THE BRUTUS LIE

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  "Vito, no!" Carrington's voice drifted from the first floor machine shop on Lofton's right.

  "I winged the sonofabitch!" The front door crashed open.

  "Wait, I said." Carrington was nearer. Lofton fumbled at his Ingram. Glass shards tore his hands and knees as he crawled on all fours toward the door. There! The staircase to the second floor was just across the hall.

  "Vito! Damnit!" Carrington was closing. His voice jiggled.

  The double doors burst open and Vito lurched into the hall with a double-barreled sawed‑off shotgun. He stopped, and his mouth dropped open. He fired. Lofton wrenched back as an enormous blast shook the room. A six-inch-square area of the door jamb disappeared in white smoke where his head had been.

  Lofton lurched to the doorway and raised the Ingram toward Vito's weaving shape. He fired the last of his magazine. Two rounds punched through a double door; one hit Vito in the left shoulder, another blew off his left ear, and the last round penetrated the top of his forehead. Vito's eyes rolled up and he thudded heavily on the floor next to his shotgun.

  Lofton looked back for the dead guard's Ingram. It was lost under a desk. No time! Tossing the empty machine pistol aside, he jumped across the hall and dashed up the stairs. He had just made the landing when feet skidded to a stop behind him.

  "Lofton. You! You--"

  Bullets splattered the wall as he twirled around the corner and ran up the stairs.

  Carrington pounded behind him.

  Panting, Lofton gained the second floor and ran down the hall.

  "Brad. Down."

  A heavily bruised face, his own, peeked around the corner at the far end. His hand held a small, dark pistol. Anton! Lofton fell flat and slid on his belly.

  Dobrynyn fired.

  The bullet went over Lofton's head.

  "Sonofabitch!" Carrington took refuge on the stairway and clacked a new magazine into his Ingram.

  "Anton?"

  Dobrynyn yelled. "Through that door. Quick!"

  Lofton looked up. A door stood open two feet to his left. The old accounting room. He leaped and made it through the doorway as Carrington fired a short burst. His bullets chewed the hallway wall and door jamb above him. Some ricocheted and spent themselves at the hall's end, near Dobrynyn.

  He rose and kicked the door shut. The room was dark, but he found a chair and yanked it over and wedged it under the doorknob.

  Another burst ranged down the hall. Carrington let out an incredulous cackle. "I can't believe this. Throw that peashooter out, Ivan. This thing can chop you to pieces."

  "Up you, spook."

  Lofton stood next to the door and bit a thumbnail. Carrington did have the firepower. And no sirens yet. How could he delay? Who else was--

  "Eyagghh." It was an inhuman sound.

  Lofton spun. A man lay on the floor. His arms were splayed out. Even in the soft lighting he could tell the glistening about him was an enormous pool of blood.

  He pressed an ear to the door. Quiet. Padding over, Lofton knelt beside the man.

  Borodine's mouth gaped open, spittle ran down his chin, his breathing was shallow, almost imperceptible. But his eyes moved quickly. They found Lofton and focused on him. He groaned again. Loudly.

  Lofton jumped.

  "Dobrynyn," the man gurgled.

  The man's inflection was strange. He'd rolled the "r." Lofton took a chance. "Da."

  Borodine's arm raised slightly, then fell. "Ya khachu vam rasskazat' o Renkinye." I wanted to tell you about Renkin.

  "Nu, shto o nyom?" What about him?

  "Renkin." Borodine's voice was very low, almost a whisper. He pronounced it "Renkeen." "Felix Renkin vash otets." Felix Renkin is your father.

  "No!" Lofton grabbed the man's shoulders. "Who are you?" he yelled in English.

  Borodine's eyes blinked rapidly. His breath rattled. "On brosil vashu mat', Annu Lubeck, do tovo, kak vy rodilis'." He deserted your mother, Anna Lubeck, before you were born.

  "Pochemu?" Why? Lofton gaped at the figure beneath him. It can't be. The man gurgled. Lofton realized he was trying to mutter last con­voluted words and not listening.

  The corner of Borodine's mouth turned up. His lungs heaved and he breathed. "U nas yest' fotografii gdye oni byli vmeste. On ubezhal na Dal'nyi Vostok. Kunitsa byl tam, kogda bomba ubila vashu mat'." We have pictures of them together. He ran to the Far East. Kunitsa was there when the bomb killed your mother.

  Borodine sighed; his lips quivered. "On rabotal dlya nas. Sorok lyet. V nachale on byl Amerikanskim kour'erom. On nam daval meshki." He worked for us. Forty years. A courier at first. He gave us pouches.

  Pictures. Blackmail? Kunitsa! Lofton's mind spun. Kun­itsa...who? Where had he heard that name. Anton! He--

  "Dobrynyn..."

  Lofton could barely hear him. He placed his ear next to the dying man's mouth. "Da?"

  "...vash otets, Dobrynyn." Your father. Borodine's eyes fixed on the ceiling. He gave a prolonged sigh and his soul escaped with the last of his breath.

  Lofton sat back. His eyes darted wildly. Who was this man? Felix Renkin a traitor since his days in the Navy, the early fifties?

  Kunitsa! Anton's foster father had been named Kunitsa, an NKVD sergeant who had served in Berlin and adopted Manfried LubeckC­Anton. Ernst Lubeck--Lofton. Anna Lubeck--his mother. And this man had just uttered her name. Anna! A prostitute, Anton had told him in Petropavlovsk.

  He pressed his palms to his temples. Anna Lubeck was their mother. Felix Renkin had sired him and then run off.

  The door kicked open behind Lofton. The chair shattered. Pieces flew across the floor and light spilled into room, silhou­etting Ted Carrington.

  Lofton saw the Ingram's muzzle and squeezed his eyes closed. Silence. Nothing happened. Why am I still alive? He opened his eyes. Carrington stood, his feet apart, his machine pistol still aimed at him.

  Sirens. He heard sirens.

  "Carrington! Hurry!" Felix Renkin's voice drifted from the back stairwell.

  "Yessir." Carrington looked at Lofton. "Up! Now."

  Incredulous, Lofton rose to his knees.

  "Move, you sonofabitch. We haven't got any time to screw with you." He fired a short burst. Bullets pumped into the floor three feet from Lofton. "Hands on your head. Now!"

  Lofton jumped up, put his hands on his head. Carrington stepped behind and prodded him to the back stairwell. As they descended, the sirens grew louder. Two, three minutes away, Lofton figured.

  Carrington moved him through the machine shop to Brutus's chamber. It was dark. Lofton squinted at two shapes next to the launch basin. One shape, Dobrynyn was on his knees at the ramp's edge, his hands over his head. The other, Felix Renkin stood behind him pointing a pistol at Dobrynyn's back.

  Adrenaline coursed through Lofton's system as Carrington prodded. He drew himself up, with flared nostrils. The man that stood before him, the one he had seen stab and bludgeon Les Thatcher in this very room, the one who had caused the deaths of innocent fishermen for his own traitorous intent, the one who had consigned him to Dr. Sadka and his death-chambers, the one who now aimed a pistol at his twin brother, this hideously convoluted creature was--his father!

  "Bastard!" Lofton roared.

  "Carrington?" Renkin squeaked.

  Carrington stepped close behind Lofton. "Don't try anything, Brad. You'll both die."

  Lofton stood three feet from his father, staring.

  Renkin's lips moved. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. At last, he found his voice. "You've caused me a lot of trouble."

  "Not enough."

  "Down, Brad. Right beside Ivan." Carrington said.

  Lofton remained standing while his father stepped back two paces.

  "Down, now!" Carrington yelled. His instep slammed the back of Lofton's knee.

  It buckled. Lofton dropped to all fours beside Dobrynyn. He rose to his knees seeing dark glistening on his brother's shoulder. As he put his hands on his head he growled, "Are you all right? Did he shoot
you?"

  Dobrynyn whispered, "I'm OK. That zamp upstairs shot me. Then Renkin shot him. He sneaked to me after you--"

  "Shut up!" Carrington shouted.

  Renkin stepped closer. "Did you get it done?"

  Carrington said, "Bodies are out of the driveway. I turned all the lights off and the front door is locked."

  "All right. We have enough time." Renkin's toe nudged Lofton's back. "Lofton."

  Silence. They listened to sirens pull in front. Radios crackled. Fire extinguisher flasks hissed loudly.

  "I don't intend to play with you. Either you talk or your brother gets a bullet in the back of his head. His body will fall in the water right before your eyes," Renkin said.

  Tiny reflections sparked off ebony waters three feet below Lofton's knees. "Yes?"

  Renkin said. "These bodies around here...bullet holes. There's a dead man upstairs I can't afford to be connected with. The firefighters will demand entrance soon. And I must be gone. So I have a proposition for you."

  Lofton said, "make it quick, Felix. Who knows when they'll start chopping down doors?"

  "Don't toy with me. And don't delay or I'll kill him. I don't care who he is or who you are."

  Renkin had killed the Russian upstairs. And his voice almost cracked. Renkin was serious. Panicked. He would pull the trigger or at least have Carrington do it. "Yes?"

  "The X‑3. Is that how you arrived here?"

  Buy time. They don't know Ullanov is dead.

  Renkin said, "Come on. It should be clear. What I propose is to let you two live as long as Carrington can pilot the X‑3 and take me out of here."

  Lofton shook his head.

  A short burst raked the water next to Lofton. "Now. Damnit!" Carrington yelled.

  "All right," Lofton said. "I used Brutus, yes."

  Carrington asked, "where is it now?"

  "Bottomed, right in front of the chamber door."

  "And the escape trunk--I've forgotten how it works."

  "It's a modified Mann system, set on automatic. A bronze lever is mounted to the trunk overhead. Yank it and the trunk will blow. The interior lights will go on as soon as the deck hatch is closed and dogged."

  "Depth?"

  "Seventeen feet."

  Dobrynyn moaned and grabbed his shoulder.

  "Hands on your head, Ivan. I don't give a rat=s ass how much it bleeds."

  Lofton checked Carrington's Ingram from the corner of his eye. No chance to run. He thought about springing into the water but he and Anton would be instantly sprayed with bullets. Yet they would be killed, anyway. There had to be something. Some way. Keep stalling.

  "Have to raise the gate, Ted."

  "Already done that." Carrington started removing his clothes.

  From the corner of his eye, Lofton saw the gate's muddy bottom grazing the water's surface. Carrington could slip Brutus in submerged and surface right here.

  "Start talking, Brad," Carrington said, tossing his shoes aside. "How much fuel is on board?"

  "Twenty eight percent JP‑5 and 32 percent hydrogen peroxide."

  "What kind?"

  "Seventy percent solution."

  "How far can we go?"

  "I used fifty‑fifty on the trip to Kamchatka. But I found on the way back there's less fossil fuel residue if you run fifty‑five percent hydrogen peroxide to 45 percent JP‑5. Then, on the way down here, I increased the mixture to six­ty‑forty­--"

  "That's a bunch of crap. You're trying to waste time. Just tell me, what's the remaining fuel range?"

  They heard from the side driveway, "Hey Ernie, this window's busted...jeez! Bullet holes!"

  "Come on, Brad, you're stalling. Don't screw with me." Carrington's voice was thick, but lower.

  "OK," Lofton said. "I would imagine five thousand miles at twenty knots, and more if you lean the JP‑5 back to 35 percent."

  "Come on!" Carrington stood in his skivvies.

  "Check the computer if you don't believe me," Lofton said.

  They heard, "We need cops."

  Carrington said. "Use this, Dr. Renkin. It's on full auto­matic. Just squeeze the trigger if they give you any trouble."

  A spotlight flicked over the frosted bayfront widow.

  "Fireboat," Carrington said.

  "Or a police boat. Hurry," Renkin urged.

  "Back in a minute." Carrington dove cleanly into the water.

  A metallic voice crackled from out front, "Hallooo. Is anyone inside?"

  "How long will it take, Lofton?" demanded Renkin.

  "Two, three minutes if he does it right."

  They listened to pounding on the front door. Sirens wailed and drew up.

  Renkin whispered, "That man upstairs. Was he alive?"

  "He was until you shot him, Dr. Renkin," Dobrynyn said.

  Renkin drew a deep breath. "Lofton. He must have been alive when you went in there. Did he say anything to you?"

  Lofton watched the water. Bubbles rose to the surface and popped. A minute swirling ruffled the surface. Brutus was edging in.

  "I asked you a question!" Renkin roared.

  "He was dead."

  "You're sure?"

  Lofton nodded.

  "I heard somebody out back--shit! There's a dead guy in the lobby."

  "...call a SWAT team..."

  "...yeah, keep a close lookout. Make sure nobody lea­ves....Johnson! Grab your shotgun. You and Pillsbury cover the water side...be careful..."

  The water boiled to a creamy foam before them. Brutus nudged a piling which groaned heavily. The minisub surfaced kicking spray and hissing air.

  Brutus's hatch clanked open. Lofton turned to see Renkin, feet planted, ready to fire.

  "Felix?" Lofton said.

  "What?"

  "Carrington doesn't know about the modified carbon dioxide scrubbing system."

  "What?"

  "You'd better watch out for chlorine gas, too. And battery cell number five is ruptured, inoperative; Carrington should know about that."

  "What is this?"

  "What I'm saying is this," Lofton said. "You get aboard and go down below. Give the gun to Ted so he can keep the drop on me and I'll tell him the rest of what he needs to know."

  Carrington popped through the hatch. "All set, Dr. Renkin. Come on," he urged.

  "And Colonel Dobrynyn starts walking out of here, now." Lofton stood and faced Renkin, his hands still on his head.

  Cars roared and screeched to a stop out front. Men shouted and clumped down either side of the building.

  Lofton kept his voice level. "The place is loaded with police now. Make up your mind."

  Renkin's jaw worked as he moved his head from left to right.

  "Go now, Anton," Lofton said quietly.

  "Brad, what are you doing?" Dobrynyn whispered.

  "Not sure yet. But at least one of us can get out."

  "Hurry, please, Dr. Renkin," pleaded a glistening, bare‑ chested Carrington. He looked up. A helicopter thumped overhead. The windows became brightly lighted.

  "Go on, Anton," Lofton said, "while Renkin worries about how not to split his fortune with Carrington. Go, now!" He nodded toward the machine shop doors.

  "Dr. Renkin!" Carrington almost yelled.

  "Carrington," Renkin demanded, "have you been able to determine if one of the battery cells is inoperative?"

  "Not yet, sir, I--"

  "Please look, now."

  Carrington lingered for a moment, then ducked below as soft voices ranged outside the walls. A flashlight played over the window.

  "Anton, please, go." Lofton eyed his brother. "I know what I'm doing."

  Carrington popped up. "Yes, Doctor, it looks like one, maybe two batteries are trashed. But I can't tell--"

  "Hold on, please." Renkin's gold rims flicked back to Lofton. "Tell him."

  Lofton nodded. "Also, the second-stage air compressor cooling valve needs replacement because--"

  Carrington jumped to the dock and grabbed the Ingram. "That'
s enough, you bastard. I don't know what you're pulling but if some­thing's wrong, you're going to be there to fix it. Inside! Now!" The Ingram waved to Brutus's hatch. "Both of you."

  Lofton's mouth dropped open.

  "Police! Hold it right there!" The window had been pried open. Two helmeted heads peeked through. One wore glasses.

  "Bastards!" Carrington raised the stubby submachine gun and squeezed off a burst. The window shattered and the policemen ducked. Carrington aimed below the window and fired a second burst through the wall. Ricochets screeched and whined around in the chamber. A deep-throated scream tapered to a whimper. Feet scuffled under the window and withdrew toward the front.

  "Now. Everybody inside." Carrington waved the Ingram. "I'm through farting around. You better go first, Doctor."

  Renkin stepped onto Brutus and scrambled down the hatch. Lofton and Dobrynyn jumped aboard and followed. Carrington grabbed his clothes, threw them inside Brutus, and descended carefully with the Ingram. The wheel squeaked as he secured the hatch.

  Carrington reached in his jacket, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and tossed them to Renkin. "Cuff this one to the bunk, Doctor. Use his right hand, that way he won't want to move around too much." He pointed the Ingram at Dobrynyn. "Move, Ivan!"

  Slowly shaking his head, Dobrynyn stepped forward and sat at the aft end of the pilot berth. He grimaced as Renkin snapped a cuff around his bloody wrist, then yanked it up and snapped the other end to an overhead bracket.

  Renkin studied the key for a moment. He tossed it across the aisle where it bounced against the throttle and came to rest.

  Gingerly, Carrington eased forward around Lofton, the Ingram pointed at his belly. He stood next to the armchair. "What's this mean?" He nodded toward the CRT panel.

  Lofton followed his gaze. The Master CRT was blank. NAV still blinked with the program he'd set for the trip from Catalina. Then, POWER! Good God! It read:

  AUTOHEAT

  Lofton's heart raced. He swallowed. "Just the automatic air‑conditioning system, Ted. It's trying to compensate for our body heat and humidity."

  The hydrogen peroxide ready service tank gauges had picked it up too late. How long? He looked at the clock: 0319. Dobrynyn grimly followed his gaze and nodded.