Die Rich Die Happy c-2

by James Munro

  The stairway was empty of hfe. Craig moved more slowly now, conscious of the taste of rubber from the mask, the wet taste of the air he breathed. He reached the dead Arab, and took the machine pistol from his hands. The magazine was empty. He let it fall, and moved on upwards.

  At the top of the stairs a door swung open slowly, and Craig dropped. What felt like a blow from a sledgehammer smashed at the side of his helmet, and he fired the last four shots from the Smith and Wesson on reflex alone. There was one answering shot from inside, but Craig heard nothing, not even the crack of his own gun. His four shots had hit the door in a diamond shape, its lowest point the height of a man's chest, its highest that of his head, and all had gone through. Craig waited till the booming noise in his head modulated to a steady hum, then reloaded the Smith and Wesson and summoned up the energy to dart for the door, push it open. Something inside jammed it. Craig shoved the thing aside with his foot, let the door swing open again. The temptation to pass on was almost overwhelming, but he had to be sure.

  He burst into the room and a blast of gunfire again made his head boom, and once more it was instinct that made him drop below the angle of the shot, swerve, drop his gun and grab. His hand held a wrist and twisted upwards as the next shot blasted like thunder in the confined space of the room, then Craig twisted further, the gun dropped, and he levered and threw, heard the slam of a body hitting the wall. He stooped, picked up the Magnum and aimed in one fluid movement, but the one he'd thrown lay still. It was a woman.

  Craig picked up the little Bernadelli pistol she had used, and dropped it in his pocket, then went over to her. The room was a bedroom. He picked her up and laid her on the bed. She was young, slender, hght-boned, a bruise darkening her pale gold skin from forehead to cheekbone. He had thrown her with appalling force, but the part of his mind in control noted only that she'd be unconscious until the job was done. He went to the body by the door then. It had been a man, and two of the high-velocity bullets he had fired had pierced an inch-thick oak door then slammed straight through his head and chest. He was messy and horrible, and in times to come Craig would remember it, but now all he did was pick up the man's automatic and remove the magazine. He had been in the house for seven minutes. It was time to move on. The next floor was the crucial one. The prison room was there, and inside it, Philippa. And Schiebel. Craig took off the helmet and removed his mask for a moment. He was above the smoke, and the pure air was good. He looked at the helmet then. A line was incised into one side so deeply he could lay his little finger in it, and that side of his head was a throbbing, painful lump. Cautiously he put the mask and helmet back on, then moved again toward the door.

  At once an automatic rifle rattled and chattered from above him. Craig leaped back into the room, grateful that Schiebel had at least one overanxious novice on his staff. He began to work at frantic speed, lifting the woman from the bed, dragging the mattress off, placing it to cushion the hail of bullets that must come through the door. He carried the unconscious woman with him and knelt in the corner opposite the door. The man he left where he was. He took out the last of his smoke bombs then, laid the spare revolver beside it, and waited. The next move was Schiebel's.

  From the floor below him he heard the crack of a shot, and a great, jagged hole appeared in the floor a foot from where he crouched. Another shot, and then another, and another, tracing an exploring pattern towards the angle of cover. Craig thought the man below must be using a high-velocity rifle, a weapon with a stopping power far more terrible than his pistol. The shots pierced the ceiling of the floor below, then the joists and floorboards, and still came through with enough force to slam into the walls and ceiling. A bullet that weighed less than an ounce, a muzzle energy of 2% tons. Technology was a wonderful thing. And they'd filed the bullets too. He could tell by the holes they made. There was a pause. Craig wondered how long it took the man below to reload. He had no doubt at all that if a bullet reached him, it would kill him, or immobilize him enough to long for a quick death if he fell into Schiebel's hands. He felt for the front flap of his uniform jacket. Sewn into it was a tiny philter, filled with cyanide. Just bite hard on it, the doctor had said. You won't feel a thing. How many had the doctor swallowed?

  Incredibly, the telephone rang. Craig saw it was an internal phone, with a row of numbered buttons and Arabic lettering beside them. The man by the door must be pretty important, he thought. The phone rang again and he pulled back his mask and wriggled on his stomach toward it, cautious not to place too much weight on the floor. It

  was on a low table by the bed, and Craig lifted it off slowly, slowly, holding the receiver down on the cradle as he wriggled back to the corner and picked up the receiver. At once three shots crashed into the table and smashed it. Craig yelled, and threw the receiver on to the floor. Schiebel's voice said: "You had better come out, Craig." Craig lay still, and another shot slammed up past the table, ricocheted from the wall and whined across the room. Craig lay down on his stomach and waited. It was up to Grierson now.

  Grierson watched the ladder extend toward him. There was another turntable near by, waiting his orders. When he gave the word into the walkie-talkie, it would move fast up to the AZ building, its steel-shod ladder aimed like a battering-ram at the shutters that guarded the window of the prison room. And when the shutters gave, the ladder waiting for Grierson would swing him over the road, and he would dive inside, as Craig had done. Grierson picked up the walkie-talkie. His hand was shaking again, but it was time to go. Then he looked again at the steel shutters, and knew that he couldn't do it. Knew it utterly and completely. Schiebel would be in there, waiting for him, and Schiebel would kill him as he had killed Swyven, and his mother and father. He could not face the thought of death.

  He remembered Craig's doubts and hesitations, his flat demand for some advantage; remembered also how cheerful and confident he himself had been. It was different now. Craig had gained the concessions he had asked for, and gone at once. Now he was inside the building, waiting for him, depending on him. He had to do something. His hand still shaking, he picked up the walkie-talkie, and spoke into it quickly. "The shutters business is off," he said. "I'm going onto the roof instead."

  That was the alternative plan, if anything hindered the attack on the shutters, and all the dregs of his courage would allow him to do.

  He stepped on to the window ledge before he could change his mind, the ladder came up to meet him, and he found himself whirled in the air, twenty feet above the roof of the AZ offices. Below him he could see hoses playing on one window after another, shutting off the view in a curtain of water. There was no sign of the rockers. They had suddenly and completely disappeared. Their work was finished. ("We'll give you all the cover we can," Loomis had said, "but you'll have to go in and do the job on your own.") The ladder contracted, and he stepped on to the roof and moved, stiff-legged and clumsy because of the riot gun, toward the skylight. When he reached it, he signaled to the men below, then ducked behind a chimney as a concentrated jet of water searched and probed and found its target. Even behind shelter, Grierson was soaked. The skylight was a jagged, gaping hole. He signaled again, and the great arc of water, solid as a steel bar, disappeared. Grierson counted to three, then leaped for the center of the hole, landed in six inches of water beside two men who choked and sputtered and wept at the force of the water that had struck them. One of them bled from a flesh wound of flying glass. He didn't even notice. The brutal force of the water filled his mind. Grierson hit him with the Magnum's barrel as he landed, and turned to the other, who was groping for a pistol. Grierson struck again, and dropped him, then turned to put the wireless room out of action. There was no need. The water had done it for him. He opened the door, letting loose a miniature waterfall, then slammed it shut behind him and locked it from outside, leaving the key in the lock, then put on his smoke mask, and pulled out the riot gun from his boot. At the foot of the first flight of stairs he found a heavy wooden door. It was locked from the
other side. Grierson went back to the wireless room, and searched the two unconscious men. Neither of them had a key. He locked them in again, and went back to the door. There was only one possible way in. He had no picklock, no lever, and no time, and his nerve was running out. He aimed the gun at the lock, and fired three shots in such rapid succession they sounded like one sustained crack of sound, then drew back his leg, slipping on the film of water that spread about him, and brought his foot against the lock. Wood splintered and the door swung open, the water cascaded joyfully down like a dog turned loose. Grierson followed it warily, and no one came to stop him. Then he discovered why. He heard first the rattle of automatic fire, then the heavy boom of a high-velocity rifle. Grierson moved down more quickly. He reached a landing window, and signaled from it to the fire engine below, then continued slowly downward. The rifle boomed again, three times, then there was silence,

  then one more shot. When that too was still, Grierson heard the urgent clanging of the fire engine's bell, and hoped that Craig was alive to hear it too. It would tell him that at least Grierson had got into the house.

  Craig heard it all right, and moved slowly closer to the door, ready to act when the time came. There was more than one man outside, he was sure of that, but the riot gun would give them all the edge he needed, if Grierson could only get close enough. It was too bad he hadn't got into Schiebel's room.

  Grierson moved down a bend in the stairs. Below him four men were facing a doorway. Two of them held automatic carbines, one held a pistol, one a heavy rifle. The rifleman wore a chefs white overalls and hat. None of them was Schiebel. Behind them was a steel door; that was where Schiebel would be. Suddenly one of the men fired a stream of bullets at the door he faced. Grierson moved in closer, walking as if a fast tide were moving against him. Twelve feet, ten, eight. The man who had fired extracted an empty clip. Grierson pumped the action of the gun, and as the men spun round he took one more step, fired, pumped the action, and fired again. The effect was immediate and horrifying. The nearest man fell at once, the second was blasted back against the banister rails, the third looked in horror at the raw wound the buckshot had torn in his arm. Grierson pumped the action again and the fourth man looked at the gun's wide mouth, dropped the rifle and raised his hands. Craig appeared softly behind them and pushed up his mask.

  "I told you that gun gave us an edge," he said.

  Grierson tried not to think of the man who had taken the first appalling blast of shot. This was the most terrible thing he'd ever done. He gestured at the fourth man. Craig struck with the edge of his hand, and he fell. The third still gaped at his wound. Craig pushed him down on to the stairs, and passed him the fourth man's handkerchief and his own. The Arab was too dazed with shock to know what to do with them. Craig covered the wound, and left him, then his hand went into his pocket, and emerged holding a long, slotted key of hardened steel.

  "There's an Arab in there had this on him," he said. "I think it opens the prison door. He and his woman nearly killed me." He looked at Grierson; his hands were clasped so tight round the riot gun that the knuckles showed white, and he hadn't moved. Craig touched his arm. "Come on," he said.

  Slowly, with leaden heaviness, Grierson turned and followed him.

  They went up to the door, and Craig slowly, silently, inserted the key, standing square in front of it. The bullet wasn't made that could penetrate that steel. The key turned easily, without a sound. Opposite the door was a mirror in a gilt frame. Craig tilted it slightly, then went to kneel by the door. Across its frame Grierson stood, holding the gun. Craig motioned him to get down, and he knelt slowly, like an old peasant at the confessional, then Craig reached out to push open the door. In house-to-house fighting it was always the same. Open the door and face the death behind it. That was how it had been today, until now, and here was another door that Grierson should have opened, but this one was different. Behind it was a man he must kill, and a woman who, whatever happened, must not die. And the door was of steel. He leaned his weight on it, and it swung in massive slowness as he crouched and looked into the mirror out of its angle of reflection.

  He saw what he had expected to see. Schiebel had Phihppa in front of him, and a gun at her back.

  "You're too cautious, Craig," he said. "The door wasn't locked."

  Craig lifted the bomb in his hand, and Schiebel continued:

  "li you do anything at all, I'll shoot her. She won't die quickly, I promise you. No more bombs, Craig."

  Craig put the smoke bomb down, and looked across at Grierson, once again motionless, on his knees.

  "I'm going out," Schiebel said, "and she goes with me. And so do you. You'll take me out of this house, and you'll drive us to where I want to go. Then you can have her. A fair exchange—my life for hers. All right?"

  Craig said nothing.

  "You have to trust me," said Schiebel. "And you've won anyway. I concede that. Once I give you the woman you can do what you like. But as far as she and I are concerned, this is stalemate. If I live, she lives. You try to kill me and she dies. Now put your gun down, like a sensible fellow."

  "No," said Craig.

  "Try to be rational," said Schiebel, and his voice was detached, cool. "I can't kill you today. I need you as much as you need the woman. But later I will kill you. I promise you. Now put down your gun. Stick it forward where I can see it. I mean it, Craig. If you won't I'll shoot her and take my chances."

  Craig slid the Magnum across the floor.

  "Now the other," said Schiebel.

  "All right," said Craig, and inevitably, because of his trade, he cheated. The other Magnum slid across the floor, but there was still in his pocket the little .22 Bernadelli he had taken from the Arab woman. The magazine had six shots, and she had fired at him once. He could afford to wait.

  "Good," said Schiebel, and pushed Philippa forward to the door. Craig stood up to meet them, and moved into the doorway, blocking their view of Grierson.

  "Take us out," Schiebel said, "or she'll suffer. And you will suffer after her. That wouldn't be so good as getting away, but it would be good enough." Suddenly the voice lost its detachment. "I'd enjoy that—making you watch what happens to her, then doing the same to you."

  Flip said: "He means it."

  Her voice was a hoarse whisper of remembered pain. "I'll take you out," said Craig.

  Grierson heard it all, and remembered Loomis's instructions: whatever happened Schiebel must die. His mind held on to that fact, and no other. As Craig walked to the door, he pumped the action of the shotgun again. Without hesitation Craig kicked out at the gun barrel, knocking it aside as Grierson squeezed the trigger. The mirror shattered, and Craig lashed out at Grierson's neck, the only point unprotected by the mask and helmet, in a knife-hand strike, the hard edge of gristle and bone hitting the nerve. Still kneeling, Grierson slumped face forward, then rolled over. Schiebel laughed aloud, and Phihppa's head jerked upright, her glazed eyes cleared, her body cringed. Craig realized that she understood that laughter. She looked down at Grierson and saw a man in uniform with the face of an animal—round, straining eyes, the gross snout of a hog. And the man who had attacked him, he was like that too—wide, sightless eyes, hog snout, but below it the mouth and chin of a man whose strength she had so desperately needed. She began to scream, over and over, then the scream muted to a whimper of pain as Schiebel drove the muzzle of his pistol into her back, and pain brought her to full consciousness, and the realization that the animal face in front of her was a smoke mask.

  "Good work, old chap," said Schiebel. "Now let's go, shall we?"

  He pushed Philippa forward, then hesitated as he saw the dead men on the stairs. The hesitation made him loosen his grip on her arm for a second, then pain scalded through her as he grabbed her again.

  Schiebel said: "You did this?"

  "Yes," said Craig.

  "Alone?" Schiebel asked, and Craig nodded. "You he," Schiebel said: "The other man held the shotgun."

  He made
a half turn, still holding Philippa between himself and Craig, then fired a snap shot at Grierson. As he did so, Philippa stumbled and stepped back, and the long spike of her heel, a pressure of more than a ton to the square inch, came down on his foot. Schiebel yelled, and Philippa stamped down again, then hauled down her arm, breaking his grip, and ran. Schiebel hesitated too late between the woman escaping, and the menace of the man. He fired at last at the woman, and Craig saw her stagger and then he reached out for Schiebel in one long, flailing leap, and the two crashed down the stairs, rolling over and over each wide, shallow tread. All the time Schiebel rained blows on him with his free hand, as he held on to the wrist that held the pistol. He twisted the wrist as they rolled, then slammed a punch into Schiebel's armpit. The gun dropped, and they reached the bottom of the stairs. Schiebel drove a fist into Craig's stomach, and wriggled free as Craig grabbed his shoulders, fell back and threw him judo style. Craig landed on the parquet flooring, slamming down with his forearms to break the impact of his fall, and lay still instead of squirming away as Schiebel dived for him, drawing back his foot to smash into Schiebel's chest. Schiebel twisted like a fish in midair, rolling with the blow, his arms breaking the fall. He was up at once, moving backward. He pulled out a knife. Craig slipped off his helmet then, pulled off his mask. The smoke was finished now, leaving nothing but a taste of bitterness in the air. He moved in on Schiebel, his great boots clumsy on the elegant floor. There was a pistol in his pocket—a puny little gun—but deadly enough at six feet. Once Craig would have used it without hesitation, but he and the riot gun had immobilized Grierson, and anyway, he, Craig, was an amateur, Loomis said. A sentimentalist. He had seen what Schiebel had done to Phihppa. His hand went to the top of his boot and he too held a knife.