Hardbingers rj-10

by F. Paul Wilson

  As he turned and hurried back to the stairs, he saw Cousino, Finan, Grell, and Novak stacked high and low on either side of the laundry room, their pistols trained on the door. They would stay covered while Dunsmore unlocked it, then he would stay behind it as it swung inward.

  Cal had just reached the top of the stairs when he heard a deafening BOOM! from behind; a bright flash stretched his shadow before him.

  Flash-bang!

  Jack watched the door swing inward. Popped the clip on the grenade and started counting.

  One thousand and one …

  "Who's there?" said a voice from within.

  … one thousand and two…

  "You out there—what do you want?"

  … one thousand and three …

  Tucked the H-K into his belt as he tossed the grenade through the opening, then turned his back to the door, closed his eyes, and held his ears. The M84 exploded with a 180-decibel boom and a million-candela flash. Anyone in the vicinity was going to be deaf, blind, and disoriented for the next few minutes. Certainly in no shape to get in his way.

  After the detonation, Jack grabbed the rope and hauled himself up to the deck. As soon as he slid over the railing he brought out another M84 and re-claimed the H-K. Pulled the pin with his teeth, flipped the clip, and started another count.

  One thousand and one… one thousand and two . . .

  Fired a vertical line of five Devastators down the center of the sliding glass door. As the explosive bullets shattered the glass into countless fragments, he tossed the second grenade inside.

  CZH)

  Cal hung over the railing and listened. He heard cries from the men but couldn't understand them.

  "Who's down?" he called. "Anyone still mobile come to the stairs and—"

  He heard a fusillade of shots behind him as the glass door exploded inward. He turned, pistol raised, and started firing at the door. Then he saw the silhouette of a canlike object float through the air into the room.

  "Flash-bang!" he shouted as he dropped his weapon, squeezed his eyes shut, and jammed his fingers into his ears.

  The room must have gone bright as the sun because the light blinded him through his eyelids. And then a noise louder than anything he'd imagined possible spiked around his fingers and into his eardrums.

  CZJD

  After the flash-bang, Jack leaped through the hole in the window into a large dark room. The room he wanted—he prayed he'd figured this right—lay to the right. In the wash of light from the outside spots he made his way to the door. He was reasonably sure Diana was in there, but who else?

  He dropped to the floor, rolled onto his back and kicked the door open.

  No shots, no one even asking who was there. Just the whimper of a frightened child. Again, he had enough light from outside to make out the outlines of the furniture. He followed the sound to a closet. When he pulled the door open he found Diana cowering on the floor. He flicked on his flashlight and saw her black, tear-filled eyes staring up at him.

  She screamed.

  C3Q

  It took Cal time to reorient himself. He'd been knocked to his knees. Now he staggered to his feet and looked around. Through the huge purple blob of af-terflash floating in his vision he made out Geraci and Lewis writhing on the floor. Over the roar in his ears he heard them moaning about being blind and deaf. They hadn't been able to react in time.

  Cal stood swaying, shaking his head to rid himself of the buzzing in his skull, blinking to fade the afterflash, and wondering why he and the others were still alive, why their attackers hadn't finished them when they were down and defenseless.

  Then he heard a high-pitched scream. He whirled toward Diana's room and saw her open door.

  No!

  He dropped to the floor, found his pistol, then charged the doorway.

  "Diana!"

  He lurched into the room, found the light switch and, dreading what he'd find, turned it on.

  At first he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Diana knelt in the doorway of her closet, looking alive and well but terrified. Behind her, in the closet, crouched a man in a flannel shirt and white ski pants. Cal had to blink a few times before he recognized him.

  "You!" He started to raise his pistol—

  "Uh-uh. Put that down."

  The words sounded far away. Then his bladder clenched as he saw the muzzle of one of the yeniceri's own H-Ks pressed against Diana's throat.

  He looked at Jack and saw the eyes of a stone killer. How had he missed that before? How did he hide it? Almost as if another person had moved into his skin. Another thing about those eyes… here was someone who didn't care all that much whether he lived or died. Nobody more dangerous or unpredictable than a guy like that.

  "Don't, Jack… she's just a kid… please don't hurt her."

  Cal searched for a way to get a clear shot without hitting Diana, but couldn't see one.

  "If I were here for that, I'd have done it and been gone by now. But that's not the plan."

  "Then what are you here for?"

  "To talk."

  "Talk?" Cal felt a flare of anger. "You didn't have to do all this just to talk!"

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. You have my number. You just had—"

  Jack was shaking his head. "I don't need to talk to you. I need to talk to an Oculus. You going to tell me you'd have let me if I asked you?"

  No… of course not.

  Cal sensed Geraci and Lewis staggering up behind him. He glanced around and saw they had their pistols out before them.

  Geraci said, "What the—?"

  Cal raised a hand. "Easy."

  "Get them out of here," Jack said. "There's been enough killing. And close the door after them."

  Cal turned and motioned them back, closed the door, then stared at Jack. Something he'd said…

  "'Enough killing'… what's that mean?"

  "Just what it says."

  "Zeklos?"

  He nodded.

  The son of a bitch.

  "And Miller and the others?"

  Another nod.

  Fuck! Cal felt his trigger finger spasming.

  "And the 0?" He steeled himself for the answer.

  Jack shook his head. "You'll have to look elsewhere for an answer to that."

  "Why Zeklos, of all people?"

  "I tried to prevent that. Didn't work out."

  "You cut out his heart?"

  "Only his, and that was for effect. It brought Miller and his posse where I wanted them."

  "You took them out? All four of them?"

  A nod.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Just a guy. You hurt me, I hurt you back."

  Just a guy? Obviously the wrong guy to hurt.

  "But why? How did we hurt you? We were going to take you in."

  "You people—you, your Oculus, the Ally… especially the Ally—killed my baby and put the woman I was going to marry and the little girl I was going to adopt into a coma."

  "No!" Diana wailed. "My father would never do that!"

  Cal felt his knees soften. The woman and kid on 58th Street… no. Couldn't be.

  "But the Alarm said… it showed… why would the Ally want them dead? It had to have a good reason."

  "By its standards it did. You've heard the expression 'a spear has no branches,' I assume."

  "Of course I—oh, no."

  "Oh, yes. But that's not all of it. One of your LaGuardia victims was my father."

  Cal felt weak. He stepped away from the door and sat heavily on the bed.

  Diana stared at him with wide onyx eyes. "What is he talking about?"

  Everything that hadn't made sense about the ops now became diamond clear. They'd been Jack's branches.

  "Is it true?" Diana cried. "Is it true?"

  "Not the kind of thing I'd make up," Jack said.

  Cal stared at Jack. "Then you really are the Heir."

  "Seems to be the case. And there doesn't seem to be one goddamn thing I can do abo
ut it."

  Cal shook his head. "I'm sorry. Man, I am so sorry."

  "Sorry doesn't quite cut it."

  Cal nodded toward Diana. "Killing her won't make things better."

  "Haven't you been listening? I'm here to talk."

  "To her?"

  "No. To the Ally. I want to make a deal." He waggled his pistol at Cal. "Now get out of here. I don't want you hanging over us while I do this."

  Cal looked at Diana and saw her black eyes pleading with him.

  He shook his head. "No way. I'm not leaving her alone with you."

  Jack raised the pistol and leveled it at Cal's face so that he was looking down the barrel.

  "Out."

  Cal shook his head again. "Shoot me if that's what you've got to do, but staying with her is what I've got to do."

  "No-no-no!" Diana whimpered to Jack. "He's my friend!"

  Jack sighed and lowered the pistol. "Like I said, been enough killing."

  Cal saw something else in his eyes now—a sense of urgency.

  "All right, Diana," Jack said. "Turn around and face me. No funny stuff. Just do as I say and this will all be over in a few minutes."

  Cal watched as Diana shuffled a hundred and eighty degrees until her back was to him. Again he looked for a shot but couldn't find one. Oddly, he felt almost glad about that. What they'd done—what the Ally had done to this man… he'd been put through hell. No, not through… he was still looking for the exit.

  "Now," Jack said to Diana. "Look at me. Look into my eyes, look at my face. Concentrate. Send a message or whatever you do to the Ally—Christ, I hate calling it that—and tell it—"

  "I cuh-cuh-can't!"

  Cal said, "It doesn't work that way. She's a raw feed. She can't send a message. She doesn't even know whether or not the Ally is tapping in."

  Jack's eyes flashed as he glanced at Cal. "It damn well better be listening. I've got some news for it." He focused back on Diana. "Now just watch and listen. That's all you have to do."

  "But I—"

  "Shhh," he said softly, pressing a finger gently against her lips. "Let me worry about who's listening."

  As he leaned back and raised the pistol, NO-NO-NO-NO! reverberated through Cal's brain. But then, to Cal's shock, he placed the muzzle under his own chin.

  Diana cowered away, but Jack gripped her shoulder.

  "Don't worry. No splattered brains here. Maybe later, but not yet." He cleared his throat. "Listen up, you son of a bitch. You've expended a lot of time and effort turning me into one of your spears. Maybe you plan on me becoming your big weapon. Well, get this: You could very soon be looking for a new Heir.

  "So here's the deal. You bring back Gia, you bring back Vicky, and you bring back Emma. Or you step aside and let the Lady bring them back. I don't care which as long as all three are back.

  "What do you get? You get me. I'll be your butt boy. I'll do your bidding. But only in return for getting them back. And don't try to pull a monkey's paw on me. I want them back the way they were before your clowns ran them down. If that doesn't happen, I pull this trigger. And I will do it. So it's simple: If they go—I go. Without them I won't have much to live for, and I won't have anything in this world to protect from the Otherness. So I'll opt out, and you can start looking for another guy to screw. Got that? Back the way they were or sayonara."

  He looked at Cal over Diana's shoulder, then rose to his feet.

  "Now what?" Cal said.

  "Now I go home."

  Cal stood and faced him.

  "After what you did here, what you did to Zeklos and the others, you can't believe we'll let you go."

  "Like I said: Been enough killing. I could have used frags instead of flash-bangs. If I had, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You force me to shoot my way out, I probably won't make it, but…" He pulled another H-K. "These are loaded with Devastators. I'll take some of you with me. Guaranteed."

  Explosive bullets… Cal didn't want to lose any more men.

  Jack sighed. "And if that's not enough reason, I've got one more."

  "Like what?"

  "You don't really want to kill the Heir, do you?"

  Cal let out a breath. Yeah. That was the kicker. They'd be undoing so much of what they'd worked for all their lives. He didn't know what to say or do.

  "Feeling empty?" Jack said. "Helpless? Impotent? Welcome to my life since you blew a hole in it."

  Cal knew he had to let him go, and not simply because he was the Heir.

  Jack's father. And then that pregnant woman and her little girl… he remembered how they'd been laughing together at lunch… and what the yenigeri had done to them a few moments later.

  Yeah, Jack had killed five yeniceri, and Cal mourned them, but it had been self-defense. He'd done it to protect his loved ones. And Zeklos and Miller and the rest would be alive still if they hadn't run down those two—no, three innocent people.

  He owed this man something.

  "I don't know if I can convince the others."

  "Get them all downstairs. I'll handle the rest."

  Cal wondered what to tell them. Maybe say they needed a strategy meeting out of earshot… by the laundry room. That might work, especially since he was sure now that Diana was in no danger. And he had a pretty good idea how Jack would get out.

  "All right. I'll give it a shot, but no promises." He focused on Diana. "You'll be safe here. Don't leave the room till I come back for you."

  "Don't leave me!"

  "I'm not going to hurt you," Jack said. "And you'll be safer in here if things go wrong out there."

  "He's right," Cal said. He stepped toward the door, then turned back to Jack. "Good luck with the woman and the girl. I hope they make it. The baby too."

  Jack's lips tightened and he gave a small nod, but he said nothing.

  C30

  Jack watched the door close behind Davis. He slumped back. Not in the clear yet. Getting out could prove harder than getting in.

  He glanced at Diana and found her staring at him with her whiteless eyes.

  "Are you really the Heir?"

  "Not by choice."

  "But it's an honor."

  "Somebody else might see it that way. I don't. Might be different if I'd been asked first."

  In that case, of course, the answer would have been a firm N-O.

  Sensing a conflict within her, he said, "And how about being an Oculus? Is that an honor?"

  She straightened her shoulders. "Yes. Of course."

  "Wouldn't you have liked a choice?"

  "It's not. a choice—no more than the color of your skin is a choice. You are born an Oculus. It's my destiny and my duty."

  Jack wondered how many times she'd been told that. Enough to have it branded on her memory.

  "All fine and good, but wouldn't you have liked a say?"

  "I—" The words choked off as her composed expression crumbled. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. "I don't want this! I want to have friends my own age, I want to dance, I want to date!" She looked up at him with her red-rimmed black eyes. "I want a UfeV

  Jack cupped her chin in his hand. "No one can appreciate that more than I. We're in the same boat. I wish I could help you, but I can't even help myself." He rose and stepped past her. "I may not even be able to get out of here alive."

  She looked up at him. "It's all true… what you said… what happened to you?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

  "Not your fault. And I'm sorry if I frightened you."

  "And what you said about killing yourself, that was true? You'd do that because of them?"

  Jack nodded.

  Three years ago, before he'd met Gia, the idea of offing himself would have been… what? Inconceivable didn't even approach it. He'd been a self-contained unit, an island in every sense, thumbing his nose at John Donne.

  Gia and Vicky had wrought a sea change. Before he'd met them he'd been unable to imagine sharing his life with anyone
; now he couldn't imagine life without them.

  "You're a good kid, Diana. I hope—"

  "I'm not a kid!" she sobbed. "I'm an Oculus. I'm a tool. And so are you. But you've found a way out. Maybe I—"

  "Don't say that. You—"

  She held clawed hands around her onyx eyes. "I don't want to live like this!"

  Jack didn't know what to say. What was left of his heart went out to her. Barely into her teens and her life had been appropriated. All her choices had been made. All except one.

  "All I can tell you, Diana, is wait. These are dark days for you. Maybe you'll meet another Oculus your age and—"

  "There's hardly any of us left!"

  He had to get out of here.

  "Just give it some time, Diana. That's all I can say." He gripped the edge of the closet door. "As for now, get back inside and lie flat. Things could get nasty in the next few minutes and I don't want you hurt."

  "Maybe I don't care," she said, but complied.

  Jack pushed the door closed. He heard a faint "Bye," just before it clicked shut.

  He stepped to the door to the great room and eased it open for a peek.

  Looked empty. Quiet except for distant voices.

  The question of the moment was whether Davis would stay true to his word, or if he and the remaining yenigeri were waiting in the stairwell ready to open up on him.

  Pulled his spare H-K. Since that had the fuller clip, he switched it to his right hand. Keeping both trained on the stairwell, he slipped out of Diana's room and padded along a diagonal path to the shattered glass door. Cold air and snow poured through.

  Stepped through the opening onto the deck, stowed the pistols, then swung his legs over the railing. Grabbed the rope and slid to its lowest point where his sneakers were only half a dozen or so feet off the ground. Dropped, landing in a crouch. Then, steeling himself for a bullet in the back, dashed for the harbor shore.

  No shots, not even a shout. Davis had delivered.

  He stayed off the ice and ran along the shoreline. No need for secrecy now, and this was the most direct path to the beached Jeep. Good thing too. Couldn't afford to be too far off course. Although he still had his gloves and ski pants, he'd left the parka on the steps. The wind was scything through his flannel shirt like it was cheesecloth.

  He pulled out the Jeep keys and started clicking the LOCK and UNLOCK buttons, but saw no flashes.