The mercenary was good, Chant thought—alert and conscientious. That meant he was going to have to be even better; if he wasn’t, he was going to end up dead—or worse.
Chant waited until the man was a few paces away from the door, then he crouched in the stairwell—and scratched at the bottom of the door while he fixed his gaze on the light at the crack at the bottom. He waited a count of ten, then scratched again.
Suddenly two shadows—feet—appeared on the thin bar of light. Chant shoved the door open hard, catching the guard on the chest, driving him backward. Instantly, Chant was through the door, snatching the machine gun away with his left hand while his right fist smashed into the man’s jaw.
Chant caught the man under the arm, eased him down to the floor, then crouched and listened. The sounds of this struggle had been unavoidable, but as far as Chant could tell, no one had heard. He waited almost thirty seconds, but the only sound he heard was a faint snoring coming from the room just across the hall.
That was where he went, using his lock pick to open the door, making his way by moonlight spilling in through the windows across the sitting room and into the bedroom.
Chant awoke the Korean torturer, gave the man just enough time to recognize him in the moonlight, then smashed his larynx with a blow from the side of his hand delivered across the man’s throat. The man screamed soundlessly, gagging and thrashing. With his left hand planted firmly on the man’s chest, holding him in place, Chant brought the side of his right hand down across the bridge of the man’s nose, snapping it cleanly. Then he changed the angle of his swing, knifing his hand horizontally through the air at the man’s nose, driving the broken bone splinters up into the man’s brain, killing him instantly.
There was no guard on the second floor. Chant killed his second victim with a neck slash from a straight razor he found in the bathroom.
He awoke his third victim with a devastating punch to the groin. As the man, a burly Argentine, sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath and thrusting his hands between his legs, Chant shoved him back down again—using a toilet plunger clapped over the man’s nose and mouth. The man died in less than a minute, sucking for air in a foul-smelling vacuum.
Then Chant returned to his cell the way he had come. Everything was as he had left it. He locked the cell door, wired his lock pick back in place on the chain near his right hand, snapped the shackles shut on his wrists and ankles.
TWENTY
The first face he saw in the morning indicated to Chant that he had lost his gamble, and was about to die.
There was no time to arm the ultimate weapon that was in his mind and body—and no need, no point; the mindless rage in Bernard Krowl’s eyes indicated to Chant that death would come quickly, despite the gruesome possibilities offered by the hunting knife in the man’s good hand.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on around this place, Sinclair,” the man with the short hair and pink scalp growled as he stepped into the cell and immediately slapped the stone on the wall to his right. “Three more guys were butchered here last night. I don’t know who the fuck is doing it, but I’m sure as hell going to kill you before somebody kills me. I’m going to skin you alive, you son of a bitch.”
Chant had reached across his body for his pick the moment Bernard had entered the cell—but he was too late. He managed to undo the wire, but before he could get a firm grasp on the pick, his hands were pulled apart by the retracting chains. The pick fell to the floor, rattling around with a series of loud metallic clicks before it finally came to rest.
Bernard did not even seem to notice the dropped pick—or he did not care. The broken, toothless, lower part of his face was wired in place, making his words muffled and mushy but strangely amplified by hatred and rage. His shattered wrist was in a cast inside a sling draped around his neck. He was obviously in great pain, his every word and movement now fueled by hate.
As Chant was pulled up and pinned on the wall, Bernard stepped close and pressed the point of the hunting knife to Chant’s lower belly, breaking the skin and drawing blood.
“Did you hear what I said, asshole?” Bernard continued. The effort, his need, to talk caused the wires holding his jaw together to cut through the gums, and blood ran from his lips. “I’m going to skin you, strip by strip.”
“Uh, have you talked to your big brother about this, Bernard?”
“Fuck him. Let him try pasting you back together again when I get finished with you.”
“Bernard, you seem cranky this morning,” Chant said evenly, keeping his eyes directly on Bernard’s face as Feather, silent as always, suddenly appeared behind Bernard, in the doorway of the cell. She was holding her bloodstained feather like a knife in her right hand, and Chant raised his voice slightly as she suddenly started walking forward. “Why don’t you go back to your place and have another cup of coffee? You’ll feel better. Then you and I can sit down and talk this thing over.”
“We’ll see how funny you feel when I get finished with you, Sinclair,” Bernard mumbled, and started to draw the blade down through Chant’s flesh.
Feather came up directly behind Bernard and without hesitation swung the feather around and jabbed the sharpened shaft into his right ear.
Bernard howled in pain and surprise. He dropped the knife, clasped both hands to his ruined ear, then reeled halfway around and dropped to his knees. His high-pitched wailing went even higher as Feather pierced his left eye. Blood spurted, splashed over the stone floor.
“Get out of here,” Chant said to the woman as she turned and walked back to the doorway, where she pressed the stone on the wall. The chains began to come out of the wall, lowering Chant to the floor of the cell. “With all that racket he’s making, everyone on the island is going to be here. Go now, Maria!
Feather, as if paralyzed, stayed where she was as the chains continued to come out of the wall with agonizing slowness. Chant knew better than to waste energy pulling on them; there was nothing he could do but wait until he was lowered to the floor and there was sufficient slack to enable him to get to the pick, fifteen feet away.
But Bernard was not finished yet. The sound of the whirring machinery and clanking chains cut through his screams, reaching a place in his mind even deeper than his shock and agony. He stopped screaming and looked up, fixing Chant with his good eye. Then he began searching with his hands for the knife.
The machinery continued to whir, Chant continued to be lowered … slowly. The balls of his feet were now on the floor, giving him some leverage.
But Bernard had the knife. He staggered, raised the knife over his head, and rushed at Chant. Chant was able to bring his right arm up just far enough to deflect the blade with the wrist shackle. Sparks flew. Bernard dropped to his knees, then slowly struggled to his feet for another charge.
Then Feather was on him, stabbing at his head with the quill point of her strange weapon. Bernard wheeled to slash at her, but in doing so stepped very close to Chant. Chant wrapped one slack chain around the man’s neck, snapped it with a single, quick tug. Bernard died with his eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets.
“Now get out of here!” Chant shouted at the woman. “Damn you, Maria, get out of here!”
But it was too late. The tall Japanese and two of his men suddenly rushed into the cell, their Uzis held at the ready. The bright eyes of the Japanese took in everything at a glance—Bernard’s twisted corpse, Chant, the woman with the crimson-stained feather still in her hand. For a moment Chant was hopeful that the leader of the mercenaries would not understand Feather’s part in what had happened, and she might still walk away. But it was not to be.
“Seize her,” the Japanese commanded perfunctorily.
One of the black-uniformed men knocked the feather from the woman’s hand, then gripped her tightly above the right elbow and led her out of the cell. Feather did not resist; once again, she seemed lost in the murky, midnight world from which she had emerged so briefly to save Chant’s life.
“It is a pity that this must be your last battle, Sensei,” the man said, then struck Chant across the jaw with the butt of his Uzi.
TWENTY-ONE
He awoke in utter darkness, strapped firmly into the wheelchair. There was something very wrong, but it took him some time to identify exactly what it was that so particularly frightened him.
His jaw throbbed painfully, but as far as he could tell it was not broken. The fuzzy feeling in his head and the odd, metallic taste in his mouth told him that he had been drugged, and had been unconscious for an untold number of hours.
He was not in his cell; the stone room where he had been imprisoned had a particular smell to it, and it was not the smell of this place. This room smelled faintly medicinal, antiseptic.
And then it came to him—the most terrifying realization of all: he could not feel his legs. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
Despair and hopelessness threatened to pour out of his heart, and he struggled to contain it, taking deep breaths and marshaling his kai to suppress the panic. He was not dead yet, he thought—although he might well end up wishing he were. While he was unconscious, Richard Krowl could have taken away his legs forever with a single flick of his scalpel across the spinal cord.
If so, Chant thought, then he had surely lost. Without his legs, there was obviously no way for him to defeat Krowl and his remaining forces. There would be nothing left to do but defend himself with his last remaining weapon.
Lights slowly came up. As he had suspected, Chant found himself in the torture chamber. A clean linen sheet had been laid out over the operating table, and on the long stand next to it were an array of surgical instruments, including a power saw, and a stack of towels. In the dim light, he could see into the observation gallery above; the five remaining torturers were all seated in the front row. All were unshaven, unkempt, with drawn faces; but the eyes of every man glittered with excitement, and relief.
It was not difficult for Chant to see why. At the foot of the operating table, neatly arrayed on the white sheet, were his lock pick and the length of piano wire.
And so he was finished, Chant thought, and he began to go inside himself, searching for the proper balance of forces he would require to trigger his last weapon, a weapon which, to his knowledge, had not been used in centuries, and might only be a legend.
Footsteps came up behind him, stopped for a few seconds. Then Richard Krowl, wearing a green gown, shoe covers, and with a surgical mask draped around his neck, stepped around the chair to face Chant. He held Chant’s dossier in his right hand.
“You did know Harry Gray, didn’t you, Sinclair?” Krowl asked in a soft voice. There was a hint of astonishment, even awe, in his voice. “He was a friend of yours. And the fact of the matter is that you allowed—maybe even set up—your capture in Amsterdam; you knew the CIA would try to break you, and when they couldn’t, they’d send you here. My God, Sinclair, you wanted them to send you here. You planned on it. It’s incredible. For you, this was just one more operation.”
“I wouldn’t exactly use that phrase,” Chant said distantly, a faint smile on his face. He was deep into his mind now, searching, gathering together thoughts, focusing will.…
“Then it’s true, isn’t it?
“What have you done with the woman?”
Krowl rang the fingers of one hand through his long, blond hair, shook his head slightly. “You are indeed incredible. It turns out you’re all the things people say you are—and more. Here you are locked up—allowing yourself to be locked up—during the day being tortured, and scampering around at night murdering my guards and guests, and otherwise taking care of your business affairs.” Krowl paused, narrowed his lids. “Why didn’t you kill us all the first night, Sinclair? I’m sure you could have. Why did you go back to your cell and take the chance that’s now going to cost you so dearly?”
“I was having so much fun, I didn’t want it to be over too quickly. I didn’t know how long it would be before somebody flew over here looking for you, and I was afraid I might get bored.”
“My apologies, gentlemen,” Krowl announced to the torturers pressing up against the glass in the gallery. “I should have taken your warnings more seriously. I think you’ll find that I’m about to more than make up for it—at least for the five of you who remain.”
“What have you done with the woman?”
“How much do you care about her, Sinclair?”
“How much do you care about her?”
“I care enough not to torture her if you cooperate with me. I’ll kill her now, because she’s shown herself to be untrustworthy, but you can be assured that her death will be painless.”
“You claim you’re a researcher; you have no reason to hurt her.”
“She killed Bernard.”
“And did you a big favor. I thought you didn’t torture people gratuitously.”
“This wouldn’t be gratuitous; it has a direct connection with you. I’m not going to bother with Cooked Goose for now, because you could still evade, and it would take too long to check out the information. There’s time enough for that. However, you’ve hidden my records and the pearls somewhere on this island, and finding them could turn out to be a huge pain in the ass I don’t need.”
“And if I tell you where they are, you won’t torture the woman?”
“Correct.”
Chant told Krowl where to find the slipcovers.
“I believe you,” Krowl said, and sighed. He gestured with his hand, and the last of Krowl’s original guards, now dressed in a sterile surgical outfit, entered the room, stopped at the head of the operating table, next to a gas tank and a mask for administering anesthesia.
“So,” Krowl continued, a slight note of regret in his voice, “now it’s over for you. I hate to do this, because I still plan to explore your physical capabilities—to whatever extent possible. But you’re far too dangerous to be allowed to walk around any longer. It’s a shame to damage you as severely as I’m about to, but I now consider it absolutely essential.”
Richard Krowl’s voice now seemed very far away to Chant, for Chant was very deep inside himself, near the source of his power.
“You’ve noticed, I’m sure, the lack of sensation below your waist. At the moment this is temporary, the result of a spinal injection. I’m afraid, though, that I’m going to have to amputate your legs, Mr. Sinclair, to make you a bit more manageable.…”
Now he had found the power, the sensations that had been spoken of. He gathered them together carefully, focused his will on them, shepherded them through his body until he felt a warm glow in the center of his body, just below his heart. He compressed the glow with his mind until it was a tiny pinpoint of energy that he could “see” as a shimmering point of light somewhere behind his eyes.
“So, you—or most of you—will still be going to Russia with me. We’ll have long talks, you and I, about Cooked Goose, and other things. Can you hear me, John Sinclair?”
Ready.
“Put him on the table. I actually believe our fearsome ninja has fainted.”
Chant was dimly aware of the steel cuffs on his wrists and ankles snapping free. Strong hands were gripping him under the arms, lifting him out of the chair and up onto the operating table.
Then Chant released the hold of his mind on the energy he had gathered and stored. The light inside his chest exploded, and he died.
TWENTY-TWO
“Damn it, he can’t be dead! I never touched him!”
By tradition, the secret of so-ka-meisei—“warrior’s merciful release”—was never written down, and the master who had instructed Chant had not known of anyone who had actually willed his own death, stopped heartbeat and respiration.
“Give me that syringe! No, not that one—that
one!”
When Chant had begun his preparations, and then finally triggered the release of energy, he had fully expected to die. Of course, in a very real sense he was dead—clinically dead, with no vital signs. Krowl’s panicked shouts and the fist pounding his chest attested to that. But what his teacher hadn’t told him, and probably didn’t know, was that consciousness obviously remained, at least for a short time.
“This son of a bitch did something to himself! Damn it, I won’t let him cheat me like this! I won’t let him die! Any vital signs yet?!”
“No, Doctor.”
With his mind floating in this strange, uncharted land between life and death, Chant experienced no pain, and was at peace. He sensed that he had only to remain in this state for a little while longer, and he would drift off to … nothingness. Forever.
On the other hand …
“Keep pressing his chest! I have to check those instruments!”
Perhaps he could come back. He felt he could come back, simply by willing it. But why bother? What could he do? He was still paralyzed below the waist, laid out on an operating table, with two men hovering over him. He might not be able to enter into a state of so-ka-meisei again, which meant—
What the hell, Chant thought, and he opened his eyes to slits and released kai to his heart and lungs.
Krowl’s assistant was beside his head, manipulating an oxygen mask and looking anxiously toward Krowl, who was standing a few feet away, preparing a syringe that Chant assumed was filled with adrenalin. With his peripheral vision, Chant could just see the top of the wheelchair next to the table, in line with his shoulders. Near his left-hand was the tray filled with surgical instruments.
A monitor beeped, and Chant abruptly sat up. Both Krowl and his assistant jumped, startled. In that instant, Chant grabbed a scalpel off the tray, whipped his hand back, and slit open the guard’s throat. Blood sprayed over Chant and the table. Chant lunged for Krowl and missed as Krowl, eyes wide and mouth open, leaped back just in time.
Silent Killer Page 17
