one on the roads yet,” she said as she got out. “But that can't last long. We'd better get to the spaceport immediately.”

  “My ship won't be there,” said Nighthawk. “Kinoshita's probably taken off by now. Where's yours?”

  “A couple of miles south of here.”

  “Take Cassandra there and go back to Sylene.” Suddenly he began looking around on the ground.

  “You looking for this?” asked Pallas Athene, holding up the bag of money.

  “Yeah. Take it with you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I'll wait for Friday.”

  “Why not come with us?” she persisted. “My ship can handle a dozen men.”

  “I've got one last thing to do before I leave the planet.”r />
  “What?”

  “I've got to kill the Widowmaker.”

  She frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “After Friday blows the place,” said Nighthawk, reaching into a pocket and removing the card and cube, “I'm going to bury these in the rubble.” He forced a grim smile to his face. “And that ends the war.”

  Epilogue

  In an orbiting hospital far out on the Rim, more than half a galaxy from the Inner Frontier, Nighthawk slowly opened his eyes and peered out through the bandages.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Cassandra.

  “Like a new man.”

  “Good,” she said with a smile. “Because there's not very much of the old one left. New hand, new shoulder joint, and now a new face.”

  “The old one was a little too well known,” replied Nighthawk.

  “I can't wait for the bandages to come off, so I can start getting used to this one.” She paused. “By the way, your surgeon took me aside and told me he thought he could detect the first signs of eplasia.”

  “I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was right,” replied Nighthawk, wishing the bandages would allow him to smile.

  “He says that they're within months of a cure.”

  “Good. Then the money will be enough to keep him alive.”

  “And to cure you.”

  “Medical science has managed to cure everything else,” he said, flexing his artificial hand. “Why not eplasia?”

  She sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. “Do you ever wish you could meet him?”

  He considered the question for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. The younger one, the one who died on Solio II, him I'd have liked to have met, because I might had been able to help him. But the original? No, once they cure him, he doesn't need anyone's help.”

  “He'll be 63 years old in a world he won't be able to recognize,” noted Cassandra. “Don't you think he'll need help adjusting?”

  “He's the Widowmaker,” said Nighthawk, as if that answered everything.

  Which, in a way, it did.

  * * *

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