by Paul Bishop
HOME-1 VISITORS-0
The score was spelled out in lights on all four sides of the cube, surrounded by advertisements, period indicators, foul statistics, and timers. I looked back down at the crowd as they watched the awards ceremony, waiting patiently for the third period to start. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Wag-staff approaching with a ball under one arm and a water squeeze-bottle in the other. He stopped in front of me and extended the squeeze-bottle. "Anything?" he asked.
"Not yet," I said, and took the bottle from him. I took a long draw from the straw.
Wagstaff looked out into the arena. "What's with him?" he asked.
"Who?"
"The detective. Kelso."
I looked back at Ethan. He was still staring at the score cube.
I looked back up at the cube. The score hadn't changed. I looked above the cube to the long telescoping pole that supported it. About halfway between the pole and the ceiling there was a bulge in the pole that I did not remember seeing before. Trying to piece the gloom above the lights, I noticed for the first time that each of the ceiling doors, which slid back to accept the score cube when it was pulled up for servicing, had a small inset window.
I looked down at Ethan. He was looking at Sir Adam, who was making his way to the awards platform after being introduced over the PA system. As co-owner, he was due to say a few words on behalf of the Ravens in place of Nina Brisbane. Terranee Brisbane would be introduced next. As owner of the Acropolis and a founder of the league, he was scheduled to present the Most Valuable Player of the Year award to Pat Devlin.
Pat Devlin. The man whose father rotted in a jail in Ireland beyond Nina Brisbane's reach. The son. The only way for Nina to strike at the father.
In a few seconds all of Nina's possible targets would be in the same place at the same time on the awards platform. Except for me. And with Bekka in the hands of her hired gun, Nina was already seeing her revenge toward me coming full circle.
I look again from the huge electronic score cube to the awards platform beneath it. Aside from intimidation and sadistic torture, explosives had been Liam Donovan's specialty in the IRA. I saw Ethan begin to move and I immediately knew what he was thinking and where he was headed.
"Come on!" I shouted at Wagstaff, pushing him back down the tunnel. I slid past him and started to run.
Chapter 26
He steps up to the Acropolis's second level seemed endless. The stairway we were in ended at that level, and we burst through the unlocked access door. Wagstaff still had the soccer ball with him, carrying it in the crook of his left arm.
The offices along the corridor were deserted and all the lights were off. I fumbled in the dark for a bank of switches on the wall but couldn't locate one. The only light came from the stairwell through the access door Wagstaff was holding open. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and Ethan was suddenly with us.
"This way," he said, seeing we were confused as to which way to turn. "There is a maintenance stairway off this corridor that leads up to the next level and the roof." He pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. I wondered how many other little gadgets he had tucked away and if he always carried them with him.
Wagstaff had not bothered to ask any questions when I'd started running. He apparently trusted me enough to catch up with what was happening as we went along. Now, though, he threw out a question as we quickly followed the pinpoint of Ethan's torch along the corridor.
"Where are we going?" he asked. I was huffing and puffing, but from his voice, Wagstaff didn't appear out of breath at all.
"Center room over the ceiling of the arena. It's where they pull the score cube up for maintenance."
"What do you expect to find there?"
"Salvation, perhaps," Ethan answered cryptically. It was all the explanation we had time for as we had reached the entrance to the maintenance stairway. He brought out a ring of keys and inserted one into the door. "We searched the upper maintenance areas earlier today, but it was impossible to keep them all covered. Nina and Donovan could have slipped in behind us. Especially as Nina has access to all the keys. We didn't have time to change the locks."
"Come on," I said. "We don't have much time." I pushed past Ethan and ran up the stairs two at a time. At the top, however, I had to let Ethan through again, as I had no idea which way to go.
Moving quickly through the maze of service corridors, Ethan led us to a door with a faint light showing under it.
"Locked?" I whispered the question.
"Who knows?" Ethan said. I sensed him shrugging in the darkness. "And we don't have time to play this straight," he added. "Stand clear."
My eyes were adjusting to the deep gloom, and I saw Ethan pull a handgun out from a shoulder rig under his light jacket. It looked like a cannon. Ethan later told me it was a .45, which only his unit and the department's SWAT team were authorized to carry.
Flames blasted back the darkness and the sound of the gunshots in the confined space were both startling and deafening. Before Wagstaff or I had a chance to recover our wits, Ethan had shouldered his way through the door to the score cube maintenance room. The lock he had shot off had offered no resistance. He was frozen in the doorway with his gun extended.
"Damn!" he said.
The room was empty of human inhabitants.
We looked all around.
Nothing.
A big, square room with a telescoping pole running from a black gearbox mounted on the ceiling, down through a slot in the floor, to the score cube far below. Several metal lockers stood against the entry wall behind us, and a low counter ran the length of the opposite wall. The light we had seen coming from under the door had been filtered through the viewing windows from the arena below.
We looked through the viewing windows. They were set in the middle of each of the floor panels which slid back to accommodate the scoring cube. On the stage directly below, Sir Adam was handing the microphone over to Terranee Brisbane, whose short speech would lead to Pat Devlin's presence on the stage with them. The view of the stage was partially obscured by the score cube, and it was easy to imagine the damage and death that would occur if the huge electronic cube were dropped.
"Put the gun down, old cock," came a voice from the destroyed doorway.
The voice was familiar to me, because I was the only one to have heard it before, but I believed we all instantly knew to whom it belonged.
Donovan sensed something in Ethan's hesitation to release his gun and fire spat from the doorway. I yelled out as Ethan was thrown backwards by the impact of the bullet.
The gun from Ethan's hand sailed through the air and landed at my feet. I looked at it stupidly.
"Don't even think about it," Donovan said. "You can either die now or later, and I'm sure both of us would prefer it to be later."
I glanced over at Ethan's body. He hadn't moved. I wondered where the rest of Ethan's crew were. It was clear he'd come up the stairway alone, but I wondered if he'd taken the time to contact them via radio.
I wanted to say something to Wagstaff, but I suddenly realized I couldn't see him in the diffused light of the room. It was like he'd done a disappearing act. One moment he had been in the room with us, and the next it was like he'd never existed. The strange thing was that Donovan didn't appear to notice that Wagstaff was gone. Had he even seen him to begin with?
"Come on, let's go join the party," Donovan said to me. He gestured with the gun in his hand and I walked out through the doorway. Donovan shoved me with the barrel of the gun as I moved past him, and then followed after me. Wherever Wagstaff was, Donovan obviously was unaware of his presence.
As Donovan followed me down the corridor, my brain was racing. I knew Donovan had only fired once, dropping Ethan, but was my mind playing tricks on me? Had he fired twice, the shots so close together they sounded like one? Was Wagstaff also lying on the floor of the cube maintenance room, somewhere in the shadows where I didn't see him due to the night blindness
caused by the muzzle flash?
I must have slowed my walking pace while I was thinking because Donovan gave me another shove. "You've put explosives on the score cube support, haven't you?" I said, half asking, half accusing. "What detonates it? A radio beam signal?" It would have to be. There were too many variables to set a timer accurately.
"You get full marks for your deductions, Sherlock." The satisfaction in Donovan's voice was evident. "But what gave you the idiotic idea we'd be sitting in the room right above the explosion? The damn floor in that place could disintegrate from the shock waves traveling up the support pole."
It hadn't seemed idiotic in the desperation at the time, only in retrospect. "We'll be close, and I'll be watching," Donovan had said over the phone. The cube maintenance room had appeared to be the perfect spot.
Donovan stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, and then pushed me against a corridor wall as he unlocked the door to another room. Inside, it was dark except for the glow of the television screens picking up the broadcasts from the Acropolis's in-house security cameras. The man Ethan had left there to scan the crowd was a lump in one corner of the room. Another lump was made by the security guard who usually monitored the screens. Donovan had been busy plying his violent trade. He pushed me in, following closely on my heels and leaving the door open behind us.
In the flicker of the bank of security screens, I saw Bekka. She was strapped to the arms of a swivel chair and the panty portion of a pair of her pantyhose had been stuffed in her mouth. The legs of the pantyhose were tied tightly behind her neck, but she was alive. Her eyes looked intently at me and then twitched away to where Nina Brisbane was standing.
The first thing I noticed about Nina was she didn't have her veil covering her face. Her grotesquely twisted features looked even more hideous in the flickering lights of security screens.
She cackled when she saw me. A witch sound. Not human any longer. She extended her hand toward me. In it was a small metal box with a red button on top. The detonator.
"Hello, Ian." Her smoky voice was pitched a full octave above what I remembered as normal. "I told you I would have my revenge, but you didn't believe me. Too bad," she said. Her eyes turned back to the security screens. I looked too. Pat Devlin had just been introduced and was making his way up onto the stage. The crowd was applauding enthusiastically, the sound tinny as it came through security screen speakers. "Soon," Nina said quietly, more to herself than to anyone else.
I moved to Bekka's side, ignoring the threat of Donovan's gun behind me. He wouldn't kill me yet. "Are you all right?" I asked her, putting my hand on one of her arms. She gave an affirmative nod of her head, but her eyes pleaded with me to do something. What the hell could I do? There was no time.
"You played well during the first half," Donovan said mockingly. "I was disappointed. I didn't get a chance to use my knife." He tapped the wicked looking blade strapped to his waist. "She still has all her fingers. At least for a while."
On the main security screen, Pat Devlin was holding the silver plate he'd received as the league's most valuable player high over his head. On one side of him, Terranee Brisbane stood with a false smile and a very pale face. On the other side, Sir Adam grinned hugely and genuinely. Nina had brought the telephoto capabilities of the security camera down as far as it would go, holding the three faces in close-up.
"Why, Nina?" I asked loudly. I knew it was a stupid question, but I didn't know what else to say. "You've beaten your sister. The Ravens are in the final. Your father will see you're the better candidate to take over his empire. This isn't going to solve anything."
She turned on me savagely. "Look at me! My father hates me. He'll never let me run the business. Everything will go to Caitlin and he'll continue to support the monsters who did this to my face!"
"Okay, I understand about your father, but Pat Devlin had nothing to do with your injuries."
"The sins of the father are carried on to the next generation," she said. "I can't get to Duncan Finlas, but I can get to his illegitimate bastard son. The son will pay his father's debt, and Finlas can feel the pain of the loss."
"This won't fix your face," I said desperately.
Nina's eyes were back on the security screen, her arm extended, the detonator aimed at the screen's images. "No, but it will make it a lot easier to live in."
There was no way to jump at her. She was out of my reach and there was a bank of screens protecting her. Only her head and neck showed above the screens, like a floating gargoyle head. Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw a movement in the open doorway. Wagstaff.
There was a sudden thump and a split second later, Nina's head snapped backwards, and she collapsed to the floor. The soccer ball that had hit her rebounded across the room like a ricocheting bullet.
Donovan whirled round to fire at the open door, but Wagstaff had already jumped to one side. I hit Donovan with a rugby tackle which drove him to the ground and bounced the gun out of his hand. He twisted in my grip like an angry eel and sank his teeth into my left shoulder. I howled in pain and pushed him away from me. He hit me two sharp blows to the head, and I fell back stunned.
Donovan rolled to his knees, then his feet. His gun had disappeared into the dark shadows on the floor. He went for the knife at his waist, but his instinct for survival took over and he bolted for the doorway. Wagstaff tried to grab at Donovan's flying form, but he might as well have been trying to grab smoke.
I was having trouble getting my feet under me. "Let him go," I yelled. "Get the detonator from Nina."
"The what?" Wagstaff came into the room.
"Small black box with a red button on the top. Whatever you do, don't push it."
Wagstaff moved over behind the bank of security screens and bent down. "This thing?" he asked holding up the box.
I staggered over and looked down at Nina. She was out cold. Wagstaff's shot had taken her square in the face. Her nose was bleeding, spreading gore over her features. On the main security screen, everyone on the stage was smiles and handshakes, totally oblivious of the drama taking place above them. The second half would be starting soon.
"Where did you disappear to in the other room?" I asked.
"When I heard the voice at the doorway, I knew I was out of the speaker's line of sight. I just stepped further back between two of the lockers against the wall. I stayed there until he took you away."
Bekka was making muffled noises behind us. I turned to her and untied the gag.
She coughed, and when she spoke her voice was hoarse and scratchy. "Don't let that bastard get away," she said urgently. "He won't rest until he kills you. Stop him now!"
"The game..."I said, but Bekka cut me off.
"Screw the game. I'm not hurt. I'll go in goal. Just get after Donovan!"
I hesitated, unsure.
"Go! Go!" Bekka said loudly. Wagstaff was freeing her arms.
"If I didn't know better," I said half-jokingly, "I'd think you were trying to get rid of me so you could play in the final." I grinned at her, more relieved that she was okay than I could have believed possible.
"I'll bash you," Bekka retorted angrily to the mock charge, and began looking around her.
I figured she was looking for something to throw at me, so I got on my horse and ran from the room on unsteady legs.
"Be careful. I love you," I heard her call after me.
"And I love you," I called back, knowing I did.
Making my way down the dark corridor, I tripped and almost fell over a body near the door of the score cube maintenance room. The body grunted.
"Ethan?"
"God, my chest feels like it's been caved in." His voice sounded weak, but that it sounded at all was a miracle. "What kind of cannon was Donovan using?"
I dropped down on my knees next to him. "How can you be alive? I saw you go down."
"Bulletproof vest," Ethan said ruefully. "Always wear the damn thing, but I never thought I'd need it."
"Did Donovan pass by
you?"
"Seconds ago. I tried to stop him, but he went through me like I was a child. I was too weak to do more than slow him down a little."
"Wagstaff and Bekka will be along in a second. They'll get help for you. We stopped Nina."
"My radio was damaged when I got blasted." Ethan was struggling for breath. We were communicating, not conversing. The bulletproof vest had stopped the shot, but the trauma had probably broken a rib or two. "Couldn't call for the others to stop Donovan."
"I'm going after him," I said.
Ethan grabbed my arm as I started to move away. "Make it permanent," he said.
I didn't comment on the execution order, just gripped Ethan's hand reassuringly and then started after Donovan again.
I raced down the stairs and out into the Acropolis parking lot. It was raining again, another light misting that dampened the ground and made yellow halos around the street lamps. I couldn't believe this was the southern Californian land of endless sunshine I'd heard so much about.
To try and pick up Donovan's spore, I'd followed the line of least resistance through the Acropolis. He would want to get clear of the area as quickly as possible. I tried thinking like I would if I were in Donovan's position. Where would I run? How would I get clear?
My legs were feeling stronger underneath me, and my head was clearing from the blows Donovan had delivered. In the damp night air, I looked and listened for any clue. Then I heard the motorcycle.
Speeding down the main parking lot access road was a black motorcycle with a long-haired, helmetless rider. Donovan. Motorcycles appeared to be his transportation of choice. He had either traded in the bike he had originally been riding for the new black one, or some citizen was going to be very disturbed after the game to find his ride missing.
I vaulted over a low retaining wall and sprinted the short distance to where I'd parked the Laverda earlier in the evening. I was still in my uniform and the keys to the bike were in my locker, but that type of situation had stopped being a problem when I was around fourteen. Within seconds, I had the motor revving and was roaring after Donovan.