by Chuck Dixon
Lee turned his gaze back to the fenced compound. It was extensive. Twenty acres of densely packed rooftops around a large central structure. None of it looked very sturdy. It was all certainly flammable. A little napalm and a few 20mm grenades in the right place, and it would be one giant barbecue with the locals trapped inside. Worse come to worst, payback would be easy. That gave him cold comfort. A rescue was still the mission priority.
The big structure at the center of the village made him curious. It was like a sports dome designed by Tarzan except for the roof. The surface of it was rippled, the details clear in the 30x scope borrowed from Jimbo’s rifle. It shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. A burnished yellow glow. Like gold. Gold. The roof of the big hooch was gold. A ton of it.
Two tons. Maybe three.
However this ended, he’d be back in a hundred thousand years or so to check this place out again.
Lee crawled backward off the ledge and down to Chaz to work out what came next.
38
The Hidden Blade
Bat Jaffe’s hideaway knife was cleverly concealed in the heel of one of her boots. Even close examination didn’t reveal the tiny indentation of a fingernail-deep hold at the rear of the heel. She and Jimbo maneuvered themselves to be back to back. She directed him where to touch for it. He worked his nearly numbed fingers as she directed his hands.
The blade slid free, and Jimbo concentrated on maintaining his grip on the narrow, rubberized handle. He couldn’t manage to bend his swollen wrists to an angle that would allow him to saw through his own bonds. There was too much risk of losing his grip. Drop the knife, and it might fall through the crisscross bamboo flooring into the tub of shit beneath them. He moved closer to touch the point of the blade to the thongs around Bat’s wrists. The blood loss to his constricted hands caused him to lose his finer sense of touch.
“That’s me,” she said in a hush. “Sorry. We good now?” he whispered.
“Yes. You’re on the leather. Just press. Don’t saw. Let the blade do the work. I’ll tell you if you’re cutting me.”
Biff was seated against the door of the cage and fast asleep with his chin on one knee. His stone hammer lay in his lap.
The blade was razor sharp and parted the stiff leather with little effort. Even so, the Pima’s face and neck were running with fresh sweat before he felt the last strand snap free and heard Bat sigh in grateful relief. She drew away from him and stood up, rubbing life back into her hands. They dripped with her own blood where the blade had nicked her. She took the spade-shaped tool from Jimbo’s fingers and cut him loose before slicing off the choker around her own neck and casting it aside. Rick and Byrus were soon free, and all were flexing to restore feeling to their blood-starved fingers. Pins and needles flooded through their knuckles, growing to sharp stabbing pains as constricted vessels filled with blood once more, giving life to sleeping nerves.
“Hurts so good,” Rick said. Byrus grunted in assent.
Jimbo made shushing noises to Ricky and Byrus. No need to wake up Biff.
It was growing dark outside the skin palace. The only light reaching them was from the guttering pyre atop the cairn. It had to be fed by pitch or tar of some kind to keep burning this long without being fed. There was no movement visible through the thick weave of the cage walls other than insects fluttering in the gloom.
Bat gripped the knife and, without a word to the others, crept over the creaking bamboo floor and leaned close to the gate, her face against the surface. She drew her arm back and drove the point of the blade hard through a narrow space between two birch poles. Three rapid punches inside of a second. Her boot sole squeaked on the flooring as she reset her footing for one final plunge. A gurgling exhalation from outside the lattice wall. She stepped back, her arm gleaming crimson to the elbow.
Biff tumbled over in a heap. Three strikes to the base of his skull. Stone dead.
The knife sliced through the leather ties keeping the gate secured in place. Jimbo and Byrus put their shoulders to it and shoved against the sentry’s corpse. Biff’s dead weight rolled aside, clearing the way to open the gate wide. Jimbo picked up the stone-headed bludgeon from where it lay by Biff. The blue man wore an expression of dull surprise that would be frozen forever on his face.
Bat turned back to the group of their fellow captives huddled in the rear of the cage. They’d made no move, no sound as the newcomers freed themselves, killed their guard, and opened the cage. Bat gestured to them to come on. They were not bound in any way. They were free to leave. But these were prisoners in mind as well as body. They were resigned to die with no wish to hasten that time. They regarded her dully as though uncomprehending. Bat turned and left them behind.
Without a shared word the pair of Rangers, Byrus and Bat moved, keeping to the darkest shadows and any available cover, for the front of the skin palace where they had last seen their weapons and gear.
An indigo figure emerged with a rush from the darkness before them. Jimbo brought him down with a line-drive to the side of the head that sent blood and skull fragments flying in a spray.
They all turned at a high keening cry. The naked crone stood with toothless mouth wide and rheumy eyes bulging. A wavering finger pointed their way like the judgment of God.
“Fuck this,” Rick said and broke into a hobbling run on a beeline for the skin palace. The others raced after.
All around them voices rose in call and answer. The village was up and hot for blood.
Jimbo was the first to round the front of the skin palace and into the wavering glow from atop the stone cairn.
Out of the gloom all around charged a brace of the blue brothers howling like wolves and swinging their stone hammers overhead. It would be a race for the weapons stash. Whoever reached it first lived. Second place was the grave.
Except the weapons and packs were no longer stacked before the skin palace.
They were gone.
39
The Five-Star Cell
Morris Tauber’s captivity was considerably more pleasant.
He had free range of the multi-room suite Taan had provided for him. In fact, he had free range of the entire city of Shanghai and the surrounding province should he choose to travel. Basically, China was his prison. Mr. Taan’s only insistence was that he take along a translator as well as security. For his own safety, of course.
The condo had high speed, uncensored, internet that he was free to use as well as satellite feed with an astonishing number of channels of television, movies, and music. The telephone was open to his use even though Morris knew that it, as well as all his internet communications, would be monitored.
Food service was unlimited as well. He could order anything from Kobe beef to a real Philadelphia cheesesteak at any hour of the day or night by simply picking up a phone, and it would be sent up from the fully staffed kitchen on the condo’s ground floor. The menu was updated daily with new items. A walk-in closet was stocked with clothing in his size and taste, and there were shoes to go with them. Khaki pants in tan and dark green, and button-down shirts from Willis and Geiger in white, black, and loden. Apparently, Mr. Taan’s organization had access to his purchase history as Kenneth Armbruster of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Even the bathroom was stocked with his usual brand of soap, shampoo, and toothpaste.
His own personal full-time concierge suggested events Morris might want to attend or sights that would be worth visiting. He also implied, in the most discrete manner imaginable, that feminine companionship could be obtained were Dr. Tauber interested. Morris declined politely but emphatically, and the subject was never mentioned again.
Despite all of these comforts and distractions, he was bored out of his mind. Being left with nothing to do but choose his next amusement left him adrift. He missed work. His work. It was his life, and he was dedicated to it. It was why he got out of bed in the morning and stayed out of bed after breakfast. The Tauber Tube took up most of his mind’s activity, and now he was bein
g kept from his programs and files and notes. Most painful of all, his study of the books and files provided by Samuel Renzi had been truncated by this abduction. His suffering was acute.
This unwanted sabbatical from his regular work, this damned vacation, was Morris’ by choice. He was allowed remote access to the database aboard the Ocean Raj. He could continue his examination and studies. But he was determined that Taan and his corporate pirates not get a door into his and Caroline’s encrypted files.
His memory was quite good if hardly eidetic. All he could do was play with the theorems and constructs that he could recall in his mind. He couldn’t record his thoughts or even take notes on paper lest they fall into the hands of his captors. It was maddening. Possessed of a highly analytical mind, he still longed to record and organize his thoughts in some medium other than his brain.
For now, the only card Morris held was Taan’s ignorance of the location of the Tauber Tube and Team Tauber—as Morris referred to the Rangers in his mind. And Morris himself was an indispensable asset due to the contents of his mind.
I guess that’s actually two cards, Morris thought.
Taan just had to be patient before he could get his way. He seemed to have a well of patience as infinitely deep as his confidence. The smugness of the man infuriated Morris. At least Taan understood that they could not accede to his wishes until the team was reassembled in one place and time. Morris didn’t fully understand the reasons for the delays himself.
He tried to inquire about the postponements during his frequent satellite calls to Caroline. She was more cryptic than informative.
“There have been some complications,” Caroline had said the night before.
“Hardware or software?” Morris asked. It was well after midnight in Shanghai. He watched the lights winking through the haze lying on the surface of the harbor. Big ships maneuvered in their slow-motion dance for space along the piers.
“Hardware. Humanware. We’ve lost contact. The long-range communications are down on the away end, Mo.”
“When was last contact?”
“Our time? A week. Their time? They were at Day Six the last time we received from them.”
“What was their situation then?”
“Primary objective obtained. They were getting ready to return to the extraction point. Something must have happened. They either lost long range comms or comms altogether.”
“The channel is still live?”
“Five by five, as the man says.”
“The man” would be Dwayne Roenbach, his brother-in-law. Caroline wasn’t using names.
“That means you can measure elapsed time downfield,” Morris said.
“Two days. They’ve been out of contact for two days,” she said after conferring with someone in the room with her.
“Do you have any game plan?”
“We’re working on it. I’ll let you know when we have some answers. Then we can deal with your situation. Are you okay?”
“I’m in danger of being pampered to death. Don’t worry about me. I have a very understanding jailer. As long as you maintain regular contact that he and his minions can listen in on, I think they’ll keep the thumbscrews and waterboard in the attic.” That was for Taan and any minions that happened to be listening. Morris’ own tiny effort at rebellion.
“Good. I’ll keep you posted. Take care, Mo. We miss you,” she said and hung up. There was something in her voice. A note of tension. Well, she had a lot on her plate with a baby on board, a missing brother and contact lost with the Rangers somewhere back in prehistoric Nevada.
“He doesn’t know. He has no idea,” Caroline said, setting the sat phone down on the table in the galley.
“He’s better off that way. You think they’re treating him okay or is he putting up a brave front?” Dwayne took from his ear the earbud he’d been using to listen to the conversation.
“Mo sounds bored off his ass. It’s for real. They’re babying him,” she said and rose to pour a mug of coffee she didn’t want. She just wanted an excuse to pace.
“For now.”
“Yeah. He has no idea what he’s in the middle of. To Morris, it’s all academic. He’s more concerned with his work than anything else. They’ve managed to convince him that they mean him no harm.” She stirred a spoon in the mug in a listless circle.
“They covered their tracks. That kid who had the fossil with Bat’s boot print vanished. Probably taco filling now. They could do that to all of us.”
“And we thought we were in trouble with Sir Neal.”
“We’ll work it out. We always do. We have what they want. It’s not in this Taan’s interests to hurt any of us now. But we need a get plan.”
“I haven’t asked you to sign on for this, Dwayne,” she said.
“Well, we are signed on.” He touched her hand.
“You can’t speak for the others. This Taan could be sending you into a situation you won’t come back from.”
“If it makes you feel better, we’ll all take a vote when they get back.”
“If they get back. If we haven’t lost them.” She met his eyes.
“Boats and me are working on something. Give it a week or so, and we’ll open the field again for a recon.”
“You’re going back there?”
“What choice do we have? We know where they were when we heard from them last.”
“Just you and Boats? You two barely made it back this last time.”
“The ribs are healing. They’ll be knit solid by the time we head back.”
“But all that way on foot. Just the pair of you.” It was her turn to grip his hand.
“Boats and I have a few ideas. A workaround. Cut the travel time down to a day at the most.”
“What are your ideas?”
“Actually, Chaz thought of it first.” Dwayne smiled.
40
Kind to be Cruel
The indigo men came on in an encircling mass. Horns sounded. The old bitch shrieked and stabbed an accusing finger at the escapees.
The Rangers, the Macedonian, and Xena of East Highland Park tried to withdraw, only to find their line of retreat blocked by yapping blue fuckers whirling hammers over their heads. A storm of thrown stone clubs was followed by a charge closing on them from all around.
Rick was struck in the back and dropped to his knees, gasping with pain. Jimbo stood by him, swinging his borrowed club backhand and forehand. He brained one warrior, sending teeth hurling away. He crushed the throat of another with a thrust, the stone end of the club taking the man just below the chin with an audible crunch. Hands grabbed at him, and he shrugged them off, whirling the club in an arc that connected with bone and flesh.
Byrus was off on Jimbo’s flank, covering the Pima’s blind side.
The little man was striking out with fists and teeth, falling back on his days as a pit fighter. He expertly hooked a thumb in the open mouth of a screaming blue man and tore the lower half of the man’s face from his jaw like ripping paper. The man dropped, shrieking and spewing blood. Byrus drove the heel of his hand into the face of a second man, snapping the septum up into the howling warrior’s brain with a single vicious blow. The guy dropped like a sack of wet sand.
More bastards leapt over their dead comrade to launch themselves at the Macedonian. He lost his footing. They dragged him to the dirt and pinned his wrists to his body. Byrus shook his head violently back and forth until he got his teeth on the ear of one of his attackers. He jerked his head to the left, neck muscles straining and felt the ear lobe tear from the head of his victim in a long strip of flesh. His mouth filled with the sweet coppery ambrosia of an enemy’s blood. The splash of warm excrescence blinded him. His back struck the ground, and the air was driven from his lungs by a crush of knees all over him from thighs to shoulders.
Deadliest of all was Bat Jaffe. She held the spade-shaped dagger in her fist and punched out with it. Any poor blue meanie who got close enough got three hard strikes to the abdo
men or neck delivered with the speed of a piston. The dagger tore them open like piñatas. She had a heap of dead growing before her. Bat was hissing between clenched teeth with each breath. Her heart raced, and her mind sang with fury. They would not tie her hands again.
A warrior leapt at her, flinging his club. She ducked under his throw and reached out to slice open his femoral artery. A spray of dark blood splashed over her as the man tumbled back into his comrades and clutched at his thigh in a futile attempt to stem the flushing of his lifeblood onto the ground. She was backing toward Byrus, punching and slicing. Another thrown hammer struck her knife hand. An arm reached around her neck and yanked her off her feet. Others moved in, reaching for her. She slashed out with the blade, slicing fingers to stumps and flaying forearms. Her foot caught another warrior with a toe kick to the face, crushing the man’s eye socket to red jelly. Sheer numbers brought her down at last. A vice-like grip twisted her wrist.
The blade fell from her fingers. A scream of rage rose up from deep within her as she felt her arm pulled painfully behind her and fresh loops of leather looped about her wrists. Though the binding process was agony, they were making an effort not to harm her. That was a bad thing, she decided. A very bad thing.
They were saving her for something.
The four captives were bound and hauled upright. Bucky paced before them, seething. He had a hand clamped to his head. Rivulets of blood flowed between his fingers. It was his ear that Byrus had done a Mike Tyson on. The little Macedonian grinned defiantly at the blue man, blood glistening on his teeth. Bucky stood before him huffing and puffing, eyes like twin blazes of cold fire from his wine-dark face.
