Single Combat

by Dean Ing

  His grunts were louder now, his muzzle open in a satanic grin with grindings of teeth and copious foam dripping from his jaws in accompaniment. Again he tried to roll her over.

  The bedframe splintered, dropping Eve so that she rolled almost under the beast. She reached up to grasp for a handhold, found that the upswept tusk kept a razor edge, bleated as she saw tendons bared in the palm of her hand. She wondered why it was not bleeding more.

  Ba'al smelled blood, fear, and pheromone, stamped in impatience, nuzzled against the flaccid body of the sow-person. Her cries were not screams, not yet, but they were an irritant, and anger began to smoke in his red-rimmed eyes.

  Eve saw and recognized the glare. In her extremity of terror she thought of a gift that any sane man would have preferred to her body. "Look, look," she babbled, unlatching the clasp at her neck. "I offer this in—in my place." She reclasped the chain, seeing that it would not reach around the vast pulsating throat, and then she held it aloft in sacrifice.

  Ba'al saw the pretty bauble and her blood that smeared it; snuffled the acorn-sized yield chamber and wondered if its message was a lie; and finally he decided that the scent did not emanate from the screaming, praying person, and that he had somehow been cheated.

  He might have acted differently had he perceived that Eve, eyes rolled up until only the whites stared blindly from their sockets, was praying directly to him.

  Chapter 52

  Chabrier adjusted the image intensifier and wondered where this madman had sprung from, an intruder who wore no uniform but carried a handgun in an armpit holster outside his coverall. The stranger seemed bent on arranging tons of desiccant in a simple geometric pattern on the floor of the synthesizer rotunda. Could Mills have sent him? But mon Dieu, for what? And could Chabrier afford to simply stroll into the rotunda and ask him? Not while the man—all youth and spring steel, to watch him move—carried that weapon.

  It would not be wise to alert his Chinese staff. Only one of them would be any good in a rough-and-tumble, and Chabrier did not want anyone to know of this security breach. If several men converged on the stranger it would only make him more likely to kill them all. Chabrier's schedule would slip and his friends would suffer. But without weapons, how could he disarm the man? None of Chabrier's drugs had enough potency to stop a man immediately without a killing overdose. He wanted to ask questions of that prowler…

  Chabrier's fingers instructed the elevator to override any signals to the bottom level. There was no internal stairwell, thanks to the paranoia of Boren Mills. The intruder was now Chabrier's prisoner unless he could defeat the elevator doors and climb the sheer wall or the cables. Chabrier was nothing if not a gamesman; knew he would not be the young man's physical equal in combat. But he did have advantages; he knew his own turf and how to use it. He knew, for example, that the automatic sliding doors of the elevator were virtually noiseless. He knew how to cut power to lights inside the elevator or in any given passage in the lab. And he knew that, in common with hospitals and other limited-access buildings, the elevator had doors on two facing sides. With both sets of doors open, the elevator was simply a short passage through which Chabrier could move from his apartment into the rotunda with the prowler.

  The man strode back to the palleted crates, removed a side panel by what seemed to be magic, began to hustle sacks that must have weighed ten kilos apiece—an infernal lot of desiccant, but who knew what Japanese packers would do next?

  Chabrier, palms sweating, moved to his potted plants, removed one of his socks. He packed handfuls of damp sand into the toe of the sock and tied the knot to keep the sand compacted, darting glances at his video monitor. By the time he had located the sharpened letter-opener and thrust it into his belt, the intruder had started to disassemble the largest of the crates.

  In fresh astonishment, Chabrier saw that his crew had off-loaded a crateful of hovercycle. Chabrier had requisitioned no such craft. He knew it would not have been forthcoming if he had asked. Someone—Mills, no doubt—had tampered with the shipment, sent the stranger in with his own devices.

  The entire lab's support systems were Chabrier's responsibility and his portable control module had its own flat video screen. He could plug into the system from many stations, including the panel at each elevator call button. He took off his other shoe and sock for stealth, hurried into the main corridor, plugged his control module into the elevator call plate. Then he caused his corridor lights to die. On his module monitor he saw that the intruder was trundling the hovercycle on its small kickwheels to the elevator, having finished his peculiar ritual with the desiccant bags.

  The man pressed the elevator call stud. Well, why not? Chabrier removed his prohibition, heard a faint whine in the shaft one pace away from him. He intended to open his own doors first until he saw the man draw the handgun, perhaps anticipating a violent welcome. Ever patient, Chabrier watched his monitor and waited, and cut power to the elevator's interior lights.

  An eternity of seconds later the elevator stopped, and Chabrier's heart leaped; he had nearly, by mistake, opened both sets of doors simultaneously. With the intruder so clearly ready for confrontation, Chabrier now decided he could stop the elevator between floors to trap his opponent.

  Through his video he saw the man vault into the darkened elevator, and heard the soft impact of a sidelong roll near him. No shots. A moment later the man emerged reseating his automatic, then heaved against the hovercycle so that it stood half on the cargo platform, half in the rotunda. As the man wheeled away with whiplash quickness, Chabrier realized that the hovercycle was a blockage against the recall of the elevator from any other level. The little salaud was canny—but so was Marengo Chabrier.

  Chabrier did not know what the man had forgotten but felt a thrill of good fortune. His fingertips commanded his own door to slide back and then he was into the elevator, the door whispering shut behind him, trying to feel his way around the hovercycle in darkness. He was between panel jacks, his control module useless until he could grope his way to the panel inside the elevator and make a fresh connection.

  Chabrier knew a surge of mixed emotions, a piss-or-bust amalgam of fear and readiness, even though he was having trouble getting around the damnable machine in the dark. He was sure that the intruder would not expect that sand-filled sock, a street-fighter's sap, to come whistling out of the blackness. He moved slowly to avoid any possibility of noise.

  Had Chabrier peered into the faintly lit rotunda he might have wondered why the intruder engaged in a new madness. Six times Quantrill knelt, twisted a time-delay to its maximum setting, and thrust a detonator into a bag of ammonium nitrate before sprinting forward to kneel again. This was redundancy with a vengeance; any one of the detonators should start the chain reaction and six detonators made success almost a mathematical certainty.

  Quantrill did not intend to be mangled by his own success and hurtled toward the elevator while fumbling for his tiny chemlamp. He placed it on the seat of the 'cycle, illuminating the elevator's interior and nearly causing cardiac arrest to the beefy Chabrier who crowded into the near corner, barefooted. Quantrill shoved hard, his head down against the fan skirt, and he moved forward with the vehicle. At virtually the same instant he saw a bare foot covered with black curly hair and a sodium-yellow sun that burst inside his head with a soundless flash.

  Chapter 53

  When Quantrill's eyes finally focused, they traded solemn regard with the sad dark eyes of Marengo Chabrier. "I regret this, mon ami," sighed the Frenchman, "but you will appreciate my position."

  His position was commanding at the moment. He sat on the edge of a chair and toyed with an ornate stiletto. Quantrill felt the bite of wire against his wrists and ankles; saw that he lay on a bed in a room that did its best to personalize concrete walls. He remembered setting the last detonator, manhandling the hovercycle, seeing a naked foot. "You're Chabrier." A nod. "How'd you get me out of the lab?"

  "You are not a large man. I carried you her
e."

  "Where?"

  A shrug, a wave toward potted plants. "As you see—to my apartment, such as it is."

  "How long ago?"

  "Perhaps twenty minutes, perhaps more." In tones that carried a dark whimsy Chabrier added, "You will understand if I ask the questions?"

  Twenty minutes. It might've been worse; it might still get a damn' sight worse if he was kept wire-wrapped in this hole much longer. Or had the Frenchman removed the detonators? "I can't very well stop you," he said, trying to smile around a pounding headache.

  "Why did M'sieur Mills send you?" Chabrier asked lightly, lazily, as if he had no doubt who'd sent the intruder.

  Quantrill used time-consuming dodges; long breaths, slow speech, pauses, to give him time to think. If Chabrier thought Mills had sent him, the detonators had probably gone undiscovered. It didn't seem possible to Quantrill that Mills might send in a saboteur against his own operation. "Mills is a certifiable nut," said Quantrill, hoping it would pass for an answer.

  "You underestimate our employer. I do not."

  "Sure you do. You can't even figure out why the little gob of snot might go in for vandalism against you."

  Chabrier hesitated. Any agent of Boren Mills should know better than to revile him, or even to discuss his mission, when recorders might be taking it all in. "It is not too late for a priority call to Ogden. What will happen to you if I call M'sieur Mills now and inform him how easily I nullified you?"

  "You and I will both disappear without a trace—because you didn't nullify me. It's later than you think. You have a voice stress analyzer here, Chabrier? If you do, get it. Then you'll know that what I do tell you is the truth, no matter how much you'd like to disbelieve it."

  Chabrier stroked his lower lip, remained seated and rearranged some opinions. "Petty vandalism would be madness, or the tactic of one who wishes to impede production. Does the subtle Mills wish to make it appear that one of my staff is malingering, or insane?"

  "My guess is, he'll wish you to disappear—and you will. Me, too—after he's had me taken apart."

  Chabrier refitted pieces of his puzzle; tried a new piece. "Then why did he provide you with an escape vehicle?"

  "That was my own idea."

  "You are aware of the particle-beam weapons surrounding this place?"

  A nod. "And I can deal with 'em."

  "I do not think you are in the employ of Mills at all," Chabrier blurted. "I think I have caught a saboteur."

  Quantrill caught the relief in his captor's face. This poor bastard was more frightened of Mills than of outright sabotage! "Let's assume you're right, Chabrier. And if you're right, you got to me too late because I was outward bound when you nailed me. Let's assume I've stacked enough explosives in your basement to blow us all to hell and gone, with motion sensors on the detonators." Like fleas, small lies can prosper on the back of a large truth. "I know you haven't found the stuff, because we're still here in one piece."

  "The desiccant," Chabrier raged, leaping to his feet. Holding his head as if to create a helmet, he glared down at his prisoner. "It will detonate when anyone approaches it?"

  "That's part of it. There's more—but I think better on my feet. You've got my sidearm. I've got your ticket past the P-beams out there in the desert. What'll it be: out of here on a hovercycle with me, or in little bitty pieces in a few minutes?"

  As he attacked the twisted wire at Quantrill's wrists, Chabrier chattered, "Cretin! There are mice in the loading bay. One of them could trip a motion sensor at any moment. Imbecile! I hope you are more careful in getting us out of here." The heavyset Frenchman stood back, holding the automatic. Quantrill removed the wire from his ankles, stood up, rubbed his wrists, flexed his arms. Then he turned his back on Chabrier, a languid casual move followed by a backward step at blinding speed, pulling Chabrier's gun arm forward while right hip and thigh swung in and upward against the heavier man in a classic harai-goshi. That move and the cross-arm lock that followed on the bed were essentially simple ploys, but devastating when used in sequence by a man who could flip a coin and catch it between thumb and forefinger.

  Chabrier found his right elbow locked at full extension in the other man's crotch, his wrist gripped remorselessly. By arching, Quantrill could easily shatter the elbow. He proved it with a slight arch, then relieved the unbearable bending force. "That's for catching me like a first-timer, Chabrier. Never hold a handgun on a man when he can see it's on safety. Now give me the piece, and I'll give you your elbow."

  Chabrier let the weapon go, saw the younger man flick a tiny lever under the receiver, lay still until he was alone on the bed. His face registered fatalism as he rubbed the aching elbow. "Now at least I shall know your intent," he grumbled. "Am I to be shot, or left to be crushed?"

  "Get up, you poor bastard; even the cargomaster on that delta knows how bad you want out of here. I said I'd haul your freight, and I will if I can. How many guards do we pass between here and open ground?"

  "None." Chabrier rolled to his feet, took one step toward the next room; said, "I must bring my medication, mon vieux, or life will not be worth living."

  "Go ahead, take your time but don't forget your mice. If you're trying to sucker me again, Chabrier, you won't live to see this place go up."

  Chabrier stood motionless for five seconds, nodding to himself. Then he tugged on socks, thick-soled shoes, and his only windbreaker, ignoring several suits of foreign cut and a very oriental-looking brocaded robe. Quantrill followed his every move with suspicion and, noting the Frenchman's economy of movement, with approval. If not for his sluggish reflexes, he thought, Chabrier might have made a superb agent. Then Chabrier paused; released a charming smile. "If you are not entirely devoid of mercy, mon ami, you will allow me to warn my staff."

  "Then call me Mr. Devoid! Risk getting boxed? Not a chance."

  Chabrier shook his head and muttered, scooping up his stash of drugs, stuffing them into his zipped jacket and grabbing a pair of fine leather gloves. He tried again while trotting from corridor to elevator: "One develops friendships, even with prisoners. Will you permit me to alert them when we reach the surface?" Negative headshake as Chabrier, using his control module, began to normalize the functions of the building.

  Quantrill snatched the thing away.

  "For the love of God, let me get us out of here!" Chabrier imagined the few mice multiplied into swarming thousands, nosing into invisible capacitance fields, tripping a detonator,—and snatching at the module in frustration.

  Quantrill slapped the hand away, then offered the module. "Just remember this thing is full of curare slugs, frenchy. Ah,—what risks do we run if I warm the 'cycle engine up inside the elevator?"

  The elevator door ghosted aside and in the now-illumined space they finished positioning the 'cycle. Chabrier flicked studs, watched the door close. "If it is not terribly loud, go ahead."

  Quantrill waved his companion against the far wall, seated his handgun, primed the engine and kick-started its muffled engine after several tries while the elevator slid upward. He jerked a thumb overhead: "You're sure we won't meet some goons up there?"

  "I shall cut the lights beforehand, to be certain. The perimeter guards make their rounds at various times, but they know me. In any case, the fools drive about with lights blazing. Bear in mind that I am as anxious as you, M'sieur."

  "Do you mean to tell me there are no guards at all inside this lab?"

  "None. Boren Mills has—ways—to ensure a kind of loyalty, and the desert itself is a barrier. Plus guards who shoot to kill if one is caught outside, and of course the particle-beam towers."

  Quantrill tested the diesel's supercharger; folded back the fore and aft covers from the munitions pods that lay against the forward fan skirts. The beam-seeking munitions were rocket-propelled 30 mm. Canadian Homingbirds, fitted with carbon shields over their sensors. With its internal vanes, a Homingbird could jitter in flight in a preprogram that could defeat most beam weapons—unless the b
eam struck precisely, the first time. Its range was under a kilometer, but if fired in volleys the little rockets simply overwhelmed a laser, maser, or P-beam weapon's ability to readjust its aim.

  Best of all, the dilating rocket nozzle permitted the little rounds to loiter in flight for several seconds, tempting enemy fire. When that fire came, the surviving Homingbirds went swarming in on full boost with shaped charges. Canada still lacked the solid-state technology of Streamlined America, but she knew how to make weapons dumb enough to sacrifice and smart enough to win.

  "I am cutting the lights," Chabrier warned, and Quantrill saw tears coursing down the man's blue-whiskered cheeks.

  Not one but two sides of the cargo elevator slid back; Quantrill ducked low, blinking in a darkness that brightened as his eyes adjusted. The moon helped a little. The breeze was summer-soft, and from their prominence atop the lab berm they spied moving lights two klicks distant and moving away. "The patrol," Chabrier sniffled, and cleared his throat. "They could return in less than an hour."

  "Oh, I think we can count on that," Quantrill chuckled, revving up the fans. "Get on behind my seat, man, what the hell are you waiting for?"

  Chabrier's hands squeezed and grappled at one another. "Go to a safe distance and wait for me," he pleaded. "Please, I beg you; I am not a murderer! I cannot just let my fellows die like vermin." He waited for an answer; got none. "I shall not tell them that you exist; only that Boren Mills has arranged our deaths as we all knew he would." Voice rising to a tortured baying: "At least give them a chance! They are prisoners, you dirty boche! Slaves! All they can do is run!"