by Victor Koman
"One more soul for Allah," the darker boy corrected.
Sandy glanced at the Panarab.
A wisp of smoke from the burning complex drifted between us. It carried a smell of things dead and dying. The Panarabian kid paid it no mind. He'd probably been raised during the Pax Israelia ten years before.
Sandy wrinkled his nose. I took a chance.
"Allah or Yahveh. Which God will get your soul? Which God is supreme?" I split my aim between the two without dropping my guard.
"Allah," said the dark one.
"Yahveh," insisted the light one.
Something whooshed through the air behind me.
"Knock it off with the shiv," I hissed.
Ann muttered something and stopped waving the blade around. The two boys didn't even notice. They were involved in a theological discussion.
"Yahveh."
"Allah."
They glowered, slowly turning their rifles toward each other.
"Allah," the Panarabian said with a low growl.
"Yahveh," Sandy Hair retorted, racking the action on his M-16.
"
Kali!
" a voice screamed from the nearby underpass.
The boys spun about to look toward the source of the sound. Had they lived long enough, each would have seen a bullet hit him in the chest. Two rifles clattered to the pavement. Two young men followed them shortly.
I jumped up, gave Ann a shove in the direction of the Bonaventure, and commandeered one of the rifles. I sped up to match Ann's athletic pace.
Footsteps raced behind me. I whipped about, a .45 in one hand and an M-16 in the other.
"Tough guy," a gravelly voice rumbled. "Can't even plug a couple of punk kids."
Randolph Corbin trotted his hulk up beside me, one thick hand grasping a Springfield M-1A. The other hand clutched at his belly. His pug face was distorted from breathing as if it were the latest fad. His brown turtleneck shirt and tan slacks appeared to have been redesigned by a chainsaw. Soot stained his clothes, hands, and face. The seat of his pants had been badly singed.
I nodded toward the hotel lobby. "I see you didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, either."
"Right. And I can see that you were the answer they sought. Duck!"
I drove my shoulder into the sidewalk, rolled over, and brought the rifle up. I fired.
Corbin placed three well-aimed rounds into the chests of as many armed attackers. I dropped the other two with shots to the head-an old trademark of mine and a damned stupid habit.
Somewhere to the south whined dozens of police sirens.
"Finally," Ann said, unimpressed. She tried to open one of the doors set in a long wall of concrete. No luck. We raced toward the main lobby doors.
Corbin wheezed in great exhausted gasps. "You must know the Ecclesia is after you. They attacked Auberge."
"Yeah," I said. "I had a sort of hunch about that."
"Even Auberge management didn't know, and they've got informants everywhere to give them warnings about raids." He looked behind us at the carnage. "I guess they never thought to infiltrate the Ecclesia."
"But you did?" Ann said.
"A Buddhist friend of mine. She dropped too much acid at Bryn Mawr" "In here," I said. A side door surrendered to my kick. We rushed inside.
The Bonaventure was still in use, though it no longer qualified as the luxury hotel it had once been. The radiation problems this far from Arco South posed no danger, but fear was fear. True, a higher class of derelicts and bums inhabited the less-than-gleaming towers. Most even paid rent. But bums were bums.
To our right sat a greasy hotel clerk reading a newsplaque, the racing information onscreen. His gaze drifted lazily up to us, his eyes widening when he saw the three of us armed with rifles, pistol, and knife. His grease turned to sweat.
"No trouble, man," he said in a piping voice. "We've got protection."
My thumb played threateningly with the pistol's slide safety. "You personally? Right now?"
The clerk gulped like a sea bass and added more sweat to his face. Nervous hands gripped the edge of the counter. His newsplaque clattered to the floor.
"We're looking for someone," Ann said. "A dark-haired girl. Have you seen her?"
The clerk shook his head.
"We won't be long," I said. I cased the lobby area.
The light from the registration desk was the only artificial illumination in the atrium. Sunlight shone muddily through the ring of windows at the top edge of the cylindrical interior. It could have been a dim and restful medieval cathedral except for the pair of drunks snoring against each other on a mezzanine couch.
"Which elevator works?" I asked.
"The left one," the clerk said.
Inside, Ann asked me, "Which floor?" She surveyed the array of buttons. Outside the cracked glass of the elevator walls, what once had been a landscaped indoor pond lay dry and choked with cans and Mylar bags. There were even a few glass bottles here and there, which indicated how long the place had been in that condition.
An eerie image appeared amidst the garbage. Before meshimmeringly ghostlike-floated a view of the smoldering battle outside. I seemed to be viewing it from up high.
I punched for the top floor. "We'll work our way down from the restaurant," I said.
This elevator, at least, didn't groan and shudder. It lifted us quickly and quietly upward past the windows of the atrium, out into hazy daylight. The car glided up the interface between the central and northeast columns. Something clunked, and we jerked to a stop.
"I think we can handle things from here on, Corbin." I aimed the M16 at the elevator doors. "You don't have to follow us."
I moved Ann behind me. She stepped around to my side, knife at the ready.
Corbin shrugged and raised his own rifle. He had regained his breath. "You seem to be having more fun up here than I would be down there. Besides"-he grinned wickedly-"you seem to have gotten everyone more stirred up than I ever could."
The elevator doors parted. Nothing greeted us but a quiet restaurant foyer. Corbin slid around the doors to police the hallway. Ann and I wandered out to watch him. His husky figure darted in and out of niches and doorways with guerrillalike precision.
"You weren't a Buckleyite in college," I said. "You must have been a Minuteman."
He turned to grin at me, then said, "All clear. This way to the restaurant."
We stepped into a place that at one time had been one of the finest eateries in L.A. The new owners had let it slide into a lousy gin mill.
"Is the kid you're looking for about four-eight, dark reddish hair, garish clothes?" Corbin asked, gesturing to a booth by the window.
"Shut your fuckin' mouth, asshole."
"Foul tongue, rotten manners, and about three glasses of Plymouth gin in her?"
Isadora Volante sneered at us from behind a half-empty bottle. An ashtray held a pack and a half of cigarette butts.
"An adequate description," Ann said, stepping past us to the kid's table.
Isadora turned her attention away from us back to the scene several hundred feet below. The crack L.A. Fire Department stood about, casually debating the best strategy for extinguishing the blaze. The police munched doughnuts and watched. A few cops took occasional potshots at the remaining Auberge guards for the benefit of the TV crews.
Everything was under control.
"How'd you get here?" I asked the kid.
She tugged at a thin strap that supported a sheer, lime-green negligee.
"I was in Casino Grande when I felt the same sort of evil vibes I got from the old farts back in the hotel room. I begged one of the guards to let me out through the air conditioning shaft inside the Angeles Plaza."
"Sounds as if you breached their security," Corbin muttered.
"I have my ways. How do you think I was able to warn you back on the hill?"
I gazed around the restaurant. "We've got to get out of here without running into cops, feds, or Ecclesia."
> "There might be a way," Corbin said, "but we'd have to deal with the Ecclesia." He pointed upward.
"The Huey." I shouted to the anemic old bartender, "You! How do we get to the roof?"
He pointed toward the kitchen door. Corbin ran through to check it out. I turned to the kid. "Let's go."
"Forget it. I'm cutting free. You guys are freaks."
"Auberge is gone, sugar. Look out the window-those're cops you see milling about. They'll be up here when they start thinking about it."
"That scares me like a limp prick," she said in a drunken slur. "I can handle cops. I can head up to Frisco-to Auriga, under Union Square."
Ann put a gentle hand on the child's shoulder. "How will that settle your account with the Ecclesia?" Spoken like a true comptroller.
"Who?"
"The ones who cut you up."
She turned away from Ann's penetrating gaze to stare furiously out the window, chin propped on hand. Down below, the cops had rounded up a few Auberge guards and were enjoying a workout on them with fists and clubs for the benefit of the TV crews. Suddenly, a startlingly bright beam of green light flashed from a slit cut into a concrete slab. Three cops fell down twitching, their abdomens exploding from the unfortunate effects of a high-wattage pulsed laser.
Isadora frowned and turned back to me. "How do you plan to get back at them? Spike their Geritol?"
I smiled and tucked my pistol away to take her by the hand.
"Ever take a ride in a space shuttle?"
Ann, the kid, Corbin, and I climbed through an access shaft that might have been built for a pygmy. Fifteen claustrophobic feet later, we emerged into a shack on the roof of the Bonaventure's central cylinder.
Corbin and I quietly peered through the doorway to see the aircraft sitting motionless on the helipad. The pilot and gunner paced nervously about.
"They're debating what to do next." Corbin raised his rifle to sight in on the gunner. "They don't want to encounter a wire-guided missile or gamble on a run-in with police choppers. What they don't realize is that the missiles are probably keeping the police away, too. Cops know how much their equipment costs." He squeezed the trigger.
The gunner collapsed. The pilot panicked and rushed for the cockpit. Corbin gunned him down.
"Nice," I said. "How do we fly it out of here?"
Corbin grinned and kicked the door open. "The Beast has wings," he said. "Unless, of course, you don't want my help."
I sighed and followed him through onto the helipad. A cold winter breeze blew the smell of the fire up to us. Coolers, vents, and nameless clutter tangled below the landing platform. An orange circle and cross of cracked and curling paint marked the center of the pad.
"Let me guess," I said. "You learned to fly in `Nam."
His fleshy face grimaced as if he'd smelled rotten eggs. "Hardly. I was a merc in Afghanistan, fighting the real Commie menace. I didn't waste my time with orchestrated `police actions.'"
I nodded impatiently. Ann was having trouble with an intoxicated adolescent. I trotted back to render assistance.
"I'm afraid of flying!" Isadora hollered.
"We'll be getting a lot higher than this!" I shouted back. "You should be more afraid of what's down below."
She took a drunken swing at me, missed, and collapsed in my arms. That simplified things. Ann strapped her in.
"Can this crate carry five?" I asked.
Corbin stripped the dead pilot of his radio headset. "Probably. Who've you got in mind?" He strapped into the pilot's seat and fired up the engine.
I grabbed the gunner's helmet and squeezed into his vacant seat. Corbin showed me where to plug into the intercom.
The copter rose a few inches and dropped down the west side of the hotel. Gunning it, he lurched us away from Old Downtown at a stomach-convoluting speed.
"Can you sneak us over to Hollywood?" I asked.
"Hollywood? Sure."
"Great. And watch out for low-flying broomsticks."
Corbin flew nerve-jarringly low, more to avoid radar than brooms. Not that every cop between Old Downtown and Hollywood didn't notice us. If they'd been informed, though, to let the attackers on Auberge get away, then we were relatively safe. Unless they had to do something for the TV crews.
We reached Hollywood in a couple of minutes. Corbin told me how to release the ladder. He also informed me that I was the obvious choice to shinny down.
I shinnied.
Bridget stood in front of her store, staring up in bewildered shock, fists on hips. The propwash swirled street dust and trash around her maroon kaftan.
"What the hell are
you
up to?" she shouted.
"Time to go!" I shouted back. My feet were planted firmly on the bottom rung. I had a death-grip on the ropes.
"You're a week early!"
"Situations," I yelled, "have forced my hand!"
Bridget threw her arms up in exasperation, turning to walk back into her store. I thought I'd lost her until she reappeared carrying a purple paisley carpetbag.
Kasmira followed her to the ladder, where they conferred for a moment. She kissed her grandmother and gave her a firm, long hug. Bridget returned the kiss.
I despise long good-byes, especially when I'm hanging from a stolen assault vehicle. I jumped from the ladder to take the bag from the old crone's hand. She looked at me, then at the ladder dangling above us. She nodded and turned to give Kasmira a final hug.
I hefted her up to the lower rungs. Corbin dropped the copter another foot or so to accommodate her.
Bridget dug her heels into my shoulders for support. With a grunt of effort she climbed up to hook one foot around the bottom rung. I joined her on the ladder and put an arm around her waist. She pried it off.
"I don't need your help, sonny!"
Sonny?
I could tolerate a lot of insults, but that one stung.
She spidered her way up with remarkably unsenile speed. Ann lifted her inside. I reached the top, nearly lost her carpetbag tossing it in, and followed it.
"Haul up the ladder," Corbin's voice buzzed in my earphones. "And tell me where we're going."
"Claremont. The StratoDyne launch site."
"Ten-four."
He punched the engines to full throttle, leaving my stomach somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard.
"I still want to know why you came so early," Bridget said, straining to be heard over the rotor's increased noise.
Isadora recovered from her stupor enough to say, "It's a psychological problem men his age have. Premature evacuation."
Bridget turned toward the child with a sardonic smile. "You're the one, aren't you?" She looked toward Ann for a reply. Ann nodded. The old woman looked back to the kid. "You are an unbelievably powerful broadcasting telepath, child." She patted the kid's head tenderly.
I was surprised she didn't bite the old gal's hand off. Instead, she merely looked out the cockpit, saw where we were, and threw up in an empty ammo box.
Bridget took a handkerchief from a pocket in her kaftan and proceeded to clean the child up.
Corbin flew us low over the hills to Sierra Madre, where he doglegged east toward Claremont. Behind us, the smoke from Auberge reached high into the afternoon sky, a black exclamation point at the end of a jarring surprise. Corbin dropped us to treetop level, and it fell from sight. Another drop delivered us into a canyon that widened to become the StratoDyne complex.
The shuttle stood erect on its launch pad, a shimmering white bird gripping four rust-red boosters.
Corbin set the copter down with a couple of uneasy bumps. Ann and Bridget dragged Isadora out.
"Have a nice flight," he said in a grudging voice. "I hope God doesn't do a Job on you."
"Where are you going?" I asked loudly.
"Are you kidding?" He patted the Huey's controls. "This baby and its weapons stores will fetch a high enough price that the Church of St. Judas will be riding high for years. Months, if I really enjoy myself." H
e waved at me jauntily with a free hand, folding his second and third fingers down to form the Horns of Androcles-an ancient witches' symbol of good luck.
I tossed the headset inside and sealed the hatch. The copter rose swiftly from its pillar of dust to rotate about and race east toward the national forest-and the desert beyond.
"Impossible," the launch director said. "You can't launch tonight." He was older than I was, balding and soft from too much desk work in bureaucratic surroundings. He leaned back in his console chair to stare at me.
All I needed that moment was a battle of wills. I stared back at him and leaned threateningly forward. I still carried the M-16.
"I don't pay you to say things are impossible."
"That's a good line," he said. "Let me write that down." He picked up a doughnut and bit a hunk out of it, washing it down with a swig of beer.
I leaned farther. The butt of the rifle thudded against the desktop.
"
Starfinder
is ready. Canfield told me so as I walked in. All you've been doing for the past two days has been flight simulations."
He leaned forward, face-to-face with me. "Listen, Mr. Del Taco, or whatever your name is. I don't think I like what I was hired to do here. There's an awful lot of rumors circulating that you have something to do with that crazy ad campaign. You may not understand this, but to get where you're going requires a specific launch window. I may be helping you accomplish some sort of twisted publicity stunt, but I'm not going to jeopardize my career by doing it clumsily!" He finished the doughnut and returned to his semirecline. "We couldn't possibly consider a flight before calculating a new launch window. There might be one around five or six this morning."
"That's fine for you," I said, taking the beer from his hand and tossing it into the wastebasket. "We, on the other hand, are being trailed by some annoyingly rude characters. The same ones who pureed Old Downtown a couple hours ago. Do you want to be around here running simulations when
they
show up?"
He frowned, looking for a moment at his empty fingers.
"I could probably work up a launch window a few hours sooner if I calculate a greater liftoff thrust. But with this jalopy, we might blow a fuel pump, and you'll wind up scattered over the Midwest." He folded his arms, daring me to challenge his authority. He didn't know that I was ready to go up against the ultimate Authority.