by Bob Finley
"Shh! Shh!" They all reacted quickly to quieten her down and check to make sure no one had overheard the outburst.
"So you see," Layton went on when he had their attention again, "Kim is right. Jambou believes he's untouchable. He's shown no demonstrable remorse over killing...by now, quite a few people...to get his way. And he has a history...witness the diamond robbery Kim told us about...of leaving no witnesses alive. Why should he start with us?" He saw the sobering effect his words had on them. "And once he's used Marc up in the broadcast, of what further use is he to Jambou? And, of course, to an even lesser degree, of what use are we, who have already outlived our usefulness, assuming we had any? No, Kim is right. If we don't save ourselves, we're lost, indeed. Now, I don't know whether Kim and Cy's gadget will work or not. If it does, it's an edge, however slight. If it doesn't, we're no worse off. So, as I see it, it comes down to this...does anyone else have a better idea?" He looked around. It was very quiet.
"Here comes Cy," Janese announced. As the gangly electronics tech merged with the group in the shadows, he slipped a plastic-wrapped device from under his waistband in the small of his back and palmed it over to Janese. She turned away from them and slid it down into the front of her underwear. When she gasped, Frank nervously asked what was wrong. She glared at him and then laughed.
"It's cold, that's what's wrong!" she said. Frank blushed and the laughter spread.
They moved out of the tunnel and casually went down the steps a few paces. Stopping, they all looked back at the sheer stone wall twenty feet away and then, as if choreographed, simultaneously looked up at the cables running along the wall at its junction with the ceiling. Kim's and Janese's eyes met.
"Piece o' cake," she mouthed. He took a slow, deep breath and shook his head despairingly.
"Go ahead," she said and gently motioned with her head for him to herd the group down the stairs.
They were all startled when Banner's booming voice cut across the distance, full of fury and hostility. As one, they collectively riveted on the powerful figure standing forty yards away on the main floor below them, hands on hips, head aggressively thrust forward in their direction. He bellowed again, this time the words clearly distinct.
"Matsumoto!! Get down here!!"
Kim looked back at Janese, standing in the shadows at the head of the stairs.
"Looks like we're gonna get our diversion sooner than we expected," he said in a voice loud enough for her to hear. "Make it count."
She nodded solemnly. "Be careful."
"You, too," he said. She nodded again, but he was already on his way down the stairs, the rest of the group trailing. He suddenly had a comic flash of himself as David on his way to meet Goliath. He felt himself sliding into a tranquil pool. And as he quickened his pace down the cold stone steps carved out of the belly of a volcano, he smiled.
Chapter 45
When the four of them got to the bottom of the winding stone staircase, Banner had advanced to meet them. A few feet behind him were Ross Breton, whom no one had so much as seen since they landed, and one of the guards. The guard had a machine pistol slung over one shoulder, with his left hand loosely curled around the grip. The forward thrust of Banner's head, the clenched fists, and the glossy boots spread in a wide stance ran the body-language identifiers to the top of the scale: Banner was rarin' to do some serious stompin'.
He glared at Kim, but said to the others without looking at them, "The three o' you get lost!" When no one moved, he turned his glare on them. "‘Ja hear what I said?"
"I think we'll stay," Bill Layton said calmly.
Banner flushed red. "I think you'll do what I tell you to do!"
Layton walked casually past Banner, causing the massive soldier to pivot with him. Turning, he stood his ground and asked in a flat voice, "What is it you want, Mr. Banner?", returning the cold stare with one of his own.
They could almost hear him grind his teeth together. He looked back at Kim and his dark eyes fairly crackled with pent-up fury. "What I want," he growled in a low and dangerous voice, "is whatever this one here," he stabbed a massive forefinger in Kim's direction, "had with him when he left that ship last night. And," he took a threatening step toward Kim, barely restraining himself, "I'm going to have it!"
Kim had to tilt his head back to look Banner in the face. "I told you what it was. Wet clo...!" Kim never finished the sentence. In a blur of motion that surprised everybody, especially Kim, Banner covered the distance between them in one giant step, snatched Kim by the collar of his uniform with a brute force that stunned him, and hurled him sprawling like a rag-doll to the rough pumice floor a half-dozen yards away. Banner was in instant motion, running after the smaller man. Caught unawares, Kim had no chance to control his fall and skidded, tumbling across the rough floor, barking the skin off and drawing blood from an elbow, a knee, and the heel of his right hand. With a running skip-step, Banner drop-kicked the smaller man in the ribs before he could recover, launching Kim's slight frame off the floor in a six-foot arc, to roll twice, three times before he came to a stop. Banner was all over him, lifting him clean off the floor before pile-driving his huge fist into the right side of Kim's head, sending him sprawling backwards again.
By now, the entire group had recovered from the shock and had erupted into outraged shouting and yelling, charging after the two combatants. The guard, as unprepared as anyone else for the violent outbreak, fell back to put distance between himself and the swirling mob, unslinging and bringing his weapon to the ready in a purely defensive move. But he was at a loss to know what to do. Cy and Bill pushed themselves between Banner and Kim, like hounds in a lion's face. Surrounded by yapping terriers, Banner whirled and snatched the weapon from the startled guard, leveled the muzzle at the two men in his way and then, at the last possible second, raised the ugly snout of the MAC-10 to one o'clock and lit up the cavern with a deafening two-second burst into the ceiling. Everyone, even the guard, fell back instinctively and then, as a couple of dozen bullets ricocheted off rock and metal surfaces high overhead, and rock splinters and exploded lighting fragments rained down, they all covered their heads and hoped to escape the flying debris. When the deadly rain from overhead slowed, a profound silence fell, broken only by the almost musical tinkle of the last of the falling glass striking the stone floor. Banner, his face a mask of rage, turned to the guard who's mouth still hung open, thrust the still-smoking weapon roughly into the hands the guard threw up defensively and spat, "Do your job! Guard the prisoners!" The guard bobbed his head repeatedly and stuttered, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!", remembering to point his weapon in the right direction and herding Frank, Cy, and Bill backwards out of the arena with a show of take-charge. The sound of running feet and excited calls could be heard approaching as the rest of the mercenaries responded to the gunfire.
It had all taken only twenty seconds. But it was enough time for Kim to regain his sense of direction and balance. As he forced himself to his feet, his head throbbed and his vision was still a little blurred, but the room wasn't spinning as much as it had. He felt blood trickle down his right cheekbone and he was pretty sure one eye was beginning to swell shut. And it hurt when he tried to take a full breath, so he might have a broken rib or two. But he knew that Banner wasn't finished yet. He felt a flood of fury begin to well up inside, not at Banner, but at himself for not seeing it coming. Banner was quick, no doubt about that. He let the fury build, welcoming it, feeding on it. He needed it to take away the pain and to help him focus on what had to be done. He heard the rest of the guard detail arrive, shuffling, circling just out of reach like wild dogs around a wounded Cape buffalo. Smelling blood. His.
Janese held back in the shadows at the top of the staircase, waiting for the right moment. She knew voices were raised, but couldn't understand the words from this distance. Then she saw Dr. Layton walk past Banner, causing him to turn, facing away from her position.
"Good move, Doc," she murmured gratefully. When she saw that the guard had al
so been diverted, she checked the rest of the chamber and then down the passageway behind her for any strays. Seeing none, she took a half-dozen deep breaths to calm herself and get the oxygen pumping. Moving out of the security of the dimly-lit tunnel, she descended to the third step, turned her back to the drama below, and cleared her mind of everything but the immediate task at hand.
The suddenness of the confrontation had drastically changed how she’d planned to get to her starting point. Running her eyes over the wall between herself and the spot she needed to be, she estimated she'd have a forty-foot vertical ascent to the bottom of the catwalk. Once there, she'd have a look at the rest of the route. She ran her left hand over the rock surface just above her head, found a finger-hold, snagged a right-foot-hold, and locked everything out of her mind but climbing. She fairly flowed up the rock, climbing easily, taking advantage of sharp projections that were, she guessed, remnants of drilling tunnels that had once housed explosive charges when the cavern was being reshaped to its present form.
"Too easy!" she thought to herself while clinging precariously by one hand to a fissure large enough to have stuffed a forearm into. She was vaguely aware that the voices below had risen in volume and intensity, but shut them out and pressed on. She felt a cooling draft across her face and neck and realized that she was beginning to sweat. She wished for a resin bag to better her grip. Then she realized where the cool air was coming from...she'd reached the bottom of the catwalk.
"Nothing to it," she smiled to herself and reached up to grab a metal strut. She almost missed it completely when the gunfire erupted. Swinging by one hand, she pivoted in a slow circle until she could see the source of the sound, still reverberating in the huge cavern. Suddenly tuned in to the world around her again, the long burst of automatic weapons fire sent a shock through her nervous system, and from her vantage point high above the action, she watched heliarc lights near the ceiling explode in fiery flashes of light, mushrooming out and drifting down to the floor below in trailing streamers of after-glow, like fireworks. She heard, even felt, the smack and whine of some of the bullets as they impacted structural steel and that impact was transmitted to her hands, stinging the one that had taken hold of the catwalk superstructure.
But then something much more urgent got her attention. She first heard running overhead, and then felt it as someone ran out of the tunnel and onto the catwalk. She quickly turned back to the wall and grabbed the structural skeleton of the metal bridge. Hearing the running above stop, she leaned in under the superstructure and stealthily entwined her body among the girders, trying to become one with it.
"BANNER!" The shout from above her and ten feet along the catwalk startled her. Then terrified her. Whoever looked up in answer to the shout would easily see her.
"Who could that be up there, anyway?" she thought in frustration. "Marc said the only three people allowed up here were Banner, Breton, and..." She remembered that Banner and Breton were down below.
"MISTER BANNER!!"
"Jambou! It has to be Jambou!" Her mind froze as well as her body. She dared not even breathe. They were going to see her! She'd failed, failed them all, and everybody was going to die because of her.
She heard footsteps again, this time walking fast. Walking away. She slowly turned her head and looked down fearfully. And couldn't believe it. Nobody was looking! They hadn't heard him. They hadn't heard Jambou! Maybe the gunfire had deafened them.
Suddenly she felt weak. She heard the sound of what had to be the massive penthouse door close, and what sounded like a bolt being thrown. Slowly, deliberately letting her breath escape, she spent the next quarter of a minute getting her pulse back to where she could count it. Then she gradually peeled herself off the catwalk and drew the upper torso of her body up to the level of the walkway so she could see down its length. Nobody. She took a deep breath to get her second wind and clambered quickly through the railing. Crouching low on the catwalk to present a low profile to anyone below who happened to glance her way, she turned her attention to the next phase of the climb.
~ ~ ~
What little Kim knew of Banner's background he'd only heard through the grapevine. But none of it was good, and most of it was violent. Probably, Banner had picked up some version of martial arts along the way, which was bad, and the fact that he was the size of a Buick was worse. He knew he'd have to avoid bear hugs and direct hits from those pile-driver fists. But the one thing he knew most of all was that, whatever happened, he'd have to keep Banner busy long enough for Janese to plant the transceiver and get clear. He needed to draw the group a little more in another direction so that nobody would be likely to look in Janese's direction.
“Now, you little puke," Banner turned his attention from the cowering guard back to Kim and began to walk toward him, "you're gonna tell me what I wanna know if I have to reach down your scrawny little neck and rip the truth out by the roots!" This brought on a roar of laughter and jeers from the half-circle of mercenaries behind Kim. He glanced around briefly at their leering faces and remembered they hadn't had any entertainment in a month. Judging his distance from the closest spectator, he backed in that direction, away from Banner.
Though he was expecting it, had set it up, the shove from behind was so forceful it almost threw him off balance. One of the pack, eager to get things started, had stepped in from behind him and pushed him in Banner's direction. He used the momentum to dance to the right along the semi-circle, drawing everyone's line of sight away from the catwalk. But it didn't leave him much maneuvering room. He chose his spot and eased into Shizen-hontai, the fighting stance. He placed his feet, toes pointed slightly outward, so that his ankles were in a direct vertical plane with his shoulders. He allowed his arms to hang loosely at his sides, fixed his gaze on Banner, tucked his chin in slightly, and waited.
Banner stopped. Kim knew from his eyes that Banner had recognized the subtle change and sensed danger. That was not good. It meant that, though the man-mountain was hostile and aggressive, he was still in control. It would have been easier if he weren't.
But Banner let the need to look good in front of his motley gang of cutthroats override his caution. Kim saw the lips thin and the jaw muscles set and waited for the rest. Banner lunged in with a right cross meant to make pudding out of his opponent's head. Had it connected. Instead, Matsumoto deflected the blow with his left arm to the inside of his attacker's, spun left to fit his backside into Banner's front, and swung his right arm up to lock Banner's right arm in. He gripped the rolled-up shirt sleeve of his opponent's right arm in his own left hand and snatched Banner's now-off-balance form down and across his own chest in a wheeling motion, allowing the full weight of the man to catapult across his shoulder, Banner's feet cutting a vicious swath ceilingward before crashing with enormous force onto the hard, stone floor.
Banner lay there, stunned, for long moments before he let out a loud, explosive breath. He rolled onto his belly and pushed up to his hands and knees, raising his head to look disbelievingly at Kim.
Kim bowed slightly and smiled in the silence. "This technique is called Ippon Seoi-Nage, the one-armed shoulder throw. When properly executed it is very difficult to counter. You should not be embarrassed. I'm sure you'll do better the next time." He smiled again, politely.
When Banner painfully got to his feet, the deep red color of his face was definitely not from embarrassment. His eyes had a hard glitter to them and his lips had drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of hatred. When he charged the diminutive figure before him, a great, primal roar went up from his gallery. This was the most fun they'd had since they arrived here. Kim Matsumoto disappeared under a mountain of furious flesh.
~ ~ ~
"Eighteen, maybe twenty feet," she thought, surveying the distance of the wall from the catwalk. "And no more than fifteen or so farther up." But, to get to that point, she knew she'd have to first cover the twenty feet along one wall from the catwalk to the corner, then horizontally along the second wall for nearl
y thirty feet, and then vertical for the last fifteen. It was that last fifteen that worried her. It was almost slick. And she'd have to have one hand free to plant the transceiver.
"Oh, well," she said aloud, eyeing the rock face, "break a leg." And smiled ruefully to herself. She moved, crouching, to the junction of the catwalk with the wall, where it entered the tunnel, took two quick steps up onto the top railing, and crabbed out across the sheer cliff. There was nothing below her now but eighty feet of free-fall. "Two and-a-half seconds from dead," she thought to herself.
Her fluid motion along the wall, three fingers in a crack here, toes jammed onto a minuscule lip there, was a testimonial to her craft. There was almost no hesitation in point selection...there wasn't time. At any second, the ruckus down below could end and eyes that had been otherwise occupied would begin to wander. Or, heaven forbid, Jambou...if that had been Jambou...might reemerge from his penthouse to finish whatever he'd been doing when the trouble started on the floor.
She had a momentary pang of guilt, knowing that Kim had deliberately put himself in jeopardy, maybe even in extreme danger, just to buy her the time she needed. But, she rationalized, Kim himself had said that unless she succeeded, they might all die. In her case, she remembered, more slowly than the others. She knew, from what Marc had told her, that Jambou had been watching her through the spy cameras scattered around. She shivered, thinking about that. And abruptly put that thought out of her mind. Concentrate!
She turned the corner and rested for a precious ten seconds. Pushing on. Feel the stone. Savor the texture, the curvature. Exult in the crevasses. Flow. Flow. She ran out of hand and toe holds. With a start, she realized she was almost under the spot she'd chosen to start the final, vertical ascent. But it was too soon to run out of holds. As much as she dared, she leaned away from the rock face and searched to her right. Nothing. "Blast!" She knew then she'd have to start her ascent early. She tried to picture in her mind the way the wall had looked at this point from the catwalk. She felt a tremor begin in her left thigh and quickly spread to her calf. She jammed her leg hard against the cold surface and knew she'd have to transfer her full weight to her right leg in a hurry to get the left one some relief. The sweaty hands were beginning to worry her as well. With no resin bag, her grip was a lot less certain than she was comfortable with.