Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 6)

by John Bowers

  “Kevin?”

  She smiled.

  “Kevin Dougherty. I’m okay, Nick, don’t worry about me. I’ll be f—”

  Victoria screamed.

  “NICK!!”

  Nick spun around. Saracen was on his feet, the .32 in his hand. Nick was out of position, turned the wrong way. He swung his .44 to meet the threat but Saracen fired first, pumping four rounds into Nick’s chest. Nick fired once but, off balance, his shot missed Saracen by a foot. It didn’t miss the forty-foot window—the heavy glass shattered and cascaded inward like a waterfall, driven by wind and rain that exploded into the room.

  Nick was wearing an armored vest, but the four bullets all hit in about the same spot, paralyzing his lungs. He crashed into the desk and slammed the floor hard, gagging for air, his hands twitching in helpless agony. His Ru-hawk .44 slid across the carpet.

  Saracen wasted no time. Panting with fear and excitement, he wiped a hand across his brow and stepped forward to stand over his fallen adversary. His chest heaved as he stared down at him, then took careful aim with his .32 automatic.

  “You’ve been dreaming about killing me?” He laughed. “Motherfucker, I’ve been dreaming, too.”

  He pointed the pistol directly at Nick’s head.

  He started to squeeze the trigger…

  A sledgehammer hit him in the heel, kicking his right foot out from under him. Deafened by the blast of the .44 Magnum in Victoria’s hand, he catapulted into the desk and fell backward, landing on his back, screaming.

  Terrified and panicked, Saracen scrabbled to his hands and knees and looked around. Victoria’s head rested against the wall, her eyes narrow with pain and shock. Blood leaked from her shoulder wound. Recoil had driven the .44 back into her forehead, where the hammer opened up a gash that now spilled blood into her eyes. Dazed by the impact, she was barely conscious, but still gripped the .44 in her right hand.

  Saracen’s right heel was numb and bleeding; his shoe had been ripped nearly off and the very tip of his heel—the calcaneus—was missing. His rage overflowed. With a growl and a curse, he turned the .32 on Victoria and pulled the trigger. His hands were shaking, and at a distance of eight feet—he missed. The shot smacked the wall an inch from her head.

  “GODDAMMIT!!”

  Tears of rage blurred his vision. He took aim again, carefully this time, using both hands to steady the gun. He started to squeeze the trigger.

  Victoria’s eyes narrowed to slits as, through her shock and pain, she recognized what he was doing. Too weak to raise the .44 again, she wasn’t too weak to pull the trigger. The gun wasn’t even pointed at him, but the muzzle blast sounded like a grenade exploding inside the room. Saracen jumped, jerked the trigger, and missed again.

  Nick Walker moaned and rolled onto his side, coughing. Blood dribbled out of his mouth. He placed both hands on the carpet and tried to push himself up.

  Saracen’s nerve deserted him. He abandoned any thoughts of taking revenge and focused on a single objective—escape.

  He leaped toward his desk and reached under the center drawer. He found a small button inset into the wood, and pressed it. Directly behind him, a section of the wall whispered open, revealing an anti-grav lift built into the stone. It was barely wide enough for one man, and Saracen crawled into it; he pushed another button and the door closed as quietly as it had opened.

  Chapter 35

  Kenneth Saracen had lived most of his life in a fantasy world. Born to incredible wealth, with everything he ever wanted handed to him, he’d never faced or understood how the galaxy really works. His megalomania led him to believe that only the solutions he dreamed up would possibly solve society’s ills, and no one had the right to oppose him. His dream of being absolute ruler of his own planet seemed not only reasonable, but self-evident. Global rule was his destiny.

  Hand in hand with his dreams came a sense of adventure. As a kid he had played the latest vid games featuring everything from magic beans to interstellar conquest. He loved the Medieval period of Terran history, with its endless wars, knights in armor, hilltop castles, secret codes, and secret passages. He often said that, when he got his own planet, he would build himself a castle. To his astonishment, Tau Ceti 4 already had one, and the price was so cheap he practically stole it.

  The first thing he did was install secret escape lifts, six in all, not because he thought he might need them, but because it tickled his fancy. Now, incredibly, his foresight had saved his life.

  He rode the lift to the bottom, then locked it so it couldn’t be called back to his office. When the outer door opened, he crawled out into the rain and wind. The cold rain revived him a little, bringing his senses back online, and calmed his fear. He was out of there, and with the elevator locked, Walker couldn’t follow. Grabbing the uneven edges of the stone wall, he pulled himself to his feet and gingerly tested his right foot.

  It held.

  It still hurt like hell, but putting his weight on the ball of his foot, he was able to hop. Leaning against the castle wall, he made his painful way to the north end where his locomotive sat boiling and steaming on its rail spur.

  The rain was nearly horizontal now, and felt like tiny daggers slamming into his face. He shielded his eyes with one hand until he reached the lee of the passenger coach, where he momentarily stopped to catch his breath. He heaved for air, trying to think what to do next. He couldn’t believe that Walker had beaten him, that his threat against the Norgaard-Green girl had failed. That weakling Malcolm! If Saracen ever saw him again, he would cheerfully shoot him in the mouth.

  But he had a more immediate concern—Walker would be coming after him; he had to get away before Walker recovered from being shot. He briefly considered using the tunnel that ran from just inside the wall into the woods on the north, but his injury was too painful—once he reached the woods, he would have to escape on foot, and that just wasn’t going to work.

  He would take the train instead.

  He saw smoke from the boiler stack, smelled the oil and steam. The loco was ready to roll. He hoped Trevor was awake and alert. The kid was a wizard with the steam engine and worth every tau Saracen paid him. As a lark, he had even showed Saracen how to operate the damn thing. In spite of the ancient technology—or perhaps, because of it—it had been a hell of a lot of fun.

  Saracen hopped forward to the locomotive cab, pulled himself up onto the bottom rung, and stuck his head inside. He could see a glimmer of flame in the firebox, the twitching needles on the steam gauges, and felt the heat from the boiler, but Trevor was nowhere in sight.

  “Trevor! Goddammit, where are you?”

  He felt a sense of panic welling up. Where had the damn kid gone? It wasn’t even dark yet and he wasn’t supposed to leave his post until then.

  Maybe the kid was fiddling with the engine and couldn’t hear him calling. He clambered down and hopped along the loco toward the front, crossed the track, and hobbled back on the other side. No Trevor. Saracen cast an anxious glance toward the northwest corner of the castle, half expecting Walker to heave into sight with both .44s blazing.

  Not yet. He had a little time, but not more than a couple of minutes.

  Where the hell was Trevor?

  Maybe he’d gone to get something to eat.

  Or the bathroom.

  He could be anywhere. He certainly wasn’t in the passenger coach because Saracen had forbidden him to enter it. Panic boiled in his gut, threatening to overwhelm him. He was out of time. Fuck the kid, he couldn’t wait.

  He climbed into the locomotive cab, scanned the controls, and tried to remember the sequence of how things worked. The thing was primitive as hell, with lots of moving parts but not a single button to push. When this thing was designed, electricity had barely been discovered.

  He located the individual controls and began moving through the steps. He shoved the Johnson bar forward, twisted the steam valve clockwise to open the cylinder cocks, and released the brakes. Instantly he heard the hiss
of high-pressure steam surging through the lines, felt a tremble, and the drive wheels began to turn. The monster began to move, and he jerked the throttle toward him. Trevor had said he should do it slowly, to avoid building speed too quickly, but to hell with that—he needed speed, and he needed it now.

  Right away he detected a problem. The loco was moving, but it was shaking like a wet dog and not gaining much speed. He heard the screech of steel on steel and shoved his head out the cab window. Behind him, the passenger car wheels were locked, throwing sparks as the loco dragged the car behind it.

  The passenger coach’s brakes were set.

  FUCK!!!

  Saracen felt a wave of despair. Trevor had shown him how to move the engine forward and backward, start and stop it, feed oil into the firebox, and uncouple the coach, but little else. He had no idea how to unlock the brakes on the coach.

  But he did know how to uncouple it.

  He shoved the throttle into neutral and pulled on the brake handle. The loco stopped and he jumped down, crying out as he landed on his injured foot. He limped to the rear of the oil car and stared at the knuckle-coupler holding the coach in place; he hated to leave the coach behind, as it made for a luxurious ride, but this was an emergency. He pulled the lever that lifted the coupler pin and locked it in place. Heaving a sigh, he wiped rain off his face and hobbled back to the loco. A moment later, when he shoved the throttle forward, the loco began to move.

  The monster was rolling now, picking up speed. Nothing lay between him and freedom except enough time to get clear of the castle. He would have to manually throw the track switch to merge onto the main line, but he knew how to do that. Saracen felt a surge of elation.

  On impulse, he reached up and blew the whistle in celebration.

  ***

  “Nick…can you hear me?”

  Dazed and bleeding, too dizzy to stand, Victoria wiped blood out of her eyes and tried to crawl toward Nick, who lay gagging on the floor. She had lost the handkerchief and blood spilled out of her shoulder wound, but she was unaware of it. Pulling herself along the carpet, she collapsed twice before she reached him.

  “Nick…”

  She knelt over him.

  The bullets had hit him two inches below and slightly forward of the armpit on his right side, a cluster three inches in diameter—a fine bit of shooting on a target range. The body vest had prevented them from penetrating, but the impact was agonizing. Aching for air, Nick struggled to breathe. His lungs were momentarily paralyzed and he gulped like a fish out of water. Victoria bent over him and tore at the vest to release it. Her own fingers felt fat and useless, but she managed to get the job done and peeled off the vest. Nick sucked air in a gasping wheeze; agony creased his brow.

  He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down.

  “Nick…let him go. It isn’t worth it.”

  He shook his head, a dogged determination in his eyes. He sucked more air through gritted teeth, bracing his hands against the floor, waiting for the pain to subside. When he could talk, he squinted into her eyes.

  “Can’t—let him get away. He killed—Suzanne—shot you—threatened Kristina.” He closed his eyes and shook his head with emphasis. “No.”

  “You’re in no condition…to chase him. You don’t even know…which direction…” She wanted to say more, to keep him from leaving, but didn’t have the strength.

  Nick coughed, spitting up blood. He wiped tears out of his eyes.

  “Can’t let him…get to his yacht…”

  Victoria swooned and almost passed out, but caught herself.

  “He has no place to go. It’s like you said…not enough planets…to hide.”

  But Nick, gasping and wheezing, pushed himself to his feet. He stood swaying, and shook his head again.

  “No. No!”

  “Nick, for the love of God!”

  He stumbled toward the window and looked down. Rainwater puddled the floor around it and more was blowing in every second. Daylight was fading, but he could still see the ground, and Saracen wasn’t there. As Victoria said, Saracen could have run in any direction, but he was a lounge potato; if Nick could find his tracks, he was sure he could catch him.

  The opening to the anti-grav lift had closed; Nick felt under the desk, found the button, and pushed it, but nothing happened. Saracen must have locked it when he reached the bottom.

  He turned back to Victoria, saw the blood leaking from her shoulder and forehead. He hesitated.

  “Stay down. You’ve got to keep pressure on that wound.”

  “It isn’t— I’ll live.”

  “Not if you don’t keep pressure on it.”

  He found the bloody handkerchief she had dropped and pressed it against the shoulder wound, then placed her hand over it.

  “Just hold that in place.”

  He shoved the comm set toward her.

  “Call the sheriff’s office in Lago and tell them you need medical assistance. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Nick—”

  Victoria tried to stand up. He shoved her back down.

  “Stay sitting, Cross. Don’t be an idiot.”

  He placed a hand on her cheek and kissed the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry. I would stay with you, but I’m too close. I have to get him.”

  You would never leave Suzanne.

  Tears slid down her cheeks.

  “You don’t even know which way he w—”

  Her words were interrupted by the blast of a steam whistle.

  ***

  Saracen felt a surge of exaltation as the locomotive rolled past the stone-laden flatcars. He was on a separate spur and the track was open all the way to the main line. He was making ten knots already, and still gaining speed. He would have to stop in a few minutes to throw the switch at the main line, but not just yet. He felt the loco swing to the right as the spur lines merged into a single track. The wind and rain were still blowing into the cab, but they came from behind him and his forward visibility was good.

  He leaned his head out the window and surveyed the track ahead. He was fifty yards from the main gate; two police cars were parked in front of the castle, one sitting inside the parking area and the other behind it. The back end of the second car was sitting across the track, its light bar flashing red and blue. He saw people crouched behind it, guns in hand, shooting up at the tower.

  Good old Phil! Keeping the cops busy.

  Saracen reached for a switch and turned on the locomotive’s headlight. At the same moment, he blasted the whistle again, warning those ahead to get out of the way. He wasn’t about to stop and wait for them to move their car—the car wasn’t his problem—but saw no need to run over the people if he didn’t have to. Once he got out of this mess, he would have to make amends to them, buy their goodwill again.

  Capitalist or communist, it was nice to have money.

  ***

  Grunting in pain, Nick grabbed the rifle as he limped up the stairwell. He reached the upper corridor and began to run as fast as he dared. Sharp pains stabbed his chest area. He wondered if he had a broken rib, but his breathing was better now and he hadn’t coughed up any more blood, so he didn’t dwell on it. He made no effort to mask his passage—his boots echoed down the long hallway. He kept alert for more of Saracen’s people, but suspected they were tied up in the towers fending off the sheriff. They shouldn’t be a problem.

  In spite of his pain, he made fairly good time, and in just over a minute reached the front of the castle. Panting, he pulled to a stop as he surveyed his surroundings in the dim light. Directly below him was a large alcove just inside the front door; above it, another corridor stretched along the front, with a view through several small windows facing the highway. To his immediate left was another circular stairwell, and after a moment’s debate, he turned toward it. It probably led to one of the towers, and that was where he needed to be.

  He wished he had the Klieg torch he’d left with Mijo. The staircase was dark,
black as ink, and he had to feel his way as he ascended the stone steps. The air was damp and cold, but fresh; the towers, from what he’d seen, were open to the elements, and fresh air was a good sign.

  He kept climbing, moving as fast as he dared, pressing his shoulder against the wall while he gripped the rifle in both hands. The damn thing seemed to go on forever, curving, curving, curving. He was getting tired, and began to pant.

  He broke out of the stairwell at last and stopped. The stairwell opened onto a parapet, ten feet across, at the top of the tower. A conical roof covered the structure, supported by four stone pillars, leaving plenty of room to look out in all directions. The wind up here was fierce, driving the needle-sharp rain before it. Nick’s hat almost came off, and he dropped it down the stairwell to keep it from blowing away. He gripped the rifle and inspected the parapet—it was empty—then did a quick scan in all directions.

  Another tower loomed at the west end of the castle, but the rain was so heavy he could barely see it. He thought he detected a human form over there, but couldn’t be sure. Conversely, whoever might be there couldn’t see him either, so that was a good thing.

  He heard a rifle shot to his right, and turned to look. The southeast tower was much closer, and he could clearly see someone crouching behind the stone ledge, aiming downward. He moved to the east side of the parapet and saw the two police cars with people crouched behind them. Sheriff Buono, probably, and his deputies…but Nick couldn’t make out any faces. What he could see was that they had no angle of fire to hit the rifleman in the tower. He was in a much better position to do that.

  He jacked a round into the rifle’s chamber and rested his elbow on the ledge around the parapet. He took aim…

  CHUF!

  CHUF!

  CHUF-CHUF!

  Nick stopped and peered over the ledge to his left. He saw the locomotive slide into view, its headlight outlining the police cars in stark relief. He heard the whistle, and recognized instantly that one of the police cars was sitting across the track…

  …and the loco was picking up speed.