by Jon Land
He was interrupted by a continuous squeal that sounded like birds chirping from a third monitor poised on the mantel. The intruders had passed the last perimeter alarms and were closing on the house. Just seconds away now.
Jabba steadied himself with a deep breath. “What matters is that one of us makes it out of here. The authorities must be alerted. We must pray there’s still time to stop this force you’ve described.” He grabbed Drew’s shoulders and lowered him to the floor as shapes flashed in the narrowing distance through the window. “I’ll give you names, numbers, people to contact. They’ll know what to do. I can hold them for a while,” Jabba promised. “Long enough to give you the time you need.”
“No, I can’t do it! I can’t get through them!”
Shapes flashed outside the windows. Jabba scribbled several lines of writing on a note page grabbed from his desk, tore it off, and thrust it in Drew’s pocket.
Which was when the largest of the windows exploded in a hail of gunfire. Jabba pulled Drew with him all the way to the floor. Impact sent waves of pain through his racked body. Lights faded and the room was suddenly drenched in darkness.
“Listen to me,” Jabba whispered quickly into his ear. “There’s a cellar beneath us with a door at the rear leading into a tunnel. The tunnel will take you into the surrounding woods. You’ll be safe.”
More gunfire peppered the walls as they crept toward the entrance to the cellar.
“I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” Jabba said when they reached it. “Call those numbers I gave you. The men on the other end will take it from there.” He opened the door. “Go! Now! Quickly!”
And Drew pushed himself down the stairs into a dank basement lit by a single emergency light. He tried to stand three steps from the bottom and ended up tumbling to the floor. The pain that engulfed his body made him want to vomit as he hurried across the tile toward the escape door that would take him into the tunnel.
Above him the gun blasts came more frequently, mostly in rapid spurts indicating automatic fire. A new series, individual reports that were the loudest yet, started up and Drew could tell they came from within the house instead of out. Jabba was trying to buy him the time he needed.
Drew tripped over a crate and crawled the rest of the way to the tunnel door, throwing it open from his knees. The tunnel was totally black, not even the slightest spill of light to break the emptiness. It was narrow, too, and short. Drew hunched at the back and knees as he forced himself through, using the walls as his only guide, his eyes useless. A few times corners and turns confused him and he went sprawling, the pain so great at impact that even a scream was denied him. Always he regained his footing and pressed on; his clothes filthy, flesh on his hands raw and bleeding from breaking his many falls.
Above him the blasts had stopped. Jabba’s resistance had ended, indicating that he was now on his own, left only with the hope that his head start in the tunnel would be sufficient.
Drew lost track of how much ground he had covered and distracted himself with reviewing the passage of time. It was Wednesday morning now, a few hours before sunrise. He had been at Jabba’s since Sunday night, had changed into the clothes that the fat man had brought him late Tuesday.
Suddenly, the dirt path curved steeply upward. I’m almost out! Drew thought, thirsting for the moonlight about to welcome him. Get to a phone and call the numbers stuffed in his pocket. Tell whoever answers everything. Yes, he could do it! He rushed up the last of the steep incline and nearly collided head first with a wooden trapdoor.
It took all the strength his shoulders could muster to force the door open. He pulled himself back to the surface with his raw, scraped hands.
Three flashlights blinded him immediately. Through the glare he made out a single man standing ahead of several others, made him out because of the startling whiteness of his hair and skin that seemed no different than the shade of his suit.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Corbano.
Chapter 30
“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE,” SAID ELLIANA, returning the binoculars to the Timber Wolf.
“Drew’s inside, Ellie. I’ve got to get him out.”
And Wayman gazed back into the binoculars so he wouldn’t have to meet her disapproving stare. Before him stood a twenty-room, three-story fortress in the middle of Eastman, Georgia, fronted by a four-foot stone fence that effectively formed a huge courtyard presently lined with guards.
It was midafternoon on Wednesday. Flying first from Germany to the United States and then making their way into Georgia’s back country had proved difficult on all accounts, an agonizing journey that saw them at the whims of the weather, twisted airline schedules, and ill-functioning rental cars. At each turn more and more of the precautions deemed necessary to keep the Council of Ten from catching them were abandoned in the more pressing interests of time.
The only luxury Ellie insisted on was a phone call to Tel Aviv.
“Isser, thank God I reached you!”
Isser’s voice emerged in a dull monotone. “You have no reason to thank Him, Ellie. I can’t confirm your version of what happened in Prague. That agent you said tried to kill you has been off our active list for months and has disappeared.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore! Just listen to me. The Council’s ready to make its ultimate move. Tomorrow, Isser, it’s going to start tomorrow!”
“What’s going to start?”
“The worst horror you can imagine. A total realignment of the world as it’s known. I can’t explain everything. I don’t believe it all myself.”
“And you expect me to?”
“Yes, because you have to. I’m not going to worry about the length of this call because if you don’t believe me my fate won’t matter. I have information that can stop them, but I can’t follow it up alone. You have nothing to lose by helping me.”
“Ellie—”
“Stop it, Isser. How many years did I lay my life on the line for you? How many bullets did I narrowly avoid? I was the best, am the best. This is all real, no illusion. Thursday will mark the beginning of a new kind of world. No one will be safe, especially Israel. Trust me, you have to!” She paused, seizing the offensive again when he made no response. “The Council’s headquarters is somewhere near Lisbon. It doesn’t matter how I know. What does matter is that sometime tomorrow a number of exceptionally powerful men are going to be arriving in the city. If you could catch onto one, follow him …”
“Ellie, what you’re asking, it’s impossible.”
But she could feel him giving. “No! I’ve headed up similar operations before. With full intelligence mobilization even on short notice, you can pull it off. You have to pull it off. There’s too much at stake.”
“Lisbon,” Isser muttered, and she knew she had him.
Twenty-four hours later Ellie and the Timber Wolf had arrived in Eastman. They followed ten miles of dirt-paved roads and then abandoned the car. Camouflaging it with brush, they covered the rest of the distance through the woods on foot, hoping not to attract attention. The trek was longer than estimated and took a solid forty minutes before they reached the break in the forest beyond which lay the fenced-in compound. A few minutes later a black car mired with dirt and scratches wound down the narrow, private road. A heavy chain was pulled aside to let it pass. Wayman and Ellie watched its occupants with interest as all four doors opened together.
The first one they saw was Corbano, a dapper white suit over his muscular frame, his milky white features giving him the air of a corpse. The coloring he was cursed with made him a fearful sight, deadly and cold.
Two of his men emerged next dragging a figure whom Ellie didn’t recognize but who took the Timber Wolf’s breath away.
“That’s Drew Jordan,” he muttered in shock over seeing the young man still alive. “My God, he’s—What’s he doing here? What’s Corbano want with him?”
“The point,” said Ellie, “is that he’s alive.”
“Not for
long, unless we do something.”
“Any ideas?”
The Timber Wolf turned his attention to the binoculars and began to think. There were at least a dozen guards outside and probably a similar number within the house where Drew Jordan had been led.
“I’ve got to get him out,” Wayman said for the second time minutes later despite Ellie’s admonition.
“I agree,” she relented. “So long as we get Corbano as well. He’s the key to the operation. Powderkeg is scheduled to start tomorrow on the East Coast. He’s the only chance we’ve got to stop it.”
“Maybe. But the Council’s pulling his strings. They don’t impress me as the sort who’d give up any more control than they absolutely had to. That means the signals will come from their headquarters, not here.”
“Interesting point. Except we don’t know where their headquarters is, and Corbano must. We’ve got to get to him.”
“Nightfall,” the Timber Wolf said suddenly, his thoughts seeming to jell.
“We’ve got your pistol and mine. Hardly enough firepower.”
“Then we’ll have to get some more.”
“Now? How?”
“You stay here,” Wayman told her, moving to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“Shopping.”
“How good to see you awake,” the all-white man told Drew as he finally came around. His eyes struggled to focus. His head pounded.
“Yes,” the man went on, “you’re probably uncomfortable. We gave you something to make the ride down here from Virginia easier.” Corbano stood up and moved between Drew and a raging fire that one of several men in the room with them had lit and was now tending. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Water,” Drew managed.
“Yes, of course.”
Corbano motioned for a glass to be brought to him immediately. Another of the men handed it to him. Corbano stepped forward and started to offer it to Drew, pulling back at the last instant and tossing the contents into his face.
“Oh, I am sorry. How clumsy of me… .”
Drew licked at his face to find as much stray moisture as he could.
Across the floor, the flames in the fireplace roared higher.
“Unusually cold for fall in the back country,” Corbano said to no one in particular. “A splendid night to sit by the fire.” Then, to Drew, “You know all about fire, don’t you? Sunday night that laboratory was destroyed by fire. I understand your girl friend was burned rather badly and you narrowly escaped the same fate. What a shame, she was such a pretty girl… .”
Drew felt himself tremble with rage. He looked up hatefully at the all-white man.
“You should have died then,” Corbano told him. “Now you’ve gone and complicated things for yourself … and me.” He paused. “It was not hard for us to trace your fat friend’s hideout. He died alone, Drew, just like you’re going to.”
Drew gritted his teeth.
“You will answer my questions, won’t you?”
Drew just looked up at him.
“I could give you truth serum and in your present condition it would almost certainly kill you by the time we’d finished. But then you wouldn’t feel enough pain and we can’t have that now, can we?”
Corbano motioned to one of the men behind him by the fire. The man pulled a poker from the hearth and brought it forward, holding it high for safety. Its tip glowed fiery orange. Corbano grasped it at the handle and waved it before Drew’s face.
“What’s happened to the powder?” he asked.
“Left, left in the lab,” Drew replied.
“Then you found out what it was, found out what it can do?”
Drew looked away.
Corbano grabbed his chin and forced it back forward. “And you told your friend in Virginia about it, didn’t you?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“But I don’t know if he told anyone.”
“The president. He should be arriving here any minute.”
Corbano smiled. He patted Drew’s cheek tenderly but made sure he could see the poker.
“I should ask you where the fat man took your girl friend. No, that would take too long to get out of you and I can probably find her quite easily by myself.” Corbano knelt into a crouch. “You’d like that, Drew, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to bring her here so you can be together.”
“Fuck you,” Drew said, more out of anger than bravado.
“No, it’s her you’d like to fuck. Just say the word and I’ll arrange it. Or perhaps you would prefer a trade. Tell me where we can find Trelana and I won’t bother looking for her.”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Trelana?”
“I was blindfolded!” Drew lied. “I never knew where I was when we met.”
Corbano smiled and shook his head. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where can we find Arthur Trelana?”
“I don’t know!”
“Suit yourself,” said Corbano.
And drove the hot poker straight for Drew’s face.
The Timber Wolf returned an hour before nightfall, a pair of shopping bags in his arms.
“We’ve got to hurry,” he said, placing the bags down between himself and Ellie.
“What did you—”
“Napalm, grenades, tear gas, and a few assorted extras.”
“In the general store?”
Wayman nodded and emptied the varied contents of the bags on the ground, explaining as he did. “Ammonia and bleach. Seal the bleach in a baby food jar and seal that in a larger jar filled with ammonia. When they shatter and the liquids mix, you’ve got homemade tear gas.” Next, he pulled out a bag of kitty litter and a two-gallon drum of gasoline. “Napalm.” The largest assortment came out last and included galvanized plastic piping, black powder, nails, candles, and assorted ropes, cloth, and jars. “These grenades will pack quite a wallop.”
“If we don’t blow ourselves up making them.”
“I’ve had plenty of experience. Many of my assignments years ago required that I enter a country without any weapons,” he told her. “I learned how to make them from scratch after arriving. I could even whip us up some pretty good nitro given the time.”
“We might need some to penetrate Corbano’s defenses.”
“This will come close enough.”
For the next ninety minutes, Ellie followed Wayman’s instructions precisely, mixing compounds in exact measures in the bowls he had provided. The most dangerous work he saved for himself, and occasionally she drew far enough ahead to watch the sweat pouring from his brow as he sealed exceptionally volatile contents within ordinary glass jars. They both hurried through their work as night began to fall, knowing that darkness would signal the definitive end to their labors. Still, they continued well past the point when sufficient light had faded from the sky and their eyes began to deceive them.
The Timber Wolf was dividing their homemade arsenal into piles of pipe bombs, nail grenades made from Coke bottles, large napalm jars, and smaller tear gas ones—when the scream came. It pierced the night with an agonizing shrill that forced both him and Ellie to shudder.
“We’ve got to move,” he told her.
“It’s not dark yet.”
“It’s dark enough.”
Drew lay on the cot motionless, hovering in different stages of consciousness. He was awake enough to think but not awake enough to move no matter how much he coaxed his muscles. He remembered the red-tipped poker coming at him, an involuntary shift of his head, and then the pain.
Oh God, the pain …
When the scream came, he was already detached from himself, so it seemed that he could hear it even as the sound left him on his breath.
The poker had missed his eye and pierced the flesh over his cheekbone. He remembered the sizzling hiss and thought even as he screamed of steaks barbecuing over an open grill. He would have vomited if his stomach had anything in it. The eye had swollen shu
t immediately and hadn’t reopened since. The body had worked fast to numb the incredible agony, which returned now one throb at a time as he lay on the cot hearing himself breathe as if it were someone else.
He wanted to die. When you came right down to it, there was nothing else to hope for. Jabba was dead, his grandmother was dead, and who knew about Pam. There was no one left to turn to, no one left to save him. Strangely, death no longer scared him, but seemed a welcome alternative to the further pain promised at the hands of the all-white man.
Drew inhaled deeply and prayed for sleep.
“We each have three pipe bombs, two nail grenades, and three containers each of napalm and tear gas,” the Timber Wolf told Ellie. “Be careful with the napalm and tear gas. They’re useful to us only from a distance.”
“What about matches?”
Wayman reached into his pocket and produced two lighters. “One for each of us, but in this wind they might not prove reliable, so I also brought some cigarettes. The best way to light the fuses is to light a cigarette first and then hold it up to them. The wind’s no problem that way. Takes a little longer, though.”
Ellie looked satisfied.
They had dragged their arsenal to the very edge of the clearing. Rising would bring them into the range of the complex’s heavy duty lighting, in addition to the guards’ rifles. There was no other choice at this point. They would have to rely on darkness and distraction to shield them.
The Timber Wolf held a lighter to a cigarette, handed it over to Ellie, and then lit one for himself.
“We’ll start with the nail grenades and pipe bombs,” he explained. “Those should draw their attention and force the troops out where the napalm and tear gas will be most effective. The idea is to forge a tunnel for ourselves right through their ranks direct for the front door.”
He held the cigarette up to the first of his pipe bombs, letting the fuse burn down.
“Go!” he instructed.
Ellie touched her cigarette to the first of her nail grenades and hurled it, already lighting the second as Wayman’s toss exploded an instant before hers. The resulting explosions achieved even more than their desired effects. The guards scattered directly into the paths of the second grenades they each hurled. Two tosses later, the chaos total, the Timber Wolf started with the napalm.