by Marc Olden
As the Black Samurai gazed into the darkness, Andrea’s face floated before him. Softly he said, “Neither Print nor Talon will bother you after tomorrow. I promise.”
She took her face from his chest and stared at him. This one man. Because of him, Print’s world was cracking, and Talon was thousands of miles away. Without a word she reached out and gently stroked his cheek. He touched the hand, and she kept it on his face, feeling the warmth of him.
Behind her, the round-faced, redheaded man said, “Ready, miss.”
Over her shoulder Sand said to Harry, “Remember. Wait fifteen minutes, then go. Drive slowly.” Harry knew only what he had to know, no more. Into the castle, and remember the lighted cigar.
Robert Sand turned to her, his hand reaching out and stroking her hair. Then, moving two steps from her, he picked up his black canvas bag slung it across his chest, and with the short sword in his hand, he turned and ran into the darkness. She watched him until he blended in with the night, then she turned and walked toward the round-faced man and the tow truck, wiping the tears from her face with chilled, numbed fingers.
Sand’s face was sweating now, the water sliding down his brown skin and down under his black turtleneck.
His legs raced. And so did his mind.
Deception.
A dangerous weapon, valuable when used correctly. In Japan, his training had also consisted of reading the ancient scrolls. That’s where he had learned of the Ninja, the incredible medieval spies and assassins of that nation, cunning and resourceful men, physically and mentally trained to a peak no group of men had ever attained before or since.
The Ninja had lifted deception to an art. So had Master Konuma, passing his knowledge on to his Samurai.
Men sleep deepest before the dawn. The Ninja attacked at that hour, and so would Robert Sand. He was going over the wall in a maneuver timed to the second, and unless Lisa and Harry did their part, there could only be death for the Black Samurai.
Deception.
Lisa had called Print, learning that he would be in London overnight, desperate to learn how deeply the British government was committed to going after the Chinese gold. She had also learned that Talon and Print would be returning together late tomorrow.
Print and Talon both away from the castle for hours. The Black Samurai knew that discipline and alertness would suffer, if only slightly, without Talon’s presence. Tomorrow Talon would return, and the castle would be sealed off to the outside.
Tonight. Racing across the darkened fields toward the castle, Sand knew that tonight was the only time to get inside.
He ran swiftly through a clump of trees, his keen ears picking up sounds of a squirrel’s nails clutching the tree in panic at the sudden disturbance.
Castle security. Three men up on the ramp, patrolling and checking the outside of the castle wall. Two men down in the courtyard. Talon and Drewcolt had taken several men to London and America. Yes, tonight was the best time.
“It’s impossible,” Lisa had said to him. “You can’t get in.”
“My worry,” he had said, telling her nothing more. If she knew more, she would worry or maybe give him away without knowing she had.
He kept off the roads, running between trees, leaping into patches of darkness, moving smoothly, keeping the same swiftness he had started with. He enjoyed the run. Off in the distance, he heard the faraway sound of a motor.
The tow truck.
Lifting his knees higher, the Black Samurai ran faster.
The chains groaned loudly in the night as the castle drawbridge slid down, landing with a thud on the other side of the moat. Unlike hundreds of years ago, the moat was no longer filled with water. Print had it drained and kept empty, a huge, empty grass-covered furrow running around the castle. When filled with water, the moat became stagnant and in revenge against Drewcolt the townspeople had had a local ordinance passed declaring the water-filled moat a health hazard.
To avoid more conflict, Print had the moat kept empty.
Pulling his cap down over his thinning red hair, Harry drove the tow truck onto the bridge, inching across it slowly, as Sand had ordered earlier tonight. The black iron gates were hauled up, and two armed guards with flaming torches stepped out, both men waiting at one end of the drawbridge while Harry crossed over from the other.
High on the castle wall, a guard stopped patrolling and looked down at the tow truck, his flashlight shining down on the truck’s windshield. Stopping the truck, Harry leaned his fat head through the right-side front window, yelling, “Here, now, what the bleedin’ hell do you think I am, an owl? I can’t see with that bleedin’ light in me face, now, can I?”
The light snapped off.
Beside him, Lisa Warren stared straight ahead. Casually, Harry lighted a cigar, took a deep drag, then exhaled away from Lisa. “Sorry, mum,” he said.
A man’s voice called, “Come on ahead. Drive slowly.”
Under his breath, Harry muttered, “Who the bleedin’ hell do you think I am, Stirling-fucking-Moss?” To Lisa he said, “Sorry, mum.”
When the tow truck reached the courtyard, a guard quickly moved in on either side, looked at Lisa and Harry, then moved away, looking inside and under the tow truck. One looked into the front and back seats of Lisa’s Triumph sports car, then bent down and looked under it.
The guard in charge, a large man with a shaven head and a nose that had been broken too many times, said, “Move the car up some more.”
Sand was ready.
He had reached the castle minutes before the tow truck. In the darkness, he had quickly pulled a green camouflage cloth from his black canvas bag, and lying flat on the grass in the moat under where the drawbridge would come down, had covered himself with the green cloth.
Under the cloth, he had clearly heard the car pull up and wait for the drawbridge. When he heard the sound of the drawbridge landing directly over him as he hid in the moat, he moved quickly.
In seconds he pulled off the green camouflage cover, shoved it back in the bag, and pulled two longshoreman’s hooks from the bag. Laying them on the ground, he tucked his sword in his belt, slung the black bag around his neck until it hung down his back, then picked up the two hooks, one in each hand. He crouched, looking up at the thick wooden drawbridge just feet above his head.
Inside the courtyard, Harry stepped from the cab and went to work. “Look here, who’s goin’ to pay me for me trouble? She hasn’t got a farthing, and I ain’t in business for love, see? Now, I want me money, and damn quick.” He puffed hard on the cigar, the red end glowing in the semidarkness around him, the two guards holding their torches high so they could see his face.
Both guards ignored Lisa as she stepped from the tow truck and moved back to her car, opening the front door, taking out an armful of packages. Calling to one of the guards, she said, “Oh, Devlin, pay him something. I spent all of my money, and he’s right, I haven’t a farthing. I did promise him something for coming out into the night like he did.”
Devlin looked at her, then at Harry. “Wait here. I’ll be back.” Handing his torch to the second guard, he trotted toward the castle.
Harry looked around until he found what Lisa and Sand had told him to look for. Back in the darkness of one wall was the area where the three hawks were kept. Two were in cages, huddled in a corner for warmth.
The huge hawk, Rajah, sat chained on his wooden stand, a chain reaching from one leg down along the ground and embedded in the wall. Fresh dry straw filled their cages and covered the ground outside and near the cages. Fresh straw was piled under Rajah’s stand. As Harry drew on his cigar, he moved slowly backward toward the sleeping hawks.
Lisa watched Harry from the corner of her eye, then saw the guard now holding two torches peer through the darkness at the round-faced man. Quickly she said, “Dan, please give me a hand with these packages.”
He turned toward her voice. “I’d like to, miss, but my hands …” He leaned his head toward either torch. Looking p
ast her, he saw that the drawbridge was still down. His face shifted up toward the castle wall directly behind her. “Sam, raise it.” As he gave the order, his back was to Harry, and he never saw the fat-faced redheaded man toss his lighted cigar into the dry straw near the hawks.
Outside, under the bridge, the Black Samurai heard the chains groan and clang against each other in the darkness. Alert, he concentrated on the bridge over him. It jerked up, then fell back, then started to rise again. Raising his right arm, he brought the hook down deep into the top of the old faded wood. The drawbridge climbed higher. He gripped the wooden handle on the hook. His feet were still on the ground. Then he was jerked upward until he was on tiptoe. Quickly he drew back his left arm, then brought the hook down next to the first one.
Both of his feet left the ground, and the drawbridge was lifted up, up, up, the Black Samurai holding tightly to the two hooks. Higher and higher he went, until the bridge slammed into place.
Now he clung motionless to the top, his face pressed tightly against the rough wood, the damp smell of it filling his nostrils.
He hung in the chilled darkness, clinging to the top of the drawbridge. Above him, on the other side of the wall, he heard a guard’s footsteps patrolling the wooden walk overlooking the courtyard.
Tomorrow night it would be different. A small army would be on hand. Tonight, however, the odds were smaller.
He heard a guard’s voice from the courtyard. “Hey, what the … ? Fire! Fire! Hey …”
Above him, a guard ran quickly by him, his footsteps fading. Someone else shouted, “Shit, if anything happens to those hawks, Talon will have our asses. Goddamnit, move! Everybody get down here.”
More guards running. Footsteps running, tripping, stumbling down the stairs. Shouts from down in the courtyard.
Taking a deep breath, Sand pulled himself up to the wall, digging a hook deeper into it, then releasing his left hand and attaching that hook to his belt.
Seconds later he dropped silently to the wooden walk, his head snapping behind him, then forward, seeing no one in either direction. Below him, men shouted and ran back and forth, the flames casting long flickering shadows.
The hawks flapped their wings in surprise and panic, hopping and screeching as buckets of water landed hissing on the flames, steam and smoke combining into a soft white curtain climbing high in the darkness.
The fire would be out in minutes.
Crouching, and keeping low, the Black Samurai moved along the ramp high above the shouting men and screeching hawks below him.
She pushed her bedroom door closed, locked it, then turned and leaned back against it. A package she had brought with her slipped from the chair to the floor. She was bending over to pick it up when she heard a man’s voice softly say, “Lisa.”
Her heart jumped, and her hand went to her mouth as she turned toward the voice.
Robert!
Or was she imagining it? Here, in the castle, in her bedroom, the black man! How? How had he gotten into the castle?
She stood up, her heart beating fast.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but this seemed the one place no one thinks of wandering into. I didn’t want you to worry, so I—”
She rushed across the floor and threw herself into his arms, smiling, weeping, and laughing at once. “You did it,” she whispered. “You did it”
He was incredible, this man. “You did it, you did it,” she whispered over and over.
He lifted her tearstained face from his chest, his hand gently touching the tears. “Yes,” he said softly, bending to kiss her.
Her arms went around his neck; their lips touched. Her hands slid down to his back, her nails digging in hard.
He took his face from hers long enough to pick her up and carry her to the red-canopied bed.
When she opened her eyes, the sun was coming through the window. Then she remembered, and looked across the bed where he had been lying beside her. He wasn’t there.
She sat up quickly, naked, her breasts heaving in fear and excitement
“Over here,” he whispered. She turned. He sat in a chair, fully dressed, the sword lying across his knees, its keen blade catching the sunlight. A .45 lay on a small table near him.
She smiled weakly. “I thought it might have been a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t. Get dressed, it’s almost nine-thirty. Print and Talon are due back anytime after four this afternoon with the virus.”
She shuddered, pulling the bedclothes up to her chest.
“Yes,” she murmured.
Thirty minutes later she was dressed, her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and wearing a light-purple sweater, dark-purple slacks, and black boots.
“Beautiful,” he said.
She turned and smiled, reaching for his hand.
“No time,” he said. “Go. Remember what you have to do.”
“I hope I do as well as Harry. He charged fifty pounds for towing me in. Whispered he had to make it look real.”
Sand smiled.
She was silent; then she turned her back to him. “Now?”
“Now,” he said.
Without looking around, she reached her hand back to him, and her voice was small. “I’m scared.”
“You can do it,” he said, holding her hand.
Without a word, she moved from him, her hand slipping from his. Seconds later she had crossed the room, opened the door, and moved through it, closing it behind her.
Chapter XVII
“SAMURAI,” SAID TALON, HIS fingers gently brushing the soft white feathers on Rajah’s throat. The huge killer hawk flapped his wings at his touch, his cruel head turned up toward the sky, small bright eyes staring at the red sunset.
“That’s why there’s no record in America or Europe on a black martial-arts expert like this one. Samurai. That makes him a most unusual man. Hands, feet, and a brain.”
Drewcolt listened in the half-darkness, his hands tucked underneath his thick white wool sweater against the cold. “It fits. The English back him with money, plus information they’ve gotten from our people.”
Talon’s fingers plucked a piece of yellow straw from the tip of Rajah’s wing. “We move Russia out, and before we can get in, England’s got the gold, or a good shot at it.”
“Tell me this, Talon—do you think we’ve killed the last informant?”
Talon leaned his head to one side, his eyes on the razor-sharp yellow beak of the killer hawk. “I should be able to answer that very soon. We’ve got a few hours before the signing. Two refueling stops is all it takes from London to Batanga. That’s less than twenty-four hours. We drop the virus, kill the Russian pilot, leaving his body where it can be found. That gives us two hours before the Peking signing. Time enough for the news to reach the Chinese government before it puts pen to paper.”
“Good. It’s getting dark. See you inside,” said Drewcolt, backing away, then turning and walking across the castle courtyard.
Talon’s fingers gently ran along the hawk’s razor-sharp beak. “I’ll be in soon.” The man and the hawk stared at each other. Talon smiled as Rajah blinked his small, hard eyes.
Robert Sand moved swiftly through the dark and narrow, musty-smelling secret passage leading from Lisa Warren’s bedroom down toward the castle dungeon. His plan: cut off all electricity, destroying the main generator and the emergency one. Then get the virus.
He held the pencil-thin flashlight low in his right hand, its pale-green light softly pushing a thin path through the damp darkness and stale imprisoned air. Spiderwebs gently brushed his face like dusty lace. His left hand tightly gripped the bow taken from the brown-paper-wrapped package Lisa had brought into her own bedroom.
Five arrows, among other things, were in the black canvas bag slung over his shoulder.
Lisa.
Reaching inside herself, she had found a handful of courage. She had greeted Drewcolt at the drawbridge, heard him order the small freezer containing the virus to be placed in the great ha
ll and immediately plugged in. She had seen extra guards, each heavily armed, take up positions throughout the castle and high along its ramp.
She had returned to her bedroom, locked the door, hurriedly whispering to Sand. He listened intently, his eyes on her face. Then, nodding his head, he had reached in his black canvas bag and handed her what looked like a small alarm clock.
“Careful,” he said. “A bomb. This is the last thing you have to do. Tonight, as soon as it’s dark, somehow get up on the ramp, hide this by the chain on the right side of the drawbridge. Just before you place it, press down this red button. Don’t do it now unless you want to become part of the English countryside. It’ll go off in one hour, dropping the drawbridge.”
She smiled at him nervously, both hands on the small mechanical device. “Oh, Lord, I don’t think …”
“That’s right,” he said gently. “Don’t think. Do. You can. When it’s dark.” His hand touched her face, and their eyes met. Seconds later he had disappeared behind the sliding dark-brown wooden panel. The panel moved back automatically, closing noiselessly behind him.
In the foul-smelling air trapped in the narrow hidden space, the Black Samurai took in short, quick breaths. Ahead of him he saw the staircase carved out of gray rock 600 years ago by a stonecutter who then had his throat slit to keep the passage a secret.
He moved down it slowly, carefully, dimly hearing voices and footsteps on either side of him. Reaching the bottom, he moved right, deeper within the castle, deeper into the darkness.
The first of the two men on guard in the dungeon, serving as the generator room, came to the open door, his face damp with perspiration from the heat of the huge machines. Yawning, he closed his eyes, stretching his arms high overhead. Then, patting the Luger stuck in his belt and scratching his black curly hair, he yawned again.
His eyes were closed when the Black Samurai swiftly drove a powerful backfist into his temple. The guard’s eyes popped as though eager to leap from the sockets, and his mouth dropped open, the jaw working frantically toward sound.
Nothing came out. He turned to face Sand, hand clawing at the Luger. Quickly stepping in front of the guard, the Black Samurai smashed him under the jaw with his elbow, the hard bone snapping the guard’s head back. Sand caught him before his unconscious body could crash to the cold stone floor.
