by Bob Finley
There was a moment of silence.
"DO YOU HEAR ME? THIS IS MARC JUSTIN. I’M ONE OF THE HOSTAGES YOU WERE SENT HERE TO RESCUE! RIGHT?"
Silence.
"LISTEN! I’M GONNA STAND UP, OKAY? I DON'T HAVE A GUN OR ANYTHING, I'M JUST GONNA STAND UP WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME. OKAY? WITH MY HANDS UP, OKAY?"
"Marc!! Jambou!!" Kim hissed. "Look out for Jambou!"
Justin raised one hand above his right shoulder and waved it slightly in acknowledgment. Then he put the fingers of both hands on the edge of the doorway and slowly slid his body forward until his face rested against the wall just an inch from the opening. After a moment, he gambled a swift look, with just one eye, around the door jamb, jerking his head quickly back. He waited. Then he did it again, a little more slowly. Finally, he cautiously peered into the room.
"Jambou. If you’re in there, listen to me. You're about two minutes away from being dead. Believe me, these guys are serious! If you'll promise not to shoot me, I'm going to try to talk them into not killing you. How ‘bout it?"
Silence hung heavy in the smoke-filled air.
"Jambou? You hear me? Time’s runnin' out!"
Just as Kim began to believe Jambou had somehow gotten past them, he heard the one-word response, quietly asked.
"Why?"
The voice was tense, haunted. Hunted.
"Why, what?" Justin said.
"Why would you do that?"
Kim saw Justin's head slowly lower until his forehead was touching the cool stone of the floor. When he answered, it was in a quiet, flat voice full of irony.
"Not because I want to, you can be sure of that. But because the only way to save ourselves and the innocent people you’ve put at risk is to keep you alive, so those bombs don't go off. In fact, if I ever find out that this nuclear threat is a hoax, I’ll kill you myself."
"Show yourself."
Justin looked back at Kim, who raised the Uzi.
"I will, but first I gotta tell you...my partner’s on backup. And if you shoot me, he's got a gun and he'll kill you deader ’n a roadkill 'possum."
"Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of keeping me alive?"
"Yeah. So, we all go together. It's up to you."
It was seven or eight long seconds before Jambou answered.
"Alright. But don’t come near me."
"Yeah, yeah. I hear you."
Marcus Justin left the cover of the heavy stone walls and disappeared on his belly through the doorway. Kim Matsumoto squirmed after him, flung himself to the far side of the door so he could shoot right handed, and elbow-crawled into the doorway just behind his boss. Shattered safety glass lay strewn on consoles and the floor all around him and it clinked under his elbows as he moved. He trained the barrel of his weapon on the far end of the room. He couldn’t see Jambou, which didn’t make him happy.
"Where is he?" he whispered.
"Right side of the room, far end, behind that computer cabinet. Stay with him. I'm gettin’ up."
Before Kim could object, Justin was already in a crouch, facing the large openings where there had once been thick glass.
"I'M GETTING’ UP. HOLD YOUR FIRE! MY HANDS ARE UP! I'M UNARMED!" He stood. Nobody fired. Yet.
"Turn on the lights in the room." The voice came from somewhere out there. Near the ceiling. Justin looked up.
"Can’t. You shot ‘em all out!"
"Move closer to the window."
Justin did as he was told, the sound of broken glass oddly musical under his feet.
"Put your hands on the window sill. Both of them."
He did, having to lean forward awkwardly to do so. Made sense. A person who's off-balance can't easily go on the offensive.
"Where’s the man we came after? Bereel Jambou? Have him stand up!"
"Not...just yet," Justin said slowly in as non-confrontationally a manner as he could muster.
"That wasn't a request! It was an order!" The voice was cold, menacingly lethal.
Kim heard Mark take a deep breath. "There's something we’ve got to talk about first."
"Talkin’s not why we’re here."
Justin strained to see but couldn't quite make out the dark-on-dark figure out there in the ceiling's superstructure. Somehow, he thought if he could just make eye contact he could reason with this killer wraith.
"I know why you’re here," Justin said in a voice just loud enough to carry the fifty or so feet that seemed to separate them. "And I know who you are...well, who your group is, anyway." He paused. There was no response.
"You're the TRAP team. I was briefed on you last year at a UN conference."
"Then you know enough to get out of the way so we can do our job!" the dark enigma shot back instantly, with a hard edge to his voice.
"I wish I could," Marc said, and meant it. "You can kill all the rest of them, with my blessing. I couldn't care less. But...if you kill this one, and if he's telling the truth about having planted nuclear bombs all over the world that are set to explode if he dies, then you don’t kill just him. You kill those of us he’s holding hostage, and you kill yourselves. But, most of all, you'll be doing his work for him by killing a couple million people in cities around the world. And you’ll be just as guilty as he is."
"Are you finished?"
Marcus Justin, frustrated and desperate to convince this wolf pack to yield, forgot for just a moment. He took one hand off the window sill and pointed a finger into the darkness. But whatever volley of words he’d been about to fire off were swallowed by the high-velocity slug that slammed into the window frame just six inches to the right of where his hand had been, stinging his face with splinters and glass shards.
"OKAY! OKAY!!" he yelled, slapping his hand back down on the sill, oblivious to the burning from tiny slivers that imbedded his palm. The phhhhht! of the silenced shot blended with the echoes of his shout and quickly dispersed into the vastness of the cavern. He stood perfectly still for several seconds before he said anything.
In the most reasonable voice he could muster, and sounding, he thought, like a high school freshman asking for his first date, he finally managed to speak again.
"I said you'll be just as guilty as he is. Don't you want to know why?" He took the absence of another bullet as a ‘maybe’ and went on. "Jambou wants two things. First, he wants power. He gets that if the world pays his toll fees." He waited, for effect. "But, if he can’t have the power, then he’ll settle for revenge. But on a grand scale. He’s killed a lot of people in South Africa, that’s true. But..." His voice dropped several decibels. "But...what he’s already done is nothing compared to what you can help him do...by killing him. He got, what? A couple hundred thousand in Africa? If you kill him here, today, you help him murder...yes, murder millions all over the world. Is that what you were sent to do? I don’t think so."
He paused and slowly shook his head. "No, I don’t think so," he said again, quietly. For long moments he stared out into the semi-darkness. He knew he was being watched. He knew the killing bullet was centered on his forehead. Or would it be his chest? But he also knew it was now or never. He took both hands slowly off the window sill and straightened up.
"If he surrenders, you win. If you kill him...well, if you kill him, we all lose." He waited. Spread his hands. "Whaddaya say? Let's win one for a change."
The silence that followed was intensified by the hum of the computer fans at his back and the scurrying, hollow sounds of Jambou's guards jockeying for position down on the cavern floor. Justin could only wait. If he hadn’t succeeded, he’d soon know it.
He started to shift his weight to his other foot, but the amplified sound of glass shards under his feet froze him half-way. Unbalanced, he waited until his right leg started to tremble before his dared move again.
"What's that sound?!" The question was sharp, hard.
"That's the grinding sound of the weight of the world trying to slide off my shoulders," Marc quipped sarcastically. He’d had just about enough of this. Three se
conds later there was a hard, sharp tug at his right biceps and a resounding whack! behind him. Surprised, he looked down at his sleeve and saw...a hole in it! Looking behind him, he saw a small hole in one of the computer cabinets. Amazed, he looked back out into the dim twilight of the ceiling.
"You shot me!" he accused in an incredulous voice.
"Not yet," came back the calm answer. "But, right now, it's a strong possibility. Either cooperate, Mr. Justin, or we'll take him out any way we can. If you're part of the collateral damage, so be it."
"No! You can’t kill him! Don't you understand?!"
"Count of five, Mr. Justin. Don't be in the same room when I get there. One."
"Wait! What if he...stands up, right now, and gives up. Will you spare his life?"
"Depends on him. I’ll take it under advisement. Two."
"Alright! Hold it! Just hold it!" Marc swung around to his right and shouted into the corner of the room. "Jambou! Get out of there! Now!"
There was no answer.
"Jambou! They're going to kill you! Are you stupid?!!"
"Clear the room! Four!"
"Four? Four?! What happened to three?"
"Marc! Get outta' there! Get out!!" Kim screamed into the room.
As Justin turned back to look out into the cavern, two things happened...he saw what looked like a black cloud swarm along the ceiling in his direction, and he found himself jerked violently backward by something that had the back of his collar firmly in its grip.
In the next five seconds he was slammed irreverently to the stone floor in the hallway outside the room with Kim on top of him, and there was a furious eruption of small arms fire inside the computer room. Marcus Justin shut his eyes tightly and ground his teeth together, waiting for the nuclear bomb down the hall to detonate, vaporizing everyone and everything in this part of the ocean and setting off similar destruction in cities all over the world.
"Whatever," the thought shot through his mind, "it's too late now."
Chapter 91
Instead of the hot breath of hellfire, he was startled by something cold and hard that was savagely ground into the back of his neck in a very tender spot. He winced and tried to jerk away, but a rough hand was suddenly around his throat, squeezing his windpipe almost totally closed. Then he was snatched a foot off the floor and body slammed back onto the hard floor, his head hitting and bouncing hard.
And he was looking, when the bright, swirling lights cleared, into the face of a very mad, maybe demented man. At least, Marc thought he was a man. In the dim lighting of the hallway, he looked more like the devil himself. Finally, in a rush of understanding, he realized he was looking at a face smeared with dark green and black camouflage paint. But the eyes were what held his attention. They were on fire.
"Where is he?" the face spat from its death mask.
"What?" was all Justin could think of to say, but no sound came from his lips.
In a fluid movement, and with the crushing hand still wrapped around his throat, he felt his body dragged from the floor and vertically slammed against the wall.
"I said, where is he?!"
Marc looked into the eyes and knew fear. He knew he was going to die at this man's hands. But, still, all he could do was shake his head. He was certain his eyes were starting to bulge from the pressure on his windpipe and jugular. He heard a voice he thought was Kim's, but he wasn't sure. His vision was starting to go black.
"He can't talk to you if you don't let go of his throat, you idiot!"
Kim winced, himself, as what must have been the barrel of a weapon gouged into the side of his own neck. The machine pistol he’d had with him had been wrenched violently from his hands, almost breaking two of his fingers.
But the man holding Justin glared at Kim and let go of Marc’s neck.
Justin gasped, choked and almost fell. The man grabbed him by the front of his uniform and shoved him back up against the wall, supporting him there, however unwillingly, until Marc’s legs steadied under him and his breath stopped coming in great, gulping wheezes. Then he stepped back and turned his frigid stare on his prey. He waited impatiently for all of three seconds.
"Now. Where is he?"
"What are you talking about?" Justin managed to croak out.
The open-palmed slap almost took him out again, it was so unexpected and so violent. Justin gasped from the force of the blow and his ears rang shrilly. But, through watery eyes, he gave the man in front of him his undivided attention.
He held his hands up before him to fend off another attack and, as nonconfrontationally as he could muster, said, "Really. I don't have any idea what you're asking me."
The man's eyes bored into his. He took one step backwards and turned away. Then, after a second, he turned back, still watching him. It was then that, in a motion Justin almost didn't see coming, he raised an ugly 9mm gun from his side and put the muzzle flush against Marc’s forehead and slowly pushed his head back until it was against the wall behind him. His arm was fully extended and his elbow locked. Marc knew enough about competition shooting to recognize the finality of the gesture.
"You got between us and the man we came after long enough for him to escape. I want him. I intend to have him. I intend to kill you, if I have to, to get him. That's entirely up to you. Now, one last time, and I do mean ‘one last time’, where is he?"
Marc gaped. "Escaped?"
The man before him thumbed back the hammer in one quick motion. Obviously it was not the first time he'd ever done it.
"NO! What do you mean, ‘escaped’? You...your men...shot him. You killed him! What...why haven’t we blown up? I don’t..."
The man in black grabbed Justin by the front of his tunic, pulled him away from the wall, and unceremoniously shoved him through the door into the computer room. Just as he recovered his balance, he was shoved again, hard, in the small of the back so that he stumbled across the room. He caught himself and started to turn around, but was, instead, whirled around and thrust into the corner where Jambou had been hiding.
"Does that look like a dead man to you? Do you see any blood? Any body parts? Now, I'll ask you one more time: where did he go?"
Marc stood looking stupidly into the corner of the room. Debris lay everywhere, the result of the several dozen bullets that had chewed up the wall. For sure, if there’d been a body there, it would have been difficult to recognize. What there was, however, was a duct grating lying in the floor behind one of the computer cabinets. Marc looked closer. The opening was maybe eighteen inches high and a couple of feet wide. Big enough for a man to crawl through. He turned to look at the man in black.
"I didn’t know about this."
They held each other’s eyes for a long ten seconds. Finally, Marc sensed the other man’s acceptance.
"Where does it go?"
"I have no idea," Justin answered.
The other man snorted in frustration and turned away. He stood there for a moment, then said what sounded like "Ty-rone, in." Marc realized that he must be speaking into his commset. In seconds, there was a black man in a black uniform standing beside them. At least, Marc thought he was black. It was hard to tell, with all the grease paint on everybody.
"We need a tunnel rat," the commander said, gesturing at the vent.
"Sho you does. So you calls the po' black man to do y’all's dirty work fo' yuh."
"Knock off the po' boy routine and get your butt down that rabbit hole. I want that slimeball’s head on a stick, and I want it yesterday."
"Yassah, massah. I’se goin'."
The man called Tyrone ripped open a Velcroed chest holster and hefted a large bore, blackened hand gun. He popped a couple of quick-release buckles and shrugged out of his backpack. Easing it to the floor, he turned toward the vent.
"No." Marcus Justin stepped in front of him. The man looked at him with surprise, but stopped. "I’m the one who let him get away. I should be the one who goes after him."
"Right," Tyrone said, with heavy sarca
sm.
"Get out of the way," Strickland turned and said. "You’re costing us valuable time. Jambou’s getting farther away every second we stand here."
"Then, don’t be stubborn," Justin returned. "Since it’s my fault, you should be glad to see me go."
"It if hadn’t been for you," Strickland grated, "the target would be neutralized by now."
"And if you’d had your way, we’d all be a radioactive dust cloud by now, along with millions more."
"Our job ’d be a lot easier without a buncha bleedin’ heart liberals runnin' around."
"Your job is paid for out of my pockets and the last I checked, government was still bein’ done by the people. Well, I'm one of the people."
They glared at each other, a contest of wills.
"Look. You’ve got nothing to lose," Justin finally said in a conciliatory tone of voice. "If I don’t stop him, he’s still yours. After all...where’s he gonna go?"
"I don't think your definition of ‘stop him’ is the same as mine."
"Neither do I," Marc agreed. "I have this thing about staying alive."
Finally, Strickland said, "I don’t suppose you’ve ever actually done anything like this?"
Marc thought back to the climb in the sulfur-filled chimney. "Close enough," he said. "Piece o' cake."
Strickland and Tyrone exchanged looks. "Suppose you do catch up to him. What’re you gonna do?" Strickland asked.
"Whatever’s right for all of us,"
"And who decides that?"
Marc didn't answer him.
"Yeah. I figured." Strickland turned to Tyrone. "Give him your piece," he said.
"I ain't gonna be responsible if he hurts himself," Tyrone warned, handing over his weapon to Marc.
"You know how to use one o' these?"
Justin turned the weapon over in his hands. "I can never remember...do I hold onto the big end, or the little pointy end?" He gave Tyrone just enough time to snort before he expertly clicked off the safety and jacked one round into the chamber.
