by Simon Hawke
“You always were too damned unpredictable, Rupert,” Falcon raid, pointing her laser at him. “It really is unfortunate. I thought you were rather nice and I was going to let you live.”
“Wait,” said Hentzau. “I can still help you. I can-”
“You can only interfere. You’ve become expendable. I’m sorry.”
“Before you kill me,” Hentzau said, stalling desperately, “at least tell me what that is. I’ve never seen such-”
“It doesn’t mater, Rupert. It wouldn’t make any difference to you, anyway. Say goodbye.”
The explosion rocked the castle. Startled, Falcon jerked her head in its direction and Hentzau moved. She fired, missing him narrowly as he leaped aside and in that moment, Rudolf hit with an awkward tackle and she fell, the laser skittering across the floor. Hentzau quickly snatched it up. Finn stood with his own laser leveled at Falcon and Rudolf as they thrashed upon the floor, but refrained from firing for fear of hitting the king.
“Rudolf, get away!” he shouted.
Falcon rolled over on her back, dragging the king on top of her, holding him with one arm around his neck, the other locked behind his head.
“Drop the laser, Delaney, or I’ll break his neck!” she said.
Finn fairly vibrated from the nitro hammering through him, but his shirt was soaked with blood and his vision was beginning to blur, “Break his neck and where does that leave you?” he said.
“Who the devil is Delaney?” Hentzau said. He glanced down at the laser. “Where the deuce is the trigger on this thing?”
“Kill him, Rupert!”
“Realty?” Henan said, insouciantly. “How? Besides, if I kill him, you’ll kill the king and where would that leave me? I’d be left with one dead play-actor, one dead king, one dead duke and what must be a small army just outside. No, that would never do. I must come out of this ahead somehow.”
“I can make you rich, Rupert,” she said. “Richer than you could ever imagine! There’s a small stud that fires-”
“Don’t do it, Hentzau,” Finn said. “I’d have to kill you.”
Hentzau examined the weapon with curiosity. “Strange-looking contraption. You mean this stud here?”
“Hentzau, if I don’t kill you, you can be sure she will. She doesn’t need you,” Finn said. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Shoot him, Rupert! Shoot!”
Hentzau held the laser the way he had seen her hold it, with his finger on the stud, then he came up to her and bent over, putting the weapon up against the side of her head.
“I’m sorry, my dear, but since the play-actor’s thrown in with the king, I think that I’d best do the same. The odds seem better to me. Be so kind as to release His Majesty.”
“Good man, Hentzau!” Finn said. “Now we-” his knees buckled and he sank down to the floor. “Oh, no!” he said. “Not now!”
He fell over on his side, unconscious.
Lucas huddled on the floor, holding his head from the concussion of the explosion. Fine dust filled the air with swirling fog and there was crumbled stone all around him. He sat up slowly, his ears ringing, to see if he was still in one piece. He was lacerated and bruised and burned in more places than he could count and he had no idea how much radiation he had received. His entire body hurt and he could barely see straight.
The corridor where the auto-pulser had been was gone. Completely gone. The cool night breeze that came in through the gaping, massive hole where the wall had been was a welcome relief from the musty atmosphere of the ancient castle corridors. Lucas got to his feet unsteadily and lurched over to the opening. The moat was directly beneath him. He took a deep breath and fell forward into space.
They heard the explosion at the opposite end of the castle.
“What in heaven’s name was that?” said Drakov, his eyes never leaving Forrester, despite his being startled by t he sound. His whole body stiffened.
“A warp grenade,” said Forrester. “It seems that Priest isn’t out of it yet.”
Drakov shook his head, having no idea what a warp grenade was. It sounded as if it had blown half the castle away. “Your people certainly possess a dogged persistence,” he said. “Very resourceful. My compliments. You’ve trained them well. I admire such determination.”
“Then give it its due,” said Forrester. “You have the upper hand. Let Andre go. She’s no threat to you now. I’m the one you really want.”
“True,” said Drakov, “but Falcon wants you all.”
“Assuming that she’s still alive,” said Forrester. “If she’s managed to kill the king, then chances are that it’s all over anyway. You’ve won. You’ve got what you wanted.”
“Why should I release her?”
“Colonel-” Andre said.
“Shut up, Corporal. That’s an order,” Forrester said sharply. “Your quarrel is with me, Nikolai. Everything that’s happened here in one way or another is my responsibility. This is a private matter between the two of us. Leave her out of it. You have nothing to gain by killing her now and nothing to lose by letting her go.”
“Moses, don’t-”
“I said shut up!” snapped Forester. “Nikolai, please. I’m begging you. You want me to get down on my knees?”
“Enough,” said Drakov. “I have no stomach to see you beg.”
“Do you have the stomach to see what Falcon will probably do to her?” said Forrater. “You really think that she’ll be satisfied with a quick kill? Look at her. She’s already weak from loss of blood. She probably couldn’t even stand up. But Falcon is a trained agent, a skilled assassin. She’ll be able to keep her alive for a long time before she’s finished.”
“Yes, I believe she would,” said Drakov, quietly.
“I’m not asking you for myself,” said Forrester. “Remember how your mother died. Remember how you tried to help and couldn’t.”
Drakov turned pale. “How did you know that?”
“Falcon, told me all about it in a letter,” said Forester, heavily. “She didn’t spare me much. She seemed to take a lot of pleasure in reconstructing the graphic details of the scene from what you must have told her. Undoubtedly, she embellished a great deal. Somehow, I can’t imagine you describing her being raped in quite that manner.”
Drakov gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Turn around,” he said.
Forrester hesitated for a moment, then complied, slowly turning his back to him, facing the stone wail. He heard a muffled sob.
“The chronoplate is beneath her cot,” he said. “I will give you the sequence code for its tailgate device. Set the coordinates for your time and send her home.”
“No!” said Andre. “Moses, you can’t-”
Forrester reached out quickly and rendered her unconscious with a nerve pinch. Then, under his son’s direction, he deactivated the tailgate device on the chronoplate, assembled the border circuits, programmed the transition coordinates, and clocked her to Plus Time, to Pendleton Base. Then he turned to face his son,
“Here,” said Drakov, tossing him the control unit. “If Major Priest is still alive, then perhaps this will give him a fighting chance.”
Forrester turned off the defense systems, then tossed the unit onto the cot. It would end here and now, one way or another. Perhaps they had failed and it was all pointless, anyway. But his son was his responsibility. He would have liked to take out Falcon, but if she did not return in the next moment, he would be forced to leave her to Priest and Delaney, assuming they were still alive. He could wait no longer. At least Andre was clear.
Drakov lowered the laser and, to Forrester’s astonishment, dropped it on the floor.
“We shall settle this like gentlemen,” he said, as Forester stared at him uncomprehendingly. “You have dishonored my mother, sir. I demand satisfaction. The choice of weapons is yours.”
Forrester closed his eyes. He was seized by a sudden, irrational impulse to laugh. A duel. His son was challenging him to a duel.
�
��I fear that we have no sabres here,” said Drakov, “but we have the lasers and a number of revolvers. Or, if you prefer, wean use knives.”
Forrester smiled, ruefully. “What would you suggest?”
“Under the circumstances, I would favor knives,” said Drakov. “The room is quite small and would provide for no proper test of marksmanship.”
Forrester sighed and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, softly. “God damn it, I just can’t.”
“You refuse me?” said Drakov, frowning.
“No. No, I don’t have that right, Son,” he said. “You misunderstood. I have a small device strapped to my chest beneath my shirt. It contains a nerve gas, very quick and very lethal.”
“I see,” said Drakov. “That is why you were so concerned about Corporal Cross.”
“Give me a moment,” said Forrester, “and I’ll remove it.”
Drakov nodded and started taking off his own shirt as Forrester removed his. As Forrester disarmed the device and took it off, Drakov tossed aside his shirt, revealing a massive, muscular chest, powerful arms and rock-hard abdominals. He took two knives, both daggers with ten inch blade, and offered Forrester his choice.
It was almost dawn.
13
Lucas hit the moat feet first and thrashed his way to the surface. He was barely able to tread water. He knew that he was functioning on adrenalin and he wondered how long it would be before he collapsed. It was some thirty or forty yards to the drawbridge, a bit less to the bank. He struck out laboriously for the bank. He managed to pull himself out and he lay there for a moment on the ground, trying to get his breath back. The plasma burns were throbbing and he was shivering. With an effort, he picked himself up and began walking along the bank towards the chateau. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got there. He merely tried to concentrate on one step at a time. That was effort enough. He moved from tree to net using the trunks for support, resting as briefly as he could when it seemed that his energy had completely given out and then forcing himself to go on. He tried not to think about the mission. Apparently, it had failed. He tried not to think about Forrester or Finn or Andre. He tried not to think about the Timekeepers or about the pain and he tried not to imagine what he must look like with half his face burned away. He had seen what the plasma had done to his leg and the sight of it alone, much less the smell, was enough to make him gag. He concentrated all his will on getting to the castle somehow. All he could do was to go on. He was still alive and so long as he was alive, he still had a job to do.
“It’s over,” Falcon said. “He’s dead!”
“Perhaps,” said Hentzau, “but there’s still the king. Release him or I will fire this mysterious weapon of yours.”
“If I release him, you’ll kill me,” she said.
“Perhaps,” said Hentzau. “Perhaps I’ll turn you over to Colonel Sept and give you to him as a present. Or perhaps I’ll take advantage of the opportunity to see how good you really are with a sabre. There should be no interruptions now.”
She looked at him for a moment, then released the king. Coughing, Rudolf crawled away from her. Hentzau took the laser away from her head and allowed her to stand. He backed off a space, then tossed the weapon aside.
“I’ve always preferred steel, anyway,” he said.
Falcon smiled and drew her own Sabre. “You’re a fool, Rupert. You should have killed me.”
“You’re probably right,” said Bentsen, grinning at her. “But where would be the sport in that?”
“If it’s sport you want,” she said, “you’re about to get more than you can handle.”
Hagan threw back his head and laughed. “En garde,” The hall began to echo with the sound of clanging steel.
Father and son circled each other warily, knives held ready, each looking for an opening, Forrester quickly saw that his son was an experienced knife fighter. Drakov had assumed a slightly bent over stance with his balance on the balls of his feet, one hand held out before him with the arm bent a little, held slightly crossways of the body. Unlike the amateur, who knew no better, he held his knife not out before him, but in close to the body so that he could stab out or slash without leaving his knife hand out where it might be grasped or cut or where the knife could be kicked away. His eyes were on Forrester’s, that being the only sure method to be constantly alert for any sign of movement. He carried a lot of muscle, but he moved nimbly, like a dancer, darting in for a quick feint, pulling back at once when he saw that Forrester had read the move, skipping lightly out of the way when Forrester attempted a move of his own.
There was no flurry of knife blades, no tricky motions with the hands to distract the opponent. Both men knew what they were doing and this was very serious business. Each used utter economy of motion. Each watched the other with a fierce intensity, knowing that with two skilled knife fighters, it was a war of nerves more than anything eke. It was not like a duel with swords; one did not thrust and slash and parry. One waited for the other to make a mistake in judgment. Good knife fighters did not cut each other up, at least not very much. Forrester realized that he could not resort to any of the usual tricks, such as doing something totally unexpected-barking loudly and suddenly like a dog or spitting in his opponent’s face, then taking advantage of the one instant in which he was startled to move in and gut him. Nikolai would not be fooled like that. It would take a great deal of concentration to avoid being caught off guard or-off balance. The first one of them to make a mistake would lose and it would be over in an instant.
The only problem was that Forrester was losing his concentration. He kept staring into Drakov’s eyes, trying to put all thoughts out of his mind, but it was like staring into his own eyes in a mirror. In combat, especially close combat, the mind had to be empty, free of any thoughts of winning or losing. The idea was to get into the rhythm of the deadly ballet, to flow with it without thinking. To think about winning was to admit the possibility of losing. To think about surviving was to dwell upon the spectre of death. Yet, try hard as he might to focus himself on the pure interplay of motion, Forrester’s mind kept drifting, like a boat with a sleepy captain that kept wandering off course, then lurching back as the captain caught himself and seized the wheel.
Drakov’s eyes were his eyes. It was like locking gazes with himself. His face echoed Vanna’s face so strongly that Forrester kept seeing her. He kept pushing the vision away, but the thought resurfaced again and again in his mind- I’m in deadly combat with my son, with my own flesh and blood.
Don’t think about it, he thought to himself, you’ll slip, you’ll make a mistake! And, having thought about it, he made one.
He recovered in the very nick of time, blocking madly, and Drakov’s blade opened up his forearm from wrist to elbow. The daggers were sharp, both at the points and on both sides of their narrow blades and the knife bit deeply. The blood flowed freely, dribbling down onto the stone floor. Forrester began to move more quickly, never staying for more than a second or two in the same spot, so that the blood would not puddle and create the danger of his slipping in it. For a brief instant, Drakov’s eyes left his and glanced quickly at his wound. Forrester lunged. Too late, he saw that he had been taken in. Drakov had done it on purpose.
Already committed, Forrester tried to recover and, for a second, he was caught off balance. Drakov dropped to the floor instantly. Using his leg as a scythe, he swept Forrester’s legs out from under him. As Forrester went down. Drakov rolled and in an instant he was on him, pinning him to the floor and grasping Forrester’s knife hand with his own free band while his other hand holding the knife flashed in on Forrester’s throat. Forrester felt the point of the dagger penetrate the skin at the hollow of his throat ever so slightly and in that moment, a great calm swept over him and he ceased to struggle. But the white heat of the killing thrust never came.
Instead, Forrester looked up into his son’s eyes and saw that they were wet with tars.
He saw the tremendous inner s
truggle going on as Drakov tried to will himself to finish it and found that he was unable to. He saw his son’s lips begin to tremble, whether from rage, sorrow or frustration, he did not know. Perhaps it was all three.
“It’s all right, Son,” he said. “It’s all right. I thought that I could do it, too, but now I know I never could. She never would have let us.”
He let his hand go limp, opened it and the dagger rolled off his palm and onto the stone floor with a gentle clink. Slowly. Drakov got up and backed away from him, saying nothing, his tears speaking more eloquently than any words he could have said.
“Come back with me, Son,” said Forrester. “You don’t belong here.”
Drakov shook his head violently, then turned and bolted out the door and down the stairs.
They fought fast and furiously, their sabres flashing almost quicker than the eye could follow. Hentzau was exultant, filled with seemingly boundless energy. He was in his element. Fighting without the slightest care for his survival, reveling in the sheer joy of the swordplay. It was, Falcon realized, what made him such a deadly swordsman. It was one thing to train for hours, days, weeks and years on end, refining one’s skill in constant practice until it was second nature, but it was something else entirely to put that skill to the test in earnest, deadly combat, where one would live and one would die: Hentzau was one of those rare people to whom it made no difference. Some people walked the razor’s edge, but Hentzau fairly danced upon it. He felt himself to be almost immortal, admitting the possibility of death in only the vaguest sort of way, with supreme indifference. His life would have meant nothing to him without the chance of casually tossing it away with the same abandon with which a gambler risked all on one turn of the wheel. He quite literally did not know fear and that frightened her. He was better than she thought he was, far better. The better his opponent was, the better he became, rising to the occasion. It suddenly occurred to her that she could lose.
