by Jay Brandon
The sky broke open. Rain fell in a solid wave. Daniel’s hair was immediately plastered to his forehead, falling into his eyes. The ground turned to mud and slick eels of grass.
Daniel spun onto his stomach, trying both to rise and to see the dog coming back at him through the rain. His hand slid along the side of his jacket but for a moment he couldn’t find the pocket.
The second dog landed on him with the full force of its eighty pounds, all muscle and claws. It felt like a sack of hardware had been dropped on Daniel’s back. His face was pushed back down into the ground. This dog wasn’t off balance, and Daniel had no leverage to throw it off. The second dog’s job was to sink its teeth into flesh. It did. Its jaws clamped down on the back of his exposed neck. Daniel tried to scream and got a mouthful of mud.
Blood squirted into the dog’s mouth, driving it crazy. It widened its jaws for a better grip.
Daniel rolled over, smashing his elbow against the side of the dog’s head. Daniel was crazed too. He had forgotten about the gun in his pocket. He kicked at the dog, driving it back. But it was quivering, waiting for an opening. Daniel was still on his back. He couldn’t rise without the dog getting him again.
And behind him he heard the growl again. The first dog coming back.
Daniel suddenly stiffened his body and rolled again, spinning over and over along the slick ground. The second dog kept up with him easily, but couldn’t find an opening to attack. The first dog, coming back on the fly, missed him completely and went skidding in the mud.
Daniel curled up tighter, rolling like a ball. The second dog kept lunging at him, biting and clawing but not finding another good hold with its teeth. It was patiently harrying him, waiting for the ball to come to a stop.
But Daniel was groping for something as well. He came out of the spin on his knees, facing the dog, on its own level. The Doberman lunged joyfully for his throat, thin and exposed and already wet with blood.
But now Daniel had the gun in his hand. His hand was flung out to the side. There was no room to aim. Instead Daniel swung it like a racquet, into the dog’s head as it charged. He felt its teeth on his fingers as he slammed the heavy pistol against its muzzle.
The dog fell aside, stunned and maddened. It shook its head and lunged again.
But the moment had given Daniel the time he needed to aim. He fired straight down the dog’s throat.
The dog yelped as its head was flung back. It didn’t even realize it was hurt. It gathered its legs for another leap and Daniel fired again. The dog was knocked off its feet onto its side. Daniel advanced on it.
And remembered the first Doberman. Where was it? The rain was still falling in sheets. It had drenched Daniel already. It covered noise as well. He never heard the other dog coming. As he turned lightning flared. Coming out of the light was the black Doberman, already in the air, eyes red. Daniel threw up his hands in front of his face. When the dog hit him the pistol went flying.
What Daniel did was purely instinctive. He would never have done it intentionally. Those teeth were the most horrifying sight he’d ever seen. They were only inches from his face. Instinct made him save his throat. He did it by sacrificing his arm.
He jammed his left elbow down the dog’s throat, straight into those horrible teeth. They raked his arm, burning. Daniel screamed again, a sound lost in the wind.
He fell to the ground with the dog atop him. The dog’s teeth were grinding, ripping into the flesh of his arm. Daniel’s mind vanished. If he had been thinking he would have tried to pull his arm free, but instead he drove it deeper down the dog’s throat. Blood flowed on the already mud-slicked arm. The Doberman was growling again, furious, ripping at the meat.
The dog widened its jaws for more leverage and Daniel pushed his elbow deeper into that maw. The dog’s growling abruptly choked off. It tried to yelp and couldn’t. It had no air.
The dog tried to scramble back, to free itself from the blockage in its throat. Its paws couldn’t find a purchase on the mud or Daniel’s drenched body. Daniel rose with it, keeping the pressure on its windpipe. The dog’s sides heaved.
After a long moment they broke apart. The dog jerked its head back and its teeth gouged deeper cuts as Daniel’s arm pulled free. The pain was blinding.
For a moment the dog just stood there, grateful to breathe again. It planted its legs wide and gasped in air.
Daniel had regained his feet. He stepped forward and kicked as hard as he had ever kicked in his life. His foot went between the dog’s front legs and hammered into its chest. There was hatred and terror in the kick. Daniel felt bones break in the dog’s rib cage.
The dog fell onto its side. Daniel kicked it again. He was insane. There was no relation between this creature and his own lovable Doberman at home. This one was a monster that had tried to kill him. Daniel tried to kick again, lost his footing, and fell. Being on the ground horrified him. He felt both dogs atop him again. He rolled over and covered his face. As his rage subsided, the pain in his arm rose to the forefront of his mind again. He pushed the elbow down into the mud as if it were a poultice. Rain fell steadily. Mud rose up to bury him alive.
Carol watched the storm grow to a tidal wave in the sky then begin to slacken. She was thinking about John, the man who brought her food. The first time she’d seen him without the mask it had scared her to death. She thought it meant he, like the first two who’d kidnapped her, was no longer concerned that she’d ever have the chance to identify him. But he’d made no threatening moves. He had talked softly to her. He told her his name. And now, two days later, life went on as before. He was the only person she ever saw face to face. He looked more and more unwilling. Her hope that he would help her had turned to expectation. Sometimes when he entered her room he looked furtive, like a secret lover at a rendezvous. She thought he’d been searching the house, checking the guards, looking for a way out for both of them. Carol was certain that someday soon he would enter her room and tell her he’d found a way out. When he did, she would go with him.
She leaned against the window, trying to see the ground. Tonight might have been a good time to try to escape, while the storm masked sounds and kept everyone inside. But the chance was probably gone already. The storm had tapered off to a light rain. She looked down to see if any guards had emerged from the house. Carol started. Her mind played tricks on her after her days in captivity. There were two men on the grounds below. They were two stories down in dim light but her imagination made her think she recognized one of them.
As she tried to peer down, the clouds parted briefly and moonlight illuminated the grounds.
She did recognize them. She filled her lungs. There was joy and terror in her voice as she screamed her husband’s name.
Behind her, the door opened. She looked back and saw John Loftus in the doorway. He was wearing the mask again.
The hour felt very late but the storm was remote as Khai sat alone in his study. It moved on the fringes of his mind, a herd of dream-cattle over the horizon. Khai was listening for the phone. Within the sphere of his house impatience made his senses acute. He thought he could hear the lines humming.
Footsteps pattered up to his door and there was the usual pause before the knock came timidly. Khai spoke a syllable and the man poked his head in.
“Chui sent two others to check on the men who went to the pawnshop,” he said before Khai could ask. “He expects to hear from them any minute. If they—”
“I will take the call,” Khai said. “Any call.”
The man choked back the rest of his explanation and bobbed his head. He looked disconcerted, no doubt thinking how startled the men would be when they called in and were answered by Khai himself.
“Give instructions.”
The messenger didn’t pause for interpretation. “Oh yes,” he said. “Quickly at once.” He almost closed the door on his nose in his haste to depart.
Khai’s senses dulled down to placid normal. He didn’t hear the man’s depar
ting footsteps. He thought he heard something else, as if the messenger had stumbled and fallen, but the slight attention he paid only brought back his smile. Fear was homage. Khai sat waiting, engulfed in good feeling. Now when he heard from his men in the field joy would be complete.
His study door opened again, with no bidding from Khai. A most surprising event. No one but his father would do such a thing, and he expected no visit from his father. Perhaps the fool messenger hadn’t shut it all the way and the wind seeping through the house had opened the door.
The apparition stepped through the open door. It was as if it brought the storm inside the room. Khai felt the cold wind in his blood.
It was a man, but so covered with mud he might have risen from a grave. There was blood on the man’s face and clothes as well, adding to the appearance of living death. But ghosts don’t carry guns, and this one did. The .45 automatic was the cleanest-looking thing about the man.
“Tranh Van Khai,” said the apparition.
Daniel was no longer afraid. The dogs seemed to have torn that out of him. Even the storm had calmed after the dogs were dead. The rain wasn’t heavy enough to wash the mud off him as he made his way to the house. He encountered no more opposition, which surprised him. It wasn’t that they were all sleeping. The house blazed with light. Daniel made little attempt at furtiveness. He marched up to the front door of the mansion and after only a moment’s cautious pause opened it. Still he saw no one.
As he walked slowly up the hallway he saw a young Vietnamese man hurry across the room ahead of him, going so fast and purposefully he didn’t even glance in Daniel’s direction. Daniel followed and saw the room the man entered. From his manner it was clear the man was going to report to his leader. Daniel waited and struck the man down almost casually after he emerged again. Then he opened the door and had found the man he was looking for. It was so easy now.
“I’ve come for her,” he said.
Khai just sat there like a statue. He obviously had no clue to his response. Daniel moved toward him, raising the gun slightly. He wasn’t going to say it again without striking first.
Light dawned on Khai’s features. “Daniel Greer,” he said wonderingly. For a moment he had thought it was John Loftus. He couldn’t think what other American would be there in his sanctuary.
There was some admiration in his voice. “I sent men—” he began.
“Yes,” Daniel said shortly.
He had stopped advancing. The men regarded each other appraisingly. They had been so much in each other’s thoughts the last days that it seemed they had met more than once, but that wasn’t so. Each hardly remembered what the other looked like. They had become figures in their mutual imagination. It took a long moment for reality to assert itself in that narrow room.
Daniel was the first to speak again. He sounded tired but not impatient. “Just tell someone to bring her to me. Outside the house.”
Khai didn’t respond until Daniel stepped forward again, and then the Vietnamese only shrugged and stood. “I can’t do that,” he said thoughtfully. His mind was obviously racing. His fingers fidgeted on the desk.
“You will,” Daniel said.
Khai shook his head. “And then what? Police here in this house?” The idea was obviously unthinkable to him.
Daniel hadn’t even thought that far ahead. “Just bring her to me,” he repeated.
Khai was beginning to shake his head again when Daniel stepped forward and slapped him, left-handed. It was as if he faced the Saigon cowboys in his garage again, but this time he had no qualms, no hesitation. The slap was hard enough to rock Khai aside. He staggered and regained his balance.
“You don’t understand,” Daniel said, his voice steady. “It’s not your choice any more. I’ll kill you and everyone else in this house to get her. I don’t care about police. Just bring me my wife.”
Khai’s eyes were bright with more than pain. “We’ll see what we can do,” he said softly.
Daniel grabbed his arm and steered him out of the study. The fallen messenger was just rising to his feet with a groan. Khai looked at him thoughtfully, marking the man’s identity for later.
Daniel prodded the messenger with his foot and the man looked up with sudden fright.
“Send him,” Daniel said.
Khai nodded acquiescence and spoke to the man in Vietnamese.
“English,” Daniel said sharply.
“He doesn’t understand English.” Khai finished speaking and the messenger, eyes still alive with panic, nodded and hurried away.
“Tell him to bring her outside,” Daniel said, and Khai shouted after the man.
They were alone again, but Daniel could feel the house vibrating with Khai’s men. He waved the gun toward the front door and Khai obediently preceded him. They went out onto the front porch. There was no outside light on, which suited Daniel’s purposes. He didn’t want to be a target. He took Khai down into the yard below the porch and several feet out into the darkness, then turned so that they faced the house. Daniel stood close behind Khai. Light rain caressed them, beginning to soften the mud on Daniel’s face.
“When they bring her, what?” Khai asked.
“We go away. That simple. We take you a little way just to be sure we’re safe.”
“ ‘A little way,’ ” Khai began with amusement. “Just as far as—”
"Daniel!"
He jerked as if he’d been shot. Looking up, following the scream, he saw Carol spotlighted in a window high above.
“Carol,” he said softly, stepping away from Khai, forgetting him. Then he shouted her name and waved. He forgot everything else. She was alive.
Carol waved joyously, forgetting about the man behind her. When she first looked down into the rain-streaked grounds of the estate she had been sure her imagination was coddling her. But Daniel was real, she was certain of it. Her heart swelled. For a moment everything seemed safe and normal again. She could take one giant step and be with him, home. Then fear returned more strongly than ever. Daniel looked so small from this height, and he was alone. The other man on the lawn was the sharp-featured Vietnamese. There were no police. And the house was full of men. She shouted Daniel’s name again, this time a cry of warning.
Daniel stood transfixed. It was cruel to let him see her. It made him realize how far away she still was. The plan no longer seemed simple. On the same floor as Carol he saw a man hurry by a window, then return to it and stare out toward him. The man went running away. Daniel turned to stand closer to Khai, suddenly realizing that the Vietnamese leader was no longer in front of him. He whirled and saw Khai six feet away, casually straightening up.
“Drop it,” Daniel said, leveling the gun at him.
Khai looked politely puzzled, then shrugged and opened his hand, dropping the fist-sized rock. Daniel stepped close and slapped him again, backhanded. Khai’s eyes were suddenly bright but he didn’t forget the gun.
“I’ll kill you,” Daniel said. His rage was almost overpowering now that he had seen Carol. He longed to run through the house shooting and smashing until he reached her.
Behind him he heard the front door of the house open. Hastily he jerked Khai around in front of him and held the gun to Khai’s temple. A young Vietnamese had appeared on the porch—whether the messenger or another Daniel couldn’t tell. They all looked like soldiers in their khaki uniforms. This one carried a rifle and was running. “Stop him,” Daniel said softly. Khai barked out an order and the man skidded to a stop.
“Tell him to put down the rifle.”
Khai called to his man and the soldier turned and ran back into the house. The door stayed open and Daniel had the impression the man hadn’t gone far.
He stood close behind Khai with his left forearm around Khai’s throat. That was the arm the dog had torn up. It was throbbing and he felt a fresh flow of blood trickling. He kept the gun in his right hand pressed against Khai’s temple. “Tell him to come back. Tell him to bring her down here.”
Khai called something in Vietnamese but there was no response. Somewhere along that darkened front porch Daniel heard a window being raised. He turned Khai in that direction. His eyes raked the front of the house. More Vietnamese were standing at the windows on the floors above. In Carol’s window a man had appeared beside her. The man had a hideous face Daniel didn’t recognize as a mask. The man grabbed Carol’s arm and bent to raise the window. They swayed in the opening.
"No!” Daniel screamed. He pulled Khai toward the house. “Tell him to bring her to us.”
Khai’s voice was utterly serene. “He will not,” he said.
While Daniel had looked upward to Carol, Khai’s eyes had found another window, and Daniel had had the worst piece of luck he could have had, without even knowing it. Khai saw his father standing calmly at his bedroom window, looking down at his hostage son.
The sight drained all indecision from Khai. He was no longer afraid because he no longer had any choice. He would literally rather die than have his father see him back down.
Daniel had no idea what accounted for Khai’s sudden serenity, but he sensed the change. He turned Khai to face him, their faces inches apart. “Are you insane? I will kill you.”
“I know,” Khai said. “And then my men will kill you. And her.”
“But all you have to do is let us go.”
Khai appeared to consider that. Daniel’s puzzlement ebbed slightly as the man raised his face toward the upper window.
But what he shouted at the top of his voice was “Throw her down!”
"No!” Daniel screamed again. He stepped away from Khai, toward the window, and a shot rang out. Daniel fell to the ground, dragging Khai down with him. In the mud they struggled briefly until Daniel jerked the gun upward, striking Khai’s chin. Khai fell back but Daniel hugged him close. There were no more shots.
“They won’t risk you getting killed,” Daniel whispered fiercely.
Khai shook his head. He was groggy but still calm. “But neither will they obey my orders if the orders are foolish,” he said.