“I want to retire,” Chant said evenly.
Again, there was absolute silence. Except for Uwe von Deck’s, all eyes in the room turned to look at the old man, hunched over, peering at his watch. Ten seconds passed, and R. Edgar Blake looked up.
“Retire?”
“Right. I think I’ve run out of time, Blake. If you want to hear what I have to say, I’m afraid you’ll have to give me an extension.”
R. Edgar Blake’s response was to slip his watch into a pocket of his lounging robe.
“I’m tired, Blake,” Chant continued. “I’m tired of always being hunted—by Interpol, the CIA, the United States FBI, a hundred different police organizations around the world, and especially by you.”
R. Edgar Blake’s thin lips pulled back from false teeth that seemed a bit too large, too bright. “Not to worry, Mr. Sinclair. I will soon cure you of this weariness from which you suffer.”
Chant slowly lowered his arms. When there was no objection, he casually thrust his hands into his pockets, released the GTN capsules. “Chances are I’ll be dead soon anyway, Blake,” Chant said evenly. “Sooner or later, somebody who’s chasing me is bound to catch up and put a bullet in my back—unless you tell them all to stop.”
Again, the harsh, raucous laughter echoed through the library. “Sinclair, that is absolutely the funniest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time and money hunting me Now you have me—a feat that all others have failed to accomplish in nearly twenty years of trying. The reason you now have me in your power is precisely because you are the one man in the world who can get everyone else off my back.”
R, Edgar Blake studied Chant’s face for some time, then slowly nodded. “So. You are not a stupid man, Sinclair. At last reports you were not insane, and you are certainly not a man to beg for mercy I’m afraid I’ve been just a bit slow on the uptake Obviously, you have come to me with a proposition which you think I’ll take seriously.”
“Precisely I’ve heard that tough men interest you I’ve also heard that you like a good show” Chant paused, pointed at Hammerhead, who was still staring intently at Chant, his face darkening “For example, you keep Tommy Wing around as a kind of household pet—”
“Sinclair, you son-of-a-bitch, I’ll kill you!” Tommy Wing shouted, and started forward.
R Edgar Blake merely turned his head slightly in Tommy Wing’s direction; Hammerhead’s face paled, and he quickly stepped back to his position in front of the fireplace “Excuse me, sir,” he said quietly.
“I’m impressed, Blake,” Chant said. “I’ve never seen anyone able to order Tommy around like that Then again, maybe he’s become too domesticated to interest you anymore You take pride in believing you have the most savage, brutal street fighter in the world as your personal ‘gofer’ I thought it might amuse you to see somebody beat him.”
“You, Sinclair?” Blake’s rheumy eyes took on new life behind their whitish film, gleamed His mouth had dropped open slightly, and his breathing quickened.
“Of course I propose, for your amusement, a fight to the death between Wing and myself, with any weapon he—or you—may choose.”
“Mr. Blake, it’s a trick!” Hammerhead shouted. “You don’t know this bastard like I do! You can’t trust him! If you take my advice, you’ll shoot him right now!”
Once again, R Edgar Blake’s head turned slightly in the heavyset man’s direction “Are you afraid of Mr. Sinclair, Tommy?” he asked mildly.
“I ain’t afraid of anybody, Mr. Blake,” Hammerhead said, his face flushing a deep, brick red. “But I know Sinclair; he’s up to something.”
“Up to something?” Blake turned back to Chant. “Are you ‘up to something,’ Mr. Sinclair?”
“If I’m up to something besides what I just proposed, it had better be damn good, considering all the firepower you’ve got trained on me. I’ve just told you what I’m up to. If Wing kills me—then you’ve saved yourself a round of ammunition, and you’ll be satisfied that Wing is still the matchless gutter fighter you think he is. At the least, I think I’ll give him a good tussle, and you a good show. Tommy bites, you know. If I win, I reimburse you the two million dollars I stole from you, and you call off your dogs You also send out word to the Americans, the British, the Mafia, Interpol, and anyone else interested in capturing or killing me that I’m no longer fair game You will notify them that I’m going into permanent retirement, will no longer disturb anyone, and do not wish to be disturbed. You—and only you—can make them swallow that.”
“You should pay me at least ten million dollars, Sinclair. Even that wouldn’t begin to cover what you’ve cost me.”
“Do I take it that we’re negotiating? I’ll go ten million—but you have to agree to call all the hunters off if I win, and make it stick.”
“You really think I have the power to do that, Sinclair?”
“I know you do. Everybody’s worried that one day you’ll start leaking secrets from those extensive computer files you keep.”
“My, my. You seem remarkably well informed.”
“I try to keep up to date on current events. What about it, Blake? Feel like seeing a good fight?”
“What’s to stop me from killing you, even if you do manage to kill Tommy?”
“Nothing—except for the fact that you wouldn’t get your ten million. I mean, you may have billions, but ten million is still ten million, isn’t it?”
Blake shrugged his frail shoulders. “That would be a consideration Ten million dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to.”
“Also, if you killed me after I’d won, you wouldn’t have the pleasure of exercising your ego by doing for me what I’ve asked. Somehow, I think you’d get a big kick out of it. In any case, I really had nothing to lose by coming here to make my proposition; you’re the only chance I have to see what old age is like. Right now, there are a lot of men on their way to Switzerland. I suspect the airports have already been sealed off.”
“Ah, you know that, too?” Blake paused, seemed deep in thought. “When do you propose that this duel take place?”
“Whenever you’d like. If you feel up to a little excitement and bloodletting, now seems as good a time as any.”
Blake turned toward Hammerhead. “Tommy, do you feel up to a little afternoon exercise?”
Hammerhead’s lids were half-closed, and he was rocking back and forth, his long arms swinging like pendulums at his sides. “I’ll kill him for you right now, right here, Mr Blake Just give me the word.”
“Oh, I don’t think we want to hurry things First, we must discuss choice of weapons.”
“Tommy keeps his weapons in his head,” Chant said.
“And what about you, Mr Sinclair? What would you like to fight with?”
“What would you like to see me fight with?”
“I think it would amuse me to have you look over my modest collection of weapons Then you may choose.”
“You haven’t said we have a deal, Blake.”
“No, I haven’t, have I?” R Edgar Blake replied mildly “Perhaps I’ll make a final decision after I see you fight. As you mentioned, you don’t seem to have much to lose—and you have no choice.”
Chant shrugged “I guess you’ve got me.”
Blake, his eyes gleaming, turned to his left and crooked a finger toward a wooden, iron-banded door next to one of the fireplaces. “I’ve already had lunch, and I believe I’ll skip my nap for today. Let’s go down to the armory.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chant, with the muzzle of an Uzi pressed to the base of his skull, was ushered down a series of circular stone staircases into the depths of the castle. He carried the images of the aerial photographs in his mind, and he knew what part of the castle he wanted to get to, but he had no control of the situation. He had no choice but to go where Blake wanted him to go and hope that in his eventual duel with Hammerhead he would be afforded the opportunity he needed.
; Finally they left the staircase, and Chant was led down one particularly long corridor; if his orientation had not left him, Chant was certain that they were heading toward the rear of the castle, beyond which lay the vast, ancient labyrinth.
That was where he wanted to go.
The corridor ended in a huge, circular room where the only modern feature was recessed fluorescent lighting, which filled the chamber with an eerie glow, like early-morning fog. The walls of the ancient armory were festooned with medieval weapons of various sorts, which hung from stone pegs—maces, axes, spiked clubs, swords, shields. Directly across the room from the entrance was a set of heavy wooden double doors secured in their center by a single connecting bolt.
Chant was led to the middle of the room, and then the guards—their weapons still pointed at Chant—fanned out around the walls Hammerhead stood a few paces to Chant’s left.
“Gentlemen,” Blake said in his high, nasal voice, “I offer you your choice of weapons Take your time, choose wisely, for your lives may depend on your choice. When each of you has chosen a weapon, we will repair to more suitable and spacious fighting grounds Mr Sinclair, I caution you not to touch any of the weapons—merely indicate what it is you want, and we will bring that weapon to the fighting ground for you.”
Chant clasped his hands behind his back and took a few steps toward a wall where a mace and three broadswords were suspended.
“Stop right there, Sinclair!” von Deck barked.
“I won’t touch anything,” Chant said easily. “I just want to take a closer look. After all, I wouldn’t want to choose something that would break over Tommy’s hard head, would I?”
“That’s close enough.”
Chant stopped, turned his back on Hammerhead, and pretended to be studying the weapons on the walls. He had no idea where Blake intended to stage the fight, but he knew where he wanted to go—on the opposite side of the bolted doors To get there, he needed Hammerhead’s cooperation—and he was gratified when suddenly he felt Tommy Wing’s long arms wrap themselves around his chest, trapping his arms; he felt Wing’s hot breath as the buck teeth descended toward the back of his neck and his spinal cord, heard the man’s guttural grunt of triumph.
Chant brought his head back sharply into Tommy Wing’s face Wing cried out, but his arms did not loosen their iron grip. Chant brought his heel down precisely on Hammerhead’s instep with all the force of his kai, felt the arched bone crumple like a mound of paper Again he brought his head back into Hammerhead’s face, then slipped out of the man’s loosened grip, stepped away, and turned around.
Tommy Wing, his right foot held slightly off the ground and one hand to the bleeding, pulpy mound that was his nose, was staring at Chant, disbelief in his eyes—and a flicker of fear.
“Tsk, tsk,” Chant said, shaking his head “Tommy, I think the good life has spoiled you I remember the time when virtually no man could have gotten away from you once you’d wrapped those gorilla arms around him. I did, but it cost me a couple of cracked ribs and a big chunk of flesh out of my shoulder But that was almost twenty years ago. Damned if I don’t think you’re out of practice.”
“Damn you, Sinclair,” Wing murmured as he tried to put weight on his right foot and winced. “Damn you.”
“Come on, Tommy,” Chant said casually. “I have a few other new moves to show you.”
“My, my, Tommy,” R. Edgar Blake said mildly. “This comes as quite a shock to me; Mr. Sinclair makes defeating you seem quite easy.”
Hammerhead looked at Blake, whose eyes were fixed on Chant Beads of perspiration had formed high on the old man’s forehead. Hammerhead limped back a few steps, reached up on the wall, and took down a spiked mace and chain. Swinging the weapon in a figure-eight pattern in front of his body, he advanced on Chant.
“Sinclair,” Blake said, “you have my permission to remove a weapon with which to defend yourself.”
But Chant remained motionless as Hammerhead, wincing each time he stepped on his broken foot, shuffled toward him. Suddenly Wing shouted and, extending his simian arms to full length, swung the mace and leaped forward. Moving with a speed that made it virtually impossible for the others in the room to follow him, Chant spun around and stepped inside the arc of the swinging arms The spiked iron ball crashed into the stone wall behind Chant, and by the time Hammerhead realized his mistake he was already being lifted into the air like a child, spun around, hurled through the air. His body struck the double doors, the bolt snapped, and the doors burst open.
Beyond the doors, as he had hoped, Chant could see an arched stone bridge leading to another section of the sprawling castle; below the bridge was the beginning of one of the tangled, green arms of the ancient labyrinth.
Incredibly, Tommy Wing struggled first to his knees, then to his feet, where he swayed. Blood streamed from a gash on his forehead, ran down both cheeks, joining the stream from his broken nose to drip in crimson globs off his chin. Moving very deliberately, using his peripheral vision to keep track of the men with their guns trained on him, Chant picked up the mace, walked slowly through the doors and out onto the bridge. He was not ordered to stop, and he kept walking until he was only a few paces away from the other man. The crippled Hammerhead glared at Chant, hatred blending with the pain in his eyes. Slowly, like a robot programmed to continue until self-destruction, he extended his arms, bared his teeth, and came at Chant.
“Here, Tommy,” Chant said easily as he casually tossed the mace onto the stone in front of Wing “You dropped this.”
Wing, surprise on his face, snatched up the mace Then, swinging the weapon, he began hobbling forward once again Chant slowly backed away, angling across the width of the bridge as the spiked ball whistled through the air just inches from his face. Another two or three steps, Chant thought, and he would be up against the stone balustrade …
Swing, step. Swing, step. Swing …
“That’s far enough, Sinclair!” Uwe von Deck shouted “Stop right there!”
But Chant had already spun around, and he vaulted easily over the balustrade to drop out of sight as bullets sang in the air above his head. He landed lightly on his feet in the center of the path between two thick, tangled walls of shrubbery He somersaulted forward to break his fall, came up on his feet, and darted to his left through a narrow break in the green wall. Keeping low, he ran down the narrow corridor until he came to another break on his left, darted through that. There he paused, parted the shrubs a crack, and looked through, back toward the castle.
Blake and von Deck, flanked by the rest of the guards, were standing at the stone railing, leaning over and looking down at the spot thirty yards away where he had initially landed. A few moments later Hammerhead’s bleeding head and torso appeared as he lurched forward, slumped on the balustrade. Blake’s face was bone white, as was Hammerhead’s.
“Over here!” Chant called, stepping out into the center of the path.
The submachine guns came up, swung in unison in Chant’s direction.
“What’s the problem, Blake?” Chant said with a shrug. “You know I’m not going anywhere, and it was your man who came at my back before you had a chance to say where you wanted us to fight. This seems as good a place as any. Send Tommy down.”
“No,” Blake replied tightly. “You come back up here. I can’t see you fight down there, and I wouldn’t want to miss any of this.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Kill him!”
All of the Uzis opened fire simultaneously, but Chant was no longer where he had been when R. Edgar Blake had begun to issue his order. Chant had dived back through the break in the shrub wall as bullets raked through the brush around him. Almost instantly he was on his feet, crouched down and running deeper into the dark, twisted heart of the labyrinth.
When he had run fifty yards, Chant paused, still in a crouching position, and waited until the firing stopped. Then he peered through a crack, watched the assemblage behind him spread out over the span of the bridg
e as they scanned the maze for some sign of him. There appeared to be some heated conversation among the guards, which Chant assumed was an argument over whether or not he had been killed. Then, at a signal from Blake, everyone fell silent.
Chant watched as the old man turned to Hammerhead, who had not moved from his original position, and was still leaning on the balustrade. Blake said something, and suddenly the guns of the guards were pointed at Hammerhead. Uwe von Deck snapped a fresh clip of ammunition into his Uzi, then handed the weapon to Tommy Wing, who slowly and painfully hobbled down off one end of the bridge, slid down an embankment into the labyrinth.
R Edgar Blake cupped his hands to his mouth, shouted, “Sinclair?!”
Chant remained silent.
“Sinclair!” Blake shouted again “If you’re still alive and can hear me, I want you to know that you have no chance to escape and come for me! Go too far into the maze, and you will blow yourself up on a land mine! This is the only way out, and if I wanted to I could simply post my men around this end of the labyrinth and wait until thirst drove you out! But I’m not going to do that! I’m sending what’s left of your opponent down to you! If you are the one to finally come out of there, so be it! The bargain you proposed is struck! Kill Tommy, and you’ll be free to leave this castle and begin your retirement!”
Once he had made it into the labyrinth, Chant had been indifferent as to whether Blake sent men for him or tried to wait him out. However, he was especially pleased that Tommy Wing had been sent, either to retrieve his body, or to find and kill him. Now Chant moved off to his right, keeping low, always mindful of the watchful men on the bridge. Backtracking, using a mental image of the labyrinth gleaned from the aerial photographs as a map, he circled around to the east. He was certain the injured Hammerhead would take paths of least resistance, the widest and clearest, as he wandered into the maze; this being the case, Chant had a fairly good idea of where Hammerhead was at the moment—and where he would be shortly. At a juncture of corridors, Chant crouched down behind one shrub wall and waited, half closing his eyes and letting his vision go slightly out of focus as he probed the depths of the maze with his hearing.
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