Turn Loose the Dragons

by George C. Chesbro

  He’d even possessed Alexandra—not in the manner he’d hoped and planned for, but it was enough that the act had occurred. He was her last lover, the last man to have enjoyed her body before her death, and it was all he could do to keep from shuffling his feet in a little jig of joy.

  But he knew he still had to be careful. Alexandra’s face had dramatically changed when she’d glanced up at him, and he’d realized with alarm that she was reacting to the expression on his own face. He’d quickly smiled, forcing the intoxicating mix of exultation and hatred back down deep inside himself, away from Alexandra’s probing eyes.

  He rested the radio on the balcony railing, then brought his right hand up and placed his fingers on the rear panel.

  He glanced at his watch: it was ten o’clock. The window was open.

  He had fifteen minutes, Peters thought. Salva and Alexandra were not going anywhere, and there was no need for him to rush things; Claude Moiret would be waiting in a fast boat on the seaward side of the castle from ten to ten-fifteen.

  He decided that he would press the panel at seven minutes after ten, in the center of the window. In another minute he would begin slowly making his way along the fifty feet of balcony that would lead him to the waist-high retaining wall overlooking the sea. Once there, he would push the panel on the back of the radio and then dive over the wall into the sea. He considered it possible that in the din and confusion no one would even notice him, but even if he were observed, Peters thought, it wouldn’t matter. Moiret would have him out to sea before any pursuit could be organized.

  He knew that the dive was going to be very painful. The strain on his cracked ribs as he stretched through his dive, and especially the moment of impact with the water, would be agonizing. Also, he knew that he had to enter the water at precisely the right angle, for a rib could snap and puncture his lungs. However, he knew he could tolerate the pain, and he was not worried about executing the dive. He was convinced he would make the dive successfully, and the satisfaction he would feel when he pressed the panel would be worth any pain.

  His watch read one minute after ten. It was time to start walking.

  As he stepped back from the railing, he felt a hand grip his arm.

  “Mr. Peters! I must talk to you!”

  Peters wheeled around and was startled to find himself looking into Raul’s face. Peters knew he had trouble. The Sierratour guide’s bloodless lower lip was quivering with tension; his eyes were hard, determined.

  “How are you doing, Raul?” Peters asked casually. “Great fights, huh?”

  “Mrs. Finway is sitting with Manuel!”

  “Yeah, I noticed. Impressive, isn’t it? It’s going to make her an instant celebrity. She’ll have a lot to talk about when she gets home.”

  “Why is she not with you?”

  “The woman and I aren’t glued to each other, Raul,” Peters said irritably. He turned and started to walk toward the seaward rampart. “Talk to you later, pal.”

  “Wait, you!” Raul’s voice, although high-pitched and quavering, was nevertheless commanding. A moment later Peters once again felt the Sierran’s fingers grip his upper arm. “You must come with me!”

  Peters stopped, took a deep breath, then slowly turned back to face the Sierran. He was very conscious of time passing, and was already considering the difficult problem of how to kill the man in the midst of the crowd.

  “Get lost, Raul. For Christ’s sake, I’m trying to watch the fights. If you don’t get the fuck away from me right now, I’m going to make sure Sierratour nails your ass to a pineapple tree.”

  “You can’t threaten me, Mr. Peters!” Raul said, spreading his legs slightly and thrusting out his chin. His fingers continued to grip Peters’ upper arm. “I have a right to question you! I do not like the fact that your girl friend is sitting with Manuel!”

  “Tough shit, Raul. What do you expect me to do about it? I didn’t know you were queer for your great leader.”

  “John Finway told me you are planning to kill Manuel! I want you to explain to the authorities why he should say such a thing!”

  He was going to have to kill the Sierran right away, Peters thought. “Oh, that,” he said casually. He looked down at his feet and shrugged. “It just so happens that I do know what he meant.”

  “You do?” Raul said, obviously confused and taken aback. His fingers slipped from Peters’ arm. “What?”

  “Come on,” Peters said, quickly stepping around the Sierran and heading for the nearest corridor leading off the balcony. “I want to show you something.”

  “Hey, you! Wait!”

  Peters deftly slapped Raul’s hand away as the Sierran grabbed for him. He hurried along, pushing people out of the way, then turned left into a crowded corridor that led to toilets. He could sense Raul following in his wake, felt him clutching at his shirt, heard him shouting. It was exactly what Peters wanted.

  The assassin shoved ahead another ten paces, then abruptly stopped and spun around. Raul collided with him. The wide-eyed Sierran opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Peters’ stiff right thumb rammed up into Raul’s solar plexus, just under the rib cage, with enough force to explode the Sierran’s heart. Raul died on his feet, and by the time his body had crumpled to the stone floor Peters was already shoving his way back toward the balcony.

  A Gunner

  The gunner watched with mounting concern as Alexandra Finway moved across the aisle, sidled past six men, and sat down beside Manuel Salva. The gunner knew that the close proximity of the woman, who was his responsibility, to the principal assassination target meant an increased burden for him. If Salva were killed, Alexandra Finway would be swallowed up in the crush of people who would rush to Salva’s aid, making it difficult and dangerous for the gunner to get close to her.

  The gunner’s instincts, fine-tuned by nearly fifty years of experience, told him that something was about to happen. He quickly moved out from his position at the mouth of a tunnel and looked up at the balcony section behind him. He was relieved to find that Rick Peters was still standing where the gunner had seen him last.

  If and when the assassination took place, the gunner thought, he would take out Peters first, and he could then wait in what was certain to be chaos and look for his best opportunity to move on Alexandra Finway; the police, army, and DMI, if they managed to get organized at all, would be looking for a gunman trying to get out of the castle, not one moving to its center.

  The gunner lowered his gaze, turned to his left and started walking toward an aisle that would take him to the balcony. He almost bumped into a tall man wearing a green ABC windbreaker and a long-billed cap. The man’s face was tortured and gaunt with gray-hued flesh, but his charcoal eyes blazed with a desperate, haunted frenzy as they scanned the arena. The man’s cap was pulled down low over his forehead, concealing his hair, but the gunner was certain he recognized the face.

  The gunner felt his stomach knot with tension and he instinctively reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt in order to hold him for a few more seconds; he had to know for certain if the man was John Finway.

  It was.

  “Get the hell out of my way,” the man growled through clenched teeth, shoving the gunner’s hand away and stepping around him. The gunner watched the man walk around the ring apron and approach the section of seats where Manuel Salva and Alexandra Finway were sitting together.

  What the hell’s going on?

  The gunner glanced up to confirm that Rick Peters was still in the balcony.

  Peters was gone.

  Feeling confused and harried, the gunner spun around in order to watch Finway. As the lawyer reached one of the two aisles leading up to Salva’s bleacher section, two burly Sierrans rose, blocking Finway’s way and grabbing his arms.

  John

  “I have to get up to the balcony,” John said gruffly, glancing back and forth at the two security men, then raising his gaze like a prayer toward Alexandra.

  Look at me,
Alexandra! For God’s sake, Look at me!

  The man on John’s left shook his head curtly. A thick, greasy curl fell down over his forehead and he quickly brushed the lock aside with his free hand. “No one may go into this section who was not here when Manuel came in.”

  “I’m working,” John said loudly. “You see my badge.” He craned his neck and rocked from side to side, trying to catch Alexandra’s attention, but his voice would not carry above the noise of the crowd, and Alexandra was looking at the section across the way. “ABC. I have to get up there to check some cables.”

  “Go around.”

  “The cable’s up there!”

  “You can’t come up this way.” The voice was cold, stolid, implacable.

  John struggled against panic as he tried to think of a way to get to Alexandra. He tensed as he saw the second security guard studying his badge, then his face. John’s mouth suddenly went dry.

  He had acted too quickly, John thought; he had made the wrong move. He should have anticipated the presence of a large security force in the section where Salva was sitting, and guessed that they would be controlling traffic tightly. Even if he did get up the aisle, he would not be able to speak with Alexandra or attract her attention without attracting Peters’ attention, which was the one thing he had to avoid at all costs. He realized now that if Alexandra did see him she would almost certainly react, and that reaction could kill her.

  Peters had all the advantages, John thought bitterly. All Peters had to do was touch the panel on the back of his radio. Indeed, John could not understand why the man had not already carried out his plan for the double murder; the circumstances were perfect. John knew he could not have much time left, and he was endangering Alexandra’s life by his mere presence near the section where she and the Sierran leader were sitting.

  He had to find Peters, John thought. Somehow, he had to disable Peters before the man could transmit the signal that would kill Alexandra.

  The second Sierran, who apparently didn’t speak English, was continuing to study John’s identification badge.

  He was finished if either man asked him to remove his cap, John thought. The cameraman’s red hair showed clearly in the color photograph, and John assumed that all of the security personnel in the area had been briefed on his own description. Without the cap, John knew that he would be immediately recognized and arrested; Peters, seeing what was happening, would instantly kill Alexandra and Salva.

  The second man was raising his hand, reaching for John’s cap.

  “All right, for Christ’s sake!” John rasped, backing away slightly and looking directly at the second man. “I’ll go around the other way. Hell, I’m just trying to do my job.”

  The thick hand paused in midair; a stubby index finger was extended and pressed against John’s chest.

  “Va!”

  “Do your job somewhere else,” the first guard said. He nodded to his partner. The hands came away from John’s arms, and he was free.

  John turned his back on the two men just as a hot fever sweat flushed out of his forehead and ran in thick, milky rivulets down his cheeks to drip off his chin. He quickly wiped his face with his forearm. His legs felt rubbery, about to collapse under him.

  Don’t fold now! Not now! Hang on just a little longer! Find the bastard!

  John squatted down below the ring apron and leaned his head forward. He closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths. His head slowly cleared and feeling came back into his legs. When he opened his eyes and glanced up at the balcony section at the opposite end of the arena, he saw the flash of a blue sweater and a thatch of blond hair moving like threads through the thick tapestry of people crowded on the balcony.

  Peters!

  Then the man was gone. However, John had seen that Peters was moving down the arena in his direction; when John looked up behind him, toward the seaward side of the castle, his breath caught in his throat and a fresh wash of sweat squeezed out of his pores. Suddenly he understood why the unlighted boat had been waiting in the sea, and why its pilot had tried to kill him.

  Peters doesn’t know! The son-of-a-bitch thinks the boat’s still down there! He’s going to do it now!

  John straightened up and began walking rapidly to his left, toward another aisle that led up to the balcony.

  Too slow! He’ll get there before you do! He’s going to blow them up and dive into the sea!

  To his right, in the ring above him, men pounded each other with leather gloves; out of the corner of his eye he could see the spectators in the seats on his left staring at him curiously.

  John broke into a run. The floor area surrounding the ring was clear except for a television cameraman and a gaffer, and John was at the foot of the aisle in a matter of seconds. The people standing in the aisle reacted, squeezing to either side as he came bounding up toward them.

  John glanced to his right; the people in that area of the balcony were still crowded tightly together and were milling about. He could not see Peters, and he turned his attention back to the aisle. The people in front of him had moved back as far as they could, and now John had to burrow and squeeze the rest of the way to the stone balcony. He immediately turned right, and ran into an even more tightly packed wall of people.

  Peters could be anywhere, John thought—a few inches, a few feet, a few yards away. Peters would also be pushing forward, trying to get to the wall overlooking the sea.

  Perhaps not; Peters might consider the swirl of movement to be an advantage. At that very moment the assassin could be pressing his fingers against the panel at the back of the radio …

  John was forced back against the six-inch-wide stone railing overlooking the arena. Desperate now, afraid that Peters would pass by him on the other side, John put his hands on top of the railing, braced, and leaped up on the narrow ledge. For a moment his head spun and he tottered precariously, but then he put his arms out to his sides and regained his balance. Crouching low, scanning the faces of the people on the balcony, he moved along the tightrope of stone.

  A sudden hush spread over the arena, eerily punctuated only by the sound of leather colliding with flesh. John sensed the people below him turning in their seats to stare up at him with astonishment and alarm. He could hear isolated shouts of anger. People on the balcony shied back as a man they obviously considered mad made his perilous, swaying way toward them.

  Then John saw Peters crouched near the balcony railing; his features reflected confusion as people moved away, leaving him isolated. Then he saw John. His right hand began to reach across his body toward the radio he held in his left.

  “ALEXANDRA!” John screamed as he dove through the air toward the hand holding the radio.

  He hit the arm an instant before Peters’ right hand could touch the radio. He locked the fingers of his right hand around Peters’ left wrist and, as he fell to the floor, wrapped his left arm around the radio and cradled it tightly in the pit of his stomach like a fullback protecting a football. His cap flew off as he twisted to his left, pulling Peters to the floor with him.

  They hit the floor together, hard, but Peters’ fingers maintained their grip on the radio’s plastic carrying handle. John scrambled to his feet and yanked, trying to pull the radio free. But Peters had also risen to his feet, and the assassin was now positioned behind John, pressing him up against the stone railing at the same time as he tried to reach around John’s body with his free hand in order to push the panel on the radio.

  Leaning forward with his breastbone pressed painfully against the edge of the stone railing, John found himself looking down into a blurred watercolor wash of movement and startled faces.

  The entire crowd seemed to be on its feet, staring up at him.

  The fighters in the ring were standing still, hands at their sides, staring up like the others.

  Heavy-set security men struggled to make their way up the packed aisles.

  Soldiers had climbed up onto the ring apron; shouldered rifles were aimed in
his direction.

  Bu there were no shots fired, and John assumed that the soldiers were afraid of hitting the men and women milling all about Peters and himself.

  John glanced down the length of the arena, and his gaze locked with Alexandra’s. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were wide with stunned bewilderment.

  “The barrette!” John shouted, his strained voice cracking. “Throw the barrette away! It’s a bomb!”

  The hand that had been groping around his right side suddenly withdrew, and a moment later John felt a fist smash into his back, just above his right kidney. His knees started to buckle and his vision blurred as sick pain arced like lightning through his body, making his stomach turn, forcing green-tasting bile up into his throat. Still, he somehow managed to maintain his grip on Peters’ wrist and the radio. He shook his head, clenched his teeth, and his vision cleared. He caught a swirl of movement out of the corner of his eye and once again looked down the length of the arena.

  He could see Alexandra’s thick, free-flowing crown of black and silver hair bobbing back and forth as she ran up the aisle.

  “Throw the barrette away, Alexandra! Get rid of it!”

  John cried out in pain and surprise as Peters’ teeth bit through his shirt and flesh and buried themselves in the muscle and tendons of his right arm, just below the elbow. The fingers of his right hand reflexively popped open, releasing Peters’ wrist. A fist again slammed into the same area of his back over his kidney, and John knew he was going to lose control of the radio.

  He set his feet firmly under him and whipped around to his left, his fist held rigidly in the air. He had been trying to hit the side of Peters’ head, but the pain in his back caused his arm to drop; his fist flew under Peters’ extended left arm and smashed into the man’s ribs.

  To John’s astonishment, Peters’ eyes bulged and he screamed in pain. The assassin clutched at his left side and staggered sideways through a narrow corridor of stunned Sierrans across the width of the balcony to the retaining wall overlooking the sea.