Abel Baker Charley

by John R. Maxim

  “BAYYKKERRR!”

  Move, Baker urged himself.

  “Stanley?” Sonnenberg's shout startled him. He felt his burden shift as it struggled for a better look at Burleson. Baker looked again and saw Stanley this time. The little man had staggered up from the pulpit's blood-smeared base and was reeling drunkenly toward Burleson, his hands forming outstretched claws. Burleson saw him now, too late. Fingernails dug into Burleson's face and tore at it before Burleson could throw up his arms in defense. He clubbed furiously at Stanley's head with the barrel of his dart pistol.

  “Stanley!” Sonnenberg's anguished cry came again. He kicked at Baker, wrestling him, twisting wildly at Baker's grip. Baker struggled for his balance and against a second assault now pounding from inside his head. He fell backward, tears flooding his eyes, grasping desperately at Sonnenberg, who had shaken free and was starting to crawl toward Stanley Levy. A heavy door crashed open, and three fast shots thundered near Baker's ear. Behind him, Baker realized. They were behind him now too. He felt an arm pulling him to his feet while a hand with a gun in it reached past him and seized Sonnenberg by his collar. Baker opened his mouth to shout Abel's name.

  “yes yes baker.”

  He took a breath, but his tongue slipped over the word when he tried to form it.

  “On your feet, lad,” Harrigan's voice barked. “Help me with Sonnenberg.”

  “Stop this, Connor.” Baker heard another, more distant voice. “On my word, Connor, no one needs to be hurt.”

  “Your ass,” Harrigan growled, snapping a shot toward Duncan Peck and another at Biaggi, who was diving for cover behind one of the gladiators. Baker felt himself moving, driven by Connor Harrigan toward the guns and armor, Marcus Sonnenberg somehow between them. More shots. A spray of stone that made Harrigan grunt. Baker felt the dark doorway swallowing him and the marble floor rushing up toward his face.

  Harrigan, himself almost spent, dragged Baker and Sonnenberg through the firearms foyer and into the deeper blackness of the Hall of Armor. At the far end he thought he saw a shadow ducking quickly out of sight.

  “We're in a mess, lad.” He'd found Roger Hershey while working through the bank building from the rear. No help there. Not much here either, by the look of it. Harrigan put a hand on Baker's shoulder and shook it. “Come on, Baker. We're dead meat if we sit here.”

  “Tina?” Baker whispered distantly.

  Harrigan slapped him sharply across the face and was relieved to see a flash of anger. “That's what we need, lad. We need the beastie.”

  “No,” Sonnenberg barked, straightening to a sitting position against an island display case. “The darts. They'd work much faster on Abel. His metabolism, it's too efficient.”

  Harrigan glared at him. “Let's hope no one else heard that, bucko.” He flipped open the cylinder of the gun he'd taken from Chuck Graves before cramming him into a half-open sarcophagus and shouldering the stone lid back in place. One cartridge left. He remembered the three in his Walker Colt. Christ! Wrong caliber again. Harrigan held up the two revolvers for Sonnenberg to see.

  “Two guns,” he said quietly, “and one useful bullet between them. The three of us are a mess, and they have five trained men all armed and mostly healthy. Don't start with theory, Doc.”

  “It's not theory. Abel won't even last as long as Jared.”

  “What about Charley, then?”

  “Much slower metabolism,” Sonnenberg answered, shaking his head, “but he'd be quite useless in a physical situation.”

  “Tina,” Baker called.

  “she's sleeping,” Charley answered. ”liz rocked her and kissed her so she's all quiet and sleeping.”

  “Charley, where are they?”

  “under the horse”

  “Horse?”

  “big fake horse.”

  Baker turned his head and saw where Charley meant in the dim outline against the far portal lights. He nodded, the small motion making him dizzy.

  ”Charleyy I don't think I can help them. I think I have to call Abel”

  “abel’s getting drunk now. ill try to help her, baker, ill be scared but ill try.”

  “Drunk?” Baker asked. Oh! Yes. The drugs. Oh God, Tanner. Liz. Liz, I'm so sorry.

  In the Garden Court, the big man, Gorby, had worked his way to a small door at the end opposite the bank facade. Burleson, from the position he now held at the entrance to the firearms foyer, saw him and waved him forward.

  “Where are Peterson and Graves?” Burleson whispered.

  Gorby glanced around to get his bearings. “There's a big room through there with suits of armor. By now they should be at the only other door to it.” He couldn't help staring at the womanlike scratches that raked Burleson's face.

  “Okay, stay here,” Burleson ordered. “I'm sending Biaggi in first to draw fire. We go in behind him from both sides and Peterson will move in from that end.” He turned toward Biaggi, who stood several yards away with Duncan Peck. Peck seemed to be scolding him. He raised a palm toward Burleson, keeping him at a distance.

  “Michael,” he was saying softly, ”I want Baker alive and I want Sonnenberg alive. Do you understand that, Michael?”

  “Yes, Mr. Peck.”

  “This part is equally important, Michael. I want only Baker, you, and myself alive when we leave these grounds. Sonnenberg is to die by no hand but mine. Do you understand that, Michael?”

  Biaggi blinked as if it were too much to absorb.

  “Richard the Lion-hearted, Michael, died at the end of a siege from a crossbowman's dart. On his deathbed, King Richard forgave the man who killed him. Even so, the hapless archer was tortured to death by Richard's officers on the ground that only a king should kill a king.” Alexander the Great, Peck recalled, took a similar view of the murder of Darius, but he considered his point adequately made. It was unthinkable that an adversary such as Ivor Blount had become would die at the hands of an insect like this.

  “It's a question of respect, Michael,” Peck continued. “My respect for the man's genius is such that I'm prepared to forgive any lesser man who might have been temporarily subverted by him. Is my meaning clear, Michael?”

  His meaning was clear. Biaggi nodded. He was nuts. He was as screwy as Sonnenberg and as fucked up as Baker. But if there was a way out of this, Biaggi was ready to take it. “Just tell me what you want, sir.”

  ”I want no one alive, Michael, who might compromise me if questioned, except one whose silence is ensured by a profit motive. These people”—he gestured toward Burleson—“will nobly answer any question asked by a higher authority. You will not, Michael, because I'm going to make you rich. You will become steadily richer with each subsequent service. Your greed, you see, is your salvation.”

  Peck looked for the light in Biaggi's eyes that would tell him that venality had won its battle over suspicion and doubt. The light came. And then an even greater glow of relief. Good, thought Duncan Peck. Let us hope that it glows a beacon to us all until it is convenient to extinguish it.

  Nuts, Biaggi repeated to himself. But nuts wrote checks. And the checks would go into the same bank as the tapes he'd make, with copies sent to Peck so he'd remember who had who by the balls.

  “Sir?” Burleson approached partway. “Sir, Gorby's had an idea. We might be able to turn on the emergency lights in there.”

  Harrigan crouched as he sensed another movement near the far end of the hall, near the armored charger. The horse's skirt, he realized. It was moving. Harrigan squinted through the darkness. He saw a shadow moving silently near the mounted knight. Tanner Burke, he decided from the size and shape. Now he heard a dull popping sound, as if something fastened had been pulled free, then a faint scrape of metal against metal.

  “Oh, damn!” he heard Baker mutter.

  Harrigan reached out to silence him and then brought the same hand cupped to his ear.

  “Harrigan.” Baker pushed to his hands and knees. “It's Tanner. She heard me.”

  “Wh
at's she doing?” Harrigan wondered if anything would ever surprise him again. ”I told her to stay put.”

  “She has a mace.” Baker struggled for balance to rise to his feet. “One of Peck's men is down there. She's going after him with a mace. And outside they're saying something about these lights. She'll be wide open, Harrigan.”

  “The beastie, lad. Does he have enough left to take out that one man before he wraps the mace around the lady's neck?”

  “Abel?”

  ”i can, baker, only now. last chance, baker, only now.”

  “He says he can handle it.”

  “Let's do it, lad.” Harrigan pulled Baker and Sonnenberg erect. “Take out the man and get me his gun. If we reach those narrow stairs we used, I can hold them to doomsday while you lose yourself in the park.”

  “No,” Sonnenberg rasped. “He'll never . . ”

  “Abel. Only that one. Only get us safely out of here. Do you understand, Abel?”

  “safe, yes, baker. I’ll make you safe”

  “Come out, Abel.”

  “Jared, don't!” Sonnenberg's voice rose. “He won't run. He'll never run.”

  Even in the darkness, Harrigan could see the grin. And he saw Abel's hand as it reached for the wall. And then the crunching sound of a war ax being torn from its mounting.

  “You're first in,” Burleson told Biaggi. He stood with his dart pistol in his right hand and a revolver in his left. The revolver was leveled at a key-operated light panel on the wall near the foyer's entrance. ”I fire at this as soon as you dive through. When it shorts, emergency lights go on and we follow.”

  Biaggi glanced at Duncan Peck.

  “Gorby first,” Peck whispered. “He's healthiest.”

  Gorby took a breath and stepped into the doorway. He hesitated. Biaggi stepped forward and shoved him headlong into the darkness. Then, pistols leveled, he and Burleson dropped to a crouch and waited for the first muzzle flash or movement.

  Instantly, something was wrong. Gorby had stopped with a muffled grunt, as though striking a wall Biaggi knew was not there. The dim outline of Gorby's shoulders stood motionless for a long moment, then rose slowly as if floating and began to drift backward toward the Garden Court. Biaggi saw Gorby's legs now, twitching, quivering, the toes half a foot off the surface. He lifted his eyes, his brain asking what could dangle two hundred and twenty pounds that high, and he looked into the grinning face he had seen in the park. Gorby, his head lolling sickeningly to one side, hung at the end of an outstretched arm. A spiked medieval war ax bobbed carelessly from the other.

  “Darts!” Peck gasped an order. Burleson's pistol spat at Abel's chest, and Biaggi, stumbling backward, fired another that lodged in Abel's cheek. Abel rocked and blinked but the grin remained. Burleson swung his revolver toward the switchplate. Four quick shots roared until it answered with a spit of flame and smoke. Emergency fixtures, mounted high in corners, instantly flickered and began to glow amber, their light glancing off a metal thing that bobbed up sharply and arced toward Burleson's head. Burleson's reflexes saved him. He threw himself under and away from the whistling blow and crashed into a tangle with Duncan Peck. Peck thrashed himself free. He ducked under Gorby's body, which had swung like a counterweight under the force of Abel's blow, and scrambled on his hands and knees out of Abel's field of vision. That took him into the firearms foyer, but Peck was beyond fearing any lesser threat he might encounter there.

  Harrigan saw him. He saw Peck's face in the faltering, amber light, crabbing frantically toward him. Peck paused to pat awkwardly at his waist as if a weapon had been lost, finally wrenching a small aerosol can from a loop on his belt. Chemical mace. Good luck, Harrigan muttered to himself. He raised his pistol with its one remaining bullet. What the hell, he thought. It's as good a shot as he'd get. But another gun cracked first, and a bullet whined by his face with a rumbling roar that swept the length of the Hall of Armor. Harrigan whirled toward its source. Peterson! He faced Harrigan, in a combat crouch, near the flanks of the mounted knight.

  Harrigan swung his revolver, his sights dropping on Peterson's breastbone, but in that motion he saw Tanner. Damn, he couldn't shoot. She had appeared from behind a display of thrusting weapons and was padding quickly toward Peterson, a real mace poised at her shoulder like a baseball bat. Peterson saw Connor's surprise and spun, dropping to one knee as the mace came down across his raised gun arm. Harrigan heard the bone crack, and a wild shot blasted a cloud of plaster from the wall. The muzzle blast stunned Tanner.

  Before she could raise the weapon again, Peterson snatched at the mace's shaft with his good left hand and pulled. The two of them crashed backward against the leg of the mounted knight. Come on! Harrigan wanted to shout. Get clear! The horse's parade skirt flipped up. Two arms, small arms, wrapped around Peterson's neck and squeezed. “No!” Tanner screamed. Then her long hair flew as Peterson's fist caught her high on the temple. Harrigan fired. The shot, aimed too safely and too low, ricocheted harmlessly under Peterson's splayed legs. Peterson tensed, awaiting the impact of a second bullet he could not avoid. None came. He saw that Harrigan's sights had him cold and that the line of fire was clear, yet there was no shot. Peterson faked to his left. Still nothing. He knew then that Harrigan's gun was empty.

  Abel threw Gorby aside. He seemed confused by the number of men. The old one. Where was the old one? Biaggi, his face white with fear, fumbled another dart into the gun chamber and fired. Abel slapped it away with the blade of his ax.

  Duncan Peck was near Harrigan now. Peck glanced at him, his exhausted enemy, his face bright with excitement. If he saw the gun in Harrigan's hand, he ignored it. “Look at him,” he whispered. He cast his eyes about the Hall of Armor as if looking for a greater audience with whom to share what he was seeing. He saw Sonnenberg, slumped against a wall, glaring at him through hooded eyes. “Look at him, Ivor. He's magnificent.”

  Abel turned at the voice, reeling, barely balanced. He swiped once more at the men, who danced out of reach, awaiting the drug's effect. Abel almost fell. Recovering, he staggered toward Duncan Peck. He's had it, Harrigan was sure. Even Duncan Peck's fear seemed to wash away under a shine of excitement. A look of clinical interest on his face, he raised his CN aerosol and released a ten-foot stream. Abel blinked and shook his head, reacting no more than that to the chemical burn at his eyes. A fifth dart struck his back. Abel flailed the ax wildly. Burleson stepped under it and into the Hall of Armor, kicking the useless gun from Harrigan's hand in his stride and sweeping the room with one turn of his head. His mind photographed Peterson, his one good arm shoving the dazed actress forward and then dragging a small figure from beneath a stuffed horse.

  Abel saw Duncan Peck now and lunged drunkenly toward him. Burleson leaped. A flying kick glanced off the side of Abel's head. His hand snaked to the knot of Burleson's necktie and caught him in midflight. Burleson's cheeks swelled red and his eyes went wide. From arm's length, Abel brought that florid face closer and peered into it, trying to focus through eyes that would not function. Strangling, Burleson punched at Abel's face. Vicious karate blows above and beneath the feathers of the dart still lodged in his cheek. Abel shook them off. He seemed to realize that this was not the man he wanted. He swung Burleson to one side and let him fall.

  “Bring her,” Peck shouted. “Bring the daughter.”

  Abel's head whipped toward his voice. Peck backed away, first dangerously close to Connor Harrigan, then quickly shifting his direction. His back struck something soft but firm. Marcus Sonnenberg had struggled to his feet and moved unnoticed into Duncan Peck's path, blocking Peck's retreat with his body.

  Before Peck could react, Abel was upon him. His fingers gathered Peck's lapels and lifted him, bending him backward over a display of pommeled daggers. Abel raised the war ax and grinned again.

  “Daddy!” Tina called. She too was trying to focus on the man who seemed to be her father. Peterson knocked Tanner Burke aside and placed his muzzle against Tina's head.

&
nbsp; “Don't make me kill her,” he barked. “Let him go or she dies.”

  Abel snapped his head toward the voices and the small, stumbling figure being propelled toward him by Peterson's knee. The sudden motion of his head made him reel, but still the ax stayed poised.

  “Baker,” Peck sputtered. “It's your daughter. Your little girl. They'll shoot her if you hurt me.”

  Biaggi had entered the hall cautiously. Seeing Harrigan unarmed, he jigged to an angle that would give him a maiming shot at Abel's raised elbow, then cursed as a recovered Burleson leaped into his line of fire. Burleson dove at the raised ax, wrapping his full weight over Abel's weakening arm.

  Peck saw the ax quiver and start to sink, first away from him and then out of sight behind Abel's shoulder. Good man, Edward. Such a very good man. Abel's eyes were glazing over. The hand gripping Peck's chest trembled and seemed to slip a bit. He was going now, Peck knew, from the effects of drugs that would have left three ordinary men unconscious by now. Fantastic. But Peck knew what was really stopping this Chimera. The daughter. Chimera or no, he was still a father who would not risk harm to his daughter. She's everything to him. She's what brought him here. She's why we have him now. We'll keep her, he decided, his mind racing with hysterical clarity. I'll tell Michael. The daughter can live. She must be kept alive to control this one. But only for that purpose. And only the daughter. Not these others. Not Ivor. Surely not Harrigan or the girl.

  Baker. Baker understood this, Peck saw. The glazed and distant eyes were staring back at him. Nodding now. Except there was the smile. The smile was back. Why was he smiling?

  ”I have no daughter.” Abel hissed the words almost patiently, his tone that of a man explaining a misunderstanding. “The child is Baker's daughter.” The grin widened. Peck heard a woman scream. He saw Baker's shoulder roll and twist once more and the ax rose up again. Duncan Peck shrieked. Past Baker's shoulder he saw the ax, now running with blood, and he saw Burleson's face where the long sharp spike should have been. He was impaled there. Peck wailed in despair at the sight of Burleson's dead eyes staring back at him. One eye moved, then bulged to the side. A gleaming piece of steel slowly pushed its way out of the socket behind it. Kill him! Peck screeched in his mind. Why don't they kill him? Michael? Where are you? Douglas? Never mind what I ordered. Shoot! Shoot, for the love of Christ! Don't let him do this to me!